Boston Monday Lectures 
 1880-81. 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF TIIK 
 
 University of California. 
 
 Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. 
 
 Received October , iH94' 
 <t/lccessions No.S^^^^^S^- Cla^No, 
 
^0 
 
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES, 
 
 1880-1881. 
 
^^ Before the close of the present century, the supreme 
 questions before fuen for their final decision will be the 
 religious questionsP — Guizot. 
 
Boston Monday Lectures, 1880-81 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 AND 
 
 MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 TOi'tJ a Prelfmmarg SLecttire, 
 
 ON THE METHODS OF MEETING MODERN 
 UNBELIEF, 
 
 By JOSEPH COOK. 
 
 g, B. WALSWORTH, ALBlOIJi J 
 
 ^^ Of THB 
 
 [UHIVBRSIT7] 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, 
 
 1881. 
 
 ^m^^ 
 
JBRsa 
 
 Copyright, 1881, 
 
 By Roberts Brothers. 
 
 University Press: 
 John Wilson & Son, Cambridge. 
 
While these lectures were delivered by gentle- 
 men invited by the committee in charge of the 
 Monday Lectureship, yet, in publishing this volume, 
 the committee do not wish to be understood as 
 being responsible for the views expressed. 
 
 Executive Committee. 
 Prof. E. P. Gould, D.D., Newton Theological Institution. 
 Rev. "William M. Baker, D.D. 
 
 President Wm. F. Warren, D.D., LL.D., Boston University. 
 Prof. L. T. TowNSEND, D.D., Boston University. 
 Robert Gilchrist. 
 
 Rev. Geo. Z. Gray, D.D., Episcopal Theol. School, Cambridge. 
 Right Rev. Bishop Paddock, D.D. 
 Prof. E. N. Horsford. 
 
 Prof. J. P. Gulliver, Andover Theological Seminary. 
 Rev. L. B. Bates. 
 Rev. J. L. WiTHROW, D.D. 
 Rev. Bishop Foster, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 Rev. a. J. GORDON", Chairman. 
 
 B. W. Williams, Secretary and Treasurer. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 •Page 
 
 Preliminary Lecture. — Methods of Meeting Mod- 
 ern Unbelief. By Joseph Cook ix 
 
 I. The Seen and the Unseen. By Rt. Rev. 
 
 Thomas M. Clark, D.D, LL.D 1 
 
 II. Moral Law in its Relations to Physical Sci- 
 ence AND to Popular Religion. By Presi- 
 dent E. G. Robinson, D.D., LL.D 31 
 
 m 
 
 III. Christianity and the Mental Activity of the 
 
 Age. By Rev. Thomas Guard, D.D. ... 61 
 
 IV. The Place of Conscience. By Rev. Mark 
 
 Hopkins, D.D 85 
 
 V. Development : Its Nature ; What it Can Do 
 and what it Cannot Do. By Rev. James 
 McCosh, D.D., LL.D 113 
 
 VI. A Calm View of the Temperance Question. 
 
 By Chancellor Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D. . 141 
 
 VIL Old and New Theologies. By Rev. George R. 
 
 Crooks, D.D., LL.D 175 
 
 VIII. Facts as to Divorce in New England. By 
 
 Rev. Samuel W. Dike 197 
 
 IX. Significance of the Historic Element in 
 
 Scripture. By Rev. J. B. Thomas, D.D. . ■. 229 
 
 X. The Theistic Basis of Evolution. By Rev. 
 
 John Cotton Smith, D.D 285 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN 
 UNBELIEF. 
 
 Bt JOSEPH COOK. 
 
[TJBITBBSnT; 
 
 PRELIMINARY LECTURE. 
 
 By JOSEPH COOK. 
 
 METHODS OF MEETING MODEEN" 
 UNBELIEF. 
 
 A Lecture delivered in the Memorial Hall, Farringdon 
 Street, London, November 2, 1880, in connection with 
 THE Half-yearly Meeting of the London Congrega- 
 tional Union. Henry Wright, Esq., J. P., in the 
 Chair. 
 
 THE PERILS OF GREAT CITIES. 
 
 /'^^SAR could not drive around the Eoman 
 ^-^ Empire in less than one hundred days; we 
 now send a letter around the globe in ninety-six. 
 London reaches all the zones as easily as Eome 
 reached the territories of Augustus. You remember 
 there was a day when a traveller might start from 
 Alexandria, in Egypt, and, passing over the substan- 
 tial basaltic pavement of the old Eoman highways, 
 drive to Carthage, then to Gibraltar, and on through 
 Spain and France. He could then cross the Channel, 
 drive north to the Scottish Border, return and go to 
 Cologne, then to Milan, then under the shadows of 
 the Alps and the Balkans to Constantinople, and so 
 to Antioch and back to Alexandria, — a distance 
 
XU CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 which could not be traversed in less than a hundred 
 days. But not long ago there came a collection of 
 more than three hundred mail-bags from Melbourne 
 and Sydney to San Francisco ; and they were four 
 days ahead of time. The American Government 
 asked the directors of our trans-continental lines to 
 put them on a special train. They reached New York 
 in six days from San Francisco ; and if the Arizona, 
 the speediest steamship afloat, did her duty, and your 
 officers did theirs, these mails arrived here from more 
 than half around the globe in forty-one days. There 
 are no foreign lands. 
 
 Sursu7n corda ! May God lift up our hearts to the 
 breadth and to the height of our theme, so that we 
 may not take provincial, insular, or even national 
 views only. We want a Christian enterprise that 
 shall at least fill the arms of England and America 
 as they stretch towards the sunrise and towards the 
 sunset. Perhaps God means to keep in order great 
 portions of the human race by the arms of England 
 and America stretched east and west, and ultimately 
 locking hands. Only in this way can we obtain a 
 " scientific frontier." 
 
 It is in our great cities that we are attacked ; and 
 it is there that our political arrangements are receiv- 
 ing their greatest strain. We are more and more, in 
 the United States, aware of the perils of great cities. 
 When you spoke, sir, of the unmanageability of Lon- 
 don, I felt that in America we have more cause for 
 fear than you. New York is a village yet, I know. 
 When the bell strikes at noon in New York City 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. Xlll 
 
 there are about a million and a half of people within 
 municipal limits ; and in greater London you have 
 four millions and a half. But we have not annexed 
 to the city everything within twelve miles of our 
 centre, as you have ; we shall do it ultimately. In 
 two centuries there will be a London at the mouth of 
 the Hudson, perhaps another where Chicago now 
 stands, and possibly a third at San Francisco. When 
 the Duke of Wellington was in this city of the 
 Thames, he could rough-grind his sabres and ride 
 down a mob. We cannot do that in New York. We 
 must manage there by count of heads and clack of 
 tongues. We must manage by ward meetings and 
 a multiplicity of party influences, often so complex 
 that the average citizen does not understand them, 
 and abstains from voting out of disgust or despair. 
 As the power of the people advances, it will be found 
 out ultimately under universal suffrage that Chris- 
 tianity is the only safeguard of civil liberty on both 
 sides the sea. In a State filled with great cities, the 
 only safety for the government of the people by the 
 people, and for the people in the State, is to be found 
 in the government of the saints by the saints, and for 
 the saints in the Church. 
 
 I hold that it has been demonstrated by the ex- 
 perience in the United States for a century that the 
 separation of the Church from the State has not 
 injured either. American experience proves that the 
 separation of Church and State prevents the State 
 from governing the Church, but does not prevent the 
 Church from governing the State. It was the con- 
 
XIV CHEIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 science of the North which held the nation np to its 
 work in our civil war ; and if of late we have been 
 paying our national debt, if the American con- 
 science revolts at any idea of repudiation, if the 
 sober American people are to-day bearing taxes as 
 perhaps no equal number of millions ever did on the 
 ^ globe before, — it is because of the conscientiousness 
 and the sobriety taught by a free Church in a free 
 State. We have fifty millions of people already in 
 the United States ; and when we have four times the 
 present population of Great Britain we may easily 
 have four Londons, and God knows that representa- 
 tive government, triumphant elsewhere, is sufficiently 
 strained to-day in our large towns. There are in the 
 United States fifty millions of people, and about five 
 millions are church- members ; but if we had not one in 
 five making a public solemn profession of Christianity, 
 I for one should not have what I have to-day, — a firm 
 hope that the future of government of the people by 
 the people and for the people is safe. You know that 
 I do not recommend Enolish institutions to Amer- 
 ica. The opinion has been expressed by your great 
 statesman, Mr. Gladstone, who is as much revered in 
 America as here, that neither nation prefers the in- 
 stitutions of the other. To this proposition I venture 
 to add that neither would do well now to exchange 
 its institutions for those of the other. It is better 
 that we should try two great experiments. But, sir, 
 I believe that if that statesman were here he would 
 justify me in the further assertion that the hope of 
 civil liberty in Great Britain, and in your empire 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. XV 
 
 throughout the world, rests, as surely as it does in the 
 United States, on the^urity, the intelligence, and 
 the activity of the Christian Cliurch3 The nations to 
 which we are admitted by the growth of all lines of 
 international communication depend for the progress 
 of their civil liberties, no less than for the progress of 
 their religious and intellectual culture, on our success 
 in these two great experiments. I thank God that 
 England and America are not circumstanced alike ; 
 and that, if one fail, the other may keep up the hope 
 of the race. Abraham Lincoln and Prince Albert are 
 possibly now looking with equal interest on the two 
 experiments. In the world above they are not na- 
 tional merely any more. The martyrs who perished 
 on this spot are not denominationalists any more. 
 To-night I would begin by casting aside utterly 
 everything merely denominational, everything merely 
 national ; and I would consider myself a citizen of 
 a world now no larger than the Eoman Empire was 
 under the Caesars. Religious internationalism makes 
 all members of Christendom fellow-citizens. The 
 colossal tasks assigned by Providence to England 
 and America can be performed only when the two 
 nations lock hands. 
 
 • METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. 
 
 It is, of course, no part of my purpose to-night to in- 
 struct this dignified assembly, in the presence of which I 
 ought to be dumb ; but it may be that a few facts con- 
 cerning rationalism in the United States, and a few 
 glimpses of the power of our free churches, may not be 
 
XVI CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 without their worth, as the testimony of a stranger to 
 circumstances within his observation at home. 
 
 I believe that the trend of history is toward the en- 
 largement of civil as well as religious liberty. We must 
 learn how to manage men when they all think for them- 
 selves. The time has come when every man will exercise 
 his judgment for himself, and when, unfortunately, not 
 every man has judgment to exercise. Adolescent culture 
 of the masses is at once a glory and a peril of our republi- 
 can age. This is the chief origin, I believe, of the scepti- 
 cism of adolescent culture, which in our time is the most 
 notorious. We are, I think, troubled now less than we 
 have been for many ages with the scepticism of ex- 
 perts. Mr. Cobden used to say that the number of 
 y. trained infidels, of really reasoned sceptics in England 
 among the working classes, especially among the skilled 
 operatives, could be put into a drawing-room. I venture 
 to say that the number of infidels in the United States 
 among the working classes who can give a reason for their 
 unbelief, that would bear examination under the micro- 
 scope and scalpel of scholarship, could be put into any 
 small cabin on an Atlantic steamer, and that in the roll- 
 ing of the ship there would be very much danger of physi- 
 cal injury by the space left for tliem in which to toss to 
 and fro. It is notorious that American infidelity of the 
 popular species publishes very little that is worth reading. 
 There is almost nothing in American or British infidel 
 publications that has a name on both sides of the Atlan- 
 tic. Our Theodore Parker, indeed, whose antislavery 
 politics deserved all honor, has been much read in Amer- 
 ica and here ; but he left no theological school behind "Vl^ 
 him in Boston. Theodore Parker is now far less a power 
 in Boston than he was ten years ago ; he was then far less 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. XVll 
 
 a power tlian ten previously. He represents no extensive 
 or permanent movement of thought. 
 
 We have learned in the United States, by our experi- 
 ence in heterodoxy, to judge it not so much by the men 
 who make it, as by the men it makes. We have had 
 noble men revolting from Puritanism ; we have had a 
 Socinian secession from orthodoxy, — Boston has been the 
 centre of it ; but experience shows that the third genera- 
 tion of rationalistic negation, on the line of the Unitarian 
 faith, usually becomes far more rationalistic than the first 
 generation. The third generation of Socinian negation is 
 usually rationalistic in the extreme, sometimes infidel. 
 You drop from Channing to Theodore Parker, from Theo- 
 dore Parker to Frothingham, from Froth ingham to the 
 incomprehensible and undescribable ! You arrive at last 
 at a state where lax teachers have no gospel to preach ; 
 they become simply literary men, and in that way end 
 their career as defeated propagandists of a fallen faith. 
 
 To run rapidly over some general considerations touch- 
 ing this immense theme of the methods of meeting mod- 
 em unbelief, let me say, in the first place, that there is no 
 modern form of scepticism which may not he exploded hy a 
 fair use of its own concessions. 
 
 AGNOSTICISM. 
 
 Take, for instance, agnosticism, and what are its con- 
 cessions ] Sir, I believe agnosticism to be about half of it 
 chaff and half of it chaffing. But when you approach its 
 more serious representatives, you find them claiming that 
 they are a sort of theists ; they affirm that they are not 
 
 h 
 
y\ 
 
 XVlll CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 atheists. The character of God to the agnostic is as un- 
 known as the back side of the moon ; but I have a right 
 to assert that, although unknown, that side exerts an 
 attraction on every flashing wave of all the great oceans, 
 and has its power as well as any part of the orb which we 
 can behold. We are indebted, I think, to Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer, in this country, and to Mr. John Fiske, the most 
 brilliant Spencerian in the United States, for the best 
 representation of agnosticism. I suppose I need not 
 pause to justify the assertion that agnosticism itself ad- 
 mits that the Great First Cause is, and is a cause, and is 
 omnipresent, and has existed from eternity. Thus there 
 are four things known about this Cause, — its existence, 
 its power or causal energy, its omnipresence, its eternity. 
 But Mr. Herbert Spencer will tell you that the nature of 
 things works w^ell ; he will tell you that the arrangement 
 of this universe is such that the right has immense advan- 
 • tages in the struggle for existence. We are told by Mr. 
 Arnold that there is, in the universe, " an eternal power, 
 not ourselves, which makes for righteousness." Now, 
 take these concessions, and what follows 1 Why, if there 
 be no personal God, but simply an eternal power, not 
 myself, that makes for righteousness, then I must learn 
 to love what that power loves, and hate what that power 
 hates, or it is ill with me. 
 
 The doctrine that we need to love what the Supreme 
 Power of the universe loves, and hate what he hates, 
 stands even under the little that agnosticism knows about 
 the Primal Cause, omnipresent, eternal, and everywhere 
 making for righteousness. If I make for unrighteousness, 
 the wheels of the universe are against me. The very 
 nature of things requires that I shall love what it loves, 
 and hate what it hates. And so I would approach all 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. XIX 
 
 agnostics on the basis of their own concessions, and afi5rm 
 that of self-evident necessity men cannot have harmoni- 
 zation with their environment, without similarity of 
 feeling with the Eternal Somewhat which makes for 
 righteousness. 
 
 THE UNIVERSE REVEALS A THINKER. 
 
 Modern science has shown us more clearly in these last 
 ages than any science or imagination of man ever showed 
 us before, that the universe is full of thought. All nature 
 bursts with fulness of evidence that it is arranged on a 
 plan. But I believe it is a self-evident truth that there 
 cannot be thought without a thinker. Wherever we find 
 in the universe thought not our own, we may be sure that 
 there is a Thinker not ourselves. 
 
 The universe is not only a thing, it is a thought. And 
 it is one thought. The broadest and most vaunted doc- 
 trine of physical science is the universality and inviola- 
 bility of law. The reign of law, omnipresent, eternal, — • 
 teach it as much as you please ! The thought that is 
 behind the reign of universal and unified natural law 
 must be regarded as one ; and that one thought I hold to 
 be the outcome and proof of the existence of one Thinker, 
 omnipresent, eternal, and personal as is the thought. A 
 thinker is a person. That Supreme Somewhat which, as 
 ths blindest agnostic admits, makes for righteousness is 
 thus demonstrably known to be an Eternal Some One 
 who makes for righteousness, and from whom we cannot 
 escape. 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF THIS THINKER IS ASCERTAINABLE. 
 
 You have been told, I suppose, that the absolute and 
 infinite must contain everything, or else they are not 
 
XX CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 absolute and infinite. "To define God," said Spinoza, "is 
 to deny him." Now, I hold that it is certain that infinite 
 space is space, that infinite time is time, that infinite 
 power is power, that infinite knowledge is knowledge, that 
 infinite goodness is goodness. What is affirmed in calling 
 the Divine attributes of power, knowledge, and goodness 
 infinite, is intelligible and involves no self-contradiction. 
 Except in the elements of infinity, any given quality is the 
 same in its infinite as in its finite development. We can- 
 not adequately conceive of the quantity, but we may of 
 the quality of infinity. What is inconsistent with good- 
 ness will be inconsistent with infinite goodness. 
 
 Mr. Mill was perfectly right in saying, except that his 
 profaneness should have been omitted, that he would call 
 no being good who is not what he means when he applies 
 the epithet to his fellow-creatures. "If such a being," 
 said Mr. Mill, " can sentence me to hell for not so calling 
 him, to hell I will go." There was an earthquake rent, 
 and into this chasm the whole really puerile philosophy 
 of nescience, I believe, will be ultimately cast, in the 
 name of logic, and with the acclamations of all thinking 
 men. 
 
 This unscientific doctrine of agnosticism has very little 
 hold on what calls itself culture in the United States. 
 My friend Mr. Fiske is a brilliant man and an agnostic ; I 
 speak always with respect of his honesty ; but he is to 
 this hour plunging in the Serbonian bog of the Spencerian 
 philosophy. Professor Bowen, a profound metaphysician 
 and devout Christian believer, and not Mr. Fiske, repre- 
 sents Harvard University. ^ ■ Professor Bowen, of Harvard, 
 President Porter, of Yale, and President McCosh, of 
 Princeton College, the foremost American authorities in 
 philosophy, are all vigorous opponents of the agnosticism 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. XXI 
 
 of the Spencerian school. That man in London whose 
 opinion I beheve to be worth more than that of any other 
 hving Englishman on the subject, told me not long ago 
 that ho believed that Spencer's books would not be bought 
 in large numbers ten years after his death, f(y^ yi^^^^^' Aii^^l^ 
 
 The attributes of knowledge, power, and goodness, eacfi 
 of them in an infinite degree, can be intelligibly and with- 
 out self-contradiction attributed to one Thinker, and to 
 but one, and that one He whose thought the origination 
 and preservation of the universe exhibit. Immense dis- 
 tinctions exist between the Absolute defined as the unre- 
 lated, or that which exists out of all relations, and the 
 Absolute defined as the independent, or that which exists 
 out of one set of relations, that is, out of all relations of 
 dependence. It is in the latter sense only that scientific 
 theism asserts that the One Person whose existence is 
 proved by the one thought of the imiverse is absolute. 
 Great distinctions exist between the Absolute defined as 
 that which is capable of existing out of relation to any- 
 thing else, and defined as that which is incapable of exist- 
 ing in relation to anything else. It is in the 'former sense 
 that scientific theism calls God absolute. It is in the 
 latter that Herbert Spencer, Mansel, and others, who 
 deny that we can prove intellectually that God is a per- 
 son, call God absolute. This false definition overlooks 
 the distinction between infinite and all, and leads Mansel 
 to Hegel's conclusion, — that God's nature embraces every- 
 thing, evil included. The definition which Mansel and 
 Spencer hold is repudiated by scientific theism. With 
 that repudiation, all the alleged difficulties that arise from 
 asserting the personality of God vanish. Herbert Spencer 
 and his school admit that the Eternal Power, not our- 
 selves, which makes for righteousness in the universe, is 
 
XXU CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 omnipresent, self-existent, omnipotent, and in this sense 
 infinite and absolute. 
 
 In a recent volume of most searching applications of 
 the scientific method to philosophical thought, Thomas 
 Hill, lately President of Harvard University, writes (The 
 Natural Sources of Philosophy, p. 32) : " Spencer says 
 that our belief in an Omnipresent Eternal Cause of the 
 universe has a higher warrant than any other belief, that 
 is, that the existence of such a Cause is the most certain 
 of all certainties ; but asserts that we can assign to it no 
 attributes whatever, and that it is absolutely unknown 
 and unknowable. Yet, in his very statement of its exist- 
 ence, he assigns to the Ultimate Cause four attributes, — 
 being, causal energy, omnipresence, and eternity. And 
 afterwards he implicitly assigns to it two other attributes, 
 repeatedly expressing his faith that the Cosmos is obe- 
 dient to law, and that this law is of beneficent result, 
 which is an implicit ascription of wisdom and love to the 
 Ultimate Cause. All thinkers concede that human rea- 
 son is competent to discover the existence of an Ultimate 
 Cause, to form the inductions of its being, its causal 
 energy or power, its omnipresence, and eternity." 
 
 The intelligence, the unity, and, in a correct sense, the 
 infinity, of the Cause of the universe are, therefore, proved 
 in entire harmony with the scientific method on the one 
 hand, and Christian theism on the other. 
 
 It is the business of the Church to echo God. His 
 voice is multiplex, the same and yet different from age 
 to age, and unapologetic from eternity to eternity. He 
 cannot be patronized ; and if we are his servants, our first 
 duty is to see to it that we do not take a craven and 
 apologetic attitude before the pinched physicism which, in 
 A our age, arrogates the titles of both religion and science, 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. XXIU 
 
 and deserves neither, and attempts to patronize God him- 
 self, or to bow him out of the universe in the name of 
 agnosticism and atheism. 
 
 This is a transitional age of adolescent culture for the 
 masses, and with the progress of popular enlightenment 
 much of our crude infidelity will pass away. 
 
 There is in our time a scepticism of the dull-eyed, and 
 of course a scepticism of the wild-eyed, but the worst 
 scepticism is that of the wall-eyed, or of physicists, and 
 sometimes of philosophical specialists, who will see noth- 
 ing outside their own particular ranges of investigation, 
 who never have looked at religious truth scientifically, 
 and who, indeed, refuse to apply to the truths of theology 
 the common axioms and principles which they are con- 
 stantly using in science itself. A specialist may be lynx- 
 eyed and yet wall-eyed. We must force the wall-eyed to 
 the conclusions which follow from self-evident premises ; 
 we must take the " cans " and " cannots " of the Bible, 
 the great self-evident propositions of religious truth based 
 upon axioms which all scientific methods revere, and show 
 that those " cans " and " cannots " justify us in asserting 
 the necessity of similarity of feeling between man and 
 God as required by the new birth, and the necessity of 
 the harmonization of man with his past as required by 
 the atonement. 
 
 In all the great themes of our modern Christian the- 
 ology, there is hardly a controverted question which 
 might not be settled by an appeal to the self-evident 
 truths lying behind the Biblical " cans " and " cannots." 
 Christ's fears for man were that he would not be delivered 
 from both the love of sin and the guilt of it. These two 
 fears are precisely those of the very nature of things ; for 
 it is self-evident that without harmony with God and con- 
 
XXIV CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 science and our record, we cannot be in peace with our 
 unescapable environment. These two fears produced 
 Christ's bloody sweat, and yet he conquered both fears 
 without adopting any belief out of harmony with the 
 nature of things. He attained peace; his yoke was easy, 
 his burden was light. But only he, in the whole history 
 of the race, and such as have followed his method, have 
 done this. The method of Christ and the secret of Christ 
 are historically proved to be the only sources of peace 
 when all the faculties are aroused and harmonized with 
 the law of the ascent of life. Christianity, therefore, and 
 it only, is in harmony with the absolute religion or the 
 self-evident truths of the nature of things. 
 
 It is the joy of my life to defend what I call axiomatic 
 theology, that is, the cans and cannots of the nature 
 of things as revealed by self-evident truth. Axiomatic 
 theology shows that mind is not matter ; it thus answers 
 materialism. It demonstrates that death does not end 
 all, even if it cannot prove literal immortality. It estab- 
 lishes the supremacy of conscience, and shows that we 
 can have no harmony with ourselves until we acquire 
 harmony with the moral law pointed out by the moral 
 sense, and with the God who is behind that law, and with 
 the record of our own sins, on which that law places 
 greater and greater emphasis the more we love what God 
 loves and hate what he hates. Axiomatic theology thus 
 applied to philosophy is the uprooting of agnostic, athe- 
 istic, materialistic, and pessimistic speculations. As ap- 
 plied to religious truth, axiomatic theology demonstrates 
 ."''> the necessity of similarity of feeling with God to peace in 
 his presence. Applied to our record in the past, it proves 
 the necessity of an atonement ; and although it does not 
 pretend, from the point or view of mere reason, to prove 
 
METHODS OF MEPTING MODERN UNBELIEF. XXV 
 
 that an atonement has been made, it does establish the 
 certainty that an atonement is needed, and therefore the 
 shallowness of all schemes of thought which do not con- 
 tain that multiplex, under-girding truth, encircling the 
 entire universe of moral speculation. Axiomatic theology 
 points out the law of the ascent of life. By applying that 
 law to theology and ethics, it proves that the soul, with 
 all its faculties allowed free growth and action, cannot 
 have peace unless it is harmonized with the highest in 
 itself, that is, with conscience, and with the highest in 
 history, that is, with the Christ. There is thus established 
 a philosophy concerning the conditions of man's peace, 
 and its conclusions from self-evident truth are entirely 
 harmonious with the Scriptures themselves. Axiomatic 
 theology can be systematized. It begins with principles 
 of common sense, taken for granted in legislation, and 
 behind counters, and in juries, wherever men reason. 
 Axiomatic theology can be preached to scholars ; for the 
 supreme principles of self-evident truth are those on 
 "which all scholarship depends in every science. Axio- 
 matic theology can be preached to the people ; for self- 
 evident truth is that which underlies the proverbs of the 
 nations, and is the basis of common sense everywhere. 
 
 I like to begin by planting my foot on axiomatic the- 
 ology, on self-evident propositions, on intuitions, properly 
 so called ; but I do not like to end there. 
 
 Far be it from me, my friends, to undervalue forms of 
 Christian effort to which I am not accustomed myself. 
 The needs of the people are very diversified, and if we 
 echo God, I am very sure our endeavor to supply those 
 needs will also be diversified. Our Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ not only was but is. These martyrs of 
 Smithfield who perhaps hover in the air above us have 
 
XXVI CHKIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 messages for us ; and from all the fields which martyrs 
 consecrated in the British Isles, from all quarters of the 
 world where Christians have had their triumphs, souls 
 seem to gather around us with messages for the present 
 hour. But where is the Spirit which once on earth spoke 
 as never man spake ? Where is Jesus Christ now 1 Our 
 Christology, of course, includes the organizing and re- 
 demptive doctrine that the Holy Spirit is shed forth by 
 our Lord. It was said at Pentecost, " He hath shed forth 
 this." Our Lord hath yet many things to say to us of 
 London and of Boston. If we follow the mind of the 
 Spirit, we shall utter to our age our secret convictions. 
 If we follow the impulse of the finger of the Spirit upon 
 our souls, as we are differently trained by God's provi- 
 dence and by this constant touch of Christ's pierced right 
 hand, we shall utter messages so diversified as to meet 
 the diversified wants of our age. 
 
 The small philosopher's rule is to guess at the half and 
 multiply by two. He is a very great character in modern 
 history, and is likely to be a greater one as democratic 
 influences progress in the world for good or evil. We 
 cannot avoid the dangers of the day of small things of 
 popular knowledge. We, therefore, need to tell the peo- 
 ple all we know. The time has come when all that any- 
 body knows on great and vital themes, everybody should 
 know. A small draught from the Pierian spring is un- 
 doubtedly a dangerous thing, but the remedy for it is a 
 deeper draught. The danger of the diffusion of a little 
 knowledge must be met by more knowledge. In the 
 present day the need of the time is that the esoteric 
 should become the exoteric, and the convictions of scholars 
 a possession of the masses. 
 
 The truth I suppose to be, not that we cannot know 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. XXVll 
 
 anything of God, but that we cun know a little, and that 
 this little is enough for practical purposes. I believe that 
 the twentieth century will teach, not agnosticism, but 
 what I love to call miognosticism, or the doctrine that we 
 can know a little of God, and not that we can know noth- 
 ing of him. My conviction is that it is our duty to lift 
 up over against the hardy, arrogant agnosticism of our 
 times the by no means arrogant or extravagant, but cool 
 and scientific doctrine of miognosticism, which is likely to 
 be the doctrine of enlightened future times. 
 
 NECESSITY OF AN ATONEMENT. 
 
 In the concession of agnosticism that there is an Omni- 
 present, Eternal Power which makes for righteousness, 
 we find no release from the doctrine of the new birth. 
 Had I time, I sjiould endeavor to show also that while 
 that power enswathes us, we can find no release from the 
 doctrine of the necessity of an atonement. I believe if 
 the nature of things makes for righteousness, and if I have 
 a black record behind me in the past, that record which I 
 must face while I continue to exist will be a source of 
 dissonance between me and my environment. I believe 
 as thoroughly as that I exist that my environment must 
 be made up of my own faculties and of my record in the 
 past, and of an Omnipresent First Cause which makes for 
 righteousness. How am I to be harmonized with that 
 environment] It is self-evident that without similarity 
 of feeling with this Power I can have no harmonization 
 •with It, for two cannot walk together unless they are 
 agreed. I hold also that without a screen let down 
 between me and my black past, I can have no harmony 
 with that portion of my environment. On all who admit 
 that there is a Power, not ourselves, which makes for 
 
XXViii CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 righteousness, a merciless necessity of thought forces the 
 admission of necessity of similarity of feeling with that 
 Power, and of some great arrangement by which we can 
 be screened from a past which is irreversible and inerasa- 
 ble. There are more things in the nature of things than 
 have ever been dreamt of in our philosophy. 
 
 On the basis of mere positivism and secularism, be- 
 lieving in nothing but the nature of things, I would assert 
 that similarity of feeling with God is demonstrably ne- 
 cessary to peace in his presence ; or, in the language of the 
 positivists, to love what the nature of things loves and to 
 hate what it hates, is demonstrably necessary to our har- 
 monization with our environment. Let us, then, empha- 
 size these concessions, and bring those who make them 
 into such a mood of seriousness as will at last enable them 
 to lift up their eyes to inferences far above their present 
 low plane of intellectual attainment. 
 
 DOES DEATH END ALhl 
 
 If I were to approach a positivist who denies that 
 there is any existence for the soul after death, I believe 
 that I should find him iniable to prove that organization 
 begins everything in our human existence ; but if he can- 
 not prove that, how does he know that disorganization ends 
 everything] Organization implies an organizing power, 
 and that power must go before its own effects. We are 
 *' woven by something not ourselves," as Tyndall says. 
 What is the cause of form in organisms 1 There must 
 be a cause, and if organization does not begin all, but 
 is itself begun, no positivist, no secularist, no man of 
 merely great adeptness in the physicist's portions of in- 
 vestigation, — I will not call these portions science, I call 
 them a pinched physicisra, — no man of that department 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. XXIX 
 
 has a riglit to assert that disorganization ends all. The 
 thing that goes before organization may live after disor- 
 ganization, and that may prove that death does not end all. 
 And so I would say to the sceptic, As you do not know- 
 that death ends all, make preparation for that unseen 
 world in which no doubt the laws of the nature of things 
 are to be what they are here ; make preparation to walk, 
 while you have your existence, with a Being or with a na- 
 ture of things which you cannot be harmonized with unless 
 you make for righteousness as it does. 
 
 These are plain, straightforward concessions of the 
 worst school of reasoned sceptics, and I hold that it is very 
 important for the Christian pulpit to seize upon these 
 outlying portions of the fortress of rationalism, and show 
 that whoever takes them can take the citadel at last. 
 There are no outlying fortresses of rationalism well pro- 
 tected ; we can enter the outlying forts almost without 
 the loss of a man ; indeed, our spies are talking to each 
 other constantly on the borders between our two armies. 
 Let the talk be sometimes courteous, sometimes friendly, 
 never apologetic on our part, and when we get a hearing 
 let us stand on the outposts and take the citadel. 
 
 II. 
 
 Another method of meeting modern infidelity is to in- 
 sist on distinctness and verifiahleness of definitions. The very 
 worst disease in the blood and bones of what calls itself 
 liberalistic thought in our time is vagueness of definition. 
 Our vague literary rationalism rarely attempts to define 
 its chief terms, but drifts from fog bank to fog bank 
 across the seas of discussion, making its protection very 
 often the vapor itself. This has been the difficulty of 
 
XXX CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 Unitarianism in the United States ; it was the difficulty 
 of Theodore Parker ; it was the difficulty of Mr. Emerson, 
 who so lately was a pantheist, and who to-day, as I thank 
 God for being able to affirm, is a theist. He allows his 
 friends to call him a Christian theist. Mr. Emerson, who 
 began his career as more or less pantheistic, has of late 
 been assisting his neighbor, Mr. Alcott, in conducting a 
 summer school of philosophy at Concord, which teaches 
 theism, and carries its doctrines almost up to the verge 
 of Christianity. That school is full of mistrust of posi- 
 tivism, of agnosticism, and of all those forms of speculation 
 which do not take an integral view of the universe. 
 
 All fractional schemes of thought science itself will 
 ultimately distrust, and it will be found that of all views 
 of the universe the Biblical is the least fractional. 
 
 Mr. Emerson said lately to Mr. Alcott, and the latter 
 reported the words before fifty ladies and gentlemen in 
 my parlor in Boston : " If you wish to call me a Chris- 
 tian theist, you have my authority to do so, and you must 
 not leave out the word ' Christian,' for to leave that out 
 is to leave out everything." Mr. Emerson's is the only 
 eminent name that was quoted in America in support of 
 rationalism, and to-day it can be quoted in support of the- 
 ism, although I do not dare yet call Emerson exactly a 
 Christian theist, in spite of his calling himself so. 
 
 III. 
 
 Another method of meeting modern unbelief is to point 
 out the practical character of unsound schemes of thought, 
 and what infidelity 'usually becomes in the third generation. 
 
 Is there an infidel book in the world that any serious 
 man wants for a dying pillow % I look north, south, east, 
 
 '1c^ 
 
 /' 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF, XXXI 
 
 and west for such a volume. I look to the thirty-two 
 points of the compass for any infidel book a hundred years 
 old, yet holding its own among scholars. I find no such ■> 
 volume. I do not want for my dying pillow any book of {^^ 
 Strauss or Renan, any more than of Voltaire. I have seen 
 the decadence of the negations of Strauss, and I believe 
 that we shall live to see the decadence of some arrogant 
 philosophies which to-day underlie infidelity. Who is 
 there here, above fifty years of age, who does not remem- 
 ber the time when Hegel was the great authority in Ger- 
 many, and was quoted in support of rationalism 1 Who 
 does not remember when that great man, John Stuart 
 Mill, was such an authority that to differ from him was 
 almost as much as one's intellectual reputation was worth 'i 
 But you know that to-day, since the publication of his 
 Autobiography, that philosophic authority of his has 
 waned ; and now Professor Jevons is telling us we must 
 look yet further before we find logical infallibility. As 
 these men have waxed and waned, so some who now fill 
 the ears of the world with rationalistic speculations will 
 ■wax and wane. We shall ultimately, out of our wrecks 
 in philosophy, come to a profounder reverence for the Bib- : 
 lical view of the world as itself the best philosophy. 
 What works well, age after age, is likely to be the truth. 
 There is no unsound scheme of thought which does work 
 well ^Yhen transmuted into life ; and, therefore, the stern- 
 est judge of error is its reduction to practice. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Of all methods of meeting unbelief, the most efficient 
 is, in my judgment, the famous scientific one, — repeated 
 and 2^rolonged experiment. 
 
XXXll CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 Who here is willing to try, for example, the experiment 
 of testing whether prayer really has an answer'? It is 
 written in the Book which is an authority in Christendom, 
 that God is more willing to give his Holy Spirit to those 
 who ask him for it than fathers are to give bread to their 
 children. What is prayer 1 It has commonly been taught 
 that prayer consists of four parts, — adoration, confession, 
 thanksgiving, petition. I love to teach that it consists of 
 five parts, — adoration, confession, thanksgiving, petition, 
 and total self-surrender. Any prayer that has .not in the 
 petition, " Thy will be done," is mere vain repetition. 
 Where is the sceptic that dares try the experiment of 
 prayer in that sense, and see whether the Holy Spirit will 
 be given to him or not 1 A man is not manly who vaunts 
 that he believes in the scientific method and will not test 
 it. You believe that experiment is the test of all truth, 
 and that the scientific method must prevail. England, 
 Germany, and the United States are very well agreed in 
 their best cultured circles that inductive experiment must 
 be applied to theology as well as to all other themes. 
 Reverence for proof, clear ideas at any cost, obedience the 
 organ of spiritual knowledge, are the great points in the 
 creed of all true culture. Our century believes in making 
 known to everybody all that is thoroughly known by any- 
 body. The Church is anxious that even the truths of 
 y Christianity should be tested by merciless experiment. 
 Take the doctrine of prayer in all its five parts, and try 
 an experiment with it. I hold it to be a truth of experi- 
 ence, that whoever yields himself utterly to God receives 
 at the instant of surrender an inner illumination unob- 
 tainable in any other way. I hold that this experiment, 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. XXXIII 
 
 repeated age after age in innumerable personal careers, 
 has never once been repeated without success. 
 
 IS THERE ANOTHER PROBATION AFTER DEATH 1 
 
 I am willing to test modern latitudinarianism within the 
 Church itself by experiment. We are told that there is to 
 be opportunity for repentance after death. We are told 
 that extinction is to overtake ultimately the incorrigibly 
 wicked. Is any man, as a practical experiment, willing to 
 be incorrigibly wicked, and take his chance as to extinc- 
 tion 1 Eternal hope, we are told, is before us, whatever 
 we do. There will be opportunity of repentance after 
 death, say some revered men ; but are these men willing 
 to trust their own chances of eternal peace to the oppor- 
 tunity of repentance after death 1 That is a practical 
 experiment for you, and the application of the scientific 
 method which you revere to this department of religious 
 research. 
 
 Thomas Corwin, governor of Ohio, was renowmed for his 
 quick retorts. He once met a negro who had fled from 
 Kentucky, and whom he had known in that slave State. 
 The negro had left friends and a comfortable home, and 
 in Oliio was dressed in rags. The governor said to the 
 negro, " Were you not well treated in Kentucky by your 
 master 1 " " Yes." " Did you not have other friends 
 there, and clothing and food enough 1 " "Always." "Well, 
 then," said the governor, " I must say you made a mis- 
 take in running away." "Governor Corwin," said the 
 negro, " the situation in Kentucky is open with all its ad- 
 vantages, and, if you like it, you can go and occupy it." 
 We are told by a few of the representatives of circles of 
 society, of whose culture and seriousness I must speak 
 with respect, that it is a barbaric doctrine to teach that 
 
XXXiV CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 character tends to a final permanence, good or bad, and 
 that, in the very nature of things, a final permanence can 
 come but once. Without ushig the scriptural argument 
 at all, I beg leave to say to any man who teaches this 
 doctrine of repentance after death, " The situation is open 
 N< with all its advantages. Do you purpose to go and oc- 
 cupy it 1 " Not he, not I, not you, if we are in our senses. 
 What I dare not, and will not, do for myself, I will not 
 recommend to others. 
 
 Christianity includes all ethics ; it is a philosophy, it is 
 an art, it is a science^ it is a revelation of the nature of 
 things in which there is no variableness or shadow of turn- 
 ing. But it is more and better, — it is a life in God's love 
 and strength. Permeated everywhere with the doctrine 
 of the new birth and the atonement, and also by the truth 
 that character tends to a final permanence, good or bad, 
 and that a final permanence can come but once, Chris- 
 tianity has for its central thought the personal love of a 
 holy infinite Personality revealed both in nature and in 
 revelation as Redeemer and as Lord, and of love for that 
 Person as the only possible means of purifying the world. 
 Behold in him a Redeemer, and you become glad to take 
 him as Lord. Look on the Cross, and it becomes no- cross 
 to bear the cross. God as an atoning God, God revealed 
 in history as at once Saviour and King, God revealed in 
 our Lord and now moving the world through the Holy 
 Spirit and moving it as both Redeemer and Lord, the ac- 
 ceptance of that God first as Redeemer and then utter 
 affectionate submission to him as Lord, the personal love 
 of Infinite Perfection as a regenerating passion, — this is 
 the beautiful and awful, which has triumphed, and will 
 continue to triumph. 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. XXXV 
 
 V. 
 
 It is high time that we should turn from the general to 
 some of the special methods of meeting modern unbelief, 
 and I hope you will bear with me if I suggest arrange- 
 ments already well known on this side of the Atlantic. 
 
 A MODERN NECESSITY. 
 
 The first of these is the foundation of professorships in 
 our theological colleges on the relation of Christianity to 
 science. I believe this suggestion will not be a novel nor 
 an unwelcome one to the scholars in this audience, and 
 certainly not to theological teachers. I hope they will find 
 it in the line of modern Christian development to found 
 such professorships, some of which exist in England al- 
 ready, in the shape of lectureships, renowned throughout 
 the world for the products which they have given from 
 time to time to the nations for the strengthening of 
 Christian faith. But we are resolved in the United States 
 to meet the demands of our young men in theological 
 schools for equipment in scientific armor. It is no purpose 
 of a theological professor who teaches the relations of 
 Christianity to science, to know the materia medica. He 
 does not expect to be a practical chemist, biologist, as- 
 tronomer, or geologist. His business is to study each 
 vessel, so to speak, every ship in the fleet of the sciences 
 along the line between wind and water. Where science 
 and Christianity meet, he must understand them both, 
 and so his task is not one out of all proportion to human 
 powers. We have appointed in the oldest theological 
 seminary of the United States a professor to discuss 
 the relations of Christianity to science, and have put 
 
 
XXXVl CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 $50,000 behind him. That has been done in Massachu- 
 setts, at Andover Theological Seminary, the most mossy 
 and mediaeval of all our theological institutions, as its 
 enemies would say; but mediseval and mossy as it is, 
 Andover dares to expend £10,000 to teach the relations of 
 Christianity to science. Where is the rationalistic profes- 
 sorial chair that in any way compares for intellectual dig- 
 nity in the United States with the chair thus founded at 
 Andovei-'J Princeton has a theological professorship of 
 this kind ; the Union Seminary in New York has a lec- 
 tureship of similar character. It has been my fortune for 
 five years to stand in Boston, or to move to and fro 
 through the northern cities of the Union, and to discuss 
 the relations of Christianity to science ; and the demand 
 for even poor discussion like mine shows what the de- 
 mand would be for good discussion, if you had it. I do 
 not magnify myself, but I do magnify this glorious office 
 of discussing the relations of Christianity to science, and 
 I affirm that if you had a dozen men in England, and if 
 we had a dozen men in the United States, adapted to the 
 work which I have been endeavoring to do, and have done 
 so poorly, we could shake the foundations of rationalism 
 on both sides the sea, within one generation. You cannot 
 expect your pastors to make a specialty of this theme. 
 You cannot expect the professors of dogmatic theology or 
 ecclesiastical history to do this in your theological col- 
 leges. It is altogether too m.uch to put upon one man, to 
 make him a pastor, a preacher, and a lecturer on Chris- 
 tianity and science besides. We must subdivide our work 
 and diversify it, and so meet the exigencies of the times. 
 As there is now such a demand for knowledge concerning 
 the relation of Christianity to science, why not develop 
 the Church in response to a providential call as she has 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. XXXVll 
 
 been developed again and again in her equipment in times 
 past 1 Why not meet the demand of the hour by a meas- 
 ure for the hour? 
 
 THEOLOGICAL STUDENTS NEED MORE THOROUGH EQUIPMENT. 
 
 What would I have besides 1 Let me say that some of 
 us who have had in our American theological colleges three 
 years of instruction have felt that we needed a fourth 7/ear. 
 I would not have a fourth year for all theological students, 
 but only for som^. The fourth year I would ask should be 
 not for all theological students, but for those who elect it. 
 Preaching by students should be allowed in the fourth 
 year, but not in the first three years to students who 
 enter for the fourth. The larger portion of the fourth 
 year should be devoted to perfecting work on the most 
 important topics of the doctrinal department. It should 
 include space for larger attention to metaphysics, history, 
 and physical science, and the current forms of infidelity. 
 It should give enlarged instruction in respect to all prac- 
 tical religious effort. 
 
 It is not too much to say one reason why the Church 
 is weak is, that it is often fed on guesses. Still worse, in 
 certain departments where it needs most strength, the 
 Church is not fed at all, or, if fed, is not exercised at all. 
 The scepticism of the land fattens on the crudity of the 
 pulpit and the inactivity of church-members. 
 
 The chief topics of theology are inherently so important 
 that no mistake concerning them can be so small as not 
 to be colossal. And yet, on such topics — the fact of a 
 revelation, the Deity of Him from whom all the years of 
 time are numbered, the mysteries of election, liite, and free- 
 will — we, to whom a college course gives hardly a trace 
 of theological instruction, and who now know that our 
 
XXXVIU CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 knowledge of theology derived from other sources previous 
 to our studies here was superticiiil and fragmentary to a 
 sometimes ludicrous extreme, are asked to form opinions 
 in the course of three years' investigation, one year of 
 which is devoted to evangelical and one to historical and 
 rhetorical branches, the third year broken by permitted 
 absences for preaching, not absolutely excessive, indeed, 
 since they are an important method of training adopted 
 by one of the most important departments of the course, 
 but which are relatively excessive, because, in a course of 
 but three years, they are necessarily premature, since 
 they are such as to reduce the whole term of study, in re- 
 spect to the matter to be preached, practically to two 
 years and a half; and, on the basis of this amount of at- 
 tention to what are assuredly the most difficult and awful 
 of the problems the human mind is permitted to reach, 
 we are asked to commit ourselves, in effect, for life, to cer- 
 tain opinions, and go out and stand beside the pillows of 
 the dying, and put beneath them those opinions, not as 
 guesses but as proofs. An honest man recoils when so 
 much is asked of him. It is by no means expected that 
 in three years w^e can master the whole range of theology. 
 But w^e are expected to have mastered its strategic points. 
 On these we are officially asked, in wholly informal yet 
 definite terms, to express before examining councils what 
 we hold for ourselves, not what we have been taught. 
 Upon these gi'eatest points at least, which, however, can- 
 not be explored to the bottom without an examination of 
 very nearly all the* rest, we, as educated men and future 
 public teachers, are called to express independent opinions. 
 We are expected to become so clear as to be in no sense 
 uncandid. It is expected that we will do this in the train- 
 ing of nine months' special doctrinal study, and in the col- 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. XXXIX 
 
 lateral reading of perhaps four months more. We do 
 not do it. We cannot do it. And yet this is the most 
 accredited entrance to the ministry. The greatness of 
 the topics of theology ought to secure their thorough 
 treatment. The greatness and difficulty of the topics of 
 theology demand an extension of the term of professional 
 theological study. I claim a fourth year of study in the 
 courses of the theological seminaries, in order that we 
 may have time to be honest. 
 
 The Christian evidences and ethics are, indeed, now 
 taught in college, but so hurriedly as to make little im- 
 pression upon any except those who have a peculiar taste 
 for them, or anticipate study in a professional theological 
 course. Once out of college, those students who pursue 
 law, medicine, art, science, or literature, become absorbed 
 in their special fields of investigation. Once in their pro- 
 fessions, they are still more absorbed. It is sometimes 
 loosely said that no lawyer in full practice ever reads a 
 book. 
 
 Only those few who have a taste for theological study 
 ever take it up. More than half of ordinary college classes 
 understand metaphysics too poorly ever to be able to take 
 up the severer forms of theological reading. The result is, 
 that while in the days of Edwards all liberally educated 
 men, as such, had some knowledge of theology, now no 
 liberally educated man, as such, has necessarily any 
 knowledge of it. The knowledge of theology as a system 
 is confined to those who study theology professionally. 
 
 Some of the classes in society, best educated in every 
 other respect, are the least well educated in regard to 
 theological truth. I mean no disrespect to members 
 ftf the honorable professions of law and medicine, when 
 I say that these classes constitute the best materials 
 
Xl CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 society contains for the formation of crude parties in 
 theology. 
 
 The information of the people in regard to theological 
 and religious questions has not kept pace with its advance 
 as to secular truths. Without this distinction of its two 
 parts, the growth of knowledge among the people might 
 seem to have utterly inexplicable relations to the religious 
 phenomena of the times. The world is, indeed, becoming 
 more enlightened, but not with equal rapidity in all re- 
 spects. The disparity between the degrees of advance of 
 secular and religious intelligence is a fearful gap in the 
 joints of the harness of truth at which scepticism strikes. 
 
 The most disastrous criticism of the pulpit is that it 
 skips difficulties. The skipping of difficulties brings 
 swiftly the charge of disingenuousness ; and that charge 
 hangs invisible in the secret thought of men, over 
 more pulpits to-day than we are aware, — a Damocles' 
 sword. 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary in the United States has 
 already added a fourth year to its course of study; An- 
 dover is calling for one, and probably within a few years 
 will have organized one. It is now regarded as the proper 
 thing to do when a man would be fully equipped, to re- 
 main a fourth year in a theological college. There are no 
 sceptics trained as thoroughly as our best ministerial can- 
 didates will be trained under these new arrangements. 
 I hold that no one of the learned professions has as much 
 training in philosophy as the ministerial profession now 
 has in the best theological schools. If you add a fourth 
 year for some, if you put these theological professorships 
 on the relations of Christianity to science into all your 
 theological colleges of the first rank, you will very soon 
 be sending out men equipped, not with bows and arrows, 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. xli 
 
 but with modern armor, equal to that possessed by the 
 enemy. 
 
 UTILIZE THE GREAT SPECIALISTS. 
 
 What further extension of ministerial culture would I 
 have 1 Here is a theological school, with a professorship 
 in it on the relations of Christianity to science. / would 
 invite into it great specialiMs in science -from outside theologi- 
 cal circles. In this renowned centre of the world, two 
 great physicists who are theists, Dr. Carpenter and Pro- 
 fessor Lionel Beale, have as much authority on tiie other 
 side the sea as Huxley or Tyndall. I assure you, much 
 as we revere the physiological knowledge of the last two 
 of these men, we revere yet more the physiological knowl- 
 edge of the first two. Dr. Cai'penter only the other even- 
 ing said in public, " There are four things no machine can 
 utter, — ' I am, I ought, I can, I will ; ' but man utters 
 them, and therefore he is more than an automaton." 
 Professor Lionel Beale has published the opinion that no 
 science now in existence can bridge by merely mechanical 
 causes the chasm between lifeless and living matter. 
 When, not long ago, Professor Huxley was asked in pri- 
 vate by one of his friends to whom he had declared his 
 disbelief in spontaneous generation, whether he had not 
 the right to say that into that chasm between lifeless and 
 living matter God comes to create the forms of organisms, 
 Huxley himself was candid enough to reply, " You have 
 a right to say it, and I do not know that I can disprove 
 it." If Dr. Carpenter, if Lionel Beale, were to come to 
 the professorships lately organized in the United States 
 for discussing the relations between Christianity and sci- 
 ence, tliey would have the heartiest of welcomes. 
 
 It will, of course, take time to train men to discuss 
 
Xlii CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 theology on one side and physical science on the other in 
 their double relations ; but little by little we shall create 
 a new set of professors, and little by little we shall equip 
 young rnen with such clear ideas and spiritual purposes, 
 that they will become deadly in the onslaught npon ra- 
 tionalism based upon the scientific arguments of our time. 
 There is no way to meet rationalism of the scientific spe- 
 cies except by rendered reasons. 
 
 CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE SOCIETIES. 
 
 I would have societies organized for promoting the 
 study of the Christian evidences. You have in London 
 the Victoria Institute and the Christian Evidence Society ; 
 and I notice with great interest that the latter is recom- 
 mending the formation in our churches of classes in the 
 Christian evidences. The issuing of text-books on the 
 Christian evidences is to be undertaken by this society, 
 and the writing of such books is a task worthy of the 
 best genius in the Church. We have not outgrown Paley 
 or Butler, but we need to readjust their arguments; and 
 if any man wishes to benefit the future, let him prepare 
 text-books on the Christian evidences that will be read, 
 and that when read cannot be answered by the ordinary 
 carping of even our brilliant periodical literature, — some 
 of it given to agnosticism, some of it dipping into the 
 edges of atheism. 
 
 Of course the utmost caution is needed to spiritualize 
 all these intellectual efforts, and prevent classes in the 
 Christian evidences from becoming places for mere debate. 
 Whenever the Church has tried to move by her intellectual 
 wing or by her spiritual wing alone, her flight has been a 
 sorry spiral. I would have prayers joined to the lectures. 
 I would have every youth taught to study on his knees, — 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. xliii 
 
 whether he studies four years, or three, or only an hour. 
 I would have him taught everywhere' that the earnest 
 Christian on his knees sees further than the haughtiest < 
 atheistic philosopher on tiptoe. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE POWER OF CHRISTIAN WORK. 
 
 In this crowded assembly, and standing as I am told I 
 do, here and now, in the presence of some of the most 
 aggressive Christians in England, and of many of the 
 men who know best what it is to carry Christianity into 
 the slums of a great municipality, let me thank God for 
 the philanthropic aggressiveness of the Christian laity as the 
 best of all answers to secularism. Do not let secularists 
 outwork you in their approaches to the poor. Lazarus, 
 in our time, lies in the slums of great cities, and there 
 will be the spot where, for many ages to come, he will be 
 found stripped and naked and half-dead. It was the 
 glorious example of the Prince Consort, assisted by the 
 patriotic efforts and the genial Christian persistence of 
 scores of unknown men and women, that opened here in 
 Great Britain the fashion of studying models for lodging- 
 houses, attending to the unsavory topics of hygiene as to 
 drains, and looking into all the wants of the working- 
 man's cottage. Your Tennyson praises the Prince Con- 
 sort for that life of his in which he hovered over the 
 cottages of the poor, and did what he could for the per- 
 ishing and dangerous in your great municipal populations. 
 God knows that I have reverence enough for philanthropy 
 even when I find it conjoined with secularism. When 
 infidelity goes down into the slums and endeavors to lift 
 
xliv . CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 the degraded, I would not rail too much at its efforts. 
 But I would counteract the jDoison it distributes under 
 this sugar coat of philanthropy. I would outwork it 
 in the philanthropic way. I would not let it hold the 
 ears of the uneducated masses on Sundays without some- 
 times myself going out to address audiences in the open 
 air. I would not let the .secularist address vast popula- 
 tions from week to week in his newspapers, without myself 
 shedding printer's ink mercilessly for the benefit of those 
 who will not attend church. The spoken word and the 
 printed word outside the church must be brought into 
 the service of the gospel if we are to counteract the 
 secularist propagandism of our day. History never saw 
 infidelity organized for popular effect as it is at the present 
 moment. I believe that there is no more infidelity now 
 on the globe than in past ages, but it can speak out now 
 as it could not in the days of the Star Chamber. It has 
 the ear of the masses through the great and wise and 
 costl}^ liberty of unlicensed printing. But this liberty 
 was largely bought with Christian blood. On this spot I 
 cannot but pause, as an American, to thank God for the 
 work of some martyrs of the Fleet Prison incarcerated 
 here ^ for what they did for the liberty of the press. 
 That was work for America, that was work for Germany, 
 that was work for all the lands of all the zones as well as 
 for the British Isles. Let us be grateful to Almighty 
 Providence that we are reaping in joy what other men 
 have sown in tears, but let us reap as Christians. Let 
 us take the vast liberty of the press, and overcome the 
 
 ' The Memorial Hall, erected to commemorate the fidelity to con- 
 science of the Two Thousand Clergymen expelled from the Church of 
 England in 1662, stands on the site of tlie old Fleet Prison, in which so 
 many of the Protestant and Puritan martyrs were imprisoned and muti- 
 lated. 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. xlv 
 
 mischief of its license by the omnipresent use of it in 
 defence of healthful opinions. 
 
 VII. 
 
 CHRISTIAN CONTACT WITH THE UNCONVERTED. 
 
 What else would I have church-members dol I am 
 coming to the very 'heart of this theme, and you have 
 thought perhaps that I have omitted heart entirely, and 
 have been speaking of the head almost too exclusively. 
 It is, I believe, quite popular in London, it ought to be 
 in Boston, and is becoming so there, to close devotional 
 meetings of churches tvith conversations on personal religion 
 hetween Christians present and any unconverted ones who 
 are willing to remain. There is nothing to awaken a dead 
 man like setting him at work to awaken a dead man. 
 Put a cold church-member at the work of awakening an 
 unconverted man, and you quicken the Church-member 
 immensely. There is no scheme for quickening the blood 
 of the Church like exercising the limbs of the Church. 
 For keeping the Church from going into flaccidity and 
 torpidity and diseases of stagnation in the circulation, 
 there is no preventive but exercise and strenuous work. 
 The Church is fed to repletion, and it is exercised so 
 little that it has all the diseases of an indolent aristoc- 
 racy. 
 
 When you give out an invitation at the close of a 
 devotional meeting to any unconverted persons who are 
 present to remain, and some such persons do stay, there 
 is no discourtesy in approaching such persons with the 
 topic of personal religion. A manly Christian aggressive- 
 ness will not be unobservant of courtesy. Let us close 
 
xlvi CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 our church devotional meetings with gatherings in which 
 all who remain of the unconverted class are told that they 
 are to be conversed with personally on religious themes. 
 Here is a man whose bargains for the last week have run 
 perhaps as near to lies as the eyelids to the eyeball ; and 
 he must converse with a man he has tried to cheat : will 
 not shudders run up and down his frame? But his 
 Christian duty masters his will at last. What ought to 
 be one of the first questions in such conversation.'? I like 
 to begin with this inquiry, "What is your chief religious 
 difficulty]" You do not go into such conversations 
 without secret prayer ; you do not go into them without 
 a great deal of study of the Scripture ; you have the 
 ** leaves for the healing of the nations," the Biblical 
 passages, at your finger-tips and on your lips. The 
 person with whom you converse may not know what his 
 chief difficulty is, but the question fairly stated is well on 
 its way towards solution. You induce him to raise the 
 inquiry what his difficulty is ; and you endeavor to untie 
 the knot. Then you ask that man or woman to kneel 
 down with you in God's house, and you implore the Holy 
 Spirit to untie the knot ; and in order that your prayer 
 may not be blasphemy, you begin it by an affectionate, 
 irreversible, total surrender of your own soul to God, 
 and of the inquiring soul to the best it knows. The con- 
 tagion of your surrendered will is possibly caught by the 
 will of this inquirer. He, too, surrenders, and in seven 
 cases out of ten it will be found that true surrender of 
 the will unties all knots of the sceptical mind. 
 
 Effort like this is, I believe, the thing we most need for 
 the healing our sceptical populations. If preaching in 
 the pulpit is built on rendered reasons, if by all the 
 glorious aggressiveness of Christian intellectual effort we 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. xlvii 
 
 can draw the masses to their knees, they will be taught 
 more on their knees than they can learn on the loftiest 
 heights of rationalism. Until we have a lay membership 
 in our churches ready to enter into this work, and fit to 
 be trusted with it, the Church will remain scandalously 
 unequipped for its duties in modern times. Possibly pas- 
 tors on my right and on my left are saying that many 
 church-members cannot be trusted to do this work. A 
 pastor, however, who does his duty will be present at such 
 devotional meetings ; he will instruct his church-members 
 in a general way what to say ; he will watch the effect of 
 the conversations,* and will supplement it by his own 
 efforts. Little by little he will bring his church to skill 
 in this style of conversation, and so he will make a living 
 out of a dead church ; so he will make a glorious aggres- 
 sive Christian manhood out of a torpid, evasive, placid 
 laity that had no right to be called God's servants, be- 
 cause they were not doing his work. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 VISITATION OP THE NON-CHURCH-GOING MASSES. 
 
 Let us have in our churches not only these conversa- 
 tional meetings, but little by little what they lead to, a 
 visitation of all the degraded quarters in our cities. Un- 
 doubtedly with the spirit of the Prince Consort there 
 floats above us the soul of Thomas Chalmers. Let us 
 recollect what he did for the poor in Edinburgh ; and 
 pardon me if I, as an American, take a moment in which 
 to recall to your attention facts well known here, well 
 known on the other side of the Atlantic, but worth more 
 to Americans than to Englishmen or Scotchmen. You 
 
 ^=^ 
 
\ 
 
 xlviii CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 remember that Chalmers selected a desolate quarter 
 called the West Port, in Edinburgh, divided it into sub- 
 districts, and sent men and women visitors into every 
 / family. He organized Sunday schools and day schools, 
 savings-banks and wash-houses, and in other ways made 
 himself the friend of the perishing and degraded. I have 
 myself been in the room where Burke and Hare com- 
 mitted their murders, and it was in a tan-loft near that 
 room that Chalmers began his work. Its result was that in 
 a very few months he had a respectable congregation, and 
 in less than two years it became a self-supporting church. 
 Before Chalmers died it could have been said he had 
 
 ' washed the quarter not white, indeed, but gray; and it 
 had been sooty black. 
 
 Now, that district visitation, that organization of a 
 church on the territorial principle, so that it shall be 
 responsible for every man, woman, or child within its 
 district, we, in America, think is, after all,N^e only real 
 
 ^solution of our difficultie^in managing great cities. Amer- 
 ica has no baptized population, for we have no State 
 Church, and we do not think it, as our Puritan fathers 
 thought it, important to bring the whole population into 
 merely formal connection w'lth the church unless we 
 speedily transform that loose connection into a close and 
 vital one. We want district visitation ; we want Chris- 
 tian men and w^omen to go about from house to house 
 after our Lord's fashion; we want our great cities supplied 
 with the opportunities of Christian edification as thor- 
 oughly as any rural populations have been supplied with 
 them. It was Chalmers's theory that if a great city 
 were as abundantly supplied with churches as any rural 
 district, it would be found no harder to manage, because 
 human nature in a great city is nmch what it is in the 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. xHx 
 
 country, in spite of temptations being increased by the 
 massing of tlie population. But the notorious fact in 
 America is, that our gi'eat cities are not as well supplied 
 with church-sittings as the country-towns. It is a sug- 
 gestive fact, ascertained by the laborious investigation of 
 the secretary of this Union (Mr. Mearns), that you have 
 in greater London a million less sittings than you ought 
 to have. Greater London includes Middlesex and some 
 parishes in Kent and Surrey, and one or two other coun- 
 ties within twelve miles of Charing Cross. Yoa have 
 here a population of four and a half millions. I under- 
 stand that one third of your present sittings are not 
 occupied, and that you have not more than half what you 
 ought to have, to accommodate fifty-eight per cent of the 
 population, or the proportion that might go to church. 
 
 Take Chalmers's scheme of district visitation, take 
 the famous territorial plan of his, and put behind it the 
 Establishment, if you please, put behind it Nonconform- 
 ity, put behind it Christianity of the vital species any- 
 where, and this threatening problem of managing cities 
 under free suffrages will begin to look soluble. I hold 
 that there is nothing that will make government by large 
 popular suffrage a safe arrangement in great cities, 
 except district visitation, and the carrying down of the 
 gospel to the perishing and degraded populations, to the 
 last man, woman, and child, and to every cradle and 
 death-bed. 
 
 IX. 
 
 SCEPTICISM IN GERMANY. 
 
 In Germany, which I suppose to-day is better equipped 
 in her universities than any other land on the globe, we 
 
 d 
 
1 CHRIST AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 
 
 ^1 have seen the defeat of school after school of rationalistic 
 speculation. It has been my fortune to examine the 
 religious history of ihe European universities very care- 
 fully, and I undccake to affirm that there are to-day in 
 Germany only three universities that deserve to be called 
 predominantly rationalistic in their theological department. 
 I do not claim that Germany has not m it rationalism 
 enough in its philosophical, legal, and medical faculties ; 
 but fifty or eighty years ago Germany sent us rational- 
 istic works out of her theological faculties, while to-day 
 
 ^_^__ she is sending us the best commentaries on the globe of 
 ' the evangelical kind. It is from Belgium, it is from 
 Holland, it is from parts of Switzerland, it is from Pro- 
 fessor Kuenen and one or two of his type of thought, that 
 we get a style of comment reminding us of what was 
 popular in the theological universities of Germany fifty 
 or eighty years ago. 
 
 Histories of the rise, progress, and decline of German 
 rationalism have been appearing during the last fifteen 
 years ; and nobody doubts that rationalism, especially as 
 connected with the mythical theory, has seen its best day 
 in Germany. Strauss's theory concerning the origin of 
 
 JQ > the Gospels perished before his own death. I may say 
 ' ' that it was buried before he was. Some of the British 
 artisans, some of the skilled workingmen in America, are 
 fed to-day by infidel lecturers on the crumbs swept out of 
 German theological workshops, and they think the food 
 good because it comes from a learned land. 
 
 In the German universities the incontrovertible fact is 
 that the rationalistic lecture-rooms are now empty, and 
 the evangelical crowded ; while fifty or eighty years ago 
 the rationalistic were crowded, and the evangelical empty. 
 Lord Bacon says that the best materials for prophecy are 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. li 
 
 the uuforced tendencies of educated young men. Take 
 up any German year-book, look at the statistics of the 
 universities, ascertain which way the drift of educated 
 youth is now setting in the most learned circles in the ^v 
 world, and you have before you no unimportant sign of 
 the times. But, in looking for this, you come upon 
 another sign no less important, namely, that the leading 
 universities of Germany are now, and eighty years ago 
 were not, under predominant evangelical influence. Ber- 
 lin, beyond doubt the university of first importance, and 
 hallowed by the great names of Schleiermacher, Nean- 
 der, Trendelenburg, and Twesten, is theologically led by 
 Domer, Semisch, and Steinmeyer, — stanch defenders of 
 evangelical faith. Leipzig,- with Kahnis and Luthardt 
 and Delitzsch — and lately with Tischendorf — among 
 her professors, contests with Berlin for the first place, 
 and in the opinion of many deserves that rank, and is 
 the renowned traditional seat of an orthodoxy which at 
 some points New England and Scotland — agreeing in 
 the main with the present attitude of Berlin — might 
 consider excessive. Halle, whose theology permeates 
 Germany, both from the university and from Francke's 
 famous Waisenhaus, had in it lately Tholuck and Julius 
 Miiller, known throughout the world as antagonists, and 
 as successful antagonists, of the subtlest forms of scep- 
 ticism. It was not imcommon to hear Julius Miiller 
 spoken of as the ablest theologian of Germany, and his 
 successors at Halle inherit his spirit. Tiibingen itself, 
 where Strauss put forth one of his earliest works, and 
 Baur founded a theological party, has had in it for years 
 no Tubingen school, but through the professorships of 
 Beck, Palmerer, and Landerer is permeated by vigorous 
 evangelical influences. Heidelberg, under the theological 
 
lii CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 leadership of Schenkel, Hitzig, Gass, and Holtzmann, is 
 to-day the only prominent university of Germany given 
 to views that can be called rationalistic. 
 
 Now, which of these institutions is most patronized by 
 German theological students^ Halle and Berlin may be 
 compared, in a general way, as to their theology, with 
 Andover and New Haven ; Leipzig, with Princeton ; and 
 Heidelberg, with the Unitarian portion of Cambridge. I 
 found Dorner's, Muller's, and Tholuck's lecture-rooms 
 crowded, and Schenkel's empty. There are in 1880 but 
 twenty-four German theological students at Heidelberg; 
 and I have heard Schenkel often, and never saw more 
 than nine, eight, or seven students in his lecture-room. 
 Counting both the native and the foreign theological 
 students in these institutions, the whole number at 
 rationalistic Heidelberg is 24 ; at evangelical Halle, 304 ; 
 at evangelical Berlin, 230 ; at hyper-evangelical Leipzig, 
 ' 437 {Universitdtshalender, 1880-81). 
 
 It must be remembered that German students often 
 change universities, passing one period in one and another 
 in another, according to the attractions of different profes- 
 sors. It is immaterial to the German student where he 
 hears lectures, provided he is prepared to pass w^ith credit 
 the severe final examinations. When a professor is called 
 from one university to another, a large number of his 
 hearers often follow him. Thus it is a fair test of the 
 direction of the drift of educated youth in Germany, to 
 point to the fact that they give their patronage to evan- 
 gelical, rather than to rationalistic professors, and this 
 in the overwhelming proportion of ten to one. 
 
 "By far, by far," was Professor Tholuck's constant 
 answer, when asked by foreign students if orthodoxy is 
 not stronger in Prussia than fifty or eighty years ago. 
 
 f^ 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. liii 
 
 111 1826, at Halle, all the students except five, who 
 were the only ones that believed in the Deity of our /\ 
 Lord, and all the professors of the university, united in a 
 petition to the Government against Tholuck's appoint- 
 ment to a professorship there, and the opposition rested 
 solely on the ground of his evangelical belief The 
 students at Tiibingen, not far from the same date, cere- X 
 moniously burned the Bible. " When I came to Halle," 
 said Professor Tholuck to me once, as he walked up and 
 down that famous, long, vine-clad arbor in his garden, 
 where his personal interviews with German and foreign 
 students have exerted an influence felt in two hemi- 
 spheres, " I C0UI4 go twenty miles across the country and 
 not once find what, to use an English word, is called an 
 * experimental ' Christian. I was very unpopular. I was 
 subjected to annoyance, even in my lecture-room, on 
 account of my evangelical belief" " His adversaries are 
 bold and cunning. A baptism of fire awaits him at / 
 Halle," wrote Frederick Perthes of the young professor, 
 in 1826. 
 
 Contrast these murky threats of Tholuck's morning 
 with the clear sky of his westering sun. In December, 
 1870, he had completed so much of a half-century of 
 work at the University of Halle that three days were 
 given by his friends to the celebration of the event. 
 There were social gatherings, and suppers, and speeches 
 at the hotels. All the halls and staircases of Tholuck's "^ 
 residence were crowded with guests. The Emperor Wil- 
 liam sent to him the star of the. Eed Eagle. Court- 
 preacher Hoffman brought to him the salutations of the 
 ecclesiastical council, as to a veritable church-father of 
 the nineteenth century. The various universities of 
 Germany were represented by their ablest professors. 
 
liv CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 Pastors of different cities sent delegations. A letter to 
 Tholuck was received, signed by theologians at that hour 
 in the army before Paris. An immense torchlight pro- 
 cession of students filled a night with Luther's hymn : 
 
 " Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott." 
 
 " No one can deny," Professor Tholuck would say to 
 me repeatedly, " that since the death of Frederick the 
 Great, or the French Revolution, or the opening of the 
 V^ century, or even since fifty or forty years ago, there has 
 been a great reaction in Germany against infidelity and 
 rationalism." 
 
 X. 
 
 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE FUTURE. 
 
 Why do I outline thus the large results of Christian 
 conflict with unbelief? Because I believe in the law of 
 the survival of the fittest. In the presence of men who 
 V' are perpetually telling us that this law governs all human 
 history, I take leave to remind you that in the beginning 
 of this century only £250,000 were expended in all Chris- 
 tendom for missions; now there are expended about 
 £1,250,000. At the opening of this century there were 
 50 translations of the Scriptures, now there are 226. 
 There are now printed and distributed so many Bibles 
 that there is one in circulation for every ten persons on 
 the face of the earth. There are a million church-mem- 
 bers now scattered through the dark lands of the world, 
 and gathered out of heathendom itself. I was told by a 
 secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for 
 Foreign Missions that it is within the power of the Chris- 
 tian Church in all its branches to bring either the printed 
 
METHODS. OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. Iv 
 
 or the spoken gospel to the notice of every living being 
 before the close of this century. We shall pass out of </ 
 the world, but God will remain in it, and the plan on 
 wliich he has been acting undoubtedly will be that on 
 which he will continue to act. Unto us a Son was to be 
 born, and he has been born. Unto us there was to be , 
 given One who was to be called Wonderful, Counsellor, "V. 
 the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of 
 Peace, and unto us One has been given to whom those 
 epithets apply. Of the increase of his government there 
 was to be no end. It appears in the progress of missions, 
 and in the way in which commerce has been made of 
 God a propagandist of the faith, that there is to be an 
 opening into every nation, and an emigration either of 
 Christian ideas and institutions, or of infidel poisonous 
 opinions, into those new lands within the next century. 
 London ought to make herself the great colonizer of the 
 globe in the new aspect of colonization, as she was in the 
 old. But what if London and Edinburgh fail ] what if 
 Boston and I^ew York fail 1 what if Paris and Berlin fail ] 
 God will not fail. What he does is successfully done. 
 
 Whoever ascertains the trend of the historic constella- 
 tions through long periods obtains a glimpse of the hem 
 of the garment of Almighty God. What Providence 
 does, it from the first intends. A sifting of Christianity 
 has taken place in this last age by a prolonged contest of 
 unbelief with faith, each armed with the best Damascus 
 blades the world furnishes either to-day ; and the result ^ 
 has been a defeat of doubt on all central points. It is, 
 therefore, now certain that it was divinely intended that 
 there should be a sifting of Christianity in this last age, 
 and that a defeat of doubt should be the result. Pro- 
 longed historic tendencies are allowing portions of his 
 
Ivi CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 plan for the government of the world to become humanly 
 comprehensible. 
 
 When the completion of a cycle of events reveals what 
 the plan of the cycle was from the first, it behooves men, 
 co-ordinating latest with earliest cycles, to ascertain the 
 trend of the movements in the sky ; and to gaze more 
 solemnly than upon the stars themselves, upon that Form 
 loftier than the stars, which passes by in the darkness 
 behind them, its outlines not wholly visible, but the 
 direction not unknown in which it is moving the constel- 
 lations. 
 
 I commend the German, the English, and the American 
 theological battle-field to the timid and the hopeful, who 
 go out to walk and meditate in the world's eventide. 
 Goethe could say that the only real and the deepest 
 theme of the world's and of man's history, to which all 
 y/ other subjects are subordinate, is the conflict between 
 "" faith and unbelief. We are the ancients, as Bacon said ; 
 but the inscription, written by history, which is God's 
 finger, and no accident, before the sad eyes of the bruised 
 and staggering ages, on the trophy erected after the 
 severest intellectual battle of this oldest and liewest of 
 the centuries, is : Via Crucis, Via Lucis ! — " The way of 
 the Cross is the way of Light." 
 
 I do not respect any proposition merely because it is 
 ancient, or in the mouths of majorities ; but I do respect 
 propositions that have seen honest and protracted battle, 
 but not defeat. The test of the soundness of scholarship 
 is that it should contend with scholarship, not once or 
 twice, but century after century, and come out crowned. 
 But the intellectual supremacy of Christianity in the 
 nineteenth century is not a novelty. There are other 
 battle-fields worth visiting by those who walk and medi- 
 
METHODS OF MEETING MODERN UNBELIEF. Ivii 
 
 tate, on which Christiau trophies stand, more important, 
 as marks of the world's agonies and advances, than any 
 that ever Greek erected for victory at Salamis or Mara- 
 thofi. I respect the law of the survival of the fittest. 
 I lean on church history. I go to its battle-fields, and 
 lie down on them. They are places of spiritual rest. 
 Gazing on their horizon, 1 see no narrow prospect, but a 
 breadth of nineteen hundred victorious years. Looking 
 into the sky, as I lie there, I hear sometimes the anthem : 
 " As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, 
 world without end." I obtain glimpses of a heaven 
 opened ; and behold, a white horse, and he that sits on 
 him is called the Word of God, King of kings. Lord of 
 lords. He is clothed in a vesture dipped in blood ; but 
 his eyes are as a flame of fire, and on his head are 
 
 MANY CROWNS. 
 
 i-^U4ti hui^ C^tM^CCi ^i' ' ^^^ 
 
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 Bt RT. rev. THOMAS M. CLARK, D.D., LL.D. 
 
I. 
 
 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 By RT. rev. THOMAS M. CLARK, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 'T^HERE is not much that is essentially new in 
 -■- the fundamental postulates of our modern phi- 
 losophies. The immutability of matter, the law of 
 evolution, the persistence of force, and the principle 
 of natural selection, are all recognized in some form 
 by ancient authors ; but a flood of light has been 
 thrown upon these doctrines by the more recent dis- 
 coveries of science. They have been enlivened by 
 rare and varied styles of illustration, drawn from 
 every department of nature, and brought into much 
 closer contact with the popular mind than they ever 
 were before. There is great apprehension on one 
 side, and corresponding exultation on the other, ^he 
 old-fashioned believer fears that the foundations will 
 be destroyed ; the unbeliever affirms that henceforth 
 belief in the supernatural is impossible\ Both the 
 affirmation and the fear which it excites are ex- 
 aggerated. At the present moment there is a decided 
 reaction on the part of those who have been regarded 
 as the enemies of spiritual truth ; and, finding them- 
 selves suspended in mid-air between heaven and 
 
4 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 earth, with no sufficient hold upon either, even the 
 substance of matter having evaporated in the process 
 of eliminating the spirit which vivified it, obliged 
 yjto choose between God and the atom, ^and finding 
 the difficulties which encompass the existence of 
 the former surpassed by those which pertain to the 
 being and functions of the latter, — /inen of science 
 are now beginning to revise their own record, and I 
 believe that the wisest and most profound amongst 
 them will soon be found on the spiritual and super- 
 natural side^ Having already done a good work in 
 overturning some of the idols of belief, in which we 
 had trusted too fondly and too blindly, they will now 
 furnish us with a true and rational basis of faith, 
 which will be none the less faith because it rests 
 upon intelligent conviction. 
 
 ARE MATTER AND SPIRIT IDENTICAL ? 
 
 The question at issue to-day, and it involves all 
 that is essential in tlie intellectual warfare that is 
 't^ now raging, is this, — are matter and spirit identical? 
 and, if they are not, is the spiritual world a product 
 of the physical, or is the original pattern of the ma- 
 terial universe to be found in the spiritual ? 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer says " that there is no precise 
 line of demarcation between physiological and psycho- 
 logical facts, and that every absolute distinction is illu- 
 sory. Sensations, sentiments, instincts, intelligence, 
 U— all constitute a world apart ; but which comes out of 
 the animal world, in which it is rooted, of which it is, 
 as it were, the efflorescence. Between the most hum- 
 
THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 5 
 
 ble practice aud the most lofty thought there is no 
 opposition of nature, but there is difference in degree, 
 each being only one of the innumerable manifesta- 
 tions of life." If this is not the doctrine of pure, 
 materialistic monism, it is a plain denial of " the ex- 
 istence of any precise line of demarcation between ^ 
 spirit and matter." 
 
 Dr. Carpenter, in his principles of mental physi- 
 ology, quotes with approval from the late Charles 
 Baxter as follow^s : '*' Irresistible, undeniable facts de- 
 monstrate that man is not a den, wherein two enemies 
 are chained together, but one being; that soul and 
 body are one, — one and indivisible. We had better ^ 
 face this great fact. 'T is no good to blink it. Our 
 knowledge of physiology has come to a point where 
 the old idea of man's constitution must be thrown 
 aside. To struggle against the overwhelming force 
 of science, under the notion of shielding religion, is 
 mere play." 
 
 Dr. Priestley, who " thought that he had sufficiently 
 proved that mind is nothing but a modification of 
 matter," is a little more outspoken than some of our 
 modern materialists ; and so also is Mr. Hume, who 
 says expressly : " Within myself I am conscious only 
 of impressions and ideas. (The substance called mind -f^ 
 is a mere fiction, imagined for the support of these, 
 as the substance called matter is imagined for the 
 support of sensible qualities." / This is the ultima- 
 tum of denial ; unless, indeed, it is surpassed by the 
 statement once made to me by a learned savant, to 
 the effect that he could not honestly affirm his be- . 
 
6 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 J ^ li'p-f in anything "but the relation of mathematical 
 ' quantities." 
 
 THE MATERIAL MONADIC THEORY. 
 
 > - Let US see what is involved in this material, mo- 
 nadic theory. In the first place, matter must be alive, 
 and must have been so from eternity ; just as much 
 alive as it is to-day, for there could be no accession of 
 life at any given period. This, according to the theo- 
 rem of immutability and continuity, of which the ma- 
 terialists make so much, is impossible. There can have 
 been no first monad, a germ of life, for the introduc- 
 tion of this would also violate the same theorem ; and 
 so every monad now in existence must have always 
 existed, possessing always the same degree of potency. 
 These monads must have not only been eternally alive, 
 but they must also have always possessed the element 
 of force, in virtue of which, acting in concert, they 
 were able to organize everything in the universe that 
 exists, or ever existed. Now force is not a thing, any 
 more than sight or sound ; it is a mere transference of 
 energy, and can be exerted only on the condition of a 
 change of state or position. If I wish to get mechan- 
 ical force out of air or matter or any form of matter, 
 I do it by altering the position of things, by making 
 a vacuum in the air, or causing the water to fall from 
 a height, or by withdrawing a portion of the electric 
 fluid from one substance, in order to develop action 
 by contact with another. But, whatever I do, I can 
 neither increase nor diminish the actual amount of 
 energy that exists in the universe, any more than I can 
 
THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 7 
 
 increase or diminish the quantity of matter. So that 
 whatever degree or amount of energy exists to-day 
 must have always existed. Again, energy can be 
 transmuted into force only by an influence coming 
 upon it ah extra. Nothing moves unless it is im- 
 pelled. Now the monad is matter ; and force is not 
 matter, but something analogous to the spiritual. 
 The clearest conception that we have of force origi- 
 nates in the action of the will, which is not force in 
 itself, but only a condition, upon the exercise of which 
 energy is transmuted into force. /There must, then, 
 have always been something more man matter in the ^ 
 universe. Energy, which is not a thing, or an atom, 
 or a compound of atoms, must have existed from 
 eternity ; and then there must also have been some 
 sort of influence also not atomic, by means of which 
 this energy is transmuted into force. 
 
 .THE THEORIES OF BAIN AND PALEY. 
 
 The eternal living monad must have had the power, 
 not only to organize itself, but everything else that 
 exists, or ever has existed. This supposes something 
 more than life or force. Organization involves the 
 idea of a 'plan, and therefore the monad, or atom, or 
 molecule, must be intelligent. Professor Bain says : 
 " This tendency on the part of matter to organize itself, 
 to grow into shape, to assume definite forms in obe- 
 dience to the definite action of force, is all-pervading. 
 It is in the ground on which you tread, in the water 
 you drink, in the air you breathe. Incipient life, as 
 it were, manifests itself throui^hout the whole of what 
 
^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 8 CHRIS-T AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 we call inorganic nature." When we speak of " the 
 tendencies of matter," we merely describe the mode 
 in which it acts, or the law under which it acts, but 
 obviously law is not force. Paley puts the matter in 
 his clear way as follows : " It is a perversion of 
 language to assign any law as the efficient operative 
 cause of anything. A law presupposes an agent ; for 
 it is the only mode according to which an agent pro- 
 ceeds. It implies a power ; for it is the order accord- 
 ing to which that power acts. Without this agent, 
 without this power, which are both distinct from itself, 
 the laio does nothing, is nothing." And when Mr. 
 Bain talks about " incipient life " as " manifesting 
 itself trhroughout the whole of what we call inorganic 
 nature," he virtually recognizes the presence of some- 
 thing that is not material. The principle of life in 
 a seed, or an egg, or in any sort of embryo, is not 
 inherent in the materials of which it is composed, or 
 the mere result of juxtaposition, — no art of mechanics 
 or chemistry could ever manufacture a seed that 
 would grow. 
 
 Again, according to the theory of the monists, the 
 atom must have in it an inherent aesthetic element, 
 and be competent to organize in accordance with 
 the laws of beauty, both of form and color. It is an 
 architect, a sculptor, a painter. The splendors of the 
 landscape, the glory of the flower, existed potentially 
 in the monad, interminable ages before this tiny, in- 
 visible god saw fit to develop itself in the present 
 forms of what (for want of a better word) we have 
 been accustomed to call creation. But the greatest 
 
THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 9 
 
 marvel remains to be noticed. The monad must have 
 been endowed, not only with aesthetic intelligence,/^ -^ 
 but also with a conscience ; for in these latter days it 
 has seen fit to take upon itself the form of a being 
 who is competent to distinguish between right and 
 wrong, and still further to become conscious of what 
 is popularly known as the sentiment of reverence. 
 All this must be so, because ^ere can be nothing in 
 an effect which did not already exist in its cause, ^ind 
 the ^effect can continue only so long as the cause "^con- 
 tinues to work in it. When the cause ceases, of course 
 the effect must also cease ; and to say that nature is 
 both cause and effect is nonsense. It is equally ab- 
 surd to say that nature and life are identical. Tn.the 
 words of Swedenborg : " Nature, in respect to life, is 
 dead. If nature lived it would live either from it- 
 self or from some other being, or by some other being. 
 If it lived from itself, then that would live which we 
 clearly see does not live, and nature would destroy 
 itself whenever it destroys its forms, in which and 
 according to which life exists. So, also, it would not 
 only be the principle of its own causes and effects, but 
 also the principle of its principle ; or else this prin- 
 ciple would convert itself into nature, in order that it 
 might be enabled to be what it is not ; which every 
 one sees to be opposite to common sense." 
 
 But, we are told that no one ever heard, or saw, or 
 tasted, or smelt a spiritual substance, and that the 
 term itself conveys no intelligible meaning. No one 
 ever heard, or saw, or tasted, or smelt a molecule, and 
 the whole atomic theory is only a working hypothesis. 
 
10 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 plausible enough and provable perhaps, but still rest- 
 ing upon no testimony of the senses. 
 
 RELATIONS OF MIND AND MATTER. 
 
 Again, it is said to be inconceivable that a particle 
 of matter should come into being or pass out of being, 
 while what is called spirit is supposed to come and 
 go, and the act of consciousness may be temporarily 
 suspended. This point has been satisfactorily met 
 by a very striking analogy in the kingdom of nature, 
 where " energy of visible motion often disappears by 
 transformation into the dormant or latent energy of 
 position." The capacity of consciousness does not 
 cease when we stop thinking. It is urged still fur- 
 ther that every act of thought is attended by some 
 corresponding change in the tissue of the body, and 
 cannot be exercised except upon this condition ; so 
 that, even if there were an inherent distinction be- 
 tween mind and matter, the former is dependent 
 upon the latter, and cannot exist separate from the 
 structure which excites its activity. It is assumed 
 that "a definite thought and a definite molecular 
 action in the brain occur simultaneously ; " but, as the 
 Eev. Mr. Gorman (to whose elaborate and very able 
 treatise on Christian Psychology I am much in- 
 debted) has w^ell said : " All simultaneous action in a 
 living organism necessarily presupposes successive 
 action. For example, thought precedes speech, and 
 will precedes act. When the mind is excited from 
 without, molecular movement of the brain must actu- 
 ally precede sensation. When the brain is set in 
 
THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 11 
 
 motion from within, mental activity must actually 
 precede cerebral movement." That the mind is capa- 
 ble of acting, without being moved or prompted by 
 external stimulus, our consciousness affirms, and this 
 is enough to determine the question of its indepen- 
 dent or absolute existence. 
 
 THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE BODY AND THE SOUL. 
 
 But, while we deny that mind or thought is a mere 
 function of the body, we cannot help allowing the. 
 necessity of some intermediate link between the body 
 and the soul, in order to explain their mutual reac- 
 tion ; or the existence of an intermediate substance 
 of almost inconceivable tenuity, constituting a link 
 or bond between the gross corporeal body and the 
 spiritual substance commonly called the soul. I 
 must here be allowed to quote a very striking passage 
 from a sermon preached by Dean Mansell in the pul- 
 pit of the University Church : " All action, whether 
 free or constrained, and all passion implies and rests 
 upon another great mystery of philosophy, — the 
 commerce between mind and matter. The properties 
 and operations of matter are known only by the ex- 
 ternal senses ; the faculties and acts of the mind are 
 known only by the internal apprehension. The en- 
 ergy of the one is motion, the energy of the other 
 is consciousness. What is the middle term which 
 unites these two, and how can their reciprocal ac- 
 tion, unquestionable as it is in fact, be conceived as 
 possible in theory? How can a contact between 
 body and body produce consciousness in the imma- 
 
12 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 terial soul ? How can a mental self-determination 
 produce the motion of material organs ? How can 
 mind, which is neither extended nor figured, nor 
 colored in itself, represent, by its ideas, the extension 
 and figure and color of bodies ? How can the mind 
 be determined to a new position in space by an act 
 of thought, to which space has no relation ? How can 
 thought itself be carried on by bodily instruments 
 and yet itself have nothing in common with bodily 
 affections ? What is the relation between the last 
 pulsation of the material brain and the first awaken- 
 ing of the mental perception ? How does the spoken 
 word, a merely material vibration of the atmosphere, 
 become echoed, as it were, in the silent voice of 
 thought, and take its part in an operation wholly 
 spiritual ? " These are tough questions, and, in the 
 opinion of the Dean, they have not yet been an- 
 swered. The attempt has been made by theories of 
 Pre-established Harmony, a Plastic Medium, and so 
 on, all of which he regards as so many confessions of 
 an unresolved mystery. And yet one of the ablest 
 modern psychologists says that " the battle-ground of 
 a rational psychology lies here. Now, more than at 
 any previous time, it behooves all who desire to con- 
 tribute to the real and solid advance of psychological 
 science, to endeavor, by adequate analysis of the 
 phenomena, to penetrate the mysterious middle region 
 occupied by what has been called the ' animal spirits.' 
 There is the 'passage,' 'gulf,' 'film,' limbics, or by 
 whatsoever name called — alleged, without an at- 
 tempt at proof, to be impassable — which divides the 
 
THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 13 
 
 two distinct but closely correlated spheres of soul and 
 body." It would be useless, within the limited space 
 allowed me, to attempt to give an outline of the 
 theories propounded by Christian Wolf, Raymond 
 Vieussens, Unzer, Prof. Bain, Drs. Maudsley and 
 Beale, Claude Bernard, Dr. Eichardson, and Dr. 
 George Moore, which have relation to this subject. I 
 will, however, cite a passage from the last-named 
 writer, which seems to me to be very suggestive : 
 " We possess evidence that there exists an all-pervad- 
 ing something, not to be defined as matter, but which 
 may be regarded as the substantial medium of those 
 actions known as light, heat, electricity, gravitation, 
 and magnetism. That the mind operates on this 
 medium in our visible bodies we find in the fact that 
 a man, by the mere act of his will in contracting the 
 muscles, say of his arm, causes a current of influence 
 which sensibly deflects the needle of the galva- 
 nometer, the currents being opposite in the opposite 
 arms. Moreover, it appears that the nerves of sen- 
 sation are positive, the nerves of motion negative, so 
 that every act of impression and of will seems to 
 operate through an agency similar to that of an elec- 
 tric telegraph. The will being capable of moving this 
 agency and of being moved through it, may we not 
 reasonably imagine it possible that the soul is to be 
 forever associated with it in some specific and identi- 
 cal form ? This agency is probably one with the all- 
 penetrating medium of the universe, called, for lack 
 of a name sufficiently definite, ether. It is calculated 
 to serve as a spiritual body, which, taking direction 
 
14 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 and impression as the vehicle of the soul, might 
 be capable of intiuence and action in sympathy 
 with all the changes, mental and physical, of the 
 nni verse." 
 
 I have room, in the present connection, to cite only 
 one further extract, and that is taken from Unzer's 
 Principles of Physiology, a work of no inconsiderable 
 authority : " All the phenomena of motion and sen- 
 sation, manifested through the nerves, render proba- 
 ble the existence of a remarkably subtle fluid essence, 
 which is present invisibly in the medulla of the brain 
 and nerves, and is the means whereby all the func- 
 tions of both are performed. It is termed the vital 
 spirits or nervous fluid, but it is not known how and 
 when it contributes to the animal actions. It is not 
 that fluid matter which is seen in the medulla of the 
 brain and nerves, but a much more subtle fluid im- 
 perceptible to the senses. It is inferred from the 
 phenomena which betray its existence, that this ner- 
 vous fluid is a remarkably mobile fluid, a spirituous 
 vapor, which can be neither aqueous, nor glutinous, 
 nor elastic, nor ethereal, nor electrical. The train is 
 the laboratory of the vital spirits. It appears certain 
 that there is such a fluid essence secreted from the 
 vessels of the gray matter of the brain into the hollow 
 tubes of the medullary matter, which is carried by 
 the tubes of the nerves to their termination, and 
 supplies the principle whereby the nerves are ren- 
 dered capable of being the agents of the senses and 
 of movements." 
 
THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 15 
 
 MAN A THREEFOLD BEING. 
 
 It^ would appear, then, that man, in his present 
 stage of existence, is a threefold being, consisting of a 
 material body, a vital principle, and a mind. By the 
 first he stands connected with all material forms ; by 
 the second, with all vitalized forms ; and by the third, 
 with all beings of his own particular species and all 
 above him in rank. The first is transient, always in 
 a state of flux ; the second gives form to this transient 
 body, and directs all its special functions ; the third 
 gives man the consciousness of being what he is, and 
 enables him to know and perceive what is going on 
 around him. In his present state the three are in- 
 separable, and have mutual relations. 
 
 The body, or the atomic part of man, cannot create 
 vitality ; the vital or organizing principle cannot be 
 a result of the mere collocation of atoms. The vital 
 principle affects the spiritual or mental, but does not 
 absolutely control it, and certainly does not create it. 
 Tlie spiritual, after all, is supreme. The power of 
 perception, the consciousness of thought, the will, and 
 the moral sense constitute the soul, and the soul is 
 the man. 
 
 And now, coming back to the main question, which 
 may be thus stated, Is the original pattern of things 
 material, and does what appears to be spirit flow out 
 from that, as a result and effect ; or is the universe, 
 man of course included, the simple reduction of a 
 spiritual conception to form ? I will illustrate the 
 point at issue by the simple analogy of what is called 
 
 / 
 
 > 
 
16 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 music. We become conscious of musical sounds 
 through the medium of atmospheric waves striking 
 upon a mechanical instrument in the ear, the vibra- 
 tions thus caused being then carried by certain strings 
 or cords to the brain, where the material process is 
 translated into the perception which we call sound. 
 We then go back a little farther and we find that 
 these waves in the air were produced by certain 
 mechanical movements in the throat, or through the 
 agency of instruments made of parchment or wire, or 
 wood or brass, or some other physical substance, so 
 that, thus far, until we come to the last factor of the 
 problem, which is the transmutation of these vibra- 
 tions into the act of perception or sound, everything 
 seems to lie on the material plane. And now, going 
 back one step farther, we find that the special action 
 of the throat or the brass instrument, which gave 
 character to the musical sounds, was determined by 
 certain written or printed lines and dots and figures, 
 known as the score ; and where did this score come 
 from? Out of the mind of the composer; and in the 
 realms of his spiritual being all these harmonies and 
 melodies existed as a fact before he ever put pen to 
 paper. In his apprehension the music exists, and it 
 is capable of being enjoyed by him, independent of 
 any material pulsations ; although, indeed, his sense 
 of gratification is greatly enhanced when he hears the 
 thought of his mind reproduced in actual song. Now 
 observe that at both ends of the process we need to 
 have a spiritual being, in order to the existence of 
 music, — a mind to compose i., and a mind to perceive 
 
THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 17 
 
 it. The universe is constructed upon the- same prin- 
 ciples of harmony which constitute music. There is 
 a singular analogy between the laws of sight and the 
 laws of sound : there are seven primary colors and 
 seven primary sounds, — thirds, fifths, and octaves 
 make harmony in both ; there are com pigmentary 
 colors and complementary sounds ; there are discords 
 of color and discords of sound, occasioned by the same 
 general law, and as the eye is offended by one, so 
 is the ear offended by the other. There is a law of 
 rhythm which pervades the universe, and if the 
 spiritual ear were quickened, we might actually hear 
 the music of the spheres. 
 
 Is it possible for a human being to believe that all 
 this can be, without also believing that there is a 
 divine, spiritual, preconceived plan, of which the 
 material universe is only the manifestation ? 
 
 OUR PERSONAL IMMORTALITY. 
 
 The bearing of all this upon the question of our 
 own personal immortality gives to the subject a most 
 profound and solemn interest. It is hardly conceiv- 
 able that man should have been endowed with im- 
 mortality, and yet so constituted as to be unable to 
 arrive at any satisfactory proof of the fact. To those 
 who receive the records of the New Testament as au- 
 thentic and true, no further demonstration is needed ; 
 for those records not only declare the fact of eternal 
 life, but also give a tangible assurance of the same in 
 the reappearance of Christ after his death. In these 
 days of sharp and ruthless historical criticism it is, 
 
 2 
 
18 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 however, very desirable, if we can, to supplement and 
 confirm the doctrine of that Book by argument drawn 
 from other sources; and the most implicit believer 
 will surely not object to our drawing upon the re- 
 sources of science and philosophy to establish a truth 
 which science and philosophy have done so much to 
 discredit. A work, entitled " The Unseen Universe," 
 ^ by B. Stewart and P. G. Tait, published last year in 
 ' London, attempts to construe^ upon a scientific basis 
 the doctrine of man's continued existence after death. 
 The book has been assailed on one side by those who 
 regard it as teaching only a " dangerously subtle ma- 
 terialism," and on the other as " orthodoxly credu- 
 lous and superstitious," as being, in fact, " the most 
 hardened and impenitent nonsense that ever called 
 itself original speculation." The intervention of one 
 who aims to reconcile science with religion seems to 
 / operate like a red rag in stirring up to hot strife both 
 the orthodox bull, who does not believe in science at 
 all, and the heterodox bear, who does not believe that 
 there is a God, or that man ever had any soul. 
 
 There is, perhaps, no grosser form of materialism 
 than that of the theological school which teaches the 
 doctrine of a final reconstruction of the animal body ; 
 a recomposition of the physical atoms disintegrated 
 by the act of death ; the man thus raised to become a 
 resident in some sort of physical lieaven, — a dogma 
 which destroys the basis upon which the only satis- 
 factory philosophical or scientific argument for im- 
 mortality can be constructed, namely, the lavj of conti- 
 nuity. This ig the universal law of nature, and all our 
 
 + 
 
^0 THE SEE^ 
 
 AND THE UNSEEN. 19 
 
 calculations rest upon it. Now, scientifically speak- / 
 
 ing, what is the eftect of death ? 'It certainly does ^'-^ ; 
 not wipe out of being an atom of the substance by V*^ 
 which our material organism was built up. ' ' It sim- ^ 
 ply precipitates a process which had always been going 
 on by gradual degrees, — the return of our primordial 
 substance to its normal or original condition. Nei- 
 ther is it conceivable that the energy which actuated /tt% 
 the body while it lived is annihilated at death ; for ' 
 energy, as we have before seen, is just as much a fixed 
 quantity as matter. The demonstration of force, re- 
 sultant from that energy, may cease to be manifested, 
 just as all indications of force cease when opposite 
 persons become equalized. When I discharge a Ley- 
 den jar, I neither add to nor diminish the amount of 
 electricity. Once more, unless the soul is a mere ) 
 function of the body, and the brain secretes conscious- 
 ness as the liver secretes bile, the principle of con- 
 tinuity demands that it should continue to be, after 
 the machine or framework which it shaped and in- 
 spired has fallen to pieces. 
 
 Everj'thing, then, depends upon the question 
 whether or not there is such a thing as a spiritual uni- t^ 
 verse, — anything, anywliere, beside atomic matter, ^ 
 or wliat the philosophers now call stuff. There are^ 
 not many wise men in our day who are ready to remit 
 everything to non-existence that is of the nature of 
 spirit, and, if there was anything antecedent to the>^ ^ ^ 
 visible universe, there may be something which will 
 survive it. 
 
 One thing is quite certain ; this visible universe 
 
20 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 must, sooner or later, have an end, just as truly as 
 
 V the body of man wears out and ceases to be. There 
 is no immortality for that. All motion in that uni- 
 verse must cease, whenever everything is brought into 
 equilibrium, which the constant dissipation of energy 
 that is going on makes inevitable. The energy thus 
 dissipated, and the force thus destroyed, may be re- 
 stored if we suppose it to originate in a spiritual uni- 
 verse, but not otherwise. 
 
 Is it, however, possible for us to apprehend the 
 nature of that spiritual existence which is involved in 
 our personal immortality ? The existence of finite 
 beings, unconditioned by time and space, is inconceiv- 
 able. The old idea of the soul, as passing off into 
 
 ^ space like a puff of empty nothiugness,^without form 
 or substance, without any kind of organ or function, 
 still existing, but nowhere in particular, is about 
 equivalent to annihilation. St. Paul tells us that 
 when his eartlily tabernacle, or tent, is removed, there 
 
 ^ is another dwelling-place awaiting him, — a new vest- 
 ure, after the old one is worn out. Thomas Aquinas ar- 
 gues " to the effect that it is not repugnant to the 
 nature of a spiritual substance to be the form of the 
 body ; since this only means that, in relation to 
 the body, it is the principle of these perfections through 
 the instrumentality of which the body has some resem- 
 blance to the spirit, and is a being at once actual, sub- 
 sistent, corporeal, living, and sensitive." It has been 
 well said " that we are logically constrained to admit 
 the existence of some form or organ which is not of 
 
 ^ this earth, and which survives dissolution, if we re- 
 
y 
 
 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 21 
 
 gard the principle of continuity and the doctrine of a 
 future state as both true." " There is," says the Apos- 
 tle Paul (uot there shall be), " a spiritual body." " We 
 have a building of God, an house not made with 
 hands, eternal in the heavens." 
 
 The next stage of existence is, then, a conditioned 
 life, otherwise we could not retain our individuality. 
 And now I remark that the law of continuity de- 
 mands that this life should be subject to an endless 
 process of development. What may finally come to 
 us as tlie result of this development we are probably 
 as unable to conjecture as the infant is to forecast the'^ 
 experiences of his maturity. It is much easier 
 to grasp the conception of a future life than it is to -7- 
 apprehend the endlessness of that life. Having once 
 begun to be, shall I never cease to be? Will this 
 conscious soul of mine continue to exist and assert 
 itself after the visible universe upon which I now 
 look has burnt out its last spark and vanished ? 
 Shall I live as long as God lives ? We read that 
 Christ, in bringing life and immortality to light, has ^^ 
 ''abolished death." If, then, death is abolished, I 
 must live forever. My powers give way in the 
 attempt to grapple with this stupendous fact ; but I 
 accept it as revealed by One who knew whereof He 
 spake, — I accept it, because existence would be in- 
 tolerable on any other condition. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SPIRITUAL BEING. 
 
 I next observe that spiritual being, however it may 
 be developed in the future, must always retain the 
 
^>^ 
 
 22 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 same characteristics of identity. In this primary 
 stage of being it has relations to a physical universe 
 which in a certain sense are temporary, but there 
 must also be certain inseparable relations between 
 this life and the next, in order to the continuance of 
 our personal individuality. The consciousness of the 
 Ego must be eternal, and in order to this, the power 
 of memory must continue, • and the same essential 
 activities of the mind remain intact. Although it is 
 not to be believed that our future life is to be on 
 another and a higher plane of the physical, I am not 
 certain that there may not be something in it analo- 
 gous to the physical. Why may there not be some- 
 thing there corresponding to what we here call 
 natural science, and art, and all those occupations 
 which are neither menial nor sensual ? Why may 
 there not be a field for the exercise of those peculiar 
 gifts with which different men are endowed, and to 
 which they have here, in a measure, devoted their 
 lives ? The laws of art and science are as immutable 
 and eternal as the law of morals. They proceed from 
 the same divine source, and have their seat in the 
 bosom of God. It is a very dreary prospect, if we 
 are to anticipate an immortal existence with no 
 variety of employment, and with nothing to interest 
 us there corresponding to the best and noblest things 
 which concern us here. The eternal life may be one 
 perpetual act of worship, but that worship will not be 
 in a monotone. God will be adored in the study of 
 his manifold works, and in the exercise of the mani- 
 fold powers which he has given us. I believe that 
 
THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 23 
 
 everything seen and temporal, which is not of the 
 nature of sin, is a type and symbol and prophecy of 
 something unseen and eternal, only purer and more 
 glorious. Altogether too much is said about tlie rest 
 of heaven, delightful as the rest from carking cares 
 and spiritual contentions and corroding anxieties 
 must be ; but some people seem to think that to -^ 
 die is only " to lie down to pleasant and everlasting 
 dreams." If we are to live forever, I presume that 
 there will be something for us to do forever, — some- 
 thing beside enjoyment. 
 
 _ The light that is thrown upon the next stage of 
 existence in the Scriptures is designedly somewhat X, 
 general and limited. All the direct information on 
 the subject which they give could be condensed into a 
 very small space. The eschatology of the Old Testa- 
 ment could all be written on a single page, and very 
 much in the New Testament which has been sup- 
 posed to relate to the subject is now referred to the 
 setting up of the kingdom of truth and righteousness 
 here on earth. "The kingdom to come" in many 
 cases means simply the kingdom of Christ among 
 men. Eevelation was not intended to gratify our 
 curiosity, and it would not be well to make the veil -«^ 
 which hangs between us and the future too trans- 
 lucent. Our work is here, and if that work is prop- 
 erly done, we can afford to wait until an actual 
 entrance into the next world reveals its mysteries. 
 The time is not most profitably employed which is 
 spent in speculating about these mysteries. 
 
 But we do want to be at rest so far as the fact that 
 
< 
 
 24 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 there is such a world is concerned, and it is most de- 
 sirable that we should know enough about it for the 
 proper regulation of the present life. With this 
 knowledge we may be content. And let us be thank- 
 ful for any help, let it come from whatever quarter 
 it may, which may be of service in determining the 
 great fact that there is a spiritual as well as a natural 
 life, and that the power abides after the latter is over. 
 Theologians ought to be careful lest they encumber 
 the truth of our immortality with notions and theories 
 which the man of science finds it impossible to re- 
 ceive, and the philosopher should be on his guard 
 against any such prejudgment of the point at issue 
 as will prevent him from giving due consideration to 
 the proof by which that point is established. There 
 can be no collision between science and faith so long 
 {, as science confines itself to its legitimate sphere, and 
 faith does not allow itself to degenerate into a super- 
 stition. Science cannot take a single firm step, unless 
 it has faith in something that is unseen and spiritual ; 
 and faith is a blind guide, unless it has eyes to see 
 what lies around. I do not think that the two par- 
 ties will reach the final goal of absolute and certain 
 truth by separating and going different ways ; let 
 them travel together, the. one as the interpreter of 
 the seen, and the other as the interpreter of the 
 unseen. The material will help to explain the 
 spiritual, and the spiritual will disclose the end for 
 which the material exists. 
 
THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 25 
 THE HOW OF THE UNIVERSE AND THE WHY. 
 
 " A division as old as Aristotle separates specula- 
 tors into two great classes, — those who study the How 
 of the universe, and those who study the Why. All 
 men of science are embraced in the former of these, 
 all men of religion in the latter." I would like to 
 understand both, if this is possible ; but if I must 
 choose between the two, I would rather know the 
 reason for which I exist than the mode by which I "^ 
 exist. The one is an end, the other only a means. If 
 it is impossible to discover the end, or if that end, 
 when it is supposed to be discovered, does not seem 
 to be such as justifies the elaborate process by which 
 it is reached; if all the magnificent discoveries of 
 science land us in the conclusion that the universe 
 is only a great clock, put together and weighted and 
 wound up to run for a certain period, and then, when 
 it has struck the last hour, to fall to pieces and 
 become resolved into the materials of which it was , 
 originally made, — the clock having marked the pas- ^ 
 sage of time, faithfully and truly, as long as the flow 
 of events continued, but the time itself leaving behind 
 no permanent results which abide after the clock 
 has ceased to strike, — if the end of existence is ex- 
 hausted in the process by which'' that existence is regis- 
 tered and terminates with the process ; or, again, if the 
 universe is only a huge electric wheel, throwing out 
 sparks of life which glisten for an instant in the 
 darkness and vanish forever ; or, again, if man is only 
 the efflorescence of a physical compound, that buds 
 
26 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 and blossoms, and then dies as soon as the soil fur- 
 nishes no further sustenance, — why, then the uni- 
 >C verse is a sham and man an impertinence. All comes 
 to nothing in the end ; consciousness ceases when the 
 phosphorus in the brain ceases to burn, and, with the 
 end of consciousness, the material world might as well 
 shrivel and die and come to nothing also. 
 
 This is the teaching of a school of science, " falsely 
 so called," which mad materialistic diviners, with 
 many high-sounding words, now offer to our accept- 
 ance. 
 
 It is not easy to keep within the 'limits of a frigid 
 logic, in dealing with matters in which all our high- 
 est aspirations and all our profoundest feelings are 
 concerned. There is a spiritual department of our 
 nature which is as real as the monad, and as vital as 
 the physical affinities of the body or the working of 
 the reason and understanding. All that is beautiful 
 and all that is frightful, all that appeals to the imagi- 
 nation and the emotions and the sense of rectitude, 
 centres here. This is mere cloudland to the material- 
 ist, — like that superb display which sometimes ap- 
 pears in the western horizon as the day is drawing to 
 a close, when the azure and vermilion and green and 
 golden hues shape themselves into forms more beau- 
 tiful tlian anything ever seen on the plane of earth ; 
 but all which, he tells us, would prove to be a sad 
 delusion, if we should be suddenly transported to the 
 very region of those gorgeous clouds, for then they 
 would be resolved into a dull, chill, leaden mist, ob- 
 scuring the sun and the st^rs and the earth. 
 
THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 27 
 
 It is very true that what a man sees depends upon 
 the place where he stands, and it is very possible for 
 one to take such a position as must, of necessity, rule 
 out all tlie beauty and glory from the universe. But 
 is the splendor of the autumnal sunset any the less 
 a i-eality because it is painted with drops of dew, — 
 the same material which the machinist uses to start 
 his engine ? 
 
 Which is the more real, if potency be the measure 
 of reality, — the solid shaft of granite, or the impon- 
 derable lightning which shivers it to fragments ? Do 
 we not approach -the region of power just in propor- 
 tion as we pass from the material to the spiritual, 
 from the solid to the fluid ? .The water grinds the 
 rock, the heated air dissipates the water, the electric 
 influence decomposes the air, and the will of man ex- 
 cites and directs the electric force. The granite pile 
 on Bunker Hill oscillates every day, as the warm 
 rays of the sun play upon its eastern and its west- 
 ern side. 
 
 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 This is the conclusion of the whole matter, — 
 "Nature represents things spiritual." (The Seen is ^ 
 the type and symbol of the Unseen, and that which 
 is seen is temporal, while the things which are un- 
 seen are eternal. \ Nothing can be seen but forms, 
 and these are in^^heir very nature transient and 
 changeable. The substance of these forms is inde- 
 structible. We live in two worlds, one temporal and 
 the other eternal, — the world of forms and the world 
 
^ 
 
 28 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 of realities. With the one we come into communi- 
 cation by our senses, with the other we come into 
 communication by the soul. Material things are the 
 symbols of spiritual tilings, and we are able to express 
 the latter only through the medium of the former. 
 The next stage of existence will be simply the un- 
 folding or development of this primary stage of being. 
 There is no arbitrary line separating the temporal 
 from the eternal ; the one passes over into the other 
 by natural, orderly law. The cliange induced by 
 death cannot in any way affect our personal identity. 
 "We must retain a memory of the past and the con- 
 sciousness of possessing the same mental and moral 
 qualities by which we are individualized here on 
 earth. The time has been when you might hear 
 the great congregation sing such strains as these : — 
 
 "The living know that they must die, 
 But all the dead forgotten lie ; 
 Their memory and their sense is gone, 
 Alike unknowing and unknown." 
 
 The words had a solemn sound, and it was not 
 noticed that they taught the doctrine of annihila- 
 tion. 
 
 Neither is there any propriety in speaking of the 
 unseen world as a " final state," as if we had entered 
 upon a fixed, unchangeable, and completed condition 
 of being. There is no point of finality in human 
 existence. However high we may climb, there will 
 always be a higher summit left unsealed, something 
 new to be learned, some loftier attainment to be 
 reached. 
 
THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 29 
 
 And, if we are to retain our personal identity, — 
 without which immortality would not be a gift worth 
 taking, — those whom we have known and loved here 
 we must know and love hereafter. It would be a 
 dreary thing if we thought that we were going to 
 a land of strangers. Is it to be supposed that the 
 emotional part of our nature will be extinguished, or 
 so modified, that we shall cease forever to love that, 
 which, here on earth, was the centre of our most earnest 
 and tender affection ? Shall we be so overwhelmed 
 by the glory of consorting with angels that we shall 
 cease any longer to care for the poor feUow-creatures 
 with whom we wept and toiled when we were pilgrims 
 together on earth ? Will Raphael and Gabriel and 
 Michael be nearer and dearer to us than the child we 
 once lost, or the father and mother who taught us 
 how to pray ? Those who have gone before cannot 
 forget those whom they have left behind ; and is it to 
 be supposed that their cup of happiness can be full 
 if they never expect to welcome their friends in 
 
 ** The bright and blessed country, — the home of God's elect " ? 
 
 I feel that I am forbidden, by the nature of the 
 occasion, from trespassing any further upon the do- 
 main of feeling, and I therefore close by saying, that, 
 as I understand the matter, the distinction which 
 separates the Seen from the Unseen is not determined 
 by any supposed differentiation of spirit from matter. 
 I do not know that any distinct line, dividing the 
 two, exists, and if it does exist, I do not know where 
 it runs; but the distinction is best defined by the 
 
 X. 
 
30 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 words phenomenal and actual, — the forms and the 
 realities. Tlie things which are seen are passing by 
 like a swift panorama, ever changing, ever fading, 
 y^ ever decaying; but the things which are not seen 
 abide forever. Which do you care for most ? Are 
 you mistaking shadows for realities, and realities for 
 shadows ? 
 
11. 
 
 MORAL LAW IN ITS RELATIONS TO PHYSICAL 
 SCIENCE AND TO POPULAR RELIGION. 
 
 By president E. G. ROBINSON, D.D., LL.D. 
 
II. 
 
 MORAL LAW IN ITS RELATIONS TO PHYSICAL 
 SCIENCE AND TO POPULAR RELIGION. 
 
 By president E. G. ROBINSON, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 "XTO word plays a more conspicuous part in modern 
 ■^ ^ thought, and none is more loosely used, than the 
 word " law." Originally used in a single sense, its 
 meaning was unambiguous and universally recognized. 
 It is now employed in many senses, some of which 
 are plain and have become necessary, others are 
 obscure and doubtful, and others still it is difficult, 
 if not impossible to justify. Its primary meaning 
 undoubtedly was, " a rule of conduct jDrescribed and 
 enforced by some kind of authority." In this sense 
 of the word, law was essential to the continuance of 
 individual life, as well as to the formation of indi- 
 vidual character. It was equally necessary for the 
 organization and conservation of society. 
 
 Natural science, borrowing the term " law," has given 
 it a wide range of application. Observers of the phe- 
 nomena of nature, noticing that these always occurred 
 in an orderly sequence, declared their occurrence to 
 be by law. Physical laws, therefore, in the sense of 
 
 8 
 
34 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 rules according to which physical phenomena of 
 given classes always occur, became a needed and a 
 familiar expression. Out of- this signification in the 
 progress of science have grown other meanings, to 
 which it is not necessary here to advert. 
 
 But whatever may be said of the new senses which 
 science has attached to the word " law," it must be 
 admitted to have thrown new light on the original 
 meaning of the phrase "moral law." It has sent 
 back to ethics its borrowed term endowed with a 
 widened and deepened significance; the metaphori- 
 cal use of it has enabled us to get a deeper insight 
 into the fulness of its literal sense. How this has 
 been accomplished forms the first half of our present 
 discussion. 
 
 PROPERTIES OF lilATTER. 
 
 Natural law always implies and reveals some kind 
 of force, denoting a rule according to which the force 
 always acts. But the rule is not an arbitrary decree ; 
 it represents no mere imposed order of sequence, but 
 expresses that which makes the sequence orderly. 
 Its origin, so far as matter itself is concerned, must 
 be in the properties of matter, or in the conditions 
 under which matter is found uniformly to exist. 
 These remaining ever the same, the modes or laws of 
 their manifestation must continue unchangeably the 
 same. 
 
 Modern science has made us familiar with the 
 phrases, "mechanical laws" and "chemical laws." 
 Whatever the explanation that may be given of the 
 
MORAL LAW. 35 
 
 difference between these, that explanation will be 
 found in the last analysis to rest on the account 
 given of the subtile properties of matter. Matter 
 being found to be what it is, the laws which deter- 
 mine the order of its phenomena are necessarily what 
 they are. Two classes of properties may be set to 
 work in one and the same substance at one and the 
 same instant. Thus, an explosive substance enclosed 
 in a retort with a reagent may be set to work chemi- 
 cally, and its bulk so expanded as mechanically to 
 blow tlie retort into fragments. Our respiration is 
 mechanical, and the accompanying oxygenation of our 
 blood is chemical ; and the two sets of laws, the 
 mechanical and the chemical, that rule conjointly in 
 these phenomena, so rule because the properties of 
 matter of which our bodies are composed necessarily 
 so reveal themselves. Whatever may be the dis- 
 tinctions, therefore, in our conceptions of physical 
 law, the law necessarily exists because necessitated 
 by the properties of matter. To know and under- 
 stand the modes or laws of physical phenomena is 
 to know and understand all that is knowable of the 
 nature of matter. 
 
 PROPERTIES OF THE PERSONAL BEING. 
 
 Corresponding to the properties of matter are also 
 the properties of the personal being. Nothing exists 
 which does not exist in a given mode and with a 
 given constitution. That in us which thinks and 
 feels and wills, has its own constitution, and acts 
 under its own unvarying laws, as well as the bodily 
 
36 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 i 
 
 organism which executes our volitions. Some of 
 these laws of the personality are distinctively moral ; 
 and moral laws are just as much a revelation of the 
 moral properties of the personal being as physical 
 laws are a revelation of the properties of matter. 
 The properties of the one do not more immediately 
 necessitate its laws than do the properties of the 
 other. Personal existence is only in given modes 
 and under fixed conditions; any description which 
 can be given of these modes as moral will be found 
 to be equivalent to a description or statement of 
 the moral laws under which all personal beings are 
 found to exist. To know and understand moml laws 
 is to know and understand all that is knowable of 
 the moral nature of man ; and it is so because the 
 phrases '' original moral nature " and " moral law " are 
 descriptive of one and the same thing. 
 
 LAW AS FORMULA AND AS CONSTITUTIVE PRINCIPLE. 
 
 Thus, there are two senses in which the phrase 
 " moral law " may be used, and which should be care- 
 fully distinguished. The one conceives it as a con- 
 stitutive principle of personality ; the other conceives 
 it as a precept, a command, a statute which formu- 
 lates the principle into an authoritative rule of action. 
 There is necessarily recognized, therefore, in the use 
 of the word "law" what in technical language we 
 may call the objective precept and the subjective 
 principle. The subjective principle, as a property 
 of the personal being, always underlies the idea of 
 moral law, just as the properties regulative of physi- 
 
MORAL LAW. 37 
 
 cal force underlie the idea of physical law. As the 
 constitutive properties of matter manifest themselves 
 in physical laws, so the constitutive properties or 
 principles of the personal being manifest themselves 
 in given modes or according to moral laws. No con- 
 ception of moral law, therefore, is complete which 
 does not regard it as a principle of being as well as a 
 formal command. 
 
 But just here there are two points of distinction 
 between physical law and moral law which should 
 be made and remembered. The first of these is, that 
 while all statutory law is declaratory, physical law for- 
 mulated is simply declaratory of what is necessarily 
 true, of what always has been and always must be 
 true of all material phenomena ; moral law as precept, 
 on the contrary, is the declaration of what ought 
 to be, and what from the very nature of a rational 
 intelligence must be, if the typical idea of the per- 
 sonal being is ever to be realized. — The other point 
 is, that while moral law may be broken, physical law 
 never can be broken. You may arrest one physical 
 force by the application of another, but you never 
 can violate the law according to which the force acts. 
 You can, by appliances, arrest the force of gravitation ; 
 you cannot, by any possibility, violate the law of gravi- 
 tation. I know that in popular language gravitation 
 is oftentimes spoken of as itself a law ; but gravitation 
 is the expression or action of a given force ; its law is 
 that the force always acts " directly as the mass and 
 inversely as the square of the distance." That law 
 you can in no sense break or violate ; and the force 
 
38 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 which acts in accordance with it, whatever else you 
 can do with it, you never can suspend. But in moral 
 law there is always implied a force of will which is to 
 be regulated ; it is to tlie will that moral precepts are 
 always addressed. The precepts can be voluntarily 
 complied with, or they can be voluntarily over-ridden. 
 We can break the objective rule because we can 
 suppress or suspend the subjective principle. The 
 constitutive properties of a finite moral being might 
 prompt him instinctively to worship the supremely 
 best Being ; by force of will he may bring himself to 
 worship the supremely worst being. The self-acting 
 nature of an unperverted man might prompt always 
 and spontaneously to tell the truth, but he can will 
 habitually to falsify and mislead. But if the external 
 precept be true to the internal principle, if it com- 
 mand only what that exacts ; then, if broken, its pen- 
 alty can no more be escaped than personal identity 
 can be changed. 
 
 IMMEDIATE OR SECONDARY SOURCE OF LAW. 
 
 Here we see the immediate or secondary source of 
 moral law. All law has its immediate origin in what- 
 ever is ruled by it, — the physical in matter, the moral 
 in the human soul. As statutes, the moral simply 
 formulate what is eternally true of the human person- 
 ality as such. 
 
 But here let us not mistake. Moral law is not 
 derived from every, or from any, personal being now 
 found in life. Human nature is exceedingly diverse, 
 is an extremely variable quantity ; and the actions of 
 
MORAL LAW. 39 
 
 every man, when understood, are sure to reveal the 
 moral qualities of his innermost nature, and that 
 nature may be radically perverse. But liis acts will 
 be in accordance with the ruling principles of his 
 existing nature. He will, by necessity, obey the rul- 
 ing law of his being as it now is. And it is in this 
 explanation that w^e see the meaning of the language ^• 
 of the Apostle Paul when he says, " I find another ^^ 
 law in my members waning against Jhe law of my "^ 
 mind." He saw the law of a superinduced and per- ^ 
 verse nature ; and he saw the law of his original and ^' 
 deeper nature. A superinduced nature may manifest \^ 
 itself in acts of uniform perversity ; but they are acts * y 
 whose uniformity shows them to be according to law, 
 — a " law in the members," it may be, and yet a o 
 law from within the person acting. There is also v'< 
 the profounder and original or ideal nature wdth its 
 deeper law, of which conscience takes cognizance, and 
 that law is what the Apostle calls the law of his 
 " mind." 
 
 But what we are now dealing with is. the formu- 
 lated duties of man : the laws which declare the ^. 
 unalterable obligations of all men; the moral laws O 
 which were codified by Moses, which were expounded 
 and illustrated by Jesus of Nazareth, which are now J^ 
 incorporated into the moral code of Christendom ; and >^ 
 these simply represent man as he was intended to be, 
 as he is intended to become. (Jhey constitute collect- 
 ively a word-picture of the ideal many They describe r 
 what will always be true of the perfect man. They 
 tell what w^as actualized in the perfect man of Naza- 
 
40 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 reth. The outlines of a perfect manhood had been 
 drawn by Moses ; Jesus filled up the picture with 
 the color and warmth of real life. The Sermon on 
 the Mount was simply an exposition of the law of 
 ^C^ Moses ; that exposition irradiated and made it lumi- 
 nous for all time. And what the Expounder said and 
 did was only the spontaneous expression of what he 
 was. He was the moral law incarnate. In him and 
 his life it was made legible to all eyes and articulate 
 to all ears. His teachings were not reasoned con- 
 clusions, but intuited truths. What he enjoined on 
 others he was ; and he was all that the law, as insti- 
 tuted by Moses, required, and all that the boundless 
 fulness of his own exposition has laid open to the 
 wondering gaze of men. He was at once the Arche- 
 typal Being in whose likeness our nature was origi- 
 nally fashioned ; and he was the typical man after 
 whose example every clear-sighted man has felt that 
 his own life ought to be regulated. 
 
 RESPONSE OF THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 But here you may ask for the evidence that such 
 was the secondary source of moral law. Take the 
 ethical teachings of Jesus; address them to men; 
 and where is the man, whatever his pride, whatever 
 /^ his culture, whatever his philosophy, or whatever his 
 vices, who, if you can but secure his attention long 
 enough for the teachings to flash their light into his 
 consciousness, will not be humbled and startled by 
 a power which he cannot resist. The ethical truth, 
 which is but another name for law, if he submit to it, 
 
MORAL LAW. 41 
 
 will slay him, and in slaying will renew and trans- 
 form him, awakening him to obedience and quicken- 
 ing him into a new life. Armed with the power 
 of this truth, even the unlettered are more than a 
 match for prejudice and error, however these may be 
 intrenched. It is this immediateness of response of ^ 
 the moral consciousness of every living man to the 
 authority of moral truth which shows at once its 
 power and the proof of its origin. 
 
 The origin of all other laws than moral, that suc- 
 ceed in gettincf themselves enforced and obeved, will 
 throw some light on the point in hand. The common 
 law of England, of this country, of Christendom, the 
 most authoritative and permanent of all civil law, 
 changes not, because the facts of society which it 
 represents are immutable ; it is simply the formu- 
 lated recognition of some of the deepest realities of X 
 society ; so long as the realities remain, common law 
 cannot change. 
 
 So of all positive laws ; to secure observance of 
 them they must represent the wants and condition of 
 tliose to be controlled by them. Many a man has 
 prescribed for himself a rule which he soon found it 
 impossible to keep. He had misunderstood himself, 
 liis needs and his possibilities, and had attempted the 
 impracticable. Legislative enactments are often found 
 to be inoperative. The legislators of every State in 
 our Union are perpetually enacting and repealing laws. 
 And still the law-books are encumbered with dead- 
 letter statutes. And why these endless changes and 
 the laws which cannot be executed ? Simply because 
 
42 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 y legislators fail to understand the real and underlying 
 facts of society. When the facts are comprehended, 
 and society continues stable, to enact a just law is to 
 insure its fulfilment ; it may almost be said to fulfil 
 itself. So long as our legislators continue to grope in 
 the dark, guessing at the realities of society, or aim- 
 ing at imaginary or Utopian results, so long will our 
 statutes continue to involve the people in uncertainty 
 and vexation. 
 
 The evident origin of the Constitutional laws of a 
 State is specially instructive at this point. Written 
 Constitutions, unless they represent the actual consti- 
 tution of society, can never supply a permanent gov- 
 ernment. The Articles of Confederation, under which 
 
 <^ the government of the United States was for twelve 
 years administered, gave a weak, uncertain, and in- 
 capable government, and they were abandoned. The 
 Constitution under which we now live, adopted by 
 the States in 1789, has given us a stable, strong, and 
 beneficent government, simply because that Constitu- 
 tion recognizes the great facts of American society. 
 As the facts have successively changed, the Constitu- 
 tion has been amended, and if the facts of American 
 society can remain as they are, or change but slightly 
 and gradually, and the Constitution be wisely changed 
 to meet the changing wants and realities of the 
 national life, then may we have a long-continued 
 and beneficent government; but let the great heart of 
 the American people change, let the wants of Ameri- 
 can society cease to be what they now are, let a new 
 and strange national spirit spring up, and the Consti- 
 
MORAL LAW. 43 
 
 tution of the United States will soon be among the 
 things of the past. 
 
 When the Abb(^ Sieyes had concentrated all the y 
 force of his genius, all -the resources of his learning, 
 all the subtlety of his philosophy, in constructing a 
 constitution for the French Republic, he offered it to 
 the National Assembly. They smiled, and rejected it. 
 "Written as it was in the closet, it did not represent 
 the existing facts- of French society. The Assembly 
 saw its impracticability. It was worth so much 
 waste-paper. When John Locke, aided by the first 
 Earl of Shaftesbury, drew up his " Fundamental Con- 
 stitutions " of the Colony of Carolina, the colonists at-^ 
 tempted a government under them. The constitutions 
 were amended ; they were re-amended ; the govern- 
 ment was found impracticable. The instrument had 
 been drawn up by two philosophers, and drawn up for 
 an imaginary state of society ; when the government 
 provided by it was attempted to be enforced upon the 
 colony, it M'as found impracticable. It speedily gave 
 place to a constitution that grew and formulated 
 itself into law in accordance with the wants and real 
 condition of the colonists. 
 
 Thus the immediate source of all positive laws is 
 in the constitutive natures of those upon whom the 
 laws are to be enforced ; and so also the source of all 
 real moral laws is in the nature of those who are to 
 be ruled by them. They are derived not from the 
 accidental conditions of man, not from the surface of 
 human nature despoiled and corrupted, but from the 
 constitutive principles of man as man. 
 
44 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 PRIMAL SOURCE OF MORAL LAW. 
 
 So much for the immediate or secondary source of 
 moral law. But what shall we say of its primary and 
 original source ? Where shall we look for this ? In 
 utility, in the theory of evolution, or in the arche- 
 typal nature of a Supreme Being ? 
 
 The ethical principles now regarded as authori- 
 tative among the foremost nations of the world are 
 found substantially, as we have before said, in the 
 ten commandments of Moses. A statement of the 
 principles, final and exhaustive, is given in the teach- 
 ings of Jesus. Out of these teachings has sprung all 
 that is ethically distinctive in the leading civilizations 
 of the world. The moral law of Moses has now for 
 some thirty-five centuries been on trial. The ethics 
 of Jesus for eighteen centuries and a half have been 
 subjected to every species of criticism which the 
 progress of learning and science has made available. 
 And yet the foundations of morality throughout 
 *I Christendom, notwithstanding the boasts of assail- 
 ants and the alarm of the timid, still abide. 
 
 Suppose now that Moses borrowed from the wis- 
 dom of Egypt, that by observation and induction the 
 Egyptians had arrived at the conclusions which he ap- 
 4~^propriated ; then the Egyptians saw what was useful 
 because they saw what the human soul required. 
 That Moses himself could have been accurate and wide 
 enough in his observations to have reached generali- 
 zations in morals which no people has yet been able 
 to improve upon, is incredible. That the Egyptians 
 
MORAL LAW. 45 ^ 
 
 had reached them is conjectured, but not proved. 
 That they could have been forged in the name of 
 Moses, at a much later period of Jewish history, ^ 
 there is nothing in that history to warrant us in be- 
 lievinfT. Men who could have committed such a for- 
 gery would have been incapable of the requisite 
 moral elevation. The statement of Moses that he 
 received the commands from Jehovah is not yet\_^ 
 shown to be false ; and assuredly there was nothing v^^^ 
 either in the character or in the times of Jesus to * 
 warrant the notion that he could have appropriated v^ 
 the inductions of his day. r^,-^ 
 
 Turn we now to the moc^ified utilitarianism of the '^ 
 theory of evolution. The great apostle of that theory, 
 Mr. Spencer, tells us that the race has now evolved 
 to a stage where, with fewest possible exceptions, the vX 
 best w^e can do in our moral choices is to choose ^ - 
 the least wrong. And, singularly enough, "among 
 the best examples of absolutely right " he mentions 
 one which, he says, existed " before social evolution 
 . began." But in his discussion " of absolute morality " /S 
 A he dwells! upon a state of society, yet future, but .0 
 sure to come, in which every one will always do only ^ 
 what is absolutely right, j On what grounds, with his ^ 
 theory of evolution, he^n venture to conceive such ^ 
 a condition of society, he has not stated ; certainly v^ 
 on his theory the first vertebrate could form no con- 
 ception of the life and advanced condition of an an- J 
 thropoid ape, nor could the anthropoid conjecture « 
 even the lowest stajje of rational existence, nor the -^ 
 
 ^1 
 
 first rational being the advanced civilization now 
 
 •t3 
 
 ^ 
 
*A 
 
 46 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 existing ; and how, on this theory, any one can now 
 assume to know what in the final stage and goal of 
 evolution the condition of liuman society will be, is 
 assuredly a puzzle, unless indeed moral laws as com- 
 mands to absolute right already lurk in the human 
 soul, and have a source, both secondary and primary, 
 with which evolution cannot intermeddle. The truth 
 is, that the evolution theory, after granting all that 
 it can claim, can explain at its best only the origin 
 and development of the moral sentiment, and never 
 in any sense the origin of those great moral laws 
 which, when enunciated, carry their own self- witness- 
 ing authority home to the heart of every one that 
 hears them. And it is extremely doubtful whether 
 even the moral sentiment could be developed except 
 through some kind of apprehension of moral law as 
 it shines out, dimly it may be, through the social en- 
 vironments which Mr. Spencer regards as so efficient 
 in evolving the moral nature. 
 
 But if the primal origin of moral laws can be 
 found neither in utility nor in evolution, can they 
 be found in the infinitely perfect nature of a 
 supreme and archetypal Being ? We say not, in a 
 supreme will, for will might be suspected of arbi- 
 trariness or caprice, but in a nature which is abso- 
 lutely perfect. 
 
 In support of a Divine origin, let us look for a 
 moment at the argument from the unimprovableness 
 of moral law. Our knowledge of physical laws is per- 
 petually advancing. New disclosures of the secrets 
 of nature which require new formulas are being con- 
 
MORAL LAW. 47 
 
 tiuually announced. To our progress in the discovery 
 of these secrets, and in the formulation of laws to 
 represent them, there are no apparent limits. As old 
 theories and conjectured laws have in the past given 
 place to new ones, and these to still newer, so may 
 the progress be still onward indefinitely. 
 
 But moral laws — whatever has been our progress 
 in the knowledge of mind, of human physiology, of 
 climatic influences, of social reactions — have made^ 
 no progress since they were laid down by the Author 
 of Christianity. Human philosophies, many and 
 able, have been propounded — new ones are still 
 propounded — as substitutes for the ethics of Chris- 
 tianity ; and yet not one of its principles has been 
 invalidated, not a new one has been added to them. 
 The moral law was long ago completed ; its statutes 
 have been established forever. The largest intellects 
 have found amplest use for all their powers in simply 
 explaining and applying them. 
 
 What the combined ingenuity of man has thus been 
 unable to improve, we may justly conclude the com- X 
 bined ingenuity of man was incapable of originating 
 or of discovering. And that any man, or that all 
 men, could so read the human soul as to map out in 
 completeness for the race, and for all time, the whole 
 duty of man, is simply incredible. A more than 
 human eye was needed to so read the human heart as 
 to tell once for all the sum of its wants and of its 
 obligations. The Omniscient Mind that couJd thus 
 read and reveal the human heart must have been the 
 mind of which ours is but a copy, — the mind that 
 
48 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 knew the " substance " of man while as yet it was 
 "imperfect." No explanation of the origin of the 
 moral nature of man is more reasonable than that 
 which recognizes it as wrought, through whatever 
 series of second causes, after the likeness of a Divine 
 original. To that original, then, we may look as the 
 real source of all moral law. It is a " transcript of 
 the Divine nature" in a profounder sense than the 
 popular use of that language implies. It is with the 
 utmost fulness of meaning the " law of God." He 
 has not made it for certain ends, but has simply 
 revealed it. The Almighty made no moral laws, but 
 created man in his own image. The moral laws of 
 the Divine nature were incorporated in the nature of 
 man. To tell what God and man are, and what are 
 their mutual relations, is to tell whence moral law 
 came. And just so long as God and man shall con- 
 tinue to be, just so long this law will remain as 
 unchangeable as the eternal throne. 
 
 When Jesus proclaimed himself the Light of the 
 world he illumined only the horizon of the distant 
 ^ East. To-day he irradiates the central and control- 
 ling nations of the globe. And physical science, 
 which, it has been prophesied, will extinguish his 
 light, is now adding to its transparency and its vivi- 
 fying warmth. Thanks to science for its service. If 
 moral law be grounded as we have stated, the time 
 will yet come when from the Sun of righteousness 
 there ^ill go forth light, and warmth, and purity, and 
 peace, and abiding joy to the remotest corner of the 
 earth. 
 
MORAL LAW. 49 
 
 The unwillingness of sceptics to assail the moral rv 
 teachings of Christianity is a curious but uninten- 
 tional recognition of the impregnable basis on which 
 they rest. You will observe that attacks on the 
 Christian religion are directed almost exclusively 
 against either its history, its creeds and theologicaly 
 systems, or its ecclesiastical organizations. The his- 
 tory of its beginnings pertains to the remote ; it is 
 easy to assail it. Creeds, which have too often been 
 mere compromises between conflicting statements, and 
 its theological systems, are mostly the productions of 
 philosophies applied to the facts of revelation and 
 of the moral consciousness. The philosophies have 
 changed ; the creeds and theological systems have 
 been discredited, and so have become assailable. In 
 like manner ecclesiastical organizations, which are 
 essential to the conservation of the Christian life, 
 have been either the product of circumstances or the 
 contrivances of men. Organization began to exist 
 only as the wants of the new life made necessary. 
 When anything was to be done, some one was ap- 
 pointed to do it. To do an " office " for the Church 
 speedily prepared the way for regarding office as a 
 place into which some one must be put as an officer. 
 Ecclesiasticism has been a natural growth; it has 
 been open to attack on many sides, and the enemies 
 of Christianity have not been slow to improve their 
 opportunities. But moral law, which it is the one 
 great office of Christianity to explain, to enforce, and 
 to help mankind to fulfil, the enemies of ChristianityX 
 are not eager to attack. 
 
50 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 MORAL LAW AND POPULAR RELIGION. 
 
 Let US turn now to the other side of our subject, — 
 the relation of moral law to popular religion. What 
 is this relation ? We could easily answer in the words 
 of Jesus : " Think not that I am come to destroy the 
 law, or the prophets ; I am not come to destroy, but 
 to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and 
 earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass 
 from the law, till all be fulfilled." The true meaning 
 of the law had been concealed by false glosses. The 
 Sermon on the Mount was distinctively and wellnigh 
 
 Y; exclusively an exposition of the law. The exposition 
 
 ' made it seem like a new revelation ; like an over- 
 throw of the old to make room for the new. The 
 assurance was necessary, therefore, that the purpose 
 of Christianity was not the abrogation, but the strict- 
 est fulfilment of all moral law. That assurance is 
 reiterated on every page of the four Gospels. Any 
 conception, then, of Christianity which supposes it 
 to be a scheme to evade law, to escape its penalties, 
 
 vi or to avoid the fulfilment of it, is an unwarrantabl3^ 
 narrow conception, and just so far as it is narrow, 
 is false. 
 
 No error has crept into Christian teaching more 
 radically mischievous than that which affirms all law 
 
 ■/^ to have been abolished by Jesus Christ. Out of it 
 have come some of the darkest blots that have rested 
 on the Christian name. The origin of the error is 
 easily traced. In Judaism, out of which Christianity 
 sprang, every conceivable relation in life was covered 
 
MORAL LAW. 51 
 
 by a statute. A complete network of legal require- A 
 ments enveloped the whole man every moment of his 
 being. The state was a theoci-acy ; the religion was 
 a ritual ; and the whole social and domestic life of 
 the people was regulated by a system of ceremonials 
 that descended to minutest particulars. The civil, 
 the ritual, and the ceremonial being each and all sub- 
 servient to the moral, each and all were included 
 under the one generic term, the Law. Upon his com- 
 pliance with the Law depended, without appeal, the 
 whole fate of the Jew. But the civil law was over- y 
 ridden by the conquering Eoman ; the ceremonial 
 and ritual were abolished by Christianity. To sup- ^ " 
 pose moral law, however, to have been abolished, is 
 to suppose man to have been transformed into some- ' 
 thing else than man ; is to suppose the nature of God 
 to have been changed, and the moral order of the 
 universe to have been subverted. 
 
 EEWAKDS AND PENALTIES. 
 
 If the explanation we have given of the origin of 
 moral law be correct, we may see the mistake of 
 ascribing all moral sanctions to direct Divine agency. 
 Rewards and penalties are certainly not arbitrarily 
 distributed. The results of physical law are not more 
 immediate, natural, and inevitable than are those of 
 moral law. Rewards come by natural reaction from 
 obedience to law. Glow of cheek, sparkle of eye, and 
 flow of spirits are not more naturall}^ and immedi- 
 ately the product of locomotion and respiration amid 
 the crisp air of a Xew England winter day than are 
 
52 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 the glow of soul and peace and joy of heart which 
 flow from vigilant obedience to moral law amid the 
 stir and strife of the world. 
 
 So of moral penalties. These are natural reactions 
 from disobedience to moral law. Bodily disease and 
 death do not more immediately and necessarily follow 
 the violation of physical laws than do mental diseases 
 and moral death the violation of moral obligations. 
 The penal sanctions of one set of laws are just as 
 natural and invariable as are those of another. Vice 
 J in the vicious man leers out of his eye, sensualizes his 
 ' lip, riots in his blood, fouls his imagination, corrupts 
 his whole being. And then those subtler sins with 
 which it is so difficult to deal, — envy, jealousy, pride, 
 covetousness, those vices of the soul, — do they not 
 write their penalties on the moral nature of man ? 
 Do they not blunt the moral sensibilities ? Do they 
 not, by their natural sequences, corrupt through and 
 through every fibre of the soul ? 
 
 Nor will it here suffice for any one to interpose the 
 objection that he recognizes a supreme will in nature ; 
 that he regards the so-called forces of nature as " God 
 acting," and physical laws as rules according to which 
 he 'has chosen to act; and that he believes the 
 rewards and penalties of moral law are directly dis- 
 tributed by the hand of a Supreme Being ; let us look 
 at this for a moment. Does the universal confidence 
 which is always reposed in a man of well-tried integ- 
 H" rity result as a natural sequence of his integrity, or is 
 it a supernatural bestowal ? Is the public distrust 
 of the liar and the forger by natural sequence, or by 
 
MORAL LAW. 53 
 
 Divine interposition ? Does virtue naturally refine 
 tlie soul, or is refinement bestowed from without ? 
 And are the rewards and penalties any less the 
 expressions of the Divine will, because coming natu- 
 rally by law, than they would be if proved to come 
 directly by Divine interposition ? 
 
 And here we see how gratuitous is the noisy indig- 
 nation of those sentimental souls who wax so elo- 
 quent in their denunciations of the idea of a Divine 
 punishment of evil-doers, especially of the idea that 
 punishment should run into another life ; and, most 
 horrible of all, should for a moment be thought of as 
 possibly unending. Has it never occurred to these 
 tender-hearted people to rail against Nature for her 
 cruelty in leaving the man with crushed limbs to 
 writhe in pain, and, if he survive his first agony, to 
 linger through a long life of suffering and helpless- 
 ness ? Has it never occurred to them that possibly 
 the pangs of remorse are just as natural and endur- 
 ing as the anguish of lacerated or disordered nerves ? 
 And why distinguish between penalties in the body 
 and penalties in the soul ? On their own theory, is 
 Nature less cunning in repairing the material organ- 
 ism than in healing the wounds of the soul ? Should 
 the soul survive the body, why may not the vitiated \/ 
 tastes, the wounds, the dwarfed powers, the crippled 
 energies, whicli have come to it in life, continue so long 
 as it endures, just as pain and deformity and enfeeble- 
 ment of body continue with it so long as it lasts ? 
 
 There was a time within the memory of living men 
 when Boston resounded with the doctrine that every 
 
 v; 
 
54 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 man at the last would be judged and awarded to his 
 final destiny in strict accordance with his obedience 
 or disobedience to moral law. That doctrine was a 
 great truth, however severed from others that qualified 
 it ; and it has left its marks on the Boston character. 
 The descendants of the prophets of that great truth, 
 building their sepulchres, too often inscribe on them : 
 " God is too merciful to punish the wayward and the 
 weak." 
 
 REMISSION OF PENALTY. 
 
 To rescue man from the doom of moral penalty is 
 
 ^ one of the first and most distinctively announced 
 
 ^ purposes of the Christian religion. And what it 
 
 announced as its purpose, it proposes to accomplish 
 
 not in mere form but in reality ; not only accounting 
 
 a man to be righteous, but making him so ; imparting 
 
 to him what it imputes to him ; not so much throw- 
 
 cj^ ing around him a cloak of righteousness as putting 
 
 within him a righteous spirit. But the method by 
 
 which it thus accomplishes its purpose of releasing 
 
 from moral penalty is one of the disputed questions 
 
 in popular theology. Yet it is a question to which 
 
 every one who would teach Christianity to the people 
 
 must give to himself some kind of an answer. He 
 
 may answer it doctrinally, and if his doctrine is to 
 
 have any meaning and power with him he nmst 
 
 answer it to himself as a question of practical reli- 
 
 . gious pliilosophy. We shall here content ourselves 
 
 with the briefest possible glance at the latter side of 
 
 the question. 
 
 Penalty may be contemplated under three aspects : 
 
MORAL LAW. 65 
 
 as the natural sequence of wrong-doing which stamps 
 itself on the soul and penetrates into the inner being ; 
 as the inflictions of an accusing conscience, the self- 
 judgment which every one pronounces on himself in 
 view of neglected duties or of forbidden deeds ; as 
 punitive judgments immediately inflicted or held in 
 reserve by the Supreme Ruler of all. But these are 
 only different aspects of one and the same thing. 
 The judgments of God can become effective as moral 
 penalties only as they reach the soul through the con- y 
 science ; and the upbraidings of conscience become 
 penal only as they accord with the judgments of God 
 and with the natural results of moral evil in the 
 soul. The penalty, therefore, which tlie Gospel is to 
 remove is in the soul of man. And it is a penalty 
 which reduplicates its own cause. The sorest punish- 
 ment of moi-al evil is an ever-increasing disposition >^ 
 to continue in it. There may be great and just judg- 
 ments for wrong-doing which hang suspended in the 
 hands of Omnipotence, and which in due time fall 
 like thunderbolts on the iniquitous. But the sin and 
 its penalty, from which the Gospel proposes to save 
 man, are found in man himself They are said to be 
 written in a book ; the imagery is admirable, but the 
 real book is the human soul. It is from it that the 
 penalty must be removed. But what is the metliod 
 of its removal ? Certainly not by fiat. God is always 
 and everywhere consistent with himself He will not 
 violate one of his moral laws to save even a human 
 soul. And we may be assured there will be no act in 
 the process of saving him which will be arbitrary. 
 
66 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 The one great fact of Christianity is, that a Being 
 of infinite resources has appeared on the earth and 
 'announced himself as a Deliverer of man. His inter- 
 position in our behalf was the turning-point in the 
 history of our race. And the one principle which 
 
 /makes available and effectual all that he w^rought for 
 
 ; us in his life and by his death, and all that he is for 
 us in himself, is the principle of faith. And the 
 
 ^ object of our trust is not alone what he said or what 
 X -he did or what he suffered, but also what he himself 
 
 . was and ever is. The source of our strength in the 
 struggle for release, the ground of our hope for final 
 deliverance, is not scr much in a something which 
 has been done for us as it is in the infinite Being 
 who has done it. Our victory is alone through 
 trust in Him who had no penalty of his own to bear, 
 and has proved himself able to bear those of all 
 
 i others. 
 
 ' The one principle which exists among all peoples, 
 and at the same time is the most efficient in the con- 
 X struction of human character, is faith. Neither social 
 nor individual life is possible without some degree of 
 it. The more completely the members of society are 
 swayed by it, the more nearly perfect will be the social 
 and the individual life. This principle Christianity 
 
 I adopts as its most efficient agency in working out its 
 intent in man. And nothing could make more evi- 
 dent the effectiveness of faith in working out the 
 purpose of Christianity than the certainty wdth which 
 
 ' every one becomes like the object of his trust. These 
 are the invariable and inevitable sequences of the law 
 
MORAL LAW. 67 
 
 of faith. If the object of one's trust be personal and 
 superior, it is impossible that his defects of character 
 should remain uncorrected ; if perfect, the correction 
 may be continuous and endless. So in eradicating 
 moral evil and in erasing its penalties from the soul ; 
 in the beneficent results of faith the penal sanctions 
 of previous disobedience are overborne and carried 
 away. Even the old spirit of disobedience is absorbed 
 in the desire to be in harmony with the new object 
 of trust. The beneficent working of the new law 
 obeyed more than counteracts, it takes away, the 
 penal results of the old laws violated. But the moral 
 scars will remain with us, and humble us, and they 
 never will exalt us. No doctrine was ever more per- 
 nicious than that which teaches that the greater the 
 sinner the greater the saint. 
 
 THE TRUE AIM OF RELIGION. 
 
 What now in conclusion and in review of this dis- 
 cussion should be rej^arded as the one great aim of all 
 true religion ? Should it be anything else than to 
 help every one to rise as near as possible towards a 
 realization of the highest ideal of life ? Can that 
 man be said to be saved who has not already put 
 himself upon a course of training in which the ruling 
 purpose of his life shall be the fulfilment of every 
 law of his being ? The greatest defect and gravest 
 peril of the popular religion of our day is its dispo- 
 sition to rest in mere negations as regards personal 
 conduct and character, and in mere contributions of 
 money as regards public activities. But to save a 
 
 ?^ 
 
68 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 man in the true Christian sense of salvation is to 
 round him out into the completest fulness of being 
 / of which he is capable, — is to make him pure in 
 ^ heart, exalted in purpose, unimpeachable in his integ- 
 L rity, keenly sensitive to every moral obligation, and 
 u supremely loyal to the will of God, whether expressed 
 ^ in command or in promise. 
 ' "-^ Man is a compound being. He is both animal and 
 angel, — the tangential point between the two worlds 
 of matter and of spirit. Every power and capacity of 
 his being has its root and its ground in this twofold 
 nature. And he is capable of three planes of life, — 
 •^ the animal, the intellectual, the moral and religious. 
 But the three are indivisibly connected. As you can 
 have no soil without rock, and no plant without soil, 
 and no animal without plant, and no man without 
 both plant and animal, so you can have no intellect 
 without body, and no morality without intellect, and 
 no real religion without both intellect and morality. 
 Every law of his personal being to which man is sub- 
 ject is more or less immediately the expression of the 
 possibilities of his twofold nature ; and every moral 
 law is a revelation of the capacities, the needs, and 
 the deeper aspirations of his complex being. No one 
 of these laws can receive attention to the neglect of 
 others, that the neglected ones will not avenge their 
 neglect. Merely seeking to save man from sinking 
 ' into the animal will not insure his becoming^ an 
 angel ; nor in alone aiming to make of him an angel 
 shall we save him from sinking into the animal. A 
 true religion, which is to perform all its offices for 
 
MORAL LAW. 59 
 
 man, must take account of, and provide for, the whole 
 of his indivisible nature ; and for the whole, because 
 the whole is subservient to the moral. The one com- 
 prehensive and all-inclusive aim of a true religion is, 
 and ever must be, to secure in man the unqualified 
 and unfailing fulfilment of the moral laws of his 
 being, which are as eternal as the soul and as immu- 
 table as the throne of the Almighty. 
 
III. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MENTAL 
 ACTIVITY OF THE AGE. 
 
 By rev. THOMAS GUAED. 
 
'J^^ 
 
 
 /JUaa^ 
 
 III. 
 
 CHEISTIANITY AND THE MENTAL 
 ACTIVITY OF THE AGE. 
 
 By rev. THOMAS GUARD. 
 
 A GLANCE over the vacant vastness of this audi- 
 ence-chamber suffices to remind me of the ab- 
 sence, beyond the water, of the gifted founder of your 
 " Monday Lectureship." May he be preserved from 
 all perils while he travels, and return from his wan- 
 derings, laurelled with fresh honors, to the scene of 
 his frequent triumphs ! 
 
 I am not here, I assure you, to attempt the task 
 for which he proved himself so signally equipped. 
 "Who but himself could wield Ulysses's bow ? Never- 
 theless, the task assigned me is no light one. I have 
 asked myself, once and again, Wliy was I not requested 
 to compress the globe into an ultimate atom, ensphere 
 the- sun in a dew-drop, or find for the most ancient 
 ocean a home within the compass of a scallop-shell? 
 For I am expected to discuss the relations of Chris- 
 tianity to the mental activities of our age, within 
 the limits of an hour ! It is impossible ! I shrink . 
 from it. I cannot exhaust such a theme. I may be 
 permitted to hope, however, that I shall prove sug- 
 gestive. 
 
64 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 Made in the image of the ever-living One, the 
 human mind " faints not, neither is weary," by reason 
 of activity ; and to think, is to act. Our age is peer- 
 less in the quantity of intellectual activity, whatever 
 may be said of the quality of that activity, or of its 
 issues. Never so much free thought, never so much 
 freedom of thought, as to-day. The schoolmaster 
 is abroad. The press is in untiring operation. The 
 spirit of inquiry is ubiquitous. History pores over 
 coins, cipher correspondence, antique customs, hoary 
 constitutions, dry-as-dust scrolls, acts of parliament, 
 alabaster slabs, street ballads, fugitive tracts, diaries 
 of lettered princesses and journals of court favorites ; 
 from such incongruous material extracting the sub- 
 stance wherewith to fashion those imperishable piles 
 of wisdom with which our grateful and instructed 
 hearts associate the names of Grote, Mommsen, 
 Merivale, Prescott, Motley, Macaulay, Bancroft, and 
 Carlyle. 
 
 Travellers haste o'er land and ocean without rest : 
 now plunging into the wonders of Central Africa, 
 now looking down upon the cradle of the Mle, now 
 tracking the footsteps of the pre-Adamite progenitors 
 of our race; to-day resting beneath the columns of 
 Luxor, or two weeks hence within the shadows of the 
 ruined temples, tombs, and theatres of Petra ; then 
 treading the sacred soil and climbing the sacred slopes 
 on which redemption's truths were uttered and re- 
 demption's price was paid ; then off and away to 
 the land where every dell enshrined a deity, every 
 fountain leaped to song, — whose breezes floated the 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 65 
 
 melodies of Plato, or trembled to the thunder of 
 Demosthenes. 
 
 Scientists are heaving the lead in deep-sea sound- 
 ings ; foretelling the birth of the tornado ; weighing the 
 earth in scales; interpreting the hieroglyphs carved 
 on mountain summit and on sandstone stratum ; pur- 
 suing the comet o'er the plains of ether; analyzing the 
 elements of the light-wave propelled by Sirius across 
 the amplitudes of space ; solving the mysteries that 
 lurk in frond and cell, in tinted sea-shells and in 
 coral bowers ; reckoning up the ages of the sun ; de- 
 fining the orbit of Neptune or ever its mass had 
 crossed the disk of aided or unaided eye ; in every 
 motion finding an idea, in every form a purpose, and 
 in every event the token of a plan and system ; 
 changing chaos and confusion into order and cosmos ; 
 and, in the unity impressed upon and interwoven 
 through the vast and varied whole, beholding the 
 reflected Unity of him " hy wlwm are all things, 
 and for whom are all things, — God over all, Messed 
 forever" 
 
 And the results of such activities are within the 
 reach of every one desirous of copious and accurate 
 information. With the sage most profound, with the 
 scholar most erudite, with the scientist most accom- 
 plished, with the poet most subtle-minded, with the 
 products of pen and pencil, of microscope and tele- 
 scope, of scalpel and prism, the youth of eager 
 longing and quenchless thirst for truth may hold 
 communion, by reason of the prodigious triumphs of 
 the printing-press. 
 
66 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 What has Christianity to say to all this intellectual 
 movement ? What emotions heave her bosom ? Is 
 it with sentiments of envy, jealousy, and fear, or of 
 favoring sympathy that she gazes on the scene of 
 seething, surging, struggling spirit-life ? 
 
 The study of her inspired records and of her historic 
 chapters affords an answer ; and in that answer we 
 read amplest assurance of ter friendship and aid. 
 
 1. To the understanding of man she ever appealed. 
 " By manifestation of the truth " she proposes to con- 
 quer. With a sublime audacity she ignores physical 
 force as an instrument of victory. " Ye shall know 
 the truth, and the truth shall make you free," were 
 the clarion tones w^hich fell upon the ears of the in- 
 thralled victims of ignorance, superstition, priestcraft. 
 Above her hosts, as they marched to further triumphs, 
 her banner floated, and on its folds men read the 
 strange device, " Prove all things, hold fast that which 
 is good." Whenever permitted, she grappled with the 
 Jew, and " reasoned out of his Scripture ; " with the 
 Greek, and argued out of his sacred writings of nature, 
 conscience, history. Upon her converts she urged the 
 noble duty, " Be always ready to give a reason of the 
 hope that is in you." The divine Founder of our faith 
 gave no uncertain sound when he said, " For this cause 
 came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto 
 the Tj:uth. Every one that is of the Truth heareth my 
 voice." To Christianity there is nothing ignoble and 
 V nothing insignificant in aught that touches or apper- 
 tains to n^au. In her estimate he is of more value than 
 many ^par?:ows. His retur4 to moral canity, we are 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 67 
 
 assured, moves the mnks of serapliim with strange 
 joy. For his eternal weal the counsels of the Infinite 
 planned, when as yet nor light-ray travelled, nor force 
 electric thrilled, nor mountain soared, nor ocean tossed, 
 nor tempest marched, nor forest waved, nor landscape 
 spread, all dewy and all fragrant, beneath the cloud- 
 less sun. To nothing human can Christianity be in- 
 different. Body, soul, and spirit have been redeemed 
 and provided for by this divine system. As the Sab- 
 bath, so Christianity, "is made for man;" and such 
 is man's relation thereto, that we may say, as of the 
 sun in relation to our planet, " There is nothing hid 
 from the heat thereof" To all that is profoundest in 
 man the influence pierces ; over all that is amplest in 
 man the influence diffuses ; and on all that is loftiest 
 in man her inspiration breathes a benediction. Nor 
 this alone : there are depths of our nature reached but 
 by Christianity ; chords of our hearts that refuse their 
 harmonies to any touch but hers ; and magnanimi- 
 ties, heroisms, martyrdoms, in life and in death, de- 
 veloped but by her plenipotence of holy love and 
 blessed hope. 
 
 2. Christianity provokes thought. That the power 
 of our holy faith may be experienced to the utter- 
 most, faith is essential. Faith demands reason for its 
 exercise. And to meet this demand of our nature 
 Christianity presents credentials. Belief is impossible, 
 unless sufficient reason for belief be furnished. Here, 
 then, the scope for intellectual action appears. 'What 
 are the credentials accompanying Christianity ? Are 
 they such in quality and in number as to warrant 
 
68 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 our faith ? The replies to those queries are given in 
 the suniless writings called " The Evidences of Chris- 
 tianity." Certainly these are products of thought, 
 scholarship, logic, philosophic investigation and dis- 
 cussion. Certainly these demonstrate the thought- 
 compelling might of the Christian faith. 
 
 To a man possessed of an honest heart and quick- 
 ened conscience, a system of truth attd of religion 
 professing to come from the Supreme One, with whom 
 we have to do, cannot be treated with the slightest ap- 
 proach towards indifference. It may he true. If so, 
 there is a duty corresponding to the bare probability 
 of truthfulness, — that duty, attention, audience, inves- 
 tigation. At once the mind assumes an attitude of 
 earnest wakefuhiess. The substance of the message 
 shall be weighed, compared, judged. The evidences 
 attendant upon the message and messenger shall 
 win sober, courteous, brave, and honest investiga- 
 tion. And so, and only so, shall the conscience of 
 the man approve of his conduct. But in all this 
 see we not the tremendous stimulus imparted to the 
 intellectual as well as the moral forces of the soul ? 
 Name a mental faculty not called into play by such 
 a professedly divine communication. Memory, com- 
 parison, judgment, imagination, reason, all mental 
 instincts, intuitions, affinities, and proclivities, are 
 in succession, or combinedly, in utmost vigor of ac- 
 tion. A crisis in the intellectual life has arisen. The 
 man dates a new birth, as a thinker, from the advent- 
 hour of such a system as our faith. Whether Chris- 
 tianity made him a saint, or by reason of his perverse 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 69 
 
 will failed in that great work, she made him a 
 thinker. He became a foe of that which extorted 
 from him the exclamation, "Hast thou found me, 
 mine enemy ? " And because a foe, a thinker, — 
 irritated into thinking through Juitred of Christianity, 
 Therefore, compose the treatise and the essay to prove 
 it a myth ; visit Orient lands to demonstrate it an 
 imposture ; compile a comparative theology to minify 
 its rank in the presence o£ other systems ! Therefore, 
 see but its difficulties and ignore the possible expla- 
 nations of its seeming contradictions with history or 
 science ! Yet in all this, what see we but immense 
 intellectual outgoing and energy, scholarship, science, 
 philosophic subtlety and lore, aesthetic culture, literary 
 creativeness ? And inasmuch as for this intellectual 
 action Christianity is responsible, both as cause and 
 occasion, do we behold evidence of her power to arouse 
 and develop thought. 
 
 3. There is antagonism to Christianity in much of 
 the intellectual life of our age. This does not surprise 
 us. It was to have been anticipated. No student of 
 the mission of Christianity, at all familiar with the 
 moral condition of our race, should feel " as though 
 some strange thing happened," if Christianity devel- 
 oped hostility most bitter in the very ranks of those 
 whom it came to woo and to save. 
 
 For it was in this very antagonism to its Author 
 that the need for such a system obtained. But that 
 man was a sinner, and th^t his depravity expressed 
 itself in enmity to God, Christianity had been a 
 superfluity of appliances and agencies. Its existence 
 
+- 
 
 70 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 implies strife, and its career hitherto has been one of 
 aggrandizement through struggle. Early in the his- 
 tory of man as the object of redeeming mercy, it was 
 announced, " I will put enmity between Thy seed and 
 her seed." Subsequent ages but illustrated the truth 
 of the announcement. The Founder himself gave 
 utterance to the same great verity : " Think not that I 
 am come to send peace upon earth : I am not come to 
 send peace, but a sword." The last prophet of inspi- 
 ration depicts in symbols the most sublime and sug- 
 gestive the process of the struggle. 
 
 And to-day the battle waxes in vehemence of pur- 
 pose and of passion ; nor is there prospect of speedy 
 termination of the conflict. Possibly, ay, probably, 
 the future shall witness scenes of combat, compared 
 with which the fiercest of the past shall seem but 
 gala-day sports. Not with sound of clarion, or tramp 
 of war-horse, or rush of scythed chariot, or thun- 
 der of ordnance, or with garments rolled in blood, 
 shall the battle rage or the fight be fought. The 
 weapons shall be of spiritual and ethereal temper and 
 substance ; of ore drawn from the mines of spirit and 
 forged in the white heat of passion fires ; wielded by 
 the Titans of error, or dexterous and death-dealing 
 by reason of arms nerved with divine strength and 
 fingers taught to fight by none other than the great 
 Captain of the hosts of light himself 
 
 Nor shall the struggle close until all the foes' re- 
 sources shall have been draion upon,, applied, tested. Not 
 until the last form and method of resistance to good 
 shall have had scope for their endeavors and time for 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 71 
 
 their display of skill and might, and shall have proved 
 as impotent as are the birds of night to hinder the 
 return of the daybreak and the noontide splendor of . 
 the regal sun, — not until then, shall discomfiture cover 
 the emissaries of falsehood, and a ransomed world 
 enter into " quietness and assurance forever." And, 
 fear not, ye who read the times, and whose hearts 
 sometimes fail ! For He must reign until He hath 
 put down all that exalteth itself against Him. " And 
 when He shall have put down all rule and all au- 
 thority, then Cometh the end." 
 
 We confess our delight in this aspect of the age. 
 Nothing is more to be deprecated than intellectual 
 stolidity, than uninquiring acceptance of the Chris- 
 tian faith. This is a state not to be permitted, not 
 to be tolerated. Better strife than stupor. Chris- 
 tianity can never win her way but as she compels 
 or constrains men into moods of investigation. She 
 courts this. It is essential to her very existence. 
 She is willing to take all the risks arising from the 
 awakening of thought and the scrutiny of thinkers. 
 Doubt may challenge her, scepticism may assail her. X 
 She welcomes the honest doubter ; she disdains not to 
 debate with him who, fearlessly searching after the 
 true, sees not as yet evidence sufficient to warrant his 
 assent and affiance. With tenderest solicitude she 
 waits upon and ministers to such. Priests may 
 scowl upon them, and churches threaten them with 
 terror; but not so Christianity. Over the tortured 
 toiler after truth she bends, with infinite compassion 
 in her eye and solace on her lip ; bares her ample 
 
72 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 bosom, arid invites to shelter and repose there : " Come 
 unto me, all — all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest." To the Master's treatment 
 of Thomas Christianity points the bewildered, wonder- 
 ing doubters of all ages, as to Simon Peter and his 
 Lord's treatment of the recreant Apostle she points 
 the penitent though desponding gaze of all who un- 
 der dreadful pressure proved traitors to their divine 
 Master's name and cause; and in his treatment of 
 both proves that "Wisdom is justified of her cliil- 
 drenr 
 
 4. The action of Christianity through the Laws of 
 Heredity deserves recognition and appreciation. Those 
 
 ^ laws have their expounders and illustrators in Galton 
 and Eibot, in Herbert Spencer, Darwin, and Bain. 
 Darwin's "Descent of Man" is almost altogether de- 
 pendent upon the factor of heredity. It is no less 
 potent in the philosophy of Spencer. By this "he- 
 redity" principle, "^ike produces like;" sometimes, 
 indeed, " like " seems capable of producing very " un- 
 like;" but it is only seemingly so. The new-born 
 
 ^ immortal is therefore " the very image of his father," 
 be the fact flattering to the parent or otherwise. 
 Piiysical characteristics are thus transmissible. The 
 past can be reproduced. Nothing is lost that can 
 serve the interests of the organization. Tendencies 
 are " fixed," vicious proclivities descend, and disease 
 becomes a legacy. Should "variety," by some in- 
 scrutable law, be introduced, and should that variety 
 tend to secure the survival of the fittest, heredity 
 seizes it, incorporates it, and secures its perpetuity 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 73 
 
 through successive generations. The law of con- 
 tinuity sways it. To it, we are told, species owe 
 their origin ; and through it, we are assured, man has 
 derived his finest sensibilities and his loftiest senti- 
 ments. From the dull oyster through the stupid 
 donkey, up, still up, the germ of the coming man 
 has never failed persistently to press, until the all 
 but unbeginning ])ast culminates in the creature 
 whose initial condition proclaims him a little higher 
 than the missing-linked one, and whose perfedional 
 condition shall proclaim him " a little lower than the 
 angels." Well, no doubt according to the laws of he- 
 redity the Eternal One has seen fit to act. The pres- 
 ence of the principle was not discovered yesterday. 
 Jacob, in the days of his service between the rivers, 
 caught sight of it and utilized it. To-day we have 
 multiplied proof in its favor, and are not in any 
 extreme danger of depreciating its potency as an 
 element in our civilization. 
 
 Has not Christianity availed herself of this subtile 
 force ? Are we not justified in attributing to her, 
 incalculable influence upon the mental capacity of 
 our age, along the lines of this authenticated principle 
 of our complex being ? For eighteen hundred years 
 has Christianity been working on, working with, 
 working through, humanity. The physical nature of 
 the race has thus been improved, and the moral 
 has participated in the ennobling effects; why not 
 the mental? Why not the mental aptitudes, — why 
 not the affinities with, the capacity for, intellectual 
 pursuits and attainments, ameliorated, strengthened, 
 
74 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 refined, by reason of the action and interaction of the 
 manifold appliances of Christianity ? 
 
 The greatest thinkers of our day (even when far 
 _yt other than the friends of our faith) are her legiti- 
 ' mate intellectual offspring. John Stuart Mill came 
 of Scottish Presbyterian ancestry. George Eliot de- 
 scended from Christian parents and grew up amidst 
 Christian influences. Christianity flowered in the 
 genius of Walter Scott, and fruitens in the products of 
 George Macdonald and William Black ; permeated the 
 being of Macaulay, and possessed the soul of Thomas 
 Carlyle ; inspired the splendid intellect of Sir William 
 Hamilton, glowed in the poetic fires of Hugh Miller, 
 and adorns the sanctified learning of our President 
 McCosh. Professor J. W. Draper is the son of an 
 ^ English AVesleyan minister, and probably shared in 
 the thorough training of a Wesleyan college, either 
 as a " Woodhouse Grove," or " Kingswood " boy. Your 
 own Channing, — calm, clear, comprehensive ; the 
 J philosopher, the humanitarian ; gentle as he was 
 strong, and steeped both in "sweetness and light," 
 — owed not he his intellectual manhood to Chris- 
 tianity ? Theodore Parker, the vehement iconoclast, 
 the intense hater of injustice ; masculine in thought 
 as poetic in sympathy and in imagination; he who 
 speaks of the "Iris that scarfs the shoulder of the 
 thunder-cloud," — did not he inherit the vigor of his 
 mind and the energy of his athletic spiritual nature 
 from Puritan forefathers ? And so of that other, 
 upon whose head , the snows of time are gathering, 
 but all impotent to quench the fires of his tran- 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 75 
 
 scendent genius ; the old man eloquent ; the clair- 
 voyant of Concord ; the high dreamer whose thoughts 
 live, move, and have their being in the world of men 
 around you ; wliose weird skill oft wove for him webs 
 of gossamer, and of these fashioned chariots in which 
 to float away and away into realms ethereal, whither 
 the tempests of life had not wing to follow, — is not 
 he tlie intellectual culmination of generations of an- 
 cestors in the Christian faith and in the Christian min- 
 istry ? The roots of these men's mental being are all ^J 
 in Christian soil, and thence drew nourishment and 
 flavor. The tree-like life of these thinkers expanded 
 in atmosphere surcharged with Christian ideas. Their 
 ample and loaded branches ripened into tropic fulness 
 in the solar floods of Christian culture and civiliza- 
 tion ; and I am not extravagant or unjust in pointing 
 to them as splendid evidences of the power of our faith y, 
 as the generator of intellectual life and activity. 
 
 Science tells me that all terrestrial licjht is from 
 the sun, and that, though absent, the sun is still our 
 light by night, be that night brief as midsummer's or 
 prolonged as the six months' gloom of Arctic zones, 
 — light of pine torch and of fire-fly, light of waxen 
 taper and of oil and gas lamp, light upon ocean's 
 phosphorescent wave, and light of moonbeams braid- 
 ing Niagara's brow with iridescent wreath. Directly -^^ 
 and indirectly, the sun is the light of the world. And ' 
 I dare assert the same of Christianity and the in- 
 tellectual world of our age. I have tested this in 
 imagination by conceiving the annihilation of that 
 Book, so indissolubly, so essentially associated with 
 
76 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGKT. 
 
 Christianity. The Bible triumphs when and where 
 Christianity triumphs. Let me be permitted to sup- 
 pose somewhat, at least, of an aj^proach towards the 
 utter destruction of the Book. First, copies of the 
 volume itself, in all shapes and sizes, in all tongues 
 and versions, shall have been collected, heaped into 
 pyramidal piles, and fired, until but dust and ashes 
 remain. No Bible anywhere ! This is but a very 
 y:^ little thing, however, compared with that to be ac- 
 complished. Then all literature — prose, poetic, tome 
 and folio, essay and sermon, drama and lyric, hymn 
 and idyl — must be subjected to a process, either of 
 utter destruction or of perfect, absolutely perfect, ex- 
 purgation, so that no grace of style, nor elegance of 
 allusion, nor aptness of quotation, nor felicity of meta- 
 phor, suggestive of or derived from the Book, shall 
 remain in such volumes. Then visit the galleries, 
 private and public, devoted to the exhibition of art. 
 Here are walls frescoed with the products of old mas- 
 ters and new ; here are pedestals and niches crowned 
 and crowded with the triumphs of the chisel and the 
 sculptor. Blot from that canvas the Last Supper, 
 the Transfiguration, the Ascension, the Light of the 
 World ; pluck from that pedestal and from yonder 
 niches the Moses and the David of Angelo, or such 
 forms and expressions of majesty, tenderness, purity, 
 and grace as their creators learned and caught from 
 study of the teachings, or fellowship with the heroes 
 of the Book. Then haste to the baptismal registries of 
 the Church, and, instead of Mary, write Cleopatra ; 
 of Eachel, Messalina ; of John, Nero ; and of Peter, 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 77 
 
 Caligula. Erase whatever there reminds one of the 
 Bible. Then on to the Libraries of law, and let all 
 codes, statutes, enactments, constitutions, in which 
 shall he found reverence for God, respect for liberty, 
 protection for reputation, life, and person, defence of 
 woman and of feebleness, and guarantee of equal and 
 impartial justice for meanest plebeian, as for meanest 
 plutocrat ; — let all such as owe their humanity, their 
 justice, their impartiality, to the genius and the 
 teachings of the Book, vanish and be forgotten. 
 Then, away to the Cemeteries, urban and suburban, 
 civic and rustic ; to the crypts and vaults ; \o the 
 stately rninster and to the humble chapel; — where 
 sleep the dead, and on whose tombs Hope, Faith, and 
 Love have carved the blessed texts in which the 
 widow found a balm and the despairing, consolation. 
 See, see ! 'T is a November midnight. Nor star 
 nor moon rides the cloud-draped heavens. No light, 
 save the fitful flash from yonder moving form. That 
 is one of the myriad conspirators against the human 
 race, who, on this grim night simultaneously visit 
 the graveyards of the Christian world, that from the 
 slab and obelisk they may blot out the Bible. See ! 
 he bends, arid with light of lantern reads : " I am 
 the resurrection and the life;" "Blessed are the 
 dead ; " " In my Father's house are many mansions." 
 Now he seizes chisel and mallet, and begins. Chip ! 
 chip ! chip ! The lone night-winds as they travel 
 o'er the spot take up upon their dusky wings a 
 burden sadder than they ever bore, — the sob, the 
 sigh, the low-toned throb of heart-chords snapping ; 
 
78 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 for, henceforth, the chamber of the dying shall be 
 one of horrors, death's rule a " reign of terror," and 
 the graveyard "the abomination of desolation." I 
 need not imagine more, though the half is not yet 
 pictured; for the fruits of Christianity in manners, 
 in civilization, in treatment of criminals and of the 
 insane ; in homes for age, for orplians, for widows, for 
 idiots, for outcast women ; in popular education, and 
 in kindred generous and gracious institutions, — these 
 all must also suffer destruction before we shall have 
 by any means attained unto the extermination of 
 either the Book or the Faith. • 
 S^ 5. Is the mission of Christianity a superfluity by 
 reason of the results of our intellectual age ? Let 
 human nature, let man, reply. Is there any change 
 such as to render the further existence of our 
 faith unnecessary ? As generation after generation 
 arises, see we not the past repeated ? Hear we not 
 the same queries voiced by human hearts, human 
 memories, human consciences ? Amidst vast changes, 
 if we go deep enough, shall we not find 7nan un- 
 changed ? 
 
 (1.) Listen to the old, old question, and know that 
 it is prompted by something in man other than 
 accidental, in condition or circumstances. It is the 
 question of " a conscience of sins," a sense of wrong- 
 doing, and of guilt arising thence. You cannot bid 
 down, so as to keep down, that question : " Hoiu can 
 man he just ivith his Maker 1 " A homely question, 
 indeed ; ay, but one that can with earthquake might 
 thrill the whole inner man, and in answering which 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 79 
 
 man has steeped the earth in blood, bleached it 
 with bones of weary pilgrims, and wrapped it in smoke 
 of countless sacrificial altars. It must be answered. 
 What hath modern science to say in response ? 
 Nothing that commands for one moment the accept- 
 ance of intelligent conscience. What has matter, as 
 it rolls through space; marbles, though veined with 
 beauty ; gems, though aglow with fiery splendor ; 
 corals, though fashioned after the similitude of a 
 palace ; life, death, force, — what have they to do 
 with a query sighed forth by a self-conscious and 
 self-convicted spirit ? " It 's not in us," the solemn 
 heights reply. " It 's not in us," the dark, unfathomed 
 caves of earth respond. Christianity has proven her 
 power to meet the need. She owns that power to- 
 day. 
 
 (2.) And there is the demand for inner rectification 
 of nature. There is a deep-seated sore within. The '^ 
 ideal of right is there. The endeavor to realize it is 
 made, but the failure is total. And this involves con- 
 flict the most stern and anguish the most bitter. 
 " When I would do good, evil is present with me ; the 
 evil I icould not, that I do." I pay a visit to the 
 sages of physical and of transcendental wisdom, and 
 with impassioned earnestness ask of their chief, 
 
 " Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 
 Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
 Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 
 And by some sweet oblivious antidote 
 Cleanse the stuffed bosons of the perilous stuff. 
 Which weighs upon the heart ? " 
 
80 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 Perhaps he will tell me that sin is a necessaiy 
 ^ stage in my moral development; and that wherever 
 man is, — in the brothel, in the gin-mill, on the gal- 
 lows, — he is on the way to God ; and that the only 
 possible error that can arise, is this, — that by lack of 
 effort the man remains a little longer than he might 
 in either one of the above-named localities. From 
 such my inner being turns, as it utters, " Miserable 
 comforters are ye all 1 " Christianity meets the want. 
 It offers, and it has, — yes, it has effected, thorough 
 renewal of the " hidden man of the heart." It has 
 brought a clean thing out of an unclean. It is doing 
 so to-day : in some one spot of this old globe, day by 
 day, it is transforming and emancipating and har- 
 monizing the inner principles and powers of man ; 
 for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one 
 that believeth. 
 
 (3.) And man asks, — as he looks up into the vastness 
 of creation, and round upon the strangely checkered 
 aspect of life, and on through the dim, trackless future ; 
 - when woes fill his cup of life, and disaster crashes 
 upon disaster, and helplessness is the o'ermastering 
 feeling of his sinking heart, — Is there One above all 
 •^7 others to whom I may carry my load, pour forth my 
 tale of desolation ? Or is it indeed true that he 
 heeds not, neither can help, — as helpless as 
 
 " The gods who haunt 
 The lucid interspace of world and world, 
 "Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind, 
 - Nor ever falls the least white star of snow, 
 
 Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans, 
 Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar 
 Their sacred, everlasting calm ! " 
 
< 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 81 
 
 Vain to lead me to " an altar with this inscription, 
 ' To an unknown God.' " Ay, and as vain to tell me ^ 
 of a " power that makes for righteousness." I want 
 " the living God." I am a person, and my God must 
 he a person. Out of the light, ye sages, Spencer, 
 Arnold ! Let me to His side in whom resides wisdom, 
 at least, — at least as great as yours, that to my 
 heart's longing cry, " Show me the Father ! " I may 
 from hi^ own lips catch the words of strength and 
 solace : " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." 
 
 (4.) And, once again, man asks for light. It is as 
 he sits yonder in darkened chamber beside his dead. 
 To her in youth's jocund days his heart went out, 
 and round hers twined its tendrils. They were lovely 
 and beautiful as they grew in wisdom, confidence, and 
 love. But the ruthless blast swept o'er her, and in 
 the very pride of motherhood she gave up the ghost ; 
 her sun went down while it was yet noon. And soon 
 he must " bury his dead out of his sight." What is 
 thy mission and what thy meaning, Death ? Dost 
 thou, indeed, end all ? or through thee pass we back 
 again, as raindrops, into the vast immensity of the all, 
 — individuality, personality, forever lost ? or shall we 
 live again? It is not sentimentalism that thus speaks. 
 Strongest minds have heaved the lead in these mys- 
 terious depths. Mightiest hearts have quaked with 
 strange terror in presence of these problems. He 
 who is Christianity, Himself replies. In word he 
 answered ; better far, in ivork he responded ; best of 
 all, in his own person he grappled with, wrested the 
 sceptre from, the king of terrors, and o'er his prostrate 
 
 ^ /^'^ OF THk"*'^^*^ 
 
82 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 form marched forth from death's dominion with the 
 note of triumph on his lip : " I am the resurrection 
 and the life." "He brought back, not the shadow, 
 but the substance of immortal man," as said R Hall. 
 " For now is Christ risen from the dead, and become 
 the first fruits of them that sleep." 
 
 Friends, these are the truisms of our faith. Through 
 these, attended by the grace of the Lord and Giver of 
 life, Christianity hath won her way hitherk). Nor 
 is there trace of feebleness or of age in her fair form 
 to-day, nor hectic flush on her cheek, nor halt in 
 her gait, nor haze in her eye. She is mighty as 
 when she went forth to vanquish the Vandal, civil- 
 
 / ize the Celt, hallow the Hun, gather in the Goth,- 
 and win the worshippers of Woden from the fierce- 
 ness of their temple worship and their forest sports. 
 She is entering new regions, and intends to conquer ; 
 and they feel this, and are troubled. Hoary creeds 
 and gory superstitions tremble at her approach. She 
 comes to make men think, and, thus, to overturn. 
 Eevolutionist, indeed, she is ! Monopoly of power, 
 of thought, of joy in life, she comes to overturn. 
 Her mission is race wide and is full of mercy, with- 
 out partiality and without hypocrisy; knowing no 
 man after the flesh, nor giving flattering titles unto 
 any ; her smile is hope, her presence a benediction. 
 Judging from former victories, and studying her in 
 the light of prophecy, we look forward with assured 
 confidence of ultimate, universal supremacy. Her 
 
 4' Head " ascended that he might fill all things" And 
 he is achieving his intent. His ideas, principles, are 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 83 
 
 silently but surely permeating society, — in commerce, 
 honesty ; in law, justice ; in government, liberty ; in 
 art, purity ; in society, gentleness, tenderness, mutual 
 helpfulness, world-wide charity. As she advances in 
 her career. 
 
 for 
 
 " Flowers laugh before her on their beds, 
 And fragi-ance in her footing treads ; " 
 
 *' She doth wear 
 The godhead's most benignant grace ; 
 Nor know we anything so fair 
 As is the smile upon her face." 
 
 With full assurance of faith we anticipate the time 
 when through her influences her Founder shall fulfil 
 the glowing prophecy, " And on his head were many 
 crowns." I see the grand procession gathering to the 
 coronation. Yonder are Herschel and Kepler and 
 Copernicus and Galileo, at the head of the astronomic 
 sages. They draw nigh to crown him; and as he 
 stoops to receive the gift, I hear them exclaim : " The 
 heavens are the work of thy hands, the moon and the 
 stars which thou hast ordained." And yonder I see 
 the great chiefs of geologic science, and their sumless 
 followers : there are Hugh Miller, and Buckland, and 
 Dana; and as he stoops to receive their offering 
 thus they declare : " Of old didst thou lay the foun- 
 dations of the earth ; the strength of the hills is thine 
 also." And, see, yonder the great old masters lead up 
 their ranks, — Angelico, Angelo, Da Vinci; and as they 
 present their tribute, I hear them say : " Blessed are 
 our eyes, for we have seen the King in his beauty." 
 
84 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 And there is another surpassing far all these in power 
 to touch his heart. It is woman, — " redeemed, regen- 
 erated, disenthralled " woman ; and at the head of the 
 illustrious throng there is the first mother of us all, 
 and by her side His oivn. To them he stoops, — is 
 there not haze in his eye ? — and as their gentle 
 hands place in his their choicest diadem, thus they 
 exclaim: "When thou tookest upon thee to deliver 
 man, thou didst not abhor the virgin's womb." It is 
 enough. Let us conclude by chanting, in harmony 
 with such a prospect, — 
 
 "All hail the power of Jesus' name ; 
 Let angels prostrate fall ; 
 Bring forth the royal diadem, 
 And crown him Lord of all. " 
 
IV. 
 THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 By REV. MARK HOPKINS, D.D. 
 
IV. 
 THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 By rev. mark HOPKINS, D.D. 
 
 THE PRELUDE. 
 
 TT is one thing to lecture to an audience, and 
 -^ another thing to lecture to the general public. 
 It was my intention, when I agreed to speak here, to 
 discuss the subject as I did when I spoke last before 
 the Lowell Institute, — working directly upon the 
 blackboard, and not reading at all ; but when I 
 noticed the reports of the lectures given, and un- 
 derstood the wishes of the committee, I saw that it 
 would not be in the line of what had been presented 
 on this platform, if I should deliver a lecture which 
 could not be reported so far as the use of the black- 
 board was concerned. 
 
 It was the custom of the distinguished founder of 
 this lectureship to begin with a prelude, and I follow 
 the custom. As was fit, his preludes usually con- 
 sisted of a discussion of some popular subject or topic 
 of the day. The subject of " Man's Upbuilding versus 
 Development " is hardly that, and yet I venture to 
 adopt it as having been so much before the public, 
 
88 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 and also as somewhat connected with the lecture 
 that is to follow. 
 
 We find ourselves in the midst of an orderly uni- 
 verse. Everywhere around us we find unity in the 
 midst of variety, giving us at once the principle of 
 ;' order and of beauty. The perception of this unity, 
 ^ as now known, is due to modern science. It was so 
 far removed from the primitive and unaided thought 
 of man, that he supposed the heavens, the ocean, and 
 the regions below to be subject to different gods, and 
 to be ruled by different laws. It was a great step, 
 and the cause of a high joy, when man was able to 
 extend the laws which govern matter on the earth 
 to the heavenly bodies; and, again, when he was 
 able to find, by means of light, that the same sub- 
 "4- stances which are found here on the earth are dis- 
 covered in the sun and in the remotest star. And 
 the unity and order thus found around us and 
 throughout a measureless space are equally disclosed 
 among the different species of organized beings that 
 ^^ are shown by the microscope as peopling a drop of 
 water. 
 
 But this was not always so. It is equally the 
 doctrine of science and of revelation that there was a 
 time when chaos reigned, and when this planet was 
 devoid of order and of life. The accepted doctrine of 
 science at present is, that the material of the whole 
 system, celestial and terrestrial, was originally star- 
 "^ dust diffused in space, that has at length, after un- 
 told ages, been condensed and brought to its present 
 order. Allowing this, we naturally inquire by what 
 
THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE. 89 
 
 causes and in what manner this result has been 
 readied. 
 
 In doing this there are three words, development, — 
 or, what is the same thing, evolution, — growth, and 
 upbuilding, each indicating a different process, which 
 I wish to consider. 
 
 Of these, the first is development. What, then, do 
 we mean by that ? In strictness, it presupposes a 
 whole that is enveloped, and is then enlarged and 
 unfolded by a process from within. Of this a rose- 
 bud is a good example. In that, all that is to be lies 
 in miniature, enveloped in its covering, and, by a . 
 process from within, it is brought out, developed into /^ 
 largeness and beauty and fragrance. But in its use 
 in common life the term is not confined in its mean- 
 ing to a strict development and unfolding ; it is 
 applied in any case where a whole already existing 
 is enlarged by a process from within. Thus we say 
 of a muscle, that it becomes developed, and of the 
 boy, that he may develop into a fine man. In every 
 case, if the word be used according to the definition 
 in any dictionary, or according to the usage of com- 
 mon speech and the conceptions of those who use 
 that speech, there must be, either in idea or in reality, 
 a previously existing whole. 
 
 Now, what I object to is, that this word, thus defi- 
 nite in its meaning and well understood, has been so 
 used as to involve a practical fallacy. It has been so 
 used as to imply that there was in the original star- 
 dust the whole of what we now see, and that the 
 present order has come out of that, with no external 
 
90 CHKIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 y:j^ency, by the process known to the common mind 
 as development. The whole subject is vast and 
 obscure ; in the minds of common men it lies in a 
 misty way, and when by the use of a common term 
 they hear the process of world-making identified by 
 men of high scientific standing with one with which 
 they are familiar, they readily accept what is said, 
 and suppose they understand that process. 
 
 But while the development theory has had the 
 advantage of this fallacy working insidiously and 
 "^ - unconsciously, the ablest advocate of the theory, Mr. 
 A Herbert Spencer, has found it necessary to frame a 
 ^ definition of development, or evolution, which entirely 
 ^-. ^ excludes the idea of any whole, either ideal or physi- 
 cal, and which is, moreover, equally applicable to 
 processes of the most diverse and even opposite kind. 
 -^ His definition of evolution is, that " it is a change 
 ^^ .from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a defi- 
 ^ 'nite, coherent heterogeneity, through continuous dif- 
 \> ferentiations and integrations." There ! Now you 
 ^ know what evolution or development is, and we 
 will proceed to apply the definition to the process of 
 /Sj making a world out of star-dust, 
 ■o This star-dust was the indefinite, incoherent homo- 
 
 geneity. That it was indefinite and incoherent we 
 know, but how he could know, or have a right to say, 
 that that out of which was to come such a variety of 
 substances and beings was homogeneous, I do not 
 know. But, be that as it may, there began to be 
 differentiations. One part of this indefinite, inco- 
 herent, homogeneous star-dust began to (Ji|fer from 
 
THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE. 91 
 
 another part, and these differentiations were continu- 
 ous. A part, we may suppose, became oxygen, a part 
 carbon, a part gold, and so on, of all the so-called 
 simple substances of which this globe was origi- 
 nally composed. Previous to these differentiations, 
 however, or in connection with them, there must 
 have been one great integration without differentia- 
 tion, by which the star-dust was brought into a mass. 
 After that, different integrations might go on, form- 
 ing water and granite and lime-rock and trees and 
 men. 
 
 In all this it will be noticed that there were differ- 
 ent processes, involving different forces. There was 
 first the process of aggregation, by which the indefi- 
 nite and incoherent particles were brought towards a 
 centre and became condensed into a mass. This was 
 effected by the force of gravitation. But these par- 
 ticles, atoms, molecules, whatever they were, being 
 originally incoherent, needed to cohere, and so the 
 force of cohesion came into play. Again, it was not 
 sufficient that alien particles should cohere. What 
 has happened since was foreshadowed at that early 
 day. There were affinities, and immense excitement 
 in consequence. The amorous oxygen rushed to its 
 hydrogen, the acid to its alkali, and the two became 
 one. No particle missed its true affinity, and hence 
 marriages were formed that have known of no divorce 
 for these thousands of years. The frequency of mod- 
 ern divorce finds no countenance in the doings of 
 those ancient days. If, now, we bring these several 
 affinities under the common name of chemical af- 
 
92 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 finity, we have a new force by which, in connection 
 with gravitation and cohesion, all the substances on 
 the earth were formed up to the point of organization, 
 all the different processes being covered by the one 
 word, development ; and, if we allow that the original 
 substance was homogeneous, being really a change 
 from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a defi- 
 nite, coherent heterogeneity, through continuous dif- 
 ferentiations and integrations. 
 
 Having now brought the earth up by the definition 
 to the point where it has a sufficient basis for organi- 
 zation, let us try it upon that. And here we will take 
 an egg, — the white of an egg, for it is from that 
 that the chick is formed. This white of the egg is 
 the indefinite, incoherent homogeneity. It seems at 
 least to be homogeneous. But after the application 
 of heat for a few days differentiations begin to show 
 themselves, and these are continuous. The blood- 
 vessels, the bones, the lungs, the eyes, the bill, the 
 little feathers, begin to appear, and to form themselves 
 into definite, coherent heterogeneities, till at length 
 the perfect animal is formed. It then, by means of 
 a little prominence that had been accidentally de- 
 veloped on the top of its bill, chips its shell and 
 comes out, and, if it be a chicken, listens to the cluck 
 of its mother, but if it be a duck, regardless of the 
 cluck, makes for the nearest water by an instinct that 
 was originally developed from the definite, coherent 
 heterogeneities, and transmitted by heredity. 
 
 You see, then, that the definition applies equally 
 to the formation of a world and the formation of a 
 
THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE. 93 
 
 chicken, and I ask yon of what value a formula of 
 words can be that can cover such diverse and opposite 
 processes ? If I were to define a horse as a being, 
 and a calf as a being, thus covering both by one defi- 
 nition, and should then infer that a horse is a calf, it 
 would be but a trick of words ; and this is the same. 
 
 But it is time to inquire whether the process just 
 spoken of is one of development. It is not, unless 
 we confound, as is wrongly coming to be done, de- 
 velopment with growth. Growth, which is the next 
 word and process of which I wish to speak, is a 
 special process which starts from a cell or germ that 
 is alive, and is carried on through the agency and 
 superintendence of what we call life. It was said at 
 one time that protoplasm was the condition of life. 
 This may be true, but there is dead as well as living 
 protoplasm, and no chemist can tell the difference, or 
 find out what that subtile thing is without which, 
 protoplasm or no protoplasm, there will be no growth. 
 I would discourage no research ; but it is my belief 
 that my friend, Dr. Barker, who seemed, in his recent 
 speech here in Boston, so confident that he and his 
 coadjutors will soon capture life, will do that when vV' 
 the boy who chases the foot of the rainbow shall find 
 the pot of money that is buried there. Not proto- 
 plasm, then, but living protoplasm, is the condition 
 of growth ; and this process, I insist, is to be dis- 
 tinguished from that of development. There is in 
 growth no previous whole, no miniature parts, noth- 
 ing in that from which the growth starts to indicate 
 what the outcome is to be. Is it said that the chicken 
 
■ 94 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 is in the egg potentially ? Yes, but only as the ship 
 is in the trees of the forest and in the iron unwrought. 
 , The material from which the chicken is to be formed 
 /^s there, but the bones and the bill and the muscles 
 and the tendons are not there. There is nothing 
 there but the material out of which the animal is to 
 be formed and an unknown something which we call 
 life. Nor is there any one centre from which the 
 growth of the animal starts in such a way as to indi- 
 cate what may be called development from a centre. 
 Each bone starts from a centre of its own and pushes 
 out towards the other bones, and becomes joined to 
 them, not organically but mechanically, by sutures 
 and ligaments, so that the putting together of the 
 skeleton is singularly like the putting together of any 
 piece of machinery in a mechanical way. The pro- 
 cess is totally unlike any other. Even in the egg, 
 where the whole material for the formation of the 
 animal is given, the only similarity between that and 
 a proper development is, that the process is carried 
 on by an agency that is not discerned as separate 
 from the material. But how if we take a bunch of 
 grapes ? Here the whole process is carried on through 
 J!^ a stem not the tenth of an inch in diameter ; 
 and by an agency and with a skill of which man 
 knows nothing the minor stems are formed, and the 
 delicate covering, and the pulp, and the seed for 
 the growth of other grapes, while the material for the 
 whole is gathered, not at all from the seed from which 
 the vine sprang, nor from the vine itself except as 
 an instrument, but from the earth and the air and the 
 
THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE. 95 
 
 ocean. This being so, what significance is there to 
 the word development, or evolution, when applied to 
 such a 'process ? No, it is growth, by which word a 
 process is indicated, the antecedents and conditions 
 of which we know, but of the cause and method of ""^ 
 which we know nothing, absolutely nothing, and we 
 may as well say so. 
 
 That the process of growth, whether of the chicken 
 or the grapes, is covered, equally with the condensa- 
 tion of star-dust and the formation of worlds, by the 
 definition of Mr. Spencer, I agree ; but how far does 
 development, as thus defined, go to account for either ? 
 If not put forth to account for them, it is commonly 
 supposed to be, and to do it. Does it do that ? Let 
 us see. " Evolution," it is said, " is a change from an 
 indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, co- 
 herent heterogeneity." It is a change, and that change 
 is a continuous one, leading to a result. That is all 
 that the definition says ; that is all that development, 
 according to the definition, is or does. But does the 
 statement of the fact of a change account for the 
 change ? or of the fact of a result account for a re- 
 sult ? No. Taking this definition of evolution, and 
 regarding it as an attempt to account for the present 
 state of things, it would read thus : " A change from 
 an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, 
 coherent heterogeneity, through continuous differen- 
 tiations and intcOTations, is the cause of a change 
 from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a defi- 
 nite, coherent heterogeneity, through continuous dif- 
 ferentiations and integrations." 
 
f 
 
 96 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 It only remains in this connection to speak of up- 
 hinlding, as distinguished from both development and 
 growth. 
 
 Why do we never speak of a house as developed ? 
 For two reasons. One is, that in the building of a 
 house the agent is seen to be distinct from the mate- 
 rial. It is seen that that which moves the material 
 is outside of it, and cannot possibly be a property or 
 tendency of the material to be thus moved. But the 
 main reason is the want of continuity. There are 
 such breaks between the foundation and the super- 
 structure, and between the different stories, that what 
 is above could not possibly have originated from 
 what is below. This would necessitate for the build- 
 ing of the house an agent outside of the house. This 
 is the turning-point, and is seen to be so by those 
 who hold to development. Hence, mainly, the in- 
 terest in the question of spontaneous generation. 
 Hence the violent supposition by Professor Tyndall 
 that there may have been sensation originally in the 
 star-dust, and probably is now in the rocks. Hence 
 his supposition — I think I may say the absurd 
 supposition — that an eye might be formed by the 
 action of light falling on an undifferentiated organism 
 vaguely sensitive all over. Hence the anxiety to 
 show that there is no essential difference between 
 man and the brutes ; and hence, as you have seen in 
 the definition of Mr. Spencer, the word continuous as 
 applied to differentiations. Now, what we affirm is, 
 that there is no such continuity. We say that there 
 are breaks in the upward progress of nature such that 
 
THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE. 97 
 
 there could be no power in the lower to pass over 
 into and produce, or become, the higher. 
 
 These two modes of conceiving of the upward prog- 
 ress in nature and of the relation of its forces may 
 be represented by two forms of a pyramid. On one 
 tlie side will .be an inclined plane with no break. 
 On the other there will be breaks, and the pyramid 
 will be composed of different platforms. 
 
 [The lecturer here illustrated upon the blackboard, 
 by means of pyramidical designs, his statements.] 
 
 So I represented it some years since in lectures 
 given before the Lowell Institute. In this pyramid 
 each platform represents a new force, and one which, 
 as I affirm, could not have been developed from the 
 force or forces below. It is contrary to all our con- 
 ceptions of causation, that a force which reveals itself 
 only as it overcomes a lower force should be devel- 
 oped from that force. But that is the relation of the 
 forces here. If cohesion were not a stronger force 
 than gravitation, everything would be at a dead level. 
 What prevents the wall above us from cpming down ? 
 Nothing but cohesion as a stronger force than gravi- 
 tation, which is constantly endeavoring to bring it 
 down. Or, take the force connected with the growth 
 of vesjetables as it is related to the three lower forces 
 on which it is conditioned, and how could the vegeta- 
 ble get its food as it lies combined in the earth and 
 floats in the air, if it did not overcome cohesion and 
 chemical affinity, or how could it lift its material one 
 hundred and fifty feet into the air if it did not over- 
 come gravitation ? And shall we suppose that a force 
 
 7 
 
98 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 working not only in opposition to lower forces, but 
 in absolute defiance of them, was developed from 
 those forces ? And as the three lower forces were 
 an absolute condition for vegetation, so was vegeta- 
 tion an absolute condition for animal life, since it is 
 the one great function of vegetables to mediate be- 
 tween inorganic matter and animals by furnishing 
 them their whole food, which vegetables can, and 
 animals cannot procure directly from that matter. 
 
 We have, then, inorganic matter with its three forces 
 as a foundation for the building ; we have vegetables 
 as the first story, the lower animals as the second, 
 and man as the third ; and what we say is, that at 
 every upward step there must have been a supervis- 
 ing agent to introduce the superior force, and to cor- 
 relate it with the forces below. 
 
 But, as bearing on the upward continuity of move- 
 ment, which is essential to the development system, 
 there is one point which may not be omitted. I 
 refer to the sexual relation as it exists both in vege- 
 tables and in animals, and which might almost seem 
 a device for the very purpose of excluding the possi- 
 bility of such an hypothesis. A single case might be 
 explained away ; but when we see this relation run- 
 ning through the whole animate creation, so that the 
 continuance of its higher forms is dependent upon it, 
 and reflect on the impossibility either that the sexes 
 should have been developed pari passu through the 
 untold ages required by the system to reach the 
 needed point, or that the individuals should have 
 been preserved in any other way, we must see how 
 
THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE. 99 
 
 formidable the difficulty is, and how much more 
 reasonable it is to suppose that in the beginning 
 " God created them male and female." 
 
 The plausibility of development is derived in part 
 from the fact that the force seems to reside in the 
 material, but more from the way in which the differ- 
 ent forms of vegetable and animal life seem to run 
 into each other. But on the supposition of upbuild- 
 ing by a wise Master Builder, this is accounted for 
 by the need there is in the system of symmetry and 
 of sympathy. If the points of transition in the up- 
 building from one story to another were visible, the 
 apparent symmetry and unity and beauty of the 
 whole wouljd be impaired. I remember to have seen 
 an account of a piece of cabinet-work so deftly joined ^^ 
 that the point of juncture could be found only by the 
 preternatural power of touch possessed by a blind 
 man. This perfect joining was required for unity 
 and beauty, while the pieces were as really separate 
 as if they had been divided by the wide Atlantic. 
 And so symmetry requires that the points of junc- 
 ture in nature should be invisible, while such points 
 there must be. As between plants and animals, how- 
 ever the plant may simulate animal movements, 
 there must he a line, on one side of which there is 
 sensation and on the other not. We may be as un- 
 able to decide when or where it enters as we are to 
 decide when or where tlie first ray of the morning j 
 enters the darkness, but a when and a where there 
 must be. 
 
 And so of sympathy. I know of nothing more 
 
-4- 
 
 100 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 wonderful than that close analogy between men and 
 animals that comes from their sharing a common ani- 
 mal nature that so brings them into sympathy, while 
 there is yet such a disparity that the animals are 
 naturally subject to man. 
 
 Thus, from the need of symmetry and of sympathy, 
 do we account for the apparent uniformity in the up- 
 ward movement of the creation ; while we find, too, 
 those lines of separation between the different stories 
 of this earthly building which renders it impossible 
 that the higher should have been developed from the 
 lower. 
 
 On the whole, then, I find myself agreeing with 
 each of two propositions laid down by a man who 
 lived nearly two thousand years ago. With the first 
 of these I am sure you will agree, and with the 
 second I hope you will agree also. These proposi- 
 tions are : 1st, That every house is builded by some 
 man ; and, 2d, That he that built all things is God. 
 
 THE LECTURE. 
 
 In passing to the lecture, we do not leave upbuild- 
 ing altogether. In the lectures already referred to, 
 entitled " The Outline Study of Man," I attempted 
 to show not only that there was an upbuilding from 
 the lowest force in nature to man, but also in man 
 himself, and that the principle on which the upbuild- 
 ing was carried on was the same throughout. I at- 
 tempted to show that in nature the principle was one 
 of perfect subordination, as one force was a condition 
 
THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE. 101 
 
 for another, and of limitation on the part of each 
 lower force to such action as might best serve those 
 above it. In the functions of tlie body, even, I at- 
 tempted to show that there is a gradation as higher 
 and lower according to the same law, and this, not- 
 withstanding the circular and interdependent nature 
 of all vital action. Then in the mind, taking its 
 three great divisions, intellect, sensibility, and will, I 
 sought to show that intellect was lowest, sensibility 
 next, and then will: The faculties, or functions, of 
 the intellect, as presentative, regulative, representa- 
 tive, and elaborative, I sought to arrange in the same 
 way ; and so of the sensibility and the will, till the 
 whole man was constructed. That was the comple- 
 tion of one work. The man was constructed and put 
 into possession of himself 
 
 At this point the work of upbuilding on the part 
 of God ceased, but only that it might be taken up by 
 man on the model which God had set before him. 
 Man, having faculties, and especially active principles, 
 constructed in regular gradation as lower and higher, 
 was to use them in accordance with the same grada- 
 tion. The powers which were intended to rule he 
 was to cause to rule, and those intended to serve he 
 w^as to cause to serve, holding every lower principle 
 of action in its place by the law of its limitation, and 
 giving full scope to the highest as having nothing 
 above to limit it. Thus doing, intelligently bringing 
 each lower spontaneity and principle under its law, 
 he was to build up his activities, and so his charac- 
 ter, after the model set him by God in the upbuilding 
 of his univei'se. 
 
102 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 What we need to know, then, at this point is, what 
 the active principles of our frame are, and how they 
 are related to each other as higher or lower, as subor- 
 dinate or supreme. 
 
 In regard to some of these there is a general agree- 
 ment. The appetites, as a condition for the continu- 
 ance of life, and so for all the others, are the lowest. 
 These are good in themselves, and, held in their place* 
 are only good. Then come the instincts, which seem, 
 as sometimes impulsive, and sometimes regulative, to 
 be, when acting on their own line and without being 
 thwarted, a kind of divine reason, and when acting 
 out of that line, a kind of idiocy. Next we have the 
 desires, the cravings of the mind for those things 
 needed for its own well-being, as the appetites are 
 for things needed for the well-being of the body. 
 The natural affections, as of parent and child, are 
 next in order. These have in them an element of 
 desire, but it is a desire for the good of others. They 
 are strong and beautiful in the lower animals, but 
 become doubly beautiful when comprehended and 
 irradiated by a higher nature. 
 
 Up to this point our active principles are impul- 
 sive, as distinguished from rational. By this it is 
 meant that each principle has, standing over against 
 it, its own object from which it, or rather the being, 
 is to derive gratification, and that it goes out towards 
 its object as by an impulse from behind, and, without 
 reflection or regard to consequences, rests in it till it 
 is satiated, if that be possible ; or if, as in the desires, 
 that be not possible, till some one desire becomes the 
 
THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE. 103 
 
 ruling passion, and so insatiate. If all our active 
 powers were of this kind they would become a mob. 
 We therefore plainly need rational or governing 
 powers. 
 
 The rational principles of action, therefore, come 
 next. They are called rational because they imply 
 a comparison between different principles of action, 
 authority over them, and a choice between them by 
 a being who stands above and comprehends them. 
 These principles are said by Bishop Butler, Dugald 
 Stewart, Dr. Wayland, and writers on morals gener- 
 ally, to be self-love and conscience. This enumeration 
 I think defective. I have never seen, for example, 
 in any list of the active powers. Rights put down as 
 among them. But I would inquire of this audience 
 whether they do not think that rights are among the 
 most underlying, general, and powerful of our prin- 
 ciples of action ? What will a man fight for sooner 
 than his rights ? What but his rights ought he to 
 fight for ? Our conception of these comes in connec- 
 tion with every active principle. Among the first, if 
 not the very first, of our moral ideas, is that of a 
 right to ourselves, — that is, of a right to use every 
 power we have for its appropriate ends ; and when 
 that right is interfered with, our nature is stirred to 
 its lowest depths. If the idea of a right, or of rights, 
 be thus an active principle, it is of course rational, 
 since no one except a rational being can have a con- 
 ception of rights. 
 
 But a greater omission, in my view, is that of love, 
 -^ moral and rational love. We have the power of 
 
104 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 disinterested action. We have the power of making 
 the good of others, without reference to complacency 
 in their character, the object of our choice and effort, 
 and that good may stand over against our power of 
 rational choice, as food stands over against appetite, 
 or as money stands over against the desire of the 
 miser. The good of others may be so apprehended 
 that the pursuit of it shall become an absorbing pas- 
 sion. This love is not a mere emotion. Its central 
 element is choice, rational choice, and no emotion 
 that is sacred can belong to a love that does not 
 follow this. This is the love required in the Bible 
 as the central spring of our actions ; and it is re- 
 markable that Christian moralists should have con- 
 structed their systems so as to exclude this, or, at least, 
 that in any enumeration of our active powers they 
 should not have given it the place where it is put 
 by the Bible, and where, by a fair analysis of our 
 powers, it belongs. Instead, therefore, of accepting 
 self-love and conscience as a complete enumeration 
 of our governing powers, I would make them to 
 be rights, self-love, rational and moral love, and 
 conscience. 
 
 But here comes the question about the place of 
 conscience. Almost universally it has been placed 
 at the head of the list, with its object over against it, 
 like the rest, and not differing from them except 
 as supreme. The question is, whether it ought to be 
 so placed. Let us see. We have at the bottom of 
 the list appetite, say hunger, and over against it food. 
 We have instinct, say the instinct of the migratory 
 
THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE. 105 
 
 bird, and over against it a warm climate. We have 
 desire, say of power, and for its object power. We 
 have natural affection, as of the parent, and for its 
 object the child. We have rights, and for their object 
 those things to which we have a right. We have 
 self-love, and over against it our own good. We 
 have moral love, and over against it the good of 
 others. Now, shall conscience be placed next, and 
 over against tliat, right, or the right ? This is what 
 has been done. It has been, and is, supposed that 
 right, or the right in an action, is immediately and 
 intuitively perceived by the conscience, and that the 
 action is to be done solely for the sake of that, with 
 no regard to consequences or the good of any one. 
 Those who hold this view are generally careful to say 
 that it is quite certain that an action thus done will 
 result in good, but they affirm that it will lower its 
 quality and tone if that fact be so known as to have 
 any influence in determining the act. They seem to 
 think that if the whole truth were clearly seen, the 
 highest virtue would be impossible, thus making 
 truth hostile to virtue. In fact, I once heard regi'et 
 expressed that this regard to right could not be made 
 to stand wholly alone. 
 
 But there is another view. It was said by Sir 
 James Mackintosh, though it has been little no- 
 ticed since, that the immediate object of conscience 
 is the will itself According to this the conscience 
 will not, like the other active principles, have an 
 object corresponding to it, and towards which it is 
 to go out ; but its office will be, when two objects of 
 
106 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 choice are presented, as there always must be when 
 a choice is to be made, to prompt the will to choose 
 the higher and the better. If this be so, it will at 
 once change the place of conscience from the top of 
 the list, and place it by itself behind the will, so that 
 the man shall hear a voice behind him, saying, " This 
 is the way, walk ye in it." 
 
 These different relations of conscience will be best 
 expressed by their representations on the board. The 
 first has been sufficiently explained. For the second, 
 we need a line back of the list of active powers rep- 
 resenting the man, the person who is really the 
 governing power. We speak of governing powers, 
 but we mean by it only the powers that ought to 
 govern. In the last resort it is the man himself 
 who decides and governs, and who is to be considered 
 apart from all influences that can be brought to bear 
 upon him. We may identify him with the will or 
 the will with him, but it is not the will that decides, — 
 it is the man who has the will ; and we wish to know 
 what the influences are that are brought to bear upon 
 him when he acts morally in making a choice, since 
 it is only in making a choice and carrying it out 
 that he does act morally. In order to do this we will 
 suppose a choice is to be made between the desire 
 of power and moral love, and represent the influ- 
 ence of each by a line drawn from it to the man, one 
 drawing him up and the other down. Then con- 
 science, if it is to have, like the rest, its object before 
 it, must be represented as behind the man, and its 
 office will be to prompt him to choose to be influ- 
 
THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE. 107 
 
 enced by moral love, and forbid him to be influenced 
 by ambition. 
 
 If this view of the place of conscience be accepted, 
 it will change the whole aspect of the moral prob- 
 lem. It being conceded that all moral action is in 
 choice, and in carrying out choices, it will be seen 
 that, according to this, the only object of choice there 
 can be, must be from some one of the active prin- 
 ciples represented as in front of the man, each of 
 these presenting some form of a good either to him- 
 self or to others. It will follow from this that 
 conscience never furnishes the primary motive for 
 action, and never acts at all except for the enforce- 
 ment of some motives not furnished by itself. If 
 there were not a good beyond its own sphere fur- 
 nishing the occasion for its action, it could never act. 
 And not only must there be a ground for action aside 
 from conscience, but it must be so far rational that 
 it would suffice for itself, or conscience could have no 
 basis for action. In other words, according to this 
 view, conscience does not furnish the grounds of 
 choice, but requires of us, in a peculiar manner, and 
 with sanctions, the choice of ends and forms of good 
 furnished by other principles of action. It supersedes 
 no natural principle of action, and it restrains none, 
 except it be by acting in conjunction with one that 
 is higher than it. Thus doing, the conscience works 
 in harmony with reason, which must always require 
 tlie choice of the higher good, and also with each 
 natural principle of action along the whole line, so 
 far as it abides within its own bounds. 
 
108 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 It will be perceived further, that, according to this 
 view, the existence of moral ideas, and so of con- 
 science itself, is conditioned on a sensibility, and on 
 that product of a sensibility which we call a good. 
 Each principle of action in the upward line can 
 furnish a motive only as it is a form of the sensibil- 
 ity, and as there is, from its normal action, some 
 form of a good in the sensibility. It is only as there 
 is such a good from the action of these principles 
 that the idea of rights or of obligation can arise, — 
 of rights as belonging to ourselves, of obligations 
 either' as due from others to us, or from ourselves 
 to others. 
 
 Certainly, if we had no conception of a good either 
 for ourselves or others, we could have no concep- 
 tion of either rights or of obligation; but these are 
 primitive ideas given by the moral nature, and with- 
 out them the action of conscience would be impos- 
 sible. And what has just been said of rights and 
 of obligation in their relation to a good, will, of 
 course, be true of benevolence and of justice. With- 
 out a sensibility through which there might be en- 
 joyment and suffering, natural good and evil, there 
 could plainly be no benevolence or malignity, no 
 justice or injustice ; and thus, without a sensibility 
 and the idea of a good from that, as prior in the 
 order of nature, there could be no moral ideas. We 
 see, then, how impossible it is that any system of 
 momls should be based on an intuition purely intel- 
 lectual, unless we call that so which has for its 
 underlying ground a good which is the product of 
 
THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE. 109 
 
 a sensibility, and which is recognized through a sen- 
 sibility as having value in itself. As I have said 
 in " The Law of Love," " When it is said, as it has 
 been, to be an a priori law that benevolence is right 
 and malice is wrong, it cannot be so a jpricn^i and 
 transcendental as to exist till there is a knowledge 
 of what benevolence and malice are, and so of that 
 good and evil [natural good and evil] without which 
 neither of them could be." 
 
 But to this view there are objections. One is 
 drawn from the consciousness we have of acting di- 
 rectly from a sense of duty, with no reference to any- 
 thing else. That we have such consciousness I agree. 
 The voice of conscience is imperative, and may oc- 
 cupy our whole thought. So may that part of a tree 
 which is above the ground occupy our whole thought 
 to the exclusion of the roots from which the tree 
 grew, and whence its sap is derived. Certainly, 
 among the motives which must be involved in an act 
 of choice by a being so complex as man, a sense of 
 duty may determine wdiat the choice shall be, the 
 mind may be fixed upon that alone, and man may 
 feel a sense of dignity when that is so. There is a 
 certain grandeur in quoting the passage. Fiat justitia, 
 ruat ccelum, — " Let justice be done, though the 
 heavens fall." That passage I would quote with as 
 much emphasis as any one, but I would not have 
 such a conception of justice as would make it of no 
 consequence wiiether the heavens should fall or not. 
 In the same way it is said that children have a sense 
 of rights and of duties before they can estimate 
 
110 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 consequences. Yes, like other parts of our nature, 
 the conscience acts spontaneously and impulsively. 
 Before we are able to understand the reason of it, 
 it impels us like an instinct ; but when we come to 
 understand it, we find it a part of a harmonious 
 system, every part of which was intended to conspire 
 for the good of the whole. 
 
 It is said, too, that this view does not comport well 
 with what our Saviour said of self-denial, and suffer- 
 ing, and persecution, and losing our lives for his 
 sake. It does comport with it perfectly, and is the 
 only view that does. For what does he say ? " Blessed 
 are ye when men shall revile you, and shall say all 
 manner of evil against you falsely for my sake, . . . 
 for great is your reward in heaven." " Love ye your 
 enemies, and do good, hoping for nothing again, and 
 your reward shall be great." What a pity he said 
 this last ! Again, " He that loveth his life shall lose 
 it, and he that liateth his life shall keep it — unto 
 life everlasting." Even he himself, for the joy that 
 was set before him, endured the cross. Can there 
 really be anything wrong or in any way unworthy 
 in a man's intelligently co-operating with God for his 
 own best good ? If there were time, I should like to 
 speak at this point of the confusion by the positivists 
 of a regard to self-interest with selfishness, and of 
 the quixotism of their professed devotion to an 
 abstraction, which they call humanity, by wliich they 
 outquixote Don Quixote himself. 
 
 But would not this view lead to utilitarianism ? JSTot 
 as I understand the term. I recoonize the distinction 
 
THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE. Ill 
 
 between a regard to duty and a regard to utility. I 
 hold to obligation and its binding force as strongly 
 as anybody. I hold to a moral nature, through which 
 obligation is immediately and necessarily affirmed, 
 but I hold tliat obligation is obligation to choose' ; and 
 because I hold further that it is obligation to choose 
 a good rather than an abstract quality of an action, 
 I am regarded by some as a downright utilitarian. 
 Utility is a good thing in its place, but that place is 
 not at the basis of a moral system. I would choose a 
 good, not for its utility, for it has none. It is the 
 only thing I know of that neither has nor can have 
 utility. I would choose it for its own sake, and also 
 as under obligation to choose it ; and this- behest of 
 moral law, uttered through the sense of obligation, 
 may and should become a motive sufficient to lead 
 me to choose that good under every extremity. Adopt- 
 ing here what I have said elsewhere, " It is one thing 
 to say that the formation of moral ideas and the 
 action of conscience at all — of the will even — are 
 conditioned on a sensibility, and quite another to say 
 that when these ideas are formed, and conscience 
 utters its imperative as between a higher and a lower 
 principle of action, conscience is not to be obeyed out 
 of regard to any utility there may be supposed to be 
 from the action of the lower. That conscience is to 
 be obeyed implicitly I assert, and always have as- 
 serted, and the action is not made utilitarian because 
 conscience sides with the principles that would give 
 the higher good." It would be a disturbing element 
 in the constitution, and an anomaly in the creation of 
 God. if it did not. 
 
112 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 But this subject I will not continue further. It 
 requires a more thorough treatment than the time 
 permits. It might, indeed, have been better if I had 
 taken but one subject. I should at least have avoided 
 the architectural blunder of making the porch larger 
 than the house. If, however, I have succeeded in 
 presenting to this audience clearly and fairly, so 
 that its bearings are understood, the question of the 
 place of conscience, it is all I could hope to do. 
 The question I leave with you. How to reconcile 
 the claims of the sensibility on the one hand, and the 
 moral nature on the other, pliilosophers have not 
 been agreed. They are not now. Some way of 
 reconciliation there must be, and if what I have said 
 has thrown but one gleam of light upon that way, I 
 shall be satisfied. 
 
V. 
 
 DEVELOPMENT: ITS NATURE; AVHAT IT 
 CAN DO AND WHAT IT CANNOT DO. 
 
 By rev. JAMES McCOSH, D.D., LL.D. 
 
DEVELOPMENT: ITS NATURE; WHAT IT 
 CAN DO AND WHAT IT CANNOT DO. 
 
 By rev. JAMES McCOSH, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 THE PRELUDE. 
 
 WHEN I was asked a few weeks ago to lecture 
 in Boston, the question immediately started 
 up in my mind : What can have induced anybody to 
 invite me to speak in a city where, as I look upon it, 
 every man is fitted by heredity, by birth and educa- 
 tion, to be a lecturer ? After puzzling my poor brain 
 for a time, I gave up the question as unanswerable, 
 resolving meanwhile to embrace the opportunity of 
 meeting so enlightened a community. Being here, I 
 feel that I should conform to the practice of the place 
 and the hour ; and so I begin with a prelude. 
 
 There are few people here who remember, or indeed 
 ever heard, that some years ago I delivered in Boston 
 a short course of lectures (afterwards published) on the 
 topics which lie between philosophy and theology. 
 Not claiming to be a prophet, I looked at the causes 
 then in operation, and ventured to draw out a map of 
 the road which a certain class of our young men were 
 
116 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 taking. I described Unitarianism, so full of life and 
 ^ hope an age ago, as dead and laid out for decent 
 burial. Everybody saw, or was beginning to see, that 
 the system defended by Channing, as founded on the 
 Scriptures of the Old and jS'ew Testament, could not 
 stand before an honest interpretation of these writings. 
 Left without any divine authority to uphold it, the 
 creed was like the icicles we see on the roofs of our 
 houses at this season, clear but cold, not drawing 
 . our hearts towards it, and certain to melt away in 
 
 ^ the heat of a more fervent period. But I intimated 
 my fear that those left without any revelation from 
 Heaven to stay them might go down the sliding scale 
 into a lower depth. 
 
 The causes operated, and the anticipations I 
 sketched have so far been realized. Our youth 
 have tried to live in a certainly wide enough region, 
 
 -.f- supplied them by Herbert Spencer and his accom- 
 plished disciple and expounder in this country, Mr. 
 Fiske, — the region of the unknowable to which 
 they politely consign God and religion, where no 
 one can see them, and where Professor Huxley has 
 conveniently set up for them " worship chiefly 
 of the silent sort," with no one to speak and no 
 one to hear. But our active young men have felt 
 a difficulty in living in a vacuum ; and, seeking for 
 so'mething more substantial, they fondly expect to 
 find air and food in materialism, which Professor 
 Tyndall assures them has every sort of promise and 
 potency. 
 
 Meanwhile, there have been protests against this 
 
DEVELOPMENT: ITS NATURE. 117 
 
 tendency, and persons have been eagerly clutching 
 certain weak branches to stay their descent, but 
 which, as they give way, will only, I fear, precipitate 
 them the faster. Mankind have, after all, a deep 
 underlying belief in something supernatural which 
 seems to be pervading and surrounding the whole of 
 natural operation. Some one said that when men cease 
 to believe in God they begin to believe in ghosts ; and 
 there are numbers who, in the felt want of anything 
 better, have lent a favorable ear to Spiritualists. 
 Those who could not believe in Moses and the proph- 
 ets, in Christ and his apostles, have listened eagerly 
 to audible scribbling on concealed slates, which show, 
 by their imbecility, that the spirits which return 
 from the other world have lost there the high ability 
 which some of them possessed in this world. Those 
 who could not believe that God sent his Son into 
 the world to solve the enigma of the universe, and 
 to show how man, the sinner, is to be reconciled to 
 God, the holy Governor, and how he is to be delivered 
 from the bonds of iniquity, resolutely maintain that 
 he sends spirits to untie the ropes which weak or 
 cunning men and women have tied around them- 
 selves. 
 
 A much nobler outlet has been opened for this 
 craving after the divine and the supernatural. The 
 beautiful dreams of Emerson have been made to 
 irradiate and gild a mysticism which has been 
 brought from the East and supposed to be the Light 
 of Asia, and an ideal philosophy which has come 
 with other emigrants from Germany, — where I know 
 
 K 
 
118 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 it is in danger of being starved; and many have 
 resorted to this castle in the air. The Concord School, 
 which is an annex of literary Boston, has just been 
 strengthened by the resort thither of an able and a 
 most estimable man, who has taken up Hegelianism 
 after it had run and ended its course in Germany. 
 These philosophers open to us glorious views, if not 
 into heaven, at least into the clouds, gilded by the 
 shining sun. I do rejoice in all they say so elo- 
 quently of the infinities, the eternities, the morali- 
 ties, and the idealities. There are not only beauty 
 and elevation, there is also a truth in all these sen- 
 timents. But my rational nature requires me to 
 know on what I am to ground my belief, and how 
 I am to separate between the sober truth and the 
 associated extravagances. This I can do only by 
 carefully observing the laws of the mind, after 
 the manner of the true American and Scottish phi- 
 losophy, or by following the revelation of God in his 
 Word. 
 
 Meanwhile, notwithstanding these side eddies, the 
 deeper current is moving on. First, there is a doc- 
 trine of relativity, with which Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 and Mr. Fiske start. According to this philosophy, we 
 know nothing of things, which may or may not have 
 a reality ; all that we have are simply relations 
 I connecting unknown things, — a bridge with nothing 
 ^ to support it on either side. This has prepared the 
 way for what we used to call Nescience and Nihilism, 
 but which is now designated Agnosticism, which in- 
 sists that nothing can be known. Bi;t it is proyer- 
 
DEVELOPMENT: ITS NATURE. 119 
 
 bial that nature is stronger than speculative theories, 
 and will return though repelled with a pitchfork. 
 Its very advocates, though denying that there is such 
 a thing as mind or matter, practically believe in such 
 things as pleasures and pains, as money and position 
 in society. What they regard as unknowable are S/ 
 simply God and good, immortality and a judgment 
 day. As the issue of this discussion, there are num- 
 bers of our young men who are unable, or at least 
 affect to be unable, to determine anything about di- 
 vine or spiritual or even moral truths, and care about 
 nothing more than catching the enjoyments of the 
 hour. But meanwhile there is a higher nature within 
 — a remnant and indication of their divine nature — 
 which will not allow them to rest satisfied in their 
 present creed. They are made to feel that they have /> 
 stalks from which the fruit has been pulled. Crav- 
 ing for substantia? food, they would find it in materi- 
 alism, and would fain fill their belly with the husks 
 which the swine do eat, only to find that they are " in X 
 want," with their hearts turning away from the re- 
 past with nausea and disgust. It is in this state of 
 things that we find pessimism propagated, and ac- 
 cepted by some as their only refuge. 
 
 I am more hopeful of this hopeless state of things 
 than of that self-satisfied, self-righteous one that 
 went before. The ball has reached its lowest point 
 and struck against impenetrable adamant ; and it is / 
 ready for a rebound. The time for reaction has come, i^ 
 We are at the darkest hour; I am looking for the 
 sun to rise. We may now sow as they did in an- 
 
>^ 
 
 120 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 cient Egypt, for the waters are receding, leaving a 
 soil ready to nourish what is cast into it. I am this 
 day to endeavor to put out of the way an obstacle 
 which is hindering many from accepting the truth. 
 That obstacle is Development, which is cherished by 
 some and repelled by others, as supposed to be capa- 
 ble of carrying on nature without the need of God. 
 
 4 
 
 THE LECTURE. 
 
 There is a perpetual reference in the present day 
 to Evolution, or Development. There is an equally 
 rj^ persistent avoidance of any explanation of its nature. 
 Instances of it are given, and inferences, legitimate 
 and illegitimate, are drawn ; but there is scarcely an 
 attempt made to specify what is involved in it. 
 
 The phrase is used to cover all sorts of things, 
 clean and unclean. Scientific men discourse pro- 
 foundly of the evolution of plants and animals, of in- 
 dividuals and of species, of genera and orders, from 
 the monad, up to man. But we hear also of the de- 
 "^ ' velopment of the resources of a country, of its wealth, 
 its mines, its gold and silver ; its crops and corn, its 
 wheat and fruits ; of its sheep and cattle and horses ; 
 of its industry, its trade and commerce ; of its cities, 
 their streets, houses, and harbors ; of its education, its 
 colleges and schools. They give you histories of the 
 development of the sciences, of astronomy, chemistry, 
 and geology; of the fine arts, as painting, sculp- 
 ture, and architecture ; and of the useful arts, as mar 
 sonry, carpentry, and engine-making. They talk, too, 
 
DEVELOPMENT: ITS NATURE. 121 
 
 of the evolution of things from a simpler to a more 
 complete form, — of pottery, of wax-work, of metal- 
 work, of vases, of dinner-sets and teacups. It must 
 surely be a comprehensive phrase, or, quite as possibly, 
 a loose and ambiguous one, which embraces all these 
 things and a thousand more. 
 
 Just because of its capacity, it is apt to take up 
 and carry with it all sorts of incongruous wares. In 
 these circumstances, when any one is talking of de- 
 velopment, for or against it, it is necessary to insist 
 on his telling us precisely what he means by it. " I 
 am sick," says the man of common sense, who is not 
 to be taken in by high-sounding phrases, "of this 
 pretentious development. I prefer the old way of 
 speaking, when it was believed that all things came 
 from God." But I ask this man of uncommon sense 
 whether he is prepared to affirm that he was not de- 
 veloped from his good father and mother; whether 
 he, the man of forty, has not grown out of that boy 
 whom he remembers going to school at the age of 
 six. " But I am a religious man," he tells us, " and be- 
 lieve that God and not development guides this uni- 
 verse." I ask him more pertinently whether God 
 may not have made him grow by development, and 
 whether this same God has not evolved the Christian 
 from the Jewish faith, and the Jewish from the patri- 
 archal. When we lay down for ourselves and abide 
 by tlie principle that in the discussion we explain 
 beforehand what we mean, we are in the better posi- 
 tion to require the same on the part of our opponent, 
 and to insist on knowing what he means by the eve- 
 
A 
 
 -h 
 
 122 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 lution which he is defending: an evolution out of 
 nothing; an evolution without a God to set it a 
 going or to guide it, an evolution of life from the 
 lifeless, of mind from the mindless, of man from 
 the monkey, of the monkey from the mollusk, of 
 the mollusk from the monad, and all from senseless 
 molecules ? 
 
 Development is evidently not a simple power in 
 nature, like mechanical force or chemical affinity or 
 gravitation. It is clear that there is a vast, an in- 
 calculable number and variety of agencies in the 
 process, whether it be the development of the plant 
 from its seed, of the bird from the egg, of the horse 
 from its dam, of the threshing-machine from the flail, 
 of the reaping-machine from the reaping-hook, of 
 our present kitchen utensils from those used by our 
 grandmother. The question presses : Is there any 
 unity in the " thousand and one " things that form 
 the process ? I believe that there is. It is worth 
 inquiring what it is, when it will be found to settle 
 for us what truth there is, and what error there is, 
 in the common expositions, that is, developments of 
 development. 
 
 Development is essentially a combination of causes 
 working towards a particular end. I call it an or- 
 ganized causation for ends, a corporation of causes 
 for mutual action. At this point I am greatly 
 tempted to enlarge and dwell on the subject of causa- 
 tion. I am not singular in holding that, after all 
 these discussions about the conservation of energy, 
 we scarcely know what causation is. Mr. MUl has 
 
DEVELOPMENT: ITS NATURE. 123 
 
 shown successfully, as I think, that in all causes there 
 are always two or more agents. " The statement of 
 the cause," he says, "is incomplete unless in some 
 shape or other we introduce all the conditions. A 
 man takes mercury, goes out of doors and catches 
 cold. We say, perhaps, that the cause of his taking 
 cold was exposure to the air. It is clear, however, 
 that his having taken mercury may have been a 
 necessary condition of his catching cold ; and though 
 it might consist with usage to say that the cause of 
 his attack was exposure to air, to be accurate we 
 ought to say that the cause was exposure to air while 
 under the effect of mercury. [Logic, III. 5.] The 
 true cause comprises both the mercury and the state 
 of the body. It is always dual or plural. I have 
 shown that it is the same with the effect. [Divine 
 Government, III.] The true effect consists in the 
 mercury changed and in the body changed ; the mer- 
 cury is absorbed into the frame and the body dies. 
 The true physical cause always consists of two or 
 more bodies in a particular state, and the effect of 
 the same body in a different state. A ball in motion 
 strikes a ball at rest. It is not correct to say that 
 the one ball is the cause of the other ball moving. 
 The true cause is made up of both balls, the one in 
 motion striking the ball at rest, and the effect on the 
 one ball moved and the other stayed. A cold current 
 blows on my body ; this acts as a cause, and the 
 effect, the air is slightly warmed and my body is 
 made colder. So in every case of physical causa- 
 tion : the effect consists of the agents acting as the 
 
124 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 V} 
 
 t 
 
 cause in a new state. According to the doctrine of 
 the conservation of energy, the amount of energy, 
 real and potential, in the causes and effects is always 
 one and the same." 
 
 But I feel tha't I must restrain myself from wan- 
 dering in a field where dykes and roads have not yet 
 been made. I take up the subject only so far as it 
 concerns my present purpose, that is, the relation of 
 development to causation. Perhaps it might be said 
 in a loose way that all causation is development. It 
 consists in effects coming out of causes. All that I 
 need to insist on is, that all development is a certain 
 kind of causation. 
 
 N"ow, it has been admitted for ages that causation 
 works through all nature ; not only divine causation 
 the source of the whole, but physical causation : that 
 is, the ordinary occurrences of nature are all pro- 
 duced by agents working causally; in other words, 
 fire burns, light shines, and the earth spins round its 
 axis and rotates round the sun, and the consequence 
 is that we have heat and lisjht and the beneficent 
 seasons. Men of enlarged minds do now see and 
 acknowledge that in the doctrine of causation, in the 
 doctrine of God acting everywhere through second 
 causes, there is nothing irreligious. On the contrary, 
 the circumstance that God proceeds according to 
 laws is evidently, for the benefit of man, who can 
 thus from the past anticipate the future and prepare 
 himself for it. On the same principle I hold that 
 there is nothing irreligious in development, which is 
 just a form of causation. It was my privilege in my 
 
DEVELOPMENT: ITS NATURE. 125 
 
 earliest work to justify God's method of procedure 
 by, natural law. I reckon it a like privilege in my 
 declining life to defend God's mode of action by de- 
 velopment, by bringing the present out of the past. 
 Only, it must be held resolutely, that as the forces of 
 nature are exhibitions of the power of God, and as 
 the laws of nature are the laws of his government, 
 so development is one of the methods by which God 
 unfolds his plans from age to age. 
 
 For my purpose it is not necessary that I should 
 settle what are the original constituents of the uni- 
 verse. Some suppose these to be atoms, some prefer 
 representing them as centres of force, some will only A 
 allow them to be centres of motion. I am inclined 
 to regard them as atoms, with their forces or prop- 
 erties ; perhaps we might expediently call them 
 molecules, without defining what they are. Let us 
 suppose that there are millions of millions of them 
 working in the knowable world. As they operate 
 they co-operate and combine. As they act they 
 might, if left to themselves, work evil quite as easily 
 and naturally as good, and the molecules might have 
 been formed into destructive machines and pestifer- 
 ous creatures : into flaming meteors with burning 
 worlds ; into mosquitoes, gnats, and serpents, devour- 
 ing each other and arresting all forms of beauty and 
 beneficence, and yet' incapable of dying. But instead 
 of this, these million agencies combine to accomplish 
 good and benign ends, so as to show that there 
 has been a m.ind disposing them and a power guid- 
 ing them. Let us observe some of the beneficent 
 
126 CHKIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 issues, and we will soon come among these to devel- 
 opment. 
 
 A. The combination of molecules acting as causes 
 has produced general laws and beneficent order : in the 
 seasons, in the growth of the plant, — first the blade, 
 then. the ear, then the full corn in the ear; in the 
 animal, enjoying its season and handing down its 
 life to a new generation. All this is not the action 
 of simple properties of matter acting fortuitously 
 or fatally; it is. the result of the adjustment of 
 numerous properties of matter, mechanical, gravi- 
 tating, chemical, electric, all conspiring towards an 
 end. 
 
 2. The combination produces special ends, such as 
 those unfolded by Paley and other writers on natu- 
 ral theology. Take only two well-known examples. 
 There is the eye. What a combination of indepen- 
 dent agencies before we can see the smile on that 
 friend's face ! There are vibrations coming from the 
 sun ninety million miles away ; these have passed at 
 various rates through an ether ; they touch and are 
 reflected from the countenance ; some of them reach 
 the cornea of an optical instrument called the eye ; 
 -they go through an aqueous humor, thence through 
 the gateway of the iris into the crystalline lens ; they 
 are there refracted and pass through the vitreous 
 humor to the retina, where they impact on thou- 
 sands of rods and cones and are sent on to the optic 
 nerve and the brain ; and we now see the smiles on 
 our mother's face. Let any one of these be absent 
 or fail, and nature would remain forever in darkness. 
 
WHAT DEVELOPMENT CAN DO. 127 
 
 Take the ear. A sister utters a word, a vibration 
 is started, it reaches our ear, is collected by the outer 
 ear and knocks on the tympanum, is propagated into s^ 
 the middle ear, where it sets in motion the hammer 
 and the anvil and the stirrup, thence into the inner 
 ear, where it vibrates through a liquid, affects the 
 thousand and more organs of Corti, is sent round the 
 semicircular canals into the cochlea, and on through 
 the auditory nerve into the brain; the silence is 
 broken, and we are cheered by a voice of love. 
 
 But 3, and this more to my purpose, there is a 
 combination, to produce evolution. The present is 
 evolved out of the past and will develop into the 
 future, all under a divine arrangement. The present 
 is the fruit of the past, and contains the seed of the 
 future. The configuration of the earth, its hills and 
 dales, its rivers and seas, which determine the abodes w 
 and industries of men and the bounds of their habi- 
 tation, have been produced by agencies which have 
 been working for thousands or millions of years. 
 The plants now on the earth are the descendants 
 of those created by God, and the ancestors of those 
 that are to appear in the coming ages. There is 
 through all times, as in the year, a succession of 
 seasons : sowing and reaping, sowing in order to reap, 
 and reaping what has been sown, in order to its being 
 sown again. This gives a continuousness, a consist- 
 ency, to nature, amidst all the mutations of time. 
 There is not only a contemporaneous order in nature, 
 there is a successive order. The beginning leads to 
 the end, and the end is the issue of the beginning. 
 
128 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 This grass and grain and these forests that cover 
 w the ground have seed in them which will continue 
 ' in undefined ages to adorn and enrich the ground. 
 These birds that sing among the branches and these 
 cattle upon a thousand hills will build nests and rear 
 young to furnish nourishment and delight to our 
 V" children's children in millennial ages. Every natural- 
 ist has seen a purpose gained by the nutriment laid 
 up in the seed or pod to feed the young plant. I see 
 a higher end accomplished by the mother provided 
 for the young animal. That infant is not cast forth 
 into the cold world unprotected, ^- it has a mother's 
 arms to protect it and a mother's love to fondle it. 
 Development is not an irreligious process ; every one 
 who has been reared under a father's care and a moth- 
 er's love will bless God for it. 
 
 In this development there are usually "periodical 
 results in the epochs of geology and of history, and 
 especially in the vegetable and animal kingdoms. 
 This enables us so far to anticipate the future and to 
 accommodate ourselves to it. The oak develops the 
 acorn, and the acorn develops the oak. The bird pro- 
 duces the ^gg, and out of the ^gg comes the future 
 bird, and the species is continued. A loving pair are 
 joined in holy marriage union, and the offspring trans- 
 mits the inheritance of both. 
 
 In development there is usually progression. At 
 times there is degeneracy, chiefly the result of human 
 sin, as we see in the degeneracy of the Indians. But 
 as a whole there has been an advance in our earth 
 from age to age. The tendency of animal life is 
 
WHAT DEVELOPMENT CAN DO. 129 
 
 upon the whole, upward, — from all fours to the up- 
 right position, in which men can look up to heaven. 
 Agencies have been set a going to produce these evi- 
 dently intended ends. Causes that operated ages ago 
 have called in other causes to co-operate with them, 
 and have thereby added to the power and riches of 
 the product. The geological changes have made our 
 earth tit for the abode of man. Human beings have 
 taken the places which in earlier ages were handed 
 over to wild animals. There is a greater amount of 
 food produced on our earth than at any earlier stage. 
 There has been, as the ages rolled on, a greater fulness 
 of sentient life and a larger capacity of happiness. 
 The intellectual powers have been made stronger and 
 firmer, like the trunk of the tree, and the feelings, like 
 the flowers, have taken a larger expansion and a richer 
 color by culture. 
 
 As we observe all this, there is one principle we are 
 bound to carry with us ; we are to see God in it f> 
 throughout and from beginning to end. Because a 
 rose, a dog, or a horse is gendered by natural causes, it is 
 not less the work of God. Our finest roses are derived 
 from the common dog-rose ; that rose in its simple 
 beauty by the roadside is the divine workmanship ; 
 but so is the richest rose, the fullest in form and the 
 gayest in color in our gardens. God, who rewards us 
 for opening our eyes upon his works, gives higher 
 rewards to those who in love to them bestow labor 
 and pains upon them. Bogs, it is said, have all de- 
 scended from some kind of wolf This does not make 
 the shepherd's dog, or the St. Bernard dog, with their 
 
 9 
 
 >s 
 
130 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 wondrous instincts, not to be the divine workman- 
 ship. Just as little does the hypothesis that our 
 living horse is descended from the Pleiohippus, and 
 this from the Miohippus, and this from the Eohippus, 
 which used to tread with its five toes on marshy 
 ground, prove that the animal we ride on, so useful 
 and so graceful, so agile and so docile, is not the crea- 
 ture of the Creator who formed it, and gave to it its 
 power of development. 
 
 Not only is development when properly under- 
 stood not inconsistent with religion ; it will be found 
 that the combination and adaptation in it clearly 
 argue design. Sooner or later there will be written 
 a work on natural theology after the manner of Paley, 
 showing that as there are plan and purpose in the 
 well-fitted limbs and organs of the bodily frame 
 of animals, so there is* design quite as evident and as 
 wonderful in the way in which by a process running 
 through ages the bones and muscles have been adjusted 
 to each other to produce the horse we drive or ride on. 
 There is a manifest and a wise and beneficent end in the 
 joints of our frame : in the joint backward and forward 
 of the finger by which we grasp objects ; in the ball 
 and socket joint which turns all round at the shoulder ; 
 but there is quite as palpable a purpose in the way 
 in which these joints have been moulded in the geo- 
 logical ages and handed down by heredity. 
 
 I therefore see design in development. There is 
 an obvious end, and a means arranged to accomplish it. 
 We see purpose evident in the development effected 
 by man. The farmer uses a series of agencies to se- 
 
WHAT DEVELOPMENT CAN DO. 131 
 
 cure his end : he ploughs, he harrows, he sows seed, 
 he weeds, and in the end he gathers in a crop. The 
 teacher lays out a plan for developing the faculties 
 of his pupils : he imparts knowledge, he corrects, he 
 stimulates, and he reaches his aim, — the improve- 
 ment of these faculties and a fitness for the duties of 
 life. We see numerous cases in which there is need ' 
 of co-operation in order to compass an end. A house 
 is built and furnished because a number of people 
 have done each his part : the mason, the carpenter, W 
 the plumber, the slater, the glazier, the upholsterer. A 
 city becomes richer because the merchants have been 
 far-sighted, and the manufacturers expert, and the 
 tradesmen honest and industrious. The country pros- 
 pers because the master and the servant, the school- 
 master and the minister of religion, are all and each 
 doing their part. But there are still more wonderful 
 evidences of a plan and a purpose in the succession 
 of the seasons, and of the grass and grain and trees, 
 and in the living creatures advancing in fulness 
 and strength, in activity and beauty. It is not in 
 the single object or operation that we discover such 
 evidence of a purpose so much as in their organiza- 
 tion, and orderly succession and development. De- 
 velopment is a sort of corporation in which each part, 
 like the citizen, fulfils its office. 
 
 But while development can do much, it may not 
 be able to do everything. There is a tendency among 
 rash and rapid thinkers to push every new truth to 
 an extreme. I am so old as to remember the feeling 
 produced when Sir Humphry Davy made and pub- 
 
>< 
 
 132 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 lislied his brilliant discoveries. There were sciolists in 
 our schools of popular science, among our newspaper 
 editors and lecturers, who made electricity explain 
 everything, even life and mind itself. This disposi- 
 tion, never encouraged by the great discoverer, soon 
 ran its course, and died out in the struggle for exist- 
 ence as new discoveries were made. Development 
 is at present running through a like crisis. The 
 work of the past age has been to show what it can 
 do ; that of the coming age is to determine precisely 
 what it cannot do. Like all creature action, it will 
 be found to have very stringent limits. We may fix 
 on some of these. 
 
 1. Development cannot explain the origin of things. 
 y This is implied in its nature and its very name. It 
 
 is a procession out from something which has gone 
 before. It implies a set of arranged substances which 
 seems to imply a creator and organizer. 
 
 2. It cannot account for the collocations, as Dr. 
 Chalmers, followed by Mr. Mill, calls them, or, as I 
 designate them, adaptations necessary to carry on the 
 operations of the world beneficently. A train with- 
 out a hand to put it on the right track and to guide 
 it might work only destructively. 
 
 3. It cannot account for the law, the order, the be- 
 neficence that pervade nature. 
 
 4. There are products whicli cannot be developed 
 from the original elements of nature. I have declined 
 to dogmatize as to what these are, atoms or centres 
 of force or motion. I call them molecules. These 
 
 nJ atoms or centres cannot give what they have not got. 
 
WHAT DEVELOPMENT CANNOT DO. 133 
 
 If heredity has a gift committed to it, it may trans- 
 mit it from parent to offspring, and from one generation 
 to another. I have shown at an earlier stage of my 
 lecture that in pliysical causation the effect is merely 
 a changed state of the agents acting as the causes. 
 There is no power in the effects which was not in the 
 causes. If a new power appears in the effects it must 
 be from superadded causes. Let us look at the things 
 that have been effected, and inquire whether they 
 could all have been in the original molecules. 
 
 Was there life in the original molecule ? If not, X 
 liow did it come in when the first plant appeared ? 
 Was there sensation in the original molecule ? liX 
 not, how did it come in when the first animal had a 
 feeling of pleasure or of pain ? Was there mind in > 
 the first molecule, say a power of perceiving an ob- 
 ject out of itself? Was there consciousness in the 
 first molecule or monad, a consciousness of self ? 
 Was there a power of comparing, of judging, of dis- 
 cerning between two things, of noting their agree-'^ 
 ments or differences ? Was there a power of reason- 
 ing, of inferring the unseen from the seen, of the ^ 
 future from the past ? Were there emotions in these 
 first existences, say a hope of continued life or fear '^ 
 of approaching death ? Perhaps they had some ele- 
 ments of morality or loving attachments to each ^ 
 other, or a sense of justice in keeping their own 
 whirl and allowing to others their place and rights 
 in the dance ! Had they will at the beginning, and 
 a power of choosing between pleasure and pain, be- 
 tween the evil and the good ? Perhaps they had jk 
 some piety and paid some worship to God ! 
 
X 
 
 134 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 It is needless to say that there is not even the 
 shade of a proof of there being any such capacities^ 
 in the original atom or force centre. If so, how did 
 they come in ? Take one human capacity, — how 
 did consciousness come in? Herbert Spencer, the 
 mightiest of them, would have us believe that he has 
 answered this question, and yet he has simply avoided 
 it. In his "Psychology" he is speaking of nerves 
 for hundreds of pages ; he shows how in their move- 
 ments there is a succession of a certain kind, and 
 adds simply that " there must arise a consciousness." 
 This is all he says, bringing in no cause, or link, or 
 connection (see Part IV. 1). Thus does he step over 
 the gap, — a practice not uncommon with this giant, 
 as he marches on with his seven-leagued boots. 
 e . How, then, did these things come in? How did 
 t things without sensation come to have sensation, 
 things without instinct to have instinct, creatures 
 without memory to have memory, beings without 
 intelligence to have intelligence, and mere sentient 
 existence to know the distinction between good and 
 • evil ? I am sure that when these powers appear 
 there is something not previously in the molecule. 
 All sober thinkers of the present day have admitted 
 /that there is no evidence whatever in experience or 
 in reason to show that matter can produce mind, 
 I that mechanical action can gender mental action, that 
 / chemical action can manufacture consciousness, that 
 I electric action can reason, or organic rise to the idea 
 I of the good and the holy. I argue that we must caU 
 V^n a power above the atoms to produce such phenom- 
 
 i 
 
WHAT DEVELOPMENT CANNOT DO. 135 
 
 ena. I may admit that a body may come out of other 
 bodies by the operation of the powers with which they 
 are endowed ; but I deny that a sensible, intelligent, 
 moral-discerning soul can proceed from the molecules 
 of matter. New powers have undoubtedly come in 
 when consciousness and feeling and understanding 
 and will begin to act. They may come in accord- 
 ing to laws not yet discovered, but they are the laws 
 of the Supreme Lawgiver. * 
 
 An attempt may be made to avoid the force of this 
 by a far-fetched supposition. It may be urged that/' 
 there has been a latent life in these molecules; a) 
 consciousness, an intelligence, a conscience, with be^ 
 nevolence and power of choice, which developed, 
 some in thousands and some in millions of years or 
 ages. It may be allowed that this is a thing imagi- 
 nable, but there is not the slightest proof of it. Even 
 if I discover proof of it, I would also find proof 
 of design in the way in which these latent powers 
 have come forth and acted from age to age in organ- 
 ized plants, in sentient animals, in organized man. 
 Choose your horn. If all these endowments were in 
 the primary molecules, it is clear that they must have Jr^ 
 been the creation of intelligence, and their appear- 
 ance in their seasons the arrangement of intelligence. 
 If they were not, there must have been a subsequent 
 creation, or, if any dislike the phrase, a forthputting 
 of divine power. 
 
 ^ There is evidence that there has been from time 
 to time a special action of God, at the first creation 
 and at the subsequent appearance of new powers. 
 
/ 
 
 136 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 The account of the progressive work of creation 
 in Genesis is in accordance with geology. This has 
 been shown satisfactorily by the three men on this 
 continent best entitled to speak on the scientific 
 question, — Professor Dana, of Yale, Principal Daw- 
 son, of Montreal, and Professor Guyot, of Princeton. 
 It can be shown that it is equally consistent with 
 development as revealed by recent science. I believe 
 that in the beginning, or origin, God created the 
 heavens and gave the original constituents their 
 potencies, which began to act by the command of 
 God, and there was light. But neither religion nor 
 reason requires me to believe that he gave to these 
 life, or sensation, or reason, or love. I believe that 
 when these were added, whether by law or without 
 law, it was according to the will and by the power of 
 God. There were days or epochs in the same pro- 
 cedure, and at the opening of each was a special act 
 of God. The earth was without form and void. 
 When the evolution began, there was first the 
 development of light ; then the elevation of the ex- 
 panse of heaven ; thirdly, there was the separation of 
 land and water, and the earth was ready for plants. 
 On the fourth day the sun and moon appeared as 
 distinct bodies, all in accordance with the theory of 
 Laplace. On the fifth day animals appeared, the 
 lower creatures, tannim or swarmers, then fishes and 
 fowls ; on the sixth day the higher animals, and, as the 
 crown of the whole, man. Man's creation must \\^\q 
 been a special act, and is so represented in Scripture. 
 When man appeared, there was something which was 
 
WHAT DEVELOPMENT CANNOT DO. 137 
 
 not there before, and this Godlike, after the image of 
 God. In all this, Genesis and geology are in thorough 
 accordance. There are two accounts of the creation 
 of man. One is in Chap. i. There is council and 
 decision. " Let us make man in our image." This y^ 
 applies to his soul or higher nature. The other 
 account is in Chap. ii. 7 : " And the Lord God formed 
 man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into v 
 his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a liv- 
 ing soul." This is man's organic body. We have 
 a supplement to this in Ps. cxxxix. 15, 16 : " My 
 substance \yas not hid from thee when I was made 
 in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts 
 of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, being 
 yet unperfect ; and in thy book all my members were 
 written, which in continuance were fashioned, when 
 as yet there was none of them." This passage used y 
 to be quoted by Agassiz. This is my creed as to '^ 
 man's bodily organism. I so far understand what is 
 said. Man is made of the earth. There is a curious 
 preparatory process hinted at, a process and a pro- 
 gression going on I know not how long ; and all is 
 the work of God and written in God's Book, I 
 understand this ; and yet I do not understand it. 
 Socrates said of the philosophy of Heraclitus that ^ 
 what he understood was so good that he was sure the 
 rest would also be good if he understood it. So I 
 say of this passage. I so far understand it, and get 
 glorious glimpses of a divinely ordained process ; and 
 yet I do not understand it, for it carries me into the 
 secret things which belon2 unto the Lord our God. 
 
/ 
 
 138 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 I affirm with confidence that there is not in the 
 geological or biological science any truth even ap- 
 parently inconsistent with this statement. 
 
 All my thoughts have been developed, some may 
 think, without much purpose being seen in the de- 
 velopment. As there are speculators in our day who 
 are as infallible as the Pope, and savans who claim 
 the Divine attribute of omniscience, and lecturers 
 who know all the work which God does not do from 
 the beginning unto the end, I must remind you, ere I 
 close, that development has not yet given to men all 
 knowledge. "We know in part." Yes, we know, 
 but we know in part only. We who dwell in a world 
 " where day and night alternate, " we who go every- 
 where accompanied by our own shadow — a shadow 
 produced by our dark body, but produced because 
 there is light — cannot expect to be absolutely 
 delivered from the darkness. Man's faculties, ex- 
 quisitely adapted to the sphere in which he moves, 
 were never intended to enable him to comprehend 
 all truth. The mind is in this respect like the eye. 
 The eye is so constituted as to perceive the things 
 within a certain range ; but as objects are removed 
 farther and farther from us they become more indis- 
 tinct, and at length are lost sight of altogether. It 
 is the same with the human mind. It can understand 
 certain subjects and to a certain distance; but as 
 they reach away further they look more and more 
 confused, and at length they disappear from the view. 
 And if the human spirit attempts to mount higher 
 
DEVELOPMENT: ITS NATURE. 139 
 
 than its proper elevation, it will find all its flight 
 fruitless. The dove, to use an illustration of Kant's, 
 may mount to a certain elevation in the heavens ; "j/^ 
 but as she rises the air becomes lighter, and at length 
 she finds that she can no longer float upon its bosom, 
 and should she attempt to soar higher her pinions 
 flutter in emptiness and she falters and falls. So it 
 is with the spirit of man. It can wing its way to a 
 certain distance into the expanse above it ; but there 
 is a limit which, if it endeavors to pass, it will find 
 all its conceptions void and its ratiocinations uncon- 
 nected. 
 
 Placed as we are in the centre of boundless space, 
 and in the middle of eternal ages, we can see only a 
 few objects immediately around us, and all others 
 fade in outline as they are removed from us by dis- 
 tance, till at length they be altogether beyond our 
 vision. And this remark holds true not only of the 
 more ignorant, of those whose eye can penetrate the 
 least distance ; it is true also of the learned ; it is, 
 perhaps, true of all created beings, that there is a 
 bounding sphere of darkness surrounding the space 
 rendered clear by the torch of science. Nay, it almost 
 looks as if the wider the boundaries of science are 
 pushed and the greater the space illuminated by it, 
 the greater in proportion the bounding sphere into 
 which no rays penetrate, just as (to use a very old 
 comparison), when we strike up a light in the midst 
 of darkness, in proportion as the light becomes 
 stronger so does also that surface become black and 
 dark which is rendered visible. 
 
VL 
 
 A CALM VIEW OF THE TEMPER- 
 ANCE QUESTION. 
 
 By CHANCELLOR HOWARD CROSBY, D.D., LL.D. 
 
VI. 
 
 A CALM VIEW OF THE TEMPER- 
 ANCE QUESTION. 
 
 By chancellor HOWARD CROSBY, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 'T^HE object of temperance societies is to prevent 
 -*- drunkenness. The cardinal principle in these 
 societies is total abstinence from all that can intoxi- 
 cate. That total abstinence, if adopted by all, will 
 prevent drunkenness, no one will dispute. The object 
 of temperance societies would be gained. 
 
 But two questions arise, after contemplating these 
 propositions : first, will this plan of total abstinence 
 be adopted ? and, secondly, ought it to be adopted ? 
 The first question is prudential ; the second is moral 
 
 1. The Prudential Question. — Will the plan of 
 total abstinence from all that intoxicates be received 
 by men in general ? We desire to use in all measures 
 of reform a plan that is practicable. We cannot be 
 satisfied with mere testimony to a theory that will 
 be unproductive of results. Herein reform differs 
 from religion. Eeligion demands adhesion to a truth 
 stamped by the conscience, even though that truth 
 find no other adherent. But reform lies in the do- 
 
144 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 main of the expedient. It seeks to make society 
 better, and if it cannot raise society to the highest 
 level, it will raise it as high, as it can. It will not 
 prefer to let society wallow, because it cannot place 
 it in an ideal Utopia. The most religious and con- 
 scientious man will be glad to see men leave off 
 strife and discord, even if they do not act from the 
 highest motives, or attain to the heights of a genuine 
 charity. His conscience will not be iujured by their 
 improved condition, however much he would like to 
 see them still more enlightened. It is an important 
 point to make clear to the mind this distinction 
 between the conduct of reform and the movement of 
 personal religion, for confusion here has led to much 
 false action. A common argument of the radical 
 agitator is, that his conscience cannot stop short of 
 total abstinence in the temperance question, and on 
 that ground he will not have any afhhation with one 
 who seeks to subdue the intemperance of the land 
 by any other method. But his argument is a com- 
 plete non sequitur. His conscience concerns his own 
 personal habits. In the matter of other people's habits 
 he is simply to do the best the circumstances allow. 
 The conscience that prescribes his personal habits 
 may make him long to see others like him, and may 
 make him work to that end, but it cannot rebuke 
 him if that end is not attained, but only an approxi- 
 mation is gained ; nay, it should make him work for 
 the approximation with all zeal. 
 
 Too often that which is called conscience is mere 
 ^^ obstinacy of opinion and personal pride. A large 
 
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. 145 
 
 part of the fanaticism that history records has 
 been made in this way. Men have gone to the stake 
 as martyrs, or sufferers for conscience' sake, when the 
 heresy they professed never went deeper than their 
 sentiment, and might readily have been altered by 
 a free judgment. While this fact does not justify 
 their persecutors, or palliate their guilt, yet it cer- 
 tainly detracts from the merit of the martyrdom. 
 In this matter of arresting the progress of drunken- 
 ness we may have very different views of the means 
 to be used, and we may conscientiously adhere to 
 our own plan of working toward the end, but we 
 connot conscientiomli/ object to the means employed 
 by others unless they contain an immorality. Nay, 
 more, we micst conscientiously wish them success. 
 
 If this principle of sympathy and co-operation on 
 the part of all who seek the abatement of intemper- 
 ance were once established, we should see effects that 
 are now thwarted by the divisions and mutual hos- 
 tility of those who profess to have the same end in 
 view. One of the reasons for this confirmed hostility 
 of the total abstinence advocates against the reform- 
 ers who do not adopt that principle is found in the 
 power of a false usage. I refer to the word " temper- 
 ance." 
 
 The word has been violently wrested from its 
 legitimate meaning. By a persistent use of a moder- 
 ate word for radical measures, the great unthinking 
 public, so far as they are seekers for the common 
 good, have been led to see in these radical measures 
 the only path of duty. They have learned to con- 
 
 10 
 
146 CHKIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 sider all that was opposed to the party called by the 
 name of Temperance as inimical to temperance, and 
 so have enormously swelled the radical ranks by 
 their unenlightened adhesion. The label has been 
 affixed to the wrong goods, and the unsuspecting 
 purchaser has not noticed the fact. So potent has 
 been this deception, that I undertake to say that 
 there are thousands of worthy citizens who have no 
 other idea of the word "temperance" than that 
 it means the total abstinence from all that can in- 
 toxicate. With such we have to begin with first 
 principles. We have to show them that the Latin 
 temperantia signifies the moral quality of moderation 
 or discreetness, and that the English word " temper- 
 ance," as used in all good standard English works, 
 means precisely the same thing. We have to show 
 them that the temperate zone does not mean a zone 
 which totally abstains from cold or heat, but a 
 zone that is moderate in both; that a temperate 
 behavior is not a behavior that totally abstains from 
 severity, but one that is steady and reasonable in its 
 course, as Cicero says (Fam. 12. 27) : " Est autem ita 
 temperatis moderatisque moribus ut summa severitas 
 summa cum humanitate jungatur." And while quot- 
 ing Cicero, I may quote his definitions of temperance 
 as given in his De Einibus, first, " Temperantia est 
 moderatio cupiditatum rationi obediens " (2. 19. 60) ; 
 and, secondly, " Temperantia est quae, in rebus aut 
 expetendis aut fugiendis, rationem ut sequamur 
 monet" (1. 14 47). Now, what a fearful prostitution 
 of a noble word is seen in the popular use of the 
 
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. 147 
 
 word " temperance " to-day ! And this prostitution 
 is a work wrought within the last fifty years. From 
 its high position, as signifying a grand moral subjec- 
 tion of the whole man to the sway of reason, it is 
 degraded to the maimed and mutilated function 
 of representing a legalism that prohibits man from 
 any drink that can intoxicate. To what base uses 
 has it come at last ! This false use of a word has had 
 special influence upon that portion of the unthinking 
 public who rightly reverence the Scriptures. They 
 see that temperance is put in the list of Christian 
 virtues, and as temperance now means total absti- 
 nence, what can they do, as loyal believers in the 
 Scriptures, but sign the pledge ; and, furthermore, 
 count all who do not as aliens from God's truth? 
 They are as honest and as enlightened as the good 
 Presbyterian woman, who only needed to see the 
 words "general assembly" in the Bible to know 
 she was right and everybody else wrong. 
 
 Now the use of a false argument always reacts 
 against the user, and, while the ignorant and semi- 
 ignorant multitude will be deceived, the thinking 
 classes of society will shun a cause that rests on mis- 
 representation. The word "temperance," as seized 
 and appropriated by radical and intemperate souls, is 
 a false flag, and, as a false flag, will disgust and alien- 
 ate true and enlightened souls. Especially will this 
 be the case when it is found to be only one of many 
 false lights held out to attract th^ masses. Another 
 of these deceptions (of course I do not say these are 
 wilful deceptions by all that use them, I am only 
 
148 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 speaking of their absolute character), — another of 
 these deceptions is the circulated theory of an unfer- 
 mented, unintoxicating-wine. There is not a chemist 
 nor a classical scholar in tlie world who would dare 
 risk his reputation on the assertion that there was 
 ever an unfermented wine in common use, knowing 
 well that must preserved from fermentation is called 
 wine only by a kind of courtesy (as the lump of 
 unbaked dough might be called " bread "), and that 
 this could in the nature of things never be a common 
 drink. Cato (De Ee Eustica, 120) shows how by 
 a very careful method must could be kept for a whole 
 year, and other Eoman writers show the same ; but 
 who can pretend that these writers ever looked upon 
 such preserved juice as wine, when their whole object 
 is to show how it can be kept from becoming wine ? 
 Yet with no other foundation tlian this, the leaders 
 of the total abstinence cause have published their 
 bull, affirming that the good wines of antiquity 
 were unfermented, in utter defiance of chemaistry, 
 history, and common sense. Because the grape juice 
 could, by means of hermetically sealed vessels un- 
 der water, be kept grape juice, therefore the com- 
 mon wines of antiquity, the wine of which writers 
 speak when they use no qualifying phrase, must 
 have been unfermented. This is the logic used 
 by these infatuated defenders of the total abstinence 
 principle. 
 
 A third deception in this cause is the twisting of 
 Scripture to its advocacy. No unbiased reader can 
 for a moment doubt that wine as referred to in the 
 
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. 149 
 
 Bible passim is an intoxicating drink, and that 
 such wine was drunk by our Saviour and the early 
 Christians. To meet this fatal blow to the total ab- 
 stinence system in the minds of those who take the 
 Bible as their guide, the advocates of the cause have 
 invented a theory that is magnificent in its daring. 
 It is no less than the division of the word " wine " by 
 a Solomonian sword, so that the good and the bad 
 shall each have a piece of it. Whenever wine is 
 spoken of severely in Scripture, then it is fermented 
 wine, and whenever it is spoken of in praise, or used 
 by our Lord and his apostles, then it is unfermented 
 wine. And, if you ask these sages wdiy they so 
 divide the wine, — on what grounds they base this 
 theory, — they bravely answer that our Saviour 
 could not have drunk intoxicating w^ine, and God's 
 word never could have praised such, and, therefore, 
 their theory. They start with the begging of the 
 whole question, and then on this thin air they build 
 their castle. 
 
 It is not now my purpose to argue with these 
 strange logicians. I only wish to put this Scripture- 
 twisting in the list of deceptive methods used by the 
 representative total abstinence reformers to promote 
 their cause. I could add in this item the false use 
 of texts and the suppression of parts of texts, but I 
 leave the matter here. 
 
 The three elements of deception entering into their 
 cause is, as we have seen, the use of the word " tem- 
 perance" for a totally different thing, the fable about 
 unfermented wine, and the violent wrestinfr of the 
 
150 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 Scriptures. Now I unhesitatingly affirm that a cause 
 having such falsehoods as its main supj)orts can never 
 be accepted by the public. Simple-minded people 
 may be gained to it, but the thinking people will be 
 repelled. It is true that some may adhere to it, in 
 spite of its falsehood, for other reasons ; but the three 
 great untruths that are flaunted on its banners will 
 disgust most men who have brains and use them. 
 
 A second reason why I believe the plan of total 
 abstinence will not be adopted by the people is its 
 unmanliness. To stop the use of anything because 
 of its abuse is an expedient for the weak and dis- 
 eased, an exceptional plan for exceptional cases ; but 
 to assert this principle among men in general would 
 be to degrade the race and remove all the incentives 
 and helps to moral growth. We know in the family 
 how mistaken a method it is to remove everything 
 the child should not play with out of its reach. The 
 wise parent leaves the article in its accustomed place, 
 and teaches the child its rightful use. 
 
 The other plan only makes the child more and 
 more dependent on external checks, and prevents the 
 growth of self-control. The same reasoning holds 
 good in the human family at large. We are to de- 
 velop self-control as much as possible. A true civili- 
 zation always seeks to do this. A barbarous state 
 of society requires man to hide everything valuable 
 in places unknown to others, and to go personally 
 armed to secure himself against attack. But a civil- 
 ized condition reveals a very different state of things. 
 Men live in houses full of valuables, and walk the 
 
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. 151 
 
 streets unarmed and in security. Dependence is 
 placed upon the common self-control, and it is ac- 
 knowledged to be a far higher and more successful 
 principle for the conduct of human life. Of course 
 there is a limit to this practical trusting of mankind, 
 and much wisdom is needed to mark this limit cor- 
 rectly in any given instance. But the general truth 
 is evident, that true civilization is in the direction of 
 personal self-control, and not in that of governmental 
 prohibition. We expect law to prohibit crime ; but 
 we look to law only to regulate matters that do not 
 involve crime, but contain risk under certain condi- 
 tions. Now the selling or drinking of wine is cer- 
 tainly not a crime, and any legislation which prohibits 
 it is open to the charge of putting it in a wrong cate- 
 gory, and abusing the popular conscience. A pro- 
 hibition for certain times or places may be defended 
 without subjecting the act to this false imputation ; 
 but a total prohibition, the cardinal doctrine of the 
 total abstinence people, at once brands wine-drinking 
 with theft and violence. Things that are not vicious 
 in themselves, but which may be readily abused to 
 vicious ends, certainly need legislative regulation, and 
 such regulation is a help to self-control, where pro- 
 hibition would be a hindrance. Eegulation is a hint 
 to put the people on their guard, but prohibition is 
 completely taking away the subject from the people's 
 notice. Now the public mind revolts at being treated 
 in this childlike way. It virtually says : " Give us 
 certain wise rules about this thing, but for the sake 
 of respectable and dignified humanity do not sweep 
 
152 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 it away from the earth." Eemember that we are not 
 arguing now on the merits of the total abstinence 
 theory, but only on its feasibility. We do not say 
 that it is a wrong principle. We only say that peo- 
 ple will not adopt it, and we are showing the reasons 
 why they will not. The community will not un- 
 reasonably (as they think) be put into leading-strings 
 and kept in a permanent nursery, and that too by 
 men who use manifest falsehoods as prominent argu- 
 ments for their position. There is such a thing as 
 the public conscience, and people will draw lines of 
 distinction between things criminal and things in- 
 different. They will naturally, therefore, resist any 
 movement that tends to obliterate these distinctions, 
 and judge of it as the action of a tyrannic opinion 
 and not of an ethical truth. They feel that their 
 manhood is assailed, and if this assault is allowed in 
 this form they may be exposed to other assaults in 
 still more odious forms. Of course, it is easy for the 
 radical reformers to say that this opposition is inter- 
 ested, and is only the struggle of evil against those 
 that would fetter it ; but there are too many good, 
 conscientious, and thoughtful men who feel all this 
 that I have said, for this allegation to be maintained. 
 We cannot consent to go back to mediaeval nonage, 
 and have our day's allowance doled out to us by a 
 few who arrogate to themselves the paternal manage- 
 ment of the world. We cannot permit the system of 
 sumptuary laws to take the place of an enlightened 
 common sense. We cannot forego our reason on the 
 plea that the world is in danger. Nay, we must all 
 
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. 153 
 
 the more assert our reason against a false expediency 
 that in curing, or attempting to cure, one evil, would 
 create a hundred. The fact that there is a great 
 danger is the veiy fact that should guard us from 
 pursuing any false way. Great dangers must be met 
 by great prudence, not by lieadlong impulse. It 
 looks brave to shout and fall pdl mell upon the 
 enemy, but it is wiser to set our batteries in sure 
 plapes, and to order line and reserves in the interests 
 of a permanent victory. Too many of our reforms 
 are pushed without regard to the character of the 
 means, the end being insisted on as justifying all 
 means. The temperance reform has been an eminent 
 example of this heedlessness. 
 
 And here I put the third reason why I believe tlie 
 plan of total abstinence will not be adopted by the peo- 
 ple, — because of its spirit of intimidation: Of course, 
 this is not inherent to the cause, but it has been 
 the invariable accompaniment of it during its forty 
 years' curriculum. And we now have to deal practi- 
 cally with historic facts, and not with mere abstract 
 theories. Whatever may have been the cauge, whether 
 it be the weakness of the case or the unfortunate 
 choice of leaders and defenders, the total abstinence 
 propaganda has been an overbearing and tyrannical 
 power. It has used a violence of language that can 
 admit of no excuse. It has condemned every one, 
 however faithful in all moral and religious duties, 
 who has refused to enter its ranks. It has con- 
 founded all ideas of right and wrong, calumniously 
 declaring the man who drinks wine moderately is as 
 
154 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 bad as, nay, worse than the drunkard ; asserting that 
 all drinks, whether vinous, malt, or distilled, are alike 
 poisonous ; vilifying those who teach any other doc- 
 trine by calling them traitors to the truth, — Judas 
 Iscariots betraying the Master, — and exercising 
 where it could a fearful proscription in driving good 
 men from the pulpits of the land because they would 
 not and could not conscientiously pronounce their 
 Shibboleth. The principal printed organs of this 
 propaganda have been full of these fierce onslaughts 
 upon the character of respectable men, and the harsh 
 and cruel judgments spoken of have been carried out 
 with the spirit of the Inquisition. The political world 
 has lately invented a word for this way of settling 
 a disputed question. They have called it " bulldoz- 
 ing." It "makes peace by creating a desert. It pro- 
 duces unanimity by shutting the mouths of the other 
 side. The world is apt to think that such conduct 
 indicates a cause that cannot be sustained by reason, 
 and the reaction is likely to be excessive. It is ex- 
 actly that reaction which is now making the cause 
 of rum ancl ruin more successful than ever. Men in 
 their revolt from tyranny rush into licentious ex- 
 tremes, and however honest the tyranny may have 
 been or" however true the cause it supported, it has 
 only itself to blame for the harm it does. A man 
 may put his hand on the safety-valve and exclaim, 
 " See how I have stopped the noisy escape of the 
 steam ! " and certainly everything looks calm and 
 peaceful ; but a few minutes afterward, when the steam 
 has had time to gather its strength, our hero will have 
 
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. 155 
 
 a different cry. A little success here and there by 
 the total abstinence crusade may impress many with 
 the idea that this is the true way to make men tem- 
 perate. A partial success in Maine has been pro- 
 claimed as proving the question against the painful 
 failures everywhere else ; but no careful observer will 
 either approve the specimen or take it as a proof 
 against our general position. Maine is but a small 
 part of our country, and has no great seething popula- 
 tion made up from every nation on earth. It has a 
 highly educated people, who can bear an experiment 
 in morals with something of a philosophic spirit. A 
 few strong-minded and high-minded" people can be- 
 come ascetics, but the great world cannot, and we must 
 legislate for the great world. Even Maine cannot 
 permanently keep its Maine Law. 
 
 There is a general notion in the public mind that 
 the present condition of Maine in regard to the liquor 
 question is that of a temporary repression; and, 
 whether that notion be right or wrong, it belongs to 
 that public opinion which has to be regarded in all 
 prudential planning. The general thought of the 
 community concerning this repression is that it 
 belongs to a system of intimidation, that can never 
 be a permanent institution in this land. 
 
 I have thus far considered only the prudential 
 question. The total abstinence scheme may be in 
 strict accordance with theoretical virtue. It may be 
 the grand end to which all reforming processes should 
 tend. All that we have endeavored thus far to estab- 
 lish is, that it is a plan that cannot succeed, if we are 
 
156 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 to judge it by its past history and methods, as well as 
 by its intrinsic principles, and that therefore to push 
 the plan is to defeat the great end we should all have 
 in view, — ^.the cessation of drunkenness, with its fearful 
 ruin to body, soul, and society. We have endeavored 
 to show that the public mind will not receive a sys- 
 tem whose principal agencies have been falsehoods 
 and intimidation, and whose principles they consider to 
 be at war with a proper manliness or self-respect. We 
 repeat (that no one may mistake us) that these false- 
 hoods and intimidations are not necessary parts of the 
 system, but have been its constant adjuncts in point 
 of fact, and we also repeat that our argument regard- 
 ing manliness is not (so far as we have gone) so much 
 a charge against the system, as a statement of what 
 a very large portion of respectable and virtuous 
 thinkers think of it. It is from such considerations, 
 we hold, that the plan of total abstinence as a method 
 of eradicating drunkenness and its attendant vices 
 will never be adopted by the community. One other 
 thing I desire to repeat before taking up the other 
 branch of my subject; and that is, that I make no 
 charge of purposed falsehood on any of the total absti- 
 nence leaders. Their main arguments are falsehoods 
 as I have shown, but I am quite sure that the excel- 
 lent men who are often found leading the crusade are 
 honest in their use of these false statements. They 
 take up these weapons without sufficiently examining 
 them. They see that they can be made effective, but 
 do not stop to inquire whether they are legitimate. 
 Their praiseworthy zeal outstrips their judgment and 
 
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. 157 
 
 prudence. I honor the heart and energy of very- 
 many of these men. They show a philanthropy and 
 consecration, involving often self-denial and loss, 
 which demand our admiration. They are indeed too 
 often mixed up with low, hypocritical self-seekers, 
 who make the temperance cause a mere lever to raise 
 money, but that does not detract from the sterling 
 devotion of these noble souls. And while I differ 
 from them altogether in my views, and am thorough- 
 ly convinced they are doing unmeasured harm to 
 the community by retarding practical reform and dis- 
 seminating pernicious principles, at the same time 
 I would not refrain from yielding this honest and 
 hearty tribute to their intentions, and disclaim any 
 personal reproach while criticising the system they 
 advocate. 
 
 2. The Moral Question. — The prudential question 
 being thus treated, I turn to the moral question be- 
 fore us. " Ought the plan of total abstinence to be 
 adopted ? " Is it a healthful and legitimate method 
 of doing away with drunkenness ? A man stands at 
 a great disadvantage who argues in behalf of his belief 
 that the total abstinence . system is immoral, because 
 he at once exposes himself to the assaults of slander- 
 ers who impugn his motives and deny his honesty. 
 Eadicalism has so ruthlessly mobbed down indepen- 
 dent thought by its intimidating processes, that editors 
 who have no faith in the total abstinence system still 
 uphold it in their columns, and ministers deem it 
 prudent to say nothing against a cause so popular 
 in religious circles. Men are loth to come forward 
 
158 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 and be bespattered with mud thrown in the name of 
 truth and godliness. They are loth to lose the sup- 
 port and good-will of the many whose fanaticism 
 despises argument and brooks no opposition. Hence, 
 if any one is constrained to speak, he is tempted 
 to come forward as a humble apologist and modestly 
 plead his cause with many concessions and compro- 
 mises. Surely this is not for the advantage of the 
 truth. 
 
 In this address I take no apologetic position. I 
 carry the war into Africa. I have no contest with 
 men, but with false principles. I assert that the total 
 abstinence system is false in its philosophy, contrary 
 to revealed religion, and harmful to the interests of 
 our country. I charge upon this system the growth 
 of drunkenness in our land and a general demoral- 
 ization among religious communities. And I call 
 upon sound-minded, thinking men to stop the enor- 
 mities of this false system by uniting in reasonable 
 and wholesome measures for the suppression of drunk- 
 enness, for the lack of which this false system has all 
 its present success. Between fanaticism on one hand 
 and licentiousness on the other, there ought to be a 
 large mass of solid folk, whose union and efficiency 
 would moderate and reduce, if not destroy, both ex- 
 tremes. 
 
 1. The first moral error of the total abstinence 
 system is in turning a medicinal prescription into a 
 bill of fare for all mankind. That a drunkard should 
 carefully avoid every form of alcoholic drink nobody 
 can deny. He is a diseased man, and his restoration 
 
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. 159 
 
 depends on this restriction. Now by what logic does 
 this man's duty become mine ? Because I have 
 admitted total abstinence as a correct principle in his 
 case, am I bound to admit it as a correct principle 
 for all ? Are the sick to be the norm of the well ? 
 Is the matter of diet to be regulated by the needs of 
 the drunkard ? Why not, then, by the needs of the 
 dyspeptic ? Ah ! but (say they) it is to save you from 
 lecoming a drunkard. Well, is the logic any way im- 
 proved by this explanation ? You would put me on 
 a sick regimen to keep me from becoming sick ! Be- 
 cause total abstinence is absolutely necessary to a 
 drunkard's recovery, you would make it necessary 
 to one who is not a drunkard. Do you not see that, 
 if you are going to prove your latter proposition, you 
 must have another premise than your former one? 
 The two are wholly unconnected. It is an offence 
 to the moral sense of the community to spread over it 
 the restriction of the drunkard, as it would be to im- 
 prison all the community with the imprisonment 
 of the thief, lest by liberty they should all fall to 
 thieving. 
 
 2. A second moral error of the total abstinence 
 theory is its assumption that moderate drinking leads 
 to drunkenness. The millions upon millions of our 
 race who have been accustomed to drink wine, and 
 who never knew drunkenness, stand up against this 
 atrocious dogma. And yet this dogma has actually 
 become an axiom with the total abstinence reformers, 
 and they would disdain to argue it. They are so de- 
 termined to have it true that they have performed the 
 
160 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 paradoxical operation of putting the moderate drinker 
 in the place of the drunkard as the criminal to be 
 punished with scorn and contumely. This strange 
 mixing of things reminds me of the calling good evil 
 and evil good, which a high authority makes a mark 
 of very deep depravity. You will find that the prin- 
 cipal shafts of the total abstinence literature are 
 directed, not at the drunkard, but at the moderate 
 drinker. The drunkard is pitied and coddled, while 
 the moderate drinker is scourged. Now, this sort of 
 moral jugglery is not beneficial to the community. 
 It distorts and perverts judgment, and involves moral 
 distinctions in chaotic confusion. It overthrows the 
 ordinary reason that is so useful in all the relations 
 of life, and leads men to clannish obedience to some 
 ruling mind. It is the old trick of the Jesuits, to 
 weary the mind in mazes, so that it may, in sheer fa- 
 tigue, seek to be guided by them. 
 
 3. A third moral error of the total abstinence the- 
 ory is its want of discrimination between things that 
 differ. Everything that has alcohol in it must be 
 tabooed. As if all the drinks that had alcohol in 
 them were of the same effect when drunk. Brandy 
 and hock wine and lager beer are all alike the devil's 
 poison, and must be banished from the lips of all true 
 men. This assault upon common knowledge is a 
 blunder that has the proportions of a crime. To say 
 that certain drinks that are wholesome and beneficial 
 are the same as certain drinks that are pernicious and 
 destructive, is a moral outrage which the whole com- 
 munity should indignantly repel Beers and un- 
 
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. 161 
 
 brandied wines are promoters of health and strength 
 when used judiciously, especially by those who have 
 not robust health. They are tonic, anti-scorbutic, 
 and gently stimulating to the digestion. As Dr. 
 Parkes, who is a strong opposer of the use of distilled 
 liquors, says : " For the large class of people who live 
 on the confines of health, whose digestion is feeble, 
 circulation languid, and nervous system too excit- 
 able," mild w4nes and malt liquors are beneficial. 
 The fact is, that (as another writer well says) outside 
 of the sick-room the distilled liquors are compara- 
 tively noxious, the fermented comparatively harmless. 
 "What we desire to emphasize is, that the two classes 
 of drinks are altogether different in their character 
 and effect, and that a theory which destroys that dif- 
 ference has therein a moral stain. , 
 
 4. A fourth moral error of the total abstinence sys- 
 tem is its assertion that all drinks that contain alcohol 
 are poison ; that the presence of alcohol thus justifies 
 the confounding of different sorts of drink just referred 
 to. Dr. Anstie has clearly shown that alcohol in small 
 quantities is not a poison but a true food, and that it 
 is a stimulant to the system in precisely the same 
 sense as that in which food is a stimulant. He has 
 shown that there is an essential difference between the 
 effects of large and small quantities of alcohol, a dif- 
 erence of kiml and not of degree. The effect of the 
 small quantity, he says, is often beneficial ; the effect of 
 the large or narcotic quantity is injurious. Dr. Binz 
 defines /ooc? as both building up the tissues and sup- 
 plying the warmth and vital force necessary for the 
 
 11 
 
162 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 body's functions ; and he shows that, while small quan- 
 tities of alcohol have not the former quality, they have 
 the latter, and he further shows that alcohol in mod- 
 erate quantities is entirely assimilated in the human 
 system. In the light wines and beers, where alcohol 
 forms only from three to ten per cent of its liquid, 
 we have the alcohol in the form best adapted for this 
 beneficial effect, while in brandies, rums, gins, whiskeys, 
 and all distilled liquors the alcohol is in dangerous 
 proportions for a beverage. To say that everything 
 containing alcohol is a poison, is therefore a false 
 assertion, as false as to say that fruit is poisonous 
 because prussic acid, which is a deadly poison, is 
 found in it. Nature has in her alembic turned a 
 powerful and dangerous element into a beneficial 
 minister to human wants, and all nations have recog- 
 nized this vital difference between a moderate and an 
 excessive use of stimulants, and have testified to 
 the wisdom of using Nature's provision without abus- 
 ing it. 
 
 5. A fifth moral error of the total abstinence sys- 
 tem is its dependence upon a contract rather than on 
 a moral sense. Instead of regulating a man from 
 within, it would apply a strait-jacket. Instead of 
 allowing a free play of the man's individuality, and 
 then endeavoring to instruct and educate the man's 
 reason, it would in a moment of the man's emergency 
 tie up his conscience with a pledge, which, when the 
 emergency is past, he will bear irksomely and en- 
 deavor to nullify or evade. This is a most pernicious 
 instrument for debauching the conscience. In the 
 
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. 163 
 
 first place, it manufactures a new sin, always a dan- 
 gerous experiment, bringing about a reaction which 
 sweeps the soul into real sin from its experience in 
 committing the constructed sin; and, secondly, it 
 gives a ready excuse to the conscience against any 
 moral argument for temperance by covering it with 
 a suspicion of conventionality. The pledge is always 
 an injury and never a help to a true morality. It is a 
 substitute for principle. It is a sign, not of weakness 
 (for we are all of us weak enough), but of readiness to 
 reform. The true reform would demand a change of 
 the underlying principles of life. That the pledge- 
 taker refuses to make. Instead of that he reforms 
 the surface. Instead of turning the stream into a 
 new channel, he contents himself with throwing up 
 earthen dykes to prevent an overflow. You can get 
 thousands to sign the pledge where you can get one to 
 reform. Of course the pledge is not kept, except in 
 the cases where it was not needed, where the reform 
 took the place of the pledge, where the man would 
 have reformed without any pledge. Surely such, a 
 wholesale defiling of promises is a profane dealing with 
 sacred things, and marks a very corrupt system. Man's 
 moral nature is not to be curbed by pledges. His 
 outward conduct may be restrained by imposed law, 
 but so far forth as that conduct has a moral element 
 in it, no action of the man himself can effect it except 
 a moral reformation. Government, by its threatened 
 punishment, may stop a man's drinking so long as he 
 thinks himself in danger of punishment, but a pledge 
 that has no punishment for its breaking will command 
 
164 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 no obedience, while the moral convictions remain 
 unchanged. It is only an invitation to further sin. 
 
 6. The sixth and last moral error of the total ab- 
 stinence system to which I shall refer is one which I 
 bring forward not as a philosopher nor a moralist, but 
 as a Christian who believes in the divine authority 
 of the Holy Scriptures. This error I liave already 
 adverted to in my prudential argument, and therefore 
 need not enlarge upon here. It is impossible to con- 
 demn all drinking of wine as either sinful or improper, 
 without bringing reproach upon the Lord Jesus Christ 
 and his apostles. There has been an immense amount 
 of wriggling by Christian writers on this subject to get 
 away from this alternative ; but there it stands impreg- 
 nable. Jesus did use wine. I will not waste my time 
 in proving this proposition, and answering those wild 
 hashibazouks of controversy, who assert with childlike 
 confidence and simplicity that the Bible wines were 
 unfermented grape-juice. Their learned ignorance is 
 fairly splendid with boldness. They disarm criticism 
 by their overwhelming dash. Such little questions as 
 why the epithet wine-hihher should have been oppro- 
 brious, why deacons should not be given to much 
 wine, why the Corinthian communicants should be- 
 come drunken, why the Apostles at Pentecost should 
 have been accused of wine-drinking as the cause of 
 their strange utterances, — all such trifling questions 
 they utterly disdain to notice in the magnificent sweep 
 of their assertion. It is a small thing, too, with them, 
 that the Apostles never hint at two kinds of wine, a 
 good unfermented wine and a bad fermented one, 
 
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. 165 
 
 when it would have been so easy and natural for our 
 Lord or for Paul to say, " Drink only the unfermented 
 wine." Instead of that, they lead us into great danger 
 by their unguarded remarks about wine as if there 
 were but one sort ; nay, worse than that, Paul even 
 tells the deacons not to drink too much wine. Did 
 Paul mean the fermented wine ? Then he allowed 
 the deacons to use it as a beverage. Did he mean 
 unfermented wine? Then why did he limit the 
 amount ? This dilemma and all the other arguments 
 from the Scripture are as mere cobwebs to the lances 
 of these valiant knights, who are too free and fiery to 
 be checked by reason or overcome by a syllogism. To 
 a foot-pilgrim like myself, however, these Scriptures 
 are convincing and end the controversy, and therefore 
 I have to charge the total abstinence propaganda with 
 wresting the Scriptures and despising their authority. 
 I know that there is a wing of their army which 
 acknowledges all that I have said of Scripture record, 
 and which holds that times are so changed that the 
 Scripture examples and precepts are now obsolete, 
 that they were made for an Oriental people eighteen 
 centuries ago, and are wholly inapplicable in the great 
 Occident in this nineteenth century. But this wing 
 of the host is a very weak wing, and is often very 
 thoroughly snubbed by the loud leaders who count 
 their position a giving up of the contest, as indeed it 
 is. For who will believe that Christ and his Apostles, 
 on great moral questions and matters of moral conduct, 
 gave example and precept that would not last ? The 
 argument runs this way : Christ and his Apostles said 
 
166 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 that we may drink wine, but that was a local and tem- 
 porary matter. Now, under new circumstances, we 
 must not. Christ and his Apostles said that Chris- 
 tians must not be mixed with the ungodly world, but 
 that was local and temporary, when idolatry was 
 rife. Now, under new circumstances. Christians and 
 the ungodly world may so intermingle that you can't 
 tell one from the other. The Apostle of Christ said 
 that women must keep silence in the churches, but 
 that was local and temporary, when women were not 
 much more than slaves. Now, under new circum- 
 stances, women may mount platform and pulpit as 
 exhorters and preachers, for, verily, under the gospel 
 there is no difference between male and female ! I 
 said, Who will believe all this ? Alas ! there are many 
 who do. And I charge them with undermining the 
 authority of the Word of God. If moral questions 
 that are not in the Scripture are to be thus treated, 
 who is to draw the line where you are to stop ? why 
 may not the Christian merchant say of the New Testa- 
 ment command, " Lie not one to another," this is local 
 and temporary, when trade was sluggish and men's 
 minds were dull? Now, under new circumstances, 
 when emulation needs every help and Wall Street 
 sharpens men's wits, you must lie or go under. This 
 departure from the Bible sentiment and example on 
 moral conduct in us who believe in the Bible is a very 
 dangerous thing. Of course, for the Buddhists, who 
 have lately become fashionable in our country, it is of 
 no consequence. And to them this division of my 
 argument is not addressed. 
 
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. 167 
 
 I have now endeavored, in a very brief way, to 
 point out the reasons why the total abstinence system 
 as a cure for intemperance will not and ought not to be 
 adopted. Of course, I am, therefore, bound to pro- 
 pose a system that ought to be adopted. I do not 
 dodge the issue. No man is more keenly alive to the 
 frightful ravages of drunkenness than I am, and it 
 is because the prevailing system of a total abstinence 
 crusade is hindering the cure of the evil by keeping 
 just methods from the field and by disgusting men's 
 minds with the very name of temperance, so cruelly 
 bemired, that I denounce it, and ask good men to 
 rally around a truer and purer standard. 
 
 The right system must be one that recognizes prac- 
 tically the difference between excess and moderation, 
 and the difference between injurious and harmless 
 drinks, and will thus appeal to the common sense of 
 reasonable and thinking men. It must be a system 
 that deals honestly with history, science, and Scrip- 
 ture, and does not invent theories and then support 
 them by garbled quotations and imaginary facts. It 
 must be a manly system, that has no cant or foolery 
 of orders and ribbons, degrading a matter of high prin- 
 ciple to the hocus pocus of a child's play. Such a sys- 
 tem would be found in the exclusion of distilled liquor 
 from common use as beverage both by public opinion 
 and by law, and the wise regulation in society and in 
 the State of the use of vinous and malt liquors. Soci- 
 ety should put away all the drinking usages that lead 
 to excess, such as furnishing many wines at an enter- 
 tainment, or " treating " others, or putting brandied 
 
168 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 wines upon the table ; and the State should limit the 
 number of licensed sellers to at most the proportion 
 of one to a thousand inhabitants of each town, and 
 these sellers should be under heavy bonds not to sell 
 to minors or drunkards, and not to allow disreputable 
 characters to gather at their places. The law should 
 likewise make the collection of evidence aoainst a 
 licensed seller easy, and the penalty of breaking the 
 law should be imprisonment as well as fine. On a 
 basis like this, that does not sweepingly condemn 
 every drink that has alcohol in it, the great majority 
 of the people could work accordantly, and therefore 
 effectively. The wild radicalism of the teetotalers 
 is just what the rum-sellers and their advocates 
 enjoy. They know that this absurd extravagance 
 disintegrates the army of order and renders it power- 
 less ; that so long as temperance is made to mean 
 " total abstinence from everything that can intoxicate," 
 the great multitude of order-loving men will shrink 
 from joining any temperance movement, and hence 
 these wholesale destroyers of the race can go on in 
 their nefarious work with impunity. Now, what is 
 needed is the union of all good men who desire to 
 stop the fearful drunkenness of the land, with its 
 attendant crimes and misery. That union never can 
 be effected on the principles of the total abstinence 
 propaganda. But it can be effected on the principles 
 of truth and common sense, and they who prevent 
 this union by their tenacious adherence to a false and 
 fanatical system are responsible before God and man 
 for the spreading curse. 
 
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. 169 
 
 There is no more important question before the 
 American people to-day than this, " How shall we 
 stay this surging tide of intemperance ? " And it is to 
 be answered on one side by the practical voice of 
 society, and on the other by the edicts of our legisla- 
 tures. We should act with an even mind on so grave 
 a subject, and see to it that every step we take is 
 solidly founded on right reason. We should urge 
 before our legislatures plans that are free from the 
 taint of crude prejudice and instinct with practical 
 wisdom ; and when we do this, we shall be surprised 
 to see how many, whom we took to be enemies, there 
 are who are ready to join us in the work and estab- 
 lish foundations of order and peace in the land, that 
 shall save us from a moral slough. 
 
 Let rpe, in conclusion, distinctly say that I do not 
 oppose the principle of total abstinence from all that 
 intoxicates for tlu, individual. Every man is at 
 liberty to abstain, if he will, and it is his duty to 
 abstain if his own conscience command it. That 
 against which I contend, and which T hold up as the 
 hindrance to true reform and the promoter of the 
 drunkard's cause, is the total abstinence crusade or 
 propaganda, the forcing total abstinence upon the 
 community as the duty of all, the putting imder the 
 ban every one who does not follow that standard 
 the insisting upon total abstinence as the only safety 
 against drunkenness. It is this headlong movement 
 whicl) virtually cries, " The Koran or the sword ! " and 
 tramples alike on reason and Scripture in its blind 
 rush, — it is this, and not private total abstinence. 
 
 •/ 
 
170 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 against which I inveigh. And let me also repeat 
 that I am attacking a system, and not persons. I 
 have no war with men, but with error. I can honor 
 the men who uphold a pernicious system, for I can 
 believe in their purity of motive and singleness of 
 aim. And for this reason I the more earnestly and 
 hopefully urge them to consider their ways, and aban- 
 don a course which is only confirming ^the dreadful 
 curse we all abhor and desire to remove. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 As some replies to the above lecture have been 
 made by Mr. Wendell Phillips and others, whose 
 rhetoric is superior to their logic, it may be well for 
 me to add a few words to those who might mistake 
 assertion for argument and epithet for proof. 
 
 1. That I am behind the age I freely confess, but 
 I am more than the "fifty years behind" which these 
 gentlemen affirm. I am eighteen hundred years 
 behind. I am with Christ and his Apostles against 
 an age that makes light of the inspired Word and 
 prefers man's methods to God's. 
 
 2. All the eloquence expended on my opposition 
 to total abstinence is hrutum fulmen, as my whole 
 argument was against the total abstinence system, and 
 not against total abstinence. The system I defined 
 at the beginning as demanding total abstinence from 
 all liquors that may intoxicate, on the part of every- 
 
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. 171 
 
 body, as a moral duty. It is this giving law to the 
 world on the subject that I denounce. 
 
 3. A picture of the terrible ravages of drunkenness 
 is no answer to one who objects to a false mode of 
 meeting the evil. The false mode will only make 
 those ravages the greater. It is a favorite method 
 with Mr. Phillips and the stereotyped "temperance 
 lecturer," to attack the opponents of the total absti- 
 nence system with harrowing pictures of the distress 
 and misery caused by drunkenness, thus assuming 
 that their system is the right one. Suppose a fanatic 
 tells me that Boston ought to be destroyed because 
 of the abominable vice in it, and I should in reply 
 suggest that there might be a better way of meeting 
 the emergency, what would you think of his counter 
 reply by exclaiming at the fearfulness of these sins 
 committed in Boston? The teetotal fanatics coolly 
 assume that we who oppose their wild theories are 
 either unaware of the terrible evils of drunkenness or 
 else wilful abettors of the depi-aved classes. 
 
 4. The two-wine theory regarding the Scriptures, 
 silly as it is, cannot help the teetotalers, for the wine 
 drunk at the Lord's Supper by the Corinthians intoxi- 
 cated them, and yet the Apostle never thinks of telling 
 them that they took the wrong kind of wine. So the 
 command to the deacons and others not to be given 
 to much wine shows that the Apostles had fermented 
 wine in view. 
 
 5. The oft-quoted text, " If meat make my brother 
 to offend, &c.," only shows that a man must judge for 
 'himself as to the use of his privileges. The Apostle 
 
172 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 Paul, on this very matter of meat, told the Corin- 
 thians to eat what was set before them and ask no 
 questions, but if a special case occurred to refuse to eat 
 it. It was on special occasions they were to abstain, 
 not perpetually ; and, accordingly, who supposes that 
 Paul gave up eating meat for the rest of his life ? 
 Now apply the Apostle's precept and example to the 
 other matter of wine. " On special occasions, of which 
 each man is the only judge, we are to abstain. That 
 is the whole of this abused argument of expediency. 
 The teetotalers turn expediency into law. 
 ' 6. The man who drinks brandy, and quotes another 
 that drinks wine as his example, is as wilful a liar as 
 the man who smokes opium, and quotes the man that 
 smokes tobacco as his example. The drunkard who 
 quotes a man that drinks wine in moderation as his 
 example is as wilful a liar as the thief who steals a 
 diamond pin to wear, and quotes Mr. Phillips wearing 
 a diamond pin as his example. The " example " idea 
 is a mere ruse that he holds up to deceive silly folk. 
 He himself sees no example in it. 
 
 7. The comparison of moderate drinking with 
 slavery as equally upheld by the New Testament, 
 and yet now to be abolished, is altogether lame. 
 Our Lord drank and made wine. Did he buy, sell, 
 or own a slave ? 
 
 8. So all classification of drinking wine with 
 crimes, and tlierefore the demand of a like treat- 
 ment for both (see Mr. Phillips's pretty passage on 
 " gambling hells " and '' flash literature "), are the 
 errors of a juvenile reasoning. 
 
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. 173 
 
 9. The improvement in the social customs with 
 regard to drinking, the result of prayer and labor on 
 the part of all good men, is pleasantly appropriated 
 by the teetotalers as their work. I like that. It is 
 bold. 
 
 10. An honest, upright, manly course, in which we 
 call things by their right names, and make no sweeping 
 assertions that confound good and evil, is the course 
 that effects most for the truth in life and conduct. 
 Then the conscience and the regard of the men we 
 desire to turn from immoral ways will be touched, for 
 they immediately see that we act not from passion," 
 but from reason. The fanatical system only antago- 
 nizes the class we wish to convert. I am sure Mr. 
 Phillips will forgive me if I seek to restore the system 
 of reason and common sense, which, under the pro- 
 gressive inventions of the teetotalers, is in danger of 
 taking its place with " the Lost Arts." 
 
VII. 
 
 OLD AND NEW THEOLOGIES. 
 
 Bt rev. GEORGE E. CROOKS, D.D., LL.D. 
 
VII. 
 OLD AND NEW THEOLOGIES. 
 
 By rev. GEORGE R. CROOKS, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 ^T^HE signs of a demand for a new theology are so 
 -■- many, that he who runs may read them. As 
 specimens, let us quote a few. A leading Baptist 
 minister of this country says : " Doubtless there will 
 be in the future a new theology, an outgrowth of the 
 old, an expansion and deepening of sacred truth made 
 precious to the church by many centuries of rich 
 experience." 
 
 Dr. Crosby is quoted as saying that it " would be 
 wise to broaden the terms of subscription necessary 
 to church membership and church ministry " ; this 
 would be a letting go of some ideas once sacredly 
 cherished. A leader of the English Congregation- 
 alists, J. Baldwin Brown, expresses a desire "to see a 
 great dogmatist once more." In the spring of 1878 
 the United Presbyterians of Scotland added supple- 
 mentary declarations to the Westminster Confession, 
 which practically nullified some of its important 
 statements. Dr. William M. Taylor, who has passed 
 from Presbyterianism to Congregationalism, in com- 
 
 12 
 
178 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 meriting on this action, has expressed the hope for " a 
 shorter, simpler, less metaphysical and more compre- 
 hensive creed." Principal Shairp, of St. Andrew's, 
 Scotland, echoes the opinions of the Americans 
 quoted. " It needs no divine," he writes, " to tell us 
 that this century will not pass without a great break- 
 ing up of the great dogmatic structures that have 
 held ever since the Keformation or the succeeding 
 age. From many sides, at once a simplifying of the 
 code, a revision of the standards, is being de- 
 manded." Dr. Philip Schaff, in the Presbyterian 
 Alliance at Edinburgh, practically called for a re- 
 casting of the confessional statements of the Eeformed 
 churches, saying : " Every age must produce its own 
 theology, adapted to its peculiar condition and wants. 
 Thus w^e have a patristic theology, a scholastic the- 
 ology, a Reformation theology, and a modern Evan- 
 gelical theology, not to speak of the various shades 
 jf of denominational theologies. Divine truth, as re- 
 /" vealed in the Scriptures, is unchangeable, the same 
 to-day, yesterday, and forever, but it must be ever 
 reproduced, newly appropriated, and represented in 
 all its phases. Every true progress in theology is 
 conditioned by a deep study and understanding of 
 the Word of God, that is ever new, and renewing the 
 church, and will ever remain the infallible and inex- 
 haustible fountain of revealed truth. The Scriptures 
 may have been studied more intensely and devoutly 
 in former ages, but they never were studied so ex- 
 tensively and with such an array of facilities and 
 advantages as at the present age. Every progress in 
 
OLD AND NEW THEOLOGIES. 179 
 
 exegesis must have its effect upon systematic theology 
 and the symbolic statement of trust." [Harmony of 
 the Reformed Confessions, pp. 36, 37.] 
 
 What is the meaning of all this ? Are the founda- 
 tions of truth giving way ? Is , this reaching out 
 after new formulas of faitli a symptom of dissatisfac- 
 tion with the verities of Scripture ? Is it a sign of 
 religious progress, or of religious decay ? Were this 
 call for re-statement of doctrine accompanied with 
 a disposition to abandon Scripture, it might excite 
 alarm ; but they who utter the call profess, and we 
 may believe possess, a deep reverence for the Word of 
 God. Let us observe, however : — 
 
 All theology is progressive. It has advanced from 
 delicate germs to its present stately growth. We 
 can, as we go back along the line of the Christian 
 ages, stop at the successive points of time when the 
 present accepted dcxjtrines of the church, one after 
 the other, reached a definite form. In the history of 
 our religion Scripture is original, systems of doctrine 
 are derivative. Scripture is divine, theology is 
 Imman. We all know that the doctrinal systems 
 are the product of the action of the human reason 
 upon the contents of the Word of God. Sometimes 
 truths of the gospel have been obscured for ages and 
 recovered again, as in the Protestant Reformation. 
 That justification is by faith alone, and that Scripture 
 is the sole standard of appeal in matters of faith, are 
 the doctrinal positions for the reassertion of which 
 we are indebted to the Fathers of the Reformation. 
 Their present prominence is not much over three 
 
180 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 hundred years old ; and yet they have been so power- 
 fully operative that they have changed the character 
 of modern civilization. On these two, as corner- 
 stones, the fabric of Protestant theology has been 
 built. We owe, therefore, whatever is distinctive of 
 y Protestant culture, society, politics, to doctrinal ideas, 
 whose formulation, as we possess them in our creeds, 
 is comparatively recent. The truths are old, as old 
 as the gospel, but they have had a resurrection unto 
 life. 
 
 It does not follow, because we admit that theology 
 is progressive, that we are ready to forsake old faiths. 
 It does not follow, because leaders such as we have 
 quoted desire re-statements of points in their doctri- 
 I nal confessions, that they are about to surrender the 
 / substance of Orthodox doctrine. It does not follow, 
 because they desire to relegate some of the matters 
 of belief to the category of matters of opinion, that 
 they are about to surrender the essentials of Chris- 
 tianity. "Every man," says Neander, profoundly, "is 
 in one sense an historical production ; the ideas which 
 form his life have come to him through the course of 
 development in which he moves." And so we may 
 claim that every theology is a historical production. 
 Whether clearly Scriptural or divergent from Scrip- 
 ture, it represents some tendency rooted in human 
 nature, and of which we can give an historical 
 account. But of that body of doctrine in which 
 the Protestant churches agree, we may say that it is 
 hallowed to us by the prayers and labors of sainted 
 men ; the blood of martyrs has sealed it ; the nations 
 
OLD AND NEW THEOLOGIES. 181 
 
 that have risen under its inspiration to high planes of ^ 
 civilization are witnesses of its power. How, t hen, ^jg->^ 
 are we to explain the present unrest ? " "^^Z 
 
 It is not easy to give all the answers to this ques- 
 tion; but a notice of some facts in the religious 
 movement of the century may help us towards some 
 answers. What is religion essentially ? Is it right 
 knowledge ? If so, piety is the equivalent of Ortho- 
 doxy. Is it right external practice ? If so, piety is 
 the equivalent of morality. Or is it a right feeling 
 toward God and man ? If so, then piety is the equiv- 
 alent of a certain inner life. In this sense piety is 
 conditioned by knowledge, and works itself out in y 
 moral practice. The characteristic of the religious 
 revival which we have inherited from the past cen- 
 tury is, that it has drawn attention to the true cen- 
 tre of subjective religion. That centre it makes to 
 be the sense of forgiveness, or, as it is sometimes -^ • 
 expressed, the consciousness of redemption. Ee- 
 ligion, under its teaching, appears less as a dogma 
 to be received than as a life to be lived. Thus we 
 have experimental Christianity, as distinguished from 
 catechetical Christianity, or sacramental Christianity. 
 But this change in the view of subjective Chris- 
 tianity has led on to a new view of objective Christian- 
 ity. Those doctrines which minister to life — the 
 atonement, its freeness and fulness, the immediacy 
 of the Divine answer to faith, and the direct action 
 of the spirit at the moment of regeneration — have ^ 
 come forward into prominence. Thus our later and 
 living theology is a theology of the spirit. The 
 
182 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 growth of subjective religion iu this form has not only 
 projected into prominence corresponding doctrines of 
 theology, but has tended to obscure others, which 
 were once considered of paramount importance. 
 This revival of subjective religion was, however, but 
 a return to the first period of the Eeformation, the 
 period of its glow, its ardor, its early experience of 
 redemption without the mediatory offices of the 
 church. Luther had made the exegetical discovery 
 that "the just shall live by faith" long before he 
 had translated his exegesis into experience. During 
 his long and memorable journey to Eome, and es- 
 
 y^ pecially in his hours of weariness and sickness, the 
 Pauline formula, " The just shall live by faith," was 
 continually present to his mind. Not till he had 
 personally appropriated Christ's merits by faith was 
 the Reformation born in him ; the discarding of the 
 Latin Church doctrine of penance, and of the media- 
 torial character of the priesthood, following therefrom 
 of necessity. The recovery of the idea of the priest- 
 hood of the people, to which he was led both by Scrip- 
 
 ' ture and his experience of redemption, delivered the 
 church from the bondage of a thousand years. The 
 Reformation, as it was born in Luther^ was a heart- 
 birth as well as a brain-birth ; its material principle, 
 justification by faith, pointed to a fact of the inner 
 life ; its formal principle, the supreme authority of 
 Scripture, pointed to the light which guides us to that 
 fact. But the scholastic habits in which the leaders 
 of the Reformation were trained were too strong for 
 them. There followed the period of glow and a new 
 
OLD AND NEW THEOLOGIES. 183 
 
 life, a period of cold confessionalism, of distrust and 
 dissensions, of the strife of conservative and radical 
 reform, — a period marked by a tendency to consolidate 
 almost every theological opinion into an authoritative 
 dogma. Each church was gathered as into a fortress, 
 and the walls of the confessions were built up high, 
 so that those who were within might not get out, and ^ 
 those who were without might not get in. In a word, 
 it was a period in Protestantism of alienation and 
 mutual repellency. 
 
 In the nature of the case such a condition of the 
 churches could not last. A prophet might have pre- 
 dicted such a religious revival as would loosen the 
 tightness of confessional bonds. In the middle of the 
 last century there came such a renewal of the church's 
 life. State-Churchman and Dissenter, Calvinist and 
 Arminian, alike shared in its blessings. Though its 
 results are gathered into organized form in one 
 ecclesiastical communion, it was limited to no one. 
 Its first effect was, through increase of Catholicity, 
 to weaken the binding power of separative dogmas. 
 I may be allowed, I trust, in this presence, to quote 
 one of the leaders of the Evangelical movement, John 
 Wesley. In a letter to a friend he writes : " You 
 have admirably expressed what I mean by an opin- 
 ion, as contradistinguished from an essential doctrine. 
 Whatever is compatible with love to Christ and a 
 work of grace is an opinion." [Journal, May 16, 
 1765.] And again: "I am sick of opinions. I am 
 weary to bear them. My soul loathes this frothy 
 food. Give me solid and substantial religion . Give 
 
/ 
 
 184 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 me an humble, gentle lover of God and man, a man full 
 of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and with- 
 out hypocrisy ; a man laying himself out in the work 
 of faith, the patience of hope, and the labor of love. 
 Let my soul be with these Christians, wheresoever 
 they are, and whatsoever opinion they are of." [A 
 Further Appeal to Men of Eeason and Eeligion, sec. 
 IV. par. 10.] Once more, for the words of this teacher, 
 though spoken more than one hundred and thirty 
 years ago, singularly coincide with the temper of our 
 times. "It is a poor excuse to say, '0, but the people 
 are brought into several erroneous opinions.' It mat- 
 ters not a straw whether they are or not ( I speak of 
 
 - such opinions as do not touch the foundations) ; it 
 is scarcely worth while to spend ten words about it. 
 Whether they embrace this religious opinion or that 
 is no more concern to me than whether the}^ embrace 
 
 ■ this or that system of astronomy. Are they brought 
 to holy tempers and holy lives ? This is mine, and 
 should be your inquiry ; since on this both social and 
 personal happiness depend, — happiness, temporal 
 and eternal." [ A Further Appeal to Men of Eeason 
 and Eeligion, sec. IV. par. 14.] Thus we may say 
 that one of the early fruits of the Evangelical revival 
 was a discrimination between the essential and the 
 unessential in dogma ; between the credenda and the 
 cogitanda between those facts of the creed which 
 minister more directly to the life, and those which, 
 whether determined in one way or another, leave the 
 life untouched. 
 
 There has run parallel with this practical revival 
 
OLD AND NEW THEOLOGIES. 185 
 
 a corresponding movement of religious philosophy. 
 Schleiermacher, who drew his religions life from Mo- 
 ra vianism, lays down the principle " that the essence;< 
 of religion is not knowledge, but feeling. He defines 
 religion to be rooted in the absolute feeling of de- 
 pendence, and of a conscious relationship to God 
 originating immediately from it." The Christian re- 
 ligion is that in which the sense of dependence 
 is accompanied by the consciousness of redemption 
 through the merits of Christ. The feeling of de- 
 pendence becomes in the Christian religion a feeling 
 of dependence on an infinite Saviour. Grant, if you 
 please, that Schleiermacher fell into the error of 
 making the Christian consciousness a primary source 
 of doctrine. Grant, if you please, that this error, by 
 setting aside the Divine Word, ends in the corruption 
 of the Christian consciousness itself, yet the principle 
 can be held with a full recognition of the supreme 
 authority of tlie Scriptures in matters of belief I for 
 one can, therefore, fully agree with Yan Oosterzee, 
 when he says : " Only where objective truth finds a 
 point of contact in the subjective consciousness does 
 it become the spiritual property of mankind and can 
 it thus be properly understood and valued. So far, 
 and so far only, does the Christian consciousness de- 
 serve a place amon^the sources of dogmatics. But 
 since the doctrine of salvation can be derived neither 
 from reason nor from feeling nor from conscience, 
 and the internal consciousness only attests and 
 confirms the truth, after having learned it from 
 Scripture, this last must always be valued as the 
 
186 CHKIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 principal source." [Christian Dogmatics, Vol. I. sec. 
 10.] 
 
 If there are Scripture truths capable of such subjec- 
 tive attestation, then they form an important part of 
 the whole body of dogma; they furnish a common 
 standing ground for Christians of diverse confessions ; 
 nay, more, their coming forward into prominence must 
 loosen the hold of the differentiating dogmas of the 
 churches upon the people. In order that this point 
 of attestation may be made clear, let Van Oosterzee 
 be quoted again : " So long as I do not consciously 
 accept a truth for myself, it remains a truth, external 
 to and above me, but is not a truth for me and in me. 
 And, therefore, the gospel looks for a point of union 
 in man, and finds in it the highest aspirations of his 
 heart, intellect, and conscience. Where it is faith- 
 fully accepted, a spiritual agreement springs up, and 
 consequently an inner consciousness of truth. This 
 consciousness of experience not only may but must be 
 reckoned among the sources of our knowledge. Where 
 it is utterly wanting, there the most accurate knowl- 
 edge deserves only the name of dead knowledge. A 
 man's own experience leads to much deeper insight of 
 things than the best attested testimony." [Christian 
 Dogmatics, Vol. I. sec. 10, par. 3.] Morrell, the author 
 of the " History of Philosophy in ^le Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury," and of the " Philosophy of Religion," recognizes 
 this attesting power of the Christian consciousness, 
 and finds in the neglect of it the source of rationalism. 
 As this is a point collateral to the subject of discussion, 
 he may be cited here. " The only distinct idea," says 
 
OLD AND NEW THEOLOGIES. 187 
 
 Morrell, " which I am able to attach to the term Ea- 
 tioualism, is the effort to reduce the whole essence of 
 Christianity to a logical or scientific product, and the 
 denial of there being anything contained in it, beyond 
 the facts which actually are, or which can be contained 
 in a connected series of propositions. The nationalist 
 begins by laying down his propositions in approved 
 form ; he goes on next to deduce certain conclusions 
 from them ; and then follows up his train of reasons, 
 step by step, until he has brought his entire faith into 
 a complete logical system. This system, according to 
 his view, is Christianity ; the profession of its truth 
 is the profession of Christianity ; and to believe the 
 propositions in question is to be a Christian. To me 
 Christianity in its essence appears a deep inward-life 
 of the soul, — a life which cannot be accounted for by 
 any scientific analysis, which cannot be expressed in 
 any number of propositions, but which in its evidences, 
 in its conceptions, in its holy impulses and anticipa- 
 tions, lies quite beyond the region of the logical under- 
 standing. If I possess the Christian life, I have the 
 witness of the truth within me. If I possess it not, I 
 may, it is true, possess a system of formal doctrine ; 
 but that system, as it appears to the logical faculty, 
 has much the same resemblance to Christianity itself 
 as a skeleton has to a living man." [Philosophy of 
 Eeligion, Preface, pp. 16, 17.] If this be true, Ra- 
 tionalism is the divorce of the heart from the head in 
 theology. 
 
 One of the great teachers of our age, Neander, has 
 applied this living principle to the interpretation of 
 
188 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 church history, and thereby has reorganized that de- 
 partment of theology. To his mind the history of the 
 church is before all else the exhibition of Divine power, 
 in the unfolding of the work of redemption, and thus 
 becomes " a school of Christian experience, a voice 
 sounding through the ages, of instruction, of doctrine 
 and reproof, for all who are disposed to listen." " The 
 theology of the heart " is that to which alone he looks 
 for the pacification of the clashing confessions of the 
 fatherland, and the victory of Christian truth over 
 rationalistic unbelief. I beg attention to his weighty 
 testimony : " When, at the commencement of my 
 labors," he writes, " I dedicated my. work to the friend 
 who was about to leave me, I affixed to it the motto 
 of our common theology and of this exhibition of his- 
 tory : ' Pectus est, quod theologum facit.' We need 
 not be ashamed of this maxim ; shame rather to those 
 who were bold enough to ridicule it. It was the 
 watchword of these men who called forth theology 
 from the dead forms of scholasticism to the living 
 spirit of God's Word." [Preface to General Church 
 History ; second edition.] And again he writes : 
 "As for my relation to all who hold the con- 
 viction that faith in Jesus, the Saviour of sinful 
 humanity, as it has shown itself since the first found- 
 ing of the Christian Church to be the fountain of 
 Divine life, will prove itself the same to the end of 
 time, and that from this faith a new creation will arise 
 in the Christian Church, and in this part of the world, 
 which has been preparing amidst the storms of spring, 
 — to all such persons I hope to be bound by the bond 
 
/)LD AND NEW THEOLOGIES. 189 
 
 of Christian fellowship. But I cannot agree with the 
 conviction of those among them who think that this 
 new creation will only be a repetition of what took 
 place in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, and 
 that the whole dogmatic system, and the entire mode 
 of contemplating human and divine things, must re- 
 turn as it then existed." [Preface to History of Train- 
 ing and Planting the Christian Church.] 
 
 What dogmatic changes Neander anticipated, he 
 has nowhere placed on record ; but he doubtless fore- 
 saw that the " theology of the heart " would lift into 
 greater importance certain vital doctrines of theology, 
 and reduce the importance of others which have thus 
 far stood in the foreground of the confessions. Dr. 
 Philip Schaff, a pupil of Neander, who worthily illus- 
 trates the catholic spirit of his teacher, discussed in 
 1877, before the Presbyterian Alliance, the desirable- 
 ness of a new confession of faith for the great body of 
 Eeformed churches. Let me quote his words : " The 
 preparation of such a confession would afford an ex- 
 cellent opportunity to simplify and popularize the 
 Eeformed system of doctrine, to utter a protest 
 against the peculiar dangers and errors of our age, 
 and to exhibit the fraternal attitude of this Alliance 
 to the Evangelical churches, which have sprung up 
 since the Eeformation, and have been blessed of God. 
 It ought to be truly evangelical, — evangelical-catho- 
 lic in spirit. A confession which would intensify 
 Presbyterianism and loosen the ties which unite us 
 to other branches of Christ's church, I would regard 
 as a calamity. We want a wall to keep off the 
 
190 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 wolves, and not a fence to divide the sheep ; we want 
 a declaration of union, not a platform of disunion." 
 [The Harmony of the Reformed Confession, pp. 60, 
 61.] The following passage is entirely in the line of 
 the argument of this lecture : " No Reformed Synod 
 (at least on the Continent ) could now pass the rigorous 
 canons of Dort against Arminianism, which, after a 
 temporary defeat, has silently leavened the national 
 church of Holland, and which, through the great 
 Methodist revival, has become one of the most power- 
 ful converting agencies in England and America. 
 The five knotty points of Calvinism have lost their 
 point, and have been smoothed off by God's own 
 working in the history of the church." [ Harmony of 
 Reformed Confessions, pp. 49, 50.] 
 
 Thus we have shown that the Evangelical revival 
 has changed the relative importance of dogmas, that 
 it has found a secondary basis in a philosophy 
 of religion, that it has led to the desire for a closer 
 doctrinal consensus among all the churches that hold 
 to the consciousness of redemption through faith in 
 Christ as the vital fact of Christianity. The time 
 when such a desire is likely to be realized is no doubt 
 far off; but its expression is not a sign of the de- 
 cadence of the churches, it is a symptom of growth. 
 As for these uneasy, unstable, unsettled teachers, who 
 are blown about by every theological wind, who can- 
 not be found to-day where they were yesterday, and 
 who will not be found to-morrow where they are to- 
 day, and that other class, who court popularity by 
 surrendering what they ought to defend, who are all 
 
OLD AND NEW THEOLOGIES. 191 
 
 things to all men in a sense of which Paul never 
 dreamt, — tlie less said about them the better. 
 
 It remains to notice the reactions against the Evan- 
 gelical movement, that has now maintained itself for 
 nearly one hundred and fifty years. 
 
 1. The Anglo-Catholic revival. This originated in 
 the perception that the Evangelical movement neces- 
 sarily meant the downfall of sacramental Christian- 
 ity, and the relaxation of what are known as strict 
 church principles. The universal priesthood of the 
 people, which is an outcome of the pure Evangelical 
 faith, implies the extinction of the priestly conception 
 of the ministry. John Henry Newman, the leader 
 of the Anglo-Catholics, has stated very candidly the 
 purpose cherished by himself and his associates. 
 " My battle," he says, " was with liberalism ; by lib- 
 eralism I mean the anti-dogmatic principle and its 
 developments. From tlie age of fifteen, dogma has 
 been the fundamental principle of my religion ; I 
 cannot enter into the idea of any other religion ; re- 
 ligion as a mere sentiment is to me a dream and a 
 mockery." [Apologia pro Vita Sua, pp. 95, 96.] 
 " As to the high church and the low church, I thought 
 that one had not much more of a logical basis than 
 the other ; while I had a thorough contempt for the 
 Evangelical." [Apologia, p. 91.] And again: "The 
 vital question was, How were we to keep the church 
 from being liberalized ? There was such apathy on 
 the subject in some quarters and such imbecile alarm 
 in others. . . . The Bishop of London of the day, an 
 active and open-hearted man, had for years been en- 
 
>( 
 
 192 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 gaged in diluting the high orthodoxy of the chnrch, 
 by the introduction of the Evangelical body into 
 places of influence and trust." [Apologia, p. 79.] 
 Newman had the penetration to perceive that Evan- 
 gelical principles, when carried into civil life, cre- 
 ated political liberalism, and this aroused in his 
 mind a strong repugnance to the Evangelical faith. 
 Speaking of his life in 1832, he writes : " Shortly be- 
 fore there had been a revolution in France : the Bour- 
 bons had been dismissed ; and I believed that it was 
 unchristian for nations to cast off their governors." 
 [Apologia, p. 79.] So intense was his dislike of the 
 progress of civil liberty on the Continent of Europe, 
 that he says of himself in this year : " It was the suc- 
 cess of the liberal cause that fretted me inwardly. I 
 became fierce against its instruments and its manifes- 
 tations. A French vessel was at Algiers ; I would 
 not even look at the tricolor. On my return, though 
 forced to stop a day at Paris, I kept indoors the whole 
 time, and all I saw of the beautiful city was what I 
 saw from the diligence." [p. 82.] 
 
 This is the explanation of the motive of the Anglo- 
 Catholic revival by one of its leaders. To set up 
 a barrier against the Evangelical movement was a 
 brave undertaking; and the undertaking could not 
 have fallen into more capable hands. Ardent, richly 
 cultivated in classical lore if not in theology, clear- 
 sighted enough to perceive the nature of the battle 
 they fought, honest to the core, they did all that in- 
 tellectual energy, combined with the pleading of the 
 authority of patristic antiquity, could do. They have 
 
OLD AND NEW THEOLOGIES. 193 
 
 appeared, and from Protestantism at least some of 
 them have disappeared, and the Evangelical move- 
 ment still moves on. 
 
 2. The Agnostic reaction, which limits the knowl- 
 edge to the realm of sensible experience, and denies 
 the possibility of knowing the supernatural. It sub- 
 stitutes the knowledge of law for the consciousness 
 of redemption. This system carries us to the polar 
 zone of thought, and leaves us there 
 
 * ' To starve in ice, 
 Immovable, infixed, and frozen round." 
 
 To others belongs the task of dealing metaphysi- 
 cally with the Agnostic system ; it is only in place 
 here to notice it as one of the reactions of the age, in 
 which the possibility of religion is denied. But if I 
 am to do no more than learn the laws of the universe, 
 there is a mistake in the make-up of my constitu- 
 tion. I ought to have been all brain. The study of 
 these generalizations of sensible experience which we 
 call laws can never dry a tear, never heal a heart- 
 ache, never ease the consciousness of sin which we 
 carry with us, never relieve the sense of guilt. My 
 heart and my flesh cry out for the living God, and I 
 am told to rest in abstract law ; that is to give me a 
 stone when I ask for bread. They who speak to me 
 thus tell me only half the truth. I would rise above 
 law to One who is heart to my heart, love to my 
 love ; who has in him an infinite pity and readiness to 
 help. The Agnostic reaction denies the best part of 
 my nature all its rights. It cannot last long, for the 
 imperishable wants of man demand a positive faith. 
 
 13 
 
 X 
 
194 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 3. The last reaction against the religious life of the 
 age is the Gospel of Culture, so eloquently proclaimed 
 V by Matthew Arnold. But this gospel is, in its last 
 analysis, a Gospel of Selfishness. Here the law is 
 self-activity; in the Christian religion the primary 
 law is recipiency. Here man's centre is in himself ; 
 in religion, he is taken away from himself, and his 
 centre is Jesus Christ. The goal of culture is self- 
 developed perfection ; the goal of religion is the out- 
 growing of our imperfection through the vigor of 
 One greater than we are imparted to us. The spirit 
 of culture is independence ; the spirit of religion is 
 dependence. The tendency of the Gospel of Culture 
 to an absorbing self-consciousness has been clearly 
 pointed out by Principal Shairp. "Its starting- 
 point," to cite his statement, " is the idea of perfect- 
 ing self, and though, as it gradually evolves, it tries 
 to forget self and to include quite other elements, yet 
 it never succeeds in getting clear of the taint of self- 
 reference, with which it set out. While making this 
 objection, I do not forget that Mr. Arnold, in drawing 
 out his views, proposes as the end of culture to make 
 reason and the kingdom of God prevail ; that he sees 
 clearly and insists strongly that an isolated self- 
 culture is impossible, that we cannot make progress 
 towards perfection ourselves unless we strive ear- 
 nestly to carry our fellow-men along with us. Still, 
 may it not be said that these unselfish elements — 
 the desire for others' good, the desire to advance God's 
 kingdom on earth — are in this theory awakened, not 
 simply for their own sakes, not chiefly because they 
 
OLD AND NEW THEOLOGIES. 195 
 
 are good in themselves, but because they are clearly 
 discerned to be necessary to our self-perfection, ele- 
 ments apart from which this cannot exist ? And so 
 it comes that culture, though made our end never so 
 earnestly, cannot shelter a man from thoughts about 
 himself; cannot free him from that which all must 
 feel to be fatal to high character, — continual self- 
 consciousness." [Culture and Eeligion, pp. 92-93.] 
 But all the reactions of the age, the Agnostic, the 
 Sacraraentarian, the Eationalist, only serve as a 
 background to show more clearly the bright light of 
 the Evangelical movement. Out of it what is most 
 characteristic of the religion of our time has grown. 
 It waits for a historian, but can wait till its work is 
 completed in the renovation of theology itself. That 
 theology will be pervaded throughout by the con- 
 sciousness of redemption. When the song of the 
 freed slave, " I 'm redeemed, I 'm redeemed," floating 
 over the land, attests the power of the gospel, surely 
 we in the centres of culture need not be ashamed 
 to declare that we are determined to know nothing 
 among men " save Jesus Christ and him crucified." 
 
VIII. 
 
 FACTS AS TO DIVORCE IN NEW 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 Bv KEY. SAMUEL W. DIKE. 
 
VIII. 
 
 FACTS AS TO DIVORCE IN NEW 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 By rev. SAMUEL W. DIKE. 
 
 ^ I ^HE two words most significant of our American 
 -*- life are probably business and home. Business 
 rests directly upon the institution of property, and 
 the home upon that of marriage. Sir James 
 Mackintosh said : " Almost all the relative duties of 
 human life will be found, more immediately or more 
 remotely, to arise out of the two great institutions 
 of property and marriage ; they constitute, preserve, 
 and improve society; upon their gradual improve- 
 ment depends the progressive civilization of man- 
 kind ; on them rests the whole order of civil life." 
 [Law of Nature and Nations, p. 76.] It may be 
 said further, that since, with most people, the home 
 is the great incentive to labor, and to the accumu- 
 lation of its fruits in capital ; so in the last analysis 
 marriage is the fundamental institution of modem 
 society. " The contract of marriage," wrote the 
 learned Story, " is the most important of all human 
 transactions. It is the very basis of civilized society." 
 
200 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 The President takes the same ground in his last 
 annual message, when he says, *' The sanctity of mar- 
 riage and the family relation are the corner-stone of 
 our American society and civilization." " The stability 
 of the family," writes an historian, "is the surest 
 criterion of the moral character of an age." Whether, 
 then, you come as men of business, as citizens or 
 as the friends of good morals, as well as Christians, to 
 listen to the facts as to divorce in New England, you 
 are occupied with a topic second in importance — let 
 me say — to no other moral question discussed on 
 this platform. 
 
 I am to give the facts for New England only. 
 This is not a serious limitation. For the New 
 England idea, whether we find it East or West, 
 is the most representative idea of our country, and 
 any study of it is practically a study of American 
 principles. It conquered at Appomattox. It is, and 
 will be, at least for four years longer, represented in 
 the chief executive office of the nation. But it has 
 more work to do. East and West, North and South. 
 For this work it needs to be watched, and to receive 
 from time to time fresh power from its original 
 sources. 
 
 Now, divorce is a New England idea, — not the 
 New England idea, but rather a Yankee notion, ap- 
 parently indigenous to the soil of Connecticut, — from 
 which it has spread, with other and better notions, 
 over large sections of the United States. Let us look 
 at it with neither pessimistic nor yet with optimistic 
 eyes, but with that manly New England courage that 
 
DIVORCE IN NEW ENGLAND. 201 
 
 is ready to see its worst self to-day that it may be 
 better to-morrow. The merest outline only can be 
 given in an hour, and I try to seize on such points as, 
 it seems to me, will best give you an idea of the facts 
 and the tield they cover, leaving out a hundred things 
 that ought to be said. Unrighteous divorce, in its 
 destruction of the marriage bond, destroys the family 
 and necessarily affects the three great ends of mar- 
 riage and the family; namely, the preservation of 
 chastity, the giving of pure life to the world, and the 
 help of the individual to the highest perfection and to 
 the greatest social power, as a preparation for and fore- 
 taste of the life to come. What, then, are the facts ? 
 First, as to divorces. Beginning with Connecticut, 
 we find that Benjamin Trumbull, in 1785, mourned 
 that 439 divorces had taken place in Connecticut 
 within a century, and that all but 50 had occurred 
 in the last fifty years. About twenty years later, 
 when the corrupt influence of French infidelity had 
 reached its height, President Dwight was alarmed 
 that there was one divorce to every hundred mar- 
 riages. The increase of the evil, however, seems 
 nearly checked until 1843, when " habitual intemper- 
 ance " and " intolerable cruelty " were added to the 
 two existing causes for divorce. Even then the in- 
 crease was small. But in 1849 several causes, in- 
 cluding the notorious " omnibus clause," were added, 
 making nine in all, and jurisdiction was taken from 
 the legislature and given wholly to the courts. That- 
 year divorces numbered 94 ; the next year, 129 ; and 
 in 1864, 426. Then for fifteen years they averaged 
 
202 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 446 annually, varying less from year to year than 
 the reported births or marriages or deaths. During 
 this period the ratio of divorces to marriages was 
 1 to 10.4. The repeal of the " omnibus clause '* in 
 1878 reduced the divorces of the next year to 316. 
 Another slight change in the law for the better was 
 secured a year ago. 
 
 Vermont grants divorces for six causes. There 
 were 94 divorces granted in 1860, and from the close 
 of the war they increased to 197 in 1878, with the 
 ratio to marriages of 1 to 14. That year an amend- 
 ment to the laws resulted in a reduction of divorces 
 in the year following to 126. 
 
 Ehode Island grants about 180 annually, and her 
 ratio is 1 to 13. 
 
 New Hampshire prints no statistics either of divorce 
 or marriage, but it has been found that there were 
 159 divorces in the entire State in 1870, 240 in 1875, 
 and 241 in 1878. Three counties, that had only 18 
 in 1840 and 21 in 1850, granted 40 in 1860 and 96 
 in 1878. There are fourteen causes for divorce, but 
 no more inclusive, probably, than those of most other 
 States.! 
 
 I do not know that the divorces of Maine have 
 ever been reported. I have secured an examination 
 
 1 The number of causes for divorce is a very uncertain guide to 
 the facilities afforded by the laws of a State. Massachusetts has 
 more causes than Maine, and yet parties go from the former to the 
 latter State for divorce. Mucli depends upon the phraseology of the 
 law. Of cour.se some of those causes, like nullity and bigamy, are 
 not, strictly speaking, causes for divorce at all. Though classified 
 as such, they are really reasons for annulling the marriage. 
 
DIVORCE IN NEW ENGLAND. 203 
 
 of the county records in that State giving the divorces 
 of the sixteen counties of the State for the year 1878. 
 In these sixteen counties there were 478 divorces in 
 that year. It is also found that in the five counties 
 giving the number for 1880 there was an increase 
 of more than one third in the latter year, — from 166 
 to 223.1 *Penobscot County granted 84 divorces last 
 year. 
 
 And now take Massachusetts, which I have reserved 
 to the last, because she is the heart of New England, 
 and for the facilities she affords for studying this 
 whole problem. This State, following closely English 
 law, granted divorce for only two causes until 1860. 
 That year there were 243 divorces, or 1 to 51 mar- 
 riages. Then, by a series of acts passed, chiefly in 
 1860, '67, '73, and '77, the causes for absolute divorce 
 became nine, Massachusetts copying a Connecticut 
 vice just as Connecticut began to forsake it. In 1866 
 there were 392 divorces ; in 1870, 449 ; andnn 1878, 
 600. The ratio to marriages, 1 to 51 in 1860, became 
 1 to 21.4 in 1878. It is probable that in Massachu- 
 setts the increase still goes on. 
 
 If, now, we sum up for New England, there were 
 in the year of grace 1878 in Maine, 478 divorces ; in 
 New Hampshire, 241; in Vermont, 197; in Massa- 
 chusetts, 600 ; in Connecticut, 401 ; and in Khode 
 Island, 196; making a total of 2,113, and a larger 
 ratio in proportion to the population than in France 
 in the days of the revolution, though far less than 
 
 1 Complete returns for 1880 show that there were 510 divorces 
 granted in the entire State that year. 
 
204 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 in the city of Paris. In France, the ratio of sep- 
 arations to marriages latterly is about 1 to 150 ; in 
 Belgium, of divorces to marriages, 1 to 270, with a few- 
 separations ; and in England, of petitions for both 
 divorce and separation, 1 to 300. On the basis of 
 population by the present census there was one di- 
 vorce to every 1,357 inhabitants in Maine ; one to 
 819 in Penobscot County, the seat of a theologi- 
 cal seminary ; one to every 1,439 in New Hampshire ; 
 one to every 1,687 in Vermont; one to every 2,971 in' 
 Massachusetts ; one to every 1,553 in Connecticut ; 
 and one to every 1,411 in Rhode Island. But no 
 State except Maine is likely to have a larger divorce 
 rate than Massachusetts, unless the laws and discus- 
 sion speedily check the evil, for the reason that the 
 changes in the law have not had time to produce 
 their full effects. 
 
 But the Catholic marriages are, in four States, 
 twenty-seven per cent of the whole.^ Assuming, 
 what is very nearly true, that there are no divorces 
 among these, the ratio of divorces to marriages among 
 Protestants is 1 to 11.7 for the four States together; 
 it being 1 to 15 in Massachusetts, 1 to 13 in Ver- 
 mont, 1 to 9 in Rhode Island, and 1 in less than 8 in 
 Connecticut. 
 
 But what of divorce in the West ? Has not this 
 practice, in going West with the New-Englander, run 
 into greater extremes ? Few States, if any, west of 
 
 1 In 1878 the Catholic marriages were 31 per cent of the wliole 
 number of marriages in Massachusetts, 24 per cent in Connecticut, 
 28 per cent in Rhode Island, and 12 per cent in Vermont. 
 
DIVORCE IN NEW ENGLAND. 205 
 
 Ohio, collect statistics of divorce. In Ohio, the ratio 
 for many years averaged 1 to 25, and now it is about 
 1 to 18. Indiana has changed her laws for the bet- 
 ter, while Illinois has, it is said, adopted better forms 
 of procedure. No city has had a worse reputation 
 in divorce than Chicago. Yet the records c^ Cook 
 County, with a population of about 600,000, for the 
 five years 1875-79, show a ratio of divorce suits 
 hegun to marriages licenses taken out of 1 to 9.4. But 
 for the year 1875 it was found that one fifth of the 
 petitions heard were denied. Making this allow- 
 ance, — and the more strict practice of latter years 
 fully justifies it, — the ratio becomes 1 to 12. Chi- 
 cago is not as bad as Hartford or New Haven.^ 
 
 So this wretched business goes on, apparently 
 wherever New England people are found, and it seems 
 to spread elsewhere in some measure. Yet it exists 
 only where laws render it possible. But loose laws 
 and loose court practice, of which there is too much 
 in certain courts, — chiefly perhaps in Maine and Con- 
 necticut, — cannot account for all of this increase. 
 New Hampshire is in point. There has been no 
 change in the .law there, of any account, since 1854, 
 and, I am told, very little for nearly a century. Yet 
 the increase is as marked as in other States. Even in 
 St. Louis, where there were few divorced until 1876, 
 there were, it is estimated, 430 cases tried in 1879, 
 and 205 divorces were granted last year. " I have as 
 
 1 The Rev. Charles Caverno, of Lombard, IlL, has found that there 
 were 6,603 marriage licenses taken out in Cook County, 111., in 1880, 
 and 830 divorce suits begun. The ratio is 1 to 8. 
 
206 CHKIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 yet," writes a correspondent in St. Louis, " found no 
 one who is able to give an explanation of the in- 
 crease, beyond the fact that like a deadly epidemic it 
 began to rage with greater violence about that time, 
 because all the previous conditions of our social life 
 had been favorable to such an outbreak." He adds : 
 " You will also discover, from the names, that most 
 of the parties are of foreign birth." Yet in Boston 
 I find very few unmistakably foreign names on the 
 divorce docket. There are 333 divorces reported 
 for the city of San Francisco in 1880. 
 
 Not one fourth of these divorce cases are for adul- 
 tery. Desertion and severity are the chief causes. 
 The courts are crowded with unhappy couples, and 
 often the cases are despatched with unseemly haste. 
 A pastor once spoke to the judge in the lull of busi- 
 ness one day, — a member, I think, of his church, and 
 chief justice of the State. Another man approached. 
 " Excuse me a moment," said the judge. In less than 
 three minutes the judge turned to the minister and 
 said, " Do you know what I have done ? I have 
 divorced a couple quicker than you ever married 
 one ! " There is a daughter of a prosperous farmer, 
 still a young woman, who has been divorced from 
 three husbands, each of whom is living and married 
 to another wife, while she has lately been married to 
 a fourth husband. Nor is this the only or the worst 
 case of the kind reported in the State of Connecticut. 
 Two Vermonters deliberately swapped wives by aid of 
 the courts. Young people coolly reckon on divorce 
 in contracting marriage. A Vermont couple married 
 
DIVORCE IN NEW ENGLAND. 207 
 
 " on trial for six months," agreeing to get a divorce 
 "if either party did not like." An advertisement 
 appeared in a Boston newspaper for some time : "Di- 
 vorces legally and quietly obtained. Can pay by in- 
 stalments." Out of seventeen cases tried at one term 
 of court in Vermont, in the opinion of members of 
 the bar, all but one were collusive. 
 
 It is said that this is not wholly an evil. Said 
 a minority report to the Massachusetts Legislature, 
 many years ago, it is true, " The consequences of this 
 course of legislation, so far as the undersigned can 
 judge of them, have been to increase the happiness 
 of married life, to promote lawful marriages, and to 
 prevent licentiousness." And this opinion is fre- 
 quently expressed in newspapers, and held by many 
 very intelligent citizens to-day. It has had much 
 weight with legislators. 
 
 This leads me to present a second class of facts, 
 not so much, however, to refute this opinion as to 
 throw light upon the whole discussion. I take Mas- 
 sachusetts, because her admirable Bureau of Statistics 
 gives facts not accessible in other States. I find in 
 the report of that Bureau for 1880, that for the twenty 
 years ending 1879 the population of the State in- 
 creased 50 per cent. In 1860, there were 12,404 
 marriages, — the largest number ever reported up to 
 tliat date, save once. The highest number since is 
 16,437, — a gain of 32 per cent only, while in 1879 
 they were only 11 per cent more than in 1860. 
 
 Take crime. The report shows that, leaving out of 
 account the liquor cases, fluctuating for obvious rea- 
 
208 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 sons, all crime in the State for twenty years increased 
 20.4 per cent, or two fifths as fast as the population. 
 But how is it with the licentious crimes ? I can learn 
 of no essential change in the laws or in their enforce- 
 ment, except that in Suffolk County the convictions 
 for keeping houses of ill-fame for the last five years 
 are only two fifths the number in the preceding five 
 (206 to 523), and that the convictions for the kin- 
 dred offence of night-walking have scarcely increased. 
 Leaving out these two offences for Suffolk County 
 only, — as a concession, if you wish, to increasing 
 virtue in Boston, — and combining two that belong to- 
 gether, — fornication and lewdness, — we have these 
 results for the entire State. Each of these ten offen- 
 ces of a licentious nature has steadily increased in 
 each quinquennial period since 1860, until convic- 
 tions for every one of them, with a solitary excep- 
 tion, have more than doubled in the twenty years, 
 while convictions for that one have risen from 16 
 to 28. The totals are, for each five years: 1860-64, 
 719; 1865-69, 851; 1870-74, 1,164; 1875-79, 
 1,972. Note the per cent of increase over the pre- 
 ceding five years in each period, — 18 J, 37, 70. 
 While, then, crime generally has increased 20.4 
 per cent, the population 50 per cent, this class of 
 crimes has increased 174 per cent, or eight times as 
 fast as crime in general, and more than three times 
 faster than the population, and with accelerating 
 rate. 
 
 I add that the exceedingly cautious report of the 
 specialist employed will make Boston appear in the 
 
DIVORCE IN NEW ENGLAND. 209 
 
 census as having 1,770 professional prostitutes, not- 
 withstanding the reported decrease in convictions of 
 the classes already named ! Put these facts alongside 
 the divorce statistics, and keep it in mind that this 
 increase of licentious offences is found over nearly 
 the entire State, with little variation. It is as notice- 
 able in Berkshire, Franklin, and Plymouth counties as 
 it is in Suffolk and Middlesex.^ 
 
 Add to this the fact that the number of children 
 born out of wedlock in the State has risen in the 
 same period from 8 in 1,000 to 17, and the most rapid 
 increase has been in the last six years, while in just 
 those years England has as rapidly improved. And 
 so far as I have examined the few registration reports 
 of the other States, I find similar facts, whose force, 
 however, is modified somewhat by the fact that 
 greater care in securing returns tends to increase 
 the number reported in later years. 
 
 You now ask, as I did, do these statistics fairly, or 
 in any good degree even, represent the condition of 
 things here and all over New England ? Are the 
 statistics given even half true ? Is there not a better 
 public conscience, a stricter enforcement of the laws ? 
 That I might do a little to meet this inquiry, and 
 throw more light if possible on the general subject, I 
 
 1 The value of statistics of crime and divorce would be greatly- 
 enhanced if the States should require the courts to make record 
 in all cases of convictions for crime, and divorces granted, of the 
 nationality, residence by town or city, age, number of the marriage 
 severed by divorce, and length of time martied, with all other social 
 facts that in any way will exhibit the origin and causes of crime and 
 divorces. -.^ 
 
210 CHEIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 sent a list of questions to a hundred or more gentle- 
 men in nearly all parts of 'New England, mostly 
 judges, state-attorneys, lawyers, police officers, large 
 numbers of physicians and specialists, with a few 
 clergymen. Nearly all responded. About seventy 
 letters are of value for the purpose of classification. 
 These cover probably one hundred towns and cities, 
 giving the opinions of nearly two hundred persons 
 who were consulted in their preparation. I form, so 
 far as these letters go, the opinion that there is 
 probably less of open and coarse vice of certain kinds 
 in many respectable country towns than there was 
 seventy or eighty years ago, — very likely less than 
 fifty years ago. But, with this exception, which 
 covers a few only of our country towns, and occasion- 
 ally a city, as correct a summary of opinion as I 
 could give would be like this : In three fourths of the 
 localities reporting on this point licentiousness is said 
 to be increasing. In nearly as many the destruction 
 of unborn life goes on as fast, or faster, than ever. 
 Physicians are very emphatic on this point, and many 
 speak with great indignation of the wicked practices 
 of some church-members. In one half the places 
 licentiousness and drinking are found together, while 
 one quarter report more licentious than intemperate 
 persons in their communities. Nearly all find the 
 increase among the native population, while several 
 call attention to the recent increase among persons of 
 foreign birth, and especially their descendants in the 
 second generation. Several speak in emphatic con- 
 demnation of the mischief done by commercial trav- 
 
DIVORCE IN NEW ENGLAND. 211 
 
 ellers, and others complain of vice in shops. Very few- 
 report an improved public conscience, or stricter pun- 
 ishment of vice and its crimes ; while on no point do 
 I find so near an approach to unanimity as in the 
 opinion that the public conscience is dormant, and that 
 these offences are punished less frequently than for- 
 merly. And all the while there is, if we may depend 
 on the statements of one who ought to know, a vast 
 amount of obscene literature poured over the country. 
 
 This is not an agreeable report. I know it is 
 largely mere opinion, to be taken with allowance. 
 But I submit that it is worthy of careful consideration, 
 and should stimulate the most diligent private and 
 official investigation. "We are better, probably, in 
 respect to religion, in education, and in some phases 
 of morals, than we were ; but in chastity I fear we 
 are not. 
 
 See how this question of morals among us is re- 
 garded. The French Commission to the International 
 Exhibition of 1876 reported, concerning us, " the need 
 of a complete organization of regular moral instruc- 
 tions," and called attention to the fact " that the family 
 and church have little power over the young, and that 
 the increased contagion of vice has a bad influence on 
 public morality." It is said that Dr. Legge, after 
 showing some members of the Chinese legation from 
 London over the University of Oxford, asked one of 
 them — a young man quite in sympathy wdth Chris- 
 tianity — his opinion as to the merits of the Chinese 
 and English systems of education. " I think," said 
 the young man, " that for the purposes of science and 
 
212 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 general information the schools in England are in- 
 finitely better than any teaching we have in China. 
 But then, for moral purposes, making men good 
 citizens and moral ones, discharging all the duties of 
 humanity, my impression is that our schools in China 
 are better than those in England 1" And yet the 
 French commission thought us especially lacking in 
 this very matter. Does any one point, for answer, 
 to the immorality of China? I reply, Let him 
 wait until our institutions are a quarter as old as 
 those of China, and our population half as great. 
 "America," to quote Mr. Cook, "is in the gristle 
 
 yet." 
 
 Here let me take the testimony of two American 
 witnesses as to the effect of the evils of divorce and 
 the related vices. The first shall be in regard to the 
 peril to our institutions. The venerable ex-president 
 of Yale College, who has given us our best American 
 works on political science and divorce, wrote at the 
 close of the War of the Eebellion these words, — and 
 there is no man more careful in his statements than 
 Dr. Woolsey, — " Eome is a most interesting study 
 for us Americans, because her vices, greed for gold, 
 prodigality, a coarse material civilization, corruption 
 sT in the family, as manifested by connubial unfaithful- 
 ness and by divorce, are increasing among us. We 
 have got rid of one of her vices, slavery, and that is 
 a great ground of hope for the future. But whether 
 we are to decay and lose our present political power 
 depends npon our ability to keep family life pure and 
 simple." [Divorce, p. 49.] These are the words of a 
 
DIVORCE IN NEW ENGLAND. 213 
 
 profound student of our political institutions, written 
 fifteen years ago. 
 
 The other witness is a student of busines's and its 
 laws, as well qualified, perhaps, as any man in New 
 England to speak of the things that affect capital and 
 labor. The State of Massachusetts puts Carroll D. 
 Wright at the head of the Bureau of Statistics of 
 Labor. She asks his opinion upon certain points. 
 He gives it in his official report for 1880, as follows '• 
 " The study of the questions belonging to us to con- 
 sider, extending over a half-dozen years, has taught 
 us that the industrial and social condition of the 
 laboring classes, as related to the permanent prosperity 
 of the productive industry of the Commonwealth, is 
 more affected by the presence of crime, poverty, and 
 the disorganizing influences resulting from the de- 
 crease of marriages, increase of divorces, and kindred 
 matters, than from many if not all the bad economical 
 conditions resulting from want of comprehension of 
 the true relations of labor and capital." [Eeport of 
 Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor for 1880, 
 p. 125.] 
 
 I have not said, you will observe, that divorce 
 and licentiousness are as cause and effect to each 
 other, though this is partly true. But I think that I 
 have shown that the two evils are increasinsr together, 
 and often you will find the increase in close rela- 
 tions. Let me call attention, for a moment, to cer- 
 tain facts as to the second object of marriage, — the 
 giving of offspring to the world. I cite the well- 
 known fact of the decrease in size of the New Eng- 
 
214 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 land family. The family of Massachusetts — includ- 
 ing both native and foreign — fell from an average of 
 4.69 in 1865, to 4.60 in 1875. The marriage rate — 
 that is, ratio of persons married annually to the popula- 
 tion — has fallen in twenty years from a higher figure 
 than reported in any European country to the level 
 of Austria, and lower than in any country except 
 Sweden. The number of children under five years 
 of age in Vermont was 154 in every 1,000 inhabi- 
 tants in 1830, and 113 in 1870, having fallen to 100 
 in 1860, and rising chiefly because of the foreign ele- 
 ment. The birth-rate in New England is probably 
 
 —f^ as low as in any European country ; among the 
 native stock, far lower. And there are certain losses 
 of the maternal functions, well known to physicians, 
 which are considered by them as exceedingly sig- 
 nificant. It is not beyond the probabilities to say 
 that if these things go on even at less than their 
 present rate, the native New-Engiander wiU practi- 
 
 "Sl cally disappear in less time than has elapsed since 
 the landing at Plymouth. I am told the state of 
 things is not much better among those who have set- 
 tled in the West. Here is one of the stubborn facts 
 of the times. Henceforth if the student of American 
 institutions continues to visit Plymouth Eock, he 
 must also take a good look at Castle Garden, and 
 study the black population of the South. 
 
 Look at one more class of facts. In the Western 
 Eeserve — comprising the twelve northeastern coun- 
 ties of Ohio, settled mainly by emigrants who went 
 from Connecticut long before that State made its 
 
DIVOKCE IN NEW ENGLAND. 215 
 
 new departure in divorce, and containing, it is said, 
 a purer New England stock than can be found in 
 the entire country, unless it be in parts of Maine 
 — the ratio of divorces to marriages was 1 to 11.8 
 for the two years 1878 and 1879, while in the rest 
 of the State it is 1 to 19.9. Nor is the worst of 
 the Reserve in the cities. The ratio in Ashtabula 
 County, among a farming people originally from New 
 England, is 1 to 8.5. And in Lake County the pro- 
 portion of divorce suits begun to marriages is 1 to 
 6.2, and of divorces granted, 1 to 7.4. Unless there 
 be Like counties in Maine, this is the worst county 
 for divorces in the United States, except, for a few 
 years, Tolland County, Conn. But if you go down 
 to Gallia County, peopled with Welshmen and 
 Southerners, the ratio is 1 to 50, and in Coshocton 
 1 to 47.2. The divorce rate in those counties of the 
 Eeserve is several times what it is in these and 
 other counties. I am told, too, that the birth rate 
 in Ohio is lowest where the divorce rate is highest. 
 It is said that the people of these counties are the 
 most intelligent and virtuous of any in the country, 
 and that the law-abiding citizens of the Eeserve go 
 to the courts for divorce, while those in other counties 
 do not. This latter may be partly true of people 
 reared in the South ; but I suspect not of the Welsh, 
 nor of others, to anything like the extent necessary to 
 account for the excess in divorces. 
 
 Is divorce, then, a virtue, in spite of the New Tes- 
 tament ? An answer to this question is, that nearly 
 all divorces occur amoni^ those outside our Christian 
 
? 
 
 \ 
 
 216 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 congregations, and generally among people noted 
 ^ neither for intelligence nor virtue. It is neither a 
 ^ virtue, nor yet the proper safety-valve of our social 
 N life ; for the evils it ought, in the opinion of many, to 
 S^. ;- check are increasing. I suggest rather that divorce 
 ^ "" "^^ is one form of social disease appearing in a highly 
 J' bred people like those of the New England type, 
 >^.just as other forms of life, when carried to a high 
 degree of perfection, become liable to their own pecu- 
 liar and insidious tendencies, which, unless carefully 
 watched and checked, are constantly working to 
 throw down the results of high culture to the lowest 
 forms of degradation. It is generally true, I think, 
 that divorce and kindred vices mostly appear among 
 those who, while reared under the principles of our 
 best New England life, fail to accept all those prin- 
 ciples in their integrity, and are thus thrown by the 
 influence of those they do accept into base perver- 
 sions of the true New England ideas. It is not 
 unlikely that Spiritualism, Free-love, Divorce, and 
 the sheer materialism of large numbers all have some 
 such origin, Mormonism and the late Oneida sys- 
 tem of social life are in no small degree other forms of 
 the evils under consideration. They are both largely 
 Yankee notions in their origin and leaders. Joseph 
 Smith, Brigham Young, and J. E. Noyes were aU from 
 Vermont. 
 
 It is significant that within the last twenty years 
 it is approximately true that divorces and separations 
 have doubled in New England, in England and 
 Wales, in France, and in Belgium. Switzerland is 
 
DIVORCE IN NEW ENGLAND. 217 
 
 said to have enacted a new divorce law in 1874, by 
 which divorces are greatly facilitated. The ratio to 
 marriages in some cantons is as high as 1 to 14 ; and 
 the bill of M. Naquet, in France, was rejected in the 
 Assembly only by a vote of 247 to 216. 
 
 This leads to the notice of some facts and opinions 
 of still wider significance. For a long time society in 
 Christian countries has been making more of the in- 
 dividual, and less of the family, as its organic unit. 
 Sir Henry Sumner Maine sums up the conclusions of 
 an exceedingly interesting part of his " Ancient Law " 
 by saying, " The movement of the progressive socie- 
 ties . . . has been distinguished by the gradual dis- ) 
 solution of family dependency, and the growth of / 
 individual obligation in its place. The individual 
 is steadily substituted for the family, as the unit 
 of which civil laws take account." [Ancient Law, 
 p. 163.] Though he uses the term " family " in a wide 
 sense, it is inclusive of the stricter use of the term. 
 " Contract," he says, " is the tie between man and 
 man which replaces those forms of reciprocity and 
 rights which have their origin in the family." And 
 he concludes the chapter by saying that " the move- 
 ment of the progressive societies hitherto has been a 
 movement from stattis to contract" Nothing, it seems 
 to me, could be truer of our American practice in 
 marriage than its tendency to reverse the true order, 
 and sink the status, to which the contract of marriage 
 leads, in the contract itself. And the tendency 
 reaches far beyond the marriage bond. 
 
 That remark, too, of Herbert Spencer has signifi- 
 
 j" 
 
^ 
 
 218 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 cauce, which declares that Individuation and Genesis 
 are antagonistic to each other. Carpenter, I think, 
 and others note the same law in physiology. Mr. 
 Spencer says : '' The development of society, as 
 well as the development of man and the develop- 
 ment of life generally, may be described as a ten- 
 dency to individuate, — to become a tJmig." This 
 is illustrated in a remarkable degree in the drift of 
 New England social life. The decrease of marriages 
 and births, the changes in the physical constitution 
 of women, the disposition to seek not only the sup- 
 port of life, but its pleasures and great ends, outside 
 the family relation, are patent facts. And when we 
 think of the effects of that fundamental principle of 
 Protestantism, — the right of the individual con- 
 science — and of its formative power over our re- 
 ligious and political institutions ; wdien we recall the 
 influence of Eousseau and his social contract upon the 
 minds of some of the political leaders of our country ; 
 when we consider the emphasis we have naturally 
 given to the rights of the individual in the achievement 
 of national independence, in giving freedom to the 
 slaA^e, and in doing a greatly needed work — in many 
 respects at least — for the emancipation of woman, it 
 need not surprise us to find the idea of the family, as 
 the fundamental unit and great organizing element of 
 society, somewhat obscured. This has been wellnigh 
 inevitable while we were busy in behalf of human 
 rights, and it has been greatly aided by the drift of 
 nearly all civilized society. And to these forces must 
 be added the effect of modern wealth, especially as 
 
DIVORCE IN NEW ENGLAND. 219 
 
 developed under the influence of machinery and the 
 laws of trade. There is an effect of these laws, 
 which, if not the dominant one, is at least very- 
 powerful, and which is disintegrating to the family. 
 Commerce is chiefly concerned with the mass and the 
 individual. A tendency exists here to treat human 
 life as increasingly individual, — each man struggling 
 for himself, each woman for herself, against the mass, 
 often with neglect or downright murder for the poor 
 innocents. The modern factory and salesroom are 
 in some considerable degree a grave peril to the mar- 
 riage relation and the family. 
 
 It does not wholly surprise me to hear thoughtful 
 and patriotic Catholics say, "Your whole theory of so- 
 ciety is wrong. It is based on individualism. Your 
 doctrine of human equality is the outcome of that 
 false Protestant notion which asserts the right of the 
 individual conscience to interpret the Bible for itself. 
 Not only the old French Republic was utterly wrong, 
 but the new is equally so. Even the American 
 Republic is radically wrong. The logic and practice ><^ 
 of Protestantism end religiously in atheism and socially 
 in communism. See its inevitable fruits in your di- 
 vorces, your lack of reverence for parents and civil 
 authority, and in your godless Protestants, who care 
 nothing for the church, God, or even morals." Here 
 that church joins issue with us, and indeed with all 
 modern society. Is the point well taken? and musty^ 
 the alternative become Rome or Rousseau ? A large/ ^^ 
 number of our people say yes, and eagerly accept 
 individualism in nearly all its destructive forms ; and 
 
220 CHKIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 this generally uncliurched, often atheistic, and fre- 
 quently grossly immoral class constitutes one of the 
 most dangerous perils to our institutions. 
 
 If I have made myself understood, you learn from 
 this rough outline that the family is suffering in four 
 ways in New England. More than two thousand di- 
 /^ vorces annually, reaching twice that number of per- 
 sons directly, and indirectly many times more, are 
 destroying its vital bond with, as yet, but the begin- 
 ning of an earnest attempt at reform. That is the blow 
 aimed at the life itself. Secondly, licentiousness, as 
 shown by the best accessible statistics of crime, is in 
 most localities increasing, and rarely has been grap- 
 pled with at all as earnest men and women are taking 
 hold of intemperance. As divorce destroys the moral 
 bond, so licentiousness corrupts the physical basis of 
 the family, while it poisons its moral life. The physi- 
 cal basis of marriage is sex, which next to life is the 
 'z profoundest fact in nature and society. Thirdly, 
 marriage is giving fewer children to the world ; and, 
 fourthly, the growth of individualism, under the influ- 
 ence of civil and economical laws and social and 
 religious forces, tends to lessen the influence of mar- 
 riage, the family, and the home over the individual, 
 and especially in society. Thus the bond and the 
 threefold end of marriage suffer together, though, it 
 may be, in varying degree. 
 
 A part of this evil is due* to temporary causes, — 
 slightly to the war, but more, I must think, to finan- 
 cial influences, — and greatly encouraged, in the case 
 of divorce, by most careless and reprehensible legisla- 
 
DIVORCE IN NEW ENGLAND. 221 
 
 tion and court practice. Climate, food, and kindred 
 influences are at work also. But to me the prime 
 causes lie deeper, and run back into the most serious 
 problems of modern society. For this reason I have 
 preferred to outline the subject in its broader relations 
 rather than go into the details of mere divorce. I do 
 not think the facts as to divorce can be properly seen 
 without much study in all these directions. 
 
 Now comes the question, What are we doing to 
 meet this evil and its related vices ? The Christian 
 public is beginning to move in earnest for reform in 
 divorce legislation, and ought to succeed. But there 
 is other work to be done. Law is the expression 
 of public opinion. That needs vigorous cultivation- 
 When a religious newspaper devotes two solid columns 
 — as one in this city did week before last — to the 
 teaching of the simplest elements concerning marriage 
 and divorce to an intelligent man, who, to all appear- 
 ance, holds the notions of a heathen of the days of 
 the effete Eoman Empire, with the feeling that it has 
 enough readers of that class to justify this use of its 
 crowded columns, it is time the schoolmaster and 
 tract-distributer were abroad. 
 
 But where shall we get the tracts ? The obscene 
 press is busy. What is the Christian press doing? 
 Diligent inquiry of leading Protestant publication 
 and tract societies having offices in this city discover 
 two tracts on divorce, and less than a dozen — mostly 
 cheap apologies for what we ought to have — on one 
 to two only of the licentious vices and crimes. More 
 than one or two societies tell me, " We have nothing 
 
222 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 of the kind." But a single temperance society has 
 over seven hundred publications ! Here is one way 
 in v^^hich the Catholics take a wise care of their people 
 that we do not of ours. You find no lack of good in- 
 struction in their publications on these subjects. It is 
 also notewortliy that Massachusetts, in a term of years, 
 changed her divorce system and was far down towards 
 the level of Connecticut in actual practice, without — 
 so far as I can learn — a single persistent protest 
 from her Christian press or from the platform, and 
 with probably only now and then a cry of alarm from 
 the pulpit. And we have been holding up our hands 
 in horror at Connecticut and Indiana, while Maine 
 has gone beyond Connecticut in the business of set- 
 tling family quarrels in her courts. 
 
 I know all that some will say about the difficulty 
 of treating delicate subjects. President Dwight com- 
 plained in his times that " the general prejudice against 
 any public exposure of the evils attendant upon the vio- 
 lation of the seventh commandment has been carried to 
 a length unwarranted either by the Scriptures or com- 
 mon sense." He refused to be bound by the false stand- 
 ard of the times, and a moral revolution was wrought 
 in New Haven. Jonathan Edwards was thrust out of 
 -> his pulpit, it is said, more for his plain dealing with 
 ^ the vices of the young than for any other reason ; but 
 the cause of religion and morality gained by his fidel- 
 ity. If these things are as some allege, we had better 
 expunge the seventh commandment, prepare an ex- 
 ^ purgated edition of the Sermon on the Mount, and 
 cut out whole chapters of the Epistles to the Corin- 
 
DIVORCE IN NEW ENGLAND. 223 
 
 thians ; in fact, revise the Bible and the Prayer-Book 
 in the interests of prudery. But most of you will 
 agree that no truth in religion or morals will have 
 very much influence over private life long after it has X 
 ceased to be a frequent theme of the pulpit. There 
 must be some way, therefore, in which vice can be 
 wisely denounced, and chastity properly taught and 
 encouraged, by public and private instruction. In- 
 temperance and lust are the twin vices of society, 
 together begetting most of its crime and misery. No 
 attack upon the one is well made unless it is sup- 
 ported in some way by an assault upon the other. 
 
 We need a literature on this subject, scientifically 
 sound and scripturally authoritative. A thoroiiyh ex- 
 amination of the nature, the rights, and the place of tJie 
 family in civil society is the duty of the hour. In this 
 work will be found the key to the whole problem. 
 The study of the institutions of society, the teachings 
 of biology, especially of human physiology, will show 
 that our Lord did not lay more sure the foundations of 
 personal liberty and individual perfection of character 
 than he did the foundations of a stable human society 
 in his doctrine of marriage and divorce ; and we shall 
 see tliat the safety of American society especially lies 
 in our ability to use this organic unit of the family in 
 all its completeness, and charged with all its created 
 force. 
 
 And now we may reply to the criticism of Catho- 
 lics. We do not see the use of fleeing to Eome to 
 escape tlie evils of America. Italy and the Catholic ^ 
 countries of Europe are too full of illegitimate children "^^ 
 
X 
 
 224 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 for that ; and we hesitate still more when we learn 
 that Catholic Belgium has doubled her separations 
 and quadrupled her divorces in the last forty years. 
 All honor to the noble stand the Catholics of America 
 have taken in the defence of marriage and for the pro- 
 tection of unborn life ! But our hope, and their hope 
 too, is in that grand old Protestant way of digging 
 deeper into the Scriptures, especially those words of 
 our Lord ending with that warning, *' What, therefore, 
 God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." 
 Here Catholics and Protestants may join hands. When 
 the family is recognized in its nature, as having both a 
 moral and physical constitution, as possessing, next 
 to individual existence, a life and unity of greater 
 strength and importance than any other natuml organ- 
 ism in the world, and is so respected and used, we 
 shall not only find safety, but give new life and prom- 
 ise to American institutions. American institutions 
 and Protestantism are no failure. There is more 
 light in the Word of God for society. 
 
 We need to do vigorous work now because of the 
 timeliness of this agitation. Growing Mormonism, 
 for one thing, challenges modern civilization and is 
 preparing to stand battle. We cannot evade the con- 
 flict. Especially that great antislavery sentiment of 
 the North, which indicted slavery and polygamy as 
 " the twin relics of barbarism," must stand firm here. 
 " By giving up slavery," wrote F. D. Maurice of us, " by 
 overthrowing the horrors which it introduced into 
 the marriage relation, — horrors with which nothing 
 in the worst records of polygamy can be compared, -^ 
 
DIVORCE IN NEW ENGLAND. 225 
 
 they have borne the true witness against Mormon- 
 ism." [Social Morality, p. 63.] The President has put 
 the issue on the right ground. As Dr. Wharton says, 
 " Marriage is not merely a contract, but an interna- 
 tional institution of Christendom. . . . Nor do the 
 features of marriage derive their force from the legis- 
 lation of any particular State. They existed prior 
 to any territorial legislation." [Conflict of Laws, 
 p. 122.] 
 
 But the Mormons will turn upon us when pushed 
 with this doctrine. Already they declare that their 
 peculiar institution checks vice, and they are not slow 
 in making comparisons with us. We feel some of 
 these things. Professor Phelps wrote, a year ago (I 
 quote by permission) : " We are not half awake to the 
 fact that by our laws of divorce and our toleration of 
 the ' social evil,' we are doing more to corrupt the 
 nation's heart than Mormonism, tenfold. Vice, avowed 
 and blatant and organized, to a large extent nullifies 
 itself, so far as self-diffusion is concerned. But vice, 
 lurking and still, trickles into all the crevices of 
 society. A nation of Mormons is impossible, — not 
 so a nation of libertines." That is the voice of 
 Andover. 
 
 Look to the South. To one race of five millions 
 the home has been but a chance, and marriage a 
 mockery; while the other has been corrupted with 
 the licentiousness of the two races. The tissue ballot 
 is an evanescent evil ; the fast multiplying black voter, 
 a growing peril of vast proportions. Much as the 
 South needs education, she needs the home more. The 
 
 15 
 
226 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 education that gives her the schoolhouse, or some 
 other, must transform the negro hovel into a home. 
 The philanthropy of the North will not complete its 
 w^ork until it has united, if possible, v^ith the justice 
 of the South in giving the negro a Christian home. 
 The two great institutions of property and marriage 
 have risen together, and exist in mutual dependence. 
 Therefore the business interests of the South, as well 
 as its social regeneration and political welfare, call for 
 the soundest theory and the most correct practice of 
 the family. The defence of Indian rights, too, has at 
 last been made to turn on individual property in a 
 home, thus melting away the ice of barbarism in the 
 rights of Christian civilization. 
 
 Or, finally, if we regard our future as a whole, and 
 think of hundreds instead of tens of millions of people, 
 with wealth and resources beyond the dream of the 
 wildest fancy of the Old World organized into gigantic 
 corporations, and all these interests intrusted to uni- 
 versal suffrage, making wealth in some form the great 
 coming question, or if we think of earlier perils when, 
 at the next commercial crisis, European communist 
 and native demagogue join hands, we need be sure 
 that the bulwark of the family be set firm as the moun- 
 tains to meet the shock, and that we may not, like the 
 England of to-day, be toiling in the seas because her 
 system of tenure of property in land forbids a true 
 home to the masses. 
 
 The line of an old Eoman poet runs like this : " He 
 taught them divine laws, instituted marriages, and 
 built spacious cities." "Nothing," said the writer 
 
DIVORCE IN NEW ENGLAND. 227 
 
 quoted in opening, " can be more philosophical than 
 the succession of ideas here presented by Calvus." 
 America is fast building cities. Let her not forget 
 the divine laws and the institution of marriage. For, 
 by as much as she is to be more than the older nations, 
 by so much must her corner-stone of the family 
 be broader and more enduring than that of other 
 countries. 
 
 Nothing, if I may say it, leads so surely into the 
 heart of these living issues as does this question of 
 Divorce. It is our opportunity, that we cannot fairly 
 grapple with it without being compelled to bring the 
 whole subject of the Family to the front. This 
 extremity of the nation is the opportunity of the 
 Christian Church. Let the Church so proclaim the 
 doctrine of the Family that all the people shall take 
 up the words of the President : " The sanctity of mar- 
 riage and the family relation are the corner-stone of X- 
 our American society and civilization," and make 
 them known to every man, to every woman, and to 
 every child in the land. They deserve to be cut into 
 the rock of the mountain passes of Utah. Let Cali- 
 fornia, if she must have something to calm her fears, 
 write these words in Chinese characters at her Golden 
 Gate. But let us continue to proclaim them as the 
 right of the Indian and the best hope of the South ; 
 let us so set them that commerce shall read them 
 and the unlettered immigrant inquire their meaning 
 as he enters the harbor of New York ; while we do 
 not fail to cut them into the granite canopy over 
 Plymouth Eock. 
 
228 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 It will bje time enough for Utah and the South to 
 sneer at divorce and vice in New England when they 
 shall have begun reform within their own borders. 
 Massachusetts or New England will utter no word of 
 censure for Utah or South Carolina which she does 
 not intend shall be heard at home. 
 
IX. 
 
 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE HISTORIC 
 ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 
 
 By EEV. J. B. THOMAS, D.D. 
 
IX. 
 
 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE HISTORIC 
 ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 
 
 By rev. J. B. THOMAS, D.D. 
 
 "ly /TY theme is "The Significance of the Historic 
 -^^■^ Element in Scripture." I propose to follow in 
 its discussion that inductive method which is usually 
 characterized as "the scientific," but which may with 
 equal propriety be termed the natural method. For 
 every child is an inductive reasoner, when from two 
 facts observed, namely, fire seen and pain felt in con- 
 tact, he constructs the theory that fire burns ; a hypoth- 
 esis with which he is usually content without taking 
 the further step necessary to satisfy the rigidly scientific 
 mind, of repeated verification. It is certainly one of the 
 illustrations of that " total depravity " of the human 
 intellect, which the men of intellect are so apt to 
 deride, that it should have persisted so obstinately in 
 tracing its pyramids downwards, hanging them from an 
 aerial apex ; that it should canonize the man who in- 
 sisted on taking the earth as a foundation. Perhaps 
 nobody has of late years better illustrated the prover- 
 bial virility and clearness of the New England mind 
 
 
>^ 
 
 232 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 than Theodore Parker. He was wont to quote with 
 gusto the satirical mot upon the Hegelians, — that "part 
 of them were still milking the barren heifer, and the 
 rest were holding the sieve." While at the same time 
 Boston Brahminism was holding up its fine woven 
 sieve to catch the ethereal drops wrung by him with 
 rationalistic fingers from the udder of Transcenden- 
 talism. 
 
 The present time is more prosaic and more wise. 
 It demands, first of all, a fact ; then for comparison 
 and inference other facts ; then for verification again 
 facts. Here seems safe journeying ; for although our 
 intermediate theory be but a tremulous wire bridge, 
 it stretches from rock to rock. 
 
 I. PRELIMINARY SUGGESTIONS. 
 
 Still, however, precaution is needful, for our wire- 
 spinners are capricious, and even the rocks, under the 
 gaze of our atomic philosophers, have become clouds 
 of vapor dancing in the sunbeam.' 
 
 l.Fad. — Since we must begin with a fact, it is 
 appropriate to inquire, " What is a fact ? " And here, 
 as we are more in danger of being cheated by soph- 
 istry than imposed upon by common sense, it is 
 better to point out two or three misleading distinc- 
 tions. The first I mention is the laying a heavy strain 
 on the antithesis hetween a fact and a phenomenon, and 
 insisting that the latter cannot be the basis of a logi- 
 cal induction. "First catch your hare," tauntingly 
 says my scientific friend. But my hare when caught 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 233 
 
 is only a phenomenon. I seek the ultimate fact 
 beneath ; I flay him ; I dissect him ; I cinder him ; I 
 resolve him into his chemical constituents. The 
 elements reached are not yet ultimate, although 
 beyond microscopic reach ; and I am told that when 
 found each of this countless group of atoms will be a 
 complex sphere whose movements are as immeasura- 
 ble as those of the solar system, and involve a problem 
 which no mathematician even knows how to attack. 
 I think you will agree that the search is hopeless. Is 
 it not better to accept the phenomenal hare as a suffi- 
 cient basis, either of soup or logic, than to destroy it 
 in quest of the reality, which is phenomenal after all? 
 " Life " may be only a phenomenon, but it is quite as 
 real a fact as " protoplasm," and is not explained by be- 
 ing ignored in behalf of " carbonic acid and water." 
 
 Again, confusion is introduced by limiting the 
 term to the phenomena of sense alone, thus excluding 
 all testimony from other sources. The eye is a fact, 
 and so the image upon the retina and the tremulous 
 movement of the optic nerve ; and these being verifi- 
 able by sense are fit bases for induction. But not so 
 the visual impression, the memory, the thought of that 
 which was seen. The event seen is a fact, but the 
 same event recounted has ceased to be a fact, having 
 gone beyond the range of external perception. If 
 this be so, the bulk of scientific induction and the 
 whole of historic reasoning are baseless. The facts of 
 consciousness and of belief on testimony may be less 
 available for logical purposes, but they are not less 
 real, because belonging to a different sphere. It is fur- 
 
^ 234 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 ^ V ther alleged, that nothing is to he accepted as fact that 
 is beyond eocperience, that is, that has not been proven. 
 But this is to confound facts with theories. Facts 
 are observed ; theories are proved. Pregnant terms 
 are sometimes used, which increase the confusion ; as 
 when it is said that no man ever saw a miracle, — for 
 the term " miracle " involves not only a fact, to which 
 r^ the senses may testify, but the hypothesis of its super- 
 
 V"^ natural origin. The fact may be accepted on the 
 "^ testimony of the plainest man ; its occult cause may 
 
 ^ bewilder the philosopher. Moreover, it is worth 
 
 observing that the sceptical attitude involved in this 
 , definition paralyzes inquiry with the first step ; for 
 our first fact must be verified by comparison with 
 other facts, and by the trustworthiness of our own 
 experience, while as yet we have no experience. It 
 assumes, against all observation, that we are born 
 Pyrrhonists. On the contrary, life itself is possible 
 only upon faith in the fidelity of instinct and the 
 observing faculties, and in the predominant truthful- 
 ness of men. It will be sufficient, then, to recognize as 
 prima facie fit basis of reasoning whatever is given 
 on the testimony of consciousness, of sense, or of 
 unimpeached witnesses. 
 
 2. Theory. — A preliminary word is also needful as 
 to the meaning and function of theory. And first, it 
 is well to remember that theory must rest on observa- 
 tion, and cannot, therefore, lawfully precede it. To 
 proceed to the study of the Bible on the assumption 
 of its certain inspiration, or under a protest against 
 its possible inspiration, is in either case to renounce 
 
 -y- 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 235 
 
 the inductive method and return to the "high a 
 priori road." For inspiration is a question not of X^ 
 fact, but of theory. It cannot be observed, but must 
 be inferred. There is this special danger also in the 
 preliminary application of a theoretic term : that, 
 while it is in fact to the last degree nebulous and plas- 
 tic, the inquirer, starting out with a straight-edged 
 conception of its meaning, is tempted either to blink 
 incongruous facts, or to torture them into conform- 
 ity to his straight line ; or, failing this, to renounce '^ 
 the term altogether. To one man inspiration may 
 mean faultless precision of syllable and date; to 
 another, direct and oracular dictation of historic as j 
 well as didactic truth ; to another, supervisory re- ! 
 straint against harmful error in doctrine ; to another, 3 
 only spiritual exaltation and suggestion, without ""^^ 
 release from human infirmity ; and so on through all 
 the hypothetic spectrum. False theories and imper- 
 fect theories there are certain to be, even upon the 
 facts ; but vain theories, scornfully ignoring the ex- 
 istence or repudiating the need of facts, there do not 
 need to be. 
 
 Again, erroneous impressions are apt to arise, as to 
 the nature and value of inductive theory, /?'0??i the use 
 of sweeping phrases ; such as that which Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer uses, when he proposes, to establish his theory 
 upon an " exhaustive induction " from all the facts of , 
 nature and humanity. '^ 
 
 This would, indeed, be a task for Omniscience, and 
 the residual conclusion veiy nearly a mathematical 
 certainty. A similar implication is involved in the 
 
236 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 alleged methods of the positive philosophy. The 
 original theoretic horizon, it is said, was the theologi- 
 cal, — boundless, but, on exploration, empty ; the lines 
 were set closer in the metaphysical, but this proved 
 also on trial a fruitless realm ; and we are accordingly 
 i)^ reduced within the tight rim of the positive, by the 
 rigid and conclusive processes of experimental elimi- 
 nation. Let us seek an analogy in cosmology. Once 
 this earth was man's universe ; its measure boundless, 
 the low-bending heavens ministering to it with torch- 
 lights, that men called stars. We have reduced the 
 illimitable boundaries of the earth, for we have gone 
 round it. We have exploded the ancient supersti- 
 tions as to the Hyperboreans, for we have visited 
 them. We have weighed our earth and proved it, 
 and found it solid, and our knowledge concerning it 
 seems nearly as positive and spherically complete as 
 the earth itself But have we got the universe into 
 our crucible and reached an ultimate analysis of it ? 
 Unfortunately for that hypothesis, Copernicus has 
 meantime found his Archimedean fulcrum, and tilted 
 our earth and our spherical philosophy with it into 
 the illimitable. "The heavens have gone off," since 
 ^" our childhood, "and become astronomical." 
 
 And the continents of the skies have not ceased to 
 be, or to challenge the reverent or unsatisfied soul, 
 though islanded for a time in this corner of space, to 
 a broader vision and a nobler hope. 
 
 The theoretic process is positive, not negative. Its 
 results are obtained by collating our knowledge, not 
 by sifting our ignorance ; we proceed from the centre 
 
THE HISTORIC ELExMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 237 
 
 toward the circumference ; and our results, so far as the 
 universe is concerned, can be probable only, and not 
 certain, as they might be if we proceeded from an 
 explored circumference, with convergent lines, to a 
 single centre. 
 
 It is manifest, therefore, that without omniscience 
 and eternity we can never logically exclude the su- 
 pernatural. The well of causes is too deep for our 
 plumb, the rim of space too distant for our lines. 
 The electric message seems supernatural to the savage, 
 and a crimson star would have startled the ancient 
 astronomers. 
 
 Again, an inductive theory, being only a suggested 
 explanation of the coincidence of certain facts, is not 
 necessarily overthroivn by casual contradictions; at 
 least in the absence of another theory more exact. 
 The business of the theorist is not primarily to ex- 
 plain exceptions, but to discover a law. And this 
 suggestion is important; since the critical instinct 
 seems to find so much ranker growth/in the mire of 
 intellectual self-conceitJ]^than the love of affirmative 
 truth. Too many meif postpone the study of Scrip- 
 ture as a whole, until their sagaciously apprehensive 
 nerves are quieted by being told " where Cain got his 
 wife." Criticism has its place, to be sure; but it 
 should be a finger-post at the crossing, not a toll-bar 
 at the entrance of the road, — a pruning-knife, not an 
 axe at the root of the tree. Phlebotomy has its uses 
 in the hands of a skilful practitioner; but in the 
 hands of an undeveloped and headlong critic, it re- 
 sembles rather the singing of the mosquito, whose 
 
 X 
 
238 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 sting irritates without profit, and who becomes con- 
 spicuous only by the blood he borrows from creatures 
 nobler than himself. Criticism, therefore, may not 
 profitably supersede or antecede theorizing. Let the 
 critic first tell me his theory, then we can match 
 swords. 
 
 3. Verification. — Faith in miracles and prayer is 
 challenged in our day to accredit itself by experimental 
 test, or be relegated to that limbo of superstition which 
 has been escaped by " all sensible men." Professor 
 (JIuxley makes the test of reality to consist of a ca- 
 pacity of " being verified by experiment any time we 
 like to try.*^ Mr, Darwin thinks it worth stating, as 
 an argumbiit, that " no man ever saw a special crea- 
 
 / tion." And Mr. Spencer gives the coup de grace to 
 
 the idea of creation itself by suggesting that it is 
 
 , " inconceivable." Now, in connection with all this, it 
 
 / is well to remember that we are reduced by physical 
 philosophers to the necessity of faith in two funda- 
 mental theories ; neither of which is verifiable by 
 experiment, and each of which rests on an idea which 
 is inconceivable. For the Newtonian theory of gravi- 
 tation demands the action of a body where it is not, 
 through a non-existent medium ; and the commonly 
 accepted theory of light rests on the assumption of a 
 " luminiferous ether," which, according to the descrip- 
 tion of Dr. Young himself, while permitting us to 
 live in ' and move through it without appreciable 
 resistance, is yet " absolutely solid." Professor Je- 
 vons, in characterizing it, seems unconsciously to 
 resort to a much-ridiculed phrase in our English 
 
THE HISTORIC ELExMEXT IN SCRIPTURE. 239 
 
 Bible, describing the space above us as " an adaman- 
 tine firmament." It is clear, then, that hypotheses 
 may still be admissible, which are directly verifiable 
 neither by experiment, by reason, nor by testimony ; 
 if, taken as data, they give coherence and consist- 
 ency to other hypotheses, which are so verifiable. If 
 the assumption of a cause beyond the range of dem- 
 onstration be a lawful resort as an explanation of 
 facts otherwise inexplicable, why may not the as- 
 sumption of a cause outside of nature be equally 
 admissible as explaining facts for which nature can- 
 not furnish an explanation ? When cool-brained 
 physics is driven to transcendentalism, it ought not 
 to chide more docile faith for following. To those 
 who have no scruple in believing that they them- 
 selves can bring back to life the shrivelled mummy 
 of a boiled animalcule, we may well retort with Paul, 
 " Why should it be thought a thing incredible vjith 
 you that God should raise the dead ? " 
 
 But even within the range of the verifiable, it is to 
 be remembered that there are plaius of research that 
 do not coincide, and that a conclusion satisfactory in 
 one may not be verifiable in another. The law of 
 crystalline forms is geometric. There is strong temp- ^ 
 tation to prophesy that such symmetry will be still 
 more marked as we ascend into the realm of biologic 
 forms; but instead, the chief distinguishing mark 
 of beginning life is the hreahing up of symmetry. 
 There is no lack of harmony, in the two lines of phe- 
 nomena, but only of analogy. In like manner, the 
 evolution of living forms by no means necessarily 
 
 y 
 
240 CHKIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 implies the evolution of the religious faculty. The 
 history of human progress can no more safely be de- 
 termined by the study of contemporaneous grades of 
 society alone than geology can be "concluded by the 
 study of superficial geography. Our best effort in 
 either case will be but a muddy guess. If there be 
 a spiritual realm, therefore, it may safely be inferred 
 that the certainty of its phenomena cannot be guar- 
 anteed, nor their nature perfectly interpreted, by 
 processes purely physical or intellectual. These may 
 create presumptions, or suggest partial analogies, but 
 they cannot bring finality ; for nothing in this lower 
 realm is final. It is doubtless true that miracles are 
 ^ possible only to the believing. Faith, certainly, is a 
 Scriptural condition. And the reason is obvious. 
 No scientific study of external conditions, no practised 
 keenness of scrutiny, can baffle the incredulity which, 
 after it has exhausted the possibilities of ocular delu- 
 sion, has still the inexhaustible realm of occult natu- 
 ral forces without, and of mental hallucination within, 
 into which to retreat. The Dialectical Society tried 
 spiritualistic phenomena, under precautions satisfac- 
 tory to men so acute as Mr. Crookes and Mr. A. R. 
 Wallace, and they were content. But of the remain- 
 ing scientific world, " some mocked, and others said. 
 We will hear thee again of this matter." 
 
 To sum up these preliminary observations : it will 
 be my purpose to group together such pertinent facts 
 as I may be able to gather from current observation, 
 from monumental records, and from the testimony of 
 men, living or dead, in Scripture or elsewhere, as to 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 241 
 
 the " tilings which they have seen and heard/' and 
 also such as they have felt, and such as " have been 
 most surely believed among " them ; and upon such 
 collection of facts to make such inferences as may 
 seem reasonable in themselves, and not discordant 
 with growing history. 
 
 II. THE BIBLE A FACT AMONG FACTS. 
 
 1. The Bible and Christendom. — The Bible is itself >- 
 a fact as well as a record of facts. It does not melt 
 before the gaze, nor crumble in the hand. It is over- 
 hung by an immense cloud of subjective personal 
 experience, more or less indefinable and incommen- 
 surable ; it is wrought into the foundations of various 
 ecclesiastical organizations ; its words are recast into 
 divers symbols of faith and systems of doctrine ; it is 
 closely encompassed by a heavy growth of gloss and 
 comment ; it is the nucleus of an immense body of 
 devotional literature ; it is continually taking new 
 phases in strange languages and in new translations 
 in our own ; and yet it is no more in danger of losing 
 its identity and concreteness of outline by reason of 
 these concomitants, than the light-house by reason 
 of the floods of light it sheds, or the tree by reason 
 of the fruit it bears. Unlike the Hindoo sacred 
 books, — of which the original outline is gone, the 
 substance being transmuted indistinguishably into the 
 parasitic growth of comment that has infested and 
 consumed them, — it bears but is not overborne. Like 
 flower and bee, sealed up for future generations in the 
 
 16 
 
 ^ 
 
242 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 amber of geology, the Old Testament was deposited 
 ill the Hebrew, which forthwith congealed, escaping 
 henceforth the mutations of a li^dng tongue ; and the 
 / New Testament in the more fluent Greek (copied by 
 many independent writers, whose very errors were to 
 * become in time, by interlacing testimony, reaffirma- 
 tory of the true text) was unwittingly hidden from 
 VL /the tampering or curious hand in dismembered sheets, 
 under prosaic monkish essays, until the Greek lan- 
 guage was also dead, and movable type ready to liide 
 it from mutilation by stereotyped publicity. Then 
 came forth the New and the Old Testament, linked 
 henceforth in double and abiding testimony, — one 
 book, the Book, to work its marvellous ministry in 
 the earth. 
 
 If its errors be fatal, they cannot be remedied, for 
 they are adamantine. No "ingenuity of exegesis" 
 can avert the peril, for the original is in no cabalistic 
 tongue, but is open to all scholarship. It seems, 
 moreover, by the very sobriety and concreteness of its 
 statements, to thrust itself purposely, as it has done 
 actually, as a " stumbling-block " in the way of all 
 travellers on the road to truth, which they may build 
 upon or fall upon, but cannot miss. 
 
 Coextensive with the book is the realm which is 
 characteristically known as Christendom. It has a 
 distinct geographical area (the boundaries at least as 
 clearly traceable as the kingdoms of physical science), 
 a distinct literature, and civilization dominated by 
 distinct ideas. I do not at this point assume that 
 the Bible is the root of these ; but only mark the 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 243 
 
 exact coincidence of their range and the intimacy of 
 their relation. 
 
 2. The Old Testament and the Jews. — If Christen- 
 dom be an anomaly in the world, the Jews in Chris- 
 tendom and the world are no less anomalous, — a 
 people without a country, without a civil nucleus, 
 without a temple ; a race poured out like a river into 
 the Salter sea, yet preserving its outline and its fresh- 
 ness to the farthest shore ; malleable everywhere in 
 the furnace and beneath the hammer of civil, social, 
 and commercial custom, yet with domestic fibre ut- 
 terly unbroken. So conspicuously do the old traits 
 reappear, producing historic verisimilitude, that the 
 mythic philosopher of the future can choose no fairer 
 field than the essays of Macaulay, or the recent ap- 
 peal to the Prussian king, placed beside the Scripture, 
 to persuade the reader that the Scripture record was 
 later than the nineteenth century, or that the record 
 of our current history was mythical. For in Macau- 
 lay's time we find Mordecai still " sitting at the 
 king's gate," and the essayist answering Haman's 
 appeal against this alien people, "whose laws are 
 diverse from all people ; neither keep they the king's 
 laws." And in the appeal of the German people we 
 find the old Egyptian terror, because "the children ot 
 Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, and 
 multiplied and waxed exceeding mighty, and the land 
 was filled with them." Still, as of old, they seem to 
 "dwell in tents," or rather, as when prepared for flight 
 from Egypt, with " loins girded, shoes on feet, and 
 staff in hand," as those who are " in haste." For, as 
 
244 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 Professor Freeman explains, their persecutions have 
 always arisen from their being aliens, and as aliens 
 having no power to hold realty, but compelled to 
 hoard their possessions in gold. Being thus by com- 
 pulsion sojourners and capitalists, their presence has 
 always inspired hate. Yet again, as in Egypt, " the 
 more they afflicted them the more they multiplied 
 -I and grew." Trodden under foot, ground to powder, 
 scattered as chaff by the wind, their toughness has 
 been the wonder of historians and the problem of 
 ethnologists. "The Jew almost alone," says Professor 
 Freeman again, " is sure of his pure blood " among all 
 the nations. 
 
 And now, again, precisely coincident with Judaism 
 is the Old Testament, treasured and read, not in mod- 
 ern vernacular, nor in the Septuagint Greek, although 
 that is the work of their own scholars, but in the 
 ancient and, as they insist, the original Hebrew. 
 The splendor of their ancient ritual is gone ; they 
 speak many new languages, and wander amid strange 
 peoples, surrendering much to courtesy or to rapa- 
 city ; but their ancient Scripture they will not sur- 
 render. They find in it the core of genealogical pride, 
 patriotism, political aspiration, and religion. 
 
 3. The Bible in delation to Current Facts. — That 
 there must be something more than a mere casual 
 relation between the Bible and Christendom on tlie 
 / one hand, and the Old Testament and Judaism on the 
 other, will, I think, be a natural suggestion to any 
 candid mind. That the jagged edges of two sheets 
 match here and there may be meaningless; but that 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IX SCRIPTURE. 245 
 
 the irregular outline matches at every point, satisfies 
 
 the legal mind that they are counterparts, and that ^ 
 
 their common indenture was designed. 
 
 Kow, not only has the trend of progress been uni- 
 formly westward, outlining by its course the control- 
 linix influence of the Bible, as lines of verdure down 
 tlie mountain's side in hot countries reveal the course 
 of the running stream ; not only does the world's his- 
 tory break asunder, as the Bible does, the one parting 
 between the old Asiatic and the new European 
 regime, as the other does between the Old Testament 
 and the New, and at the very same era, — an era 
 thenceforth stamped indelibly on all our coin and 
 in all our literature, as though in perpetual reminder y 
 that the Lord and not Caesar, by his stamp and super-*^ 
 scription, claims these ages as his own. All this 
 might possibly be attributed to a concurrence of nat- 
 ural causes, — the steady westward course to the uni- 
 form tidal drift of all terrestrial things following the 
 sun (although the earlier migrations were clearly in 
 diverse directions) ; and the change of civilization to 
 a change of landscape, soil, and climate, although a 
 like migration into the tempting Indian peninsula 
 had ended only in a curdling lethargy. 
 
 But other circumstances to which I have alluded 
 cannot be so explained. In the midst of this heav- 
 ing flood, in which the ancient and petrified distinc- 
 tions of language, race, custom, and traditions are /\ 
 lifted on the tumultuous wave, dashed against each 
 other, and disappear, the mysterious Jew, tossed with 
 the rest, and often submerged, alone, of all peoples. 
 
246 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 drifts on -unbroken and unchanged. His phlegmatic 
 conservatism is not due to his Semitic blood ; for no 
 nation of antiquity was more daring or progressive 
 than the Phoenician, and none in modern times more 
 aggressive than the Arabian. It is not due to isola- 
 
 s^tion in business or life. He mixes in, and is pressed 
 upon, by our civilization as by an atmosphere. Yet, 
 while all other sects mingle, he resists intermarriage ; 
 European or American in sojourn, he " remains an 
 Asiatic in temper; transplanted out of the conge- 
 nial past, he grows as an exotic in the unfriendly 
 present, living a kind of posthumous life, a bush 
 • consuming yet forever unconsumed, like that which 
 Moses saw\ As the explanation of this anomaly, — 
 this strange figure, looming against the horizon, among 
 the whirling winds, spectral as a cloud, yet adaman- 
 tine in outline, — I behold, clutched tightly in his 
 hand, the ancient book which he himself accounts at 
 once the record of his past, and the key to his 
 present, existence. 
 
 4. Origiii of the Bible. — That it is not the nor- 
 mal product of his national genius, no one will need 
 
 7^"^ to be assured who familiarizes himself with the Tal- 
 mudic literature. The hand that in maturity pro- 
 ducked such tawdry colors and incoherent forms, could 
 never have created with unguided pencil the tranquil 
 landscape of the twenty-third Psalm, or the Titanic 
 splendors of Habakkuk's vision. That the Jew did 
 not even comprehend the inner meaning of the price- 
 less " oracles " committed to him, is confirmed by his 
 rejection of the plainly prophesied Messiah. His 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 247 
 
 arrested development at that point, and the simulta- 
 neous outburst of new life in the believing Gentile 
 world, clearly reveal the terribleness of his mistake. 
 The book of which he, as the original custodian, thence- 
 forth survives to be the appropriate witness, itself 
 describes in prophecy his blind refusal and its conse- 
 quence, — the forfeiture of his inheritance and the 
 transfer of his destiny. Wearing the tallith in thej^ 
 synagogue to-day, he unw^ittingly republishes to every 
 looker-on the Apostle's sad words, " the veil is upon 
 their heart." 
 
 That their unique persistence against the tooth of 
 time is due solely to their Messianic hope, seems so 
 indisputable to Dr. Draper that in his book on the 
 " Development of Civil Policy in America " he in- 
 stances them, at the expense of his whole argument, 
 as illustrating the power of an idea to master and 
 reverse the otherwise overwhelming sway of Buckle's 
 law. But the Messianic prophecy lies among the 
 very germs of their history, and is interwoven with 
 and moulds their whole record. It was not the fruit, 
 but the root, of their development. 
 
 Professor Freeman also is so struck with the fact 
 that their history is phenomenal — not having been 
 shaped from without by natural force, but nucleated 
 and vitalized from within by this extraordinary book < 
 — that he declares theirs " the strongest case in all ^^ 
 history of a nation preserved in its purity by a 
 marked and special religion." The case seems clear, 
 then, that the destiny of this " peculiar people," lying 
 outside the range of philosophic canons, has been 
 
^■^ ^ 248 CHRIST AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 
 
 ^ developed in immediate connection with the book 
 . Y * which was so long its special care, and which, though 
 ^ now a Gentile legacy, it still lingers to watch and 
 ^^ confirm. 
 
 M 5. The Bible and Modern History. — To treat ade- 
 quately upon the multiform relations of the Bible to 
 modern history would be to honeycomb the whole realm 
 of literature, science, art, politics, and domestic life. 
 /It is, as Professor Tyndall says, the " unquestionable 
 antecedent " of our whole civilization. As flint in the 
 soil at the root hides itself in the texture of wheat stem 
 X V and oak, so the Bibles of Luther and Wickliff and their 
 ^jsF^ compeers, planted at the bottom of our printed litera- 
 ture, put fibre into and determined the very forms of 
 speech through which State, school, and individual liave 
 poured their thoughts. The documents of diplomacy, 
 judicial formulas, parliamentary routine, bear direct 
 'traces of Bible orio^in. It would be interestinir to 
 mark out, as time will not allow, the trend of the 
 great courses of achievement in modern times ; to 
 observe how closely, as to period, they have coin- 
 cided with eras of increased religious activity, and 
 how far, as to great names, they have taken in believ- 
 ers and students of the Scripture. The men who 
 have seen deepest into the mystery of things, and 
 caught most of the prophetic breath of the coming 
 morning, — such as Bacon, Kepler, Newton, Faraday, 
 "^ and others, — were earnest students of the Book in 
 which they devoutly believed the heavens were truly 
 reflected, and the earth's mysteries an "open secret." 
 I trust a further study of the contents of the Bible 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 249 
 
 itself may vindicate tlie suggestion, that there is more 
 than a casual coincidence in this fact. 
 
 It is interesting to observe how inevitably candid 
 inquiry brings men back, by however circuitous a 
 road, to the cardinal doctrines of the New Testament 
 as the true goal of human perfectness. Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer, building his colossal system of synthetic 
 philosophy, after so wide and careful exploration, 
 finds the tremendous pymmid converging at its top- 
 most point to the truth which a " little child " might 
 at the beginning get from Scripture. For in his 
 " Data of Ethics " lie sums up all in the humble hope 
 and faith that " some reasoned form of the ethics of ^ 
 the New Testament" may yet become the life-core of 
 society. He thus declares that this wonderful book, 
 which has preceded the modern era, is still in advance . 
 of it, and its sublime ideal as yet unreached. Con-^ 
 sidering how slowly moral ideas are evolved, and the 
 specially depressed condition of human society when 
 the New Testament was written, the problem still 
 remains unsolved, how, out of the least cultivated 
 nation of that inferior age, there issued an ideal to 
 which the nineteenth century looks up as still tran- 
 scending its best attainments. 
 
 The conclusion seems fair, that some element un- 
 explained and as yet inexplicable enters into the 
 origin of these phenomena. The book did not " fall 
 down from Jupiter" like the Ephesian image, it grewX 
 on earth ; it was not written upon the sky in fire, but 
 in human language in the earthly page ; but though 
 written by " hand of man," it seems to have been 
 
250 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 "under the wing of the cherubim;" its fruits and 
 its unaccountable origin place it beyond the range of 
 mere human phenomena. 
 
 III. HISTORIC INSIGHT. 
 
 From the relations of the Bible let us turn to its 
 contents, seeking to learn thereby the secret of such 
 power. 
 
 1. The historic element is unmistakable and con- 
 spicuous ; it may even be said to be the controlling 
 feature. For where, as in the Psalms or the Epistles, 
 it does not take an avowed historic form, still it is 
 instinct with the inner life of historic characters, and 
 so a record of current facts, not the idle play of 
 fancy. Indeed, in these features it supplies just those 
 elements essential to the true picture of tlie passing 
 time ; elements once neglected, but, since Macaulay's 
 day, recognized as essential to the very nature of true 
 history. How diversified in authorship, in era, in 
 locality, and in form : compendious statemxcnts of 
 scientific truth ; genealogies ; state documents, like 
 the Chronicles; idyls, like Euth; statutes, like Le- 
 viticus ; epics, like Job ; lyric and didactic verse in 
 Psalms ; concrete earthly wisdom in Proverbs ; pessi- 
 mistic sighs in Ecclesiastes ; commingled history, 
 poetry, and oratory, as in the Prophets ; unstudied 
 memoirs in the Gospels ; equally artless records of 
 travel and experience in the Acts ; Epistles whicli 
 uncover the social and individual heart-history of 
 the time ; and the gorgeous vision of the evening, 
 passing through night to morning, at the end ! 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 251 
 
 But the record is as compreheTisive as it is diverse, 
 and being so comprehensive, how compact and clear 
 in outline ! llemember the grim criticism of Carlyle 
 upon the disproportionate verbiage of our time com-X 
 pared with the severe sententiousness of the Penta- 
 teuch. In the hands of our modern chroniclers, he 
 says, "the account of the burning of a Brunswick , 
 theatre takes more space than the creation of a world." '^ 
 As the quick sweep of Giotto's circle enclosed the 
 rich revelations of his genius, as the oak lies in the 
 acorn, so the whole Bible lies folded in the germinal 
 sentence with which it begins. Mark the order of 
 the unfolding universe : the spirit moves, the word 
 is spoken, the firmament is 7nade. We indeed ap- 
 proach these facts in an inverse order, " first natural, 
 then spiritual ; " but every new age makes clearer the 
 truth that the coarser elements are the vehicles of 
 the more subtile, — the spiritual was before, and is 
 beneath, the material. In the light of the nineteenth 
 century, when matter dissolved reveals light, heat, and 
 electricity, and these again unwoven blend into the w 
 latest and central word of science, " motion," as the 
 primal font of things, how strange to find this last 
 word of science the first of Scripture ! Again, in 
 this time, when a vjord changes the boundaries and 
 destinies of empires, holds the ponderous enginery in 
 check or dashes it through the land, sends light- , 
 nings that they may go and say, " Here we are ; " 
 when brute force has receded and mind is supreme, — 
 how noticeable that so long ago, in the very shadow 
 of the massive p}Tamids, and of the Titanic despotism 
 
252 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 lying, like them, heavy on heart and hope, there came 
 a vision so clear of a fact so deeply hidden, that might- 
 ier than the hand, the body's veliicle of power, is the 
 word, the utterance of the soul. 
 
 The record thus beginning at the centre sweeps 
 the whole circumference of history. It takes in the 
 world, the race, the outer and the inner life. It ac- 
 counts nothing insignificant or foreign that reveals a 
 significant phase of human experience. 
 
 Yet, again, though so all-embracing, how sym- 
 metrically complete. It does not, like the childish 
 Herodotus, pour an unassorted flood of gossip through 
 its pages. It finds all history vertebrate, and along that 
 vertebral line it moves, revealing the whole structure 
 of the typical past. The Cainite races, the massive 
 Egyptian, Chaldean, and Ninevite civilizations, the 
 various changing fortunes of the world at large, are 
 not overlooked, but put in their incidental and sub- 
 ordinate place ; and so the perspective of history, 
 unknown to the classic writers of a far later day, is 
 recognized -and preserved. 
 
 2. Four widerlying ideas reveal themselves, namely : 
 
 a. The idea of structural unity. The universe is 
 one : the groups in creation are single, yet make a 
 complex unity ; the human race is one ; language is 
 one ; the Old Testament is one, sharply outlined, in 
 its dominant conception of the cor'^orate and external, 
 from the New Testament, which is equally nucleated 
 round the individual and internal life. 
 
 This sense of a pervading mental order is revealed 
 also in the use of the type as representing the whole. 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 253 
 
 Israel is equally the man and the nation, and the 
 nation reveals mankind. All history, thus having a 
 symmetrical order, becomes, as Paul describes it in 
 the case of Hagar, an " allegory." All nature be- 
 comes, as in the teaching of Jesus, a "parable." 
 " How, then," said he, " will ye understand all para- 
 bles ? " The whole universe becomes a cryptogram, a 
 " seven-sealed roll," which no man by earthly wisdom 
 alone shall " prevail to open," but which may be 
 unfolded, as in Patmos, to the devoutly open soul. 
 
 b. Historic continuity. The horizontal section of 
 the plant gives a glimpse of its structural secret in 
 ringed bark and curiously forming core; but the 
 revelation is incomplete without the vertical section 
 also from root to fruit, containing " seed after its kind." 
 The one gives the mental, the other the natural order. 
 The study of isolated facts is incomplete and mis- 
 leading ; and it can be remedied only wlien, having 
 studied upwards and downwards, as well as right 
 and left, our knowledge, like the perfect city, " lieth 
 four square, its length and breadth and depth and 
 height" being "equal." Geology must supjplement 
 geography. 
 
 In the history of man the study of contempora- 
 neous social phenomena, ignoring the growing past, 
 is in the literal sense of the word superficial. For it 
 is man's special prerogative, as " a creature of large 
 discourse," to look " before and after." 
 
 Now, the sense of the importance of historic order 
 and continuity is specially pnmiinent in Scripture. 
 From Genesis to Kevelation there is a steady flow, 
 
254 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 broken only at points such as the flood, and the gap 
 between Old and New, where the breach is itself 
 significant. The minuteness and emphasis of the 
 genealogical record is conspicuous. Indeed, it seems 
 sometimes, as in the broad wastes before the flood, to 
 have scarcely any other purpose than by its scanti- 
 ness of detail — as that "A begat B" and died — to 
 remind us how vacuous the period was, but by the 
 fidelity of the record to suggest the significance of 
 unbroken continuity. The recapitulation of the regis- 
 ter at the beginning of Chronicles and the Evange- 
 lists impresses us in like manner. We cannot fail, 
 either, to notice the precisely logical order in which 
 the necessarily antecedent forms take their place in 
 the creative growth, — the simpler preceding the more 
 complex, — and how in the unfolding of institutions 
 there is an adapted progress, as they "are able to 
 bear it." The line of progress is a growth, and not 
 a mere superposition; hence every stage and item is 
 significant. 
 
 c. Material and intellectual progress hy empirical 
 processes. The first man was houseless, and even 
 tentless, garmentless, toolless, without writing or in- 
 telligent speech. He named the animals experiment- 
 ally ; he learned the awful secret of evil by the shock 
 that threw his faculties off their spiritual centre, and 
 his whole being out of gear with the universe, thence- 
 forth " dim sounding on its perilous way." Outside 
 Eden, tools, tents, and music were invented. The 
 nomadic emerged into a more settled life ; the taber- 
 nacle took root and solidified into a temple; tribes 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 255 
 
 became a nation, and rural life and patriarchal sim- 
 plicity gave place to the city, the tribunal, and the 
 king. The " one lip and one stock of words " of the 
 early world grew into dialectic divergence, not by 
 the abrogation of the " stock of words," but by " con- 
 fusion of lip ; " so that phonetic reconstruction should 
 show (as historically it does) the traces of a common 
 primeval capital of speech, wrought into new lan- 
 guages, as the mutilated arches and columns of 
 ancient temples have been wrought into the struc- 
 tures of later times. The accumulating knowledge 
 of the fathers transferred to the children, as is often 
 reiterated, is by them passed on, with elements added 
 out of new experience, to their posterity, and so the 
 "education of the race" (which is the idea not of 
 Lessing, in its inception, but of Paul) went on. 
 
 d. Religious retrogression from ethical monotheism 
 hy intellectual apostasy, and moral suffocation under 
 the weight of the 'physical. Paul, in the first chapter 
 of Eomans, makes a most logical inductive argument 
 to show that heathenism bears the marks and shows 
 the fruits of apostasy. He points to the indisputable 
 moral degradation and the mental bewilderment of the 
 time, and traces it back to the repudiation of an origi- 
 nal knowledge which they " did not like to retain." 
 This is an inverse statement of the facts as given in 
 the historic record. The new-born man, uncultured 
 and unripe, knew God by a direct intuition which is 
 not further explained. Issuing from the fatal gate of 
 departed " purity of heart," he no longer " sees God," 
 but "gropes after liim." Forthwith appear chaotic 
 
256 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 violence, animalism, — for they are ''jieshl' — and the 
 cleansing flood. 
 
 Out of pervading idolatry Abraham is lifted. Israel 
 perpetually topples into it as into an ever-surround- 
 ing gulf of corruption, until after long vicissitudes 
 they are carried away into Babylon. There is here a 
 marked antithesis between the successive stages of 
 the intellectual and material on the one hand, and 
 the religious on the other, — advance on the whole 
 in the one, but equally definite decay in the other. 
 
 3. Verification hy Modern Research. — Now, set this 
 early conception of the inward anatomy and physi- 
 ology of history beside the ultimate conclusions of the 
 centuries accumulating testimony to this day. 
 
 a. Nothing is more conspicuous in modern methods 
 than the introduction of the comparative element as 
 enlarging and correcting the judgment upon single 
 facts. Chemistry does not ignore the help of physi- 
 ology, nor philology that of ethnology. The valley 
 dweller cannot hope to judge the world without 
 climbing the mountain-top for a wider horizon. 
 Under that broader gaze the broken threads unite 
 into a continuous design, — the mob of eccentric 
 forms and forces fall into companies, regiments, divi- 
 sions, and all wheel into line. The tangled meshes 
 of the heavens are threaded out, the harp restrung, 
 and under Kepler's touch the morning stars again 
 break into song. It is upon the recognition of an 
 underlying mental order, so rigorous that a single 
 understood type becomes the key, — as when the 
 bleachinfj skull took Oken into its confidence, whis- 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 257 
 
 pering its secret to him, and the leaf grew transparent 
 to the inseeing Goethe, — that science itself becomes 
 possible. The more widely the sciences combine, the 
 more manifest the convergence toward a scientia 
 scientiarum, around whose single centre these dis- 
 jointed arcs of knowledge may connect in an un- 
 broken circle. 
 
 h. But science lias found its need as much of history 
 as of comparison. Its results in morphologic study 
 are incomplete. It must know genetic relation also ; 
 its classification is not simply artificial, disclosing 
 an ideal order, but natural, because there is a real 
 order. Hence the emphasis upon all problems of 
 origin, heredity, and growth. All studies tend to 
 become historic. Humboldt and Ritter cannot under- 
 stand the superficial cosmos, without lifting the crust 
 of the earth, to study the underworking forces in their 
 stratified historic chronicle. They see that the gaze 
 must be deeper as well as wider, if they want the 
 absolute truth of things. They find that knowledge 
 must be also vertical. The scientific New Jerusalem, 
 too, " lieth four square." 
 
 c. I need scarcely here dwell for a moment upon the 
 further thought so well emphasized in our time, — 
 the corner-stone of the system which Mr. Buckle, Sir 
 John Lubbock, and others have wrought to such top- 
 heavy proportions, — that our civilization is normally 
 the j^roduct 'of antecedent matericd and intellectucd 
 conditions. It is plain that without telescope and 
 microscope, opening our vision into the two worlds, 
 hidden, one by its greatness and the other by its 
 
 17 
 
258 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 smallness, from our natural vision, the sweepingly 
 inductive conviction of the all-pervading unity v^^ould 
 not have naturally arisen. While the boundaries of 
 the earth were unknown, its symmetrical structure 
 could not be learned. Until, by long preparation, the 
 social soil was fit for the seed, it could not grow. 
 Imperfect statutes alone could befit imperfect .Israel. 
 They w^ere not the best, but the best possible, consid- 
 ering " the hardness of their hearts." 
 
 I think it not inapt, therefore, to conclude that 
 the marvellous insight which penetrated the fluent 
 SBcret of this mysterious complex of nature and hu- 
 manity, long before such vision could come in the 
 order of natural development, — which saw the whole 
 plant, leaf, flower, and fruit in the seed " before it 
 grew," — was, somehow, touched with an element in- 
 commensurate with known and explored causes. 
 
 Is it rash to suggest that the eye, which gets to-day 
 telescopic help beyond itself to range among the stars, 
 may then have been enlarged by him who " made the 
 stars also," and who ''formed the eye " ? 
 
 d. From every side direct testimony gathers, to the 
 fact of a Primitive Monotheism afterwards corrupted. 
 The monuments of Egypt, the ancient literature of 
 India and Persia, the persistence of the original 
 name of the " Heaven Father " from before the Aryan 
 dispersion to our day (Dyaus piter, Zeus Pater, Jupiter, 
 Unser Yater, Our Father), all combine to* confirm the 
 accuracy of the Scriptural statement. And this is 
 the more noticeable because the exigency of modern 
 theories had demanded, and their defenders had even 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 259 
 
 passionately asserted, a contrary view. But that the 
 believing in one God will not 'alone purify or perfect 
 men, all history likewise assures us. The stagnancy 
 of Hinduism, the barrenness of Mohammedanism, 
 the decay of Persian civilization, are sufficient wit- 
 nesses. 
 
 Not only is ethnic monotheism unfruitful in na- 
 tional life, it is not even self-preservative. Human 
 nature seeks after a " sign," — a visible fragment of 
 the Divine, — and slowly gravitates to the substitution 
 of that for God. Thus in Athens, at its intellectual 
 highest, religion is at its lowest. It was "easier" 
 there " to find a god than a man," yet there was the 
 altar " to the Unknown God." 
 
 IV. HISTORIC FORESIGHT. 
 
 1. Fads. — a. Concreteness. Christianity, says Dean 
 Stanley, "alone, of all religions, claims to hefoicnd£d, 
 not on fancy or feeling, hut on fact and truth!' The 
 sobriety of tone, the circumstantiality, the precise, 
 identification of locality and person by name, are 
 specially remarkable in the Scripture record ; because 
 it is in these respects in contrast with the Oriental 
 temper, and specially with the other sacred books of 
 the East. The earlier part of Genesis is sometimes, 
 indeed, called poetic, and this term is thought to carry 
 with it a vague impeachment of its historic character. 
 But to suppose that prose and poetry are synonymous 
 relatively with truth and fiction, so that the poetic form 
 makes false a statement which in prosaic form would 
 be true, is like insisting that no portrait is trustworthy 
 
260 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 which has not been laid out with rule and calipers. 
 Poetry, it is true, deals largely in the symbolic ; but 
 it sometimes happens that the symbolic is the most 
 direct, if not the only possible form by which the 
 truth can be conveyed. " God said. Let there be 
 light." How can the truth be more wisely shaped in 
 words ? Creation is beyond our analysis ; but the 
 energy which through imparted force produces light 
 has its analogue in the human will, and the nakedest 
 forthgoing of a will is in a word. " In the word of a 
 king there is power." No physical formula, no philo- 
 sophic circumlocution, can rival the accuracy of the 
 world-old record, in whose sublimely simple utter- 
 ance God's personality bursts into recognition, as 
 light into the world. 
 
 The tendency to hero-worship and myth-making 
 seems to be recognized and protested against in the 
 case of Moses and Elijah, the two most likely candi- 
 dates for apotheosis, by the unflinching disclosure of 
 their frailties, — the emphatic after-reference to Moses 
 as only a " servant," and Elijah as a " man of like 
 passions " with us, — and by the clear statement how 
 tliey were taken out of the reach of adoration while 
 still men. Not only does the later Scripture recog- 
 nize the literalness of the earlier, it insists upon and 
 emphasizes it. The Sermon on the Mount assumes 
 the reality of a former law-giving ; the doom of Sodom 
 is made the basis of present warning. Paul's argu- 
 ment in the Eoman Epistle loses its leverage if there 
 were no actual Adam, and he unliesitatingly rests the 
 whole trustworthiness of the gospel on the literal 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 261 
 
 resurrection of Christ from the dead. Mark the 
 emphasis which Peter and John lay, in their Epistles, 
 on the fact that theirs is original testimony, verified 
 by eye and ear and hand, to the " flesh and blood " 
 reality of the incarnation and resurrection, and not 
 the outgrowth of " cunningly devised mytlisr So inex- 
 tricably are the doctrines, the promises, and the claims 
 of the Bible intertwined into its record of fact, that 
 the effort to disentangle is sure to destroy them. To 
 surrender the fidelity of the history in the Bible is to 
 surrender the Bible itself; the Bible being witness. 
 
 6. Separate ages. Not less emphasized than the con- 
 crete verity of the events themselves is the division of 
 the history into distinct periods, each usually parted 
 from others by a conspicuous epoch, and having a cer- 
 tain unity and significance of its own. Many minor 
 divisions of this character are traceable, as in the 
 book of Genesis, w^here the recurrence of the formula, 
 " These are the generations," etc., seems to indicate the 
 beginning of a new era. But it will be sufficient for 
 our purpose to distinguish a few more prominent 
 ones after the apostasy. These are : the Antediluvian 
 period ; the National period of Israel, from Abraham 
 to the Kings ; the Royal period, thence to the Captiv- 
 ity ; the Teaching period, thence to the Crucifixion ; 
 and the Pentecostal period, after the Resurrection. In 
 the first of these nature reigned ; the nations were all 
 *' suffered to walk in their own ways." Wliereupon, 
 overmastered by their conditions, they returned to the 
 brutality of the primal " dragons in their slime," filling 
 the earth with sanguinary " violence," until, like a dis- 
 
262 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 masted and scuttled ship, the whole race settled out 
 of sight in the seething waters. Thence began a new 
 age, in which a ''chosen people" were drawn out of 
 the undistinguished multitude and " tried " under care- 
 fully devised conditions. The experiment was a pro- 
 tracted and painstaking one, but resulted at last in 
 national decay and disheartenment. Anarchy reigned ; 
 for " every man did that which was right in his own 
 eyes," and the " highways were deserted " because of 
 freebooters. They lost even the tool-making art, sink- 
 ing back into barbarian helplessness, in which, with- 
 out " sword or spear among forty thousand," they were 
 the easy prey of neighboring tribes. 
 
 Thereupon they were at their request remitted to 
 their own wisdom, which they exercised in the sub- 
 stitution of a new regime for the Mosaic, making 
 themselves " a king, like all the nations." Under this 
 self-appointed experiment they grew rapidly to splen- 
 dor under David and Solomon ; but it was the splen- 
 dor of the setting, not of the rising sun ; whose light is 
 crimson, too, with the vapors of decay. The " little 
 finger " of oppression in the father grew to be " thick- 
 er " than his " father's loins " in the son ; the leather 
 thong became a scourge " of scorpions ; " and the 
 bruised and despairing remnants of the nation were 
 dragged away into Babylon. 
 
 So ends the triple experiment which makes up the 
 old regime and fills the outline of the Old Testament. 
 Under the untrammelled tutelage of nature, under the 
 sagaciously prescribed regulations of the Mosaic code, 
 under the experimentally reached resort to regal rule, 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 263 
 
 the problem has been fairly exhausted, as to whether 
 a race or nation can be crowded to its true goal 
 by the pressure of environment. It ends in heart- 
 break, exile, and the wail of the last prophet ; which, 
 turning toward the future, becomes a foreboding lest 
 God " come and smite the earth with a curse." But 
 through this foreboding sounds the tone of promise 
 also ; for Elijah the prophet shall return to prepare 
 the way for the new kingdom of the heart. Not the 
 old giants from before the flood, to hammer out mas- 
 sive weapons on cyclopean forges, nor Samson nor 
 Shamgar to swing them in grotesque slaughter ; not 
 Moses, although, standing on majestic Sinai, bearing 
 the adamantine tablets whose graven statutes can 
 never be effaced, he be massive in character as the 
 one and enduring in history as the other, — he shall 
 indeed return at the Transfiguration, not to revive 
 the old, but to bear witness that its hour is past, 
 and to invoke acceptance of the new, for "the law 
 made nothing perfect ; " not Solomon, although " he 
 made silver and gold at Jerusalem as plenteous as 
 stones," and Jerusalem herself the crown jewel of the 
 earth, — he "slept with his fathers" and does not 
 awaken again, — not these, but Elijah the prophet, 
 will link the Old time to the New. In this transfer 
 of ascendency from the warrior, the lawgiver, and the 
 king, to the prophet, and the predicted survival of the 
 prophetic element alone from among the formative 
 forces of that early time, we find clear testimony to 
 the failure of the experiment of human perfecting by 
 external means. The sword, the stone tablet, and 
 
264 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 the sceptre give place to the word. The true ruler 
 is henceforth the "seer;" he only can foretell the 
 future who can inwardly read the present and the 
 past. Malachi, accordingly, turning the exploring 
 lens backward along the path, sends its gleam also 
 forward across the gulf, and beholds the coming en- 
 thronement of the WOED. 
 
 We pass on, then, to the new centuries. The inter- 
 vening space is filled with turbulence and transition. 
 The massive despotisms of Asia have been wrecked and 
 ground up as in a flood, and the disintegrated elements 
 of the ancient civilizations have been drifting west- 
 ward to nucleate in a new continent in new forms. 
 Among the Jews the teaching synagogue has been 
 growing beside and threatening the supremacy of the 
 temple formalism ; the Jewish rabbi has breathed the 
 effervescent atmosphere of Greek speculation, and is 
 full of casuistry and debate ; the rigid Hebrew lan- 
 guage itself is giving way to the more fluent Greek, 
 only tingeing it with the Hebraistic temper here and 
 there; and the Sacred Oracles themselves have in 
 the Septuagint version been boldly recast in forms of 
 speech hitherto accounted profane. Meantime there 
 is much questioning, but little satisfactory answering. 
 The divers philosophic schools are in vain probing the 
 muddy depths for a foundation stone. The Eoman, 
 weary of sophistry, but unable to return to animalism, 
 asks restlessly, " What is truth ? " Judaism likewise 
 is broken into sects, alike dogmatic, alike dissatisfied. 
 
 Into such a receptive and expectant world the 
 Messianic Teacher comes. Under so favorable con- 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 265 
 
 ditions he proposes to try the new experiment of 
 human renovation: no longer now by physical agencies 
 reaching the corporate race or nation, but by intel- 
 lectual forces remoulding the individual man. Forth- 
 with we pass from history to biography, from the 
 palace to the cottage, from questions of social and 
 civil organization to those of personal experience. We 
 are not busy with power, which cramps and mars, but 
 with truth, which sets free. With the Great Teacher 
 we return to the past and to nature, walking as in an 
 Interpreter's House. He finds a fountain of love in 
 the desert rock of the Law ; he disenchants the dumb 
 lily that it may utter its secret, of outward beauty 
 through inward purity ; he opens long vistas, through 
 parable and miracle and well-matched incident, 
 through which the open-eyed may look into the core 
 of things. Cautiously, patiently, lovingly he leads on 
 those who consent to be learners, telling them many 
 things as they are " able to bear." 
 
 But with what avail ? A few are led by curiosity, a 
 few by love of" loaves and fishes,^' a few by gratitude, 
 to follow him intermittently. Those whom by special 
 appeal he attaches to himself are unsympathetic, 
 dull, and untrustworthy to the last. " It is need- 
 ful for you," he said, " that I go away," — even " for 
 yoio." 
 
 So fails the last experiment of the four. It is no- 
 ticeable how clearly the failure has been anticipated 
 and announced. Not by ethical precept, by parable 
 or miracle, had he, from the beginning, hoped to mas- 
 ter and change the world, but by being " lifted up." 
 
 -*a 
 
266 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 He saw but one cure for the heart of mankind, — 
 " Ye must be born again." 
 
 c. Genetic progress. And this suggests to us the 
 third predominant idea of the Scripture record, namely, 
 the genetic relation of the successive periods. 
 
 They have not followed each other at hap-hazard, 
 but in regular gradation. The line of continuity, 
 though often attenuated, has never been broken : and 
 no epoch has been fruitless or void ; for each has 
 transmitted the unresolved problem to the next with 
 some new elements toward its solution. As the earth 
 born out of the waters, and life born out of the earth, 
 brought forward each some elements of that realm 
 from which it sprung, so Noah brought through the 
 flood the arts and language of the perished world. 
 Moses took through the Eed Sea the training of 
 Egypt. And the prophetic torch was passed on from 
 the seers of the old covenant to those of the new. 
 But as earth is more than water, and life than earth, 
 so every new-born age has its elements of difference 
 as well as those of identity. The risen body will by 
 some unbroken thread prolong the identity of the 
 present, for it is like the sheaf from the planted grain ; 
 but " the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of 
 the terrestrial is another." There is enough of iden- 
 tity to enable us to prophesy, enough of diversity to 
 confound us, if we try to do more than " prophesy in 
 part.'' 
 
 The natural counterpart of this historic unfolding 
 is the conception of a preordained plan, the outline 
 of which becomes distinct through the events that 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 267 
 
 fulfil it, — a " mystery " before, but in the growing 
 years made plain. 
 
 2. Tlieory. — As to the meaning of all this we are 
 not left in doubt. The Scripture itself plainly dis- 
 closes a theory the truth of wdiich w^e may readily 
 test. It assumes — 
 
 a. That precision of detail, including names and 
 dates, will some day furnish cleivs for comparison with 
 independent testimony, and so for verification of the 
 date and gemtineness of Scripture itself 
 
 b. TJuxt the reasoiied experience of mankind will 
 some day disclose the deep anticipatory significance of 
 the early experiences of the race, which were " ivritten 
 aforetime for our learning T 
 
 c. That history itself is germinant of prophecy, being 
 tJie unfolding of an orderly series of events after a com- 
 plete and unchanging plan, ordained "before the foun- 
 dation of the world" 
 
 3. Verification. — Let us consider these suggestions 
 in their order. 
 
 a. Historic vindication. Near the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century, the reaction from the mystic 
 and scholastic methods of interpretation concentrated 
 study more exclusively upon the text and narrative of 
 Scripture. Beside this tendency in the theological, 
 grew up in the region of classical study the school of 
 destructive criticism, which sought to cut away the 
 earlier portions of Roman and Greek history as mythi- 
 cal. The brilliancy of the method as proposed by 
 Pouilly, the scope it afforded for the display of critical 
 ingenuity, and the striking results it achieved in the 
 
268 CHRIST AND MODEPwIi THOUGHT. 
 
 hands of Mebuhr, could not but commend it to the 
 adventurous and aspiring historical interpreter. ISTor 
 was so formidable a weapon likely to be overlooked 
 in that arena where, as Farrar phrases it, the " human 
 intellect " was making its " long struggle against the 
 authority of the Scriptures." Accordingly, a phalanx 
 of writers began along these lines, more or less di- 
 rectly, an increasiug assault upon the genuineness, 
 the integrity, and the veracity of the Bible history. 
 Of the details of this warfare there is neither leisure 
 nor necessity here to speak. Its results could in no 
 case have been other than meagre, precarious, and 
 unsatisfying; for they are almost wholly negative. 
 "Niebuhr opened more questions," says Sir G. C. 
 Lewis, " than he closed ; and the critics have been at 
 war ever since, because all alike are, in judging by 
 internal evidence only, trusting to an occult faculty 
 of divination rather than ordinary tests applied to 
 modern history." So that each new history written 
 from such a standpoint becomes " one guess among 
 many." The great stress of adverse criticism on the 
 Pentateuch is to show, for instance, that it is not the 
 single work of Moses ; but how much of it he wrote, 
 and who wrote or compiled the rest, whether Samuel, 
 Hilkiah, Jeremiah, Ezra, or some other, and when 
 and where, and from what data, — to these questions 
 the answers are almost as numerous and whimsical 
 as the writers. 
 
 So far as reconstruction is attempted, it is on a 
 purely theoretic basis. It is a rewriting of history 
 (to accept the statement of Beaufort, who, although 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 269 
 
 later than Pouilly, is commonly regarded as the 
 founder of the metliod) " according to what it ought 
 to have been, in order that things should have become 
 what they afterwards were." That is to say, the tes- 
 timony is to be weighed by the theory, after the 
 scholastic method. 
 
 According to this canon, — requiring that whatever 
 reveals insight or foresight extraordinary at a partic- 
 ular date, must, regardless of testimony, be assumed 
 to have been written at a later date, when it would, 
 in the progress of things, have become ordinary, — it 
 is hard to see how the Scriptures can have been 
 written earlier tlian the present century ; and, in fact, 
 as they keep steadily in advance of us, the next 
 generation will probably be able to show that in our 
 time they had not been written at all. Certainly the 
 matchless architecture of the Great Pyramid as de- 
 scribed by Ferguson " ought not to have been " in the 
 age and land of protoplasmic mud ; and by the same 
 rule Professor Norton is abundantly justified in con- 
 cluding tliat " it would be idle to argue against the 
 supposition that alphabetical writing was known in 
 •the time of Abraham." Under its sanction Volney 
 felt secure in ridiculing the faith of those who 
 thought Babel and Nimrod and Abraham to have 
 been realities rather than astrologic myths ; and 
 Kuenen still insists that nations must, from the be- 
 ginning, have grown "by subjugation and assimila- 
 tion," and not from a "genealogic root," as stated 
 in the Pentateuch. The Dutch admiral refused to 
 believe his sailors' testimony that the sun was literally 
 
270 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 above the horizon, because he had mathematically put 
 it below. But tlie sun remained ; and so do the 
 pyramids, and the writings of the Abrahamic era, 
 and tlie historic Abraham himself, and Nimrod, and 
 Babel, and the concurrent proofs of patriarchy as the 
 germ of political organization, to be " verified any time 
 you like to try." 
 
 It surely must seem a striking coincidence to any 
 fair-minded man, that just when tliis tide of adverse 
 criticism had " come in like a flood," so loosening the 
 foundations of historic faith that, as Keil complains, 
 it had left "no objective ground or standpoint free 
 from uncertainty," there has come a responsive out- 
 burst of direct testimony, such as has never, in so 
 short a space of time, been given to the world before. 
 
 When the hypothetic reconstruction of the sacred 
 narrative began, it had a free field ; for all early his- 
 tory then hung loose and nebulous against the sky. 
 Cloudland is facile to fancy, but troublesome to slow- 
 footed faith. There were, indeed, strange written 
 characters on Egyptian obelisks and in tombs ; there 
 were writings disclosed in the grasp of unearthed 
 mummies, but the " book " was " sealed," we could 
 not read it ; there was a tangle of vision in the field 
 of language, mythology, political and social growth, 
 etc., but it had not been focused through comparative 
 study, so as to reveal its secret ; there were rich mon- 
 uments lying beside the Tigris and Euphrates, but 
 these were buried, not only under unattractive earth- 
 mounds, but under two thousand years of human 
 forgetfulness. For Xenophon, camping with his ten 
 
THE HISTOraC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 271 
 
 thousand Greeks beside the ancient site, had forgotten 
 the very name of Xineveh. 
 
 But now we are reminded how the Bible speaks of 
 stone tablets " laid up for a testimony ; " of a " book 
 sealed up unto the time of the end ; " of " risen wit- 
 nesses/' forthcoming in time of need. The century of 
 literary scepticism has come almost to its close, its cau- 
 tious insinuations have grown to a triumphant taunt, 
 and there is no direct answer. In 1798 Napoleon is 
 in Egypt on far other than theological business ; his 
 French soldiers (who are so benighted, religiously, that 
 on the Mediterranean they have asked each other, 
 wonderingly, why Palestine is called the " Holy 
 Land ") are at work in their military excavations ; 
 they turn up a dull basaltic stone, with a curious 
 triple inscription ; they do not know it, but in that 
 Rosetta stone they have found the key by which the 
 riddle of the Egyptian Sphinx shall be unlocked, and 
 the statements of Scripture be confirmed. That pick- 
 axe blow has broken open the sealed chambers of 
 testimony, and we may read inscribed in the lasting 
 rock, unobliterated and unmarred, the very words of 
 contemporaneous witnesses concerning the times of 
 Joseph and of Moses. The very dead seem to awake, 
 under this talismanic touch, to unclasp the long mean- 
 ingless papyrus rolls from their wasted hands, re- 
 leased from the custody of their long-guarded secret. 
 So convergent and conclusive are these direct testi- 
 monies in answer to the theoretic cavils of the time, 
 that Mr. Stuart Poole is able to cite the disinterested 
 authority of the great Egyptologists, Lepsius, Brugsch, 
 
 /*i 
 
272 CHKIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 and Cbabas, to the effect that the Pentateuch and the 
 monuments are mutually confirmatory ; and to affirm 
 that the theory of a later date than the time of Moses, 
 or of another locality than the banks of the Nile, 
 for the production of the Pentateuch, is no longer 
 tenable. 
 
 After the Rosetta stone and its revelations came 
 the Behistun inscription, protected hitherto from care- 
 ful notice and from defacement, not by burial but by 
 yL its being lifted four hundred feet up the face of the 
 rock. Almost simultaneously with its recovery, came 
 the disentombment of the Ninevite and Babylonian 
 world, to which it was to be the interpreter. In Gene- 
 sis we read that the builders of Babel " had brick for 
 stone, and slime had they for mortar." This statement, 
 most natural if written in .the midst of the massive 
 stone-work beside the rainless Nile, reminds us at 
 once, by contrast, of the perishableness of the am- 
 bitious tower, built of clay in a land of moist climate 
 and water flood. Singularly, the very frailty of these 
 structures has been the shield of their contents. The 
 soft walls, melting inward, have formed a crust over the 
 treasures within ; beneath which, secure from sun and 
 rain, the records written in crumbling clay have come 
 down unharmed to us. By the light of these long- 
 extinguished earthen lamps, rekindled from the flash 
 of the Behistun inscription, we wander, as if by en- 
 chantment, in the corridors, and look along^ the vistas 
 of an antiquity reaching nearly to the flood. For, 
 not only do we here find the unquestionably synchro- 
 nous record of the daily life of more than 2,500 years 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTUKE. 273 
 
 ago, but also iu the royal libraries the memorials of a 
 still more distant civilization, — so distant that al- 
 ready they had become fossilized in an extinct lan- 
 guage. Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh are 
 no longer mythical cities, for their remains are visible ; 
 and scholars find no fitter name than that of " Accad " 
 for the primeval language just mentioned. Nimrod 
 is no astronomic demigod, but a historic mortal whose 
 exploits are matter of record. In the very land where 
 Genesis locates the Babel Tower and the " confusion 
 of tongues," we find, in the library of Assurbanipal, a 
 corresponding account, and the renniant of a tower 
 which carries in its self-recorded name, Borsippa, a 
 reminiscence of such an event. Moreover, we are 
 compelled, in the language of Sir Henry Rawlinson, 
 " by the mere intersection of linguistic paths, and inde- 
 pendently of all reference to the Scripture record . . . 
 to fix on the plains of Shinar as the focus from which 
 the various lines had radiated." 
 
 It is needless to refer in detail to the daily increas- 
 ing mass of translated Assyrian and Chaldean docu- 
 ments, in which the long list of names, once peculiar 
 to the Scripture, recur as familiarly as household 
 words ; or to the Moabite stone, recovered in so ro- 7^ 
 mantic a way, which tells so freely the story of 
 " Mesha, king of j\Toab," and interprets together the 
 Hebrew and Phoenician, as the Rosetta stone had done 
 the Greek and the Egyptian, and the Behistun in- 
 scription the Persian, Assyrian, and Babylonian; or 
 to tlie testimony from the comparative study of lan- 
 guage, ethnology, ethnography, etc., rapidly grouping 
 
 18 
 
274 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 in confirmation of the Scriptural account of the origin 
 and growth of early civilization. 
 
 The stress of my argument is not upon the variety 
 or completeness of the testimony as to matters of fact, 
 but upon (1) the preservation of these unique and 
 perishable memorials from so great antiquity and in 
 so improbable ways, while the nearer, more abundant, 
 and multiplied copies of the Greek and Latin classics 
 have almost wholly perished ; (2) their hiding through 
 so many centuries, entombed in rubbish, or sealed up 
 in occult languages, making their authority, when re- 
 vealed, indisputable; (3) their almost simultaneous 
 issuance, and the strangely coincident appearance of 
 the several undreamed-of keys for tlieir interpreta- 
 tion ; (4) the exact response of the testimony so 
 evoked to the very question in hand, namely, the an- 
 tiquity and genuineness of the Scripture documents ; 
 (5) the abundance of points of contact, and conse- 
 quently of test, between the new data and the Scrip- 
 ture, because of the circumstantiality of each ; (6) the 
 prescient minuteness of the Scripture in name, date, 
 and circumstance avowedly for this very end. Surely 
 " this also Cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which 
 is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working." 
 
 h. Anticipated Imowledge. We are assured in the 
 Scripture that the things therein " written aforetime 
 were written for our learning;" and especially as to 
 the experiences of the people of Israel, that "these 
 happened unto them for ensaraples, and they are writ- 
 ten for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the 
 world are come." Eousseau and his comrades advo- 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 275 
 
 cated a return to the ahatidon of " nature." Had they 
 heeded the warning lesson of the early world, France 
 need not have " become flesh," and sunk in a bloody 
 deluge. Hero- worshippers ever and anon exalt the 
 virtues of a " strong government," but the lessons of 
 Csesarism had been freely taught before Caesar ; and 
 in the advent of Saul in Israel, we see the history of 
 Napoleon written before the time ; for he, too, solved 
 by despotism the problem of anarchy arising out of 
 the ill adjustment of highly developed institutions to 
 an unfit people. Equally has the modern proposition 
 of salv^ation by " culture" been anticipated, as we- have 
 seen, in the matchless work of the Great Teacher in 
 the propitious Greek era. But then, as always, the 
 school, like " the law," " made nothing perfect." 
 
 It is especially noticeable, in the light of theories 
 widely prevalent in our day, how precisely the em- 
 phasis is laid, in the typical history of the " chosen 
 people," on those very formative conditions which, as 
 we are now assured, have in them the " promise and 
 potency" of a perfect humanity. The^rs^ of these 
 conditions is fitness of race. The progenitor must be 
 well selected and the stock kept pure. That is to 
 say, we must begin, in science and in Scripture 
 alike, with Genesis. Does it not meet the requirement, 
 if a conspicuously wortliy Abram be chosen, signalized 
 henceforth as " the father," who will at the begin- 
 ning protest against mongrel blood in Isaac's be- 
 trothal ; who will so instil that sentiment into his 
 progeny that it will henceforth reveal itself in scrupu- 
 lous exactness of genealogic record, in the surrender 
 
276 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 of the fondest relations when in conflict with it, as in 
 Ezra's reformation, and will survive as a passion in his 
 posterity 4,000 years after him ? 
 
 A second element is fitness of environment. The 
 nation born into an unpropitious region lights an un- 
 equal battle. It cannot reach its destiny, except by the 
 help of landscape, soil, and climate. Hence the prom- 
 inence of migration among the agencies in human 
 progress, — that is, of Exodus. Israel, walloMdng in 
 the luxuriance of the Nile valley, enervated by the 
 caressing climate, dwarfed under the shadow of a 
 landscape whose very mountains are tombs, can never 
 become great. The decaying nation must first be got 
 out of Egypt " by a strong hand ; " then Egypt must 
 be got out of them, by the sharp regimen of diet, exer- 
 cise, and chastisement in the " desert of wandering ; " 
 then strong-tempered Canaan must stinmlate, enlarge, 
 and develop them into national manhood. Even to 
 this day that insignificant strip of land between the 
 river and the sea, — in the very centre of the triple 
 continent, yet thoroughly secluded, — small in extent, 
 but a very microcosm in diversity of landscape and 
 product (having to-day, though itself not larger than 
 the six northern counties of England, a flora twice 
 as extensive as all Great Britain), — that land, I say, 
 remains unique in the world as an ideal training-field 
 of men. 
 
 A third prerequisite to national development is 
 fitness of institutions. These, if they are to minister 
 to growth, must recomize an unreached and inflexible 
 ideal ; but if they are not to dishearten, and so be- 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 277 
 
 come fruitless, they must also recognize the " hardness " 
 of men's " hearts," and so take on a temporary and 
 practicable form. Precisely these "rudiments" of 
 national legislative training are embodied in the next 
 book of the Pentateuch, Leviticus, — the "primer" of 
 Israel, — local and ephemeral in form, yet in spirit so 
 perennially suggestive that it attracts and instructs 
 alike the Puritan pioneer, the sanitary legislator, and 
 the social reformer. 
 
 A fourth essential idea is fitiiess of political organi- 
 zation. This changes a nation into a people, fuses the 
 elements into a corporate unity, and makes an organic 
 life possible. How deftly this problem is wrought 
 out in the book of Numbers, I need scarcely say. 
 Military enthusiasm, family pride, religious devotion, 
 all are there wrought in as buttresses of a structure 
 which is itself single and complete. 
 
 Fifth and last in order is the element of progressive 
 adaptation of institutions. Fifth, also, in order, clos- 
 ing the " five fifths " of the Pentateuch, is Deuteron- 
 omy, — the " second law." It is not a new statute, 
 buf a new phase of the old, — a revision adjusting it 
 to a new life in a new land. It suggests by its very 
 method and tone the subordination and plastic func- 
 tion of all forms, and recognizes some advance on the 
 part of the people toward that conception. It hints 
 of Christ's " new bottles " for " new wine," and Paul's 
 " newness of the spirit " mastering the " oldness of the 
 letter." 
 
 But enough : the Pentateuch was clearly written be- 
 fore our new day, in which world-wide research and 
 
278 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 wiser methods of study have made luminous the path- 
 ways of the race ; before the human mind had aroused 
 even to curiosity as to the nature and origin of things ; 
 yet in it are distinctly discriminated and emphasized 
 those very exterior conditions of human development 
 to which, under the name of " the environment," mod- 
 ern philosophy attributes the moulding of all history. 
 But it as carefully records the experimental proof 
 that the environment is not omnipotent, as Mr. Buckle 
 seems* to teach; that it does not create nor compel 
 progress, but only supplies conditions therefor. It 
 thus not only confirms, by anticipation, the truths, 
 but also fore-reads and rebukes the errors, of to-day. 
 
 So, then, it appears that in " the childhood of the 
 world," when anatomic science was as yet unthought 
 of, some eye was keen enough, and some hand skilful 
 enough, to lay open, without a single false stroke, the 
 whole bony structure which underlies and gives shape 
 to human history ; and that, while the idea of history 
 was itself yet foreign to the race, some sagacious in- 
 fluence prompted the recording of that demonstration, 
 as likely to have significance to those far-off genera- 
 tions " upon wdiom the ends of the world are come." 
 If, according to the canon of historic criticism, the 
 record of that which, at the particular date, normally 
 " ought not to have been," involves a demand of faith 
 in the supernatural, then clearly, upon proof of the 
 antiquity of the Pentateuch, its self-evidencing pene- 
 tration below and beyond the line of current human ex- 
 perience, as well as its unique and marvellous accuracy 
 of prevision, marks it as supernaturally wrought out. 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 279 
 
 c. The genetic Key. — The complex mysteries of 
 life find their centre, as the etymology of the word 
 nature itself may liint, in birth ; and birth is itself a 
 mystery. That there is a certain continuity and uni- 
 formity in hereditary laws is clear. Had there been 
 nothing more, there could have been no progress, but 
 monotonous persistence only. But there is something 
 more. Beside the constant, there is also an eccentric 
 and incalculable element. In thick darkness, behind 
 the sacred veil, the fluent life-elements are moulded 
 into specific form, and quickened with a specific im- 
 pulse under brooding wings. Thus comes every babe 
 into life, — as Sir Arthur Helps well says, " a new crea- 
 ture, such as the world never saw before." The life, un- 
 folding its variant tendencies under law we may study, 
 but those tendencies themselves had already been de- 
 termined in the germ, and the causes that produced 
 them are, as Mr. Darwin confesses, " very obscure." 
 
 Nevertheless, into this " obscurity " all our lines of 
 exploration run back ; all problems cluster round and 
 resolve themselves into that of " origin." The mys- 
 tery of the plant, which lies open in the flower, was 
 perfect already in the seed. In Nature and Scripture 
 alike, Revelation lies hid in Genesis. 
 
 Genesis, accordingly, is not only the initial, but the 
 continuous and central idea of the Sacred Eecord. 
 The minuteness of detail witli which an incidental 
 and seemingly trivial occurrence is related in the 
 30th chapter of Genesis may here be in many ways 
 suggestive. It may interest us but little to kuov/ 
 that Jacob outwitted the crafty Laban, but we cannot 
 
280 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 fail to be struck with the novelty and shrewdness of 
 his method. For we perceive that he recognized the 
 law of " persistence of type," of " variation through 
 the obscure action of external causes/' of " persistence 
 of varieties," and of "selection of the fittest/' and 
 turned them all to account. May not the recent 
 treatise on the " Variation of Animals under Domes- 
 tication " have been the unconscious fruit of a seed 
 dropping from this ancient tree into a receptive soil ? 
 
 In any case, the early pre-eminence assigned to 
 birth, as the hiding-place of power and the gateway 
 of the future, is manifest. Through that gateway hope 
 looks onward in the first promise, for " the seed of the 
 woman shall bruise the serpent's head/' — and through 
 it in response to that hope the Incarnate Son comes 
 into the world, — through the new birth men enter 
 the spiritual life here, —r and the final death-agony is 
 itself the birth-throe through which they enter into 
 life beyond. 
 
 For this, again, is an element in the mystery ; that 
 birth holds life and death together in solution. It is 
 not only a channel for the flow of continuous lines 
 of force, it is also an abyss in which their flow is 
 arrested and they are for the moment lost. Every 
 child is a Benoni for whose sake the mother drifts 
 under the arches of death's portals. The Mosaic 
 economy " waxeth old, and is ready to vanish away," 
 that the Gospel may be born. Thus all historic 
 epochs have the features of a birth. Out of a dis- 
 solving race a new life emerges in Noah. Out of 
 bleeding Egypt, through a Eed Sea, Israel is born 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 281 
 
 into a national existence. Out of the crumbling 
 elements of the " kingdoms of this world " comes the 
 new " kingdom within." We recognize the pertinence 
 of the figure when we call the great epoch of modern 
 history the Renaissance. 
 
 But birth implies not the extinction, but only the 
 disintegration of the old ; whose elements persist in 
 the new life, though transformed. • The " new man " 
 of Christianity is neither Greek nor Jew, nor an 
 original creation ; but " out of twain one new man " 
 is born. The progressive Greek had no point of 
 departure ; he " knew not God." The conservative 
 Jew had a right point of departure, but he would not 
 depart. Paul, by birth a Jew, by culture a Greek, 
 when "born from above," was such a "new man;" in 
 whom "strength and beauty" were blent into holi- 
 ness. 
 
 There is a wide margin of mystery, but no caprice, 
 in the ongoing of the life forces through birth. 
 Local winds and currents are immeasurable, but the 
 tidal wave is one. The " westward course of empire " 
 is unmistakable. In the shaping of that course we 
 now see how significant were the east and west ver- 
 tebral lines of mountain structure ; the stepping-stones 
 across the ^Egean ' to tempt the less adventurous 
 Greeks to their marvellous land ; the hiding of the 
 new world until the old race — born out of Asia into 
 Europe, and out of Europe, mingling the Saxon and 
 Norman "twain," into near Britain — should have 
 " strength to bring forth" a new life resolute enough to 
 project itself across the greater sea ; and the meeting 
 
2&2 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 here of a transverse mountain chain along which, as 
 a barricade, the hindered flood of " peoples, nations, 
 and tongues," flowing northward and southward, 
 might mingle into one. That these river-banks of 
 terrestrial configuration had a predestining force upon 
 the progress of the race, we see ; but were the river- 
 banks themselves so wise in self forming, or was their 
 form itself predestined ? After the study of Humboldt, 
 Eitter, and Guyot, does it seem so unreasonable to 
 declare of the nations, with Paul, that God "hath 
 determined the times before appointed, and the bounds 
 of their habitation " ? 
 
 If the structure of the earth reveal thus a pre- 
 determinant drift; if the world of life show a 
 " struggle " upward, " guided wittingly," by " natural 
 selection/' the " whole creation groaning and travail- 
 ing in pain together until now " toward a final birth ; 
 if human history disclose a " stream of tendency " 
 which uniformly " makes for righteousness," — then it 
 is no longer hard to pronounce the Bible word, speak- 
 ing of all this as " foreordained." The bluffs may be 
 miles apart, between which the untrammelled river 
 meanders at will, but they are there, and they cannot 
 be overpassed. The sacrifice of Christ was a thing 
 " before determined to he done,'' but Herod and Pilate 
 and the rest freely determined hy whom it should be 
 done. 
 
 Under the scope of this law, even the subtile free- 
 dom of the birth forces is restrained. Even now, 
 approximately, the " shadow " foretells " the coming 
 events." By the light of our imperfect knowledge 
 
THE HISTORIC ELEMENT IN SCRIPTURE. 283 
 
 we can " prophesy iu part." Could we see deeper 
 in, we could see farther on. For 'prophecy is but 
 history recorded. 
 
 Fitly, the Bible record closes with the prophetic 
 Apocalypse, — the record of " things which m%ist 
 shortly come to pass," — showing how the future lies 
 open in the past and present, when unsealed. As the 
 flower is born out of root and stalk, completing and 
 explaining it ; as it gathers into its hidden looms the 
 gnarled outlines, the stubborn fibres, the dull hues, 
 weaves them anew into an ethereal beauty of texture, 
 form, and color, and from acid juices distils into the 
 air celestial perfumes ; so the Apocalypse hangs upon 
 the Scripture history, drawing the substance thereof 
 into itself, but all transfigured and illuminated with 
 the " glory to be revealed." 
 
 Dean Trench has reminded us, in his discussion of 
 the " Epistles to the Seven Churches," how the order 
 of their promised rewards hints at a historic sweep 
 of vision from Eden, with its " tree of life," to the 
 final consummation, and a seat beside the Victor " on 
 his throne." 
 
 The vision itself begins with the seven-sealed 
 scroll, already " written within and without," but as 
 yet unopened. It opens inwardly, for the inward is 
 the onward, of vision. As seal after seal is broken, 
 the inner secrets of history are unfolded in their 
 genetic order ; the key to the " springing and germi- 
 nant fulfilment of prophecy " is found. Egypt and 
 Sodom live again; "the two witnesses," Moses and 
 Elijah, do " indeed come again " ; the Beast and the 
 
284 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 False Prophet crush and delude wherever power and 
 craft rule ; and Babylon, " that great city," will trade 
 as of old in all merchandise, and in the "souls of 
 men," until she shall be cast like a " millstone into 
 the sea." 
 
 But this seemingly chaotic flood has a silent on- 
 ward drift. Over the formless void, as at the begin- 
 ning, the Spirit broods. The first Genesis is revealed 
 in the second. Out of the cry of anguish, the thunder 
 of tempest, the crash of battle, emerge the chiming of 
 harps, the radiance of glad faces, the vision of peace ; 
 out of confused and changing figures the clear outlines 
 of the city " that lieth four square ; " out of the womb 
 of earth's midnight is born heaven's everlasting day. 
 For He knows the " thoughts that He thinks towards 
 us," that they are " thoughts of peace and not of 
 evil, to give us an expected cridr 
 
THE THEISTIC BASIS OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 By rev. JOHN COTTON SMITH, D.D. 
 
X. 
 
 THE THEISTIC BASIS OF EYOLUTIOK 
 
 By rev. JOHN COTTON SMITH, D.D. 
 
 TN considering the subject of " The Theistic Basis of 
 -■- Evolution," I shall endeavor to establish this prop- 
 osition, — that supposing the law of evolution to be 
 a universal law, including in its operation all the 
 phenomena of the universe, we have in it an im- 
 mense gain to Theism, and an argument stronger 
 than any which has yet been used that the phe- 
 nomenal universe, in all its minutest details, rests 
 upon an invisible power, and is the manifestation of 
 that conscious Intelligence and Will which we caU 
 God. 
 
 Had I known, when I selected this subject, that 
 one so pre-eminently able and distinguished as Dr. 
 McCosh was to lecture in this course upon substan- 
 tially the same subject, I should have abandoned the 
 undertaking, and left the field to the exclusive pos- 
 session of one whom I so highly honor, and to whom 
 I am glad to acknowledge myself as so greatly in- 
 debted. As it is, I am led to feel less regret at the 
 coincidence of the subjects discussed, inasmuch as 
 
288 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 while I heartily concur in the general drift of Dr. 
 McCosh's lecture, there are some points which, I 
 think, should be more decidedly expressed. 
 
 In the consideration, then, of our subject, we are 
 first to ask what the universality and all-comprehen- 
 siveness of the Law of Evolution involv^es. This can 
 only be determined by following the history of phe- 
 nomena, as we may be able to construct it from the 
 materials which come under human observation, and 
 in accordance with the conditions under which human 
 opinion is formed. 
 
 Setting aside, then, for the present, all inquiry as 
 to the origin of phenomena, or as to any power by 
 which the changes of phenomena are produced, or as 
 to any object which phenomena with their successive 
 changes may be designed to accomplish, we are simply 
 to consider, as far as we can, the phenomena of the 
 universe as they successively appear, on the supposi- 
 tion of a universal evolution. Whether there was 
 a time when the perceptible emerged from the imper- 
 ceptible, or the perceptible has always existed, is not 
 now to be considered. However that may be, there 
 has been a period in time when the phenomenal is 
 found to have existed, probably in a universally 
 extended homogeneous mass, in a state 'of motion. 
 Throughout this mass there is found to be a tendency 
 to contraction or integration around various centres. 
 There is, also, found to be a process by which differ- 
 entiation in the mass is established, so that what was 
 homogeneous becomes more or less heterogeneous. 
 The universally diffused mass is broken up into ro- 
 
THE THEISTIC BASIS OF EVOLUTION. 289 
 
 tatiiig spheres. These spheres in the process of con- 
 traction or integration throw off smaller spheres, wliich, 
 retaining the direction of their motion, revolve around 
 the sphere from which they have been thrown. 
 
 In following the further progress of this evolution, 
 which has thus resulted in the sidereal system, we are 
 to confine ourselves to our own globe, which must be 
 supposed to be in some sense typical of other worlds, 
 and which furnishes us with all the necessary elements 
 of the problem. 
 
 Taking the earth, then, at the time when it was 
 thrown off from the gradually cooling mass, the same 
 general process goes on. There is continued con- 
 traction and integration, and wider distinctions and 
 differences of structure are established. With the 
 gradual cooling of the earth a crust is formed, and the 
 precipitation of vast masses of vapor, in the form of 
 water, takes place. The dry land and the seas appear. 
 Step by step, without any break in the continuous 
 chain, each phenomenon linked with preceding phe- 
 nomena, vast changes occur in the structure of the 
 globe, resulting in its diversified surface and manifold 
 conditions. 
 
 At last out of the inorganic, it may be at various 
 points and at various times, in forms scarcely distin- 
 guishable from those which have preceded, the germs 
 of the organic world appear. The process has at last 
 resulted in the manifestation of life. 
 
 Out of the earth, without any break in the conti- 
 nuity of the process, the vegetal kingdom has come 
 forth. The process of integration and differentiation 
 
 19 
 
290 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 /goes on until the earth is covered with multitudinous 
 Lforms of trees and plants and flowers. But in this 
 /plant life we find almost imperceptible gradations by 
 "which the transition to animal life is made. There 
 is a widely extended area of life where it is exceed- 
 ingly difficult to determine whether the forms belong 
 to the vegetal or animal world. In the course of time, 
 however, the distinctions of the animal world become 
 more and more pronounced, and a similar process of 
 integration and differentiation results in the various 
 forms of animal life. 
 
 On the long line of animal development there is at 
 last a persistent approach in the order of Primates to 
 the genus Man. By imperceptible advance a stage in 
 the evolution is reached, where the characteristics are 
 for a time indeterminate, but finally, through progen- 
 itors of whom, perhaps, there are no traces now, there 
 ' has come to be Man upon the earth. 
 
 Still the process goes on. The low and brutal as- 
 pects of primitive human life gradually disappear. 
 Society comes to exist, and tends to more and more 
 complex forms. Religious ideas clothe themselves 
 in religious systems. Moral distinctions come to be 
 more and more clearly defined, and through almost 
 imperceptible gradations of progress the marvellous 
 achievements of the highest civilization have been 
 reached. • : m Vvl) (v.- - ' f » 
 
 Careful study of the phenomenal world has led to 
 the discovery of certain laws which serve to render 
 in some degree comprehensible the nature and method 
 of this process. Such laws are those of the persist- 
 
THE THEISTIC BASIS OF EVOLUTION. 291 
 
 ence of force, of the persistence of the same relations 
 among forces, of the continuity of motion in the di- 
 rection of least resistance, of the evolution of the 
 heterogeneous from the homogeneous, of the contin- 
 uous redistribution of matter and motion, of heredity, 
 of natural selection, and of the survival of the fittest. 
 These are simply statements of some of the conditions 
 of the process, and of the methods by which it is 
 carried on. 
 
 This is as broad a statement of the law of evolution 
 as can be made, for it recognizes no break in the 
 invariable continuity from the first moment of time 
 until now, and includes every minutest change which 
 has taken place in the phenomenal universe. 
 
 Supposing this, then, to be the true history of the 
 phenomenal world, we are to see wliat bearing it has 
 upon our belief in a personal God. 
 
 Does the universality of the law of evolution, sup- 
 posing it to be established, place Theism at any disad- 
 vantage, so that it will be any the less sure a conviction y^ 
 of the mind that God exists ? That is the question 
 first to be considered. We have, then, simply to com- 
 pare two processes in nature; one in which the law 
 of evolution, while it is almost universal in its opera- 
 tion, has been on certain occasions, now admitted to 
 be very few, interrupted, and a new order of phenom- 
 ena, not growing out of any previously existing, has 
 been introduced. Such occasions are supposed, by 
 those who regard this interrupted process as the true 
 order of nature, to have been at least two, — the first 
 appearance of life in general, and then the first ap- 
 
292 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 pearance of human life. The other process is the one 
 which we have been considering, in which all plie- 
 nomena are linked with preceding phenomena, so that 
 the effect upon the mind is that of a perpetual roll- 
 r ing forth of phenomena from that which already 
 exists. 
 
 In comparing these two processes there is one thing 
 first of all to be considered. When we speak of evo- 
 lution, it by no means necessarily follows that all we 
 find in any particular phenomenon was involved in 
 its antecedent phenomenon, and that therefore the 
 - whole universe was actually involved in the phenom- 
 ena with which the process of evolution began. 
 "While this is the apparent relation which antecedent 
 have to succeeding phenomena, no one can say that 
 there is not some power on the invisible side of nature 
 which adds the elements of difference or advance at 
 every step in the development. But suppose that 
 the process of evolution must be regarded as involv- 
 ing the whole development in the phenomena with 
 which the evolution begins. Is there anything in 
 this idea which need to disturb a believer in a 
 personal God ? If it is a necessary conception of 
 a process of evolution that all its stages shall be 
 involved in the initial step, then the difficulty, if it 
 be one, attends the partial and interrupted processes 
 of evolution, the existence of which no one can deny, 
 as well as a process supposed to be uninterrupted and 
 universal. It is certainly just as conceivable that 
 God, for I am now reasoning with Theists, should 
 have involved the whole process in its first begin- 
 
THE THEISTIC BASIS OF EVOLUTION. 293 
 
 nings, as to have involved partial evolutions and 
 developments in the phenomena from which they 
 have sprung. If evolution must be conceived of as 
 a necessary involving of the whole process in the 
 first step with which it starts, then all the stages in 
 the evolution of the inorganic world were involved 
 in the conditions under which that evolution began. 
 If this is the true idea of evolution, then all plants 
 and animals were involved in the very earliest phe- 
 nomena of plant or animal life ; nay, all the marvel- A 
 lous developments of humanity slumbered potentially 
 in the first man. But if this can be conceived, where 
 is the difficulty in supposing that a power which 
 could thus involve such vast series of development 
 in the phenomena from which they spring, could 
 endow the primitive elements from which nature is 
 built up, with a potency which should secure the 
 orderly development of the stupendous processes of 
 the universe ; and thus God stand behind a universal X 
 evolution ? And surely if it is wonderful, and an 
 argument for the existence of an Infinite Power, that 
 there should be these long lines of evolution in which 
 the whole development was involved in the beginning 
 of the series, then is it much more wonderful, and 
 constitutes a much stronger argument for a Divine 
 Power, that not merely partial series of development, 
 but that the whole vast evolution lay potentially in 
 the original germs, out of which it has been brought 
 forth. 
 
 We are not, however, shut up to this conception 
 of evolution. It is conceivable that the elements of 
 
294 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 difference and advance have not been involved in 
 preceding phenomena, but have been added at each 
 minutest stage of the development. Taking this 
 view, then, we may unhesitatingly affirm that it is 
 a more wonderful exercise of wisdom and power to 
 have carried on this process uninterruptedly, from 
 first to last, than to have interrupted it from time 
 to time ; as if it were necessary to draw upon some 
 new and reserved force for the advancing stages of 
 the progress. 
 
 So far, then, as the question lies between a partial 
 and a universal evolution, the gain for Theism is 
 very great on the hypothesis that the evolution 
 is continuous, and all-comprehending. But this, it 
 must be admitted, only partially meets the case. 
 The advocates of the hypothesis of immediate and 
 isolated creation in certain cases may reply; the 
 question is not merely between universal and partial 
 evolution, but between universal evolution and par- 
 tial systems of evolution, with the addition of certain 
 acts of immediate creation. 
 
 Is there, then, any gain for Theism in the hypothe- 
 sis of immediate creation in the introduction of life 
 or of man into the system of nature ? This is a 
 question also, be it remembered, between Theists, 
 who differ only as to the bearing of two almost paral- 
 lel hypotheses upon the subject of the existence and 
 agency of God. 
 
 It may be said, then, in the first place, what every 
 Theist will be compelled to acknowledge, that in 
 every step in a process of evolution — and that there 
 
THE THEISTIC BASIS OF EVOLUTION. 295 
 
 are processes of evolution no Theist now will under- 
 take to deny — there is involved the same creative 
 power as could be involved in any act of immediate 
 and isolated creation. The phenomenon has come to 
 exist. The power which has caused its existence is 
 the same, no matter whether it is exercised in one 
 single act or distributed through a series of acts. A 
 child is born into the world. It is the product of a 
 process of evolution. Is it any the less a product of 
 creative power ? Would it be any more a creation if 
 a pile of dust had, without any intervening process, 
 been suddenly changed into its form and substance ? 
 Are we not all creatures of God ? and would not the 
 first man be as much a creature of God, supposing 
 him to have been born of progenitors less than 
 human, as we who are born, so far as our recent pedi- 
 gree is concerned, of human ancestry ? Would it 
 make him any more a creature of God, if from a 
 lump of clay, without any apparent intervention, he 
 had suddenly become a full-grown man ? The same 
 power must be admitted to be somewhere back of 
 the act, whether it occurs in a. process of development, 
 or as the result of an immediate isolated exercise of 
 power. 
 
 I do not urge at this point the higher dignity and 
 rationality (if I may use the word) of a process of 
 evolution by which all phenomena are linked together 
 in an orderly development. There is, however, I may 
 be permitted to say, something exceedingly crude in 
 the hypothesis of an interrupted process of develop- 
 ment, as if God needed to display- himself by arresting 
 
296 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 the orderly sequence of phenomena and beginning, 
 as it were, anew ; or as if God were remedying defects 
 
 V^which he had discovered in his method, and were 
 starting once more with the benefit of acquired ex- 
 perience. I do not mean to imply that the advocates of 
 immediate and isolated acts of creation thus conceive 
 of God, but they unconsciously render the creative 
 agency of God liable to be so represented. When 
 pressed with the proposition, which no argument can 
 possibly refute, that God is just as necessary to every 
 step in a process of evolution as he is to any act of 
 immediate creation, they sometimes display an impa- 
 tience, perhaps not unnatural, at having the existence 
 and agency of God established by any other method 
 to the exclusion of the favorite one, to which they 
 have become accustomed. It almost seems at times 
 as if they wanted to have Theism established in their 
 own way or not at all. 
 
 During the late war Mr. Seward was in the habit 
 of telling a story which illustrated the unreasonable- 
 ness of certain opponents of slavery, who did not 
 wish to have it abolished unless it could be done in 
 the way which they thought best. The story is not 
 
 r* without its application to the present case. Two men 
 who were intimate friends had the one a son, and the 
 other a daughter, and it had been a cherished purpose 
 with the fathers that a matrimonial alliance should 
 crown the friendship of the families. When intimat- 
 ing, however, to the children that the whole matter 
 of their settlement for life had been duly arranged, 
 there was an unfortunate omission to state what the 
 
THE THEISTIC BASIS OF EVOLUTION. 297 
 
 proposed arrangement was. The young people hav- 
 ing become attached to each other, and supposing 
 that the intentions of their fathers were inconsist- 
 ent with their own inclinations, were clandestinely 
 married. On learning this fact, one of the fathers 
 rushed to his friend to offer his congratulations, hnt 
 found him, to his surprise, in a towering indignation. 
 " Are you not satisfied, now that you have had your 
 own way ? " " No," said he, " I 'm not satisfied merely 
 to have my own way. I want to have my own way 
 in my own way." 
 
 The question as to which view of the agency of 
 God in nature is most in accordance with the repre- 
 sentations of the Bible is, of course, a separate ques- 
 tion. It may be well, however, to say a word as to 
 the account which is given of the process of creation 
 in the Book of Genesis. There is nothing in it which 
 does not describe equally well an uninterrupted pro- 
 cess of evolution, in which there are periods strongly 
 marked by certain characteristics, such as the six 
 periods called days, as a process of evolution broken 
 in upon by a discontinuance and resumption of 
 an established order of phenomena. The word 5^'ia 
 which is translated "create," does not necessarily, 
 perhaps not at all, involve the idea of immediate 
 creation. It means, for the most part at least, to 
 shape and to form. But even if it involved immedi- 
 ate creation, it would not answer the purpose of those 
 who reject the hypothesis of continuous evolution. 
 It is used but three times in the first chapter of Gen- 
 esis, — once in connection with the heavens and the 
 
f 
 
 298 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 earth, once in connection with great whales, and once 
 in connection with man. It is not used in connec- 
 tion with the first introduction of life upon the earth, 
 and in the case of man it does not mean an absolutely 
 new creation, for it is declared that he was created 
 out of the dust of the earth. The whole account is 
 a marvellous illustration of what we find so constantly 
 in Scripture, — the description of natural phenomena 
 according to their appearance, a description which is 
 always necessarily true, and is always readily adjust- 
 able to any scientific discoveries which may be made. 
 How the author of the Book of Genesis could have 
 described so accurately the appearance of natural 
 phenomena thousands of ages after they occurred, 
 and thousands of years before the character and order 
 of the phenomena were discovered by scientific in- 
 vestigation, it is for those who reject the idea of 
 inspiration to decide. No apprehension could be 
 more unreasonable than that the authority of the 
 Bible is in danger of being overthrown by any scien- 
 tific hypotheses, be they true or false. They cannot 
 be used successfully against the claims of the Scrip- 
 tures as a Divine revelation. There was a striking 
 device among the Huguenots, I think, representing 
 men with hammers, striking upon an anvil. Other 
 men were standing by with fresh hammers to take 
 the place of those that were broken. " Pound away, 
 you rebels," was the motto; "your hammers break, 
 the anvil of God's word stands." 
 
 The point which we have thus far reached seems, 
 then, to be this, that the hypothesis of a universal 
 
THE THEISTIC BASIS OF EVOLUTION. 299 
 
 and all-comprehending process of evolution is a gain > 
 for Theism, if it can be established. It brings the 
 agency of God in nature into harmony with all the 
 higher conceptions to which the best philosophy has 
 given rise. It removes the embarrassments which are 
 sure to attend any effort to make an act of special and 
 immediate creation cognizable by the mind, and it 
 invests the whole relation of God to the phenomenal 
 universe with new dignity and grandeur. It has been 
 claimed by some of the disciples of positive science 
 that the enlarged knowledge of nature which each 
 generation gains is gradually displacing the idea of J 
 any personal agency in the world of nature. Let me 
 tell you what it is really doing. It is displacing what 
 I call untheistic conceptions of nature, which substi- 
 tuted the agency of inferior supernatural powers in 
 the place of the agency of God. Under its influence 
 the " fair humanities," as Coleridge calls them, of the ^ 
 old religion have vanished. The supernatural beings 
 in forests, in valleys, by the sides of streams, — the 
 fairies of mediaeval superstition, the great angels of the 
 spheres of whom Kepler dreamed, are known no more. 
 What has come in their place ? Are we surrounded 
 by a mere unideal, phenomenal universe, which has 
 grown out of no thought, no all-comprehending plan ? 
 No, a thousand times no ! For if there is this univer- 
 sal, all-comprehending law of evolution, then there 
 is a stupendous plan of the universe, and the great 
 Power which sways the world touches nature at 
 every moment of time and at every point in space. 
 The progress of science is banishing the false super- 
 
300 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 -jK natural, but only that "God may" to us "be all in 
 all." 
 
 It is something, then, to be hailed with joy, if it shall 
 be found that science has made this contribution to 
 a more rational conception of the universe in which a 
 nobler Theism is necessarily involved. We are not 
 disposed to sit down quietly under the verdict that it 
 is still unproven. We rejoice to be moved forward by 
 the impulse of a grand anticipation, and we yield our- 
 selves to the enthusiasm which forecasts this great 
 vindication of the highest rational relation of God 
 to nature and man. 
 
 We are prepared, then, for a consideration, in gen- 
 eral, of the grounds on which an acceptance of evolu- 
 tion as a universal law is anticipated. As we have 
 already followed the probable history of phenomena 
 on the hypothesis of universal evolution, we can now 
 notice certain facts which seem strongly to indicate 
 the truth of this hypothesis. In the sidereal system, 
 for instance, as Mr. Herbert Spencer has pointed out, 
 we have actually at the present time within our field 
 
 /of observation the various stages in its development 
 to which I have already referred. The process of 
 integration of which I have spoken would of course 
 be more or less rapid according to the size of the 
 spheres into which the original mass was broken. It 
 is not unlikely that there are instances in which the 
 whole cycle of changes has been passed through, and 
 where the integration has been followed by a disper- 
 sion and diffusion of matter until it has returned to 
 its original homogeneous condition. Such seems to 
 
THE THEISTIC BASIS OF EVOLUTION. 301 
 
 have been the case with certain nebulte where matter 
 now exists in a gaseous form, constituting star-dust, 
 or the material out of which stars are again to be 
 made. Then there are other vast masses of matter 
 where the process of integration seems to be far ad- 
 vanced. The spheres have been drawn closely together. 
 Their proximity has given rise to anomalous systems 
 such as that of binary stars. The aggregation of the 
 mass is indicated also by the vast solitudes in the 
 heavens from which it has retreated in upon itself. 
 Spheres in the same system are in different stages 
 of their progress. Our globe, for instance, being so 
 much smaller than Jupiter, is in a much more ad- 
 vanced state of integration. The moon being so much 
 smaller, the process of integration in it is already so 
 much the more complete. We have, therefore, proba- 
 bly within our own view, accessible to the scrutiny of 
 the telescope and spectroscope, all the various stages 
 of sidereal evolution. 
 
 When we strive to follow the steps of the development 
 from the inorganic to the organic, we are to remember 
 what Dr. McCosh has so ably pointed out, that the 
 minuteness of the changes involved does not account 
 for the introduction of any new principle. Unless life 
 was by some power put originally into the series from 
 which it is at last evolved, or is added to it when 
 it first appears, we should have no life in the series 
 at all. But the point to be noticed here is, that 
 there are indications that when life first appeared on 
 the earth there was no apparent break in thecontinuity 
 of phenomena, but a simple movement by gradations, 
 
302 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 which could hardly be perceived, to the various phe- 
 nomena of life. It makes the transition more com- 
 prehensible to remember that the matter constituting 
 the living world is identical with that which forms 
 the inorganic world. All the forces of the living 
 world are probably identical with the forces of the in- 
 organic world, or are convertible into them. Organic 
 nature is built up all the time out of inorganic nature, 
 and returns into inorganic nature again. One who is 
 familiar with crystalline formation, with its delicate 
 shoots branching out on either side from a central 
 axis, would not be conscious of any disturbance of an 
 established order in the appearance of plants in the 
 midst of what had hitherto been inorganic nature. 
 
 If we turn from this point to one tliat has been 
 treated with very great clearness and ability by Mr. 
 John Fiske, we shall find most striking corroborations 
 of the hypothesis of universal evolution. The view 
 which Mr. Fiske presents is that of the oneness of all 
 life at its base. It starts, no matter on what line of 
 development it may be, from the same point. Taking, 
 then, a point of origin, there is, according to Mr. Fiske, 
 a divergence in diverse directions of vegetal and 
 animal life, the more widely varying as they are fur- 
 ther removed from the original point of divergence. 
 Then, take in connection with this Professor Asa 
 Gray's exceedingly interesting and valuable work 
 on the "Eelations of Eeligion and Science," where 
 he shows that recent discoveries have completely 
 bridged over the chasm which was formerly supposed 
 to exist between animal and vegetable life. If we 
 
THE THEISTIC BASIS OF EVOLUTION. 303 
 
 take into account also the wonderfully interesting work 
 of Mr. Darwin on plants, in which the rudiments of 
 purpose and volition in plant life are clearly shown 
 to exist, we shall be likely to be deeply impressed 
 with the unity and generic connection of all life. 
 
 If we turn then to Mr Darwin's marvellously com- 
 plete and exhaustive consideration of the subject of 
 the Descent of Man, it will be found to be a very 
 strong argument for the hypothesis of universal evo- 
 lution, or at least for the derivation of man from 
 the animal life by which he was preceded. To 
 say nothing else, it seems impossible to account for 
 traces in man of the lower animal development, if 
 not on this supposition. When we find rudimentary 
 organs in man which have their counterpart as useful 
 and necessary organs in lower animals, it is difficult 
 to doubt the transmission by heredity of these abor- 
 tive organs to man. But more than this, how marvel- 
 lous is the revelation which is made to us in human 
 embryology ! The human child before birth passes 
 through all the characteristic aspects of a lower ani- 
 mal life. It seems to bear the marks of its origin at 
 every step of its development until birth. There is 
 no meaning in the presence of these aspects unless 
 they are traces of an actual development which has 
 been passed through. And when we find that the 
 same fact presents itself in lower animal life, where 
 its significance is by common consent recognized, we 
 hesitate at least to refuse to recognize its significance 
 in the case of man. 
 
 A remarkable confirmation of this view is to be found 
 
304 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 in the discovery by Professor Marsh of the various 
 stasres by which the horse as he now exists has been 
 /*Meveloped from an animal with five toes. This most 
 significant discovery is now so well known, and its 
 bearing so well understood, that I need not dwell 
 longer upon it. "■ 
 
 As it is no part of my purpose to construct an 
 argument in behalf of the universality of the law of 
 evolution, but only to point out some of the promi- 
 nent indications that it will come to be recognized as 
 a universal law, I do not feel called upon to consider 
 the difficulties and objections which are urged against 
 it, though I feel confident that, w^ere there time so to 
 do, the conclusion already reached would be found to 
 be only the more strongly established. 
 
 There is a wonderful passage in Coleridge's " Aids 
 to Eeflection," which can hardly be considered as less 
 " than a prophecy of the discovery of this great law : 
 " Every rank of creatures, as it ascends in the scale of 
 creation, leaves death behind it or under it. The 
 /metal, at its height of being, seems a mute prophecy 
 of the coming vegetation, into a mimic semblance of 
 which it crystallizes. The blossom and flower, the 
 acme of vegetable life, divide into correspondent or- 
 gans with reciprocal functions, and by instinctive 
 motions and approximations seems impatient of that 
 fixure by which it is diff'erenced in kind from the 
 flower-shaped Psyche that flutters with free wing 
 above it. And wonderfully, in the insect realm, doth> 
 the irritability, the proper seat of instinct, while yet 
 the nascent sensibility is subordinated thereto, — 
 
THE THEISTIC BASIS OF EVOLUTION. 305 
 
 most wonderfully, I say, does the muscular life in the 
 insect, and the musco-arterial in the bird, imitate and 
 typically rehearse the adaptive understanding, yes, and 
 the moral affections and charities of man. Let us 
 carry ourselves back in spirit to the mysterious week, 
 the teeming work-days of the Creator, as they rose in 
 vision before the inspired historian of the generations 
 of the heavens and of tlie earth, in the day that the 
 Lord God made the earth and the heavens. And 
 who that hath watched their way with an understand- 
 ing heart could, as the vision evolving still advanced 
 toward liim, contemplate the loyal and filial bee ; the 
 home-building, wedded and divorceless swallow ; and, 
 above all, the manifoldly intelligent ant tribes, with 
 their commonwealths and confederacies, their war- 
 riors and miners, the husband-folk that fold in their 
 tiny flocks on the honeyed leaf, and the virgin sisters, 
 with the holy instincts of maternal love, detached and 
 in selfless purity, — and not say. to himself, Behold 
 the shadow of approaching humanity, the sun rising 
 from behind in the kindling morning of creation. Thus 
 all lower natures find their highest good in semblances 
 and seekings of that which is higher and better. All 
 things strive to ascend, and ascend in their striving." 
 But now we are brought to a point where the pur- 
 pose and direction of the argument are to be changed. 
 The argument so far has been addressed for the most 
 part to Theists, and has had for its object to reconcile 
 them to certain supposed principles and facts in na- 
 ture, and to show that these principles and facts, if 
 established, can only add to the firmness of that con- 
 20 
 
/ 
 
 / 
 
 306 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 elusion by which we hold fast to the being of a per- 
 sonal God. The considerations thus presented must 
 avail with Theists, for they rest upon principles which 
 all Theists admit. Now, however, we find ourselves 
 confronted with the difficulties of those who have 
 come to understand clearly the generic unity of the 
 phenomenal universe, have embraced it all in one stu- 
 pendous, all-comprehending law, but go no further, 
 and fail to recognize the conscious intelligence and 
 will on which all phenomena necessarily rest. When 
 the Theist accepts the universal evolution, he supplies 
 at once the theistic basis in thought. But for those 
 who see only the phenomena linked together in this 
 process of universal development, a new line of argu- 
 ment is necessary by which the theistic basis of the 
 evolution may be established. 
 
 We have a point to start from in the distinct affir- 
 mations of one who would undoubtedly dissent from 
 the conclusions I shall draw as to the theistic basis 
 of evolution. Mr. Herbert Spencer, for I refer to 
 him, says : " By the persistence of force we really 
 mean the persistence of some power which transcends 
 our knowledge and conception. The manifestations, 
 as occurring either in ourselves or outside of us, do 
 not persist ; but that which persists is the unknown 
 Cause of these manifestations. In other words, as- 
 serting the persistence of force is but another mode 
 of asserting an unconditioned Eeality, without begin- 
 ning or end." 
 
 Here we find ourselves in the presence of that Ag- 
 nosticism, which is supposed to be by many the final 
 
THE THEISTIC BASIS OF EVOLUTION. 307 
 
 attitude which the human ftiind is to assume in regard 
 to that Power which the Theist calls God. The whole 
 realm in which this Power resides, this theory claims, 
 is necessarily the Unknowable. 
 
 Now I undertake to say that the universality of 
 evolution, if it is established, is pre-eminently calcu- 
 lated to overthrow the agnostic position. It is vain, 
 indeed, even at the point where we already stand, 
 to talk about the Unknowable. When Mr. Spencer 
 tells us that the Unknowable is a Force which persists 
 as a permanent reality, without beginning and with- 
 out end, and that the phenomenal universe is onl}^ a 
 manifestation of this eternal Eeality, he gives us some 
 most important items of knowledge about that which 
 he calls the Unknown. But looking at the matter in 
 the light of evolution, what is clearer than that we 
 must ascribe Unity to that Power. It is everywhere 
 the same. It must always be described by the same 
 terms. It works throughout the universe by the same 
 methods, and accomplishes the same ends. It binds 
 all phenomena into one stupendous system, which 
 can be conceived of by the mind instructed by famili- 
 arity with processes of evolution only as a unit, — its 
 various parts related to each other and to the whole 
 by one vast operation and one universal idea. On 
 the supposition of an all-embracing evolution, no phe- 
 nomena can possibly escape this unifying process of 
 the mind. The unity of the whole, as contemplated 
 by the mind, is absolutely complete. We have, then, 
 as a result of a strictly scientific process the first great 
 attribute of God : " Thy God is One God." 
 
308 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 There is another conclnsion to which we are irre- 
 sistibly led, and that is, that the process over which 
 this Power presides is the consummation of a vast 
 design, and the outcome of a plan in which every 
 
 f phenomenon is so linked with all other phenomena 
 tliat it must have been contemplated from the iirst. 
 I know very well the ridicule with which the idea of 
 
 j((^esign in nature is treated by the disciples of the 
 agnostic school. And oftentimes abundant occasion 
 is given for this ridicule by those who undertake to 
 interpret the designs which they suppose they have 
 discovered in the natural world. In the life of Hein- 
 rich Heine is an account of his interview with a 
 citizen of Goslar, who undertook to entertain him by 
 remarks on the proofs of purpose in nature. The 
 trees, this individual said, were green because green 
 was good for the eyes. To which Heine replied, " No 
 doubt," and added that " God had created cattle be- 
 cause meat-broth was a strengthening diet for man ; 
 that he had made donkeys that they might serve for 
 human comparison, and that he had created man that 
 he might eat meat-broth and not be a donkey." " So 
 long," Heine continues, " as this citizen was with me 
 all nature lost its magic ; as soon as he was gone the 
 trees began again to speak, the sunbeams to be tune- 
 ful, the meadow flowerets to dance, and the blue 
 heaven to embrace the green earth. Yes, I knew bet- 
 ter. God has created man to adore the splendor of 
 the world. In the Bible, the memoirs of God, it is 
 expressly stated that he created man for his praise 
 and glory." 
 
THE THEISTIC BASIS OF EVOLUTION. 309 
 
 But while men may be sadly mistaken in their 
 efforts to interpret the designs of the power in nature 
 which this school calls the Unknowable, the existence 
 of design is established by a strictly scientific process. 
 Prof. Bowen, Dr. Peabody, and the Bishop of Carlisle 
 have of late rendered very valuable service by the ap- sc. 
 plication of mathematics to the establishing of moral 
 truth. It is an accepted principle in the "logic of 
 chance," that if a certain proportion out of a given 
 number of phenomena contribute to a certain end, 
 that the probabilities, mathematically expressed, that 
 the end was designed are so great that it would be 
 unreasonable to doubt. Even suppose nature to be a 
 congeries of disjointed systems, each one traceable to 
 an independent origin, still the evidence of design, 
 by this method, would be overwhelming. But if all 
 phenomena, linked together as they are supposed to 
 be, on the hypothesis of universal evolution, are found 
 to contribute to an orderly and advancing progress, 
 then the probabilities in favor of design, as against 
 the probability of a fortuitous concourse of phenom- 
 ena contributing to a certain end, could be expressed 
 only by a numerical statement, the figures of which 
 could not be contained on the whole surface of the 
 globe. 
 
 The authors of the " Rejected Addresses," in their 
 commemoration of the rebuilding of Drury Lane The- 
 atre, very cleverly satirized the doctrine of Lucretius y^ 
 that the world came to be by chance. Applying the 
 ])rinciple of chance to the building up of this struc- 
 ture, they say : — 
 
310 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 "From floating elements in chaos hurled, 
 Self-fonned of atoms, sprang the infant world. 
 No great First Cause inspired the happy plot. 
 But all was matter, — and no matter what, — 
 Atoms attracted by some law occult, 
 Settling in spheres, — this globe was the result. 
 I sing how casual bricks, in airy climb, 
 Encountered casual cow-hair, casual lime ; 
 How rafters, borne through wondering clouds elate. 
 Kissed in their slope blue elemental slate. 
 Clasped solid beams in chance-directed fury, 
 And gave to birth our renovated Drury." 
 
 If, however, in spite of the stupendous unreason- 
 ableness of such a position, even from a strictly sci- 
 entific point of view, any one should cling to the 
 monstrous absurdity that all things may have come 
 to be as they are by chance, then is there at least an 
 equal possibility that chance may have given us a 
 
 '^ moral law, a supernatural system, miracles, redemp- 
 tion, eternal life. If, then, this inscrutable power, as 
 it is called, has. the attribute of unity, and works with 
 design according to a plan excluding chance, all of 
 which is scientifically established, there would seem 
 to be little need of considering the question whether 
 mind may not be a mere attribute of matter, — a mere 
 material development. For, to say nothing of the 
 impossibility of proving that there is any such thing 
 as we call matter, while it is unquestionable that 
 there is what we call mind, there is no little reason 
 for supposing that mind and what we call matter are 
 inseparably united, to be conceived of under one idea. 
 
 -ytv.So that mind necessarily underlies the material uni- 
 verse. 
 
 y 
 
THE THEISTIC BASIS OF EVOLUTION. 311 
 
 But one of the most significant facts in this whole 
 controversy is yet to be considered. This agnostic 
 position, so far as it is atheistic in its tendency, is /^ 
 broken down by its own advocates. There is nothing 
 more remarkable than this in the whole history of 
 philosophy. 
 
 The men to whom I shall refer are Professor Huxley, 
 Schopenhauer, and Hartmann. We find these phi- 
 losophers, who either assert our ignorance of God, or 
 deny his existence altogether, talking about forces and 
 a universal force, — and when they have searched 
 phenomena through and through, they admit that there \/ 
 is a mysterious force beneath which eludes their 
 grasp. Then Professor Huxley gives us the basis of 
 a belief in a personal God when, baffled in his inves- 
 tigation of the inner mysteries of nature, he says : 
 "If I were compelled to choose, I do not know 
 whether I should express the facts of nature in terms 
 of matter or terms of spirit." So that, after all, this 
 whole system of materialism which has so much 
 disquieted some, and been so enthusiastically de- 
 fended by others, may have been dealing all the time 
 with an immaterial and ideal universe resting in and 
 existing only in the Divine mind. 
 
 But this admission of the utter baselessness possibly 
 of the whole materialistic system is not all. It leaves 
 us the reasonableness of the supposition that there is 
 a universal spirit which either penetrates all nature 
 or is nature itself. But now see how the other phi- 
 losophers build up for us the argument in behalf of a 
 personal God. A personal God must have wiU. Well, 
 
312 CHKIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 7^ but Schopenhauer says that all force is will. He goes' 
 further and says that all matter is force, and that there- 
 fore matter is known to us only as will. There is, then, 
 one all-pervading will; what seem to be causes in 
 nature are only the occasions for the manifestation 
 of the universal will. But then this infinite will is 
 not a personal God, for a personal God must have in- 
 telligence as well as will. 
 
 Then comes Hartmann and says that there is not 
 only a universal will into which all phenomena are 
 J^resolved, but that it is an intelligent, though uncon- 
 scious, will. This thinking and willing power lays 
 out the plan of the universe, wills it to be such as it 
 , is, and carries all things on to their accomplishment. 
 y^'- This universal power is like a God in a trance. Here 
 Hartmann leaves us. But see the admissions which 
 have been wrung from these deniers of a personal 
 God. First, that everything, after all, may be spirit, 
 thought, ideas, mind. Then that there is, at any rate, 
 a universal will ; and then, finally, that this universal 
 will is infinitely intelligent, and adapts all means to 
 all ends. We need now simply to add consciousness 
 and we have a personal God. Add then love and 
 goodness, and we have our Creator and heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 ISTow this infinite, intellijTjent will without conscious- 
 
 vi ness I call an imperfect and abnormal God. There is 
 
 ^ not enough of God in it to satisfy the necessities of 
 
 reason. There is too much to render it possible to 
 
 reconcile it with a denial of a personal God. Is it 
 
 not reasonable, for that is the line of inquiry we 
 
THE THEISTIC BASIS OF EVOLUTION. 313 
 
 are now pursuing, that if there is a. God at all it 
 should be a normal God, with consciousness and af- 
 fections, as well as intelligence and will ? 
 
 An infinite, intelligent will without consciousness yC_ 
 I hold to be an impossible conception. Having the 
 intelligent will, the consciousness must in all reason 
 be granted, and then come in all the demands of 
 the soul, in the midst of the sins and sorrows of the 
 world, which will find satisfaction nowhere but in the 
 conviction of the existence of a personal God, with 
 will, intelligence, and consciousness, infinitely wise 
 and holy and good, in whom we live and move and 
 have our being. 
 
 There is a wonderfully profound suggestion made 
 by Professor Bowen, that the theory of evolution is 
 the philosophy of Hegel applied to the world of ma- <* 
 terial phenomena. Hegel's philosophy is a gigantic 
 system in which all conceptions are necessarily 
 evolved from thought. It is the higher ideal sphere 
 of evolution. It gives us, its adherents claim, God, 
 the incarnation, the verities of the Christian faith. )L 
 Whether this be so or not, it can hardly be doubted 
 that the new aspects in which the universe is pre- 
 sented by the principle of universal evolution will 
 lead to a higher philosophy of God. If I dared to 
 make any suggestion as to the drift of that philosophy, 
 I should say it would be in the direction of the break- 
 ing down of the distinction between nature and spirit, 
 and the illustration of St. Paul's wonderful declara- 
 tion that God is all in all. This reconciliation of 
 Pantheism with the personality of God on the one 
 
314 CHRIST AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 7< 
 
 hand, and the independence in some sense of his crea- 
 ures on the other, is the great problem for the Theism 
 of the future. I should say that the theory, so em- 
 phatically condemned by the Vatican Council, of the 
 evolution of the universe from the being of God, 
 -/ furnished the best possible starting-point for future 
 investigation. 
 
 In the mean time, if we would hold fast to what is 
 best in life, to the sources of noble enthusiasms, of 
 grand and majestic works of art, of the sublimest 
 poetry, of heroism, of pure morals, of saintly life, God 
 as manifested in Jesus Christ must be enthroned in 
 the adoring homage and love of all hearts. 
 
 " Mourn not for them that mourn 
 For sin's kefen arrow with its rankling smart, 
 God's hand will bind again what He hath torn, 
 
 He heals the broken heart. 
 
 But weep for him whose eye 
 Sees in the midnight skies a starry dome 
 Thick sown with worlds that whirl and hurry by, 
 
 Yet give the heart no home ; 
 
 "Who marks through earth and space 
 A strange dumb pageant pass before a vacant shrine, 
 • And feels within his inmost soul a place 
 
 Unfilled by the divine." 
 
 In the indescribably glorious revelation w^hich 
 this stupendous evolution makes to us of God, we 
 can say with a new meaning and a deeper signifi- 
 cance : — 
 
 " Thou, Lord, in the be^irinnino: hast laid the foun- 
 dation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of 
 
THE THEISTIC BASIS OF EVOLUTION. 315 
 
 thine hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest, 
 and they all shall wax old as doth a garment, and as 
 a vesture shalt thou fold them up and they shall be 
 changed ; but thou art the same, and thy years shall 
 not fail" 
 
 [UHIVBRSITr] 
 
 University Press: John Wilson & Sun, Cambridge. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
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