LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 S. 
 
 Class 
 
THE ROAD 
 
 The Ever-Existent, Universal 
 and Only Religion 
 
 By C. C. HARRAH 
 
 MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 Let us stand together. Isaiah 
 All ye are Brethren. Jesus 
 
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C. C. HARRAH 
 
THE ROAD 
 
 THE 
 
 EVER-EXISTENT, UNIVERSAL 
 
 AND ONLY 
 
 RELIGION OF GOD 
 
 ITS PRESENCE IN ALL THE RELIGIONS AND 
 
 CIVILIZATIONS OF THE WORLD, AND THE 
 
 PRESENT CRISIS IN CHRISTIANITY 
 
 By CHARLES CLARK HARRAH 
 
 MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 " It is a task by itself more rich and comprehensive than that of 
 the historian of dogma, to portray the diverse conceptions that have been 
 formed of the Christian religion; to portray how strong men and weak men, 
 great and little minds, have explained the Gospel outside and inside the 
 frame- work of dogma; and how, under the cloak, or in the province of 
 dogma, the Gospel has had its own peculiar history. * * Progress is finally 
 dependent on a true conception of WHAT THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 
 ORIGINALLY WAS." Professor Harnack. 
 
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To all who love God, of all religions 
 or Christian cults; and to all Brother- 
 hoods, of all who seek to do good; and 
 to all men who walk alone, of the 
 scattered Friends of mankind, this book 
 is dedicated to point the way to 
 universal Religion and a Brotherhood 
 of all mankind. 
 
 Copyrighted 1902 by WILLIAM FERGUSON HARRAH 
 
 This book was written to do good, and not as a source of revenue. 
 Publishers of periodicals or books who desire to reprint it, whole or in part, 
 will be favored by making known their wishes. 
 
 Printed by the J. E. CAMPBELL PRINTING HOUSE, Des Moines 
 
Nut* 
 
 1. Forty-four years ago, at the age of seventeen, I came to feel that 
 life is a serious matter and it must be lived in earnest. There was at that 
 time much controversy between the sects of religion; the outcome of which 
 to myself was, I became a skeptic. My parents were poor and all worked 
 early and late, but by keeping a book at hand for use any minute, I did 
 much valuable reading. When in my twenty-first year I saw the Road of 
 Jesus, besides much topical reading of the Bible, I had read through the 
 Old Testament twice and the New Testament seven times. I got what 
 seemed to me a clear idea of Jesus' religion. 
 
 It took ten years, in three colleges and two theological seminaries to 
 prepare for the ministry. I preached much during that time; and then contin- 
 uously for thirty years at Brookfield, Missouri; Monroe, Iowa; Galva, Illinois; 
 Peoria, Illinois; Newton, Iowa; Des Moines, Iowa. After attending the World's 
 Evangelical Alliance, in New York, in 1873, I announced to the congrega- 
 tion in Brookfield, that henceforth my efforts would be given to unite the 
 religious sects and make the church in reality a Brotherhood. Every 
 church where I have preached, has welcomed all disciples of Jesus without 
 regard to creeds. I bear witness to the liberty, equality, and fraternity in 
 these churches, where there never was a division, and good works were 
 abundant. The Year Books show that no Congregational churches had a 
 more healthy growth. These many years have given me a much clearer 
 understanding of that first view of the Gospel, which led me to yield my 
 life to God. As I came to understand it better it helped me more and I 
 was made the instrument to help others. Several years ago, I formed the 
 plan to print this book, to send to all the families where I had preached. 
 Now I am able to carry out my plan, and also to offer the book to the 
 world. 
 
 This is the brief story of the origin of this book. It may fall into the 
 hands of some who are having trouble, such as I had, to find the Road. The 
 love commanded by Jesus seeks to be kind and helpful, hence the book has 
 been written and is sent forth to its known and unknown readers. 
 
If at the selling price there is any gain above the cost, it will be added 
 to the fund for its circulation, laid up by years of saving for this purpose. 
 Without regard to the price elsewhere given, arrangements are made to 
 send the book in paper covers until January 6, 1905, to students and 
 teachers in all schools, for fifteen cents; and until that date also, ALL WHO 
 
 WILL LOAN THE BOOK TO OTHERS, OR WHO WILL GIVE IT AWAY, can have it 
 
 at this same price. 
 
 The numberings of the paragraphs connect the notes with the text in 
 the order by which they together should be read. 
 
 It is impossible to give credit to all authors who have, in my lifetime of 
 reading, helped me to make this little book. The aim was to make it small, 
 and in order to do that I have put into its preparation a great amount of 
 work. There are chapters which were twice as long to begin with, and 
 which have been rewritten many times. There are references made to some 
 books, which may be found in the large libraries now common. Other good 
 books treat of subjects to which I call attention. There is no book how- 
 ever that I know of, which develops the Scripture teaching of the Road as 
 it is- done in this book. It is my own work, and is published on my own 
 responsibility. The notes and Scripture texts referred to, should all be 
 read. At the end will be found a carefully prepared index. 
 
 I know the ground over which I have traveled, and expect the criticism 
 of ecclesiastics; but the book is for those who want it, and where it is 
 needed it will be kindly read. We have come to a period in the history of 
 Christianity; and the churches which will not stand for Jesus Christ, are as 
 certainly doomed as were the churches planted by the Apostles when they 
 turned to Grseco-Roman Christianity. If the earnest reader sees that 
 my book separates Jesus' religion from corrupt Christianity, then he will 
 rejoice in its truth and in the responsibility which the light brings. " WE 
 LIVE BUT ONCE; LET us STRIKE HOME FOR WE ARE GOING HOME !" Hoping 
 to be present with you at the resurrection of the just, Farewell ! 
 
 C. C. HARRAH. 
 
 Des Moines, Iowa, 1902. 
 
 FROM TWO AUTOGRAPH LETTERS. 
 
 BOSTON, December 27, 1888. 
 
 2. " * * * Thanks for your leaflets. They are bright, keen, aggressive, 
 progressive. * * * We live but once, let us strike home, for we are going home ! 
 
 Yours very respectfully, JOSEPH COOK. 
 CHICAGO, May 22, 1893. 
 
 " .... Your tract is in perfect harmony with all the preaching I have done in 
 twenty-five years. * * * It contains the whole truth in the case. * * * It may help 
 many minds that are in doubt. It would have been a blessed tract to me when as a 
 young man I was feeling my way along in the dark. With high regards, 
 
 Your friend, DAVID SWING. 
 
anb $Iraplj?t 
 
 3. " After the Road which they call a sect, so serve I the God of our 
 Fathers, believing all things which are according to the Law, and which are 
 written in the Prophets." Acts 24:14. 
 
 4. " And an highway shall be there, the Road, yea the Road of the 
 Holy One it shall be called; the unclean shall not pass over it; and because 
 He shall walk the Road, even simple ones shall not go astray." Isaiah 
 35:8. 
 
 5. *Qd6s, hodos, the Greek word meaning road, is used one hundred 
 and two times in the New Testament. This is the word which Paul uses in 
 the text above. 
 
 6. M v v, derec, the Hebrew word for road, is used six hundred and 
 eighty times in the Old Testament. This is the word which Isaiah uses in 
 the text above. 
 
 7. These Greek and Hebrew words signify an actual road or track. 
 The word "way" is commonly used to translate them in the English Bible; 
 which sometimes means a road, but ordinarily it is now used with the mean- 
 ing of "custom" or "manner." The Bible reader must keep in mind that 
 " way" means " road." The two texts manifest Jesus' religion, and give its 
 clean-cut name. 
 
 8. With the exception of the word Road instead of Way, the Revised 
 Version is followed in printing the first text above, but, in order to express 
 accurately the thought of the Prophet, I give my own translation of the 
 second text. 
 
 9. " The Road is the received, almost technical term for the new relig- 
 ion, which Paul first resisted and afterwards supported." GEORGE GROVE, 
 Crystal Palace, Sydenham. 
 
 10. " This was the name by which, in its earliest and purest day, the 
 Church called itself." PROF. STOKES, University of Dublin. 
 
HUMANITY'S PRAY E R. 
 
 * 
 
 pi-ayed to God a 
 
 lwayActalO:'2 
 
 ''Lord, teach us 10 prayVLuke 11:1. 
 
 h 
 
 I.Our Fath-Vr 
 
 J U j 4= 
 
 in heav - en 1 
 
 J j j rj i~r- 
 baJ low thy name, Tby 
 
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 t --a f u -t 
 
 
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 j j j i j j j i j n \ > i 
 
 kii 
 
 ig dom in heav -en and earth Le the same, 
 
 
 t r s / 1 t. i i p f C i g 
 
 
 
 terl M i J J-J 
 
 1. J J. j 1 f 
 
 =t=1 
 
 jive to me dai ly my 
 Keep ma from temp ta tion from 
 
 irrfr-f H C g lf-F-4- 
 
 por tion of bread 
 weak- ness and sin, 
 
 i F : rrr 
 
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 And 
 
 
 1 h r | i=^= 
 
 
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 is froTn thy 
 thine be the g 
 
 ^ b 6 F : f 1 
 
 oun ty tlfat 
 lo ry for 
 
 all must be fed . 
 ev er , a men * 
 
 
 _! ir 1 
 
 
 11. Be not afraid to pray to pray is right, 
 
 Pray if thou canst, with hope; but ever pray, 
 Though hope be weak, or sick with long delay: 
 
 Pray in the darkness if there be no light. 
 
 Far is the time, remote from human sight, 
 
 When war and discord on the earth shall cease; 
 Yet every prayer for universal peace 
 
 Awaits the blessed time to expedite. COLERIDGE. 
 
QHp W0rU>'ii 
 
 Matt. 6:5-15; Luke 11:1-13. 
 
 12. The Lord's Prayer is the true model of prayer. It was given by Jesus 
 to his disciples on two different occasions. It is the ten commandments turned 
 into prayer; the command to keep God's law being turned into prayers to 
 enable us to keep that law. It lays down the lines on which we should 
 frame our petitions; removes the distance and ceremoniousness of our 
 approach to God; counteracts the selfishness of our desires, and enlarges 
 our horizon so as to comprehend the welfare of the whole world. HUGH 
 MACMILLAN. 
 
 13. The Lord's Prayer contains the sum total cf religion and morals. 
 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 14. Do you wish to see that which is really sublime? Repeat the Lord's 
 Prayer. NAPOLEON. 
 
 15. At the Parliament of the World's Religions, Chicago, 1893, the 
 Lord's Prayer was recognized as the universal prayer; and Christians, Jews, 
 Mohammedans, Buddhists and Brahamans together prayed: " Our Father 
 who art in heaven." 
 
 16. Anyone who will follow along, step by step, in the thought of the 
 Lord's Prayer, will see that the two things required in order to pray it 
 acceptably are sincerity and worship. It exactly expresses Jesus' thought 
 of universal and spiritual worship, which must be "in spirit and in truth." 
 Jno. 4:24. 
 
 17 The words on the opposite page are slightly changed from those 
 found in old hymn books. The tune was a growth in the mind of the author, 
 in the daily private use of the Lord's Prayer. 
 
 18. That brief and grand prayer, came strangely into my mind, with an 
 altogether new emphasis; * * * I never felt before how intensely the voice 
 of man's soul it is; the inmost inspiration of all that is high and pious in 
 poor human nature; right worthy to be recommended with an "After this 
 manner pray ye." THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 19. There is nothing in the Gospels that tells us more certainly what 
 the Gospel is, and what sort of disposition and temper it produces, than the 
 Lord's Prayer. PROF. HARNACK 
 
Introduction. 
 
 I. Christian and Christianity. 
 II. The Religion of the World with its clean- 
 cut Name. 
 
 III. Manifestation of God's Permanent 
 
 Religion. 
 
 IV. The Religion of the Present and Future. 
 V. Life and Light in every Land. 
 
 VI. Ingredients of God's Permanent Religion. 
 VII. Ordinances not Sectarian. 
 VIII. Jesus The Friend and Reformer. 
 IX. The Road to Destruction. 
 X. Immortality and Resurrection. 
 Conclusion. 
 
 " Let me live in a house by the side of the road, 
 
 Where the race of men go by 
 The men who are good and the men who are bad, 
 
 As good and as bad as I. 
 I would not sit in the scorner's seat, 
 
 Or hurl the cynic's ban 
 Let me live in a house by the side of the road 
 
 And be a friend to man. 
 
 I see from my house by the side of the road, 
 
 By the side of the highway of life, 
 The men who press on with the ardor of hope, 
 
 The men who are faint with the strife. 
 But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears- 
 
 Both parts of an infinite plan- 
 Let me live in a house by the side of the road, 
 
 And be a friend to man." ANON. 
 
IRuab of 
 
 CHRISTIAN AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 20. "Our Father * * * Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done as in 
 heaven so on earth." l 
 
 21. "True worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for 
 such doth the Father seek to be his worshipers." 2 
 
 22. "On earth peace among men." 3 
 
 I. THE ROAD, MEN AND RELIGION. 
 
 23. Road is the name by which the religion 
 of Jesus was first known. Christianity is a later 
 name. When men lived a nomadic life and 
 weapons and tools were made of stone, there were 
 roads for travel from place to place. They are 
 as ancient or even more ancient than dwellings; 
 for if there were not men to make them by their 
 nomadic habits, the animals made trails which 
 became the paths or roads of men. They cannot 
 be separated from the history of men. Christian 
 Europe, Pagan Asia, American wilds, and dark- 
 est Africa, are all checkered over w T ith roads, 
 which date back for their origin to the first men 
 and animals. 
 
 24. By legislative acts, the public in all civil- 
 ized lands have the free and absolute use for 
 travel of the highways by land and by water for- 
 ever. The name comes from the trails along the 
 
 'Matt. 6:10. 2 John 4:23. 3 Luke 2:14. 
 
10 THE ROAD 
 
 sides and tops of hills, where for ages before 
 there was any civilization the wild men traveled. 
 On the highest ground, these highways were free 
 from the floods and plunder of the low lands. 
 They also afforded advantages of outlook and 
 signaling; and the winds swept them clean of 
 leaves and snow. The winding "ridge road/' fol- 
 lowing in many cases the Indian trail, is well 
 known to the early settlers all over the West. 1 
 
 25. A thing so closely related to human life, 
 so continuously identified with every phase of 
 human activity, and withal such a real thing, 
 was selected by God to give name to his religion 
 for the world. 
 
 26. The name Road in itself suggests plain, 
 straightforward business in giving and receiving 
 the message of religion; and the message of this 
 book is to men who have not time or patience 
 to go into controversies or to play with the small 
 things of unimportant beliefs. 
 
 27. The New Testament is made up of twenty- 
 seven parts which treat of the greatest subjects 
 in existence; and yet what a little book it is just 
 the thing for the busy men of business. The 
 message of Jesus and the Apostles was to earnest 
 men. 2 
 
 'Hulberte' "Red Men's Roads," p. 8; Clodd's "Childhood of the World," 
 pp. 8, 33, 48. 
 
 28. 2 John the Baptist was a type of modern evangelists. He did 
 much good by the many good things he said, but how few did Jesus gather 
 after a few months from the thousands who received the water baptism? 
 Jesus' method was to seek the earnest people and require the rabble to 
 stop and consider in order that they might become earnest and sincere. 
 Compare Luke 13:24; 14:25-33; Matt. 15:25-28; 19:23-29; Jno. 6:26; 
 Jer. 29:13. 
 
THE ROAD 11 
 
 29. Earnest men like certainty. In business 
 measures they steer clear of doubt. Jesus tells 
 of a man who bought a field, but he knew first 
 that a pearl was there. 1 The stern realization of 
 existence goads a man to seek certainty where 
 his welfare is involved. 2 
 
 31. The reasons which lead earnest men to 
 seek improvement and self-protection, and to 
 have regard for the future, force them to be 
 interested in religion. They cannot ignore the 
 problems of existence and destiny, for which 
 there is no solution outside of religion. 
 
 32. The sense of existence is attended by a 
 sense of earnest personal responsibility, which 
 leads straight to these two facts: God made me, 
 and God meant me. The outcome of honest deal- 
 ing with these facts is relation to God, which is 
 religion. 3 Man and God are bound to come together; 
 except the man is wrong or dead to the meaning 
 of existence. 4 
 
 1 Matt. 13:46. 
 
 30. 2 "It is a most earnest thing to be alive in this world; to die is 
 not sport for a man. Man's life never was a sport to him, it was a stern 
 reality, altogether serious matter to be alive." Carlyle's "Hero Worship," 
 Lect. 1. 
 
 33. 3 The claptrap of the religion-monger may attract the rabble 
 but it repels earnest men. Prof. Harnack says: "Apologists imagine that 
 they are doing a great work by crying up religion as though it were a job 
 lot at a sale, or a universal remedy for all social ills. They are perpetually 
 snatching, too, at all sorts of baubles, so as to deck out religion in fine 
 clothes. In their endeavor to present it as a glorious necessity, they 
 deprive it of its earnest character '."--Harnack's"What is Christianity ,"p. 8. 
 
 The apostles showed religion to be a sure thing of great gain for the 
 life that now is, and the life to come. 1 Tim. 4:8; 6:6. It is real and 
 worth more than pearls. 
 
 34. 4 Few men of greater brain power have lived than Daniel Web- 
 ster. When asked for the greatest thought that ever entered his mind, he 
 replied that it was God and his responsibility to Him. 
 
12 THE ROAD 
 
 35. The religious intuition of Jesus was so 
 active and spontaneous that when he spoke, the 
 people saw it was the utterance of real religion. 
 Jesus never made a concession or an apology; 
 and if man and God did not come together in his 
 religion, then the wrong man, by repentance, was 
 the only one who had to change. 1 The religion 
 without change was to stand and it cannot be mod- 
 ified or changed to suit the notions of any man. 2 
 
 38. Jesus 7 disciples were a mixed body of peo- 
 ple; which showed the adaptation of the religion 
 to men of all classes. About the only things com- 
 mon between them were their need, sincerity and 
 earnestness. 3 
 
 40. The apostles were earnest men, otherwise 
 they would not have heeded Jesus' call "straight- 
 way" and "immediately" and "forsaken all." 
 They were not men of letters and philosophy, but 
 business-like men with decision. 4 
 
 36. * Jesus spoke out of his own fulness and from himself; and men 
 saw then and they still see that in him is the truth. The rabble, high and 
 low, who now make of the churches amusement halls, cared nothing for the 
 truth then and they care nothing for it now. Jno. 6:26. Indifference is 
 the beastly state into which many have come. Isai. ch. 1. 
 
 37. 2 "My words shall not pass away." Matt. 24:35. "If any man 
 preacheth unto you any gospel other than that which ye received, let him 
 be anathema." Gal. 1:9. 
 
 39. 3 The rejection of men by Jesus is hardly less noticeable in the Gos- 
 pels than his calls and choices. The insincere, whose interest it was to 
 build up themselves; and the self-righteous, fortressed with their own con- 
 ceit, and who would not repent, he turned away. Parker's "Ecce Deus," 
 pp. 84-117. Jno. 3:5; Mark 10:17; Luke 10:25. 
 
 41. * St. Paul is not an exception. He was foremost of all an earnest 
 business man. Like every earnest business man, his whole soul went into 
 whatever he did. He was not a professor of classic learning but a practical 
 scholar and a tent maker by trade. In large part his theology grew out of 
 his own experience; and he was "as remote as possible in his whole way of 
 thinking from the scholastic theologian." The impression made upon Paul 
 
THE ROAD 13 
 
 42. The success of Christianity is now depend- 
 ing upon two things: (a) the making of it over to 
 fit Jesus' religion, and (b) the attitude toward it of 
 earnest men. The conviction is expressed that 
 earnest men in all the walks of life, especially 
 earnest working men, are becoming indifferent 
 to Christianity and tired of churchianity. 1 At 
 the same time they wish to be understood as not 
 opposed to Jesus. 
 
 44. This indifference of men in all the indus- 
 tries, to the public worship of God; and the trans- 
 fer of interest from the church to secret societies 
 and to fraternal unions, many of the men never 
 going inside a church, presents a gloomy outlook. 2 
 
 46. The evil will not be remedied by evange- 
 listic measures, to interest the rabble and to pro- 
 
 by the person of Jesus, is the most striking thing in his presentation of the 
 Gospel. And, when all else is said, the effect which Jesus had on the lives 
 of his disciples tells us best what his religion is. Paul understood Jesus, 
 and continued his work, and laid the foundations, as no other man did, of 
 all that is best in civilization. Compare Harnack's "What is Christianity?" 
 pp. 189, 192. Brace's "St. Paul's Conception of Christianity," pp. 26-33, 
 and Farrar's "Life of St. Paul," pp. 35-39, Vol. 1. Matt. 4:19-22; Phil. 3:13. 
 
 43. l This opinion that the number of indifferent people is increasing 
 is shared by many careful observers. Josiah Strong in "The Great Awak- 
 ening" quotes and endorses the saying of Prof. Bruce: "To be enthusiastic 
 about the church in its present condition is impossible." And still, what- 
 ever may be the true condition as to indifference, it cannot be denied that 
 the churches have in their membership the best people as a rule in every 
 community; and if their work is handicapped, still it is the best work that 
 is being done, and is not a failure. 
 
 45. 2 With respect to the different classes of men, the condition is 
 too much like that of Rome in the period of its decay; when religion in 
 large part was turned over to the idle and shiftless, and to the few good 
 people interested in worship and in helping the rabble; while men with 
 ability to do the work of the world gave themselves to making money. 
 "Life of St. Paul," by Conybeare and Howson, Vol. 1, p. 13; Smith's "His- 
 tory of the World," Vol. II, pp. 547-567; Farrar's "Early Christianity," 
 pp. 8-9; et alii. 
 
14 THE ROAD 
 
 duce emotional results; or by an order of things 
 on the physical plane, "social settlements," "insti- 
 tutional churches," etc., good as these things may 
 be in certain localities. Jesus did not proceed in 
 these ways, and no institution planted here or 
 there, will do to take the place of a community of 
 Brotherhood. Only that as religion, can com- 
 mand the respect of earnest men. The church 
 that Jesus planted was a Community of Brothers, 
 and was a richer and broader fellowship than that 
 of any fraternal society; and joined together, by 
 its higher meaning, all races and classes of earn- 
 est people. What the laboring and business 
 people have lost interest in is, the ecclesiastical 
 institutions and the cults of the schools. 1 
 
 48. The burning questions of to-day are: (a) 
 shall religion take its appointed place of spiritu- 
 ality and power, and minister to the sum of 
 human life as it did from the Day of Pentecost 
 onward; or, shall it continue as a cultus, oper- 
 ated by ecclesiastics and theological schools? 
 
 47. 1 The Standard Dictionary defines "cultus" as "a system of religious 
 belief and worship," or "state of religious, ethical, or esthetic development." 
 "Cult" is defined as "a cultis," or "a system of religious rites and observ- 
 ances." Hall's "Modern English" is quoted as follows: "Cult is a term 
 which, as we value exactness, we can ill afford to do without, seeing how 
 completely religion has lost its original signification." The Brotherhood, 
 gathered together from the community by a common trust in and devotion 
 to their Saviour, and which came to be known as the church, was not a sys- 
 tem of beliefs but a relation to a Person-, any belief s being only the steps 
 to the relation with the Person. The religion of Jesus therefore is an 
 experience, a new creation, a living way, a drawing of men into his own life. 
 No one who joined himself to the Lord had the suspicion that he was enter- 
 ing an institution like a sectarian church, or was adopting a creed system 
 like that of a modern cult. The New Testament contains nothing of the 
 kind. What Jesus set forth as the kingdom of God, was a union of love 
 with the Father by fellowship with himself in holy living. See paragraph 126. 
 
THE ROAD 15 
 
 and (b) shall churches exist simply as the living 
 organism of the Brotherhood of the Community, 
 the blending into one citizenship and one family 
 all nationalities, classes and ranks of mankind, 
 infinitely richer in meaning than any of these 
 modern brotherhoods; or, shall they continue to 
 exist as the institutions of sects? 1 
 
 50. The Roman empire was very generous in 
 its treatment of all religions, and they were very 
 numerous. In the race to get the support of the 
 influential and educated, who were dead in skep- 
 ticism and worldliness, these religions were 
 handicapped by their own superstitions. The 
 first disciples were from the common, laboring 
 people; but it was not long before their new 
 religion began to attract the attention of the 
 schools of philosophy, where it was judged of as 
 another cultus to be added to the great n amber 
 already existing. It commanded a degree of favor 
 because it joined with philosophy to dissipate 
 the superstitions. 
 
 51. Greek philosophy and the Pagan schools, 
 by their training of the intellect and morals, pre- 
 49. * The church is a living body and is more than an organization. 
 
 Eph. 1:23; Col. 1:24. It has its own living Head, Eph. 1:22; Col. 1:18; and 
 its own Spirit of life, Eph. 1:22; John 17:23; and is a living organism, and is 
 more than the brotherhoods of the world, Eph. 5:30; Rom. 12:5. It was 
 not wise to sell their property after the Day of Pentecost, and thus to ren- 
 der themselves incapable of future self-support, Rom. 15:26; but the fact 
 that their business was dominated by the brotherhood idea, so that they 
 were willing to do such a thing, shows the deeply planted conviction which 
 they had of the church. Twice it is said that they "had all things com- 
 mon," Acts 2:44; 4:32. 
 
 This development of the church idea unmistakably shows what its nature 
 was to be. In the apostacy, after the death of the Apostles, the Common- 
 wealth conception, taken from the Roman government, displaced that of 
 Brotherhood, and the church began its career accordingly as a full-fledged 
 Institution. 
 
16 THE ROAD 
 
 pared the way for the entrance of the religion of 
 Jes us. The prepared Greek language was the best 
 that had ever existed to express the teachings of 
 religion and to convey a right understanding of 
 Jesus' principles. 1 
 
 52. Antioch was a great city of 500,000 people, 
 proud of its early Greek civilization. Paul, Bar- 
 nabas and others preached there. The attention 
 of some of the scholarly inclined was called to 
 their work. They cared nothing for Jesus or for 
 the Bible or for the religion; but as all cults had 
 a name, the rise of a new one at Antioch they dis- 
 tinguished by calling it "Christianity." The 
 spelling of the name as they made it, was a mix- 
 ture of Greek and Latin. It was an act of heathen 
 presumption and irreverence, done in ignorance 
 of the religion, and one of disrespect to the 
 Prophets and Apostles who certainly were the 
 right ones to give it a name. 
 
 53. Great stories would be told of the origin 
 of the name Christian, 2 were it not that the sim- 
 ple history in the book of Acts cuts off the claim 
 that would be made for its inspiration. 3 St. Luke 
 wrote the Acts of Apostles and the Gospel of 
 Luke; and both he and Paul were members of the 
 church in Antioch at the time when the name 
 
 1 "Both Greeks and Romans were unconscious servants of Jesus Christ, 
 'the unknown God.' " SchafFs "History of the Christian church," Vol. 1, p. 45. 
 
 54. 2 One of the best accounts of the origin of the name Christian is found 
 in Farrar's "Life of St. Paul," Vol. 1, pp. 288-301. The Apostle warned 
 the disciples of the influences working toward an apostacy, Col. 2:8; 2 Tim. 
 3:15. It destroyed the churches, Rev. chap. II, III, and the same influences 
 will keep on corrupting and destroying wherever they exist. The name, 
 with its cult meaning, has always been a corrupting influence. 
 
 3 Acts 11:26. 
 
THE ROAD 17 
 
 was invented. Such an act by the cute Pagans, 
 who had formed a reputation for inventing nick- 
 names, would not escape their attention. It was 
 done about fifteen years after the Day of Pente- 
 cost; and Luke's books were written fifteen years 
 later, when the name was in general use among 
 the Pagans. Luke never used the names Chris- 
 tian or Christianity! St. Paul never used them!! 
 nor were they ever used by any of the writers of 
 the New Testament!!! The reasons for such 
 uniform silence must be important enough to 
 justify inquiry. 1 
 
 56. At first the name Christian meant only u a 
 partisan of Christ ;" but, when hatred arose 
 toward the disciples, the name was made to mean 
 also a renegade, atheist or rebel. 2 It had this bad 
 meaning when the three references to it were 
 made by New Testament writers. 8 The great per- 
 secutions by Nero, and other Roman emperors, 
 spread the name everywhere, with the meaning 
 of a new cult, and with the odious meanings. 
 The persecutions cleansed the churches of bad 
 people, and those who remained steadfast,, after 
 a long time, redeemed the name by their holi- 
 
 55 ! It was not common at that early time to call Jesus by his official name, 
 "Christ"; and the frivolous Pagans made up the name "Christian" from 
 hearing about Jesus office. The Jews never used the term, because it was 
 derived from the name Christ, the Greek term for their Messiah. 
 
 2 See "Lange's Commentary," 1 Pet. 4:16; and its use by Tacitus, quoted 
 in Fisher's "Beginnings of Christianity," p. 528. 
 
 57 3 The first example is the simple statement as to the origin of the 
 name, Acts 11:26; the second instance is that of the Roman governor, who 
 used the name the same as he would have used Caesarean, Herodian, or 
 Nazarene, Acts 26:28; the third example makes a direct reference to the 
 odious signification of the term, and exhorts to patience in bearing the 
 ignominy and suffering. 1 Pet. 4:16. 
 
18 THE ROAD 
 
 ness. The power of usage forced on them - the 
 name Christian; but they, in turn, forced the 
 world to investigate the religion which made 
 their holy lives. 1 
 
 2. FOR A TIME CHRISTIANITY MEANT THE ROAD. 
 
 59. The first writers after the time of the 
 Apostles, the Apostolic Fathers, as a rule avoided 
 the use of the terms Christian and Christianity, 
 the same as the New Testament writers. In the 
 first instances where the names occur, they have 
 a new meaning. From the signification of being 
 u a partisan of Christ,' 7 the disciples changed the 
 name Christian to mean, "being a Christ." 
 
 60, The pastor at Antioch, over half a century 
 after the name Christian was invented there, was 
 Ignatius; and he is supposed to be the first church 
 writer who used the terms Christian and Chris- 
 tianity. He used them to signify "being a 
 
 58. 1 A holy life with its works of righteousness is the one thing which 
 every rnan can have; and every such life is a success, and a gain to the 
 world. Jesus lived such a life, Acts 10:38. The orthodox priest failed to 
 have such a life of goodness, while the heterodox Samaritan was Jesus' ideal 
 of character and faith, Luke 10:31-33. The Gospel is obeyed by self-sacri- 
 ficing service for others. The believing required by it is the doing of the 
 will of God. Matt. 7:21-23; 25:40 
 
 "Poor sad humanity 
 
 Through all the dust and heat, 
 
 Turns back with bleeding feet 
 
 By the weary road it came, 
 
 Unto the single thought, 
 
 By the great Master taught, 
 
 And that remaineth still: 
 
 Not he that repeateth the name, 
 
 But he that DOETH THE WILL." 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
THE ROAD 19 
 
 Christ/ 7 or to have conduct in Christ and accord- 
 ing to Christ. 1 
 
 62. Clement, who is supposed to have been 
 the friend of Paul by that name, wrote to the 
 Corinthians about thirty-five years after Paul 
 died. He says of an unfaithful person: "Nor acts 
 a part becoming a Christian/ 7 that is, ''becoming 
 a Christ." He also speaks of "conduct unworthy 
 your Christian profession," by which he meant 
 "conduct in Christ." 
 
 63. It is said that Polycarp was instructed by 
 disciples who personally knew Jesus. He never 
 uses the name Christian in his epistle, written 
 about the middle of the second 'century; but in 
 the history of his martyrdom, written after he 
 was dead, the name is found with both its Pagan 
 and disciple meanings. Polycarp said as a dis- 
 ciple, "I am a Christian;" and the heathen cried 
 out, "Away with the Atheists." 
 
 64. "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" 
 dates back to from thirty-five to seventy-five 
 years after John wrote the book of Revelations. 
 It calls the religion of Jesus, "The Way of Life/' 
 and the one who does not walk in the Road, as a 
 Christ, is called a "Christ-monger."' These few 
 examples, are about all there is in the earliest 
 
 61. l See Ignatius to the Philadelphians, ch. VI; to the Magnesians, ch. X, 
 Clark's Edinburgh edition of "The Apostolic Fathers." The "notes" indicate 
 the new meaning in most instances. But where there are two epistles, as 
 in this case of these references, no one can tell whether the one which uses 
 the term "Christian" is the genuine epistle. It may never have been used 
 at all by Ignatius. 
 
 2 See the "notes" in Clark's "Apostolic Fathers," First Epistle of Clem- 
 ent, ch. Ill and XLVII. 
 
 3 "Martyrdom of Polycarp," Clark's "Apostolic Fathers," ch. Ill, IX, X. 
 "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," ch. I, VI, XII. 
 
20 THE ROAD 
 
 writings of the churches; and they show that the 
 term Christian was used only for ''the God-loving 
 and God-fearing race of Christians/' and not with 
 the Antiochian signification of a partisan and 
 member of a cult. 
 
 65. In all religious literature, there is no more 
 beautiful name than Jesuit. It is derived from 
 the name Jesus, and is so appropriate for a body 
 of sinful people who love the Savior. But this 
 name is objected to everywhere because those 
 who wear it are spoken against as evil doers. 
 With the meaning of "a partisan of Jesus/' or 
 "a partisan of Christ/ 7 both Jesuit and Christian 
 are misleading terms. There are many partisans 
 of Jesus who are not a Jesus, and many partisans 
 of Christ who are not a Christ. 
 
 3. CHRISTIAN NOT "A CHRIST" IN HISTORY. 
 
 66. Human progress, with the many reforms 
 and recognitions of human rights, is indebted to 
 truth and light and spirit set to work in the world 
 by Jesus Christ. l Christianity, most of the time, 
 has carried more of this influence from Jesus 
 than any other religion. In it there has been the 
 strongest recognitions of sin, as a principal at 
 work to ruin man; and it has given the fullest 
 expression of responsibility in the direction of 
 philanthropy. 
 
 67. When all is said in favor of these things 
 that the truth will justify, there are left condi- 
 tions which point to a wide separation of Chris- 
 tianity from the religion of Jesus. It has taken 
 advantage of the conviction of sin, to bind men 
 to an institutional church and to the ordinances 
 
 1 See Brace's "Gesta Christ!," and other histories of human progress. 
 
THE ROAD 21 
 
 and ecclesiastical fixtures of a statutory religion. 
 These exactions over-shadowed that true repent- 
 ance which is followed by a yielding of oneself to 
 a life with Jesus. Devotion to a church took the 
 place of piety. They turned aside the love of 
 truth to loyalty to a creed, which served to array 
 in hostile camps the most conscientious and best 
 people of the world. No other great religion has 
 been the occasion of such bitterness and war. 
 As a religio-philosophic cult, it has perpetuated 
 the spirit of Greek and Roman scholasticism and 
 ecclesiasticism ; and developed out of this spirit 
 such scholasticism and ecclesiasticism as Pagan 
 Rome never knew. 
 
 68. No people on earth outside of Christen- 
 dom, have so blackened their history by the love 
 of money; by land grabbing; by the enrichment 
 of the few through legalized privileges over 
 nature's stores, laid up for the benefit of man- 
 kind; by the strong living off the weak, through 
 great monopolies and ill-proportioned salaries; 
 by the slave trade, and the far-reaching wrongs 
 of the slave system; by militarism, and wars of 
 such great number and magnitude that the peace 
 prophecies of the Prophets have a better ful- 
 fillment in some of the heathen lands than in 
 Christendom. 
 
 69. Over against all the good things which 
 may be named for Christian civilization, are the 
 acts of bigotry, the party spirit, ambition, greed, 
 appetite and lust. There is no parallel elsewhere 
 of the far-reaching iniquities and debauchery by 
 means of liquor saloons and the liquor traffic. 
 No other lands so corrupt their blood with tobacco 
 
22 THE ROAD 
 
 or indulge to such an extent in all manner of 
 stimulants and narcotics; or go to such excesses 
 in gluttony. What wrongs have been perpe- 
 trated against the weaker races of other lands, 
 by carrying to them liquors, by the opium traffic, 
 and by the tobacco trade. The Pagans, at the 
 World's Parliament of Religions, pointed to the 
 slaughter houses as a sign of our wicked civiliza- 
 tion, and the comparisons with their own coun- 
 tries made us ashamed. 1 For over five hundred 
 years a divorce was not granted in the old Roman 
 Republic; but in this particular how low have we 
 sunken! 2 Liquor saloons, gambling hells, and 
 houses of prostitution, deluge with wickedness 
 the towns and cities. 3 No one can pray the Lord's 
 prayer, "Thy kingdom come/' who upholds these 
 things. 4 They are the manifestations of a wide- 
 spread and abominable apostacy from Jesus' 
 religion. 
 
 71. It was the object of Jesus' teaching, that 
 all men should be united to God their Father by 
 a moral unity, expressed in a pious life of merci- 
 ful love. His words and his life were like leaven 
 cast into the mass of humanity, 5 to transform 
 lives and society into a likeness to that of the 
 
 J Neely's "History of the Parliment," pp. 608-611. 
 
 2 Lecky's "History of European Morals," Vol. II, pp. 317-319. 
 
 70. 3 In his History of Humane Progress, " Gesta Christa," p. 2, C. L. 
 Brace, says: "The Christian church has favored practices and encouraged 
 institutions which have been a travesty on the teachings of Christ, and an 
 offence to every feeling of humanity. The honest student who searches for 
 a pure, benevolent impress of the great teacher on the wild annals of human 
 history, must divest himself of much reverence for the so-called 'church' of 
 Christ on earth. The church that is seen and known of men, represents 
 often anything but his image." 
 
 4 Matt. 6:9; Luke 11:1-13; John 13:5-17. 
 5 Matt. 13:33. 
 
THE ROAD 23 
 
 angels in heaven. It is a remarkable fact that 
 the whole world is coming thus to see Jesus' 
 religion, and to distinguish between it and the 
 bad ways of men, who uphold wickedness at 
 home and who go out from Christian countries 
 and governments to give such a bad impression 
 of Christianity to the people of other religions. 
 
 4. THE LEADING POINTS MANIFESTED IN THIS CHAPTER. 
 
 72. The names Christian and Christianity 
 are not used in the books of the New Testament, 
 written after, and some of them a long time after, 
 the names were invented and in use among the 
 Pagans. 
 
 73. The reasons for not using these names 
 in the New Testament, must have been import- 
 ant enough to the writers, especially writers so 
 well informed in the case as were Paul and Luke, 
 to justify us in the enquiry as to the nature of 
 these names, to know if they are misleading. 
 
 74. The origin of the names creates suspicion, 
 on account of the character of the Pagan 
 people at Antioch, and on account of the fact that 
 the Prophets, Apostles, Disciples, and even the 
 Jews who were not disciples, had nothing to do 
 with their origin. The Pagan inventors were 
 ignorant of the nature of the religion. 
 
 75. Invented as the name Christian was, 
 to denote a partisan of Christ, and the name 
 Christianity to denote another cult of philosophy 
 and religion, they had not the meaning which 
 the New Testament gives to "walk" or "Road." 
 Christianity meant a system of ideas; the Road 
 
24 THE ROAD 
 
 meant a real object or thing, of world- wide exist- 
 ence, and free from the school or sect nature. 
 
 76. The little churches of humble people, 
 reduced by the persecutions, had the name Chris- 
 tian with its odious Pagan meanings, forced upon 
 them; but before using it among themselves, they 
 raised the name out of its bad signification. 
 They made Christian to mean "a Christ." 
 
 77. There has always been more or less 
 of Jesus' religion in Christianity. When it all 
 becomes true and loyal to Jesus, his kingdom will 
 be one of peace, and will quickly spread over the 
 world, and the Lord's prayer will be answered. 
 But the darkness now gives little hope of an early 
 change. 
 
II. 
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE WORLD WITH ITS 
 CLEAN-CUT NAME. 
 
 78. " After the Road, which they call a sect, so serve I the God of our 
 Fathers, believing all things which are according to the Law, and which 
 are written in the Prophets." 
 
 "Any that were of the Road. 
 
 "Instructed in the road of the LORD. 
 
 "Expounded unto him the Road of God. 
 
 "Some were hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Road. 
 
 "No small stir concerning the Road. 
 
 "And I persecuted this Road unto the death. 1 
 
 I. ENTRUSTED WITH THE ORACLES OF GOD. 
 
 79. There is no intention in the space of this 
 little book, to describe the good things of Chris- 
 tianity; for that, book stores have whole libraries. 
 Bad things, not in any exaggerated style, but 
 actual bad things are exposed, and the need of 
 repentance and of the religion of God is shown. 2 
 Christianity may perish, on account of the evils 
 which it sanctions and tolerates; as ancient Juda- 
 ism and the Graeco-Roman systems perished, and 
 out of the wrecks of which Christianity arose. 
 On the great stone wall of a vast Mohammedan 
 mosque, in Damascus, the traveler Mr. Marsh 
 found this inscription: "Thy kingdom, Christ, 
 
 1 Acts. 24:14; 9:2; 18:26; 19:9; 19:23; 22:4. 
 
 80. 2 There are good people and good churches everywhere; but that 
 does not change the general conditions and the fearful apostacies, 1 Kings 
 19:10-18. 
 
26 THE ROAD 
 
 is the kingdom of all ages, and thy dominion is 
 from generation to generation;" and that was the 
 only trace left in the city where St. Paul first 
 learned of the Road, of the ancient existence of a 
 Christian church. This example, and the extinc- 
 tion of all the churches planted by the Apostles, 
 shows that God takes no pains to preserve Chris- 
 tianity, more than any other cultus, when it 
 becomes corrupt. 
 
 81. What advantage then has Christianity 
 over Buddhism, or any other religious cultus? 
 "Much every way; first of all that it has been 
 entrusted with the oracles of God." 1 God has 
 blessed Christianity as a Bible circulating medium; 
 and that is the chief and almost exclusive work 
 to which missionaries should give themselves. 2 
 Other religions all over the world, are being 
 improved by the knowledge of our Scriptures. 
 Japan, for example, has already forty Christian 
 sects; and, notwithstanding the harm which this 
 sectarianism has done, they have accomplished 
 great good by circulating the Bible. 
 
 82. The Buddhists know the wrong of divisions. 
 One leader says: "It is a surprise to us that they 
 do not agree together better." ; Many Pagans are 
 intelligent and distinguish between sectarianism 
 and the teachings of Jesus, which say: "By this 
 shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye 
 have love one to another/' 4 No one does anything 
 in any land to obey "the great commission" 5 who 
 
 1 Rom. 3:2. 
 2 1 Pet. 4:11. 
 
 3 Count Otani Kozui, in New York Independent, Dec. 27, 1900. 
 
 4 John 13:35. 
 
 Matt. 28:19; Acts 1:8; 10:47; 11:19. 
 
THE ROAD 27 
 
 does not give forth this love and Brotherhood con- 
 ception of Jesus' Gospel; and the Scriptures, which 
 contain this truth, will incline the heathen 
 toward Jesus, as we see in Japan, where many 
 Buddhists acknowledged Jesus to have been a 
 Buddha, and as we see among the Brahmo Somaj 
 in India, who also have knowledge of Jesus. The 
 effect is thus produced which Jesus himself indi- 
 cated: "As thou didst send me into the world, 
 even so I send them into the world * * * 
 that they may all be one * * * that the 
 world may believe that thou didst send me." l 
 
 84. In its outward expression the religion 
 which Jesus entrusted to his disciples was to 
 manifest him, the Savior and Friend of man, as 
 he had manifested the Father; and in this great 
 service they were to keep his commandments, by 
 doing as he himself had done. No sects were to 
 be torn down, and no sect was to be built up. 
 They were to preach Christ, and held no com- 
 mission to supercede other systems by a new 
 ritual, ordinances, and a new statutory religion. 
 Jews were not to be perplexed by opposition to 
 their customs, and Gentiles were to have placed 
 upon them no yoke of bondage by ceremonial 
 code. There was no clergy; but deacons in their 
 ministrations went to the houses of the poor, and 
 naturally became the first preachers, like Stephen 
 and Philip. And thus was started the glorious 
 work which has resulted in the solid and durable 
 institutions of Christian beneficence. The two 
 
 83. 1 John 17:18-23. The union of disciples and the world's conversion 
 go together. The meaning of "that the world may believe," is "so that the 
 world, etc." A result is meant. 
 
28 THE ROAD 
 
 churches which became the most noted, Rome 
 and Antioch, were originated by laymen; and the 
 former, for twenty-five years, was managed by 
 laymen. 
 
 85. The Brotherhood of the community of 
 believers more and more came to be composed of 
 both Jews and Gentiles, and in the course of two 
 generations the church of Jesus became a sepa- 
 rate body from necessity. The other religions 
 were tribal and national; and they opposed the 
 Gospel when it was understood that its message 
 was to all men alike. At this point there was 
 great danger that the Old Testament would be 
 dropped, along with Judaism, and we cannot be 
 too thankful that the Christian Gentiles in this 
 severe crisis, joined with the Christian Jews to 
 claim the Old Testament. The world's religion 
 was now understood to be anti-national and anti- 
 Judaic, and to sustain its position, constant 
 appeals had to be made to the prophets. This kept 
 the Old Testament in constant use, and it became 
 a part of the fixtures of the church. The Bible 
 is the magnificent heritage of modern Chris- 
 tianity from Judaism and Rome; and it is the 
 crowning glory of Christendom, that it is in a 
 position to offer to every man on the earth a 
 whole Bible. On the one hand is this magnifi- 
 cent opportunity of Christianity; and on the other 
 hand is the dark outlook by worldliness, ecclesi- 
 asticism and cowardice. 
 
 2. IT SHALL BE CALLED THE ROAD OF THE HOLY ONE. 
 
 86. Isaiah thus describes the glory of Jesus' 
 religion for the world: "An highway shall be 
 
THE ROAD 29 
 
 there, the Road, and it shall be called the Road 
 of the Holy One, the unclean shall not pass over 
 it; and because He shall walk the Road, even the 
 simple ones shall not go astray. No lion shall 
 be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up 
 thereon, they shall not be found there; and the 
 ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come 
 with singing unto Zion." 
 
 88. The Road was to be so good and safe that 
 common people could travel it with perfect 
 safety. How exalted is the conception of religion 
 in the following passages, which we will best 
 understand by substituting the w r ord Road for 
 "way:" "My people have forgotten me, they 
 have burned incense to vanity; and they have 
 caused them to stumble in their ways, in ancient 
 paths to walk in by-paths, in a way not cast up. 77 
 "Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the 
 old paths, where is the good way, and walk 
 therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. " 
 "Thou wilt show me the path of life. 
 
 In Thy presence is fulness of joy; 
 
 At Thy right hand there are pleasures for- 
 
 evermore." 
 
 "See if there be anyway of wickedness in me, 
 
 And lead me in the way everlasting." 
 
 87. Isaiah 35:8. This remarkable verse is poorly translated in the - 
 English Bible. The Hebrew is so emphatic and points so clearly to a per- 
 son, that I think the Prophet meant "Holy One" instead of "holiness" and I 
 so translate it. "The Road" is emphatic also. The help by the example 
 and presence of the Holy One in the Road, as the example of Jesus helps 
 one to live right, is the reason why "simple" ones find it easy to keep the 
 Road. This passage refers to the Messianic kingdom, and should not be 
 limited to refer only toj the road of the Jews from Babylon to Jerusalem. 
 Oppression, cruelty and war, represented by wild beasts, have no place in 
 Jesus' kingdom. 
 
30 THE ROAD 
 
 "Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of the 
 LORD, make straight in the desert a highway 
 for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, 
 and every mountain and hill shall be made 
 low: and the crooked shall be made straight, 
 and rough places plain: and the glory of the 
 LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it 
 together." ' 
 
 89. The examples in the Book of Acts of the 
 use of the term for Jesus 7 religion, some of which 
 are given at the head of this chapter, show that 
 Road as a Bible name should be clearly under- 
 stood. It was an occasion for the use of words 
 with exact meanings when Paul, twenty-four 
 years after his conversion, was put on trial before 
 the governor Felix. He was accused, among 
 other things, of being a ringleader of the sect of 
 the Nazarenes. He denied that the religion was 
 a "sect," and called it "the Road;" a name which 
 to him meant an unsectarian and universal 
 religion. 
 
 90. There is one principal Greek word, and 
 nine other terms less common, which, in both 
 versions of the New Testament, the word "way" 
 is used to translate. 2 Two Greek words are 
 translated "path." In the Old Testament, one 
 
 1 Jer. 6:16; 18:15; Ps. 16:11; 139:24; Isaiah 40:3-5. 
 91. 2 The common version utterly fails to give the meaning of the texts 
 in the Acts, by using a small letter where it should be a capital. The 
 Revised Version uses a capital in most instances. Every text in the Bible 
 where the words "way" or "ways" are used, and where the meaning is the 
 Road which God would have men take, should be translated with a capital 
 letter. Prof. Cremer's Lexicon gives some examples, among the many: 
 Ps. 18:21; 35:4,12; Gen. 18:19; Deut. 10-12; Jer. 6:16; Matt. 12:16; Mark 
 12:14; Luke 20:21; Heb. 3:10. See also the article "way" in Smith's 
 Bible Dictionary, p. 3488. 
 

 UHIVER- 
 
 31 
 
 principal Hebrew word, ancTseventeen less com- 
 mon terms are translated in the two English 
 versions by the word " way." 
 
 92. The principal Greek word, hodos, rendered 
 " way," is used one hundred and two times in the 
 Greek Testament, and in nearly every instance 
 the rendering would be clearer and more real if 
 the word "road" were used instead of "way." The 
 same is true of the principal Hebrew word, derec, 
 in the Old Testament. 
 
 93. When Paul used this term, hodos, for 
 Jesus' religion, its meaning and force was well 
 understood. If we had no navigable rivers or 
 railroads; and, like these ancient Hebrews, had 
 to depend upon paths and highways, our roads 
 would have to us a better understood mean- 
 ing and they would receive from us more interest. 
 
 94. The one principal Hebrew word, men- 
 tioned above, to say nothing of the other terms 
 of like meaning, is found in the Old Testamont 
 about seven hundred times. Three hundred and 
 fifty times it refers to a road for travel; two 
 hundred and five times it refers to the life and 
 behavior of anyone, day by day, and conveys a 
 religious meaning; eighty times it is used as a 
 distinct name for religion; twenty times it refers 
 to God's manner of doing; and thirty times, or a 
 few more, it refers to journeying in a road. 
 There are about forty instances in our English 
 Bible where this word is rendered by such terms 
 as "journeying," and "custom;" but in all other 
 cases it is rendered by the word "way." 
 
 95. The less common Hebrew terms, referred 
 to above, are used in the Old Testament, with the 
 
32 THE ROAD 
 
 meaning of the Road, path, highway, or mode of 
 life, about one hundred times. The less common 
 Greek terms, also mentioned above, are used the 
 same as the Hebrew terms, only about ten times. 
 For the most part, the one principal word, was 
 used in the Hebrew, and still more is the one 
 word for " road " adhered to in the Greek. The 
 two principal Hebrew and Greek words, are used 
 in the Old and New Testaments, together, about 
 
 EIGHT HUNDRED TIMES. 
 
 3- HUMANITY TAKES TO A ROAD. 
 
 96. Families are made into neighborhoods, and 
 neighborhoods into countrymen, with com- 
 mercial, social, and other community ties, by the 
 roads which unite them. The Indians love their 
 trails, and they had a net-work of them over the 
 country before the coming of the white man's 
 roads. Even the animals make paths, and follow 
 along one after another in them. Every pasture 
 field has these paths, and an animal will go to 
 the path in order to pass from one part of the 
 field to another. 
 
 97. It is a mistaken pleasure to go with gun, 
 and to kill birds and animals, as some do; but 
 there is happy remembrance from trips when we 
 got into the wagon and all took a ride along the 
 roads where plants grow and flowers bloom, and 
 where at any season of the year something of 
 interest is to be seen. The roads are the parks 
 of all the people, where they drive among the 
 farms and commune with nature, and have the 
 fullest freedom. It is hard to put fellowship or 
 anything that is pleasant into a graveyard, but I 
 
THE ROAD 38 
 
 have planned that my body shall be laid by the 
 side of a country road, where the living will 
 always travel. 
 
 98. Roads are for everybody, and reach to 
 every human abode. Follow the road that leads 
 to his home and you will find where every man 
 lives. As a network they spread over the coun- 
 try, and they make boundary lines for farms and 
 city blocks. They sacredly set apart a considera- 
 ble portion of land for common use. 
 
 99. The Road is the one place on this earth 
 where the lowly and the great have equality. 
 Money cannot buy a highway. The millionaire 
 goes to his home every day* by a road, where no 
 amount of wealth can buy a class privilege. 
 Lazarus had all the rights of Dives, outside of 
 that rich man's gate. 1 
 
 100. The road, the air, and the sunshine, all 
 men share in common. One can travel, and can 
 breathe the breath of life, and can use the sun- 
 light, with no monopoly to tax him for the privi- 
 leges. Life, and light, the road, and the truth, 
 best represent the New Testament religion. It 
 cannot be set forth by terms which stand for 
 things of limited use or meaning, or which a 
 monopoly may control, or by the abstract or 
 metaphysical terms which do not concern actual 
 relations. 
 
 101. The name of an actual thing applied to 
 religion, a thing which everybody agrees with 
 everybody else to like and to use, gives it 
 entrance to our hearts, by interests, associations, 
 and meanings, such as a school or cultus or 
 
 16:20. 
 
34 THE ROAD 
 
 party-forged name never can have. One is not 
 quite so lonesome, when he considers that the 
 road by his own house extends by his father's 
 house, a hundred miles away. The memories of 
 an old home are associated with the road, by the 
 side of which the old house was built. The feel- 
 ings are reverential when an old man steps along 
 the roads or paths where he ran in childhood. 
 He hunts for the path along which he went to 
 the district school, the same as the poor Indian 
 tries to follow a trail which has been wiped out 
 by white men's settlements on his former lands. 
 
 102. What a good, home-like name "Road" is, 
 and what a pity the churches cared so little for 
 Paul, after he was gone, as to let it drop out of 
 use. And all that it means to be on our journey 
 home, with the good hope of safely reaching 
 heaven, this name signifies now to us. Paul 
 went up to heaven by this Road, and our dear, 
 sainted dead went up the same Way: 
 
 "The good old Way which the fathers trod, 
 Tie Way of truth which leadeth home to God." 
 
 103. It might well be supposed that God's own 
 name for the true religion is the one that will 
 best describe it, and the one that humanity will 
 best understand and receive. Take two exam- 
 ples to show the favor which people have for the 
 Road thought of life: "In His Steps" is the 
 widest circulated book of the present time, and it 
 carries out this idea, of following along in a path 
 or road after Jesus. "Pilgrim's Progress," next 
 to the Bible, is the book the widest known; and 
 it is constructed about the two ideas of a road 
 and a man traveling. John Bunyan's Pilgrim is 
 
THE ROAD 35 
 
 simply a New Testament picture of a Road- 
 Walker. 
 
 104. Road is a concrete name; it means a 
 thing; it stands for a thing as extensive as 
 humanity; it is a thing everybody believes in, 
 and which nobody gets along without; it has no 
 "ism" to it; it is so common that it takes no 
 argument to show that the religion it stands for 
 is for every day, and for every-day people, and 
 for all people; it is not school-forged or dressed 
 up; it is not divinity-dried and ready to fly 
 away; it cannot be put away in a garret, but it 
 is always down among people and right where 
 they live and walk. 
 
 "The parish priest, of austerity, 
 
 Climbed up in a high church steeple, 
 To be nearer God, so that he might hand 
 
 His word down to the people. 
 In his age God said, 'Come down and dief 
 
 And he cried out from the steeple, 
 'Where art Thou, LORD?' and the LORD replied, 
 
 'Down here among my people.' " 
 
 105. It is a new argument for the divine 
 origin of the religion of Jesus that it has such a 
 name, a name prepared through long centuries. 
 There is nothing ecclesiastical about it; but it is 
 real, and brotherly, and universal, and sensible. 
 It doubtless appeared to the professional clergy 
 and philosophers, like making a divine thing 
 very common, to call it "the Road." The school- 
 men and the warriors of the Church, and of the- 
 ology, saw nothing in Paul's name agreeable to 
 their systems, and they set it aside. The name 
 is not of their kind; and they had nothing to do 
 with its origin, or with the origin of the religion 
 which it describes. 
 
36 THE ROAD 
 
 106. The Apostle had a road experience, 
 which helped to impress upon his mind the name 
 for the religion in which he walked. He was 
 not in a synagogue, or in the cell of a monk, but 
 traveling on a public highway when he saw a 
 light from heaven. 1 He was on a road when he 
 came to know "the Road." This idea was the 
 one by which ever after he viewed his religious 
 life, as such texts as the following show: "So 
 that I may accomplish my course;" 2 "We also 
 might walk in newness of life;" 8 "Stretching for- 
 ward to the things which are before;"' "Have 
 finished my course." Soon after writing these 
 last words, at sixty-three years of age, this great 
 man ended his faithful pilgrimage in the Road. 
 
 107. It is an exceedingly beautiful religion 
 which is described by the use of this word in the 
 New Testament, in connection with other 
 descriptive terms. There are many such texts 
 in the Scriptures. The religion is called "The 
 Way of the Lord;" 6 "The Way of Righteous- 
 ness;" 7 "The Way of God;" 8 "The Way of 
 Peace;" 9 "The Way of Life;" 10 "The Right 
 Way/ 711 "The Way of Salvation;" 12 "The Way of 
 Truth;" 13 "Excellent Way." 14 Now, substitute 
 Road for Way, the thought of an actual, spiritual 
 road, and read the texts again to see what a 
 magnificent view, a picture of absorbing interest. 
 A church is indeed a living thing, which has the 
 relations in its fellowship of such a religion. 
 
 1 Acts 26:13. 2 Acts 20:24. 3 Romans 6:4. 
 
 4 Phil. 3:13. 5 2 Tim. 4:7. 6 Matt. 3:3. 
 
 7 Matt. 21:32. 8 Matt. 22:16. 9 Luke 1:79. 
 
 10 Acts 2:28. " Acts 13:10. 12 Acts 16:17. 
 
 13 2 Peter 2:2. u lCor. 12:31. 
 
THE ROAD 37 
 
 4. A WORLD OF BRETHREN. 
 
 108. Religious life in the scriptures is spoken 
 of as "steps," "path," "course," "race/ 7 "walk." 
 Texts which have these words, and others which 
 give the idea of pilgrimage, all point to religion as 
 a Road, Consider some examples: "Pilgrims on 
 the earth;" "To the elect who are sojourners;" 
 "He goeth before them, and the sheep follow 
 him;" 3 "Prepare ye the way of the people; cast 
 ye up the highway;" 4 "Ye are turned aside out of 
 the way;" 5 "We will walk in the name of the 
 LORD our God for ever and ever; 7 ' 6 "So run that 
 ye may attain;" 7 "Let us run with patience the 
 race;" 8 "Walk even as he walked;" 9 "Straitened 
 is the way." 10 
 
 109. A Christian who is a Christ, in the New 
 Testament meaning, is a Road-walker, who fol- 
 lows Jesus in doing the will of God. Walk, so 
 closely related to Road, is a great term with Paul: 
 "Ye ought to walk to please God, even as ye do 
 walk;" 11 "As therefore ye received Christ Jesus 
 the LORD, so walk in him; 7712 "Walk by the 
 Spirit; 7713 "Walk in Love * * * Walk as children 
 of the light." M 
 
 110. In all the time of Jesus' ministry, he 
 walked from place to place along with his dis- 
 ciples; and there is no higher conception of the 
 disciple life now, than to be walkers together 
 
 'Heb. 11:13. 
 
 
 
 2 1 Peter 1:1. 
 
 3 Jno. 10:4. 
 
 4 Isai. 62:10. 
 
 5 MaL 2:8. 
 
 6 Micah4:5. 
 
 7 1 Cor. 9:24. 
 
 *Heb. 12:1. * 
 
 9 1 Jno. 2:6. 
 
 10 Matt. 7:14. 
 
 11 1 Thess. 4:1. 
 
 12 Col. 2:6. 
 
 13 Gal. 5:16. 
 
 
 
 u Eph. 5:2,8. 
 
38 THE ROAD 
 
 with him in the Road. To be a walker puts us 
 in line with common things, and makes every- 
 body feel at home in being religious. Jesus left 
 his disciples with just such a common religion. 
 There was nothing in it to divide them, and it 
 took out of them the disposition to be divided. 
 A crowd of people going together along a road is 
 always good natured and joyful. 
 
 111. An abstract religion is against the hap- 
 piest traits of life, while to be anything else than 
 
 food humored and brotherly, by the religion of 
 esus, is out of place; the same as an uncivil man 
 in a crowd on a road is out of place. 
 
 112. Jesus' typical traveler is the Good 
 Samaritan, not the priest. 1 The greatest disciple 
 is none too good to do good, as the impressive 
 object-lesson of the feet washing was intended 
 to show. 2 
 
 113. With humility instead of pre-eminence; 
 all doing service and with no place for titles and 
 distinctive honors; 3 all brethren in a family 
 instead of members of a society, Jesus, by means 
 of his disciples, showed the world what religion 
 is as a life and a relation. 
 
 1 Luke 10:33. 
 
 2 John 13:4-17; Matt. 20:25-28. 
 
 114. 3 Matt. 23:8-11. See Albert Barnes' "Notes'* on this passage, in his 
 Commentary, who says that Doctor of Divinity, and such like titles, are a 
 violation of Jesus' teaching. The dreadful record of the chief priests in 
 the Gospels, and of the chief ecclesiastics in history, should serve as a 
 warning against self-seeking by religious leaders. They show the dangers 
 of a religion without humility. "Be not ye called Rabbi," and "all ye are 
 Brethren," was Jesus' thought, Matt. 23:8. How searching and unsparing 
 are Jesus' reproofs of ambitious and self-centered men, Matt. ch. 23. Popery 
 in the churches, and among the clergy, and in the secretaryships of church 
 Boards, is doing much harm. 
 
THE ROAD 39 
 
 5- LEADING POINTS MANIFESTED IN THIS CHAPTER. 
 
 115. What Jesus did, unnamed by himself 
 but elsewhere in the New Testament called the 
 Road, is the simplest, most human, and most 
 satisfactory declaration of universal religion and 
 of a Brotherhood for all mankind that the world 
 has ever had. 
 
 116. The matters of interest relating to roads, 
 and the many references to them in the Old Tes- 
 tament, make it easy to understand and to like a 
 religion which the name Road fits. 
 
 117. Road, with its clear and good meaning, 
 derived from the nature of the thing to which it 
 belongs, and which stands for an actual thing 
 and not for a system in the realm of ideas, in its 
 spiritual signification fits the religion of Jesus. 
 
 118. Jesus, by his life and teaching, made 
 manifest God's highway of righteousness out- 
 lined in the Old Testament ; and there he gath- 
 ered about him the doers of the will of God, who 
 would walk in his steps. 
 
Ill 
 
 MANIFESTATION OF GOD'S PERMANENT 
 RELIGION. 
 
 119. "Men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit." 1 
 
 120. "Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets; 
 I came not to destroy, but to fulfill." 2 
 
 121. "After the Road which they call a sect * * * believing all things 
 which are according to the Law, and which are written in the Prophets." 3 
 
 122. "By the manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every 
 man's conscience." 4 
 
 I. MANIFESTATION OF RELIGION AS THE ROAD. 
 
 123. There are two ways of preaching religion: 
 (a) to talk about it, and (b) to show things by its 
 light. A tailor tries his suit to the body of his 
 customer, and SHOWS how well it fits; and the 
 light of the Rontgen X-rays shows a bullet in the 
 arm of a wounded man. 5 The Professor might 
 lecture eloquently ABOUT the X-rays, but the thing 
 of chief concern is to find and remove the bullet. 
 The preaching of religion as a cultus, which is the 
 way much preaching is done, because it is exeget- 
 ical, argumentative, or explanatory of sectarian 
 doctrines, is like lecturing the wounded man 
 about the X-rays instead of giving him relief. 
 
 124. The examples of the Prophets, Jesus and 
 the Apostles, show that their method of preach- 
 
 1 2 Peter 1:21. 2 Matt. 5:17. 8 Acts 24:14. 
 
 4 2 Cor. 4:2, 5 1 Cor. 4:5. 
 
THE ROAD 41 
 
 ing was by manifestation; that is, they spoke in 
 order to show something, as the X-rays show 
 things. Compare the Scriptures, and you will find 
 that Paul's idea of preaching was, that things 
 should thus be made manifest. 1 Jesus- used object- 
 lessons, called parables, to show things. 
 
 125. The use of NAMES for things is a way of 
 manifesting them. The name Christianity was 
 invented to stand for a cult, and always has given 
 to religion that signification. The Bible name for 
 religion is that of a real road, which shows that 
 it is not a cultus or an abstract thing. Except 
 by the care of Providence, it is unaccountable 
 how the name Road was kept from ever being 
 used for a cultus. 2 
 
 1 2 Cor. 2:14; 4:2; Col.4:4; Titus 1:3. 
 
 126. 2 The scholarly "Biblico-Theological Lexicon," by Prof. Hermann 
 Cremer, of the University of Grief swald, establishes two points: (a) That 
 the name Road is used in the Bible many times "to denote the ways which 
 God would have men take;" and (b) IT NEVER is USED TO DENOTE A RELIG- 
 IOUS CULTUS. Both these points should receive close attention. 
 
 In Smith's Unabridged Bible Dictionary, Mr. Grove says, in the article 
 on "Way," that there are two texts which refer to religion as a cultus. 
 One of these, Psalm 139:24, Prof. Cremer very properly passes over in 
 silence; and of the other, Amos 8:14, he says: "This passage in Amos is 
 too isolated, and does not in the least show that derec^ (the Hebrew word 
 for 'road') by itself signifies a definite religious tendency or way." Never 
 in the New Testament Greek, and only once in profane Greek, does he find 
 an example of the use of the word road "for philosophic systems or schools." 
 This remarkable evidence shows that "the Road" of Jesus is NOT A CULTUS; 
 that this name never was used for a cultus; and that A NAME WHICH MEANS 
 
 A CULTUS CANNOT PROPERLY BE USED FOR THE GOSPEL. 
 
 A religion is a cultus, which can be counted as one among other relig- 
 ions of the world; but God's religion contains ALL RELIGIOUS TRUTH found 
 in ALL THE CULTS, exists wherever there is truth, cannot be compared as 
 one of the same class with other religions, and has, the same as sunlight, 
 the meaning of universality. The sun is not one light among many, but it 
 stands by itself as the ONLY LIGHT. See Paragraphs 47, 129. 
 
42 THE ROAD 
 
 127. By the term Road, a name for a real thing, 
 the true character of Jesus' religion is manifested. 
 
 'The disciples were men of the Road. Saul 
 desired to bring any of the Road found at Damas- 
 cus, to be judged at Jerusalem. * * * This was 
 the name by which, in its earliest and purest day, 
 the church called itself. * * * It was the Way, 
 the only Way, the Way of Life." J 
 
 128. Words in the Hebrew which at first 
 meant external or natural objects or relations, 
 were afterwards used to express spiritual and 
 abstract ideas. In some cases it took a long time 
 and many human experiences to work a name up 
 from its common to its spiritual signification. 
 The Prophets and poets did most to adapt 
 language to the uses of religion. 2 
 
 1 Prof. Stokes, University of Dublin, in "Expositor's Bible," Acts ch. 2. 
 
 129. 2 Mr. Walker, "Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation/' p. 90, 
 describes at length the changes in the meaning of the word "holiness" by 
 means of the washings and the purifications of the Tabernacle, until it 
 was made to convey the conception of God's purity or holiness. He also 
 gives other examples, to show that important terms of religion had the 
 care of Providence in their preparation. See Paragraph 274. 
 
 The word Road is used with its spiritual signification about three hun- 
 dred times in the Old Testament, and is one of the most remarkable exam- 
 ples of a word providentially cared for and fitted for its use. Of the use 
 of words in the New Testament, Prof. Robinson says: "The New Testa- 
 ment was written by Hebrews, aiming to express Hebrew thoughts, concep- 
 tions, feelings, in the Greek tongue. * * * The language of the New Testa- 
 ment is the later Greek language, as spoken by foreigners of the Hebrew 
 stock, and applied by them to subjects on which it had never been employed 
 by the native Greek writers." (Preface to "Greek and English Lexicon of 
 the New Testament.") The Hebrew meaning of terms must always be con- 
 sidered by the New Testament student. 
 
 Here now is a term with a history, by the way it has been guarded by 
 Providence (see paragraph 126) and by its use about seven hundred times 
 in the Old Testament. There is no literal heathen Greek meaning diifer- 
 ent from other meanings, about which to contend. It is God's own name, 
 prepared to fit the religion proclaimed by Jesus. It is not said boastfully, 
 
THE ROAD 43 
 
 130. Jesus' religion is remarkable for its 
 simplicity. Prof. Harnack says of it: "As a Gos- 
 pel it has only one aim the finding of the living 
 God, the finding of Him by every individual as his 
 God, and the source of strength, and joy and 
 peace * * * his message is simpler than the 
 churches would like to think it; simpler but for 
 that very reason sterner, and endowed with a 
 greater claim to universality/' 1 The name Road 
 is also remarkable for its simplicity, and in 
 this particular it exactly expresses the religion. 
 It is not a high-sounding, stilted, theological, 
 scholastic, ecclesiastical, sacramental name. It 
 is of the people, by the people and for the people. 
 So far as we know, the term road was the only 
 one two thousand years ago, which was fitted to 
 be the name for Jesus' religion; and it remains 
 true still that it is the only exact, clean-cut name. 
 
 2. MANIFESTATION OF RELIGION IN THE LAW OF MOSES. 
 
 131. The Apostle John understood Moses' Law, 
 as a religious cultus, 2 which was for one little 
 nation, separated from others by the lay of their 
 country and by race. 3 Its foundation principles 
 were love to God and love to man and righteous - 
 
 but with sorrow, that this book, so far as its author knows, is the first to 
 give this term its place, and to interpret the religion of which it is the 
 name by the light of its meaning. It exists as a term in all languages, and 
 everywhere is readily understood, because roads as things exist wherever 
 there are men; and it cannot be shut off from standing for all there is of 
 religion in all cults, or for all the Light and Life given by the universal 
 Father to mankind. 
 
 1 "What is Christianity?" pp. 135, 154, 205. 
 
 2 See Paragraph 162 for different meanings of the term "law." 
 
 3 It is a clean-cut cuitus and non-cultus distinction which is made in 
 John 1:17. See Paragraphs 47, 126. 
 
44 THE ROAD 
 
 ness; 1 and its ceremonialism, arranged for an 
 undeveloped people, served as object-lessons. 
 Along with other uses of sacrifices, were wisely- 
 planned provisions for character building and 
 for the most healthful use of flesh food. The ani- 
 mals were returned by the priests to the people 
 who brought them, nicely dressed by religious 
 rules, to be eaten with a sense of the interest 
 which their heavenly Father took in their daily 
 food. The Jews were light eaters of meat. 
 
 182. Oriental people, generally, associated 
 religion with eating. By an oversight of this 
 thought, we cannot understand the daily sacrifi- 
 ces, the Lord's Supper, or the prayer u Give us 
 this day our daily bread." 
 
 133. What the Hebrews lost when the forty- 
 years daily supply of manna was stopped, they 
 could not afford to lose; and the same spiritual 
 culture of DEPENDENCE UPON GOD was provided for, 
 
 BY THE OBJECT-LESSON TRAINING OF THE DAILY SAC- 
 RIFICES. 2 The institution was a prayer of a wor- 
 shiping man, in daily "conscious dependence 
 upon God for the forgiveness of sins and the sup- 
 ply of all his wants. 
 
 135. These prayers of sacrifices were changed 
 by the Prophets and the Gospel to oral supplica- 
 
 1 Matt. 7:12; 22:40. 
 
 134. 2 The thought of the sacrifices, in their higher meaning, is given 
 in the following Scripture texts: "The LORD delights not in the blood of 
 bulls or lambs or goats," Isaiah 1:11; "The sacrifices of God are a broken 
 spirit and a contrite heart," Psalms 51:17; "To do justice and judgment is 
 more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice," Prov. 21:3; "To do good and 
 to communicate, forget not; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased," 
 Heb. 13:16; "Every creature of God is good, if it be received with thanks- 
 giving," 1 Tim. 4:4; "Giving thanks always for all things," Eph. 5:20. 
 Paragraph 253. 
 
THE ROAD 45 
 
 tions, without a priest, and to spiritual services 
 with daily and hourly thanksgiving and trust. 
 Counting the peace offerings and meat offerings 
 as one, the sacrifices involved the three essential 
 exercises or ingredients of prayer: (a) the sin- 
 offerings involved the spiritual exercises of 
 REPENTANCE; (b) the burnt-offerings involved the 
 spiritual exercises of surrender or SELF-YIELDING 
 to God; (c) the peace offerings involved the spir- 
 itual exercises of grateful fellowship and THANKS- 
 GIVING. The system of sacrifices was thus com- 
 plete from its spiritual side, and as prayer met 
 the need of man. 1 
 
 137. Speculations as to the expiatory meaning 
 of the sacrifices, have been of doubtful benefit; 
 but it is a fact of great meaning that when Jesus, 
 the Bread of Life and the Lamb of God, was sent 
 to the world, the disappearance forever of all 
 blood-sacrifice took place within a very brief 
 period. 
 
 136. Sacrifices were not regularly practiced in the life- time of Moses, or 
 while there was a daily supply of manna, Jer. 7:22, 23. The origin of 
 sacrifice is a disputed question; and the expiatory idea connected with sac- 
 rifice, as we now understand it, and which is dependent upon the typical 
 meaning of the sacrifices, was practically unknown to the Hebrews. The 
 idea of expiation appears but gradually in the Scriptures. We would know 
 little about it if it were not for the Epistles, and especially for the book of 
 Hebrews. To treat the sacrificial system of the Mosaic Law truthfully, it 
 must be considered on a lower plane than that of the ideas of the New 
 Testament. It is enough for us to know now that whatever there was of 
 religious need for sacrifices, is provided for and settled by Jesus, and that 
 his sacrifice of himself forever put an end to ail other sacrifices. Compare 
 Heb. 9:14, 28; Exod. 16:35; Josh. 5:12; 8:31; Jno. 6:33; Smith's 
 Bible Dictionary, vol. iv, p. 2771; Neander's "Planting of Christianity," vol. 
 I, p. 128. 
 
 The excessive use of such words as "atonement," "expiation," "saved 
 by blood," etc., is not justified by the example of the New Testament. The 
 important truth they are meant to convey, where they are not used to 
 
46 THE ROAD 
 
 138. The number of " peace-offering " ani- 
 mals used in the sacrifices at the dedication of 
 the temple, was Solomon's provision of food for 
 the great number of people present at that long 
 festival. 1 Peace-offerings, and many of the sacri- 
 fices were peace-offerings and meat offerings, 
 meant to the extremely social Hebrew people a 
 delightful, festive occasion with plenty to eat; 
 and to attendance at their many feasts and festi- 
 vals, they gave what to us seems an excessive 
 amount of time. By connecting the food which 
 they ate with the services of religion, and by 
 distinguishing animals as clean and unclean, 
 together with the other provisions of care and 
 cleanliness in daily life, the Law of Moses, from 
 the points of view now in mind, is a wise, relig- 
 ious, hygienic, sanitary and social provision. 
 
 139. The sociological features of the Law of 
 Moses, show it to have been the best system of 
 fair dealing, and the best anti-monopoly system 
 ever devised. Legislation was in the interest of 
 the poor and weak, to protect them against the 
 rich and strong. The Sabbath law lay at the basis 
 
 cover ignorance, should be delivered in carefully selected language and by 
 the right use of these terms. If necessary, it should be explained that 
 "blood" stands for life (Gen. 9:4; Lev. 17:11;14; Deut. 12:23); that the 
 word atonement is not in the New Testament, but "reconciliation" (Rom. 
 5:11, R. V. 2 Cor. 5:18;19); that expiation carries in it the fact that the suffer- 
 ings of the pure and just in behalf of others are the saving element in the world's 
 history (1 Jno. 3:16). Paul, for example, in the important letters to the 
 Thessalonians, alludes, but once, in simple language, to Christ's death as the 
 procuring means of salvation, 1 Thess. 5:10; and the New Testament, gen- 
 erally, keeps in the background that part of redemption which belongs 
 exclusively to God and his own plan, and which some men presume to know 
 so much about. 
 
 1 1 Kings 8:63-66. 
 
THE ROAD 47 
 
 of the wise and beneficent provisions of a seventh 
 month, 1 a seventh year, and the year of jubilee. 2 
 
 140. The Sabbath was an INSTITUTION, and 
 never should be looked upon merely as a day of 
 the week. No religious man, or laboring man, 
 or patriot, can afford to be a Sabbath-breaker, or 
 to disregard the observance of this humanitarian 
 and civilizing institution. Every man ought to 
 stand, always and everywhere, for Sabbath 
 observance. Not as a day of the week but as an 
 institution, it is a patriotic duty to keep it. 3 
 
 141. The seventh month was not character- 
 ized by an entire cessation from labor; but it was 
 a time of religious feasts, and a holiday season for 
 the people. The seventh year was a year of rest. 
 By it, the greed of avaricious men was checked; 
 and rights were given to dependent people that 
 otherwise they would not have had. It is explic- 
 itly stated that a reason for its appointment was, 
 "that the poor of the people may eat." The 
 vineyards and olive yards continued to bear fruit 
 and there was always quite a harvest in the grain 
 fields, the seed of which was scattered while gath- 
 ering the crops of the previous year. 
 
 142. The ownership of all this was vested in 
 the manservant, the maidservant, the stranger; 
 and what they left, the beasts of the field were to 
 be permitted to eat. By these laws, the rich 
 Hebrew was debarred from the thought of the 
 absolute ownership of the land. No poor debtor 
 was required to make any payment this seventh 
 
 1 Ex. 20:9, 10. 
 
 2 Compare Lev. 16:29-31; Ed. 23:9-13; Lev. 25:2-37; Deut. 15:7-11. 
 
 3 Matt. 12:7. 
 
48 THE ROAD 
 
 year;"and if he was not able to pay the debt at the 
 close of the sixth year, it is a question whether it 
 was not forever cancelled. Hebrew bond-ser- 
 vants, who could sell or hire themselves for a 
 term of six years, were released when a seventh 
 year from the beginning of their service came 
 around. 
 
 143. The fiftieth or jubilee year, was a part 
 of this same Sabbatical system. Then every 
 unfortunate person had a chance to become a land 
 owner, under the apportionment originally made 
 by Joshua. Sales of land could only be made for 
 the time period reaching up to jubilee year, when 
 titles all returned to the original families. All 
 servants had their freedom, debts were cancelled 
 and all had homes of their own, and, in their 
 days of obedience to God, in all the world THERE 
 WAS NOT A HAPPIER PEOPLE. The spontaneous pro- 
 ductions of the earth, for both the forty-ninth 
 and this fiftieth year went to the poor, and they 
 were thus helped to start in business for them- 
 selves. 
 
 144. There was no chance to form monopolies, 
 no land-grabbing, and no centralization of wealth, 
 no hard oppression. l Men, like Samuel, who 
 embodied the spirit and principles of the Law in 
 their lives, came to have a high standard of char- 
 acter. 
 
 145. l There are severities and regulations in the Law which had an appli- 
 cation to the undeveloped people and the times; and which belong to the 
 same class with the imprecatory Psalms, and David's death-bed speech. 
 Jesus put away this spirit, when he said: "I say unto you, resist not him 
 that is evil," Matt. 5:39. But he did not put away those principles which 
 rid the country of Israel of swearing, stealing, drunkenness, gambling hells, 
 and other evil things which exist in Christendom. 
 
THE ROAD 49 
 
 3. MANIFESTATION OF RELIGION IN THE PROPHETS. 
 
 146. The Prophets spoke in the name of the 
 LORD, and made clear the ethics and spirituality 
 of religion. They preached repentance of sin, 
 exalted and glorified holiness, and set aside forms, 
 sacraments, and ecclesiasticisni. In their spirit- 
 ual ground-work, the Law the Prophets and the 
 Gospel are the same eternal and universal 
 religion. 
 
 147. The Prophet Micah is an example of one 
 of these Prophet reformers, who defined the 
 religion and Kingdom of the Messiah: " Out of 
 Zion shall go forth the Law and the word of the 
 LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between 
 many peoples, and shall remove strong nations 
 afar off; and they shall beat their swords into 
 plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; 
 nation shall not lift up sword against nation, 
 neither shall they learn war any more." l The 
 facts of Christian history in this respect sadly 
 witness to its apostacy from Jesus. The wicked- 
 ness of a nation goes upon record in history by 
 its wars. 
 
 148. The blessed sociological conditions, free- 
 dom from war and strife, and liberality and love 
 in religion, are thus described by Micah: " They 
 shall sit every man under his vine and under his 
 fig tree; and none shall make them afraid. All 
 the people will walk every one in the name of his 
 god, and we will walk in the name of the LORD 
 oar God forever and ever." 
 
 . 149. He clearly saw that it> was no new 
 religion that he was teaching, but the ever-exist- 
 
 1 Isai. 2:4; 11:6-10 is the same strong teaching of peace. 
 
50 THE ROAD 
 
 ent, universal, and only Road of God: " Whose 
 goings forth have been from of old, from everlast- 
 ing." It is impossible to express, the practice of 
 God's permanent religion in more forcible words 
 than the following: " Wherewith shall I come 
 before the LORD, and bow myself before the high 
 God? Shall I come before him with burnt offer- 
 ings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be 
 pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten 
 thousand rivers of oil? * * * He hath showed 
 thee, man, what is good, and what doth the 
 LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love 
 mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? 771 
 
 150. The teachings of the other Prophets are 
 along the same line, as the following examples 
 show: " I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will 
 take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Yea, 
 though you offer me your burnt offerings, I will 
 not accept of them; neither will I regard the 
 peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou 
 away from me the noise of thy songs, for I will 
 not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judg- 
 ment roll down as waters, and righteousness as 
 a mighty stream." 1 I desired mercy and not sac- 
 rifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt 
 offerings." " These are the things that ye shall 
 do; speak ye every man the truth with his neigh- 
 bor; execute the judgment of truth and peace in 
 your gates; and let none of you imagine evil in 
 your hearts against his neighbor; and love no 
 false oath; for all these are things that I hate, 
 
 4:2-5; 5:2; 6:6-8. 
 2 Amos 5:21-24. 
 3 HoseaG:6. 
 
THE ROAD 51 
 
 saith the LORD/' l " They shall take away all the 
 detestable things and all the abominations, and I 
 will give them one heart, and I will put a new 
 spirit within you; and I will take away the stony 
 heart out of your flesh, and will give them an 
 heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes 
 and keep mine ordinances and do them." " I 
 will give them one heart and one way. * * * For 
 I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded 
 them in the day that I brought them out of the 
 land of Egypt, concerning the burnt offerings or 
 sacrifices; but this I commanded them saying: 
 Hearken unto my voice, and I will be your God, 
 and ye shall be my people, and walk ye in all the 
 Way that I commanded you, that it may be well 
 with you." 3 
 
 151. No one of the sixteen Old Testament 
 Prophets is quoted so often in the New Testa- 
 ment as Isaiah. As the others speak, so does he 
 speak against war, injustice, disobedience to God, 
 and all of the apostacies of religion. He is too 
 lengthy to quote, and the reader should turn to 
 his book and read. 4 
 
 152. Because of those parts of their books which 
 refer to local matters, and which do not interest 
 us now, many have not even read attentively the 
 writings of these great men. Among other things 
 they unite in teaching as follows: 
 
 (a) That God reigns, and has not taken his 
 hand off the earth; and his care for the righteous 
 
 1 Zech. 8;16, 17. 
 2 Ezek. 11:19,20. 
 
 3 Jer. 7:22, 23; 12:17; 31:33; 32:17-19, 39. 
 
 4 Isaiah 1:11-17; 2:4, 5; 11:1-10; 35:8-10; 53:1-12; 58:1-14; 61:1-11; 
 6S:16-2i. 
 
52 THE ROAD 
 
 and his punishment of the wicked, shall be made 
 to appear. 
 
 (b) That wrong doers must repent, and seek 
 forgiveness from a merciful God; and follow the 
 truth, and do the things of righteousness. 
 
 (c) That there is hope for the future; for the 
 kingdom of God, in Messiah's beneficent reign, 
 will come with salvation and blessings to all 
 mankind. 
 
 (d) That in all the circumstances of men, God 
 adapts the requirements of worship to lit their 
 needs; and these needs all center in a spiritual 
 religion, without sacrifices or any of the formal- 
 ities of sacramentalism. 
 
 153. It is thus manifested by the Law and the 
 Prophets that the mighty word of the Old Testa- 
 ment is righteousness, and the crowning truth is 
 the holiness of God. It names and condemns the 
 sins of men without partiality; and it makes one 
 hate what God hates. The earnest reader will be 
 led to join with Paul in saying: "Believing all 
 things which are written in the Law and in the 
 Prophets." It is a fact of biography, that sin- 
 cere and earnest and strong men like the Old Tes- 
 tament. 1 
 
 4. LEADING POINTS MADE MANIFEST IN THIS CHAPTER. 
 
 154. In manifesting himself and his religion 
 to mankind, God used language, forms of worship, 
 and institutions; as later, he sent his Son, made 
 flesh, with likeness to the Father so that we 
 might in him see the Father. 
 
 1 Acts 24:14. See the tract of the American Tract Society, "Tender- 
 ness of the Old Testament Gospel," compiled by one who was led to its 
 preparation by his surprise at finding such a rich mine of helpful truth. 
 
THE ROAD 53 
 
 155. The universal instinct of mankind for 
 roads, was directed into a spiritual conception of 
 the one, ever-existent, and universal religion. 
 
 156. The Law of Moses had the limitations of 
 a cultus, and was not a world but a national 
 religion; but its forms and institutions had such 
 high uses and Divine meanings, that they were 
 not dependent upon the cultus spirit for force but 
 hung upon love to God and to man. 
 
 157. The Prophets spoke as guided by the 
 Spirit of God. They exalted the permanent and 
 put out of sight the cultus tendencies of Moses 7 
 religion. Jesus accepted their teachings of 
 religion without any modifications. 
 
 158. What God did by the Old Testament and 
 its religion, and by his Prophets, to prepare man- 
 kind to know and receive Jesus, and to under- 
 stand the Road, is remarkable as to its fullness 
 and explicitness. 
 
IV 
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE PRESENT 
 AND FUTURE. 
 
 159. "Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where 
 is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls." l 
 
 160. "Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no 
 wise pass away from the Law, till all things be accomplished." 2 
 
 161. "Love the LORD thy God * * * love thy neighbor as thyself * * * 
 On these two commandments hangeth the whole Law, and the Prophets." 3 
 
 I. QUESTIONS IN THE STUDY OF RELIGION. 
 
 163, What is the permanent religion of the 
 world; and can a man find it when he seeks it, 
 and know it when he sees it? When God's per- 
 manent religion prevails, how much of present 
 Christianity will it contain? Can the ever- 
 existent religion be separated, as Jesus in his 
 life time separated it from all existing adultera- 
 tions? 
 
 Many people are asking these questions, who 
 are kept by the serious meaning of existence from 
 thoughtlessly giving themselves to build up sects, 
 opinions, ordinances, and the other institutions 
 
 1 Jer. 6:16. 
 
 2 Matt. 5:18. 
 
 162. 3 Matt. 22:37-40. "Law" is used in the New Testament (a) for 
 the Law of Moses; or (b) for the letter and ordinances of the Mosaic Law; 
 or (c) for a power which acts on the will of man by external motives; or 
 (d) for the ORIGINAL, ETERNAL, AND SPIRITUAL RELIGION OF GOD, embodied 
 in the living truth believed on and taught by the Patriarchs, Moses, the 
 Prophets and Jesus. "Prophets" is used for the books of the sixteen 
 Prophets of the Old Testament, or for their teaching. 
 
THE ROAD 55 
 
 of ecclesiasticism. Religion as it is, does not 
 make strong enough appeal to win many people 
 and they do not look deeper than what they see. 
 Business sense instructs a man that God is not 
 wasteful; and that it is an abomination in his 
 sight to operate many churches where one would 
 better serve his Kingdom and the Brotherhood. 1 
 165. The way to get back to Jesus, is for every 
 church m'ember to be faithful in church attend- 
 ance and the worship of God; but he must clean 
 his heart of sectarianism arid consider himself 
 one of the Community of Brethren. Then in time 
 the people will see the folly of keeping up the 
 useless number of congregations in the commun- 
 ity, and will join in having one great meeting- 
 house for the simple purposes of Brotherhood 
 and Worship. 2 
 
 164. 1 It is impossible to get back to Jesus unless the members of all 
 the churches come to regard each other as one Brotherhood. "Brethren," 
 adelphoi, was the common name by which the first disciples called them- 
 selves. Its use was begun by Jesus, and it is used by all of the Apostles. 
 "All ye are Brethren," said Jesus, Matt. 23:8. Eight times he used the 
 terms, "brother" or "brethren" in the Sermon on the Mount, and they passed 
 into common use after that. These terms are used for disciples in the Acts 
 and the Epistles about two hundred and forty times. All disciples are sim- 
 ply a Brotherhood. 
 
 166. 2 What enthusiasm would result from such great Tabernacle 
 meetings. Naturally the workers would divide into companies, like the 
 priests in the services of the Temple at Jerusalem, and each day in the week 
 a company would take its turn to conduct a service. Sunday worship would 
 be a great RALLY of all the people. This would be the application of the 
 same business sense to religion that now exists in the work of education, 
 where a school board and a superintendent manage with satisfaction, econ- 
 omy and efficiency. There is no plan through which the devil can get in 
 more work than the one which exists now. It will be easy to make the glo- 
 rious change, if the people will put sectarianism out of their hearts, break 
 away from sectarian preachers and managers, and rally about Jesus. 
 Jesus never started them, and Paul, Peter and John never planted and died 
 
56 THB EOAD 
 
 167. On account of the evils in existing Chris- 
 tianity it is impossible for it, except it* be 
 reformed, to be the religion of the future King- 
 dom of God on earth. The Prophets give no 
 representation of the universal Kingdom of Mes- 
 siah, such as Christianity has been and is. It car- 
 ries a great civilization, but it is no greater, when 
 we consider the opportunities by the natural pro- 
 gress of knowledge, the growth of measures of 
 humane progress throughout the world, the 
 increase of inventions, and the opening up of 
 new lands, than the civilization of the better days 
 of Greece and Rome. We entered upon a goodly 
 inheritance from Moses, and from the Prophets, 
 and from Jesus, in legal and humanitarian prin- 
 ciples; l but our chief inheritance was the policies 
 of heathen Eome. 2 These things we have used. 
 
 for these churches of Christendom. They represent old, dead, or foolish 
 controversies. The system is bad for men and abominable to God. 
 
 " The organization which might be supposed to most expressly represent 
 its truths, has been most opposed to Jesus' religion in life and action. In 
 the course of history, the skeptics, in the matters of mercy and justice, 
 have often been nearer Christ than professed believers. Brace's "Gesta 
 Christi." p. 2; Lecky's "History of European Morals," Vol. II, ch. IV; Matt. 
 12:25. 
 
 168. l There was a spirit of caste in Rome, and cruelty toward men of 
 humble origin, which has been radically changed by the spirit of the Bible 
 working in our free institutions, and by the advance of humane spirit in 
 the world. Not everything is bad in any human institution. Many bene- 
 fits have come to civil government from the Church. See Matthews' "Bible 
 and Civil Government; " Lecky's Works; et alii. 
 
 169. 2 In the "Introduction" to his "History of Dogma," Prof. Harnack 
 says of the composition of Christianity: "Separated from Judaism, nay, 
 even before that separation, the Christian religion came in contact with the 
 Roman world and with a culture which had already mastered the world, viz., 
 the Greek. The Christian Church and its doctrine were developed within 
 the Roman world and Greek culture. * * The attempts at deducing the gene- 
 sis of the Church's doctrinal system from the theology of Paul, or from com- 
 promises between Apostolic doctrinal ideas, will always miscarry. 
 
THE ROAD 57 
 
 170. The Fathers of the post-apostolic Church 
 were educated not in Jewish or Christian schools, 
 but by the better qualified Pagan teachers. At 
 this formative period of the Church, it was an 
 open question whether the truth in Christianity 
 had not been previously taught by the ancient 
 philosophers. The Greek spirit of speculation 
 and of argument held sway; and from that time 
 onw r ard to the present, church history is a record 
 of theological disputes. l 
 
 172. Christianity not only has ingredients of 
 Grseco-Roman religion, but also of its civiliza- 
 tion. 2 Commercialism, land-grabbing, militarism, 
 
 The great mass of the earliest Gentile Christians became Christians because 
 they perceived in the Gospel the sure tidings of the benefits and obligations 
 which they had already sought in the fusion of the Jewish and the Greek 
 elements. * * * The Jewish, that is, the Old Testament element, divested 
 of its national peculiarity, has remained the basis of Christendom. It has 
 saturated this element with the Greek spirit. * * * Besides the Greek, 
 there is no mistaking the special influence of Romish ideas and customs 
 upon the Christian Church. * * * BY THE POWER OF HER CONSTITUTION 
 and the EARNESTNESS AND CONSISTENCY OF HER POLICY, ROME, A SECOND 
 TIME, STEP BY STEP, CONQUERED THE WORLD, BUT THIS TIME THE CHRISTIAN 
 WORLD. * * * CONSEQUENTLY IN THE COMPLETED CHURCH WE FIND 
 
 AGAIN THE PHILOSOPHIC SCHOOLS and the ROMAN EMPIRE." 
 
 171. l It must not be inferred that there was no good in the religion 
 of these Pagans, or in philosophy, or in the paganized Christianity. The 
 last was the best of them all, but all of them had some truth and light. 
 The philosophers labored under the great difficulty, that they had little 
 influence in matters of morals. The Church made of the writings of the 
 Apostles A BOOK; and, with the Old and New Testaments in hand, the clergy 
 at times did some noble work in the improvement of Roman morals. 
 Mosheim's "Ecclesiastical History," Vol. 1, p. 19, 36, 307, 308; Gieseler's 
 "Church History," Vol. 1, p. 276, 277, 453, et alii. 
 
 173. 2 There are three distinct things which Rome fixed as measures 
 and forces in the Church and in Christian civilization: (a) A system and 
 LITERATURE OF LAW, (b) the practice of control by LEGISLATION, (c) the 
 saoredness attached to INSTITUTIONS. The great Rugby teacher says: 
 "The most striking point in the character of the Romans, and that which 
 has so permanently influenced the condition of mankind, was their love of 
 
58 THE ROAD 
 
 jursiprudence, and in large part secular educa- 
 tion, are copied from ancient Rome. 1 These 
 heathen did not have any liquor traffic or saloon 
 system; and a few other things they did not 
 have, which help along Christian "civilization.'' 
 
 175. Land ownership, the only effectual way 
 ever devised to promote among the common peo- 
 ple of labor, self-respect, independence, habits of 
 industry, habits of sobriety, and domestic riches 
 and happiness, and which was so well provided 
 for by Moses Laws for Israel, is ignored in Chris- 
 tendom, the same as if we had no Bible and knew 
 only the way of Pagan Rome. 2 
 
 INSTITUTIONS and of order," Arnold's "History of Rome," p. 36. The great 
 author, Sir Henry Maine, says: "LAW was the only literature of the 
 Romans which has any claim to originality; and it is the only part which has 
 profoundly influenced modern thought. * * * The Roman Empire must 
 be placed in a totally different class from the Oriental despotisms, ancient 
 and modern, and even from the famous Greek Empire. All these last were tax- 
 taking empires, which exercised little or no interference in the customs of 
 village-communities or tribes. But the Roman Empire, while it was a tax- 
 taking, was also a LEGISLATING empire. It crushed out local customs, and 
 substituted for them institutions of its own. Through its LEGISLATION 
 alone it effected a great interruption in the history of a large part of man- 
 kind." "Early History of Institutions," p. 308, 330. These three features 
 are all present in the civilization of Christendom and are now working as 
 mightily as they did in the old Roman Empire. This accounts for much 
 in the modern church and in modern civilization. 
 
 174. Practices like that of land-grabbing was the established policy 
 of Rome. Commercialism and militarism go along with it. Christendom 
 has followed Rome and wickedly trampled under foot the Golden Rule, Luke 
 6:31, and done wicked violence to the beneficence of the universal Father, 
 who appointed unto men the bounds of their habitations, Acts 17:26. No 
 heathen nations begin the twentieth century with the dark records in this 
 respect of Christian countries. From 1884 to 1896, France increased her 
 colonial expansion four times, Great Britain one and a third times, Germany 
 six times, Italy five and a half times; and since 1896, other Christian pow- 
 ers, including the United States, have fallen into line to make havoc of 
 weaker nations. Not in its best days but in its worst days, Pagan Rome 
 did the same thing. "The Cyclopedic Review," 1896, p. 971. 
 
 176. 2 The practice is followed by the same wretchedness of many of 
 
THE ROAD 59 
 
 177. All these and other operating measures, 
 make Christianity, with its cult signification pre- 
 served all the way along its history, a different 
 thing from Jesus' religion. 1 The only way to use 
 the term at all, is to make it stand for a change 
 in practice to the ways of Jesus, and make Chris- 
 tian mean "a Christ," as the apostolic Fathers 
 did. 
 
 2. BIBLE RELIGION IS REAL AND PERMANENT. 
 
 179. Bible religion is not a theology, a system, 
 an institution, or ceremonies; but a living spirit 
 manifested through teachings, laws, histories, but 
 especially in biographies. It is no exaggeration to 
 say that the Bible is a book of biographies of 
 
 the common classes, and by the same greed and oppression on the part of 
 the rich, which existed at Rome. Great Britain is a kingdom of landlords 
 and tenants, and the injustice and debauchery resulting therefrom are mani- 
 fest in Ireland, Scotland and England. Large estates mean homeless and 
 disheartened poor people, and a lecherous aristocracy. With the exception 
 of the tribe of Levi, which attended to the business of the priesthood, every 
 Israelite who was the head of a family was a land proprietor, Matthews' 
 "Bible and Civil Government," pp. 167, 168, 251, 253; Smith's "History of 
 the World," Vol. II, p. 187; III, p. 22; Dr. Arnold's "History of Rome," p. 52, 
 351; Dick's "Essay on Covetousness," p. 311. 
 
 178. l Prof. Harnack, in the "Introduction" to his "History of Dogma," 
 thus speaks of the Graeco-Roman Christianity: "The history of the Chris- 
 tian religion embraces a very complicated relation of ecclesiastical dogma 
 and theology. * * * Augustine, as well as Luther, disclosed a new 
 conception of Christianity, but at the same time appropriated the old dog- 
 mas. * * * Neither Augustine nor Luther ever dreamed of building 
 independently. * * * Protestantism has taken its stand in principle on 
 the Gospel exclusively, and declared its readiness to determine all doctrines 
 afresh by a true understanding of the Gospel. * * * At the same time 
 however, the paradoxical fact is unmistakable that dogma as such is 
 nowhere at this moment so powerful as in the Protestant churches. * * * 
 THE LARGE PART OF THE TRADITIONAL DOGMAS ARE RECOGNIZED AS THE 
 APPROPRIATE EXPRESSION OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, NAY, AS THE CHRIS- 
 TIAN RELIGION ITSELF. * * * THE LIVING FAITH IS TRANSFORMED INTO 
 THE CREED TO BE BELIEVED, THE SURRENDER TO CHRIST INTO A PHILOSOPHIC 
 CHRISTOLOGY." 
 
60 THE ROAD 
 
 earnest people, since so much of its most valu- 
 able truth is made known through the experi- 
 ences of struggling men. 1 
 
 181. One who is sincerely honest with the 
 Bible, and who is in earnest to get its help, and 
 one who feels the meaning and responsibility of 
 his own existence, will waste no unnecessary time 
 on the baubles of criticism and controversial the- 
 ology raised up about the Bible; but, with well- 
 poised mind, will use the Scriptures as Jesus did, 
 to resist the iviles of the devil; and will keep clear 
 of the conceits and doubts of insidious beliefs, 
 which weaken his hold on the Bible, and the hold 
 of its righteousness upon his own heart and life. 2 
 
 183. Most people do not get their conceptions 
 of religion, and their beliefs from the Bible at 
 all; but they have heard of it, and know enough 
 to know that selfishness, pride, inequality, divis- 
 ion, greed, oppression, lust, cruelty, gambling, 
 intemperance and war, cannot be laid at the door 
 of Jesus' religion. 
 
 180. * What Jesus said of his own teaching is true of the Bible gener- 
 ally: "The words ' * * are spirit, and are life," Jno. 6:63. Both the 
 light and the dark sides of men, are fully made manifest in the Scriptures. 
 Strong men on one side but weak men on some other side, know the peril- 
 ous struggles which have to be endured because "evil is present with me," 
 Rom. 7:21. David never would have sunken so low, if it had not been for 
 a nature with both dark and light sides, and made dangerous by its great- 
 ness in some directions and weakness in others. There are men who have a 
 terrible struggle to make between the flesh and the spirit, Gal. 5:17; 6:8. 
 
 182. 2 It indicates a great struggle when a man cries out "0 wretched 
 man that I am! who shall deliver me out of this body of death," Rom. 7:24. 
 "It is a fact of the utmost significance that Paul does not ask for forgive- 
 ness, but for DELIVERANCE; and for deliverance, moreover, not from the 
 penalty of sin, but from the source of sin." McGiffert's "Apostolic Age," 
 125; Paragraph 364. 
 
THE ROAD 61 
 
 184. The time of change has come; and ear- 
 nest men seek for earnest preachers, no matter 
 in what pulpits they are found. All should go to 
 church, and help in the regular services of wor- 
 ship. No matter if we are not suited in every- 
 thing. We do not want the road by our house 
 closed, because it is a poor road. We continue 
 to use it, and exert a steady influence to get a 
 better one. We all should take our families, and 
 go where we can hear tire Gospel. Roman civili- 
 zation is losing its hold upon men who feel the 
 meaning of existence; and sometime it will die 
 out of Christendom, and religion once more as of 
 old, will signify to walk in the steps of Jesus and 
 in the Road of Holiness, and the Church will 
 mean a Brotherhood. No man can afford to pass 
 over to his children, or to pass into the heathen 
 world, any other conception of God's universal 
 and permanent religion and kingdom. 
 
 3- LEADING POINTS MANIFESTED IN THIS CHAPTER. 
 
 185. The Christian religion is not a product of 
 Jesus' teaching alone. There are Jewish elements 
 in it; and, especially, there are elements from 
 every influential source of philosophy and religion 
 and civilization in the Roman Empire. 
 
 186. It is every man's duty, and in these times 
 it is especially his duty to go to the Bible for 
 his religion. We want no more Graeco-Roman 
 religion served out to us in Bible phraseology. 
 
 187. Every man should join himself to the 
 LORD, and take part in this greatest reformation 
 the world has ever had since the Apostles; a 
 reformation far greater than that of the sixteenth 
 
62 THE ROAD 
 
 century, which was but a protest against certain 
 abuses; a reformation to put out of Christianity all 
 the ingredients which were not put into it by 
 Jesus. 
 
 188. The highest use which any man can make 
 of his life, is to walk in the Road of Jesus. 
 Humility in service for the world, and love, not 
 as a superficial sentiment but as an active force 
 leading one to do good, are the vital organs of a 
 truly pious life. 
 
V 
 LIGHT AND LIFE IN EVERY LAND. 
 
 189. "I will make all my mountains the Way and my Highways shall 
 be exalted. Lo, these shall come from far; and, lo, these from the north 
 and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim." (China) l 
 
 191. "They shall come from the east and west, and from the north 
 and south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God." 
 
 192. "Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must 
 bring, and they shall hear my voice; and they shall become one flock and 
 one shepherd." 2 
 
 I. GOD'S RELIGION GIVES LIGHT EVERYWHERE. 
 
 194. The population which the universal 
 Father has provided for this world, numbers at 
 any period, about fifteen hundred millions. About 
 three-fifths of these are in Asia; and less than 
 one-third are in Europe and North and South 
 America. Buddhists outnumber Christians; and 
 of all the religions not Christian, there are two 
 people for every one in Christendom. This is 
 the condition of mankind, two thousand years 
 after Christianity began. Every one of these peo- 
 ple is a human being, a sinner no better or worse 
 
 190. l Prof. Alexander's "Notes" on the Hebrew of this text says, it is 
 not A way but THE way. The description names China, and reaches out to 
 all lands, the same as the text following. Isai. 49:11, 12; Luke 13:29. 
 
 193. 2 John 10:16. Jesus refers to these "sheep" as at that time his 
 own. They were the truth seekers and truth lovers of all lands, who as 
 yet had no knowledge of him personally. It is universally true that man- 
 kind receive benefits from many whom they do not know. Jesus bestows 
 benefits impartially upon all mankind, even where they do not know him. 
 When he found piety among the heathen with whom he came in contact, he 
 acknowledged it the same as Jewish piety, Matt. 8:10; 15:28. 
 
64 THE ROAD 
 
 than ourselves, with a few years of life here 
 and an eternity hereafter. If there is no way of 
 salvation in Christ for these millions upon mill- 
 ions, who have never heard of him, then how does 
 God act the part of a Father toward them ? It is 
 as cruel a charge against God, to say that the 
 religions of the world are not Providential and 
 have no light or life in them, as to make that 
 other horrible charge of a theology, now about 
 dead, that there are infants in hell. God can save 
 the heathen who have not known of his revealed 
 religion, as he saved anybody before Jesus came, 
 and as he now saves infants, and those of imper- 
 fect mind or knowledge. 
 
 195. To only three of the Apostles was given 
 the work of interpreting Jesus to after ages, Paul, 
 Peter and John. They all taught that God's love 
 and salvation reaches beyond the letter of 
 revealed religion. Paul meant, and the Athen- 
 ians so understood his meaning, that all men 
 alike have the Fatherly interest and care of God, 
 and all men have responsibility to God. As a 
 father he fixed the bounds of their habitation, 
 and provides for men life, breath, the seasons, 
 and all things. 1 Peter was not certain of the 
 universalism of the Gospel until he saw it demon- 
 strated at the home of Cornelius, a man who 
 legally and socially belonged to the heathen 
 community and was not a proselyte of the gate. 2 
 His language confesses the new insight: "Of a 
 truth I perceive that God is no respector of persons; 
 
 'Acts 17:24-28; Rom. 1:18-21; 4:9-10. God's stores are equally dis- 
 tributed to men. 
 
 2 Acts 10:34, 35. See Smith's "Bible Dictionary," Vol. 1, p. 49 
 
THE ROAD 65 
 
 but in every nation he that feareth him, and work- 
 eth righteousness, is acceptable to him." The Jesus- 
 like heart of John went out to the "sheep" of the 
 fold everywhere; 1 and he, the same as the other 
 Apostles, lived in fellowship with all good peo- 
 ple. 
 
 196. There is an inner light, and the fruits of 
 the Spirit, which evidence the existence every- 
 where of the life, and light which all men receive 
 from God. The Quaker traveler, Robert Mere- 
 dith, went around the world; and worked and 
 slept, and took part in all the customs of life, along 
 with men of all races and countries. He told the 
 author, and witnesses to the same in his book, 2 
 that there is a universal spiritual life, which 
 manifests itself through acts of kindness and 
 brotherhood. He says that religious sentiments 
 are as universal as sun-light, or as the facts of 
 science, and God's provisions to support human 
 life. Daniel March traveled forty thousand miles 
 in investigations of mission work. He testifies to 
 kind treatment and noble sentiments every- 
 where, and says: "The promised time of univer- 
 sal brotherhood among men of all nations is 
 nearer at hand than we are apt to think." His 
 extensive travels in China, led him to say, in com- 
 mon with others, that "they carry their religion 
 
 1 John 10:16. Jesus never instructed his disciples to withdraw from 
 the Jewish church, or from any other body of worshipers. Jno. 1:9; 3:16; 
 4:24; Acts 24:17, 18. 
 
 2 Meredith's "Around the World on Sixty Dollars," p. 193, 363. 
 
 3 March's "Mornkig Li^ht in Many Lands," p. 107-109: 127-138; 187; 
 195; 13-16; 
 
66 THE ROAD 
 
 everywhere and into everything;" and he gives 
 many evidences of their virtues. l 
 
 198. There are three things about roads which 
 suggest the world-wide influence of God's 
 religion and the universality of his grace: (a) 
 Roads have existed from the beginnings of human 
 life, and so is the religion of God ever-existent. 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes from Max Muller 
 the following remarkable passage, taken from 
 St. Augustine: "That which is now called the 
 Christian religion existed among the ancients, 
 and never did not exist from the planting of the 
 human race until Christ came in the flesh, at 
 which times the true religion, which already sub- 
 sisted, began to be called Christianity." (b) Roads 
 go out from each other and extend to every 
 human habitation, and so does God's religion 
 extend everywhere, (c) At first thought, roads 
 seem to be very many, but, as their value depends 
 upon their running into each other, there is in 
 fact by land and by water only one road; and so 
 it is with the religions of the world, they differ 
 relatively as much as roads differ, but if there is 
 life and light anywhere, it is the same light and 
 life, and everywhere there are the same fruits of 
 the Spirit, 2 and the same language of the Spirit 
 written upon the hearts of mankind. 3 
 
 197. l The qualities of the Chinese named in Mr. March's book are: 
 religious devotion, unity in religion, charity of opinions, freedom from sav- 
 ave ways, desires for better things, ease with which they are impressed by 
 elevating influences, kindness to strangers, patriotism, family fidelity, 
 patience in trials and suffering, temperance, industry, reliability in meeting 
 trusts, ability and good judgment. It is foolish to say that all this exists 
 without Light from God in the oldest and greatest nation in the world. 
 
 2 Gal. 5:22. 
 
 '$> Cor 3t3-8{ Jer> 31:33; Ezek, 11:19, 20; 86:26, 27; Ps. 40:8, 
 
THE ROAD 67 
 
 199. The conception of religion above given 
 greatly enlarges our view of Christ's atonement 
 and of all his blessed work. If all who are saved in 
 all lands, and from the beginning of the human 
 race, are saved by Jesus, then truly, "in none other 
 is there salvation; for neither is there any other 
 name under 'heaven, that is given among men, 
 wherein we must be saved." 1 Then, truly, man- 
 kind are purchased unto God of every tribe, and 
 tongue, and people, and nation; 2 then truly, the 
 Lamb hath been slain from the. foundation of the 
 world; 3 then, truly, Grod sent Jesus by his love for 
 all the world. 4 
 
 200. The way of justification, therefore, is the 
 same everywhere, and in all ages. Paul writes 
 of the justification of Abraham, to show that it 
 was the same as ours. 5 Religious experience also 
 has always been the same in kind. We pray for 
 Abraham's faith, or for the patience of Job, or for 
 the meekness of Moses, and we worship with the 
 Psalms of David. 
 
 201. Great men of the Brahmo Soniaj Society 
 of India, applied themselves to ascertain the sub- 
 stance or essence of all religion. 6 They deter- 
 mined (a) that it exists in the spiritual exercises of 
 repentance, faith, and prayer; and (b) that 
 religion exists for the two ends of morality and 
 
 1 Acts 4:12; 1 Tim. 4:10. 2 Rev.5:9. 3 Rev.l3:8. 4 Jno. 3:16. 5 Rom. 4:6-11. 
 6 When Christ spoke to his disciples of certain things which they could 
 not yet comprehend, but which would be revealed to them by the Holy 
 Spirit (Jno. 16:13), he doubtless referred to that essence of religion which 
 is not confined to place, or time, or outward observances, and which makes 
 all people one in spiritual worship and faith, and of which he spoke to the 
 woman of Samaria, Jno. 4:23, 24; Neander's "Planting of Christianity," 
 Vol. I, p. 49. 
 
68 THE ROAD 
 
 worship. How near this comes to the New Tes- 
 tament, is manifest by the fact that there is no 
 teaching of doctrine simply as doctrine, but to 
 rebuke sin and build characters of holiness. The 
 highest conceptions of both morality and wor- 
 ship appear in the life of Jesus. 1 
 
 202. The Road is simply the name for this Life 
 and Light, which is manifested here and there in 
 the religions of the world, and which is the 
 underlying substance or essence of all of them. 
 And the Road is the religion and not a religion. 
 It cannot be compared with either of the other 
 religions because if there is any Life or Light in 
 them, to that extent, and to that extent only, are 
 they God's religion. "The Light of Asia/' and 
 all other light, is borrowed from the "Light of the 
 World," as the moon and stars give light, not of 
 themselves but from the sun. If the sun ceased 
 to shine, the moon and stars would not give light; 
 and in less than thirty days life would cease and 
 the earth would become a desert. 
 
 208. The saving power in Christianity, or in 
 any cultus in the world, is because that with the 
 measure of truth which each contains, God can 
 project into the world life and light; and as the 
 world would perish physically without God's 
 means and constant care, so would it perish mor- 
 ally and spiritually without his light and life 
 everywhere and all the time. There is not one 
 sun for Asia and another for Europe and another 
 for America. It may in all these countries be 
 known by many different names, and it may be 
 
 1 Brooks' "Our New Departure," p. 32. 
 
THE ROAD 69 
 
 better understood in some places than in others, 
 and it may shine brighter in some localities than 
 in others, but it is the same sun everywhere. Sci- 
 ence is truth the same everywhere. The same is 
 true of God's religion. Truth cannot be sepa- 
 rated, no matter in what religion or nation it 
 reveals itself. If there are certain primary 
 truths present in Christianity, and they are 
 equally present in Buddhism, the two religions 
 in that respect are just as much the same as the 
 shining of the sun in the two widely separated 
 localities of America and Asia. 1 
 
 2. DARKNESS WHERE THE LIGHT SHOULD SHINE. 
 
 205. It is claimed that the light of Christian- 
 ity will convert the world to Jesus; and its con- 
 tents and processes, therefore, are matters of 
 solicitous inquiry to know whether they lead to 
 Jesus. What a conversion it will be, if we take 
 to heathen lands coyetousness, greed, commer- 
 cialism, the corporation combinations of the rich 
 and strong against the weak, and land-grabbing. 
 Will Christendom debauch other nations as Eng- 
 land debauched China by the opium trade? It 
 will be a great conversion, if the liquor traffic is 
 permitted to drive and tempt subject races into 
 drunkenness, as it has cursed the American 
 Indians, and as it is cursing every other weaker 
 
 204. l The spiritual presence of Jesus, not by any name but as a living 
 influence, is as noiseless and unnoticed by men as that of the sun. It is the 
 silent influences of God which are the most powerful. Silently and 
 unnoticed Jesus was born into the world, and with noiseless stillness like 
 that of the sun, and just as universal, he goes on in his work for mankind. 
 In him is life; and, he lighteth every man that cometh into the world, Jno. 
 1:4,9; Geikie's "Life of Christ," Ch. VIII, p. 74; 1 Kings 19:12,18. 
 
70 THE ROAD 
 
 people where the commerce and authority of 
 Christendom extend. It will be a great conver- 
 sion to yoke and rob the weaker races by trusts, 
 and militarism. 1 
 
 207. "Con verting" and "civilizing" the Indians, 
 right at our doors and immediately under our 
 influence has been their ruin, morally and physi- 
 cally. Before the wickedness of "benevolent 
 assimilation" began, the Indians drank only 
 water, had a sense of honor, pride of character, 
 and customs and fixed habits of religion. A cen- 
 tury and a half of training in revenge, unquench- 
 able hate, loss of self-respect, and whisky, have 
 debauched them seemingly beyond recovery. 2 
 
 208. The Sandwich Islanders thought well of 
 the United States and Christianity, and welcomed 
 our missionaries in 1820. Immediately they 
 co-operated as friends to plant schools and the 
 new religion. Books have been written which 
 tell of the great conversion of this nation. It is 
 time to revise these books now and tell the facts 
 
 206. l Stead's "If Christ Came to Chicago," and later books written to 
 expose existing evils, represent the most deeply immoral conditions in the 
 United States to be found in the world. The facts, stripped of exaggera- 
 tions, do not destroy hope for our country and for humanity; but, when it 
 is true that the majority of men entrusted with the administration of law 
 in the cities are in sympathy with the liquor traffic, and that the population 
 of our cities is growing much faster than the population of the outside 
 country, it is certain that morals are in danger of being held down by 
 appetite and avarice, which are the vilest ingredients of a debauched civili- 
 zation. Covetousness, in the New Testament, is catalogued with the vilest 
 sins therein mentioned, and this vile affection works through both avarice 
 and appetite. The liquor traffic and other vile practices are rooted in 
 avarice and appetite. Most of the wrongs committed by mankind against 
 each other have the same evil sources. 
 
 2 See Catlin's "North American Indians;" Helen Jackson's "A Cen- 
 tury of Dishonor;" Benton's "Thirty Years in the United States Senate," 
 Vol. 1, p. 27-29. 
 
THE ROAD 71 
 
 of shame; for they have been debauched the same 
 as the Indians. At the time of the revolution in 
 1893, a large proportion of the landed property in 
 the city of Honolulu was either owned absolutely 
 or controlled in leaseholds by Americans; and 
 the great agricultural interests throughout the 
 Islands were also chiefly in the hands of Ameri- 
 cans. The natives as a body were opposed to 
 annexation to the United States, but their opposi- 
 tion was not considered. A missionary's son took 
 the seat of the native ruler, and the first Execu- 
 tive Council were all Americans by birth or 
 extraction. Most of the ministers of the govern- 
 ment for many years were Americans. The gov- 
 ernment and the wealth of the Islands have thus 
 passed into the hands of foreigners; and never 
 again will be held by the natives. The natives 
 are filled with hate, while they are being pushed 
 along toward poverty, the loss of self-respect, and 
 despair. What is their outlook, reduced as they 
 are at the present time to but little more than 
 one-fifth of the population ? Are they doomed to 
 follow the Indians? Are they to be another exam- 
 ple of Christianizatipn by land-grabbing, extor- 
 tion, and extermination? l 
 
 209. ! See Carpenter s "America in Hawaii," p. 173, and Government 
 Documents relating to Annexation. Carpenter's book, Krout's "Hawaii and 
 a Revolution," and Blackman's "Making of Hawaii," are all written in the 
 interest of "the missionary element," and raise no question as to the 
 righteousness of 3000 Americans taking possession of the government and 
 most valuable property, and yoking the industries of the Islands to monopo- 
 lies. 
 
 After the missionaries had been there three years, in 1823, they esti- 
 mated the natives to be 142,000. The census of 1832 reported the 
 natives to be 130,313. The census of 1896 reported the total popu- 
 lation, over 40,000 of them Japanese and Chinese, to be 109,020; and 
 
72 THE ROAD 
 
 210. The Prophets of God called Jesus the 
 Prince of Peace, and described his kingdom as 
 one without war. Their beautiful conceptions 
 of human brotherhood accord with all that Jesus 
 taught. It is a great gulf which exists between 
 the practice of Christendom with its bloody wars, 
 and the Lord's Prayer, Jesus and the Prophets. 
 The Bible conception of peace is better met by 
 some of the heathen lands. The wars of Napoleon, 
 and the militarism, with which the eighteenth 
 century closed and the nineteenth century began, 
 involved greater loss of life, but hardly surpassed 
 in wickedness those with which the nineteenth 
 century closed and the twentieth century opened. 1 
 Every Christian nation has enlarged its army and 
 navy. What progress is this towards a Millen- 
 nium? 2 
 
 the NATIVES WERE 31,019, AND 5,578 LESS THAN IN 1884. These natives, 
 for the most part, are in a wretched state compared with that of their 
 generous and joyous forefathers. The Hawaiians were remarkable foj 
 their happiness. They as a race lack foresight and judgment; and no peo- 
 ple ever were more easily robbed or more rapidly exterminated. Among 
 the missionaries were good men, but the total record of America in Hawaii 
 is abominable. Krout says, p. 314: "It is said that the vices which have 
 decimated the Hawaiian race so fearfully, have been those with which our 
 vaunted civilization is not unfamiliar gin and licentiousness." What a 
 prospect is before the United States Christians by the "civilizing" of 
 Hawaii, the Philippine Islands, Cuba, and wherever else our ships are con- 
 veying missionaries, swords, whisky, tobacco, and monopolies. 
 
 211. 1 lt is estimated that Napoleon killed over three million men. 
 France is an example of the evils of militarism, planted by Napoleon. See 
 Gohier's article, "The Dangers of Militarism," New York Independent, 1900, 
 p. 233; and Prof. Herve's article in the same magazine, 1902, p. 2170. 
 
 212. 2 After the close of the Civil War, April 1865, the soldiers returned 
 to their A farms and shops, with no thought of fostering in our country a 
 military spirit. Gen. Grant, and all the great patriots of that period, was 
 opposed to an army and navy after the fashion of Europe. He said: "When 
 wars do come they fall upon the many, the producing classes, who are the 
 sufferers." * * * "Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt 
 any sort of fondness for war, and I have never advocated it, except as a 
 
THE ROAD 78 
 
 213. The oldest government in the world is 
 the Chinese Empire, begun in the providence of 
 God over forty centuries ago, whose bounds of 
 habitation encompass one-third of the human 
 race. The population in some localities is danger- 
 ously congested; but the government is able to 
 keep peace and provide for the public good by 
 the family life of the people, which is marked by 
 its filial piety and affectionate devotion, and by 
 the great patriotism and religious unity of the 
 Chinese. In view of such conditions, and the 
 great burdens and perils of the Chinese govern- 
 ment, was there ever a more heartless and wicked 
 deed done than that of the year 1900, when seven 
 combined Christian countries made a murderous 
 and looting invasion, which extended to China's 
 capital? and which on account of the many mill- 
 ions of exacted indemnity, for many years will 
 greatly burden the people, intensify their dissat- 
 isfaction with foreigners, and endanger the peace 
 of the government. l 
 
 means of peace," Richardson's "Personal History of U. S. Grant," p. 628. 
 When the war with Spain for the liberation of Cuba, began, prayers for its 
 success, and references to the special Providences, were common in the 
 churches; but when later the wave of militarism flooded the country, and 
 the war of subjugation in the Philipine Islands -began, there were few or no 
 more prayers. The army and navy were greatly enlarged; and our land of 
 liberty, with its patriotic volunteer soldiery, was Europeanized by military 
 measures and the military spirit. Thus the twentieth century opened. The 
 Philippine war was the legitimate offspring of this militarism. A funda- 
 mental principle of the Republic had been the subordination of the military 
 to civil authority. In 1793, there was a long debate in Congress on the 
 reduction of the army and the military establishment. In the course of that 
 debate the policy always in favor in this Republic against militarism, is 
 clearly expressed again and again, Benton's "Debates in Congress," Vol. I, 
 p. 398-4 15; 759-767. 
 
 214. 1 The army which entered Pekin was made up as follows: Ger- 
 many 17,750; France 14,050; England 12,850; Russia 9,000; Japan 6,000; 
 
74 THE ROAD 
 
 215. Until the Philippine war began, the 
 record of which begins the twentieth century 
 and makes the blackest page in United States his- 
 tory, the Mexican war held the chief place for 
 wickedness. 1 By the Mexican war to win more 
 
 Italy 2,350; United States 1,600; Austria 250. The causes leading to this 
 war in China, have been debated chiefly in Germany, where it is charged 
 that Protestant missionaries by their lack of practical wisdom and respect 
 for native customs provoked the Chinese to mob violence and murder. The 
 Chinese government has made the same charge. German war vessels, 
 which was the start of the war movement, were sent out by the influence 
 of a Catholic Bishop. For facts condensed, see the New York Independent, 
 December 20, 1900, p. 3059, 3060. It shows t}ie apostate spirit and prac- 
 tice of Christianity, when its missionaries join hands with militarism, refuse 
 to become citizens of countries where they go, and fall back to their home 
 governments at every opportunity to protect immunities and to exact indem- 
 nities. Such things are abominable. On one occasion the Chinese govern- 
 ment had to pay a missionary indemnity of $169,000. See The Indepen- 
 dent for 1900, p. 3061. There is no risk in saying that Jesus does not 
 want his religion propagated in any such ways, and that such methods will 
 never make peace on earth. The evils in the missionary system were 
 pointed out at the World's Congress of Religions, Chicago 1893; and if 
 there had been reformation, this war might have been prevented. "Neely's 
 History of the Parliament of Religions," pp. 607-613, 794. The missionary 
 work must be sustained, but it also must be reformed; and the missionaries 
 must relate themselves differently to the light by which God enlighteneth 
 every man who cometh into the world; and there must be a different treat- 
 ment of the Providential religions. 
 
 As far back as 1871, James Freeman Clarke, in "Ten Great Religions," 
 p. 506, called attention to the fact that the good of the missionary work in 
 China, had been accomplished alone by the New Testament. It certainly is 
 true of all heathen lands, that the good which has come by the contact of 
 Christianity with their religions, has not been on account of conversions to 
 a Protestant or Catholic sect, but by the communication of the simple truth 
 and life of the Gospel. The Life in the Providential religions, properly 
 dealt with and directed, inclines to and joins with the Life and Light of the 
 world, as two drops of water when brought in contact with each other 
 become one. This certainly was the method of Jesus and of Paul. Money 
 which goes into missionary work everywhere, is worse than wasted if it 
 does not circulate the New Testament. 
 
 216. l General Grant says of the annexation of Texas, and the wars: 
 "For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard 
 the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger 
 against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a Republic following the 
 
THE ROAD 75 
 
 territory for new slave states, was planted sec- 
 tional seed which only fifteen years later ripened 
 into the dreadful harvest of the Civil War. 1 
 
 218. It seems that the heart of a sincere man 
 of the poorest religion on earth, would sink 
 under the tacts of the Boer and Philippine wars. 
 Were loyal soldiers of England and America ever 
 sent to tight and die for reasons so questionable? 
 History in time will write the actual facts with- 
 out prejudice of Boer life and independence; and 
 of the long struggles of the Filipinos for liberty, 
 which ended in the destruction of their Kati- 
 punan Society of independence and the killing of 
 most of its 50,000 members. It is impossible to 
 keep from the history that will be read a hundred 
 years hence, the true account of this subjuga- 
 tion. 2 It will be impossible to disconnect the 
 facts of Spain's unsuccessful and cruel attempts 
 to crush the spirit of liberty in the Islands, with 
 
 bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their 
 desire to acquire additional territory. * * * The Southern rebellion 
 was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations like individuals are 
 punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most san- 
 guinary and expensive war of modern times." "Personal Memoirs of U. S. 
 Grant," Vol. I, p. 53, 56. 
 
 217. 1 More than half a million perished by the Civil War, of as noble 
 a generation as the world ever had. Future historians will determine 
 whether the abolition of slavery, and the consolidation of the Union, 
 together with evil causes by wicked ambitions and designs, made it neces- 
 sary that there should be this great sacrifice of human life. The time had 
 come for the removal of slavery from the world. Russia, in 1863, freed 
 her fourteen millions of serfs without any violence. Books, like Helper's 
 'Impending Crisis" written in 1859, which contrasted the South with the 
 North and which showed the disadvantages of a slave-civilization, evidence 
 to a reader now that in any event slavery was doomed, and sooner or later 
 had to perish. 
 
 2 Senate Document No. 62, Part I, Fifty-fifth Congress, and following 
 government documents. 
 
76 THE ROAD 
 
 the coming of a mighty Nation from half way 
 around the globe, which did subdue and govern 
 without the consent of the governed. 1 
 
 And when future history tells the bare, cold 
 facts of the patriot's last sacrifice, the sacrifice of 
 
 219. ! The violation of > the right of a people to themselves and to 
 their own country, is clean-cut wrong and oppression. This wicked thing 
 was the reason for the War of Independence of 1776. It was purely a 
 war of self-defense and home protection, or what General Grant calls "a 
 means of peace/' Paragraph 212. When one nation treats with another, 
 "souls" are not the subject of contract or sale. There was a reference to 
 this principle in the proceedings of the Louisiana Purchase, "the largest 
 conquest ever peacefully achieved," Elaine's "Twenty Years of Congress," 
 Vol. I, p. 6. The careful student of the eternal principles of right embod- 
 ied in the Declaration of Independence, which every one should understand, 
 must read such authorities as Vattel's "Law of Nations," Book I, chapter 
 18, p. 100; chapter 21, p. 118; and Woolsey's "Introduction to the Study of 
 International Law," Section 53, pp. 78, 79; Section 52, p. 78; Section 153, 
 p. 259. 
 
 It is a sin which God will certainly call any nation in some way to 
 answer for, to interfere with the Rights by "the bounds of their habitation," 
 Acts 17:26, which he has set for another people; Paragraph 216. 
 
 God's wrath is as certain as the laws of Nature. When one considers 
 the awful results of such a war against a poor and weak people, and that 
 from the first occupation of the Philippine Islands there was poured into 
 them drunkenness, immorality, and all the means and influences of debauch- 
 ery, he has neither heart nor sense if he does not fear Justice and dread the 
 future. 
 
 "Justice and boundless power exalt his throne, 
 Beneficent to all, unjust to none." Scott's Job, ch. 27, v. 23. 
 
 God's vengeance and wrath are spoken of many times in the Bible. 
 They refer to the energy of his love in exercise against wrong, and are not 
 a passion of anger or an outbreak of temper, as in man. As God's love, 
 associated with eternal justice cannot change, the righteous will not go 
 unrewarded and the wicked will not go unpunished. It was well said by 
 George McDonald: "There is no refuge from the compelling love of God, 
 save that love itself." What a man soweth he shall reap; and Jesus said 
 the martyred Prophet's blood would continue to be remembered, Gal. 6:7; 
 Luke 11:50. In this life there often is lack of opportunities, and many 
 inequalities, misfortunes and chances; and it is too short a time for the 
 heavenly Father to do justice by all; but justice will be done in this life or 
 the next, "that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be 
 brought under the judgment of God," Rom. 3:19; Luke 12:47, 48. 
 
THE ROAD 77 
 
 himself, for his country's Right to Govern itself, 
 is it to be told also that they were wasted away 
 like other feeble people which have been 
 "civilized?" 
 
 3. THE LIGHT OF ASIA REFLECTING THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 220. There is not one star in the heavens, no 
 matter how small, that God does not use to 
 reflect into the dark night the light of the sun; 
 and there is no cultus which God does not use 
 to give to the dark world some of the light of the 
 Sun of Righteousness. No star is the Sun itself, 
 but each may reflect little or much of God's Sun. 
 It has been a great mistake to consider Christi- 
 anity as the Sun itself, or as more than a cultus; 
 and it has been an equal mistake to deny that 
 God uses any other cult to reflect his Sun. This 
 last statement has an unparalleled illustration 
 just now in the "Appeal to the Ecclesiastics of 
 the World," relating to China, signed by the six 
 Presidents of the "Great Japan Buddhist Union," 
 October 11, 1900. It is a better assertion of the 
 truth of this chapter than references to all out- 
 side authorities. 1 It deserves a careful reading, 
 and a part of the document shall speak for itself. 2 
 
 x The New York Independent says: "It is an event unparalleled during 
 the twenty-five centuries since Gautama, and we can recall nothing anala- 
 gous in the history of other world-religions." Editorial, December 20, 
 1900. This appeal is printed in The Independent, December 27, 1900. W. 
 E. Griffis, author of "The Religions of Japan," said of this document: "The 
 Appeal ought to be read from the Christian pulpits. * I am glad 
 
 that our government seems to be acting in the spirit of it. I believe it to 
 be absolutely necessary that not only should Christian missionaries have no 
 identification, and, if possible, no connection with the intrigues and policy 
 of their Governments, but that they should so live and act that THE MOST 
 
 IGNORANT PEOPLES should REALIZE this fact." 
 
 221. 2 "We, the Buddhists of Great Japan, beg to inform our revered 
 ecclesiastical brethren in the world that, the disturbances in China having 
 
7S THE ROAD 
 
 now reached their climax, there is hardly any prospect for the restora- 
 tion of the empire to its former condition, and four hundred millions of 
 souls are virtually at a loss to know what course to take. Under these cir- 
 cumstances the social distress as well as moral corruption have now reached 
 a pitch too serious to be described in detail. How and when is such a dis- 
 organization to be remedied? How is it possible for us who have pledged 
 ourselves to undertake the work of salvation to remain silent with folded 
 hands? 
 
 It is indeed certain that the forms of religion in the world are manifold. 
 But it is equally certain that in spite of the dissimilarity of religions in 
 their tenets as well as in rites in short, in their external organization 
 the fundamental principles embodied in what we regard as the higher 
 classes of religion, to say nothing of those which still remain undeveloped, 
 are in all cases essentially, if not entirely, analagous. More particularly 
 is this the case with all the advanced forms of religion which are based 
 upon the principle of love for mankind, and in which the light of this prin- 
 ciple is utilized to destroy the darkness of life and to deliver myriads from 
 sin and distress, with the avowed object of securing for the world a higher 
 state of happiness and prosperity, which can be attained by the development 
 of humanity to the utmost perfection. Such, indeed, may be the fundamen- 
 tal principle to which the religion owes its existence a principle by virtue 
 of which religion can secure its firm footing and its essential operations. 
 That principle alone is, in fact, a universal truth, an absolute path to fol- 
 low; and if religion is thus to stand on such a general truth, its propagators 
 ought always to abide by it. 
 
 As already remarked, religion embodies a supreme path to be followed 
 by men, and therefore the propagators of its doctrine ought never to be dis- 
 turbed by temptations existing beyond the pale of religion. The propagand- 
 ists of religion are morally bound not to look beyond the principle of uni- 
 versal love, and the souls for which salvation may be worked by means of 
 these principles. * * The great teachers of religion in the olden 
 
 time have pertinaciously adhered to the doctrine of universal love, and kept 
 their thoughts concentrated on it. * * * In investigating the cause of 
 the anti-religious spirit of the Chinese, we find that apprehension and terror 
 entertained toward the foreign missionaries were virtually the origin of 
 their implacable hostility. They have perceived that these missionaries 
 have secured for themselves an immunity calculated to subvert their estab- 
 lished customs and manners; they have also recognized in their attitude a 
 tendency to ignore the statutes of the country and a desire to accomplish 
 the most selfish ends by the oppression of the Chinese Government and peo- 
 ple. They have, moreover, supposed that the foreign evangelists in China 
 have arrogated to themselves the power of protecting the followers of their 
 creed in utter disregard of the latter's criminality under the laws of the 
 State, whereas non-believers, tho legally innocent/were frequently entrapped 
 into a crime. Under these circumstances they were led to the conclu- 
 sion that the foreign missionaries in China have been exerting their ener- 
 gies for the accomplishment of a certain obnoxious ambition by stirring up 
 
THE ROAD 79 
 
 the unprincipled rabble of the country, and with this object in view made 
 their chapels and cathedrals a sort of asylum for criminals. The Chinese 
 began to entertain the idea that the missionaries were intimately con- 
 nected with the foreign policy of their own countries, and that having made 
 themselves instrumental in carrying out the intrigues of their own govern- 
 ments, they must have labored for some sinister design, such as the exten- 
 sion of territory, along with the development of commerce. They saw with 
 gross apprehension that in respect to foreign machinations the missionaries 
 were the first to come, followed by consuls, with generals at their back; and 
 they have feared that behind a man who had come with a Bible in his hand 
 stood a warrior armed with a spear and a sword. 
 
 They have apprehended that the result of all these intrusions would be 
 claims for compensation, plunder of territory, and what not, the final set- 
 tlement of the affair being only reserved for the country with every indica- 
 tion for its entire subversion. 
 
 But how is the fear and apprehension on the part of the Chinese to be 
 cleared away? On this question we Buddhists are prepared to submit two pro- 
 posals to the propagators of religion in the world for their sincere acceptance 
 and approval. The first is, that the ecclesiastical authorities in the world 
 should exercise their influence in restraining the missionaries in China 
 from proceedings which are likely to create suspicion on the part of the 
 Chinese as to the existence of their secret connection with the foreign policy 
 of their own countries. They should, for instance, be withheld from 
 inducing their own governments to carry out schemes conducive to suc- 
 cessful aggrandizement at the expense of China, on the plea of persecution 
 inflicted a plea frequently resorted to whenever more or less suffering has 
 been inflicted on them by the Chinese. Nor should they be allowed to claim 
 compensation for damages incurred, as they have hitherto done, for nothing 
 can be more incompatible with the true principles of religion. 
 
 When some time ago a Japanese Buddhist temple at Amoy was burnt by 
 the Chinese, we Buddhists being desirous to persuade the home government 
 to refrain from pressing the Chinese authorities on this particular account, 
 have renounced all claims for damage, and this we did simply with a view 
 to the discretion which we ought to exercise in the interests of religion. 
 A glance at history shows that the great teachers of every religion in 
 antiquity, despite the persecution which they have incurred, have not only 
 not displayed any spirit of hostility or vengeance, but on the contrary have 
 prayed, with compassion, to have the heavenly blessing bestowed upon the 
 persecutors. It is earnestly to be recommended, therefore, that we, 
 together with all the propagators of religion in the world, should be pre- 
 pared to inspire ourselves with the noble spirit of the ancient sages, and 
 instead of holding inimical feelings against the Chinese who have perpe- 
 trated so much havoc and atrocity upon the missionaries, should endeavor 
 to do good for evil, and to supplicate a permanent blessing upon this pitiful 
 race. 
 
 The second proposition we have to submit to our venerable brethren 
 consists in withholding the missionaries in China from all forms of pro- 
 
80 THE ROAD 
 
 4. POINTS MANIFESTED IN THIS CHAPTER. 
 
 222. God is the Father of the people of all 
 countries; and is no respecter of lands and 
 religious cults, any more than he is of persons. 
 
 223. The religionists who are religious only 
 by attachment to their cults, and who have not 
 the fruits of the Spirit, dishonor religion. 
 
 224. From the beginning of the human race, 
 men have been saved as they are now saved by 
 the Life and Light of the world. 
 
 225. The Road of God is not a religion but it 
 is the religion; and Road is a name for the Life 
 and Light w r herever there is godliness. 
 
 226. War and all cruelties, and all wrongs, 
 which are practiced among men, are outside his 
 Kingdom, and show apostacy from God. 
 
 227. The light in Buddhism, the same as that 
 of Christianity, shows the presence of the Spirit 
 of Jesus; and there are encouraging indications 
 that religion everywhere will become pervaded 
 by the spirit of Life, until all mankind shall 
 find their way to the Road of God and to Jesus. 
 
 cedure which might possibly be regarded as disturbing the social institu- 
 tions of China. 
 
 We Buddhists desire respectfully to submit the above two proposals to 
 the ecclesiastical authorities of all nations, with the full conviction that 
 should they, in accordance with our humble sentiments, be willing to take 
 the course proposed by us, the honest people of China will at once lay 
 aside all suspicion and apprehension, and appreciate with delight the 
 intrinsic virtues of religion. 
 
 If so, the ruffians who seek to accomplish their selfish ends under the 
 guise of converts will eventually become unable to do anything toward 
 again disturbing the foreign religion, and the future of the missionaries in 
 China will be as bright and smooth as the ocean in spring. Then, too, the 
 sources of disturbance in China will become extinct, and a new era of men- 
 tal enlightenment immediately dawn upon the Chinese, with every prospect 
 of the reconciliation of the occidental and oriental civilizations." 
 
VI 
 
 INGREDIENTS OF GOD'S PERMANENT 
 RELIGION 
 
 228. "I am the Road, and the Truth, and the Life." 1 
 
 229. "Now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of 
 these is love." 2 
 
 230. "0 man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, 
 but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." 3 
 
 231. "The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking (not given to 
 forms), but righteousness (uprightness of life), and peace (a brotherhood), 
 and joy in the Holy Spirit (spiritually one with God). For he that herein 
 serveth Christ is well-pleasing to God, and approved of men. r 4 
 
 I. FAITH 
 
 232. Jesus joined his work on to that of the 
 Prophets, and his message rises like theirs above 
 the mists of religious speculation, and shines 
 forth life and light upon them that sit in dark- 
 ness. Gospel or living faith, is a different thing 
 from the speculations about which Christians dif- 
 fer. Jesus gives no intimation that religion is to 
 be worked at as a trade or profession, practiced 
 as a ceremonial, guarded as authoritative articles 
 of belief, or set up as an institution. In it men 
 find God as their own God; and the only soul- 
 destroying heresy which is taken account of is, 
 "denying the LORD that bought them." 
 
 233. There are four necessary ingredients of 
 religion which join on to each other as members 
 
 J Jno. 14:6. 2 Cor. 13:13. 
 
 3 Micah6:8. 4 Rom. 14:17, 18. 
 
 5 See "Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation," p. 191; 2 Pet. 2:1; Heb. 6:6. 
 
82 THE ROAD 
 
 of a body are joined by one life; and they are no 
 part of the external and particularistic elements 
 of statutory religion or of institutional churches. 
 Their combination in characters makes simply a 
 Brotherhood, and they are ingredients of Brother- 
 hood the same as of religion. Jesus' religion is 
 made by the unity in life of these ingredients; 
 and Jesus' church is a Brotherhood made of these 
 same ingredients, and is not an institution cre- 
 ated by legislation. Men like Brotherhoods, and 
 they flock into them; and the churches should be 
 stripped of everything except the ingredients of 
 Brotherhood. 1 
 
 234. This living faith exactly corresponds to 
 all the other necessary faiths of life. Because it 
 is a thing of life, the trust which constitutes a 
 marriage, and which through every kind of trial 
 makes a happy home as long as the parties live, 
 has never been written into a creed, and is not 
 an external thing. 2 The faith of a son in his 
 
 ] Jesus used the strongest terms to express to the disciples the ascend- 
 dency of the Brotherhood idea. Its duties were put before those to the 
 nearest relatives, and its bond of union endures beyond those of an earthly 
 family, with which it corresponds. Absolutely there is nothing to which 
 believers are more rigidly bound to give heed. Matt. 12:46-50; 1 Cor. 3:3. 
 
 235. 2 "These early Christians had no creed. They had no membership; 
 there was no organization to belong to. When a man was converted he was 
 baptized, not as a condition of joining the church, but as a sign of his con- 
 fession of faith in Christ," Abbott's "Life and Letters of Paul," p. 65; Acts 
 16:30-33; 8:36-38; 10:47, 48; Paragraphs 47, 49. 
 
 It has been said that the Bible is no more a creed than the stars are an 
 astronomy. It is very certain that it was made to communicate LIFE, and 
 not the set faith or forms of a cult. It is "not such a book as man would 
 have made, if he could: or could have made, if he would." General Grant's 
 letter to children, in the ''Sunday School Times," June, 1876, conveys so 
 much wisdom as to the benefits of the Bible, that it ought to be preserved 
 forever: "My advice to Sunday Schools, no matter what their denomina- 
 tion, is: Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet-anchor of your liberties; write 
 
THE ROAD 88 
 
 father, no convention can legislate into existence 
 or convey through writing. It would be a con- 
 temptible act and a profane intrusion, to treat as 
 an external and statutory thing the living faith 
 of a patriot, who leaves his family and business, 
 where in all his history there has never been a 
 single neglect, and goes to die for his country. 
 The thoughtful reader will see in these instances 
 the difference between a living faith, belief, con- 
 fidence, or trust, and that faith which is written 
 out as opinions or resolutions, or which depends 
 upon externals, or which is legislated into exist- 
 ence; a thing of the head and not of the heart. 1 
 236. It was in this vital matter of faith that 
 the Grseco-Roman, Christian church broke away 
 from the Road of Jesus. It substituted a cultus 
 for a living relation. A living faith which joins 
 the soul of a believer to Jesus in a life with God. 
 as two souls by trust in each other are joined in 
 a marriage, was substituted for belief in an 
 authoritative creed. A living belief in Christ 
 was changed for belief in a Christology. The 
 living faith of a Brotherhood, which represents 
 on earth the peace and fellowship of heaven, 
 where divers opinions may exist as they did in 
 a community of Jews and Gentiles or as they 
 exist in many affectionate families, was 
 exchanged for organized ecclesiasticism and loy- 
 alty to a church institution. Obedience to an 
 
 its precepts in your HEARTS, and practice them in your LIVES. To the 
 influence of this book we are indebeted for ALL THE PROGRESS MADE IN TRUE 
 CIVILIZATION, and to this we must look as our guide in the future. 'Right- 
 eousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people/ Paragraph 
 
 . 10:10. 
 
84 THE ROAD 
 
 institutional church took the place of personal 
 piety, and the observance of ordinances was sub- 
 stituted for humility and philanthropy. 1 
 
 238. All the ordinances and other outside 
 things, about which Christians have so disagreed, 
 are related to the Road only as pitchers and pails 
 are related to the water which we drink. They 
 are not ingredients of the water, may be used in 
 any style, and there are oceans of water for the 
 world outside of them. A right definition of 
 religion, as "a moral union of man to God 
 
 237. 1 When Paul wrote letters to the churches there was no such 
 thing in existence as the organizations which we now know by that name. 
 The word "church," therefore, in the New Testament, does not stand at all 
 for such churches as these in which we hold membership. Christ had no 
 parish and formed no ecclesiastical organization; prescribed no creed nor 
 anything like a creed. "As he neither framed an organization, formulated 
 a creed nor established a ritual, so he appointed no officers." The name 
 apostle signifies "sent," and it was applied to the men whom Jesus sent out 
 into the villages, while he preached in the cities. "Once, in Perea, a 
 larger district, with more scattered and diverse population, he appointed 
 seventy to go, two by two, on a similar itinerant mission." The idea, in 
 each case, was to supply a temporary need. What has since been done to 
 perfect and to make permanent organizations, is purely man's own work. 
 Man can do as he pleases in these matters, but he has no right to claim 
 Divine authority for that which is of his own doing. 
 
 The clergy is an institution of the Christian church which had no exis- 
 tence in the church of Jesus; and it is a serious fact for those to consider 
 who seek to become Doctors of DIVINITY and to occupy the CHIEF SEATS, 
 that to no other class than the one to which they correspond did Jesus ever 
 say, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, ye blind guides." The Brethren 
 of a community managed church matters much as public school matters 
 are now managed. The duties of those who were put forward to meet 
 special responsibilities, like school superintendents or graded teachers, are 
 described in the pastoral Epistles, and pertain for the most part to matters of 
 conduct and sobriety. No mention is made of sacraments, ordinations and 
 officialism as they are now used to distinguish the clergy, Matt. 20:26-28; 
 Luke 11:43; 12:1; 18:11; 20:46; King's "Cry of Christendom," p. 85, 204; 
 Abbott's "Life and Letters of Paul," ch. iv; Mosheim's "Ecclesiastical His- 
 tory," Vol. I, p. 38; McGiffert's "Apostolic Age," p. 548, 636; Maurice's 
 "Theological Essays," p. 477. 
 
THE ROAD 85 
 
 expressed by conscious love and worship/' 1 abso- 
 lutely annihilates the notion of the faith-making 
 possibilities of any legislating body, or of outside 
 institutions or forms. 
 
 239. Faith" is a living principle by personal 
 relationship to Jesus, the definition of which no 
 man can write out so as to say, this is the thing. 
 It can be trusted to make a united church of 
 universal Brotherhood, exactly as love of persons 
 is trusted to make domestic relations and lidelity, 
 and to perpetuate patriotism. The Gospel, there- 
 fore, is not like other positive religions, which 
 contain statutory and particularistic elements, 
 but it is religion itself. 
 
 240. The Person Christ is the central point of 
 the Gospel; 2 but belief in him is not a thing 
 
 1 Prof. Henry B. Smith's definition, Union Theological Seminary. 
 241. 2 Books like Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship," show how man- 
 kind unite about persons. There is more of the union of Brethren among the 
 churches now than formerly, because the personal Jesus is spoken of more 
 and creeds less. God's plan is that the world shall become Brethren joined 
 together about the Person of Christ. 
 
 "I would, dear Jesus, I could break 
 
 The hedge that creeds and hearsay make; 
 
 And, like thy first disciples, be 
 
 In person led and taught by thee. 
 
 I read thy words so strong, so sweet, 
 
 I seek the footprints of thy feet; 
 
 But men so mystify the trace, 
 
 I long to see thee face to face. 
 
 Would'st thou not let me at thy side, 
 
 In thee, in thee, so sure confide? 
 
 Like John, upon thy breast recline 
 
 And feel thy heart make mine divine?" JOHN D. LONG. 
 James Martineau calls attention to the wrongs which have been done in 
 the name of "Fraternity," "Studies of Christianity," p. 311. "Brother- 
 hoods" are built over the smoldering coals of selfish passions, bounded by 
 social and political convenience, the hiding places of envy and egotism, 
 
86 THE ROAD 
 
 apart from belief in God. They are not two 
 beliefs. He is the manifestation of the Father 
 and the way to the Father, and to love him is to 
 love the Father. To love man is also to love the 
 Father, who made and loves man. To love those 
 who love God as brethren, manifests that we are 
 of the household of the Father, who loves the 
 family. The love to God, and to Christ, and to all 
 the good, satisfies an instinctive longing for a 
 personal center for our love, for men cannot be 
 happy, apart from each other, and never have 
 found satisfaction in life apart from God. The 
 excessive love of things inclines the heart away 
 from God. 1 There is a world love which is idola- 
 try, and it degrades; but the love of persons has 
 no such effect, and it opens up the heart to God. 
 Love and faith in their highest exercise do not 
 divide off into parts, so much of one and so much 
 of another, but they join together about persons, 
 and give their combined support to all natural 
 relations, as every home circle shows. 
 
 242. As the Gospel does not, like a cultus. 
 grow the fruit of separating beliefs or forms, the 
 New Testament is remarkably free from e very- 
 standing over against mankind outside the narrow, unjust, self-seeking 
 compacts. They show not brotherhood, but the WANT of faith in man and 
 brotherhood. The great patriot and scholar, William H. Seward, said that 
 he never joined a secret society because he would not put himself where he 
 might be tempted to do an act for which society might not be able to hold 
 him accountable. 
 
 In a Brotherhood with Jesus there is no possibility of injustice and 
 wrong. The selfish fraternities, which are a menace to those outside their 
 membership, the same as sectarian churches, show the need of the real 
 Brotherhood. "The first aspect in which Christianity presented itself to the 
 world was as a declaration of the fraternity of men in Christ." Lecky's 
 "History of European Morals/' Vol. II, p. 19. 
 
 1 1 John 2:15; 4:20, 21. 
 
THE ROAD 87 
 
 thing which divides people. There is in it no 
 catechism, systematic creed, set of articles, con- 
 fession of faith, liturgy, or forms of administer- 
 ing sacraments. Take out of the existing 
 churches what is not in the New Testament, and 
 they would be left without divisions, and be sim- 
 ply one Brotherhood. Christ is the head of 
 his own Church; the presence of the Holy Spirit 
 is an abiding presence; and a life with God which 
 leads one to love what God loves and to hate 
 what God hates, 1 stands over against the faith in 
 external things. 
 
 2. LOVE. 
 
 244. Love is the motive principle of faith, and 
 the second ingredient of a world religion. No 
 religion can exist without these two ingredients. 
 Faith is a propeller to action, for unless a man 
 believes a thing safe or possible he will not give 
 himself to its accomplishment. The motive 
 determines whether it is religious faith or not, 
 for all religious faith does its work from love as 
 its motive. Faith and love make a religion of 
 force and power. 
 
 245. The command to the disciples was to 
 tarry at Jerusalem until they were "endued with 
 power from on high;" 2 and when that power came 
 it was love, and it made the three thousand peo- 
 
 243. Thomas Arnold, the great teacher, said that he never was cer- 
 tain of a boy who said simply tint he loved the good; but he was certain 
 of him when he also said that he hated the bad. Anyone who loves what 
 God loves and hates what God hates, is a regenerated man; and neither 
 the love nor the hate stands alone in a godly character. Regeneration, in 
 its outworking, embodies all reform that is of God, bringing all into similar- 
 ity of feeling with him. 
 
 2 Luke 24:49. 
 
88 THE ROAD 
 
 pie, of seventeen different nations, "of one heart 
 and of one soul." l The topic of Chalmer's great- 
 est sermon was, "The Expulsive Power of a New 
 Affection," 2 and no principle works so mightily 
 to save one's life from the ruin of sin as right 
 loves. 3 In order that men may be men, it is not 
 knowledge that is needed so much as power; and 
 nothing but the power of love can work into 
 men's characters patience, kindness, generosity, 
 humility, courtesy, unselfishness, good temper, 
 guilelessness, and sincerity. 4 Paul's great word 
 was faith, but when he considered the regener- 
 ating and transforming power of love, he declared 
 it to be the greatest thing in the world. 
 
 246. The texts relating to love in the New 
 Testament are marvelous as to their number and 
 their clean-cut emphasis. Was it not for the 
 sake of emphasis that Jesus called the love, 
 which he had himself exemplified, a New Com- 
 mandment? 5 Every Jew understood that the 
 commandments of Moses' law embodied the 
 heart of religion; and so Jesus, by using the term 
 "commandment," pointed to the heart of his 
 religion. In wording the new commandment he 
 made love the only badge of a disciple; "By this 
 shall all men know tliat ye are my disciples.' 7 
 It is strange, in view of the common practice of 
 
 'Acts 1:46; 4:32. 
 
 2 Chalraer's Sermons, Vol. II, p. 271. 
 
 3 Bmce's "St. Paul's Conception of Christianity," p. 235. Faith, the 
 same as love, has a moral energy. 
 
 4 1 Cor. 13:1-13. All these virtues are named by the Apostle in this 
 remarkable analysis of love, verses 4-6. See "Drummond's Addresses," 
 chap. 1, "The Greatest Thing in the World." 
 
 *Jno. 13:34, 35; Jno. 17:21. 
 
THE ROAD 89 
 
 wearing badges, that Christians have not resorted 
 to some such way of designating themselves. 
 But Jesus ordered no badge to be worn but love, 
 and by means of that the world is to be converted. 
 He made this clear in the commandment; and, 
 if possible, even more clear in his prayer: "tio 
 that the world may believe." Not "civilization" 
 or a creed, but love, is to convert the world to 
 Jesus. 
 
 247. It is not known as it should be that the 
 Greek word agapee, the special word for love, 
 belongs to the Gospel; and it was prepared by 
 Providence, like the name Road, for its high 
 office. It was first used a few times in the Greek 
 translation of the Old Testament, made about 
 three hundred years before Christ, but it is not 
 found in any profane Greek writings. It is used 
 in the New Testament one hundred and fourteen 
 times; and it is clearly made known as a ruling 
 principle of life. 1 It denotes the love which 
 chooses its object with decision of will, so it 
 becomes self-denying or compassionate devotion 
 to and for its object. 
 
 248. l The sweeping statement of Paul is: "Love is the FULFILLING of 
 the Law," Rom. 13:10. Peter said, "ABOVE ALL THINGS have fervent love 
 among yourselves," 1 Peter 4:8; 1 Jno. 4:8. 
 
 Prof. Cremer, in his "Biblico-Theological Lexicon," p. 16, calls attention 
 to the fact that "both Paul and John assign to love the same central posi- 
 tion as the DISTINCTIVE PECULIARITY of the Christian life, and he notes this 
 difference between them: John uses the term agapee to designate not only 
 our actions toward our fellow men, but also our actions toward God aid his 
 revelation in Christ, 1 Jno. 2:5, 15; 3:17; 4:17; while in Paul's many letters 
 only once is the relation of men to God expressed by this word, 2 Thess. 
 3:5. In all other cases THE LOVE THE WORD INDICATES is EXERCISED 
 TOWARD MEN. It should be noted, also, that John connected love to God 
 with love to man, 1 Jno. 4:20; while Paul connected it with faith, Rom. 
 10:10. The close relation of faith and love should always be kept in mind, 
 for either one is worthless and cannot exist without the other. 
 
90 THE ROAD 
 
 249. Jesus declared that love to God and love 
 to man were primary principles of the Old Testa- 
 ment religion, and that the Law hung on them. 1 
 In the higher meaning of this New Testament 
 word, the love to man springs from a heart 
 renewed and possessed with the love of God, and 
 is the same in kind as God's love in redemption. 2 
 This love to man is conditioned upon and grows 
 out of the love to God, so that the two loves to 
 God and to man are the same love, and are not 
 two separate principles. 3 This high meaning of 
 the relationship of believers to each other, and 
 and of their common relation to God, was cele- 
 brated in the early churches at love-feasts, which 
 were common festivals of friendship, where the 
 Lord's Supper was celebrated and gifts were 
 made to the poor. 4 
 
 250. The ingredients of religion, which are 
 faith, love, worship and righteousness, are com- 
 mon to all the ten great religions of the world; 
 but love has not the high meaning in any one of 
 them that it has in the Gospel. In the light of 
 this fact, how extremely dreadful is the practice 
 of war, intemperance, and the many forms of 
 cruelty. The power of the early church in the 
 Roman Empire was owing to their consistent 
 practice of love. Through St. Paul's work to 
 plant a kingdom of peace and unity, without 
 national or other limitations, and with the ingre- 
 
 Matt. 22:40. The Golden Rule, also, is the Law and the Prophets, 
 Matt. 7:12. 
 
 ;John 3:16; 1 John 3:14; 4:12, 16. 
 
 3 Cremer's "Lexicon of the New Testament Greek," p. 16; and 
 graph 248. 
 
 'TThlhorn's "Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism/' p. 163; 
 
THE ROAD 91 
 
 dients of Jesus' religion, a new power was intro- 
 duced into the Roman Empire, 1 which many 
 were glad to welcome and to insert into their 
 civilization. 
 
 3- WORSHIP. 
 
 251. Entrance to the kingdom of Christ is on 
 the sole ground of love to the King; and where 
 there is love, knowledge will be attained by 
 experience. One who loves his Master will not 
 deny him; and there is no danger by heresy. 2 
 Good men of long experience sympathize with 
 the saintly Whipple, who said: "As the grave 
 grows nearer my theology grows strangely sim- 
 ple, and it begins and ends with Christ as the 
 only refuge of the lost." 3 The incorporation 
 with Christ in a unity of love and life, is the 
 basis of the higher, spiritual worship of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 252. Spiritual communion with God, by faith 
 in Christ, alone constitutes the essence of the 
 religion of the New Testament. 4 Many are dis- 
 turbed in their simple trust on the personal 
 Jesus by the talk of those who are wise beyond 
 what is written. They use language about Jesus, 
 the meaning of which they do not themselves 
 understand. Goethe reproves the folly of talking 
 doubts, thus: :"Give me the benefit of your faith, 
 if you have any, but keep your doubts to your- 
 self; I have enough of my own." Do not trouble 
 over the theologies of other people, but have 
 
 1 Bruce's "St. Paul's Conception of Christianity," p. 105. 
 
 2 Parker's "Ecce Deus," pp. 118, 119. 
 
 3 1 Tim. 1:15; Farrar's "Life of St. Paul," Vol. II, p. 188-191. 
 4 Gieseler*s "Church History"' Vol. I, p. 86. 
 
92 THE ROAD 
 
 quietly for yourself a whole-hearted faith in your 
 heavenly Father and in your compassionate 
 Savior. 1 
 
 254. The living faith of the Gospel, energetic 
 through love, leads directly to worship; and it is 
 easily seen that one who lacks the disposition to 
 worship God, whatever his knowledge and pro- 
 fessions may be, is certainly without religion. 
 Other things are incidental in one's experience 
 and duties; but faith, love and worship are per- 
 manent and essential ingredients of religion. 
 
 255. Each of these ingredients is such a thing 
 of life, and is so clearly of the Holy Spirit, that 
 it cannot be made a part of human invention or 
 church fittings. Jesus said in substance to the 
 woman of Samaria: No more with the institu- 
 tions, cults, and sacraments of Jerusalem and 
 Mount Gerizim, does the Father associate wor- 
 ship; but worshipers are wherever there is found 
 spirit and truth in worship; "for the Father 
 seeketh such to worship him."' This was the 
 first great announcement of world worship and 
 
 253. ^om. 14:22. One is perfectly happy in sunlight because he 
 knows that IT CAN BE RELIED UPON, even if he knows no facts of the sun's 
 nature, or of the composition of its light. It was the point of the manna 
 training, and is the point of about all other teaching of God, that we should 
 COME ABSOLUTELY TO RELY UPON HIM, Paragraph 133. Belief as a process 
 will work out in us such a reliance. It is the secret of a happy growing 
 religious life, to fix as a habit, RELIANCE UPON GOD, DAY BY DAY, AND IN 
 ALL THINGS. Without particular thought, and by a habit of mind which 
 excludes all doubt, we rely upon the rising of the sun EAC 3 DAY ; and so 
 should we believe in God EACH DAY; and we must keep on in the process of 
 believing until our hearts are fixed in the habit, Ps. 5:7, and God, like the 
 sun, is relied upon. It is the greatest blessing in this life to have such a 
 religion. Jesus compares it to a "treasure" and a "pearl of great price." 
 Matt. 11:30; 13:44, 46; 1 Tim. 4:8. 
 
 2 Jno. 4:23, 24; Matt. 12:7. 
 
THE ROAD 98 
 
 of the spirituality of religion; for it went beyond 
 Isaiah, who is credited with having given the 
 first declaration of independence of spiritual 
 religion from national control and political forms 
 and life. 1 Till then no one had dreamed of a 
 fellowship of faith, and love, and worship, disso- 
 ciated from all forms, and simply a Brotherhood. 
 Jesus' saying, "In spirit and in truth," twice 
 repeated to the Samaritan, meant religion with- 
 out its being an institution. Until Jesus spoke, 
 there was no authority for a church which is 
 nothing more than a Community of Brethren. 
 
 4. RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 256. In the Gospel, faith, love, worship and 
 righteousness are the ingredients of its religion. 
 They are related to a Person who is the Life and 
 Light of men. They have to be lived in order to 
 be known, the same as love of home and love of 
 country. They cannot be measured out and 
 handed over, as things apart from ourselves; nor 
 can they be defined, any more than life can be 
 defined. God made the word "flesh," and he 
 "dwelt among us/' in order to show the univer- 
 sality of the Father's love and the impartiality of 
 religion, as it never could have been shown by 
 any other means. It takes a life to reveal what 
 a thing of life is. Infinitely beyond the message 
 of any letter, we are led to understand by the 
 Life of Jesus the meaning of faith, love, worship, 
 and righteousness. He gave an object lesson of 
 these ingredients of religion. He lives in the 
 living faith of mankind, without awakening the 
 
 1 See Robertson Smiths's note on Isaiah 8, in "Expositor's Bible." 
 
94 THE ROAD 
 
 slightest suspicion of distinction or partiality; 
 and reproves the thoughts of the evil-minded, 
 fights the battles of the tempted, imparts courage 
 to the suffering, gives hope to the despairing, 
 and, when no longer a loving hand can minister, 
 he comforts the dying. 1 
 
 258. The entrance of Christ's life into the 
 lives of struggling and earnest men. as his spirit 
 shines down upon them to turn darkness into 
 light, makes the combination of religion and 
 morality, which in the New Testament is called 
 righteousness. Where religion and morality 
 combine no one can tell, any more than he can 
 tell where the ingredients of religion combine. 
 Their blending as elements of the same life, illus- 
 trated in the Sermon on the Mount, where ethics 
 and religion are joined at the root, Prof. Harnack 
 calls humility, and he says of it, that, it is not a 
 
 257. l The real creed of the Road is Jesus himself. To him we come, 
 and salvation is by believing ON HIM, Acts 16:31. Not by joining a church 
 but by joining the LORD, do we find our way to the true religion, Jer. 50:5. 
 "Come unto me," said Jesus, Matt. 11:28; "I am the Light of the World," 
 Jno. 8:12; "The true light which lighteth every man," Jno. 1:9; "I am the 
 Road, the Truth and the Life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me," 
 Jno. 14:6; "In him was life, and the life was the light of men," Jno. 1:4; 
 "He that belie veth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth 
 not the Son shall not see Life," Jno. 3:36; "Ye will not come to me, that 
 that ye might have life," Jno. 5:40; "I am the Bread of Life," Jno. 6:35. 
 The New Testament is full of passages of kindred meaning; and it is Jesus 
 Christ Personally that is meant, and not a creed about him. Unity about 
 a person held such a commanding place in the churches of the Apostles, 
 that contentions about doctrines were almost entirely lost sight of: Believ- 
 ing, in its Bible-meaning, is not simply an act but a process, which goes on 
 through life; and its experience is like that of domestic life, which is better 
 understood and becomes more real as years pass by. People so different 
 as were the Jews and Gentiles in the Apostolic churches never could have 
 been united in any way except about a Person. Belief in Jesus unites, 
 while that of creeds and opinions separates. See Feuerbach's "Essence of 
 Christianity," p. 48; John Young's "Life and Light of Men," p. 336-355. 
 
\ 
 1 UNIVERSITY ) 
 
 THE "ROAD 95 
 
 virtue in itself but the opening up of the heart 
 to God, an abiding disposition toward the good, 
 and that out of it everything good grows. The 
 Sermon on the Mount "carried morality to the 
 sublimest point attained, or even attainable by 
 humility/' its "great theme being the righteous- 
 ness required of those who would be members of 
 the new kingdom." 1 At its beginning are the 
 marvelous Beatitudes, the central one of which 
 relates to the desire for righteousness; and the 
 sermon as a whole abounds in examples of what 
 true righteousness in principle and in act leads to. 
 
 259. Other books describe the special mean- 
 ings of the term righteousness; 2 but we have in 
 mind here, that practical moral goodness which 
 is so necessary in all the relations of life. Where 
 Paul used the term with this meaning, he meant 
 moral goodness as it appears in the life of Jesus: 
 "Who of God is made unto us wisdom, and right- 
 eousness, and sanctification, and redemption."' 
 
 1 Prof. Stewart in "Bible Readers' Manual," and Paragraph 333. 
 
 260. 2 Prof. Bush's "St. Paul's Conception of Christianity," p. 146; 
 Prof. McGiffert's "Apostolic Age," p. 144. 
 
 Any view that we may take of righteousness brings us up squarely 
 against the fact of SIN. Jesus recognized this by his teaching of right- 
 eousness in the Sermon on the Mount, where, at every turn of the thought, 
 he refers to sin in some form. "If there is anything within the compass of 
 heaven and earth which we can be said to know from ourselves, and to have 
 no need that another shall tell us, it is the nature of sin. There is no 
 arrogance, there is only sorrowful confession, in protesting that THIS is a 
 matter on which we cannot be mistaken. It is the nearest of all things to 
 us, the clinging presence that penetrates the very folds of our nature, and 
 is known only from within, where its fibres strike and draw their nutriment," 
 Martineau's "Studies of Christianity," 468. 
 
 3 1 Cor. 1:30. "Paulinism stands in the closest opposition to all merely 
 natural moralism, all righteousness of works, all religious ceremonialism, 
 all Christianity without Christ," Prof. Harnack's "History of Dogma," Vnl. 
 I, p. 135-, See Paragraphs 68, 263. 
 
96 THE ROAD 
 
 This text was meant to have an ethical meaning, 
 and it covers the whole group or class of moral 
 influences by which we live and are finally 
 brought to heaven; for we become wise, righteous, 
 sanctified and redeemed through Jesus. 1 All the 
 teaching of the New Testament gathers about 
 these ingredients of God's religion. Doctrine, in 
 its theological meaning, is not taught for the 
 sake of doctrine, but the teaching has reference 
 to life by the making or improvement of faith, 
 love, worship and righteousness. Because these 
 have a strictly spiritual and inward attitude the 
 Gospel is not a teaching about religion but it is 
 religion itself. 
 
 261. Righteousness is the great word of the 
 Old Testament, but the meaning which Jesus' 
 life gives to it, makes it a greater word in the 
 New Testament. Its good works are intended 
 to "shine before men/ 72 and make the disciple 
 "approved of men; 3 and by them we are to be 
 "known and read of all men, 4 and thus be "a 
 peculiar people zealous of good works." ] God's 
 Koad is a road of righteousness; 6 an object of 
 the discipline of life is to perfect us in righteous- 
 ness; 7 and righteousness is the evidence we give 
 to others that we have been born of God; s and 
 "whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of 
 God;" 9 for the kingdom of God is righteousness, 
 peacableness and godliness, by which one is able 
 to serve Christ and to be acceptable to God. 10 
 
 1 1 Pet. 2:21, 22; Matt. 6:33; Jno. 8:12, 2 Matt. 5:16. 
 
 3 Rom. 14:18. 4 2 Cor. 3:2, 3, 5 Titus 2:14. 
 
 6 1 Peter 2:24. 7 James 3:17, 18; Heb. 12:14. 
 
 8 Heb. 12:11; 1 Jno. 2:29. 9 1 Jno. 3:10; Matt. 10:42; Eph. 2:10. 
 
 10 Rom. 14:17-19; Eph. 5:8-11; 1 Tim. 6:11. 
 
THE ROAD 97 
 
 5. POINTS MANIFESTED IN THIS CHAPTER. 
 
 262. Its permanent ingredients of faith, love, 
 worship and righteousness, exhibit religion as a 
 practical force of life in operation among men. 
 
 263. These ingredients involve all the virtues 
 and exercises of religion; such as repentance, 
 yielding of self, forgiveness, regeneration, recon- 
 ciliation, justification, humility, peace, hope, the 
 exercises of prayer, and sanctification. 
 
 264. We know of these ingredients in their 
 most perfect development by means of the Bible, 
 and especially by the life of Jesus; but the Spirit 
 of God, the Life and Light of the world, and the 
 light of nature, shine them down also through 
 all the Providential religions of the lands of the 
 earth, as the sun shines in all lands; so that no 
 people are entirely without the ingredients of 
 religion, any more than they are without the 
 light of the sun, moon and stars. 
 
 265. These ingredients are God's means of 
 seeking man, and they also are man's means of 
 finding God; and they are the means to both God 
 and man of an eternal relation by a moral union 
 of man to God, which is religion itself. 
 
 266. These ingredients as principles of a 
 human life, involve nothing to create differences 
 among men, but as they unite in themselves, they 
 are the only operations by which mankind are 
 made into the Brotherhood Church of Jesus; and 
 by them people of all races and classes are made 
 Brethren. 
 
 267. By the relation of these ingredients, and 
 by their inseparable companionship about the 
 Person of Jesus, as the members of his religion, 
 
98 THE ROAD 
 
 religion and morality are combined; so that the 
 Sermon on the Mount has to be preached in order 
 to preach Jesus and the Cross. 
 
 Consider now how simple is the Road, so simple 
 that a child who trusts and loves and reverences 
 and obeys his parents can understand its ingredi- 
 ents. They are things of life which any man can 
 understand, for the same reasons that he knows 
 that he is a sinner and needs to be saved, or 
 knows that he trusts and loves and honors and 
 regards his family or his countrymen. To save 
 mankind, and to make of this world a Kingdom 
 of the Heavens, and a Family of Brethren, how 
 much better is this simple religion, and these 
 living ingredients of actual life, than assent to 
 any external or outside forms set up by any stat- 
 utory religion or by any institutional church on 
 earth. 
 
 brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother; 
 
 Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there; 
 To worship rightly is to love each other, 
 
 Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer. 
 Follow with reverent steps the great example 
 
 Of Him whose holy work was * doing good;' 
 So shall the wide earth seem our Father's tempi , 
 
 Each loving life a psalm of gratitude. 
 Then shall all shackles fall; the stormy clangor 
 
 Of wild war music o'er the earth shall cease; 
 Love shall tread out the baleful fire of anger, 
 
 And in its ashes plant the tree of peace. WHITTIER. 
 
VII. 
 ORDINANCES NOT SECTARIAN. 
 
 268. "It is the spirit that quickeneth * * * * the words that I have 
 spoken unto you are spirit, and are life." l 
 
 269. "Our sufficiency is from God; who also made us sufficient as min- 
 isters of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter 
 killeth, but the spirit giveth life." 2 
 
 270. "Having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of 
 incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and abideth." 3 
 
 271. "For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body." 4 
 
 I. THE ROAD AND WATER BAPTISM. 
 
 272. Statutory religion has had a chief sup- 
 port in the external ordinances of religion. Great 
 institutions of religion have been held together 
 by the fear disseminated that salvation is 
 in danger by the neglect of some outward 
 form. Water baptism has been a great means 
 of ecclesiasticism, To no external thing does 
 the Eoad attach any saving value. The thing 
 that counts in the religion of Jesus and with 
 earnest men is character. 5 It cannot be explained 
 to one who feels the meaning of existence, how 
 the great Creator of worlds has an infinite and 
 eternal wish as to a way of using water which 
 
 1 John 6:63. 2 2 Cor. 3:5, 6. 3 1 Peter 1:23. 4 1 Cor. 12:13. 
 
 273. 5 There were local reasons why John the Baptist made so much of 
 baptism, while he dropped all other religious forms, the same as the other 
 Prophets. Jesus preached repentance the same as John, but dropped the 
 baptism. He attributed no value to ceremonies, and never baptized any 
 one with water, Matt. 3:2; 4:17; Jno. 4:2. What a departure it was from 
 Jesus to teach that one is damned who is not baptized with water in an 
 approved way, Lecky's "History of European Morals," Vol. II, p. 25, 
 
100 THE ROAD 
 
 imperils salvation. If water baptism is any 
 account, its meaning is found in the long history 
 of God's providential supervision in the develop- 
 ment of the Jewish nation from ignorance and 
 barbarism into a religious civilization. 
 
 274. They were given a system of religion 
 which abounded with ceremonial observances, 
 the object of which was to impress them with 
 the idea of purity and holiness. 1 The type of 
 moral character was low in Israel, and it was 
 lower still in the adjoining nations. It was a 
 problem that God only could work out, to raise 
 such a people to- an understanding of a spiritual 
 and holy life. In order to do this, they were set 
 to work at a religion of washings and cleansings. 
 They were all the time kept at making distinc- 
 tions between things clean and unclean. All 
 kinds of ceremonial pollutions required purifica- 
 tion by water. To wash the clothes and to bathe 
 the flesh in water, is the common requirement 
 for the defiled, in the book of Leviticus. 2 
 Whether it was w r ashing or bathing, or sprink- 
 ling with water, the thought was that of a 
 purification? 
 
 275. The clean persons sprinkled water upon 
 the unclean, and the unclean was required to 
 wash his clothes and bathe himself in order to 
 purification. 4 In these purifications appointed 
 
 1 See Paragraph 129. 
 
 2 Lev. 11:25; 13:6; 14:8, 9; 15:5, 8, 11; 16:26, 28; et al.,- 
 
 3 Num. 8:7; 19:13, 18-22; et al. 
 
 276. 4 Water, in a religious service, is a symbol-rite: No matter how 
 it is used, it denotes a purely spiritual conception. The use of water even 
 by John the Baptist was a mere incident of his work. The real purification 
 
THE ROAD 101 
 
 for the unclean, the baptism of proselytes and 
 John's baptism originated. 1 
 
 277. John's baptism implied that the people 
 were unclean, and that they must be puritied in 
 order to be lit for the kingdom of heaven. 2 The 
 people came to it at once, because they were 
 perfectly familiar with its use and its meaning. 
 John defined it by saying: "1 indeed baptize you 
 with water unto repentance"* 
 
 278. Repentance signified a purification so 
 complete that both the inward conviction and 
 the outward conduct of life would be made 
 
 which he did, was by bringing men to a "baptism into repentance," or "into 
 the remission of sins," Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3. 
 
 The baptism of John can be understood only as it is associated with 
 repentance. It was repentance that opened the way to purified lives of 
 righteousness. Of ceremonies, sacrifices, institutions, and works of the 
 Law, he seemed to care nothing and said nothing. He followed the Proph- 
 ets in this; and opened the way for the advanced work without sacramen- 
 tarianism by Jesus and the Apostles. Luke 3:2-18. 
 
 279. l See Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible," Vol. I, page 233. As a 
 religious sendee, ablution or bathing was common in all ancient nations. 
 The SPIRITUAL PURIFICATION for which the ceremonial washings stood, was 
 well known in Israel, Psalm 26:6; 51:2, 7; 73:13; Isai. 4:4; Jer. 4:14. 
 
 280. 2 In both the Old and New Testaments water often has the spir- 
 itual meaning of an inward purification: "In that day there shall be a 
 fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants' of Jerusalem, 
 for sin and for uncleanness;" "after a true likeness doth now save 
 you, even baptism, not the putting away of the fiith of the flesh, but the 
 interrogation of a good conscience toward God," Zech. 13:1; 1 Pet. 3:21. 
 
 281. 3 Give to it its spiritual meaning and substitute the word PURIFI- 
 CATION for tke word baptism, and see what a rich meaning there is in 
 many passages, that are now poorly understood. Remember that the 
 
 PURIFICATION IS BY MEANS OF REPENTANCE AND HOLINESS, and then consider 
 
 how rich and great is the great commission: 
 
 "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to the whole creation. 
 He that believeth and is PURIFIED shall be saved," Mark 16:15, 16. 
 
 They were commissioned to go and bring men under the influence of 
 penitence and pardon. Not water, but spiritual purification was mean* 
 
102 THE ROAD 
 
 clean. 1 The observance of the letter of the law, 
 with its legal purifications, could not purify the 
 people. 2 Their fathers had walked over the dried 
 bed of Jordan into the promised land, and now 
 with the baptism of repentance, they must be 
 purified in its current and come up out of it pre- 
 pared for the promised kingdom of the Messiah. 3 
 The legal purifications as related to the baptism 
 of John, show that water baptism stood for puri- 
 fication by repentance and holiness. 
 
 285. The words baptize and purify are used 
 interchangeably, showing that they mean exactly 
 the same thing: 
 
 "There arose therefore a question on the part 
 of John's disciples about purifying and they 
 came unto John and said to him, Rabbi, he 
 that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou 
 
 282. l In the Bible meaning of baptism, there is nothing more sec- 
 tarian than there is in repentance and holiness. How poor is the thought, 
 if the meaning we attach to it is only that of a mode of using water. 
 
 283. 2 The immersionist quotes freely from ancient writers, to show 
 that the literal meaning of baptism is to submerge. The fiiends of other 
 modes, do the same thing. This can be done, because the ancients were 
 not careful to confine the word to any mode of using water. When 
 "divers washings" are spoken of, the word baptize is used in the Greek. 
 Heb. 9:10; Mark 7:4. If a house is to be cleansed, water may be used 
 in any way; but it is not the way of using the water that is in mind, but 
 the purification. There may also be purification without using water. 
 
 284. 3 Forty years ago, I was baptized by immerson in a running 
 stream of water. As I had been taught to read 'the Bible, I believed that 
 thus I was exactly following the example of Jesus. I do not now believe 
 that Jesus was baptized in that manner. But the real point of this chapter 
 is not primarily to establish another mode, but to make it clear that on 
 account of the diverse opinions as to modes or the use of water at all, the 
 utmost charity must 'be practiced among Jesus' disciples. In whatever 
 way water is used, all are Brethren, Matt. 23:8; 1 Tim. 1:5; 1 Cor. 12:13. 
 
THE ROAD 103 
 
 hast borne witness, behold the same baptizeth 
 and all men come to him." 
 
 Their dispute was about purifying and when 
 they came to John to have it settled they called 
 it baptizing. Any one can thus see that the 
 Bible meaning of baptism is to purify. 2 
 
 2. THE HOLY SPIRIT AND HIS BAPTISM. 
 
 287. The Holy Spirit is the great purifier, 3 and 
 water is of use only to the extent that it symbol- 
 izes his baptism. His baptism is the life of all 
 true religion in all sects; and wherever any one 
 is found who has the fruits of the Spirit, his work 
 of making godly character can be seen. Of this 
 baptism, the church Father in the extract above 
 says: " Jesus baptizes but with the Spirit; and 
 this is perfect." 
 
 288. It is so distinguished in itself, that where 
 this baptism is referred to in the New Testament 
 it is called, "one baptism;" "dead unto sin;" "into 
 Christ Jesus;" * 'buried with him;" "rooted and 
 
 1 John 3:25, 26. 
 
 286. 2 Gregory Nazianzen, a leading church father who wrote in the 
 Fourth Century, says of the many baptisms and their one meaning of puri- 
 fication (11:353): 
 
 "Come let us inquire somewhat concerning the differences of baptisms, 
 that we may go hence PURIFIED. Moses baptized, but with water and 
 previously with the cloud and sea. And John baptized but not Judaically, 
 nor yet with water only, but also into repentance; but not wholly spiritu- 
 ally, for he does not add, 'with the Spirit/ And Jesus baptizes, but with 
 the Spirit. And this is perfect. I know a fourth kind of baptism, that 
 which is by martyrdom and blood, with which Christ himself was baptized. 
 And I know yet a fifth, the baptism of tears, washing nightly his bed with 
 tears. Perhaps then they will be baptized with fire, harder to bear and 
 longer in duration, the final baptism," Dale's "Judaic Baptism" p. 382. 
 
 8 Holy GHOST as a name for the Holy Spirit ought to become obseltte. 
 It is not a fit term to apply to the Spirit of God. He is not a 
 
104 THE ROAD 
 
 builded up in him;" "body of sin done away;" "a 
 new creation. " What is meant always is, an 
 experience of life which water or some other 
 thing mav be used to symbolize. 1 
 
 290. When the life-giving work of the Spirit 
 ceases from the world, there will no longer exist 
 the Road of Jesus. All four of the Gospels agree 
 that the baptism by Jesus, which is his presence 
 among men in all ages, is of the Holy Spirit: 
 
 "I indeed baptize you with w r ater unto repent- 
 ance; but he that cometh after me is mightier 
 than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; He 
 shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit an$ with 
 fire." : "I baptize you with water; but he shall 
 baptize you with the Holy Spirit." 5 "I indeed 
 baptize you w r ith water; * * * He shall bap- 
 tize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." 
 "He that sent me to baptize with water he said 
 unto me, upon whomsoever thou shalt see the 
 Spirit descending, and abiding upon him, the 
 same is he that baptizeth with the Holy Spirit. 57 ' 
 
 291. It is marvelous how plainly John the 
 Baptist thus indicates that the chief feature of 
 Christ's administration would be the baptism by 
 the Spirit/' He did not say that Jesus like him- 
 
 289. l This spiritual change by God's Spirit drawing us into new loves 
 and new purposes, is spoken of in many ways in the Scriptures. It is in 
 all cases a purification or baptism. Compare Gal. 2:20; 6:14; 5:22-25; 
 Jno. 3:6-8; Eph. 4:5; 6:14; Rom. 6:3, 6, 11; 8:2, 6, 9, 14-16; Col. 2:6, 12, 
 13, 14; 3:3, 10; 2 Cor. 5:17. Consider each one of the fruits of the 
 Spirit, and the character which they all together make, Gal. 5:22, 23. 
 
 2 Matt. 3:11. 3 -Mark 1:8. 4 Luke 3:16. 5 John 1:33. 
 
 292. 6 The disciples who happened to be present on the day of Pente- 
 cost received the baptism of the Spirit in a special manner; but there were 
 many more disciples elsewhere, and there is no intimation that they did not 
 also receive a baptism of the Spirit. The baptism of Cornelius with the 
 
THE ROAD 105 
 
 self would baptize with water. As people are 
 educated now, wherever the word baptize occurs 
 it is supposed to mean water; while in no case 
 did Jesus ever mention water in connection with ike 
 word baptize except where he referred to John's 
 baptism. 
 
 ^98. Before Jesus left the world, he promised 
 that the Holy Spirit would come, and go on with 
 the work which he had begun: "He shall give 
 you another Comforter that he may abide with 
 you forever. 7 ' 1 
 
 294. The book of Acts has been called "the 
 Gospel of the Spirit." Notwithstanding its brev- 
 ity, it contains more than fifty references to the 
 Holy Spirit." These references show the f ultiil- 
 ment of the promise of "Power from on High," 3 
 and there is no promise which carries in it such 
 a meaning of Life and Light for all the world. 
 The cry of Christendom should go up to God 
 every hour of every day: "Take not thy Holy 
 Spirit from me." 4 And the business of every 
 one who prays this prayer of repentance and 
 faith, is to repent and believe. Let those who 
 desire the true baptism come immediately to 
 Christ, waiting not for clergy, and crowd, and 
 watei>, to perlorm a baptism; and let them yield 
 
 Holy Spirit was the reason that Peter gave for baptizing with water, Acts 
 10:47. Jesus' disciples baptized witn water, but "Jesus himself baptized 
 not," Jno. 4:2. His one baptism was with the Holy Spirit only; and since 
 John said that this WOULD BE JESUS' BAPTISM, no one has a right to attach 
 the idea of WATER to the word baptism when it is found in the New Testa- 
 ment, unless there are evident reasons for so doing. 
 
 1 John 14:16, 17; 15:26; 16:7-15; Luke 12:12; Mark 13:11. 
 
 2 See Bickersteth's " The Spirit of Life" p. 25-28. 
 
 3 Luke 24:49. * Psalm 51:11. 
 
106 THE ROAD 
 
 themselves in the worship of silent surrender to 
 the Spirit of Life, and walk in the Spirit. 1 
 
 295. The Apostles did not receive water bap- 
 tism from the hands of their divine Master; and 
 if we may take the practice of Paul as an exam- 
 ple of all the other Apostles, they made much of 
 the baptism of the Spirit and but little of water 
 baptism in their work. We have no account 
 that they ever were baptized with water. Paul 
 was eighteen months in Corinth, when he planted 
 the church there, and in relation to his work and 
 water baptism, he says: "I thank God that I 
 baptized none of you, save Crispus and Grains; 
 * * * and I baptized also the household of 
 Stephanus; besides I know not whether I bap- 
 tized any other. For Christ sent me not to 
 baptize, but to preach the Gospel. 7 ' 
 
 296. Ponder well the example of the Apostles, 
 and understand that Jesus did the baptizing 
 with the Holy Spirit which Paul associates w^ith 
 spiritual life and redemption. Water was used 
 to symbolize the baptism with the Spirit, with 
 the same freedom that the Jews had always used 
 it to represent cleansing; but the real and effect- 
 ual baptism was with the Spirit and "Into Christ 
 Jesus." 
 
 297. No one did so much as Paul as a preacher 
 under "the great commission/' 3 and yet he said 
 with reference to water baptism, "Christ sent 
 
 1 Rom. 8:2; "For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body,'* 
 1 Cor. 12:13. 
 8 1 Cor. 1:14. 
 3 Mark 16:16. 
 
$* &A lUY 
 
 me not to baptize,"* He never thought that any- 
 body would understand him to mean water bap- 
 tism, and surely not a mode of baptism, when he 
 wrote of a burial with Christ in baptism. Where 
 he uses these words, in Colossians and Romans 2 
 he labors to find words and figures to express the 
 change from a carnal to a Spiritual life. In Col- 
 ossians he represents the new life as "rooted" in 
 Christ, ''builded up in Him," "established in your 
 faith," "circumcised with a circumcision not 
 made with hands," "putting off of the flesh," 
 "buried with Him in baptism," "raised with Him 
 through faith," "quickened together with Him." 
 
 299. What is Paul teaching by the use of such 
 a number of figures? Certainly it is not how to 
 be baptized; but newness of life. He puts 
 together words to say that there must be a dying 
 to self, a burial of the old and a rising into a 
 new life. This is a mighty passage of Scripture, 
 and it is a perversion of its intent to single out 
 "buried with Him in baptism" to teach a literal 
 dipping of one in water by some one else. 3 If 
 
 298. l 1 Cor. 1:14-17. When Paul threw off the last sacramental 
 thing he had, circumcision, 1 Cor. 7:19, he was in no mood to take up 
 water in its place; and evidently he did not understand "baptizing" in the 
 great commission, Matt. 28:19, to refer to water. Existence to him was 
 too serious a matter to have time or patience to maneuver a sect or a form. 
 
 2 Rom. Chap. 6, and Col. Chap. 2. 
 
 300. 3 The same great mistake is made, when Romans chapter 6 is 
 understood to mean something else than the cleansing by the Spirit and 
 newness of life. Some people have made so much of "buried with Him 
 through baptism," in verse 4. Consider now: 
 
 (a) If water baptism is meant, it is absolutely essential in order to 
 salvation; for in order to be saved we must be "baptized into Christ Jesus.'* 
 
 (b) Water baptism is not meant, for the subject about which the 
 apostle is writing is the new spiritual life which comes by being ''dead to 
 sin." What Jesus does in his work of redemption, and not rites mr wdi- 
 
108 fEI BOAB 
 
 that is the Apostle's meaning, then no one can 
 be saved without water baptism; but if it is not 
 his meaning, then the water is not an ingredient 
 of the salvation taught. 1 
 
 302. It is the same "one baptism" that Jesus 
 sought to have Nicodemus think about, when he 
 alluded to the water purifications. Knowing 
 how much the Jews then made of baptism, he 
 sought by means of that to raise his thought to 
 
 nances, is the subject in chap. 5; and the new life we have in him, is the 
 subject of chap. 6. 
 
 (c) Water baptism does not produce "newness of life," the result 
 claimed for- the baptism in verse 4: 
 
 "We are buried therefore with him through baptism * * * so we 
 also might walk in NEWNESS OF LIFE." 
 
 Water baptism has no esential relation whatever to such a change in a 
 man's moral condition. 
 
 (d) If the passage is so literal that a burial in water is taught by it, 
 then how about the thought when the apostle changes the figure, verse 6? 
 
 "Knowing this, that our old man was CRUCIFIED * * * so we should 
 no longer be in bondage .to sin." 
 
 Is not a literal crucifixion taught as much as a literal burial? 
 
 (e) The ancient Hebrews usually buried by putting the body away 
 laterally or sidewise into a tomb. They laid it usually upon a shelf in a 
 burial chamber. It is probable that Paul had no thought of our modern 
 way of burial, and what he said did not refer to a submersion in water. 
 
 (f) When we consider that Paul by all his figures of language was 
 trying to teach newness of life, how forcible is his saying if we translate 
 the word "baptism" by the Scriptural term PURIFICATION, which expresses 
 its meaning: "BURIED WITH HIM BY PURIFICATION;" that is, to possess 
 holiness in him, laying away our sins as he laid away his mortality. 
 
 (g) The baptism here taught is not into water, but it is "INTO CHRIST 
 JESUS." 
 
 301. l What life there is in all these figures if they are spiritually 
 apprehended: "dead to sin," "purified into Christ Jesus," "buried through 
 purification," "walk in newness of life," "united with him," "crucified with 
 him," "body of sin done away," "no longer in bondage to sin." "justified 
 from sin," "dead with Christ," "live with him," "alive unto God." 
 
 The "letter killeth" truth thus expressed, but the words are life if they 
 are spiritually received. There is the "one baptism," which is by the "one 
 Spirit," and which makes of the church "one body," Eph. 4:4, 5. 
 
*R1 BOAS 
 
 the spiritual By the one word, ''water," the 
 attention of Nicodemus was arrested, and the 
 truth by the birth of the Spirit was given in all 
 the other words. 1 
 
 303. Luke does not omit the preaching of the 
 Gospel from his rendering of the great commis- 
 sion; but instead of "baptize" as in Matthew and 
 Mark, he says: "Tarry ye in Jerusalem until ye 
 be endued with power from on high? More than 
 eight years after the day of Pentecost, the bap- 
 tism with the Spirit is spoken of by Peter the 
 same as at first, but without the "tongues part- 
 ing asunder, like as of fire:" 
 
 "Then remembered I the word of the LORD 
 how he said, John indeed baptized with water; 
 but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit/ 71 
 
 304. Many years afterwards, Paul said of all 
 Christians: 
 
 "For in one spirit were we all baptized into 
 one body;" "According to his mercy- he saved 
 us, through the washing of regeneration, and 
 renewing of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out 
 upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Savior." 4 
 
 It is a religious calamity, when any one puts 
 water in the place of this "one baptism ;" and this 
 baptism with the Spirit can no more be shut in 
 
 J It was the second reference to being born again, Jno. 3:3, 5, in which 
 Jesus alluded to water. Nicodemus understood that term as the symbol of 
 a new birth by purification. Proselytes were thus EXTERNALLY "born 
 again." By what Nicodemus already knew of a birth by water and of the 
 blowing of the wind, Jesus endeavored to explain to him the being "born 
 from above." The explanation by means of water purification and the 
 wind, of regeneration by the Holy Spirit INTERNALLY, begins with this 
 second reference to being born again, in verse 5. 
 
 2 Luke 24:47-49. 3 Acts 2:3; 11:16. 4 1 Cor. 12:13; Titus 3:5, 6. 
 
9x8 
 
 as a sectarian possession by any one church, than 
 the sun which shines for all, 
 
 3- THE MODE OF BAPTISM WITH WATER. 
 
 305. In the purifications of the Jews, water 
 was very commonly used by sprinkling. In 
 accord with that practice, the baptism of the 
 Holy Spirit was typified in prophecy as a sprink- 
 ling with water: 
 
 "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, 
 and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness 
 and from all your idols will I cleanse you." ! 
 
 306. Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit as "poured 
 out upon us. 77 This describes baptism with the 
 same word that was used more than thirty years 
 before for the baptism of the Spirit on the Day 
 of Pentecost. 3 This Greek word is used eighteen 
 times in the New Testament, and always means 
 to pour out* 
 
 307. In no case is the mode indicated, where 
 water baptism is mentioned in the New Testa- 
 ment; but the mode of the baptism with the 
 Spirit is stated to be that of pouring. John said: 
 "I baptized you with water; but he shall baptize 
 you with the Holy Spirit." 5 In each case it was 
 a baptism; and since we know the mode with the 
 Spirit, we may understand that the mode with 
 water was the same. When this is considered, 
 the following two passages prove that Jesus was 
 baptized by pouring: "I will pour forth of my 
 
 1 Ezek. 36:25. 2 Titus 3:6, R. V. 3 Acts 2:17. 
 
 4 Rev. 16:1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 17, et al. 
 
 5 Mark 1:8. 
 
THE ROAD 111 
 
 spirit upon all flesh." 1 "Because that on the 
 Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy 
 Spirit/' : Such a plain statement of truth, any 
 one ought to be able to see. The Holy Spirit was 
 poured out, and so was the water. 
 
 308. When it is known that pouring was the 
 mode of John's baptism, many things at once 
 appear reasonable. It is made plain how at least 
 a hundred thousand people without change of 
 raiment, both men and women, could come and 
 be baptized and pass away without dripping 
 clothes. 3 John could stand upon a rock and pour 
 water upon their heads as they passed by him, 
 in the edge of the river; and he could not endure 
 it to stand in water for days, deep enough to 
 immerse. The people also would thus go down 
 into the water and come up out of the water; 
 but they would not be plunged under the water. 
 
 310. All of the scripture accounts of baptism 
 are thus clearly explained. It was easy for one 
 dressed with loose garments, and bare footed or 
 with sandals, to step down into the edge of the 
 water and be baptized; and because he went 
 
 1 Acts 2:17. 2 Acts 10:45. 3 Matt. 3:5. 
 
 309. 4 Acts 8:38; Abbott calls this kind of pouring, immersion with- 
 out submersion. He says: " Baptism was generally by immersion, but it is 
 by no means clear that it was ever by submersion. The earliest picture we 
 have of baptism is one upon the walls of the Catacombs, in which John the 
 Baptist and Jesus are represented as standing up to their waists in the 
 river Jordan, while John pours water on the head of Jesus. It is not at all 
 improbable that the earlist form of baptism was one which has now utterly 
 gone out of use in our churches a method of immersion coupled with pour- 
 ing * * * Any one cou id administer . baptism. Paul himself was 
 baptized by a layman. Any one could preach, and every disciple did * 
 They required no ordination for preaching or for the administration of what 
 we now call sacraments." Abbott's "Life and Letters of Paul," p. 66. 
 
112 THE ROAD 
 
 down into the water and came up out of the 
 water, is not the slightest proof that he was sub- 
 merged. When Philip and the eunuch got off 
 the wagon and went down into the w r ater for 
 baptism, it was a convenient thing to do; and it 
 is not reasonable to suppose that the mode 
 required them to continue their journey with 
 dripping clothes. He was baptized by pouring, 
 standing in the shallow edge of the water, the 
 same as Jesus 1 . 
 
 311. Ancient art proves pouring to have been the mode of Jesus' 
 baptism. The very ancient painting on the door of the great church at 
 Pisa; and on the door of the church on the Via Ostiensis, at Rome; and on 
 the door of the church at Beneventum, Italy; and on the dome of the bap- 
 tistry at Ravenna, all represent the baptism of Jesus, by John pouring water 
 on his head. In agreement with all this, James R. Mershon, of Newton, 
 Iowa, who spent many years in the ministry and in business, and then 
 made an extended visit to Italy, wrote in a letter to me dated April 26, 
 1893: 
 
 " The very costly baptismal font built by Constantine, about 250 years 
 after Paul's time, is yet in use. It is a marble structure containing a bowl 
 for holding water, and in front of it is a marble basin in the form of a 
 kitchen sink. The candidate leans forward over the sink, while the water 
 is poured on his head. Infants held by an adult, are baptized in the same 
 way. The two churches of Pudens and Clement, built in Paul's time, are 
 carefully preserved. Their arrangements for baptisms, show that the 
 ordinance was administered in the same way." 
 
 It has been said that the Greek Church practices only immersion; but 
 under date of Jan. 4, 1886, Rev. Dr. Henry B. Jessup, of Beirut, Syria, 
 wrote to Dr. Philip Schaif, of New York: 
 
 " It is well known that the Orthodox Greek Church insists upon trine- 
 immersion as essential to salvation, whether in case of infants or adults. 
 Yet sometimes, in cases of necessity, they baptize by pouring the water 
 three times upon the head * * * Immersion in WHOLE or in PART, 
 supplemented by pouring if necessary, is the Oriental mode of baptism." 
 
 The last sentence has the additional authority of the eminent Dr. Van 
 Dyck. He gives a case of "necessity" in his letter: A child of eight 
 months was found to be too large for the stone baptismal font, so the Greek 
 priest held it on his left arm and poured the water on its head. The letter 
 states that "they allow pouring when immersion is not convenient;" and it 
 also states that the Jacobites, the ancient sect of Syria, baptized by 
 pouring. 
 
THE ROAD 118 
 
 312. God, in his providence, has thrown yet 
 another light upon this subject, which is worth 
 more than lexicons. A few years ago, Bishop 
 Bryennios, of Nicomedia, in Asia Minor, discov- 
 ered in Constantinople, "The Teaching of the 
 Twelve Apostles." It is a catechetical treatise 
 of the early church, probably as early as 120 and 
 not later than 160 A. D. Chapter VII, says: 
 
 "And concerning baptism, thus baptize ye: 
 Having first said all these things, baptize into 
 the name of the Father, and of the Son and of 
 the Holy Spirit in living water. But if thou 
 have not living water, baptize in other y/ater; 
 and if thou canst not in cold, in warm. But if 
 thou have not either, pour out water thrice upon 
 the head into the name of the Father and Son 
 and Holy Spirit." 
 
 This teaches that we should do what is covenient 
 in the matter of baptism; and, positively, it never 
 could have been written if immersion -was the only 
 mode practiced in the Apostolic church. 
 
 313. Is not the argument conclusive? Does 
 the mode of baptism furnish any reason for sec- 
 tarianism? Should not every one read the Bible, 
 and have liberty to follow personal convictions 
 and be baptized by any mode? As a religious 
 term, the word means neither to immerse nor 
 sprinkle, nor pour; 1 and why should the work of 
 
 314. l Dr. Robinson translates the Greek word BAPTIZO, "to wash, to 
 lave, to cleanse by washing." He says that this meaning must be given to 
 it in the New Testament, because the Hebrews who spoke the Greek lan- 
 guage, "expressed not always simply immersion, but the more general idea 
 of ABLUTION or AFFUSION." He says also that the earliest Latin versions of 
 the New Testament, dating "back apparently to the second century and to 
 usage connected with the Apostolic Age, * * never translated 
 
114 THB ROAD 
 
 division, on account of a mode, go on? 1 To the 
 makers of all these sects it may be said: "Ye did 
 not so learn Christ; if so be that ye heard him, 
 and were taught in him, even as truth is in 
 Christ Jesus, * * * that ye be renewed in the 
 spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, 
 which after God hath been created in righteous- 
 ness and holiness of truth." 2 
 
 4- THE LORD'S SUPPER. 
 
 316. The discussion of baptism it is hoped has 
 made clear three things: (a) That water baptism 
 was of so little importance to Jesus, that it is 
 impossible for any one by the New Testament to 
 settle on any one mode as essential; (b) If water 
 baptism has any Gospel authority, so as to make 
 it an institution of Jesus Brotherhood, then there 
 are two baptisms, for the New Testament cer- 
 tainly teaches that Jesus' Baptism is not by 
 water but with the Spirit; (c) The idea of some 
 
 BAPTIZO by IMMERGO or any like word; showing that there was something in 
 the rite of baptism to which the latter did not correspond." See "Greek 
 and English Lexicon of the New Testament." 
 
 This proves again, what is shown in the first part of this chapter, that 
 baptism does not mean any one mode of using water; but it means a purifi- 
 cation or cleansing, which lies back of any or all modes. 
 
 315. Everyone must have the fruits of the Holy Spirit, and no one 
 can get these fruits out of water, or out of a church, or from any other 
 source except the Spirit himself. It was meant that from the day of Pente- 
 cost onward, there should be a richer and fuller presence of the Holy 
 Spirit in the world than ever before. If at times there have been special 
 gifts, there has been and is also a blessed fullness for all people. The 
 sacrificial rites of the old dispensation served but as a shadow of the full- 
 ness of a Savior who came for the whole world and whose coming caused 
 them to disappear. The ceremonial, purifying rites opened up into the 
 fullness and richness of a baptism with the Holy Spirit, which no forms can 
 limit and no sectarianism can narrow to a favored few. 
 
 2 Eph. 4:20-24. 
 
particular form of a religious rite, as an obligat* 
 ory institution of the Gospel, is foreign to its 
 genius, 
 
 317. The church after the death of the Apos- 
 tles was made an institution, and then, and not 
 until then; the ordinances, two or more, were 
 given an institutional value, to maintain the 
 institutional church. 
 
 318. The general facts relating to baptism 
 are equally applicable to the Lord's Supper. It 
 was observed with as much formality as a social 
 meal, 1 and with no other thought of distinction, 
 save this one: that they should think of Jesus 
 their Savior and Friend. 2 The symbols aided the 
 memory and meditation, and made occasions for 
 the exercise of faith and love. And when this is 
 said, all is said; for there is to some the highest 
 kind of worship without any externalities, and 
 they only serve to divert the mind. 3 
 
 319. : "It is no more necessary that a particular ecclesiastical official 
 preside at the church meal, than that such a one be brought to say grace 
 at the home table. Nor need it be thought that only a deacon can distrib- 
 ute the bread and wine. Whoever can properly ask the blessing and pass 
 the food at the home table, can do so in the church meal. And let the 
 welcome to the church supper be given to all devout persons, baptized or 
 unbaptized." Fox's "Christ in the Daily Meal," p. 125. See Paragraph 
 323. 
 
 320. 2 "When they did thus break bread together, they remembered 
 that night when Jesus Christ sat with the twelve, and brake bread with 
 them, and passed them the bread and the wine. But as yet this simple 
 social supper had not become a sacrament." Abbott's "Life and Letters of 
 Paul," p. 67. 
 
 "There is no indication in our sources that in these early d'.iys the 
 Lord's Supper was thought of as a continuation of or substitute for the 
 Jewish Passover, or that any paschal significance whatever attached to it," 
 McGiffert's "Apostolic Age," p. 70. 
 
 321. 8 Emerson said: "I like the silent church before the service 
 begins better than any preaching." 
 
B1 JIOAH 
 
 829, History points to the first observance of 
 the Lord's Supper in connection with a common 
 meal, each bringing his own contribution in his 
 basket; 1 and, while they were eating, they set 
 apart a portion of the bread and wine for the 
 memorial use. The brotherly love, and the unity 
 of the Community Brotherhood, was expressed 
 by this common 'meal; and a part of the service 
 was the offering of gifts for the poor. 
 
 324. Wherever there were disciples of Jesus, 
 a Brotherhood was formed, which, however 
 small, gave to the heathen the family idea of 
 Jesus' religion; and showed to them how all 
 mankind could be controlled by the spirit of fel- 
 lowship and fraternal affection. In this way 
 they wore the badge of love indicated in the New 
 Commandment, and by which they were to 
 become known. 2 Would it not be a blessed 
 change today for every community in Christen- 
 dom, if the brethren in each locality would do 
 away with the sectarian churches which keep 
 them apart and be known to the world simply as 
 a Brotherhood? 
 
 323. l "The Greeks had their voluntary associations which were some- 
 times charitable, sometimes religious, sometimes social. They were a 
 festive people, and these gatherings were generally accompanied with a 
 meal. The Hebrews were also a festive people. Their religious forms and 
 ceremonies were accompanied to a remarkable extent with eating. They 
 believed in it as a means of unloosing the tongue and uniting people in good 
 fellowship, and in this they were wise. So these early Christians, meeting 
 together in private homes, and expecting the coming of Messiah straight- 
 way to set the world right, not only sang hymns, repeated together extracts 
 from the Hebrew Psalms, and administered baptism as a token of faith in 
 Christ, but set down to a common table together." Abbott's "Life and 
 Letters of Paul," p. 66. Uhlhorn's "Conflict of Christianity with Heathen- 
 ism," p. 132. King's "Cry of Christendom," p. 193. 
 
 2 Paragraphs 82, 246. 
 
?HI BOAB llf 
 
 |, POINTS MANIFESTED IN THIS CHAPTER, 
 
 325. Ordinances were never thought of by 
 Jesus or the Apostles, as ecclesiastical institu- 
 tions; and to give them such a meaning, is the 
 same kind of an apostacy as that of making a 
 cultus out of his religion, and making an insti- 
 tution out of his Church. 
 
 326. Bread and wine were things as common 
 as roads, and Christ made such a common thing 
 as the food of a daily meal a reminder of 
 himself. 
 
 327. Any number of people, or a family at 
 home meals, or one person by himself, can have 
 a "Lord's Supper." Many families have no free- 
 dom in speaking of Jesus, and he is excluded 
 from the circle of the home life. How much 
 better it would be to have it distinctly under- 
 stood that there is a presence of Jesus when they 
 eat together, and every family meal is "a table 
 of the LORD." Is it the practice of your family 
 to speak freely of Jesus at home? The Jewish 
 designation of a daily meal, "the breaking of 
 bread/' ia the New Testament designation of the 
 Lord's Supper. Communion is a personal matter 
 the same as eating. "Let a man examine him- 
 self, and so let him eat," 1 Cor. 11:28. It is a 
 great wrong to divide the Brethren by ordinan- 
 ces. To use them for such an end is a great 
 apostacy. Their value to any who use them 
 depends upon the extent to which they realize, 
 by their use, the spiritual presence of the per- 
 sonal Jesus. 
 
VIII. 
 JESUS THE FRIEND AND REFORMER. 
 
 328. "The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because he hath anointed 
 me to preach good tidings to the poor; he hath sent me to proclaim release 
 to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty 
 them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD." l 
 
 329. "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
 give you rest." 2 
 
 330. "Suffer the little children to come unto me." 3 
 
 I. THE MOTHERS AND HOMES. 
 
 331. The work outlined in the first text above 
 and followed up as indicated in the other two 
 texts and by Jesus' subsequent labors for man- 
 kind, made the great Head of the Road, as a 
 reformer, a veritable successor of the Prophets. 4 
 His teaching dealt with their relations and con- 
 cerns of life, and his efforts were intensely prac- 
 tical. John the Baptist's great popularity was 
 followed by great suffering on his part, and by a 
 year and a half of waiting and imprisonment. 
 
 T Luke 4:18; Isai. 11:2-10; 43:1-16; 61:1, 2. 
 
 332. 2 Matt. 11:28. Prof. Harnack says that the words in these first 
 two texts, dominated Jesus' whole work and message, and they contain the 
 theme of all that he thought and did, "What is Christianity?" p. 54. The 
 underlying principle of Jesus' reform work is the regeneration of each indi- 
 vidual heart, so that men will have similarity of feeling and purpose with 
 God, Paragraphs 241, 243. The Golden Rule, "Ail things whatsoever yo 
 would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them," Matt. 
 7:12, is the statement of the operation of Jesus' perfect civilization. Jesus 
 made the first complete revelation of a human religion which absolutely 
 took no notice of race, or sex, or class. " In the moral capabilities of a 
 man he created a new order of inalienable rights," Martineau's "Studies of 
 Christianity," p. 313-320. 
 
 3 Matt. 19:14. *Mieah 6:8; Matt. 12:7. 
 
THE ROAD 119 
 
 333. Discouraged as to his own future, John 
 sent the question to Jesus, "Art thou he that 
 cometh ?" The answer does not refer to opinions 
 and cults and institutions, but is concerned about 
 persons and life: "Go your way and tell John the 
 things which ye do hear and see; the blind receive 
 their sight, and the lame walk and the lepers are 
 cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are 
 raised up, and the poor have good tidings 
 preached to them." The ground truth of all 
 this is, Jesus is the practical friend of all suffer- 
 ing and needy ones. 
 
 334. The chief concern to lift up humanity, is 
 the family; and this is the place where Jesus 
 made his greatest reforms. From the beginning 
 it was declared that in him all the families of the 
 earth should be blessed. 2 In the homes of the 
 people of all lands, is the place first of all to look 
 in order to know if they have the Life and Light 
 of the world. 3 
 
 335. It may be expected therefore that, fore- 
 most of all in his reform work Jesus would look 
 after the women and mothers/ Men have great 
 responsibility, but the chief dependence for a 
 
 1 Matt. 11:3. 
 
 2 Gen. 12:3; 28:14; Acts 3:25. 3 Gen. 18:18; Deut. 6:7; 11:19-21. 
 
 336. * Some of the most touching facts in the life of Christ relate to 
 women. His mission to them has not been understood, because the church 
 that men see and know has been busy with other matters. If Christians 
 will lead the world to see Jesus on this side of His teaching and work, there 
 is enough to bind the heart of mankind to Him forever. 
 
 In all the past, except in favored localities and at rare intervals, a slave 
 was no more in bondage. Might made right; and history is one long record 
 of cruelty to the subordinate by the ruling classes. Woman was classed 
 with the subordinates, and was relegated to the realm of ignorance and servi- 
 tude. She was given in marriage, or was bartered or sold, as a thing of 
 merchandise. 
 
120 , THE ROAD 
 
 religious home rests upon women. Let us weigh 
 the changes made by Jesus in their behalf: He 
 defended their rights in marriage, and con- 
 demned the practice of husbands divorcing their 
 wives for any cause but one. 1 Man and woman 
 were to meet on equal terms in life-long union; 
 each honoring the other, and both training their 
 children amidst the sanctities of a pure family 
 life. 
 
 337. Through all time, men had taken for 
 themselves the license of lust, and applied the 
 law of purity to women. Jesus made chastity 
 equally binding on both. He addressed men 
 especially, and required of them purity ever of 
 thought? In cases of sin, the better circumstan- 
 ces and the superior power of man were recog- 
 nized, and he was held to be the greater sinner. 
 This, is the lesson taught where that band of men, 
 with the arrogance which belongs to those who 
 have the power of law in their own hands, 
 brought a woman, legally and physically helpless, 
 to Jesus. Her sin was known, but the hollow- 
 hearted men were able to conceal theirs. They 
 quickly and sneakingly fled, when Jesus applied 
 the principle of justice to the case, by saying: 
 "He that is without sin among you, let him first 
 cast a stone at her." All this was new to the 
 world. Never before had men been addressed 
 with such burning words, and by such authority. 
 Bad men quickly learned to hate the Reformer, 
 because He hated their evil deeds. 
 
 1 Matt. 19:9. 2 Matt. 5:28; Paragraph 362. 
 
THE ROAD 121 
 
 338. Women rejoiced that they had found one 
 who gave them justice, apologized for them in 
 their hard circumstances, and respected their 
 worth. One after another came to him with her 
 sufferings, and no one went away heavy-hearted 
 or unblest. 
 
 339. The poor woman who had gone on in 
 sin until she was known to the inhabitants of 
 the city as "the sinner." heard of the just man, 
 and found him at a Pharisee's table. Unwel- 
 comed by the host, she drew near, and fell upon 
 her knees at Jesus' feet. With her hair she 
 wiped away the tears from his feet, and 
 anointed them from her alabaster box of 
 ointment. 
 
 340. Before this time, Mary of Magdala had 
 found a friend in the great Teacher. As Jesus 
 went through the cities and villages preaching, 
 this woman, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, 
 Herod's steward, and Susanna, and "many others" 
 ministered unto Him of their substance. 
 Nowhere is it said that Jesus had a salary or any 
 financial support except what came from women. 
 History has no record of any philosopher or rabbi 
 who had such a following of women as Jesus had. 
 It is a fitting tribute to the devotion of the 
 w 7 omen, that the names of some of those who 
 followed the Saviour are handed down to us; 
 while the names of the men are lost, with the 
 exception of the twelve Apostles. 
 
 341. In passing through Samaria at one time, 
 Jesus, at Jacob's well, met a humble woman of 
 poor antecedants, but in whom he recognized her 
 better self. It was forbidden to a rabbi to speak 
 
122 THE ROAD 
 
 to a woman in public, or to take any notice of 
 her, and his disciples marveled that he talked 
 with this one. Through her, Christ gave to 
 mankind their charter of spiritual liberty. He 
 abolished the exclusiveness of former creeds. 
 He placed the life of worship in the espousal of 
 our nature to truth, and made the temple of it 
 in the spirit and heart. Our astonishment is 
 still greater when we consider that to this woman 
 Jesus made the first disclosure of himself as the 
 Messiah: "I that speak unto thee am He." Such 
 an incident makes plain, as no mere words can, 
 th6 respect that Jesus had for woman. 
 
 342. Even the wife of Pilate, who by her 
 wealth and position, knew not the hardships 
 which come to the poor, appreciated Christ's 
 w r ork for her sex. It was left for this heathen 
 woman to be the only human being who had the 
 courage to plead the cause of our Lord at that 
 dreadful time when the disciples forsook Him, 
 and the fanatical multitude cried out for His 
 crucifixion. She was distressed that such a right- 
 eous friend of humanity should be so cruelly 
 treated. Her convictions were strengthened by 
 a dream, and she sent word to her husband: 
 "Have thou nothing to do with that just man/' 
 
 343. It was the grandest tribute ever paid to 
 a public teacher, and a testimony that His life 
 work had been for them, that, when the rulers of 
 the Jews, attended by the Roman soldiers and the 
 cruel mob, were hurrying Jesus to the place of 
 crucifixion, "a great company of women fol- 
 lowed, and with tears bewailed and lamented 
 Him," 
 
THE ROAD 128 
 
 344. Jesus took away from women that posi- 
 tion of inferiority which was the bane to moral- 
 ity in oriental civilizations, and his entire 
 reformatory work contributed to better the con- 
 ditions of the homes of the world. It has been 
 an untold blessing to the world that women of 
 all classes and races, and those with the best 
 gifts and the highest development, have felt 
 ennobled by Jesus' treatment of the sex. 
 
 2. THE CHILDREN AND THE CHURCH. 
 
 345. No less admirable than that toward 
 women, was Jesus' treatment of little children and 
 young people. In every instance he showed 
 desire for their good, and appreciation of their 
 worth. The mothers and the children constitute 
 the families for whose support so many noble 
 husbands and fathers go to their work day by 
 day. It must grieve the heart of Jesus that so 
 many of these dear children in the families of 
 the world, are being brought up as prodigals from 
 his church. Jesus loves the little children as 
 they are loved by their affectionate and self- 
 denying parents. 
 
 846. God never instituted homes in order to 
 populate this world with lives given to the works 
 of the devil, nor did he ever provide that con- 
 quest as a means of the growth of his kingdom 
 should have the prominent place which it holds 
 in modern churches. A nation that depended 
 on conquest for its existence as much as do most 
 of the churches, would soon perish from the earth. 
 Internal growth is the right way to build up king- 
 doms. Even Napoleon said that France needed 
 
124 THE ROAD 
 
 nothing so much to promote its regeneration as 
 good mothers. 1 
 
 348. By the redemption of humanity by Christ 
 the children belong to his church, since they neither 
 have loved nor hated differently from God, and 
 have not gone away from him as prodigals. 2 It 
 is an apostacy from Jesus not to own the children. 
 
 350. Many of the old creeds teach that the in- 
 fant children of believers belong to Christ. 3 The 
 
 347. 1 At a children's meeting where some of the best families in the 
 community were represented, I inquired of each child as to his relation to 
 the church. Not one of them had been taught that there is any relation 
 until old enough to "join." The responsibility rests on parents to bring 
 up their children in the church, and to give them the truth and training 
 through which God's spirit may effect their regeneration. IT is THE SIN OF 
 
 PARENTS AND THE CHURC 2, THAT THEY HAVE SO LITTLE CONFIDENCE IN GOD'S 
 TRUTH AND GRACE TO REGENERATE THE LITTLE CHILDREN COMMITTED TO 
 THEIR CARE. 
 
 349. 2 If every church would enroll the names of these little ones as 
 birth-right members, and the parents would unite in such a recognition of their 
 children in the church, it would put itself into such a relation of influence 
 and would give to the children such a responsibility for the welfare of the 
 church, that both the church and the children would be greatly blessed. 
 
 351. 3 The Westminster Confession of Faith has no form whatever for 
 receiving children into the church, "They are to be taught to pray, to abhor 
 sin, to fear God, and to obey the Lord Jesus Christ; and when they come 
 to years of discretion, if they be free from scandal, appear sober and steady 
 and to have sufficient knowledge to discern the Lord's body, they ought to 
 be informed it is their duty and their privilege to come to the Lord's Sup- 
 per." Directory of Worship, Chap. IX. This confession, Chap. XXV., says: 
 "The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the Gospel, 
 not confined to one nation as before, under the law, consists of all those 
 throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their 
 children, and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family 
 of God." The first book published in Connecticut was the Saybrook Plat- 
 form, adopted A. D. 1708. It says: "The whole body of men throughout 
 the world professing the faith of the Gospel and obedience unto God by 
 Christ according unto it, * * * they, and their children with them, 
 are and may be called the visible catholic church of Christ," Chap. XXVI. 
 In the "Heads of Agreement," adopted at the same time, it is said: "We 
 do conceive the whole multitude of visible believers and their infant seed, 
 commonly called the catholic visible church, to belong to Christ's spiritual 
 
THE ROAD 125 
 
 fathers who made these creeds did not fully grasp 
 the Gospel idea of the fatherhood of God and the 
 universality of His impartial love. The kind 
 Father who gives life to all, does not discriminate 
 against any poor little infant, who has no respon- 
 sibility for the belief or unbelief of its parents, 
 or for the place where it is born. Special privi- 
 leges and blessings are promised to the families 
 of believers which they have as a matter of fact. 
 Christ is for all nations; God "preached the Gos- 
 pel beforehand unto Abraham, saying, In thee 
 shall all nations be blessed." 
 
 353. It is true of all the little children in the 
 world, that, "dying in infancy, they are regener- 
 ated and saved by Christ through the Spirit; 
 who worketh when and where and how He 
 pleaseth." 2 
 
 354. Our local churches but poorly represent 
 the universal Road of God. They will represent 
 it better when they recognize all the children 
 who have not reached the age of accountability 
 and become prodigals as belonging to Jesus. 
 
 355. God's plan of redemption as related to 
 the family, shows the relation of children to the 
 
 kingdom in this world," Chap. I. The Cambridge Platform, adopted A. D. 
 1648, says: "The matter of a visible church are saints by calling. By 
 saints we understand: 1. Such as have attained the knowledge of the prin- 
 ciples of religion, etc: 2. The children of such who are also holy," Chap. 
 III. 
 
 352. l Gal. 3:8. In the old dispensation no little child was cut oft 7 from 
 the church because his parents happened to be worshipers of Baal or no 
 worshipers at all. When Joash came to the throne of Judah, at the age of 
 seven years, he was not considered outside the church because his parents 
 were idolaters. He did not have to "join" when he began his good work. 
 He simply recognized a relation that already existed and entered upon the 
 duties of that relation. 2 Presbyterian Confession of Faith, Chap. X, 
 
126 THIS ROAD 
 
 church. Peter was not allowed to forget the full- 
 ness of its meaning when speaking to the great 
 adult congregation at Pentecost, and said: "The 
 promise is unto you and to your children." He 
 remembered the commission which the Saviour 
 gave to him, "Feed my lambs." 
 
 356. The children were so young that Jesus 
 took them into his arms when he identified him- 
 self with them in the most remarkable words that 
 were ever uttered in relation to children, "Who- 
 soever shall receive one such little child in my name, 
 receiveth me" 
 
 357. Some parents want to have their children 
 baptized with water, and some want to consecrate 
 them in the presence of the church, or privately, 
 without baptism. In any case, it is a loving rec- 
 ognition by the parents that their children have 
 been redeemed by and belong to Christ. 
 
 358. God has said, "All souls are mine; as the 
 soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is 
 mine. 771 All the possibilities of the church and 
 of the world are lying in the cradles, and are al- 
 ways lying there. 2 Not by conquest but by in- 
 ternal growth, will the universal dominion of our 
 LORD come. 
 
 361. There is no time in life when a soul more 
 needs the help of personal religion than that age 
 
 359. J God always made great account of THE FAMILY. He began at 
 creation with a family. Every stage of His covenanted relations with His 
 people in the old dispensation had to do with the family. Ezek. 18:4. 
 
 360. 2 Every family mentioned in the New Testament impresses the 
 truth that the Road is a family religion. Christ's presence is in every home 
 and His seal is upon every child. At each spring-time there is a new crea- 
 tion; so is there in the birth of each generation. God creates the world 
 anew, and gives the families of earth a new start. Matt. 18:5, 
 
THE ROAD 127 
 
 when he is physically restless and in some degree 
 unmanageable. In this regard a boy is like any 
 other growing animal. If he has grown up with 
 the feeling that he is outside the kingdom he will 
 interpret his uneasiness as moral depravity and 
 guilt. 1 
 
 363. He needs sympathy and encouragement, 
 but instead, he is preached to as a rebel. He feels 
 mean, and concludes that he is mean. 2 He be- 
 comes discouraged, and seeks relief by actually 
 becoming a prodigal. 
 
 365. A child neither "joins' 7 his family nor the 
 country; and this term should never be applied 
 to one who at the age of responsibility declares 
 his love to God, 3 and trust in the Saviour, and 
 
 362. 1 The animal passion which led David and Paul to speak of cor- 
 ruption and depravity from birth, and of buffeting the body, Psalms 51: 5, 
 I Cor. 9: 27, is the ruin of many. Recognizing that this appetite is greater 
 than the well-being of the race requires, some of the church fathers held 
 that it was the "original sin" of human nature. The sexual passion has 
 probably contributed to bring more degradation, disease, sorrow, and ruin 
 into human lives than any single cause. It goes along with other forms of 
 sin and dissipation, wrecking the happiness of marriage and dooming to 
 wretchedness its victims unmasked by that relation. It is named first of 
 all in the catalogue of the works of the flesh, Gal. 5:19. 
 
 364. 2 More than any other passion it depends on the imagination, and 
 Jesus gave the effective remedy against it by forbidding THE THOUGHT, 
 Matt. 5;28. One is helped by abstinence from stimulants, by hygienic, 
 temperate living, by avoiding the nervous strain of excitement; but, with 
 all this, no one is safe who will not hold himself to high objects in living 
 and to clean thoughts, and who will not struggle on with manly courage 
 till he gets the victory. Rom. 7;18, 20, 24; 8:12, 13; Lecky's "History of 
 European Morals," Vol. II, pp. 297-303; Brace's "St. Paul's Conception of 
 Christianity," p. 140, 262-267; Paragraphs 180, 182. 
 
 366. 3 When Jesus said, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me," 
 He did not ask whether the parents were believers or not, or whether they 
 had, or were about to have, their children baptized or not. The disciples 
 made the grave mistake that infants should not be brought to Christ, 
 because only grown people would profit by Him; but Jesus was "MUCH DIS- 
 PLEASED," Mark 10:14. 
 
128 THE ROAD 
 
 takes the covenant of the church. 1 He simply 
 confesses a relation already existing. 2 
 
 3- BLOOD WILL TELL. 
 
 369. One who considers the reforms required 
 for the good of mankind, will realize how much, 
 need there is of emphasizing more the laws of 
 nature along with the principles of ethics. Jesus 7 
 life was a simple, natural one; and our lives, like 
 his, must regard all God's laws, whether written 
 in the Bible or in our own being. 
 
 370. If a man corrupts his mind, and hardens 
 his heart, and weakens his body, by impure 
 thoughts and godless behavior and bad living, the 
 bad effects pass over to his offspring, the same as 
 the color of the eyes or hair, and other physical 
 and mental resemblances. 3 
 
 367. * The highest service that can be done for a child is to give him 
 that training which will lead him to LOVE WHAT GOD LOVES AND TO HATE 
 WHAT GOD HATES. This is the life of regeneration, in which the natural 
 appear but as the semblance of graces by the side of the more perfect and 
 ever-maturing fruit of the Spirit of God. (Gal. 5:22, 23.) The temper of 
 childhood is trustful and believing, and it is comparatively easy then to 
 love Christ. God has stamped upon the child nature that which guarantees 
 its loyalty to Him if it has half a chance. 
 
 368. 2 A mother writes: "If my children said to me, 'Mamma, do you 
 think I am a Chirstian?' I always answered, 'Yes, for you have been given 
 to God, and he always receives our gifts, and now YOU must give yourselves 
 to Him'; and they would reply, 'Why, mamma, we HAVE.' Two of them 
 never knew WHEN they became Christians, and the third one, although we 
 had the same faith for him, and still believe he was a child of God from his 
 infancy, yet at eight years of age he had a very clear, distinct experience. 
 Two of our boys are now in college, and one preparing for college, and each 
 of them is self-consecrated to the service of the LORD." 
 
 371. 3 If one had exact tables showing the physical and moral life of 
 his ancestors, and would add to that the doing and neglect of his own 
 former life, he would see that his present moral and physical state is the 
 product of causes. This is as true as that a stock-buyer can tell the qual- 
 ities and worth of an animal by the herd-book and the care it has had. The 
 law has modifications and variations. Where there are twins, whether they 
 
THE ROAD 129 
 
 372. Nature's laws requiring good food, pure 
 air and comfortable dress, are better observed 
 now than formerly. The results have been favor- 
 able to the average length of life. But never 
 were the worst enemies of mankind, appetite and 
 avarice so powerful as now; and never were we 
 in such danger by them. 1 
 
 374. The same law that makes it certain that 
 iniquities shall be remembered to the third or 
 fourth generation, makes it certain also that chil- 
 dren shall be blessed by the full measure of good 
 that impressed the lives and blood of their pro- 
 genitors. Blessed are those among the youth of 
 our country who put themselves into harmony 
 with God and nature; and who by good habits, 
 
 be the offspring of animals or people, there may be differences between 
 them. But the practical stock-grower knows that the differences have a 
 cause, and that they do not invalidate the law that "like begets like." The 
 millennium never will come to this land while the people are in such bond- 
 age to the narcotic appetites. Sabbath-school teachers may pray and work, 
 and preachers may exhort and entreat; but still there will be on the part 
 of the young the distressing susceptibility to the sins that ruin, and the 
 amazing outbreakings of depravity, because blood will tell. 
 
 373. ] One-half the race going down to the grave in infancy through 
 sickness and pain, the result so largely of hereditary taints, is not enough to 
 check the mad appetites of parents who weep over the little graves, or to 
 awaken their consciences to their sins by violating nature's laws. Those 
 who do not live a clean, temperate life are not fit to become parents. 
 Children like Samuel, Daniel and John the Baptist, were born and reborn at 
 the same time. James F. Clarke says of ancient Egypt: "Religion pene- 
 trated so deeply into the habits of the land, that it almost made a part of 
 the intellectual and physical organization of its inhabitants. Habits con- 
 tinued during many generations at last become instincts, and are trans- 
 mitted with the blood." 
 
 The amount computed for liquors and tobacco for 1901, in the United 
 States, is ten per cent of the entire living of the whole population, or $23 
 per head. The expenditure for tea, coffee and cocoa was $187,200,000. 
 The total expenses for beverages and tobacco is a little over $25 per head, 
 or for eighty millions of people, $2,000,000,000. "Popular Science 
 Monthly," August, 1902. 
 
130 THE EOAD 
 
 pure bodies, clean hearts, right minds and holy 
 spirits, steadfastly live the lives that they would 
 give to their descendants. 
 
 4- POINTS MANIFESTED BY THIS CHAPTER. 
 
 375. The power of Jesus over human minds, 
 never can die out; because he lived such a simple 
 and natural life, and stands in such close rela- 
 tions to every one in need of a Friend. 
 
 376. Jesus is the Friend of strong men, and 
 commands the respect of the most gifted; but at 
 the same time he is equally the Friend of the 
 most needy woman or the poorest little child. 
 
 377. Reforms in order to be successful must 
 have reference to the homes of the people, and 
 minister to the protection of men, women and 
 children alike. 
 
 378. All the families of the world are helped 
 by Jesus' coming, especially by what he did to 
 make changes of relief and happiness for women 
 and children. 
 
 379. Loyalty to Jesus on the part of all the 
 members of a home, is the most certain way of 
 domestic peace and happiness. 
 
 380. Obedience to Jesus will keep us in har- 
 mony with the laws of Nature, and spare us from 
 suffering on account of violations in the many 
 ways now practiced by mankind. 1 
 
 1 For a fuller treatment of the points in this chapter, get the author's 
 three tracts: "Jesus, Woman's Friend," "Children in the Church," and 
 "Heredity." Package of 10 for 10 cents, or 100 for 75 cents. Single 
 copies 3 cents each. Address, Woman's Temperance Publishing Associa- 
 tion, Chicago, Illinois. 
 
IX 
 THE ROAD TO DESTRUCTION 
 
 381. "Wide is the gate and broad is the road, that leadeth to destruc- 
 tion, and many there be that enter in thereby." J 
 
 382. "Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that they which 
 would pass from hence to you may not be able, and that none may cross 
 over from thence to us." 2 
 
 DIVIDED ROADS 
 
 383. There is no foundation for the hope of 
 an unworthy man, that at the end of his mean- 
 ness on earth he will be happy in the next exist- 
 ence. All such set aside the invariable laws of 
 the natural and moral governments under which 
 we live. 3 
 
 384. Some have thought that hell is all in the 
 other world, and some have tried to laugh away 
 the thought of hell anywhere; but hell is in both 
 worlds and in all worlds, wherever there are 
 minds out of harmony with holiness and God. 
 Judgment days are both here and there. 4 
 
 1 Matt. 7:13. 2 Luke 16:26. 
 
 3 Gal. 6:7, 8; Matt. 25:41. See Jean Ingelow's poem "Divided," and 
 Butler's "Analogy" with "Barnes' Essay," which show the natural outcome 
 of virtue and vice. God's sentence of the wicked accords with the laws of 
 nature. The consequences of sin and the punishment of sin are two dif- 
 ferent things, which go together where sin is not pardoned. 
 
 4 Mark 9:44, 46; Rom. 2:2-11; Matt. 10:42; 16:27. There is very much 
 more said about eternity and punishment in the Gospel than in the Law, 
 Maurice's "Theological Essays," p. 446. See also "The Philosophy of 
 a Future State," Dick's Works, Vol. II, part iv. Jesus' work is to redeem 
 men from neglect, selfishness, willfulness and all sins; and not simply from 
 the final punishment for these things. Every day we should know the joy 
 of repentance of all sin, that we may peacefully rest in God's forgiving 
 love; Rom. 3:26; Titus 2:14; Eph. 2:10. 
 
X 
 
 IMMORTALITY AND RESURRECTION. 
 
 385. "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life; he that 
 believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and 
 believeth on me shall never die." l 
 
 386. "There shall be a resurrection both of the just and the unjust." 2 
 
 387. "For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be 
 dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, 
 eternal, in the heavens." 3 
 
 I. THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE. 
 
 388. Man is not immortal in the sense that he 
 cannot destroy himself, and ultimately be wiped 
 out of existence by God. In the sense of necessary 
 existence, God "only hath immortality." If a 
 man burns himself out by unbelief, impenitency, 
 and iniquity, it is not impossible that his spirit, 
 like the last flickering of a burnt-out candle, may 
 have no grace or life to support it, and may abso- 
 lutely perish; because God "is able to destroy 
 both soul and body." 5 
 
 389. I do not say that he will be wiped out if 
 his existence is of no account, but I do say that 
 he can be wiped out if God so wills, as any natural 
 endowments related to the life of his soul are 
 wiped out. 6 Jesus said "whosoever liveth and 
 believeth on me," that is, one living who takes 
 care to trust in God, "shall never die." Man is 
 immortal in the sense that, unhindered, he has a 
 natural continued existence which physical death 
 
 1 Jno. 11: 25, 26. 2 Acts 24: 15. 3 2 Cor. 5: 1. 
 
 4 1 Tim. 6: 16. 5 Matt. 10: 28. 6 Matt. 25: 28. 
 
THE ROAD 133 
 
 in itself has no power to destroy. God made man 
 to live. 1 
 
 391. It has been claimed that physical science 
 is against man's immortality, and educated people 
 have been too free to grant the claim. Dr. Draper 
 says, "It is to be regretted that those who should 
 have known better, have conceded the argument 
 that from no considerations based upon the anat- 
 omical or structural arrangements, could proof 
 be obtained of the existence of an immaterial 
 principle." The claim that the mind the same 
 as the body is material, carries with it too much, 
 and involves absurdity. If that were so, there 
 would be no such thing as freedom of thinking 
 and choosing. The physical arrangement of 
 one's brain matter would determine everything; 
 and to change one's opinions there would need 
 to be a surgical operation. There is such an 
 independence of the body in the action of the 
 mind at times, that they appear to be as distinct 
 and separate as the telegraph operator and his 
 instrument. When, in this case, the wires and 
 the battery finally wear out, it does not involve 
 the annihilation of the operator. 
 
 392. The marvelous progress made in scientific 
 knowledge, has made it plain that the grosser 
 forms of matter are pervaded by a more refined 
 material which has laws of its own. This is seen 
 
 390. l "On purely natural principles the soul that is left to itself 
 unwatched, uncultivated, unredeemed, must fall away into death by its own 
 nature. 'The soul that sinneth it shall die/ Ezek. 18:4. It shall die, not 
 necessarily because God passes sentence of d eath upon it, but because it 
 cannot help dying." See "Degeneration", in Drummond's "Natural Law in 
 the Spiritual World." 
 
 2 Human Physiology, p. 283. 
 
134 THE ROAD 
 
 in the phenomena relating to gravitation and 
 electricity. Inside the world of crude matter 
 there is a world of refined matter; and now, by 
 the Roentgen X-rays, by which objects can be 
 photographed through opaque substances or 
 inside our bodies, it appears that the physical 
 world is not much more than an outside covering 
 of the invisible. Science keeps pushing back 
 beyond the crude outside world; and what we 
 know now gives encouragement to the thought 
 that, behind and beneath our physical organs and 
 bodies, there is a spiritual body which death may 
 not touch. 
 
 393. St. Paul seems to have had in mind this 
 double existence when he said, in the present 
 tense, "There is a natural body and there is a 
 Spiritual body." l According to this, what takes 
 place when we die is merely the dissolution of 
 the outward. Paul again spoke in the present 
 tense when he said, "We know that if our earthly 
 house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a 
 building." 2 
 
 394. From the time of Dr. Draper onward, 
 enquiring physiologists have been looking back 
 of the cerebral organism to the agent which sets 
 it in motion, 3 and it is no longer claimed that 
 there is not a soul or that the soul cannot be 
 immortal. 
 
 2. THE TEACHING OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 395. What we mean by science is, truth 
 derived from experience; and by philosophy we 
 mean, truth derived from reason. Philosophy in 
 
 x l Cor. 15:44. 2 2 Cor. 5:1. 
 
 3 Draper's "Human Physiology," p. 165, 515. 
 
THE ROAD 135 
 
 all lands generally has favored the immortality 
 of man. The arguments merely stated, are about 
 are follows: 
 
 396. (a) There is a primitive belief among 
 men, that the thinking principle is different from 
 the body; and it is so different from the body 
 that it may live after the body is dissolved. 
 
 397. (b) It is a matter of universal knowledge 
 that the corruptible man is not the seat of our 
 personal identity. The body of an old man has 
 made many changes during his life time, but he 
 knows himself to be the same person from his 
 earliest recollections. 
 
 398. (c) There is an economy in nature which 
 requires that nothing be lost. The elements of 
 the body are dissolved but they are not wasted. 
 As the mind is more valuable than the body, if 
 there is no existence beyond this life it would 
 seem to be a great waste when those of unusual 
 gifts die, and especially when they die in youth. 
 
 399. (d) The human instinct for life and the 
 religious instincts persistently assert themselves 
 in the nature of man. "That religious instincts 
 are as truly a part of our nature as are our appe- 
 tites and our nerves, is a fact which all history 
 establishes, and which forms one of the strongest 
 proofs of the reality of that unseen world to 
 which the soul of man continually tends." 
 Where there are instincts, nature has always 
 provided something to meet them. Every appe- 
 tite and faculty in every creature is provided for 
 by nature. So must man's moral anticipations, 
 
 1 Lecky's "History of European Morals," Vol. 1, p. 340. 
 
136 THE ROAD 
 
 his spiritual instincts, and his irrepressible aspira- 
 tions be provided for. 
 
 400. (e) Perfection is an end in everything; 
 and we are not perfect, and the system of which 
 we are a part is not perfect if there is not life 
 beyond. This world is not a place of entertain- 
 ment but of discipline, and what is the discipline 
 which continues to its very end for, if there is no 
 future life? 
 
 401. (f) God is good; but the proof is lacking, 
 if his infinite power and wisdom has no better 
 adjustments than such as are seen in the very 
 short existence of each generation in this world. 
 For example, to make things equal and just, 
 somewhere Lazarus and Dives must change 
 places. 1 
 
 402. (g) The voice of history bears clear testi- 
 mony to immortality. It is born into the life- 
 thought of the race. Mankind leave this world 
 with some kind of expectation of continued life. 
 "Mankind have never acquiesced for any consid- 
 erable time in the neglect of the great problem 
 of the origin, nature and destiny of the soul, or 
 dispensed with some form of religious worship/ 75 
 
 403. (h) Agnosticism practically concedes this 
 point to religion. Robert Ingersoll did so in his 
 address at his brother's grave; and even a greater 
 agnostic, Matthew Arnold, said to a Chicago 
 reporter, in December, 1891: "I'll give you one 
 point of my religion; I believe in soul immortal- 
 ity. I am an agnostic only in the true meaning 
 of the word. I do not know what comes after 
 
 1 Luke 16:25. 
 
 2 Lecky>s "History of European Morals," Vol. 1, p. 339. 
 
THE ROAD 137 
 
 death, any more than an unborn child knows 
 about the quotations of corn on the board of 
 trade, but I believe there is a post mortem exist- 
 ence, even if I cannot speak from actual knowl- 
 edge of it. Now I am not a visionary man. I 
 am a chemist, a specialist, an anatomist; and I 
 declare that the studies of materialism through 
 these means of research have only strengthened 
 my belief in soul immortality. Go as far as you 
 will in scientific delving, invariably you come to 
 a point where you must stop, the point where 
 materialism ends and where the impalpable, 
 blind grasp in futurity is attempted. It is impos- 
 sible to comprehend soul truth through material- 
 istic agencies. It requires the exercise of soul 
 functions, and then one believes. The very failure 
 of materialism to satisfy proves that there is 
 something beyond it soul immortality." 
 
 3. BIBLE TEACHING. 
 
 404. (a) The Bible treats this subject in the 
 same majestic, matter-of-fact way that it does 
 the existence of God. It is not argued, but 
 expressed as a matter of course. 
 
 405. (b) Where persons are spoken of after 
 their death, the impression is given of their con- 
 scious existence. Jesus speaks thus: "But as 
 touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye 
 not read that which was spoken unto you by God, 
 saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God 
 of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, God is not the 
 God of the dead, but of the living." l 
 
 406. (c) Death in the Bible has the meaning 
 of change, like to that of a grain of wheat planted 
 
 1 Matt. 22: 31, 32. 
 
138 THE ROAD 
 
 in the earth. There is a dissolution, but no 
 destruction of the life principle; and it is followed 
 by a more abundant life. 1 
 
 407. (d) The word "soul" in the Bible often 
 does not carry the meaning of immortality; but 
 when the term is used for the real man, including 
 his spirit, it is a mistake to give it the lower 
 mortal meaning. The context must decide the 
 matter. 2 
 
 408. (e) The new life and new love of a 
 redeemed soul, by trust in the Saviour, is not a 
 thing of death; and a soul born of the Spirit 
 never shall die. 3 It has a resurrection immedi- 
 ately at death. 
 
 409. (f) The common, honest and unquestion- 
 ing reader of the Bible receives his impression of 
 the truth of immortality, and lives by it, and 
 
 glories in it as the time of his death approaches, 
 e knows that Jesus has absolutely "abolished 
 death, and hath brought life and immortality to 
 light through the Gospel." 4 
 
 410. (g) The reason why the word immortal- 
 ity is not generally used in the New Testament, 
 is because it was rendered unfit by the indefinite, 
 etherial, unreal meanings which it had come to 
 have among the Greek and Roman poets and the 
 Rabbinical rhetoricians. There was no word but 
 resurrection which carried in it the meaning of 
 the Apostle's teaching of immortality after the 
 resurrection of Jesus. It was also Jesus' word 
 
 1 1 Cor. 15:36-38. "Dissolved" is the word that Paul uses for death, 2 
 Cor. 5:1. 
 
 2 Gen. 1:30; Matt. 10:28; 1 Thess. 5:23. 
 
 3 Jno. 3:16, 36; 11:26; 1 John 4:16. 
 
 4 2 Tim. 1:10; Phil. 1:23; 2 Tim. 4:7. 
 
THE ROAD 139 
 
 for immortality. 1 Resurrection is as much a New 
 Testament word as agapee or Road. 
 
 412. The immortality of the New Testament, 
 expressed by the term resurrection, is a truth of 
 immense meaning and comfort. 2 We do not 
 simply exist when we pass into the future life, 
 but we exist ivith real bodies adapted to that heavenly 
 world. The Scriptures speak of the opening of 
 the graves, and the sound of the trumpet, etc. This 
 figurative language was taken, for the most part, 
 from the manner of assembling the congregation 
 in the wilderness. God may send forth his angels 
 for such a grand rally at any time; and besides 
 
 411. 1 Compare Matt. 22:31, 32, where Jesus uses the word resurrec- 
 tion in order to speak of immortality; Jno. 11:25; Acts 17:18. 
 
 413. 2 1 Cor. 15:37-44. There are special promises relating to the 
 immortality or resurrection of the righteous: (a) The wicked have no 
 promise of the "glorious body" of the righteous, Phil. 3:21; (b) The right- 
 eous shall be "with the LORD," 1 Thess. 4:13-17; (c) The wicked will have 
 no part in this general resurrection; that is, the resurrection of the just 
 and the unjust WILL NOT OCCUR AT THE SAME TIME. What is known as 
 "the general resurrection," is the grand rally of the redeemed of the LORD 
 out of all nations to celebrate their victory and crown their Redeemer in 
 the presence of the rejoicing angels of heaven. When we have had this 
 grand rally, doubtless we will vote the time for another celebration of LIFE 
 FROM THE DEAD, and so keep on rejoicing. There is no intimation in the 
 Bible that the bad will be present AT THIS RESURRECTION OF THE GOOD. 
 See "The Two Resurrections," in Brookes' "Maranatha," p. 446-491; Luke 
 14:14; 1 Cor. 15:20-26; Rev. 20:6. This "glorious resurrection," from 
 out of the rest of the dead and peculiar to the Road walkers, leads Paul 
 to say of himself with reference to it: "That I may know him, and the 
 power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming 
 conformed unto his death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrec- 
 tion of the dead," Phil. 3:10, 11. The Greek word for "resurrection" used 
 in this text by Paul, stands alone in the New Testament. Literally it 
 signifies the "out resurrection;" that is, resurrection from out the dead, 
 or the "first resurrection," or the "resurrection of the just," or the 
 resurrection without that of the wicked, Phil. 3:11. If by an impenitent 
 and godless life any reader has NO PART IN THIS GRAND RALLY, IT WILL 
 
 BE AN IMMEASURABLE LOSS. I BEG OF YOU TO STOP AND THINK WHAT IT 
 
 MEANS. See Matt. 16:26; Daniel 12:2,[3; Luke 14:14; 1 Cor. 15:23,37,43,44. 
 
140 THE ROAD 
 
 these general resurrections, individuals rise up at 
 the time of their departure from this world. Our 
 present material bodies should not be associated 
 with these resurrections "of the dead/' for the 
 "resurrection of the body" is not a New Testa- 
 ment phrase. 1 The body that the resurrection 
 has to do with, is the spiritual body ; and the 
 meaning of resurrection is, a manifestation of life 
 from the dead, of which the resurrection of Christ 
 is the ideal and the guarantee. "Thou sowest 
 not the body that shall be. * * * If there is 
 a natural body, there is also a spiritual body." 
 
 414. One shudders at the thought of an airy, 
 fanciful immortality, with the spirit turned out 
 of doors. The desire is not to "be unclothed but 
 clothed upon;" and God has provided that in 
 every world to which the spirit goes, as it makes 
 the passage it shall be provided with a suitable 
 body, "for we know that if the earthly house of 
 our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building 
 from God, 77 3 
 
 416. The preaching of the Resurrection by the 
 Apostles was a natural and real presentation of 
 the future life; and it became in the early churches 
 a present, living, and powerful faith. 
 
 J See Hanna's "Resurrection of the Dead," p. 118-149; Abbott's "Life 
 and Letters of Paul," p. 162. 
 2 1 Cor. 15:44. 
 
 415. 3 See 2 Cor. 5:1-8; "Bibliotheca Sacra," October, 1869. "Both 
 among the later Jews and earlier Christian writers, there is no distinction 
 made between immortality and the resurrection; both are considered as 
 the same thing," Lee's "Eschatology," p. 156. "Whatever may have hap- 
 pened at Jesus' grave, and in the matter of appearances, one thing is 
 certain, this grave was the birthplace of the indestructible belief that 
 death is vanquished and there is a life eternal," Harnack's "What is 
 Christianity?" p. 175; "Hath ABOLISHED DEATH, and hath brought life and 
 immortality to light," 2 Tim. 1:10; Jno. 11:26. 
 
1. Jesus' religion is not a cultus but a relation 
 of life, its ingredients are things of life, and His 
 church is not an institution but simply a Brother- 
 hood. The creed system and existing churches are 
 absolutely different things from any that the 
 Prophets, Jesus, or the Apostles started. 
 
 2. The conduct of Christian civilization toward 
 the weaker races, and their Providential religions, 
 is not like that of Jesus. He made of all Brethren. 
 
 3. No man can be true to Jesus without being 
 absolutely loyal to worship and to "doing good." 
 
 4. God's religion forever must stand while 
 there is a Lord's Prayer, a New Commandment, 
 a Bible, the light of God's Spirit, and the Life of 
 Jesus who said: "I am the light of the ivorld." 
 
 5. It is an earnest thing to live; and the Road 
 is to help this world, its affairs and its people. 
 Jesus makes lives which stand apart from the 
 idolatry of things, but whose works will bear the 
 light and tests of resurrection day. 
 
 6. The world everywhere needs men ; God-fear- 
 ing, wrong-hating men; men who foremost of all, 
 and at any cost to selfish aims and gains, will do 
 their duty. Men are wanted, who are not the shal- 
 low-principled, self-seeking, self-gratifying up- 
 starts of insidious beliefs; men who believe in the 
 Law, the Psalms, the Prophets, and the Gospel, and 
 who believe the Bible because they read it and 
 practice it; men who with a sense of responsibil- 
 ity yield themselves to God, and who say with a 
 Prophet's rectitude and courage, "The Lord God 
 will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded, 
 therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I 
 know that I shall not be ashamed." 
 
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 the 20th. 
 
 INDEX 
 
 The figures refer to the paragraphs, and not to the pages 
 
 Abolishment of death, 409, 415. 
 
 Abstract religion, 104, in. 
 
 "A Christ," 59, 65. 
 
 Agapee, or love, 247, 248. 
 
 Agnosticism and immortality, 403. 
 
 Aim of the Gospel, 71, 130, 265. 
 
 Angels' civilization, 19,71. 
 
 Anger of God, 219. 
 
 Animal sacrifices, 131, 138, 323. 
 
 Animal passion, 180, 182, 361, 362, 364. 
 
 Apologies by Jesus, 35, 130. 
 
 Apostolic Fathers, 59, 62, 64, 76. 
 
 Apostles of Jesus, 40, 195, 237, 340. 
 
 Appetite and avarice, 206, 371, 373. 
 
 Atonement by Jesus, 136, 137, 199, 252. 
 
 Attendance at church, 44, 184, 345, 347. 
 
 Backsliding, 232, 251. 
 
 Badge of Brethren, 82, 246, 324. 
 
 Baptism, 272, 276, 277, 281, 286, 299. 
 
 Baptism of children, 311, 357. 
 
 Baptism with the Spirit, 287, 294, 303. 
 
 "Being a Christ," 59, 65. 
 
 Belief in Christ and God, 240, 257. 
 
 Belief a process, 58, 181, 234, 253, 257. 
 
 Beneficence, 84. 
 
 Bible the treasure of Christendom, 81, 
 
 85, 214, 235. 
 Bible and theology, 169, 179, 181, 183, 
 
 2 35. 2 4 2 > 260. 
 
 Biography in the Bible, 179. 
 Birth-right church members, 349, 350, 
 
 Blessedness of religion, 252,253. 
 Body to be kept under, 182, 260, 362. 
 Body and the resurrection, 393, 412. 
 Boer war, 218. 
 
 Book, why this one written, i, 129. 
 Bounds of habitation for nations, 174. 
 Boys helped by kindness, 361, 373, 374. 
 Brahmo Somaj movement, 82, ;oi. 
 Brethren the name of disciples, 164. 
 Brotherhood church, 48, 82, 85, 166, 
 
 255. 266, 324. 
 Brotherhood of men, 196, 197, 221, 236, 
 
 241. 
 
 Buddhism and its appeal, 197, 221, 227. 
 Certainty in religion, 29, 33, 35, 253. 
 Character, 58, 144, 201, 258, 260. 
 Children saved. 348, 353, 356, 366. 
 Children in the church, 184, 346, 349, 
 
 350, 365- 
 China, 189, 190, 196, 
 
 213, 221. 
 
 Christ central in religion, 35, 242, 251, 
 
 257- 
 
 Christian a heathen name, 52, 53. 
 Christian in New Testament, 53, 57. 
 Christianity better than heathenism, 
 
 41, 81, 85, 169, 171, 324. 
 Christianity an apostacy from Jesus, 
 
 67, 167, 170, 177, 242. 
 Church a Brotherhood, 67, 127, 166, 
 
 237, 255, 324- 
 
 Church with Roman, Greek and Jew- 
 ish elements, 169, 172, 185. 
 Church in a crisis now, 43, 48, 164, 166. 
 Church of the future, 164, 165, 167, 233, 
 
 237, 324, 358. 
 Church attendance and support, 44, 
 
 45, 84, 345, 347. 
 
 Church and children, 353, 355, 356, 365. 
 Churches like public schools, 84, 164, 
 
 1 66, 237. 
 
 Cities and the liquor traffic, 206. 
 Civilization provided for by Jesus, 66, 
 
 71, 333, 344. 
 
 Civilization and Rome, 68, 167, 172, 173. 
 "Civilizing" the weaker races, 205,208. 
 Civil War in the United States, 215, 
 
 216, 217. 
 
 Clergy, 27, 105, 171, 237. 
 Commandment, the "new," 82, 246, 
 
 247. 
 Commandments obeyed by doing, 58, 
 
 84. 
 
 Commercialism, 167, 174. 
 Commission of the Apostles, 82, 281, 
 
 3<>3' 
 Conversion of children, 347, 365, 367, 
 
 368. 
 
 Covetousness, 206. 
 Creed is Jesus himself, 256, 257. 
 Creeds and the Bible, 67, 235, 242, 257, 
 
 260. 
 
 Cruelty, 145, 168, 250. 
 Cult and cultus, 47, 48, 54, 56, 125, 126. 
 Daily meals and the I^ord's Supper, 
 
 Daily prayer, n, 133, 135, 136. 
 
 Death abolished, 415. 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 219, 255. 
 
 Dependence on God daily, 133, 253. 
 
 Divorces, 69, 335. 
 
 Doctrine, 123, 169, 179, 242, 260. 
 
 Doubts, 181, 252. 
 
Duties never to be neglected, 58, 254, 
 
 261. 
 
 Earnest people, 27, 28, 36, 39, 258. 
 Education, 169, 170, 173. 
 Emotional religion, 33, 46. 
 Essence of religion, 201,252. 
 Ethics of religion, 146, 258, 259. 
 Evangelists, 28, 33, 46, 346. 
 Ever-existent religion, 198, 202. 
 Evils prevalent in Christian lands, 
 
 68, 69, 183, 373. 
 
 Existence an earnest matter, 30, 31, 32. 
 Experience of religion, 47, 106, 179, 200. 
 Expiatory meaning of sacrifices, 135, 
 
 137, 320. 
 
 Faith, 232, 236, 239, 244. 
 Family religion, 143, 322, 327, 334, 355, 
 
 360. 
 
 Teasts of the Jews, 138, 323. 
 Flesh or spirit, 180, 362. 
 Food and religion, 131, 132, 138, 323. 
 Force and power in religion, 173, 244, 
 
 262. 
 
 Forgiveness of sins, 136, 199, 200, 383. 
 Fraternal societies, 44,48, 233, 241, 246. 
 God and man must come together, 32, 
 
 34, 195. 
 
 Golden rule, 174, 249, 332. 
 
 Good Samaritan an example, 58, 112. 
 
 Good works of religion, 258, 261, 333. 
 
 Gospel defined, 239, 260, 267. 
 
 Gospel preaching, 37, 44, 81, 214, 258, 
 267. 
 
 Happiness in religion, 133, 253. 
 
 Heathen religions, 193, 194, 199, 201, 
 220, 250. 
 
 Heathen piety, 193, 195, 221, 342. 
 
 Heathen invented the name Chris- 
 tian, 53, 55, 56. 
 
 Heaven a home, 102, 412. 
 
 Hell here and hereafter, 384. 
 
 Heredity, 369, 371, 373. 
 
 Heresy, 232, 251. 
 
 Highway as a name, 23, 24, 198. 
 
 Holiness, 58, 129, 153, 253, 274. 
 
 Holy Spirit, 119, 287, 304. 
 
 Home, 143, 331, 332, 334, 344, 345. 
 
 Hope, 383, 414. 
 
 Humility, 112, 114, 188, 258. 
 
 Hygienic living, 364, 373, 374. 
 
 Immoralities in the United States, 
 206, 373. 
 
 Immortality, 388, 389, 395. 
 
 Impartiality of God's gifts, 194, 256 
 
 Immunities of missionaries, 214, 220, 
 221 
 
 Independence, civil and religious, 219, 
 
 Indians, 207 
 
 Indifference to religion, 36, 43, 45 
 
 Ingredients of religion, 233, 250, 265, 
 
 267 
 Intemperance 250, 371, 372, 373 
 
 INDEX 143 
 
 Institutional religion, 46, 173, 236, 255, 
 
 3i7 
 Jesus the creed of his own church, 130, 
 
 137, 199, 257 
 
 Jesus life revealed religion, 35, 41, 71, 
 Jesuit a beautiful name, 65 
 
 256, 258, 331 
 Jewish elements in Christianity, 55, 
 
 131, 169, 323 
 
 John the Baptist, 28, 273, 276, 290 
 Judgments and justice oi God, 216, 
 
 219. 399 ,384; 4 10 
 Kingdom of God and heavens, 47, 167. 
 
 231 
 
 laboring men, 38, 42, 43, 45, 46 
 Land ownership. 143, 144, 174, 175, 176 
 Law of Moses, 131, 139, 145, 162,249 
 Laws and legislation from Rome, 173 
 Life, 30, 41, 103, 388 
 Liquor traffic, 172, 205, 206, 209, 373 
 Lord's Supper, 132, 318, 322 
 Lord's prayer, 12-19 
 Love, 131, 240, 244, 246, 249, 251 
 Love defined in New Testament, 247 
 Love analyzed by Paul, I Cor., 13 240, 
 
 244. 245. 247, 248 
 
 Love feasts in early church, 249, 322 
 Lust of the flesh, 362, 364 
 Man and God must come together, 32, 
 
 219 
 Manna taught daily dependence, 133, 
 
 253 
 
 Marriage purified, honored, 337, 344 
 Memories of roads, 96, 101, 102 
 Mexican war, 215, 216 
 Militarism, 174, 210, 211, 212 
 Missionary system, 81, 214, 220, 221 
 Monopolies and religion, 99, 100, 144 
 Morals and religion, 145, 171, 201, 206, 
 
 258, 259 
 
 Mothers helped by Jesus 335, 338, 368 
 New commandment, 82, 246, 247, 249 
 New life described, 298, 299. 300 
 Nicodemus and baptism, 302 
 Nomadic life of early mankind, 23 
 Obedience, 41, 58 
 Object lessons, 124, 133, 256 
 Old Testament, 85, 153, 249 
 Opinions divide, 67, 236 
 Ordinances, 238, 242, 272, 317, 325 
 Ownership of land, 143, 175 
 Pagan religions, 50, 51, 52, 250 
 Parks of the people, 97 
 Paul's understanding of Jesus, 41, 169, 
 
 250 
 
 Paul's religion, 3, 89, 106, 245, 259 
 Person of Christ, 47, 240, 250, 257 
 Philippine war, 212, 215. 2[8, 219 
 Philosophy, 51, 126, 169 171, 174, 395 
 Physical science and immortality, 391 
 Piety supplanted by church devotion, 
 
 67, 236 
 Poor, 84, 99, 100, 141, 143 
 
144 INDEX 
 
 Power of religion, 245, 250 
 Prayer the blessing of life 11-19 
 Prayer the meaning of sacrifices, 131, 
 
 135, 136 
 
 Preaching, 35, 124, 130, 137, 184, 214 
 Prince of peace dethroned, 210 
 Process of belief and peace, 253, 257 
 Prodigals, 347, 361 
 Progress, 41, 66, 171, 250, 331 
 Prophets teaching, 147, 149, 150, 152, 
 
 232, 249, 276 
 
 Property in common at Pentecost, 49 
 Protestantism and dogmas, 170, 178 
 Providential religions, 194, 201, 250, 
 
 264, 221 
 
 Psalms of harsh meanings, 145 
 Public schools and the church, 164, 237 
 Public roads fixed by law, 24 
 Punishment and wrath of God, 219, 383 
 Purification the end of Hebrew rites, 
 
 129, 274 
 Questions of interest in religion, 48, 
 
 163 
 
 Rabble aided by earnest, 28, 33, 36, 46 
 Reaping and sowing, 383 
 Reform work of Jesus, 256, 258, 331 
 Reform and the Gospel, 66, 187, 245, 258 
 Reformation now and by Luther, 178, 
 
 187 
 Regeneration, 242, 243, 267, 288, 289, 
 
 364, 367 
 
 Rejection of men, 28, 3^, 258, 337 
 Reliance on God daily, 29, 133, 253 
 Religion, 32, 47, 71, 232, 238, 239, 252, 
 
 254, 260, 267, 341 
 Religion as the Road, 3, 88, 101 107, 
 
 126, 127 
 
 Repentance, 146, 263, 276 
 Resurrection and immortality, 388 
 Rights of mankind, 66, 212, 218, 219, 336 
 Righteousness, 149, 150 153, 181, 258,261 
 Road as a name, 9, 10, 23, 24, 88, 96, 125, 
 
 126, 127, 130 
 
 Road religion, 25, 101, 107, 197 
 Roman influence on world, 67, 169, 173 
 Roentgen X-rays describe preaching, 
 
 123, 392 
 
 Sabbath observance, 139, 140 
 Sabbatical system of Moses' laws, 14 
 Sacramentarianism, 146, 296 
 Sacrifices 133, 134, 135, 136, 138, 149, 150 
 Sacrifices disappear at Jesus' death, 
 
 135. 1.37 
 
 Sandwich Islands, 208, 209 
 Salvation of heathen, 194, 199 
 Salvation from sin, 182, 408 
 Samaritan woman and Jesus, 255, 341 
 Samaritan man an example, 58, 112 
 Sanctification, 245, 253 
 Science the same everywhere 
 
 School management and churches, 
 
 164, 237 
 
 Science and immortality, 422, 423 
 Sectarianism, i, 26, 67, 89, 257 
 Sectarianism and brotherhood, 47, 84, 
 
 324 
 
 Sectarian waste, 163, 164 
 Secret of a happy life, 253 
 Secret societies, 44, 48, 233, 241, 246 
 Sermon on the Mount, 258, 260, 267 
 Simplicity of Jesus' message, 130, 251, 
 
 267 
 
 Sin ,67, 260 
 
 Social life of Hebrews, 138, 323, 337, 339 
 Societies and the church, 44, 46,48, 71, 
 
 233. 246 
 
 Sociological features Moses' Law, 139 
 Spirit and flesh, 180, 182, 364 
 Spirituality of the Bible message, 129, 
 
 255. 273, 180 
 
 Spirituality of worship, 255, 282 
 Spirit's presence everywhere, 196, 197, 
 
 290 
 
 Substance of religion, 201, 252, 255 
 Struggles of life, 180, 182, 258 
 Sunday schools and Gen. Grant, 235 
 "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," 
 
 64, 312 
 
 Tenantry in Ireland and England, 176 
 Theology, 169, 179, 183, 235, 242, 260 
 Theology and Protestantism, 170, 178, 
 
 181, 237 
 
 Thought to be pure, 182, 337, 364 
 Trust in God a daily habit, 133, 253 
 Truth the same in all lands, 203 
 Union of churches, 163, 165, 166 
 Union of Brethren, 82, 83, 163, 165, 166 
 Union about Jesus, 241, 257, 313 
 Universalism of Jesus, 15, 23, 130, 195, 
 
 198, 255 
 Universality of religious life and 
 
 truth, 194, 201, 202, 204 
 Vengeance of God, 216, 219 
 Walking in the Road, 109, 110 
 War, 68, 210, 212, 214, 216, 250 
 War and the Bible, 147, 219 
 War against Filipinos and Chinese, 
 
 213, 218, 221 - 
 War against Mexico, 216 
 Weak destroyed by appetite, 206 
 Whisky an instrument of destruc- 
 tion, 205, 207, 373 
 Women helped by Jesus, 334 
 Word made flesh to reveal religion, 256 
 Work to save others, 28, 33, 247 
 Worship, 251, 254, 255 
 Wrath of God, 216, 219 
 Young pointed to a happy life, 235, 
 
 253, 369, 374 
 
"We seem to be on the eve of a new estimate of religion proper and 
 of its history." Professor Harnack. 
 
 "In spite of the many discouraging outlooks, we are certainly moving 
 towards a better state and a higher life for the poor and common 
 people." Robert Meredith. 
 
 "Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." 
 The angel wrote and vanished. The next night 
 He came again with a great wakening light, 
 And showed their names whom love of God had blest. 
 And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. Hunt. 
 
 Through storm and sun. the age draws on 
 
 When heaven and earth shall meet, 
 For the LORD has said that glorious 
 
 He will make the place of His feet, 
 Dark are the vales, but the mountains glow 
 
 As the light its splendor flings, 
 And the Sun of Righteousness comes up 
 
 With healing in His wings. 
 
 Shine on, shine on, blessed Sun, 
 
 Through all the round of heaven, 
 Till the darkest vale and the farthest isle 
 
 Full to Thy light are given 
 Till the wrongs that hurt and the wrongs that kill 
 
 Shall be done away forever, 
 And the LOVE OP THE LORD shall fill the earth, 
 
 And BRETHREN SHALL STAND TOGETHER. Nicoll, adapted 
 
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