40832 BEQUEST TO WILLIAM JEWELL COLLEGE BY CLOICE R. HOWD, PH. D. HEAD OF DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY 1928-1933 DIED MAY 18, 1933 .)., LIJD. A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION. MORAL EVOLUTION. INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON AND NEW YORK A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION/ BY GEORGE BARKIS PRESIDENT EMERITUS OF AMHER8T COLLEGE FORMERLY PROFESSOR IN ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY (Cbe nilu-rsibc press CambciD0e 1914 COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY GEORGE HARRIS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published November iqi4 CONTENTS INTRODUCTORY . . vii I. RELIGION A CENTURY AGO 1 II. THE WANING OF CALVINISM 24 III. EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY 55 IV. BIBLICAL CRITICISM 74 V. THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST .... 86 VI. REDEMPTION AND CONVERSION . . . .103 VII. THE SPIRITUAL MAN 125 VIII. ETERNAL LIFE ........ 144 IX. THE KINGDOM OF GOD 180 X. THE CHURCH: WORSHIP AND PREACHING . . 194 XI. RELIGIOUS PRACTICE 207 XII. THE HERITAGE OF THE FAITH .... 227 XIII. THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE FAITH . . . 248 INTRODUCTORY How much or how little have religious beliefs been affected by modern knowledge of the uni- verse and of human nature? That those beliefs have undergone some change is certain. Have they been diminished or even undermined? Have they been rationalized and strengthened? At times there has been alarm when new theories of creation and evolution, of the origin and the con- stitution of man, of the sacred writings, have been advanced. There are some who say we are all at sea; we do not know what to believe. To others it seems as though a flood of light had been shed on obscurities, as though doubts and difficulties had been removed and faith enlarged. Is it not true that our deepest interest in the extension of knowledge is in respect to its bearing on religious beliefs? While knowledge of the forces of nature has given modern improvements, has utilized invisible currents to increase the material welfare of man, has multiplied the wonders of discovery, yet the final question strikes at belief in God and the destiny of man. ; vii INTRODUCTORY Religion is conservative. Vital beliefs grounded in human nature are not greatly influenced by changing outward conditions. Knowledge of the universe and of man's constitution and develop- ment does not make man other than he is. Yet beliefs are rooted in the actuality of the universe and of human nature, and must be determined to some degree by profounder knowledge of those realities. Can we not measure the influence that modern discovery has exercised on faith by comparing the religious opinions and practices of earlier periods with the beliefs and practices of to-day? I propose in this writing to recognize the effects of mod- ern excursions of knowledge into the realm where religion dwells, taking for review especially the last century, from the close of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century; to compare the beliefs and lives of Christians of one hundred years ago and of the following decades with the beliefs and practices of intelligent Christians of to- day, indicating various discoveries and tendencies which have affected religious faith. I shall con- sider these changes as they are disclosed in Ameri- can life and thought. The influence of modern knowledge upon religious beliefs has been world- viii INTRODUCTORY wide, it is true, yet the atmosphere of a democracy and the separateness of Church from State gave America a peculiar advantage in respect to free- dom of thought. A hundred years ago beliefs were sharply de- fined. It was a theological age. Creeds were long and explicit. A Christian must be sound in the doctrines. The leading church in New England was called the Orthodox Church. Heterodoxy was a term of reproach. Religious practices were as sharply defined; Sabbath observance, social life, amusements, family life, religious experience were precisely indicated. Moreover these beliefs and practices were an inheritance, but slightly altered, from the Reformation. The Westminster Con- fession of Faith drawn up in 1647 was the gen- really accepted standard. Calvinist, Lutheran, Reformed were names commonly applied to evan- gelical churches in the first part of the nineteenth century. The Reformation itself was a revolt more distinctively against the abuses than against the doctrines of the Church. Our question might be: In what respects have the beliefs generally held from the early centuries of Christianity been changed in the last century? I select this period also because a large part of be INTRODUCTORY it is within the recollection of many now living. Indeed, those discoveries and influences which have, or are supposed to have, modified religious beliefs, have come upon us chiefly within the last fifty years. I do not mean that religious beliefs and practices were stationary for eighteen hun- dred years, or during the first half of the nineteenth century, but that the changes of the last fifty years are more marked than those, we may almost say, of all the time preceding. A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION CHAPTER I RELIGION A CENTURY AGO THE period at the close of the eighteenth and be- ginning of the nineteenth century was a period of political importance in America. The successful revolution had closed. Half the population or more had lived in the great war. The farmers and merchants had been soldiers. The children and youth were familiar with the story. A new nation was founded. The thirteen colonies had achieved independence and were at last united in a Com- monwealth. The territory of the United States extended far westwards and, augmented in 1803 by the Louisiana Purchase, embraced all lying east of the Rocky Mountains and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico except parts of Florida, which, after changing hands several times, was added to the Union in 1819. The frontier of population was pushing constantly west. Great States were 1 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION organized. The census of 1800 showed 5,300,000; the census of 1820 showed 9,400,000 inhabitants. The people were developing the resources of a vast country. There was no real contrast in this respect between East and West. Not only were the pioneers from the East, but also commerce and manufactures made rapid progress in the Eastern communities. Boston, New York, Phila- delphia were growing and thriving cities. There were no steamboats, railroads, telegraphs, but the people did not know it and managed to get from one place to another, to transact a good deal of business, to know what was going on in the world, to take an eager share in politics, to put forward the new nation. The infant, or rather the youth- ful, democracy was finding itself. The weal of the nation was the paramount interest. The great moral issue of slavery was not yet on the political horizon. The population was homogeneous. Im- migration was chiefly from the British Isles, with some Dutch in New York and Pennsylvania and slight scatterings from other European countries. Nor was all interest and'progress directed to the political and material. Education was generously provided. A system of common schools developed in one State after another. Colleges were founded 2 RELIGION A CENTURY AGO as soon as and even before independence was achieved. In the colonial period Harvard was es- tablished in 1636; William and Mary, in 1693; Yale, in 1701; The College of New Jersey, now Princeton, in 1746; King's College, now Colum- bia, in 1755; Brown University, in 1764; and Dartmouth, in 1769. After the Revolution and within twenty years came the University of Ver- mont, in 1791; Williams College, in 1793; Bow- doin College, chartered in 1794 and opened in 1802; Middlebury College, in 1800. There were other colleges in the seaboard States, so that by 1800 there were twenty -one. In the very midst of the Revolution, the Phillips Academies, at Andover in 1778 and at Exeter in 1781, were established. It was not a slow-moving nation. While there had been some growth in colonial times, it was from the Revolution, when the dependent col- onies had become an independent nation, the United States of America, that advancement was rapid. The American character was a new thing, a combination of alertness, shrewdness, enterprise, love of liberty, and, it may be added, self-satis- faction. Religion was a dominating interest. For reli- A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION gious reasons the Pilgrims came to America. Although they were a trading company, under charter of the London Company and the Mer- chant Adventurers, they took that way, were obliged to take such means, in order to go to America. In 1642 they settled with the English company and were no longer proprietary. "This is not a trading company, it is a religious com- pany," said one of the Pilgrims. They had gone to Holland, the land of religious toleration, that they might worship God according to the dictates of conscience. From Holland they had come to America that they might have a free church. Nearly all who came afterwards and settled in New England were Puritans of the straitest sect. The Puritan strain predominated all the way down, one and a half centuries, characterized by a distinct theology and a stern rigidity of life. This was so much the case that we are accustomed to think of Pilgrims and Puritans almost entirely in the light of their religious life and severe creed. The period we are reviewing cherished this in- heritance. It was a theological age, more definite, if that were possible, than the colonial period. No one was ignorant of theological distinctions. The Westminster Confession and Shorter Catechism 4 RELIGION A CENTURY AGO were generally accepted by Congregationalists and Presbyterians, the Catechism employed as the basis of religious instruction. The Dutch Re- formed churches had a similar creed and used the Heidelberg Catechism. These symbols set forth the plan of salvation. All men are sinful, have a depraved nature, sinned in Adam and fell with him. The consequence of sin is everlasting punish- ment. Man cannot save himself. The Almighty God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, had mercy on sinners, and having, out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of the state of sin and misery and to bring them into a state of salvation by a Redeemer. Christ offered Himself up a sacrifice to satisfy Divine justice and reconcile us to God. Justification is an act of God's free grace wherein He pardoneth all our sins and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us, and received by faith alone. Such, in substance, was the belief generally held by the American churches. In the next chapter will be noticed certain modifications and enlarge- ments which were developed in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is enough now to indicate 5 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION the doctrines regarded as essential in this earlier period. Personal salvation was the keynote of religion, and was thought of as salvation from everlasting punishment. There was scarcely a doubt of im- mortality. Heaven and hell were realities. At death, one passed, it was believed, immediately to a mansion in the skies or to the abode of dark- ness and anguish. Creeds defined also the Christian. Conversion, repentance, faith, justification, sanctification, loomed large in as many questions and answers. Church membership was conditioned on assent to the creed in its every particular. It was assumed that the church could judge whether a person had experienced religion or not. The candidate for admission was required to mark the day, the hour when he passed from death unto life. Not a few good Christians, men of prayer, did not venture to join the church because they thought they had not had the definite experience requisite. Two principal founders of the first theological semi- nary were not church members, for the reason just given. Young men who offered themselves to the Christian ministry were examined and their be- liefs tested by councils and presbyteries. Search- 6 RELIGION A CENTURY AGO ing questions were propounded, and deviation from any doctrine, the least shade of qualification, might lead to the rejection of the candidate. There was a current the other way. The latter part of the eighteenth century marked a breaking away to some extent from the Puritan theology. The French Revolution, following the American Revolution, had brought new ideas of the rights of men not only, but of the sovereignty of human- ity. Skepticism and even atheism were a fashion. The reasons for this were partly political, partly philosophical, partly the influence of French atheism in a nation with which young America was in sympathy. Yet while this skepticism was outspoken, it was, after all, sporadic, an indi- vidual here and there denying the verities of the Christian faith. There was also a reaction within the churches, which culminated in Unitarianism and Universal- ism. Unitarianism was a protest against the doc- trines of the Trinity and the deity of Christ, on the one hand, and, with more feeling, against the doctrines of original sin, total depravity, and reprobation. It emphasized the worth and good- ness of man and the humanity of Christ. It was localized in eastern Massachusetts, where Unita- 7 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION rians had a considerable following and obtained control of some of the old churches. By means of the parish system, meeting-houses and funds were seized by them, even though, in some instances, a majority of the members of the church were or- thodox. Ejected, as it were, from the meeting- houses, the Orthodox in a village or town organ- ized a church and built a meeting-house of their own, taking, usually, a name that signified sound- ness of faith, such as the Trinitarian, the Con- gregational, the Calvinist, the Orthodox Church; the Unitarians calling themselves the First Church or the First Parish, or simply the Uni- tarian Church. Thus there existed in small vil- lages two churches, separated by doctrinal differ- ences. Acrimonious feeling was intense; neighbors scarcely on speaking terms. In Boston and Cam- bridge, Unitarianism was strongest, represented by a number of able and intelligent men. King's Chapel in Boston, in 1787, was the first Unitarian Church. In New England in 1820 there were one hundred and fifty churches of that kind, chiefly in Massachusetts. The appointment in 1805 of a Unitarian, Henry Ware, to be professor of Divin- ity in Harvard College was deprecated by the Orthodox and led to the establishment of a theo- 8 RELIGION A CENTURY AGO logical seminary at Andover, with a creed that emphasized evangelical faith and condemned Unitarianism and Universalism and "all other heresies and errors, ancient or modern, which may be opposed to the Gospel of Christ or hazardous to the souls of men." Harvard College was re- garded by the Orthodox as Unitarian, a suspicion which has lasted in some quarters well-nigh down to the present time. It does not appear that Unitarianism had a very great influence in the country. While in eastern Massachusetts there were several prominent churches, elsewhere there were but few and, as a denomination, it has always been small. It is claimed that its influence has been much greater than numbers signify, and that may be true. It was, however, so largely a protest against orthodox faith and practice that its energy for a long time was expended in attack, and constructive work was wanting. Universalism was a protest against reprobation, against eternal punishment, against hell. At first it held to the deity of Christ and the universality of atonement, from which it argued universal sal- vation. Later it accepted the opinions of Uni- tarianism in respect to the person and work of Christ. 9 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION What really happened was, that orthodoxy was more sharply defined; that creeds were framed with the distinct purpose of reaffirming, without mistake, the essentials and minutiae of the faith once delivered to the saints, and that in this faith the vast majority of the people stood. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, then, we find most explicit statements of doctrine generally assented to and held, with slight modifications, until the middle of the century. The authority of the Bible was recognized by all. Whatever could be proved from chapter and verse was final. Doctrines were substantiated by proof-texts taken at random from the New and Old Testaments. The Bible hi every part was inspired, was inerrant. If there seemed to be in- consistencies, for example, the numbers in an army as stated in Kings and in Chronicles, that was an error in copying. The original Hebrew and Greek were infallible, so ministers were faith- ful students of the original tongues. Reverence for the Bible was profound, was a religion in itself. Children read it from beginning to end, and many times, so that they were familiar with its stories, parables, precepts, prophecies, poetry, gospels. This practice surely was excellent, since the Bible 10 RELIGION A CENTURY AGO contains so much elevated literature, expressed in the English version in noble form. So late as the appearance of the Revised Version of the New Testament in 1880 there was apprehension in some quarters lest the authority of the Bible be im- paired by translation into any other words than those to which two and one half centuries of Eng- lish-speaking people had been accustomed. Meet- ings were held in various cities at which some of the revisers were present to explain that in sub- stance there was no change, but only clearing of obscurities. A newspaper in Chicago published the New Testament, as revised, in full the day after it appeared and remarked editorially that "we have read it through and can assure our readers there is no change in the plot.'* When geology had demonstrated the antiquity of the earth, substituting millions of years for the 4004 B.C., marginally indicated in English Bibles, there were efforts to show that the account of the crea- tion in Genesis is not inconsistent with the facts, that the days were epochs a thousand years with the Lord as one day and that the order of creation from matter to life, from lower to higher orders, is precisely that indicated by modern dis- covery. The conflict of science and religion, a 11 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION phrase frequently employed, really meant a sup- posed contradiction between the Biblical account of creation and the theory of science. To admit that the Bible was wrong on that matter, or on any matter, was to undermine its authority as a whole. These opinions are mentioned to illustrate the regard in which the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments were held, as inspired, inerrant, divine, in the eighteenth and well on into the nineteenth century. Theories of inerrancy belong to that period. At the Reformation, which went back of the authority of the Church to the author- ity of the Bible, it was taken with largeness as the rule of faith and practice, while there was no hesi- tation about criticizing it in detail, Luther calling the letter of James a right strawy epistle. Later everything was claimed for the Bible. It may seem remarkable that such theories were held, and yet it is because so much truth is in the Bible that it could be maintained that all is true. For no other book or books could such claims be made and upheld by thinking, intelligent people. The church was a company of people united for worship and the preaching of the Word. Church and State were separate. The Constitution of the United States provides that Congress shall make RELIGION A CENTURY AGO no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. In Mas- sachusetts, in the early time, all citizens, ex- cept those belonging to some other incorporated religious body, were taxed for the support of Congregational churches, but this practice was discontinued in 1811 and in Connecticut in 1818. Practically, from the Revolution, the Church was separate from the State, and all were free to wor- ship God according to the dictates of conscience. The parson was a commanding figure, or if not commanding, was regarded with veneration by reason of his office. The religious services of the Lord's Day were the great occasions. Everybody went to church except the sick and those who cared for them. The exercises, while simple, were protracted. The minister prayed at great length, in adoration, thanksgiving, confession, petition, sometimes half an hour or more. "To-day I had much largeness in prayer," says one and another in his journal. The Scripture lesson was not only read, but also expounded. The psalms, versified, were sung. The sermon went by the hour-glass which, to the discouragement of the young, was sometimes turned. The preacher's discourse was a structure, topical, doctrinal, scriptural, with 13 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION thesis, argument, improvement. If we may judge from manuscript sermons that have been pre- served and from sermons of Emmons, Hopkins, and others, time was no consideration. At all events, the parson had a large and long way. The ministry was in a way an apostolic succession. Young men who on leaving college set their faces towards the ministry, entered the families of cler- gymen (for until 1808 there were no theological seminaries) and there studied the Hebrew and Greek Testaments, assisted in divine services and accompanied the minister on his visitations. After two years they were themselves ordained over churches. Some historians have noticed that the wives of many ministers of this period were daugh- ters of ministers. The explanation is obvious. When a minister had daughters and took edu- cated, intelligent young men into his family, it was inevitable that some or all of the youths would be attracted. As the girls came on to womanhood, year by year, so each year a young man of suitable age appeared. Thus an ancestor of the writer, minister in Attleboro, Massachusetts, had seven daughters, every one of whom married a minister. These conditions might suggest the material for a very pretty romance of early New England life, 14 RELIGION A CENTURY AGO a field that, so far as I know, has never been entered. The Southern States, with different origins from New England, were, in the main, as was New York with a Dutch infusion, Orthodox. Almost all the people were Presbyterians, for the Dutch Reformed and Lutherans were Presby- terians and had the same standards of belief. The Heidelberg Catechism used in the Reformed churches, while milder than the Westminster, is substantially the same. In New England the early part of the nineteenth century was a creed- making time in the Congregational churches. Every church had its own creed, to guard against Unitarianism and Universalism. The creeds so made were a condensation of the old Reformation confessions, with emphasis on the Trinity and everlasting punishment, and were a test of church membership. The specific religious practices as to times and seasons were observance of the Sabbath and church-going, daily family prayer morning and evening, and religious instruction of the young. The Sabbath or Lord's Day was devoted solely to religion. All work was prohibited according to the directions of the Fourth Commandment. There 15 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION could be neither work nor play. This prohibition was strictly enforced in New England, and, indeed, generally in the colonies until after the Revolu- tion and on into the nineteenth century. Fines were imposed for Sabbath-breaking in the earlier time. In Plymouth a man was " sharply whipped " for shooting fowl on Sunday. Another was fined for carrying a grist of corn home on the Lord's Day, and the miller who allowed him to take it was also fined. James Watt, in 1658, was publicly reproved for writing a note of business on the Lord's Day, at least in the evening, somewhat too soon, probably just before sundown, since the Sabbath was from Saturday sunset to Sunday sunset. Captain Kemble, of Boston, in 1656 sat for two hours in the public stocks for his "lewd and unseemly behavior," which consisted in his "kissing his wife publicquely on the Sabbath Day upon the doorstep of his house," when he had just returned from a voyage and absence of three years. Abundant proof can be given that the act of the Legislature in 1649 was not a dead letter which ordered that "whosoever shall prophane the Lord's Day by doing any servill worke or such like abusses, shall forfeit for every such default ten shillings or be whipt." The Vermont Blue 16 RELIGION A CENTURY AGO Book contained equally sharp Sunday laws. " Whoever shall be guilty of any rude, profane or unlawful conduct on the Lord's Day in words or action by clamorous discourses, shouting, hallo- ing, screaming, running, riding, dancing, jumping shall be fined forty 'shillings and whipped upon the naked back, not to exceed ten stripes." A Maine man, who was rebuked and fined for un- seemly walking on the Lord's Day, protested that he ran to save a man from drowning. The court made him pay his fine, but ordered that the money should be returned to him when he could prove by witnesses that he had been on that er- rand of mercy and duty. Perhaps there was reason to doubt the fact, and, at any rate, a man had no business to be drowning on the Sabbath. It has been gravely argued within my recollection, some boys having been drowned, that it was a judgment on them for sailing on Sunday. In Belfast, Maine, as late as 1776, a meeting was held to get the "town's mind" with regard to a plan to restrain visiting on the Sabbath, and it was voted that "if any person makes unnecessary visits on the Sabbath, they shall be looked on with contempt." These instances are quoted from Mrs. Alice Morse Earle's "The Sabbath 17 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION in Puritan New England." She says of the strict- ness of the Sabbath observances: "Sweet to the Pilgrims and their descendants was the hush of their calm Saturday night and their still tranquil Sabbath, sign and token to them, not only of the weekly rest ordained in the creation, but of the eternal rest to come. The universal quiet and peace of the community showed the primitive instinct of a pure, simple devotion, the sincere religion which knew no compromise in spiritual things, no halfway obedience to God's Word, but rested absolutely on the Lord's Day, as was commanded. No work, no play, no idle strolling was known; no sign of human life or motion was seen, except the necessary care of cattle and other dumb beasts, the orderly and quiet going to and from the meeting, and, at the nooning, a visit to the churchyard to stand by the side of the silent dead. This absolute obedience to the letter as well as to the spirit of God's Word, was one of the most typical traits of the character of the Puri- tans and appeared to them to be one of the most vital points of their religion." These restrictions were maintained well on into the nineteenth century. Although the "Blue Laws," so called, of Connecticut are a fabrication, 18 RELIGION A CENTURY AGO and the Sunday laws of the States, strict enough in theory, were not relentlessly enforced, yet the questions raised, whether one might on Sunday do this or that, show how rigid a practice was ob- served. Except work that was absolutely nec- essary, such as feeding cattle, milking cows and driving them to pasture, and works of mercy, there could be no labor of any sort. After rail- roads were built, there were no Sunday trains for many years. Walking abroad, except to church twice a day, was not allowed. If the church was at a distance, the family might drive, as the long rows of horse sheds back of the meeting-houses demonstrate. Visiting from house to house was discouraged. Conversation on secular subjects was avoided; for on the Sabbath one must not speak one's own words nor think one's own thoughts. Indeed, in many families, there was little conversation at any time; children should be seen and not heard. Pious books, such as "The Pilgrim's Progress" and Baxter's "Saint's Rest," were the only reading allowed. Newspapers were put out of sight and there were no Sunday news- papers. By stealth only, off in the garret, were stories and romances read, and if a child was dis- covered with such a book in hand on the Sabbath, 19 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION some punishment was inflicted. No work, no games were allowed on Saturday evening, nor on Sunday evening, for that matter. Church-going was universal; indeed, down to and after the Revolution was compulsory. There was a fine for non-attendance. In 1760 the Legis- lature of Massachusetts passed a law that "any person able of body who shall absent themselves from publick worship of God on the Lord's Day, shall pay ten shillings fine." By the Connecticut code, ten shillings was the fine, and the law was not suspended until the year 1770. Even after there was no law or penalty, public sentiment insisted on church-going. It was an all-day affair. There were two meetings morning and afternoon, with a short nooning of one hour between serv- ices; in the large towns a longer interval. The meeting-houses were cold in winter. The First Church in Boston had a stove in 1773, though it is claimed that Hadley had one in 1734. The Old South Church in Boston had one in 1783, other churches in Massachusetts, in 1810, Long- meadow; 1815, Salem; 1820, Medford. So for two centuries our ancestors shivered in icy cold churches, the only alleviation being foot-stoves and hot stones. In some places there were "noon- 20 RELIGION A CENTURY AGO houses," rough cabins with fireplaces, whither all adjourned to get warm and eat the luncheons they had brought. In the towns, the people went home and returned for the second service. There were no Sunday Schools, which were objected to be- cause they tended to lengthen the noon hour. I have attended a church in a Maine farming town when the afternoon services were at half- past one o 'clock, and the people who came from a distance remained in or about the meeting-house between services, unless, perchance, some were in- vited to luncheon in the village where the church was. My first sermon was preached in that church of an afternoon to a "waiting" congregation. I doubt whether people objected to church- going, winter and summer, or needed fines to bring them, for it was the one occasion when they came together. Long the service was, and cold the meeting-house, yet all, old men and children, young men and maidens, donned their best and met in one place. One cannot but believe that there was more or less of the social at the nooning and before and after the meeting. At all events, church-going was a very important part of reli- gion and was universal. The Holy Communion was celebrated monthly. 21 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION The controversy concerning the nature of the sacrament, a controversy which divided the Reformers, had long ago ceased. That the sacra- ment was propitiatory, a sacrifice offered to God, Christ put to death again, all the Reformers denied. They differed concerning the presence of Christ in the bread and wine, Luther holding that Christ in some way is actually present, Zwingli holding that the sacrament is a memorial of Christ, and significant of the union of the believer with Him. The latter was the conception of the Puritans, and this view is taken in all Protestant churches, with the possible exception of some High Church Episcopalians. The communion was a sacred occasion; preparation for receiving it was religiously made; only the converted, members of the church, could partake. Family prayer, morning and evening, in every home was the rule. A chapter of the Bible in course was read, usually by one of the older chil- dren, and a prayer offered by the father. Children had to read the Bible and, in nearly all communi- ties, to learn the Catechism, and to say their prayers night and morning. Amusements of certain sorts were under the ban. The theater was a school of immorality, card- RELIGION A CENTURY AGO playing was a device of Satan, dancing was de- nounced. If a church member attended the thea- ter or danced or played cards, he had a troubled conscience and was regarded dubiously. Some churches had in their by-laws such statements as this: "Dancing, card-playing, attendance at the theater, traveling and going to the post-office on Sunday are inconsistent with a Christian profes- sion." A church organized in 1852 in a New Eng- land city had that very by-law. If a young person thought of joining the church he was apt to think of what he must give up in the way of amuse- ments. The religious practices which have been de- scribed continued with little abatement until within the memory of many now living. CHAPTER II THE WANING OP CALVINISM THE waning of Calvinism is traceable in the period from 1800 to 1870. This limit of time is taken because it includes the Civil War. The nation grew, each decade showing great increase of population and of wealth. The popula- tion, which in 1800 was 5,000,000, in 1870 was 40,000,000. The West, what we now call the Middle West, was largely agricultural, raising grain enough not only for this country, but also for other countries. The prosperity of the East was largely in manufactures and commerce; of the South, in cotton. West of the seaboard there was no large city; Chicago's population in 1860 was 109,000, that of St. Louis, 160,000. A move- ment to the Pacific Coast started in the middle of the century, the pioneers, called the "Forty- niners," going out for gold, and some for lumber, sailing around Cape Horn, or crossing the plains in wagons. Texas came in after the Mexican War, in 1845; California in 1850. Railroads stretched 24 THE WANING OF CALVINISM in every direction. The roads were separate, the traveler from Boston to Chicago changing cars four or five times. During and after the war trans- continental lines were built. National feeling be- came stronger and stronger. The nation in its first twenty-five years had been a rather loose union of States. There were two political parties, the one for centralization, the other for State's Rights. The War of 1812 with Great Britain, while it did not accomplish much as a war, yet solidified the nation, strengthened national feel- ing, set us up, it might be said, as an independent nation. In the forties and fifties, or even earlier, slavery was a burning issue. Its advance was resisted by the North; a line was drawn across the continent, north of which there should be no slavery; the territories should not have slavery. There were compromises, temporizing, the rise and fall of parties, fugitive-slave laws, the Dred Scott deci- sion, a succession of pro-slavery presidents from 1845 to 1861 (with the exception of Taylor and Fillmore, 1849 to 1853); at last, Lincoln elected; then, secession of the Southern States, with the war for the Union, the emancipation of slaves, the Union saved. All the people were stirred; feel- 25 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION ing ran high. It has been said that in this period politics offered almost the only intellectual inter- est of the country. That is true; but it was also a moral, a religious interest. It was in this atmosphere of political debate, of national consciousness, of American self-assertion, that religion made its way. Slowly, but broadly and profoundly, religion developed from narrow- ness to universality, from individualism to society, from the Sovereignty to the Fatherhood of God. The principles of democracy, the establishment and maintenance of a republic of freedom, the assertion of human rights and liberty, had not a little to do with the expansion of religion. These changes, which were incipient in the period we are considering, have been fully developed in the last fifty years. In respect to religion, there may seem to have been no fundamental change. The standards of doctrine stood unaltered; and yet there were modi- fications which, in those days, were important; which may appear insignificant now, but were vital then. There were New School Congregationalists and New School Presbyterians, and also, of course, Old School parties, while still all assented to the 26 THE WANING OF CALVINISM Westminster Catechism, the Old School lit- erally, the New School for substance of doctrine. The Old School Congregationalists were called Calvinists; the New School, Hopkinsians, or, by those outside, New England theologians. The dif- ferences mark a real advance in religious beliefs. I think that an account of the new, or liberal, theology of that day will be of interest, so I shall trace it, not going into minute detail, except so far as it illustrates the changes of thought and the motive of change, and also the practical effect of beliefs, as changed and as unchanged, on life, or as it was then called, on salvation. All parties were agreed on the doctrines of the deity of Christ, the Trinity, the Atonement as a vicarious sacrifice of the Son of God for the re- demption of sinners that repent; of the depraved nature of man; of the necessity of regeneration; of justification by faith alone; of the eternal blessed life of the redeemed and the everlasting punish- ment of the wicked; and of the supreme authority of the Bible. What was regarded as the faith once delivered to the saints, had, at the Reformation, been put into shape by Calvin in his "Institutes," by Melanchthon in the Augsburg Confession, with some formulation by Luther and other reformers. 27 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION Back of these was Augustine, with his doctrines of the fall of Adam, of total depravity, and of redemption by atonement. A century and more after the Reformation, in 1647, the Westminster divines had revised these formulae for English-speaking people, expanding, particularizing, and proving from Scripture. The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, defined in 1552, were already in use. The West- minster Assembly first thought of revising them by additions and omissions, but this plan was abandoned and a new and complete confession was composed. They also restated it in the form of a catechism, with question and answer, for the in- struction of the young, beginning with the fa- miliar question: "What is the chief end of man?" Instruction by catechism was a method almost universally employed for almost two centuries by all churches, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Congre- gational and Episcopal. While in England there was not so clear a field, the Westminster standards not having been im- posed on the Established Church, in Scotland and in the American colonies they were adopted by all the Evangelical churches. Since the Catechism was the medium of instruction, youths commit- THE WANING OF CALVINISM ting it to memory, the people were permeated with its doctrine, which, so to speak, was popu- larized. The New England Primer, printed in 1685 and reprinted over and over, was in every household. It wove theology into rhyme, tak- ing Bible names alphabetically, beginning: "In Adam's Fall, we sinned all." How notions so in- stilled survive is exemplified in allusions, literary and humorous, to the old Adam in a man. This Catechism is a description of the scheme of salvation. It is not curious speculation about the nature of God and of man, but a theory of the salvation of sinners. All human beings are sinners; they are sinful by nature. This is so because Adam, the first man, sinned; the human race was in him ; he was the progenitor ; so sin is in the blood, all men have a depraved nature, and all acts pre- vious to regeneration are sinful. The fall of man was regarded in this Catechism in a legal way. When God had created man he entered into a cove- nant of life with him upon condition of perfect obe- dience, forbidding him to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, upon pain of death. The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression. 29 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION The sinfulness of the estate whereinto man fell, con- sists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of origi- nal righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin, to- gether with all actual transgressions which proceed from it. All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries of this life and the pains of hell forever. All this and much more was taught children as the fact about themselves. The point was that all are sinful, even the most amiable and apparently innocent, until they are converted, regenerated, renewed by repentance and faith. It is a theory of universal sinfulness which confirms badness at the root, dates depravity from birth, and makes exception of nobody. Then follows the plan of salvation. God having, out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of the state of sin and misery, and to bring them into a state of salva- tion by a Redeemer. The only Redeemer of God 's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal son of God, became man, and so was and continues to be God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever. Christ as our Redeemer executes the offices of a 30 THE WANING OF CALVINISM prophet, of a priest and of a king, both in his estate of humiliation and exaltation. Christ executeth the office of a prophet by revealing to us, by his word and spirit, the will of God for our salvation. Christ executeth the office of a priest in his once offering up of himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine jus- tice and reconcile us to God, and in making continual intercession for us. Christ executeth the office of a king in subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restrain^ ing and conquering all his and our enemies. The question then is, how man is saved. An- swer: We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ by the effectual application of it to us by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit applieth to us the redemption purchased by Christ by working faith in us and there- by uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling. What is effectual calling? Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit, where- by convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the Gospel. They that are effectually called do in this life par- take of justification, adoption and sanctification and the several benefits which do in this life either accom- pany or flow from them. 31 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION The souls of believers are at their death made per- fect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory, and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection. At the resurrection, believers being called up to glory shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted at the day of judgment and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoyment of God to all eternity. The Catechism then comes back to sin. The duty that God requireth of man is obedience to his revealed will. The rule which God at first revealed to man for his obedience was the moral law. The moral law is summarily comprehended in the ten com- mandments. The commandments follow: What is the first commandment? What is the second, and so on until the tenth. No mere man since the fall is able in this life per- fectly to keep the commandments of God, but daily doth break them in thought, word and deed. Some sins in themselves and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others; yet, Every sin deserveth God's wrath and curse both in this life and that which is to come. To escape the wrath and curse of God due to us for sin, God requireth of us faith in Jesus Christ, repent- ance unto life, with the diligent use of all outward means whereby Christ communicateth to us the bene- fits of redemption. 32 THE WANING OF CALVINISM These ideas were put into the minds of children, not merely as a system of doctrines, but as vital truths on which hang the issues of life and death. The whole object was salvation from sin and from everlasting punishment, which is the consequence of sin. So far as there was speculation, it was to show how true it is that all are sinners, however individuals unconverted may seem, and that God found a way to forgive and justify. All was aimed at conscious conversion in adult years. Not all children were subjected to this disci- pline. The writer's childhood was not over- shadowed by knowledge of these doctrines in this abstract form. Instead of that, his mother, a very religious woman, required him to commit to mem- ory the Constitution of the United States, and to read the Bible through every year: three chap- ters every day and five every Sunday. This, how- ever, was in the fifties, when Calvinism was on the wane. There were troublesome questions. Certain implications of these doctrines gave uneasiness. Are infants totally depraved? Are those dying in infancy lost? To be sure, the Catechism says nothing about infants, but the Confession does. It affirms that "elect infants, dying in infancy, are A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit who worketh when, where and how He pleaseth." But this implies that some infants are lost, unless it be supposed that God, knowing who would die in infancy, elected all such to eternal life, and knowing who would grow up, elected some and passed by others, of his mere good pleasure. Yet since human nature is corrupt, it follows that all infants, even those who die in infancy, are sinful. Then election itself was a stumbling-block, an apparent injustice. That doctrine was probably a concession to logic. God must have known from all eternity who would be saved; if He knew, He must have ordained. The creed adopted by a church in Boston about 1850, coming to the doc- trine of election, declared that God hath " elected to eternal life an innumerable company which no man can number," thus, in an approximate way, getting over the difficulty. Free moral agency was denied by the Catechism. Then the Catechism declares that the Atone- ment was made for the elect, was limited to them; but this is not Scripture, which affirms that Christ died for the whole world; not for our sins only, says an apostle, but for the sins of the whole 34 THE WANING OF CALVINISM world. These questions, which touched the main points of Calvinism, were arising in the minds of many people. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, there was a New School party, known commonly as Hopkinsians, from the Reverend Samuel Hop- kins, a minister of Newport, Rhode Island, who advanced opinions at variance with express decla- rations of the Westminster and Calvinistic stand- ards. He was not alone: a considerable number of ministers in New England agreeing in the main with Hopkins. This new school was known out of New England, and indeed influenced the Presby- terian Church, especially in the North and West, causing much trouble and, ultimately, division. Certain events mark better than a mere state- ment the divergence of the New School from Calvinism, namely, the establishment of the first theological seminary in this country in 1808, the trial of a Presbyterian clergyman, the Reverend Albert Barnes of Philadelphia, in 1837 for heresy, and the publications of Horace Bushnell, a clergy- man of Hartford from 1833 to 1869. The first theological school in America was established in 1808 at Andover, Massachusetts. Many clergymen and laymen of the Congrega- 35 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION tional churches deemed it important that there should be an educated ministry. Until then, as we have noticed, young men intending to be ministers resided after college, for a year or two, in the families of ministers, pursuing Biblical and theological studies, assisting in public religious services and in visitation, and then were ordained over churches. There were a good many unedu- cated ministers at large, though not then, to any extent, in the Congregational churches. The re- vivals which prevailed had produced and in part were produced by zealous but ignorant exhorters. The spread of infidelity and the prevalence of errors emphasized the need of an able and learned as well as a zealous ministry. The opportunities of college and the few months in a pastor's family were deemed an inadequate training in prepara- tion for the great calling. At about this time two groups of clergymen, the one Calvinistic, the other Hopkinsia^ were in- tending to establish a school in which young men under learned and pious professors might be pre- pared for the Christian ministry. Neither group knew the intention of the other group. Plans were made by the Hopkinsians to plant a school at West Newbury, Massachusetts; by the Calvinists THE WANING OF CALVINISM to establish a school at Andover. Both groups had enlisted the support of wealthy laymen. When each party learned the intention of the other, both naturally thought it a pity that two schools should be established near one another by one denomina- tion, so approaches were made, each party being reluctant to join hands with the other, yet seeing the folly of setting up two schools; and so at last, after two or three years of parleying, they agreed to work together for one school, which was located at Andover, where already was the flourishing Phillips Academy. A creed was framed which was satisfactory to both parties, or at least was accepted by both. The Westminster Catechism was taken as a basis, with some omissions and additions, and some amplifications, which made it possible for the New School party to accept it. There was a broadening of doctrine, the most important being the universality of atonement. Christ died, not for the elect only but for the sins of all men. Nothing is said about the philosophy of atone- ment, as that it satisfies the Divine justice, that Christ bore the penalty of sin, but simply that he ( made atonement for the sins of all men. Human liberty is asserted, the power of choice as against 37 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION the fatalism of the old standards. "God's decrees perfectly consist with human liberty; God's uni- versal agency with the agency of man, so that nothing but the sinner's aversion to holiness pre- vents his salvation." There were fine distinctions between natural and moral ability, but 'the idea was that the will of man is not paralyzed, that there is nothing in the decrees of God, nothing in election, to prevent the salvation of any man who repents.* There was some qualification of the idea that Adam was the representative of the human race and that his sin was imputed to his posterity. The framers of this creed seem to have thought that it is by heredity that men are sinful and corrupt. " In consequence of his [Adam 's] disobe- dience, all his descendants were constituted sin- ners." Sin is by constitution, not by representa- tion. There was no wavering in this compromise creed about the sinfulness of all men, and the necessity of regeneration, nor that Christ was the eternal Son of God, nor that man might be lost and suffer everlasting punishment; but the limita- tion of atonement and an arbitrary decree of God that some should be saved and some lost, these were denied. There was no qualification of the 38 THE WANING OF CALVINISM opinion that there was a first man endowed with reason, capable of high converse with God, but the creed did not hold that we are responsible and are punished for Adam's sin. So the seminary was established, the professors were to assent to the creed, and a board of visitors was appointed to guard the orthodoxy of the teachers. This creed was never adopted by churches, but it shows a change from the limita- tions of Calvinism. The fact is that in this period Calvinism, generally considered, was waning, was ceasing to have influence, and Christians thanked God and took courage. In a land of liberty, it was no longer possible to represent God as an arbi- trary sovereign, nor Christianity as limited to a chosen aristocracy, as other than a universal religion. Thirty years later the Presbyterian Church was divided and there were two Assemblies, Old School and New School, broken asunder on these very issues and not reunited until 1869. The occasion of the disruption was the trial of a clergy- man of Philadelphia, Albert Barnes, who was suspected of heresy by the Old School party. He had published a commentary on the Epistle to the Romans in which he affirmed that Paul did 89 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION not teach election and reprobation. The Synod of Philadelphia suspended him from the ministry. He appealed to the General Assembly, which having a New School majority, reversed the sus- pension. Two years later the New School members of the Assembly, in a minority now, withdrew and organized an Assembly. The charges against Mr. Barnes were that he maintained certain doctrines contrary to the standards of the Presbyterian Church. Reading some of the specifications one can scarcely repress a smile. He was charged with denying that God entered into a covenant with Adam, constituting him a federal or covenant head and representa- tive of all his natural descendants; with denying that the first sin of Adam was imputed to his pos- terity; that mankind are guilty, that is liable, on account of the sin of Adam; with denying that Christ suffered the proper penalty of the law, as the vicarious substitute of his people, and thus took away legally their sin and purchased pardon; and with affirming that sin consists only in vol- untary action. Among the errors to which the Presbytery of Ohio bore testimony are these: "That Adam was not the covenant head or fed- eral representative of his posterity; that we have 40 THE WANING OF CALVINISM nothing to do with the first sin of Adam; that it is not imputed to his posterity; that infants have no moral character; that all sin consists in voluntary acts or experiences; that Christ did not become the legal substitute and surety of sinners; that the atonement of Christ was not strictly vicarious; that the atonement is made as much for the non- elect as for the elect." These were regarded by the Old School party as deadly errors. New School theology was the dictate of the heart. It was more human and humane than Cal- vinism. A theology which affirmed or implied the damnation of infants could not survive. Logic was powerless against the heart. The whole struc- ture might fall, rather than fathers and mothers believe that those dying in infancy, or any of them, are lost. 'A doctrine of arbitrary election, the preference of some for no reason but the mere good pleasure of God, was impossible, and had to go. That man is a free moral being with power of choice could not and should not be denied. It was insisted on that Christ died for all men, not merely for some men; that whosoever will may have life; that Christianity is a universal religion. Salvation is not a magical process by the irresist- ible power of the Holy Spirit, but is ethical, man 41 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN EELIGION responding of his own choice to the influences and motives of the truth, the Spirit taking the things of Christ and showing them unto us) The soul that is lost, loses itself, "Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life." Sin is known to be sin because the ideal is known, not because the first man sinned and in some mysterious way in- volved his posterity in sin. Sin is known to be sin in view of Christ, the perfect, sympathizing, self- sacrificing man, who reveals God to us, and not in view of an ancestor who did wrong. So the New School of seventy-five years ago was revolutionary, after all, rescuing the Gospel from an arbitrary, an inhuman representation. The revivals which accompanied this advance assumed the freedom of the will and the univer- sality of the Gospel. In 1846, Horace Bushnell, a Congregational clergyman of Hartford, published a book en- titled "Christian Nurture." "Its specific aim was," says Dr. Hunger in his "Life of Bushnell," "to establish the proposition that the child is to grow up a Christian and never know himself as being otherwise. A very simple statement, but it shook New England theology to its foundations." Stress had been laid upon conversion. The indi- 42 THE WANING OF CALVINISM vidual to be saved must pass through an experi- ence of repentance, of trusting in the atonement made by Christ, of justification by faith in order to escape the wrath of God, which is everlast- ing punishment. The New School theology had asserted the freedom of the will and the univer- sality of atonement, and so had done away with fatalism; yet all the more thereby had emphasized individualism, the necessity that the person him- self, of his own act, any person, every person, should cast himself on Christ, should give his heart to God. Until he did that consciously, he was in the bondage of sin, for by nature he is depraved and exposed to everlasting punishment. This theology had promoted revivals, which were very common. Revivalists went about from town to town, holding daily and nightly meetings, urging people to choose, to will, to come out on the Lord's side. Every one, old and young, should have this religious experience ; children, as well as adults, needed to be consciously converted. They were told that they were sinful, that they were in danger, that they must repent, must decide. Boys and girls who wished to unite with the church went before examining committees to relate their religious experience. A certain deacon did not 43 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION allow his daughter to join the church because, as he thought, she was not long enough and deeply enough under conviction of sin. Now the expe- rience of conversion is the experience of adults. Children, it was held, must wait until they were older, for they were sinful and must pass con- sciously and voluntarily from death unto life. Bushnell, writing of revivals, said: It is a religion that begins explosively and, after the campaign is over, subsides into a torpor. Considered as a distinct era, introduced by Edwards, and extended and caricatured by his contemporaries, it has one great merit and one great defect. The merit is, that it dis- placed an era of great formality and brought in the demand of a truly spiritual experience. The defect is that it has cast a type of religious individualism intense beyond any former example. It makes nothing of the family and the church and the organic powers God has constituted as means of grace. It takes every man as if he had existed alone; presumes that he is unreconciled to God until he has undergone some sudden and ex- plosive experience in adult years, or after the age of reason; demands that experience, and only when it is reached allows the subject to be an heir of hie. The thesis of his book is: The child is to grow up a Christian and never know himself as being otherwise. In other words, the aim, effort and expectation should be, not as is commonly 44 THE WANING OF CALVINISM assumed, that the child is to grow up in sin, to be con- verted after he comes to a mature age, but that he is to open on the world as one who is spiritually renewed, not remembering a time when he went through a tech- nical experience, but seeming rather to have loved what is good from his earliest years. There was a storm of protest, for what, in this view, became of original sin, total depravity, con- version, and regeneration? How strange it seems [says Dr. Munger] that a book so bathed in household love, a very cradle-song of Christian faith, should have become the occasion of a theological controversy of the proverbial bitterness. Few people in New England would now hesitate to say that it is wise to train children into the Christian life very much as Bushnell suggests; and the greater part would wonder where the theological difficulties come in. ... For it cannot be denied that the concep- tion of spiritual regeneration and of the means and methods that prevailed at the time have largely passed away, and that everything except the simple need of it has yielded to a conception based upon and composed chiefly of religious nurture. The various theories of depravity, of the will, of divine grace, of the action of the Holy Spirit, of sanctification, have either disap- peared or been so altered as hardly to be recognized. In its place are conceptions of human nature and its moral condition, of heredity and environment, of sin, of the will, of moral culture and religious experiences, which are most unlike those they have displaced. 45 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION Biblical interpretation, psychology, and the closer study of life in all its departments, are forcing theology to recognize the fact that Christian character is chiefly a matter of Christian nurture. Horace E. Scudder, writing on "Childhood in Literature and Art," thus characterizes the Puri- tan reversal of the Christian order : The theological substratum of Puritan morality de- nied to childhood any freedom, and kept the life of man in waiting upon the conscious turning of the soul to God. Hence childhood was a time of probation and suspense. It was wrong to begin with, and was re- pressed in its nature until maturity should bring an active and conscious allegiance to God. Hence, also, parental anxiety was forever earnestly seeking to an- ticipate the maturity of age, and to secure for child- hood that reasonable, intellectual belief, which it held to be necessary to salvation; there followed then a replacement of free childhood by an abnormal devel- opment. In any event, the tendency of the system was to ignore childhood, to get rid of it as quickly as pos- sible, and to make the State contain only self-conscious determined citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. There was, unwittingly, a reversal of the Divine message, and it was said to children, except ye become as grown men and women, ye cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Bushnell wrote a book in 1859, which made even more of a stir in theological circles than " Chris- 46 THE WANING OF CALVINISM tian Nurture," thirteen years earlier, had made. It is entitled "The Vicarious Sacrifice." The Calvinistic view of atonement had been modified in New England theology, as we have seen. The New England theology evolved the so-called governmental theory of atonement; the theory that the atonement vindicates the general or public justice of God, since it expresses his hatred of sin, and that his government being sus- tained, it is possible for Him to forgive the peni- tent. This was a forensic treatment of the sacrifice of Christ and was purely a speculation. That it had any motive power is much to be doubted. It was only an escape from mercantile transference of the penalty of sin from one person to another, but it emphasized the universality of atonement. Bushnell saw in the sufferings and death of Christ the expression of love, God making his great way to men through sacrifice. It is through the sacrifice of Christ we are recovered from self- ishness to goodness and love. He bore our sins indeed; He suffered on account of our sin; and so brings us back to God, for He reveals God to us in his real character. The object was not the satis- faction of Divine justice, or the maintenance of Divine government, but the salvation of sinners. 47 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION Christ came into the world to save sinners. " God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life." It was a new life of sacrifice, not imputed but imparted. A heated controversy ensued. Outside New England the moral influence theory, as it was called, was almost universally repudiated, but now these views are more generally accepted than any others. It is not true, of course, that one man, by writing a book, changed legal into vital conceptions, but Bushnell was the means of crystallizing thought in the direction it was al- ready taking, from the idea of a transaction, an arrangement, to the idea of a vital spiritual in- fluence, holding up the Cross as a symbol, not of penalty, but of love. Methodism made rapid progress in the latter half of the nineteenth century, indeed all through the century, until now it is the largest denomi- nation in the United States, numbering seven million communicants. Methodism affirmed the Fatherhood of God, the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, the agency of the Holy Spirit, the freedom of the will. There is a tradition that John Wesley said to a Calvinist: "Your God is my devil." The 48 THE WANING OF CALVINISM sacrifice of Christ is regarded by Methodists as purifying, cleansing from sin. "The cleansing blood," "Washed in the blood of the Lamb/' are familiar expressions. The Cross of Christ made at-one-ment between God and man. Methodists emphasize conversion, exalt emotion, promote revivals. Episcopacy won favor slowly. At the close of the Revolution, outside of Connecticut, there were only six Episcopal clergymen in New Eng- land. In 1785 was the first general convention. There were but few churches, and those in cities, for thirty or forty years. The denomination now numbers about one million communicants. It is more democratic than the Church of England, for there has been, from the first establishment, repre- sentation of laymen. It is thoroughly orthodox. The Thirty-nine Articles of faith, which were for- mulated in 1552, are still printed in the Prayer Book, although subscription is not required either i"" of clergy or laity. These articles, drawn up ninety years before the Westminster Confession was framed, were taken from earlier doctrinal state- ments, as the Augsburg and the Wiirtemberg con- fessions, which are milder than the Calvinistic in respect to predestination and election? The Thirty- 49 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION nine Articles were not strict enough for the West- minster divines, and they abandoned the pur- pose of revising them. The Articles are not so important or significant as the ritual, with the Apostles' and Nicene creeds constantly used, and the prayers in warp and woof Trinitarian. The Incarnation is as essential a doctrine as atone- ment. The beauty and dignity of the worship attract many. Preaching is less important than the service which, while formal, is satisfying and uplifting. The Episcopal Church has had a great influence on other churches in respect to worship. Formerly, in the other denominations, the congre- gation had no part in worship, except for singing versified psalms, and, later, hymns. Now, in all churches, the people participate in saying the Lord's Prayer, in responsive reading of psalms, and in repetition of the Apostles' Creed. The Episcopal Church maintains the organic relations, believes in Christian nurture, confirms youths at an early age in the faith of the Gospel. The churches of America, of various names, went along together, shifting the center of doc- trine from the sovereignty to the Fatherhood of God, and from the bondage to the freedom of man. 50 THE WANING OF CALVINISM The hymns of the church illustrate changes of belief. However the churches differ in government, in customs, and even avowed belief, they sing the same hymns. Wesley's hymns of grace and love came in, and one and another of them found a place beside the versified psalms. The hymns of Isaac Watts, which are chiefly praise to Almighty God, some of them very noble, were sung in all the churches. Hymns to Jesus, the friend, the example, the redeemer, followed; and hymns of heaven, some of them ancient and mediaeval, hymns of the Christian life, and a few missionary hymns and hymns of the Church. With the last exception, nearly all are expressive of the feelings of the individual, of his hopes, aspirations and penitence. Examples of favorite hymns of fifty or sixty years ago, some of which are still favor- ites, are: "Rock of Ages," "Jesus, Lover of my Soul," "My faith looks up to Thee," "Oh could I speak the matchless worth," "Just as I am with- out one plea," " Nearer, my God, to Thee," " How firm a foundation." Except some hymns of Wesley and Watts, few of this sort are found earlier than 1830, though "Rock of Ages" was written in 1776. Prayer-meetings, at which laymen spoke and 51 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION prayed, date from the beginning of the nineteenth century. Many clergymen opposed them on the ground that ministers only are capable of giving religious instruction. There had been the weekly lecture, on a Wednesday or Thursday evening, when the pastor expounded a portion of Scripture, and this was maintained for a time after the prayer-meeting came in, but on another evening of the week. The weekly prayer-meeting survived and was supported in all Protestant denomina- tions except the Episcopal. It used to be called the barometer of the church. Many thought that the numbers in attendance and the freedom or restraint of the brethren indicated the spiritu- ality of the church. Laymen shrank from public address; there were awkward pauses; one and another spoke or prayed to occupy the time. Sometimes the meetings were refreshing. The prayer-meeting is still maintained in one form and another by the great majority of the churches, but it does not enlist the attendance or participation of many, and the minister does the praying and speaking. In some churches, it is frankly called "the mid-week lecture," reverting to the earlier practice. The Methodist and Baptist churches still make much of the prayer-meeting. 52 THE WANING OF CALVINISM Preaching improved while the authority of the preacher declined, that is, the authority of office. Doctrinal preaching almost entirely ceased. Preaching was vital, spiritual, practical. Sunday schools are of the nineteenth century. The first was in England in 1780, for ragged chil- dren, who had no religious instruction at home. Sunday schools were for teaching from the Bible, the Catechism being no longer employed. The first Young Men's Christian Association was about 1850. In a few years there was an asso- ciation in every city and large town, and in the colleges. These associations hold religious serv- ices, teach young men the Bible, give useful knowledge, provide amusements, and furnish employment. The members are counted by mil- lions, the buildings by hundreds. All the Evan- gelical denominations unite in supporting them. There are also Young Women's Christian Asso- ciations, with similar purposes. Missionary societies were organized to carry the Gospel to the frontiers. Foreign Missions began in 1810, the Congregationalists and Presbyterians then uniting under one board, the other denomi- nations following very soon, carrying the Gospel to all parts of the earth. 53 Religious practice is considered somewhat at length in a later chapter. It may be said here that, in this period, there was some relaxation of Sabbath observance, especially during the Civil War, when there was traveling on Sunday and the publication of newspapers. Innocent amuse- ments were encouraged. The severity of religion was somewhat modified; the freedom of the Chris- tian enlarged. CHAPTER III EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY f THE science of astronomy had for centuries fa- miliarized man with the vast extent of the universe. The immensity, the illimitableness of space, the littleness of the earth, had long been understood. Not the earth, but the sun, is the center of the planetary system. The fixed stars were believed to be suns, system beyond system, staggering imagination, all rushing through space; the earth therefore relatively insignificant. But this was not disturbing to faith. The immensity of the uni- verse and the laws of its motion glorify God the Creator. The Bible was seen to lend itself to this enlarged view; as the eighth psalm: "When I con- sider thy heavens the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that thou visitest him?" It was per- ceived that mere bulk does not determine value. The earth might be the only habitable planet, or, if others are inhabited, the earth might be the 55 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION center of the moral universe, the scene of redemp- tion. Although the earth is small, yet man is the crown of creation, as the same eighth psalm de- clares : Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels; and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. So the chorus of the Antigone: Of all strong things, none is more wonderfully strong than Man. He can cross the wintry sea, and year by year compels with his plough the unwearied strength of Earth, the oldest of the immortal gods. He seizes for his prey the aery birds and teeming fishes, and with his wit has tamed the mountain-ranging beasts, the long- maned horses and the tireless bull. Language is his, and wind-swift thought and city-founding mind; and he has learned to shelter him from cold and piercing rain; and has devices to meet every ill, but Death alone. Even for desperate sickness he has a cure, and with his boundless skill he moves on, sometimes to evil, but then again to good. Man is great in God's world, for man compre- hends the universe, knows it as a whole, and rec- ognizes its laws. The wonder of vastness is no 56 EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY greater than the wonder of littleness, as, the con- tents of a drop of water, of a drop of blood, the potencies of invisible atoms. The revelations of the microscope are as impressive as the revela- tions of the telescope; the infinitesimal, as much as the infinite, taxes the imagination. The vast- ness of the universe, revealing the omnipotence and omnipresence of God, was a theme for ser- mons. I remember hearing such sermons in a little country church in my boyhood, the preacher naively speaking of the planets Jupiter and Nep- tune as on the "outskirts" of creation. The science of geology had pushed back be- ginnings to millions of years. The testimony of the rocks indicated periods of incalculable length, the eozoic, mesozoic, glacial periods. How long had the Niagara River been at work cutting the seven-mile gorge below the Falls? At first geo- logists said that it was at the rate of three feet a year, then three feet in a century. It is not nec- essary to go over the evidence in detail. The six- thousand-year scale of time was replaced by the million or billion scale. This again, however, was not disturbing to faith, after the first shock of adjustment had passed. The attempt was made to reconcile geological time with the Biblical 57 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION account of creation, which, it was maintained, was in keeping with an age-long process. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, says that ancient cosmogony; but it does not say when or how long the earth was waste and void and darkness was on the face of the deep, or how long ago and how long the Spirit of God was brood- ing or moving upon the face of the waters. Days of creation may have meant periods, certainly not solar days, since, according to the account, the sun was not created until the fourth day. And creation is there represented as a process, an as- cending order: light appearing, water and land, plant life, sunlight and moonlight; then life that moves, fish swimming, birds flying, beasts roam- ing; then, last and best, man. Compared with other cosmogonies, the Biblical is, indeed, in dignity and beauty, superior to any of them, while it stands apart in ascribing creation to the one God; yet it is only such a theory of the universe in its origin and development as men of ancient times, Hebrew or Chaldean, framed to account for the universe as they observed it. The theory has a religious but not a scientific value. ' The testimony of the rocks had to be taken rather than the testimony of the primitive cosmogony, 58 EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY and was taken. It is of little consequence, so far as belief in God and the greatness of man are con- cerned, whether the earth and the vast universe are thousands of years or millions of years old. We could agree with Augustine that the world was created in no time; as he said, "The world was created not in tempore, but cum tempore." "A thousand years with the Lord are as one day; from everlasting to everlasting thou art God." Astronomy has to do with space; geology, in a large sense, has to do with time. Neither the ex- tent nor the duration of the universe invalidates faith in God, who is eternal and omnipresent. The conclusions of both sciences were for a time op- posed, more because of their apparent contra- diction of the first pages of the Bible, than for any other reason, but finally were accepted. The reconciliations did not deny that geology is cor- rect, but attempted to show that the Biblical story is not inconsistent with the scientific story. The science of biology, having to do with life on the earth, is virtually of the last fifty years. The theory of the evolution of higher forms from lower forms, of complicated from simple beings, was extended to include man, a type derived from some intelligent animal which, if not the monkey, 59 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION or ape, was anthropoid: man, ape, chimpanzee branches, perhaps, from one and the same trunk. Resemblances were pointed out. It was held that slight differentiations which were useful multiplied, until a creature appeared walking erect, capable of using tools, with the power of speech; that these primitive men were savages, or something like savages. The traces of prehis- toric men, such as tools first of stone, then of metal and rude drawings, indicate a very low, undeveloped type of humanity. How many cen- turies ago the creature that might be called man appeared cannot be known, but it certainly is more than sixty centuries; indeed some ancient civiliza- tions, as the Egyptian, with developed arts, are perhaps six thousand years old. The first man, or the first pair, and there may have been a single pair from whom all descended, as there might be a first pair in any species, the first pair certainly walked the earth ever so long ago. Epoch-making books were published: Darwin's "Origin of Species" in 1858; "The Descent of Man" in 1871. The method was held to be sur- vival of the fittest in the struggle for existence. Huxley popularized the theory, and Spencer phi- losophized it, arguing that in human ;history, in 60 EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY the development and progress of man* the same method of survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence obtained. With qualifications which in time were made, such as recognition of the influ- ence of the social, gregarious impulses, the fact remained, not to be denied or ignored, that there had been an age-long process of the evolution of life from lower to higher forms; that man is de- rived from some animal type; that the time when man appeared is far back; that the first, the ear- liest men were probably savage. Well, to put it mildly, religious people, indeed almost all people, were startled and shocked. Instinctively they rose up in arms against the theory, because it seemed to strike at the very foundatinTHS f faith- The commonly accepted view was that God created species or types just as they are. The differences of species were thus accounted for. Man, it was believed, was a special creation of God, the last creation. There was a first man, a first pair, intelligent, moral, religious beings, aware of God. Man was created about six thousand years ago, or, may be, ten thou- sand, since the chronology of Genesis is not quite clear; but the exact time is not so important. Theology seemed to be based on this; Calvinistic 61 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION theology was based on it. Adam sinned, he fell, and carried down the human race which proceeded from him. Whether it was held that all men are constituted sinners by Adam's disobedience, which suggests heredity, or that he was the fed- eral head and representative of the race, it is all the same. The first chapters of Genesis represent Adam as an historical person, but do not say that the race sinned in him. The notion of Adam was really derived from Augustine and Milton even more than from Paul's reference to Adam, but it was firmly and generally held. Of course if evo- lution were true, all this was not true. The theory of evolution was derided and ridi- culed. Man's ancestor a monkey, absurd ! You say there were intermediate forms, missing links, which have not been discovered; but show us the missing links. It is incredible that apes and monkeys have persisted and higher forms have not. You make man a mere animal. The warfare was intense by reason of that which the theory seemed to involve. Evolution is now accepted by all intelligent persons. It is seen that these facts, the origin of man, slow progress, are no essential parts of reli- gion, or rather are in no sense hostile to religion; 62 EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY that how man became what he is does not make him other than he is, a creature of intelligence, reason, speech, sense of obligation, consciousness of God, expectation of immortality. It might even be noticed that the Bible goes further than evolu- tion, for it says that God made man out of the dust of the ground. Scientists are now experi- menting on the production of life from matter, the organic from the inorganic, although they have not thus far succeeded. The fact that man is organically related to the prolonged process is accepted without question, but the difference of man from other orders, the uniqueness of man in intellectual, moral, and spiritual endowment, is recognized also. It is seen that some of the dog- mas of the creeds are man-made, based on a mis- conception of the way man arrived, and that they are fringes of doctrine, not essential, vital truths. & The theory of evolution, instead of removing God to an inconceivable distance, brought Him near. It is seen that the derivation of man from animals is as consistent with a purpose, as is separate, instantaneous recent creation; indeed, more consistent with purpose. A universe advanc- ing from inorganic to organic, from matter to life, from plant and animal to rational creatures able 63 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION to discern the vast movement and capable of un- limited self -improvement, is not accident or blind necessity, but is best understood as a purpose, not interjected into a meaningless universe, but inter- woven into its very fiber, into the warp made for the woof, and showing a wondrous pattern. It is seen that the method of God's working is but a secondary interest, that it does not touch, except to strengthen, faith in God the Father Almighty, whose children we are. The scientific interest which had to do with the physical universe and with origins was a com- manding interest of the seventh and eighth dec- ades of the nineteenth century, from 1860 to 1880. It is not too much to say that in the ninth and tenth decades, interest swung back from the universe to its noblest inhabitant, from the nat- ural to the human sciences. That profound sci- entific interest was in the last analysis a human interest, for it was seen that the physical sciences touch directly the origin, nature, and destination of man. Nor was there, at any time, suspension of direct interest in the human. The best poetry of the century was composed by Browning and Tennyson at the very time when science seemed to be changing the conception of man and God, 64 EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY partly, indeed, by reason of that change. In the colleges that poetry was eagerly studied. English literature and the modern languages and litera- tures of Europe took a foremost place. The classics were not relinquished for the sciences, but the languages which contain the history and liter- ature of those ancient peoples who attained the highest in art, philosophy, and law were retained, and recently there are marks of a revival of those classical studies which are well called the human- ities. Economics became a favorite study : the his- torical method was established; the religions of the world were investigated, and the Bible recovered by criticism as the literature of Judaism and Chris- tianity, the greatest literature of the world. The- ology no longer regards man as totally depraved, worthless, andlvickeHTbut in view of his develop- ment sees his greatness, sees him as incomplete and imperfect, and directs, guides, inspires, into the ideal life. This inspiration has come, in large part, from knowledge of many-sided man, of the history of men, of their attainments, of their pos- sibilities. Evolution has won, and there is no more debate about it; has won us so completely that we do not think of it, as we do not think of gravitation. It 65 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION has not taken away reason, or freedom, or con- science, or religion. The "how" does not diminish the "what," but is only a description of the steps, the degrees, the mode of ascent from lower to higher. Evolution banishing the Adam of theology and substituting primitive man a little higher than the animals, does not banish that for which the doc- trine of the fall of Adam stood; it does not banish sin. Sin, however defined, and it makes little difference how, whether as selfishness, as the in- dulgence of the sensual passions, as preference of the lower to the higher, sin is a perversion of the moral nature. And it has a kind of univer- sality. It is generally assumed that society needs reformation in various relations, and society is the persons who compose it. Many expend their energy on industrial reform: they trace nearly all existing evils to selfish competition, which creates huge monopolies and trusts, and which makes the laborer the last rather than the first partaker of the fruits; poverty, intemperance, crime, short- ened lives, and in fact nearly all evils, are traced to the encroachment of profit upon wages. Others are devoted to the reform of the family: they find in frequent divorce, in hasty and ill-assorted 66 EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY marriages, in the displacement of the home by tenements and boarding-houses, in the prevalence of licentiousness, which is fatal to domestic purity and a preventive of marriage, the root of all kinds of evil. Others still find in political and municipal corruption a crying evil. There are wrongs, in- justices, and perversions which infest civilized society. Then there are down-trodden races; op- pression, cruelty, injustice. The commanding interests of life are needed readjustments, puri- fications, reforms of morals, customs, manners. The progress which is needed and expected is the correction of wrongs. Furthermore, the case is not that part of the world is entirely right and part entirely wrong, but that every one fails, in some measure, to practice the right he perceives and approves. We assume and believe that every one has some moral taint, that the best men are not free from faults. We do not believe that all men are totally de- praved; but depravity, which is crookedness, deviation from the straight or right line, is uni- versal, for no one is perfectly conformed to the ideal. There is a bright side to this view. How do we know that acts and thoughts are sinful? How do we happen to have the word sin? Ani- 67 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION mals do not sin. Is it not because we perceive an ideal, and know ourselves capable of approaching it? Evolution has nothing to say against the fact that men do wrong. Evolution, before it reaches man, finds reversion. As plants and animals have diseases which are abnormal and which impair or destroy the normal type, so there is moral disease which invades and corrupts the ideal character. Whether avoidable or not, is a ques- tion which pertains to personality; whether actual or not, is a question that does not even arise. Sin is degeneration a very good name for it, since it means departure from the genus. Degeneration is that which is away from the genus, the type. It has in view an ideal, a normal type departed from. It is frequently used by evolution, since degenera- tion is found in orders below the human. Chris- tianity implies it in a term which has passed from the Scriptures to theology and is its exact coun- terpart, namely, regeneration. Degeneration may impair without destroying the moral powers, as disease may exist without producing death. Observation shows every de- gree of degeneration. Some men seem to have no vulnerable point, other men seem to have no in- vulnerable point. It is doubtful, however, whether 68 EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY either extreme actually exists. The best men have at least the defects of their virtues, and the worst men have redeeming qualities. The fact that the worst men have some vestiges of goodness, signi- fies power of recovery. Some regard for right remains; there is sense of obligation; some self- accusation, some aspiration toward the ideal; some conscious discontent. Were there no knowl- edge of right and wrong, man would cease to be a moral being; he might be miserable, but he would not be man. In his moral principles and convic- tions is the power of recovery to his ideal. So long as men, however degenerate, hear the call to be better men, they have the power to be better. Jesus, who knew what was in man, told his dis- ciples to despair of nobody. So, I repeat, evolu- tion, banishing the Adam of theology, did not rule out that for which the fall of Adam stood. The scriptural truth is that man made wrong choices very early, say at the beginning, and that these choices brought many evils upon him. He was in a state of simplicity; he was unclothed, and after a time wore skins of animals; he was tempted and did wrong; a crisis discovered him to himself as a moral being. But he made progress; he practiced some virtues; he tilled the ground, 69 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION gained knowledge, built cities, formed govern- ments. He was a creature of good and bad im- pulses. At times he yielded to the lower and became very bad indeed. At times he attained goodness and made considerable progress. The story is true to human nature and human history. Every one comes to a moral crisis. And power for goodness remains. The progress of man is measured up by evolution on the scale of his moral as well as of his intellectual stature. 1 Evolution, it was thought, makes it impossible to believe in miracles and the supernatural. It would be nearer the truth to say that evolution extended the realm of natural law, for science had long before discovered the universality of the laws of nature. It is to be remembered that the Bible nowhere uses the term "supernatural." It says nothing of interruptions or contradictions of the laws of nature. All things, usual and unusual, are regarded as manifestations of the power of God. No distinction is made between the natural and the supernatural. When the laws of nature were known, the conception of God's relation to the universe was changed. Then came the theory of 1 Some paragraphs and sentences in this chapter and in follow- ing chapters are taken from the author's book Moral Evolution. 70 EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY second causes; God outside the universe, which went along of itself, God now and then interven- ing. The unusual, not accounted for by law, was the supernatural. The miracles of the Bible were so regarded. But when the conception of the universe as mechanism running in grooves by the agency of second causes, gives place to the con- ception of the universe as organism throbbing with force and life, nature in all its movements is regarded as having its power and law in God, and the supernatural, if the term is retained, signifies the higher revelations of God in Christ, rather than that which over-rides or interrupts the proc- esses of natural law. Probably some of the accounts of the Old Tes- tament, such as the sun standing still, the un- scathed men in the fiery furnace, are later picto- rial descriptions of unusual but natural events, and some of them stories or inventions. Health- power, exercised in the restoration of the sick, in the resuscitation of a body apparently dead, is confirmed by manifestations of similar power in our own times, a power we do not understand, but cannot deny. It is entirely credible that Jesus did many of the things ascribed to Him. The narratives fall 71 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION to pieces if his beneficent healings are torn out. They were unusual deeds; but Jesus was an un- usual person. He who was the purest and holiest man who ever lived had health-power by which He could cure diseases of body and mind. His miracles were not effects without causes, but unique effects, produced by a unique person. The motive was benevolence, never display. Jesus at- tributed only secondary importance to the cures and miracles He performed. He wished to be be- lieved for himself and his truth. The power of Jesus over physical nature, as shown in the stilling of the tempest, the multiplication of loaves, the draught of fishes, are not so intelligible, and, if they stood alone, we might be incredulous; al- though the draught of fishes and the sudden calm are not, in themselves, miraculous events. The nature-miracles, so called, are few, and are not important for an adequate knowledge of the life and teachings of Jesus. Whatever occurred was the exercise of a beneficence in keeping with his gracious purposes. Of the resurrection of Jesus, I shall speak in the chapter on "The Person of Jesus Christ." Knowledge of man's origin and structure does not reduce him to a physical level, but raises 72 EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY him to an intellectual, moral, spiritual level. It does banish certain opinions concerning primitive man, but it does not banish man, or deny that he is the crown of creation, or deny divine intelli- gence, realizing purpose. CHAPTER IV BIBLICAL CRITICISM A CENTURY ago the Bible was held in sacred re- gard. Not only was it the only perfect rule of faith and practice, but it was believed to be in its every part inerrant and infallible. As the Jews believed their Scriptures, our Old Testament, to be inspired throughout, even to the vowel points, so Protestants of the eighteenth and well on into the nineteenth century believed the Old and New Testaments to be infallible and inerrant. What- ever is in the Bible is true; whatever can be ex- tracted from the Bible is true doctrine; to question any statement of the Bible is sacrilegious. Such was the popular theory of the origin and nature of the sacred writings. There was a sort of magic in these writings; the reading of any portion of the book had a religious value. The latter part of the nineteenth century brought the results of historical, or, as it is some- times called, "higher criticism," home to the people. Textual criticism had proceeded for many 74 BIBLICAL CRITICISM years without creating disturbance. It was well known that the English Bible is a translation, and that the meaning of passages might not in all cases be correctly rendered. Bibles with marginal readings which substituted a word or a phrase here and there were published and used. Preach- ers would say that this or that word in the original is different and more suggestive, as, that the word "charity," in 1 Cor. xm, is "love. " Indeed, peo- ple became rather tired of being told what it is in the original. It was deemed of the first impor- tance that preachers be familiar with the Hebrew and Greek testaments, and in all theological sem- inaries these disciplines had a large way. The theory of inerrancy was a belief, not that the translations, but that the original writings, were inerrant, and that, if there appear to be discrep- ancies or even errors in those writings, it is due to copying, since we do not possess the original writings themselves. At all events, textual criti- cism had from the time of Erasmus had a clear way, and the people had enjoyed its fruits. Higher criticism, or historical criticism, has to do with the authorship of the several books of the Bible, with the dates of writings, with historical correctness, with the genuineness of passages, 75 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION with interpolations, with the order of events, in a word, it treats the Bible as any ancient liter- ature is treated. Historical criticism is of the latter part of the nineteenth century. Not that there was no such thing before, but that it gained complete results then, and that the results were known. It was not popularized as evolution was; yet it was known that the traditional view of authorship, of the development of the religious history of the Jews, of the earlier books of the Bible, of the historical value of some portions, was modified, and there was a sense of uneasiness, almost as though the Bible might be lost. Now, one cannot regard this knowledge as de- structive of the value of the Bible, since a theory as to its construction does not affect the truth it contains. Indeed, the belief that the Bible is in- fallible and inerrant is not a religious belief. It is a comparatively modern, a recent belief, making a great claim for the earthen vessel, as well as for the treasure it contains. Yet since many believed that the Bible is without errors or mistakes in any particular; that the sixty-six books, compris- ing traditions, history, biography, poetry, letters, prophecies, discourses, maxims, written by as many or more writers of different centuries, are 76 BIBLICAL CRITICISM absolutely free from error, it was a kind of a shock to be told that there are some errors: that some books were not composed by the authors to whom they had been attributed; that the first five books were not written by one person, and only a very few of the psalms by David; that the Levitical ritual was not practiced in the wilderness, or till centuries after; that the account of Jonah is a parable or story; that there are some discrepancies in records of the life of Jesus; that the fourth gospel is of the second century; and so on. It did not make so much difference what the errors were, or how trivial they were; the admission of any error seemed fatal to the authority of the Bible. "If you begin, where will you end?" I said that historical criticism is of the latter part of the nineteenth century, as to knowledge of it by the people and the alarm it produced. This might be illustrated by quoting the introduction of a paper that I read before a Congregational Club in New York in 1891: - We were bravely over our fright from evolution and were beginning to breathe easier; but, before we are fairly rested, we are taking new alarm from Biblical criticism. The old saying is reversed and there is no peace to the righteous. Christianity, it is sometimes 77 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION said, has survived Copernicanism and Darwinism and need have no other fear. It would be nearer the truth to say that Christianity has absorbed Copernicanism and Darwinism; the former enlarging our thoughts to the vast spaces of God's universe; the latter gaining all the time that was needed for God to work out His mighty plan. It has been a survival, indeed, but not through surrender and loss; it has been a survival through growth and gain. And now we are in a flurry about our sacred writings, scarcely daring to hope that the religion they record and interpret will come forth as gold tried in the fire, brighter and purer, but fearing rather that there will be increasing uncertainty as to the original facts of both the Hebrew and Christian religions. This was in 1891, not yet twenty-five years ago, and indicates a state of mind which did then exist. It was after 1891 that two professors in Presby- terian theological seminaries were tried for heresy on the ground of teaching that the Bible is not inerrant. One was removed from office, and the other suspended from the Presbyterian ministry. But now alarm has subsided. It would be diffi- cult to find an intelligent person who holds to the inerrancy of all parts of the Bible, or who is dis- turbed by the modifications and readjustments of criticism. Indeed, it is a great relief to know that some statements are not true; that some 78 BIBLICAL CRITICISM accounts, especially of the Old Testament, have not an historical value. The fact is that too much had been claimed for the Bible for about two centuries, and it was this excessive claim that was abated. But the real values of the Bible were not taken away. Criticism did not take away the Christ, his life, his teaching, his sacrifice, his reve- lation of the love of God. Nor did it take away the message of Israel, the message that there is only one living and true and righteous God; the message that religion is to do justly and love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. We are accustomed to think that the Reformation set up the Bible as the supreme and only authority in religion and denied the authority of the Church; and, in a large sense, that is true; yet the authority claimed by the Church was authority to interpret the Bible and tradition; only the judgment of the Church was set above the judgment of the individual. The Reformation asserted the right of private judgment, exalted the individual, gave intellectual freedom. The individual interprets the Bible for himself. But the reformers had no theory of the infallibility of the Bible in its every part. Luther, whose theology was Pauline, did not like James; he said it was a matter of indif- 79 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION ference who wrote the Pentateuch, and that Chronicles is less credible than Kings. Moreover, the Bible had not been translated into the language of the common people. The greatest boon of the Reformation was the Bible in the vernacular. Wiclif translated it from the Vulgate in 1382. Luther translated the New Tes- tament from the Greek in 1521, and his Old Testament, from the Hebrew, was issued in 1534. His concealment in the Wartburg is chiefly remark- able for his translation of the New Testament, begun in December, 1521, completed in three months, and issued from the press in the following September. The trans- lation of the Old Testament was gradually accom- plished by Luther and his associates, after his return from the Wartburg to Wittenberg, and the whole Bible in Luther's version was published in 1534, by which time no less than eighty-five editions of his New Testament had been put forth. . . . Luther was far from being the first to translate the Scriptures into German. No less than eighteen times had the whole Bible been printed in German or Dutch, but the earlier translation was mechanical and followed the Vulgate rather than the Greek and Hebrew. It was Luther's distinction as a translator to be a master of the German tongue such as none before him had been. As he expressed it, he made the apostles and prophets speak German. . . . None can deny his striking abili- ties as a translator, or the great impetus, not merely 80 BIBLICAL CRITICISM towards a popular acquaintance with the Bible, but toward Evangelical conceptions of Christianity which his translation gave. 1 There was, I say, no theory of infallibility. The Reformers held that the Bible contained the word of God. In the creeds and confession of the Re- formation period are excellent statements about the Bible. The Westminster Confession in 1646 has a fine article upon it: We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to a high and reverent esteem for the Holy Scripture; and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellences, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the word of God; yet, notwith- standing, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts. To be sure the words "perfection" and "infal- lible" are used, but it is with the significance of the spiritual authority of the truth which the Bible contains. 1 Williston Walker, The Reformation, pp. 122, 123. 81 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION Even when the theory of infallibility was held, degrees of value were recognized. The Levitical ritual was not as valuable as the Gospel; the appointments of the tabernacle detailed in ten chapters of Exodus not as important as the pro- phecies of Isaiah, or as the Epistle to the Romans; the genealogy of the Patriarchs not as significant as the Gospel of John. The Jews grouped the books of the Old Testament in order of sacred- ness in three principal divisions, the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa. Christians hold- ing the hard and fast theory of the inerrancy of the Bible yet preferred some books above others, had favorite passages, even spoke of the gems of the Bible, as, The Sermon on the Mount, the parable of the Prodigal Son, Paul's tribute to Faith, Hope, and Love. A preacher I heard in 1868 told of visiting an aged woman who, look- ing up over her spectacles, said, "There is excel- lent reading in John." "The Bible finds me," said Coleridge, but he did not mean that he could dip into it anywhere at random and be found. So the preacher discriminated, choosing the great truths of the spiritual life and passing by the local and temporary. The Bible makes no claim of inerrancy for it- 82 BIBLICAL CRITICISM self. It was indeed thought that a sentence in one of the letters to Timothy makes that claim: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." The reference was to the Old Testament, since the gospels and most of the epistles had not been written, and then the corrected reading is, not that all scrip- ture is inspired of God, but, every scripture in- spired of God is also profitable. However, the theory was tenaciously held, but it gave occasion to skepticism. You say the Bible is true, that it contains no errors; I do not believe the story of Jonah, or of Daniel in the lions' den, or of the three men in the fiery furnace; your Bible is not true. The theory imperiled the Bible, for it staked the authority of the Bible on any single item. Some of the Protestant sects sprang into existence on the literal interpretation of a single text. A rite, a form of government, a prediction of the second coming of Christ, this or that secondary thing, supposed to be given in the Bible, have made lines of cleavage into particular sects. Sectarian- ism flourished in the first half of the nineteenth century, when as many as twenty new sects arose. 83 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION Many of them continue, simply because they have been established, but it is significant that in the last forty or fifty years no new sect has arisen. It really is a tremendous gain, this abandon- ment of the literal perfection of the Bible, for it is the magnifying of the real values of the Bible. It is, in a way, a recovery of the Bible as containing the word of God, which liveth and abideth for- ever, as a record of the life, teaching and sacrifice of Him who was the Son of God and the Son of man. There is a great difference between the whole of the Bible and the Bible as a whole. The whole of the Bible is not authoritative, but the Bible as a whole is. The whole of the Bible is not authoritative, the soul of the Bible is. The final authority is the gospel in the Bible, which is Jesus Christ and Him as crucified. 1 Our conviction of the truth of Christianity does not rest on the authority and inspiration of the book which contains it, but our exalted opinion of the book is a consequence of the value of its truth. Our Bible will not suffer if it rests on the basis of Christianity itself, but our faith in Chris- tianity might suffer if we invert the pyramid and 1 George P. Fisher, "The Evangelical Principle of Authority"; Address before the International Congregational Council, 1893. 84 BIBLICAL CRITICISM rest our belief in the Gospel on the absolute accu- racy of every part of the Bible, which is merely given to record the gospel. The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. CHAPTER V THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST "BELIEVE on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved," is the Gospel, is Christianity. An apostle said: "I know whom I have believed"; meaning, I know who He is, what He is, what He did. Christians of all the centuries have regarded Jesus as Master, or Lord, and Saviour, and have so regarded Him in view of what He did. Always there has been the belief that the man who spoke as He spoke, and wrought the works that He wrought, was more than man, was so related to God as to be, in a profound sense, Divine. This belief found expression very early in creeds and formularies which declared and emphasized the divinity of Christ. The Apostles' Creed of the second century, epitomizing great facts, im- plies his divine nature, in his miraculous birth, his resurrection and ascension, his sitting at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. The Nicene Creed of the fourth century 86 THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST emphatically ascribed divinity to Jesus; "Light of light, very God of very God." The belief is that it is God himself who redeems sinners; that the Christ who for us men and our salvation endured the bitter cross, is the Son of God, the Eternal Son, who was in the bosom of the Father. This is a stupendous belief, surely; yet it is the belief that laid hold of men, the belief that God made his great way to the children of men in love and sacrifice to recover them to himself as children of God. A century ago it was the common belief that Jesus was God, "that there are three persons in the God-Head, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory." While the- ologians disclaimed a mathematical Trinity, say- ing that there are not three Gods, but one God, they believed that Jesus, when He was on the earth, had all the attributes of God, that He was omniscient and omnipresent. In the last fifty years, speaking broadly, a change has occurred which is not so much a re- linquishment of the divinity as a recovery of the humanity of Christ, and so a better conception of his person. What was the church asking down to 87 ' A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION fifty years ago? She asked, concerning Christ, how can the divine be human? How can God be real man? Christ was Divine, was God, was Deity, to the Church. She looked with suspicion on any recognition of his real humanity. She regarded Him as omniscient and omnipotent. She divided the divine from the human, thinking, or trying to think, that He acted now in his divine, now in his human nature; as though when He worked mira- cles He was divine, and when He was hungry and weary and when He prayed, He was human, like two spheres having external contact only. For centuries the Church had been struggling to save the divine at the expense of the human, and had made the human unreal, incidental, a mere semblance. I do not say that the humanity of Christ had always been ignored. The Apostolic and early church, and, for a long time, the Greek fathers, saw divinity in and through humanity. But in later times, for several centuries, the pre- vailing belief was like ancient Docetism, which regarded the human as only an appearance or seeming, or at most a mere garment of divinity. In deadly opposition to Unitarians, who, as the Orthodox said, regarded Jesus as a mere man, emphasis was laid on the divinity of Christ. To 88 THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST the Unitarians Jesus was all human; to the Trini- tarians therefore Jesus was all divine. And, apart from controversy, the humanity of Christ, while not denied, was ignored. He was God manifest in the flesh; but, over and above all, He was God. Toward the middle of the nineteenth century a book, which startled and alarmed the Christian world, was published. It was Strauss's "Life of Jesus," a biography, like the biography of any great man. But it led Christian scholars to in- vestigation of the story. Volume after volume entitled "The Life of Christ," or "The Life of Jesus," appeared. Preaching presented the hu- man in place of the theologic Christ. And now, although there are many who retain the old view, the theologians, thinkers, scholars of the Church, believe that Christ was under the actual limita- tions of human nature. He gained information as other men did; He shared the opinions of his times as to the universe, and in other essential respects was truly human. He had wonderful insight, moral and spiritual insight, but He did not have omniscience. Theology starts now with the historical, human person, and finds divinity in that which transcends human nature, especially in his moral perfection, in his oneness with God, in 89 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION his Sonship, in his health-power, in his revelation of the character of God. The great majority of Christians could never be satisfied with a purely humanitarian doctrine of the person of Christ. But now He is believed in as the human incarna- tion and revelation of the love of God and as the inspiration of a new life. I said the question was, how can the divine be human? To-day the ques- tion is reversed. We ask now, How can the human be divine? How can a man be God? Yet it is not a question, for we know the divine through the human. God can reveal himself best in a per- fect man. Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. We do not attempt to define the interior nature of God, while we know Him as the Almighty Father, as the God of love, revealed in Christ, and as the indwelling Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is a symbol of the various aspects of God. Christ reveals God as the all -merciful, all- loving Father. We have this idea of God and we have it from Christ, from what He said, from what He did, from what He was. It is a fact, however explained, that He changed the human conception of God. He did not set aside all existing concep- tions, for part of the truth men had spelled out from the volumes of nature and of human life; 90 THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST but He revealed the complete truth, He opened the wholeness of the truth. This He did, not by inference of philosophy, nor by a broad view of history. Beliefs gained in that way could be chal- lenged on the same grounds. The course of his- tory does not run in one direction. There are strife, cruelty, caprice, as well as prosperity and happiness. If the word "Father" crossed the lips of some prophet, the mysterious facts of life and the conflicting movements of history weakened the hope. Jesus revealed the Fatherhood of God. Turn from the Old to the New Testament and observe the frequency with which the designation of God as Father appears. Conspicuously absent from the Old, it is on almost every page of the New Scriptures. It permeates the new faith through and through. Now only one answer can be given to the question, how the belief in God's Fatherhood was inspired. It came from Jesus, and it was from the life of Jesus, as much as from his words. His words were but the expression of his very being as the Son of God. There was the mystery and also the beauty, there was the attract- ing, almost the compelling, power of the life. His words, his trust, his vision, his judgments upon wrong, his sympathy, his character, his whole life, 91 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION his very self were proclamatory of the life of God in Him. Those who knew Him saw that He was ever coming forth from God. That word of his, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," was a word of reality. So was that other word, "I and the Father are one." All that came to the surface, in expression, words spoken, deeds done, indignities endured, ignominious death braved, all welled up out of his consciousness of God his Father, living in Him, speaking and working through Him, shining out in the relation of Fa- therhood and Sonship. The Son, He said, can do nothing of himself but what He seeth the Father doing, for what things soever He doeth these the Son also doeth in like manner. From Jesus came the belief in Fatherhood. He vitalized it just by being in the world and living out that life of un- broken union with the Father. Another point of view is the influence of Jesus on humanity. He is the producer of a new type, it may almost be said, of a new humanity. His work in personal character amounts to a creation. The writings of Paul are largely occupied with a delineation of the new character. Something rev- olutionary is described. Freedom has taken the place of bondage to law; filial trust has taken 92 THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST the place of fear; peace rules in the heart, which is now free from condemnation. The Christian man is in harmony with God, with himself and with his fellow men. Paul never loses the joy of the new life of faith and freedom, nor does he seem ever to lose the surprise of it. It is always to him something new. The great discovery was then and still is a perpetual wonder, ever renewed as the life of faith springs up again and again. Thus there is the Christian character, which is a distinct type, in whatever conditions or national- ities it appears, as crystals may be large or small, burnished or incrusted, but all cleave at the same angles and respond to the same tests. Disputes over doctrine, creed, theory, do not disturb the judgment of the world respecting the Christian character. It is an ideal winning admiration in modern as in ancient times, and finding new em- bodiments in living men and women, of faith, of independence, and of self-sacrificing love in every generation. Whether it appears under Chris- tian nurture, gradually disengaging itself from what is foreign to it, or bursts out with sudden- ness, almost with violence, throwing off chains of bondage, it is the new, the living, the supreme and perfect type of character. Paul's epistles are 93 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION by some considered to be doctrinal; they are really ethical. He is absorbed with the thought of the new type of life, and is doctrinal only to explain how it is produced. How is this new type of life, this ideal to be accounted for? There is but one answer; it is inspired by Christ; it is created by Christ. If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation; old things are passed away, behold all things are become new. So it was at the outset; He was the source of the new life. There were various explanations then, as now. It was faith, it was obedience, it was imitation, it was discipleship, it was sympathy, it was sur- render, it was consecration; but no matter how described, it was some sort of vital relation with Christ. He was the original source of the life. He was the vine, believers the branches; He was the head, believers the members of his body. The life was in Christ, and this life reappeared in men; it was reproductive. To this day the explanation is the same. The Christian is a creation of Christ. The phrase of explanation matters not; call it teaching, influence, or example; call it sacrifice, redemption, or intercession; enough that the effect, which is unique and, in kind, absolute in worth and perfection, can be accounted for in but 94 THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST one way. There is a new creation, and the creator, the producer, is Jesus Christ. And whence came that life to which the new life of man must be traced? Whence, but from God? The new life is the result of the revelation; the revelation was the person; it was Christ's own life in God, the life of Sonship with God that revealed God to the world. God was in Christ, revealing himself in such ways that the life of Sonship with its free- dom, its faith, its hope, and its love, replacing the old life, old because full of the elements of decay, by the new life, new because ever fresh and strong and right, was capable of production and reproduction forever. Another point of view is the society of the re- deemed, or the kingdom of Christ. This king- dom is the natural result of the type of personal character created by Christ. The sons of God are brethren. This kingdom, considered as the visible organization of believers, is the Christian Church; considered as the company of all true followers of Christ, it is the society of persons who are bound together in a spiritual unity of love to each other, and of service to the world; considered still more broadly, it is all Christian thought and life which purifies society through literature, art, laws, 95 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION customs, and education, which constitute Chris- tian civilization. If we should trace the principles of liberty, law, and service, by which the kingdom of Christ is distinguished from kingdoms or socie- ties resting on superior might, and in which the weak are made to serve the strong, we should be led back to the principle of true greatness, enun- ciated by Christ, and should see that that princi- ple made its great way in the world, not by mere utterance, but by the life of Him who realized it among men, and who explained it by pointing to his own example: "Even as the Son of Man came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister." In this Kingdom, Christ is King. By that term his spiritual authority is recognized, which rests on his revelation of God as Father, and his power to create the new life of Sonship. "Ye call me Lord and Master, and ye say well, for so I am." All Christians would echo the word of Luther: "Er ist mein Herr." The belief concerning Jesus is not that God, in all his absoluteness, omniscience, and omnipres- ence took the form of a man and walked among men in Galilee, so that Jesus knew all occurrences on earth and through the universe and was con- scious that He created the stars, and knew more, 96 THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST not only than the ancients but than the moderns, of science and philosophy; but it is the belief that God was in Christ so far as God can manifest his life in a human personality at a given period in history, and for the purpose of bringing in his grace and love for the renewal and perfection of man. This revelation of God pertains more to his character than to his absoluteness. It is the love of God which is made known in Jesus Christ. The fitness of personality to express love is unques- tioned. That which is highest in the possibilities of human nature is the ethical. In respect to character there is an affinity of God and man, so that God might be able in no other way so well to reveal his own character as in a pure and perfect human personality. The truth which pervades the record of Jesus' life, is that He was the Son of God. Men were impressed and the world has been impressed by his perfect harmony with God. That life was perfect, because it revealed in every act and word the relation of Sonship. He did not struggle up into this by repentings, but He was in the completeness of Sonship from the beginning. Those who came under the influence of Jesus saw before very long that the Sonship was not a fleeting condition of a few years in a 97 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION sorrowful human life, but that it was of an eternal quality. Who do men say that I am? Some say Elias, or Jeremias, or John the Baptist risen from the dead. Who do ye say that I am? Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Putting all things together, the history, the revelation, the redemption, the kingdom, it is seen that the thing revealed on earth was a thing of the heavens; that Sonship and Fatherhood are of the very being of God; that it was eternal Sonship which had found a way to be embodied in human life where it could be mirrored in visible form. The thought is not of before and after, but of that which is eternal, of what God is in his very character and heart. Sonship is human, but also Sonship is divine. There is a limit to the understanding of the person of Christ. If He is truly divine, it could not be otherwise. The limit is on the side of spec- ulative or metaphysical ideas of the mode of ab- solute being and manifestation. On the ethical side, Jesus stands clearly revealed. The true law of life, the divine purity, righteousness, and love, the trust and obedience of Sonship, are aglow with beauty and glory. We know it was the life of God which was manifested in Christ, as we know it is the heaving of the ocean in all its f ull- 98 THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST ness which rocks the frail barks resting on its surface. The metaphysics of the symbols is in part superseded by modern modes of thought, and is also needlessly minute. Their value is in the declaration that God was in Christ. They guarded the divineness of the revelation against doubts or denials. The Nicene Creed, in such phrases as, "Light of Light," "Very God of very God," means that it is God's own truth and light which have come into this dark world in Jesus Christ. In Him God seeks man, reversing the age-long weariness, through which man was ever painfully seeking God. The virgin birth is not regarded as an essential doctrine of Christianity. The belief that Jesus transcended humanity, that He was sinless, rests on his life, teachings, and work, not on the man- ner of his birth. There are only two accounts of the miraculous conception and these are stories, written thirty years later, of visions that Mary and Joseph were said to have had. There is no refer- ence to the virgin birth elsewhere in the New Testament, or by Jesus himself. The resurrection of Christ signifies the ever- living Lord. Whatever the appearances of Jesus to the disciples may have been, whether actual 99 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION manifestations we cannot understand, or subjec- tive visions in which his person seemed real, it is certain the disciples were convinced that Jesus lived. They remembered his predictions that He would suffer death and would live again, and it was perfectly real to them that the same Jesus who companied with them was living and was with them always even to the end of the world. And this is the faith of the Church, that Jesus overcame death, and is the same yesterday, to- day and forever. The historical Christ is the living Christ. He was the expression in time of J-.Tmt. which is eternal. So the Church to-day believes in the living Christ. The presence of Christ in the world, in the Church, in the heart, is a spiritual, rather than a spatial presence. He rules over men in love and truth, not by physical nearness, but by spirit- ual affinity. That which was objectified in his earthly life is eternal in the relation of Sonship, and is responded to by us in those spiritual aspira- tions which go forth towards Christ. The physical world and the bodies of men are but temporary conditions in which the spirit is localized, while it responds to the spiritual forces which know noth- ing of distance, but flash from life to life instantly, 100 THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST as the lowly plant responds to the light and heat and magnetism which pervade the universe. The law and the spirit of Christ are still the hope of the world. The ideal of humanity is still far from being realized; the powers of evil are great. God in history and humanity is not a God of the past, but of the present and future, ever revealing himself in Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, to-day and forever. The Life was the Light of men. The entire truth is summed up in the phrase: "For the life was manifested, and we have seen the life and bear witness and declare unto you the Eternal Life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us." I conclude, then, that the change in belief con- cerning Christ is the recovery, we might almost say the discovery, of the humanity of Christ, rather than relinquishment of his divinity, and that his divinity is found in the spiritual values of his person, rather than in the absolute attributes of deity. He was the Son of God in a unique sense, and there we rest. As to a doctrine of the Trinity, while we do not deny that it stood for various revelations of God, we do not follow fine and exact distinctions, as of substance and person, of the Son proceeding from the Father, and the 101 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION Spirit proceeding from the Father and Son, of one nature and three persons, of Christ continu- ing to be God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever. He gave the world a new and right idea of God; He was the ideal, inspiring a new life; He renovates society, making it the kingdom of God. There we are content to rest, not deeming ourselves capable of defining in words and phrases the person of Him in whom we believe dwelt the fullness of the God-head bodily, or of penetrating the mysteries of the divine being. CHAPTER VI REDEMPTION AND CONVERSION CHRISTIANITY is the religion of redemption. Sal- vation, regeneration, redemption, are character- istic words. The salvation of the individual is the motive power of the Christian religion. Christian- ity is a gospel, is good news, the good news of salvation. "The Son of man came to seek and save that which was lost"; "He came that we might have life and might have it abundantly"; these and many like sayings indicate that the ob- jective point of the Christian religion is human- ity redeemed, saved, restored. Every doctrine is directed to this end, is an interpretation of the means of human salvation; the Fatherhood of God Almighty; the Person and Work of Christ; the Spirit of holiness, that is, the Holy Spirit; and, of course, justification, conversion, faith, repentance, heaven and hell. Comparing the present with former ideas of redemption in the Protestant churches, a consid- erable change may be marked, a change of 103 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION emphasis from external to internal, from status to character. A hundred years ago, and even later, salvation was in view of the lurid background of hell, of everlasting punishment. Sinners, the wicked, the unconverted, would at death be cast into the outer darkness, where would be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Those who had been converted would be in heaven, a place of rest, of unceasing worship, in the immediate presence of Christ or of God. A Christian out of gratitude would be good, but he is saved by faith, not by works. A common expression in prayer was, "We are saved, not for any worth or worthiness of ours, but only by grace." The life was better than the theory, yet this conception of salvation must have narrowed the life. Now, when this plan of salvation, as it was then called, was thought about or analyzed, chief stress was laid on guilt. Guilt and penalty are correlative terms; guilt and hell go together. Even if one stops sinning, yet there is the guilt of the past uncanceled; before the bar of jus- tice that guilt remains. Nor does repentance remove guilt; one may be sorry one has done wrong, but that does not make one any the less guilty. 104 REDEMPTION AND CONVERSION Could my tears forever flow, Could my zeal no respite know, All for guilt could not atone. There is a penalty to which one is exposed; the past cannot be blotted out. Salvation from the penalty of guilt, it was believed, is by the Cross of Christ. He made atonement for the sins of the world, He bore the penalty, He satisfied divine justice, He blotted out the account. The analogies of courts of justice were employed. God is a Judge: He knows all we do and say and think; there is not a word in my mouth but lo, O Lord, thou understandest it altogether; for every idle word we shall give account in the day of judg- ment. God must be just, impartially just, and there is nothing for it, but that the guilty person be punished. Sin deserves an infinite or everlast- ing punishment, for it is against an infinite God. Christ's death had an infinite value, for He is God, so Jesus, by his sufferings and death, could bear the penalty of guilt. It was argued, rather inconsistently, that human repentance is unavail- ing, since the repentance of a man is finite; for if sin is against the infinite God, so is repentance toward the infinite God. But Christ by his suffer- ings and death bore the penalty, so the account 105 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION is erased and on repentance man is cleared, his guilt is removed, he is justified. Since there are penalties one cannot take for another, a brother or friend cannot go to prison for another, the analogy of debt was more commonly employed. The penalty often is a fine, a debt, and this another can pay for the guilty person. This idea found expression in pop- ular hymns: "Jesus paid it all"; "He took away the bond"; and in hymns that are more imagina- tive and spiritual, the guilt, as apart from the evil of sin, is designated; "Save me from its guilt and power"; Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling. This gave the doctrine of imputation and substi- tution: the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us; his sufferings are substituted for the penalty of sin. The large word "vicarious," which has a profound meaning, was liberalized, and, by pref- erence, "expiation" and "propitiation" were employed. It was believed that Christ endured the wrath of God, and so averted the penalty hanging over us. Faith and works were separated : we are saved by faith, not by works. Faith is believing that Christ bore the penalty of our sins 106 REDEMPTION AND CONVERSION in his own body on the tree, and that therefore God forgives us. The instant one believes that, one is justified, is saved. Then the life of Christ purifies him; the Spirit takes the things of Christ and shows them unto us, and we are sanctified. Justification is instantaneous; sanctification is gradual. It has been noticed in the previous chapter that the substitutionary view yielded. In the Protestant churches this view is not held; that is, the view that Christ bore the penalty of sin. In the Catholic Church it obtains, and is expressed in the Mass. I said that salvation formerly was regarded as status, as standing, as justification, rather than as character; meaning that the emphasis was there. One is treated as though one were right- eous, it was said. The other side was not ignored. There were pretty clear ideas of what a Christian ought to be. With such an ideal before one, such a personal magnitude of human perfection, char- acter would be shaped accordingly, but, in thought, religion was divorced from morality. The idea of salvation has changed, and for the better. Redemption is, on the whole, a more significant word than salvation to express the recovery of man. Salvation is from something; 107 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION redemption is to something. One is saved from fire, from punishment, from death, you have saved my life; but one is the same person: nothing new has happened, only something has not hap- pened. Salvation is from a danger. It is indeed a Bible word, a Christian word, yet has been worn thin as a counter or token of escape. At any rate, redemption, which also is a Bible word, a Chris- tian word, is more comprehensive, and better expresses the modern conception of the work of Christ. Redemption is to uses: as the redemption of the currency, the redemption of waste land. Redemp- tion makes good, makes a man his true self, recovers him to the ideal, restores moral and spiritual character. Jesus' illustrations from the recovery of the lost piece of silver, the lost sheep, and the lost son, have in view values restored, the silver to its use, the sheep to the use of the owner, the lost son to affection and obedience, as suggestively expressed, "He came to himself." If men were going right, doing right, there could be no thought of, no need of salvation. If men go wrong, do wrong, they are saved by going right, doing right. And Jesus Christ is the great- est power in the world to set men right, to redeem 108 REDEMPTION AND CONVERSION them. They see the ideal, the normal character, and they see Him loving men into purity, noble- ness and love. Redemption implies recovery: it implies that every man goes wrong, more or less, but goes wrong. Yet, although Christian- ity makes this assumption, it represents forgive- ness as incidental, as the negative side of redemp- tion. Redemption is from sin, it is true, but that is not all: it is from sin unto holiness, and it is holiness, or the choice of it, which gives deliver- ance from sin. Theology had given too large a place to penalty and guilt, as related to the law of God. It had represented the satisfaction of justice and the forgiveness of sins as the principal object of Christ's sacrifice. Theology had maintained that one cannot be forgiven on repentance alone, but that the penalty of his sin must be paid off by some equivalent. This was a reversal of propor- tion. Personal righteousness is the principal ob- ject; incident to this is deliverance from sin and its penalty, which is not physical pain, but deteri- oration, degeneracy. So it is only by choice and realization of the good that sin can cease and its consequences be escaped. To convert the sinner into a saint is the object of the Gospel. Becoming 109 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION a saint he ceases to be a sinner; there is no other way in which he can cease to be a sinner; and, if he chooses to be a child of God, there are no old accounts hanging over him, he is simply forgiven and welcomed. Penalty is an inherent conse- quence of the selfish, sinful state, and can be remitted only by the change to the state of right- eousness. It is indeed so wonderful a thing that one can be delivered from the bondage of sin, that at first remission of sins may seem to be the whole of it, but the real thing is righteousness. There is no condemnation, it is true, but it is not by arrangement external to the man. Guilt is an estimate of character. So far as the past is concerned, guilt is never removed. If one is regenerated, or turns about when he is thirty years old, his guilt when he was twenty remains just what it was. Looking back he disapproves himself more than he did at the time. He was the guilty one, and nothing can ever change that damning fact. But that is of little consequence now; one should not think about it; God does not reproach him; "Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more," that is, I will not remind you of them. As one who has reformed sometimes reverts to his past wickedness, but is not allowed 110 REDEMPTION AND CONVERSION to dwell on it, "we will not talk about that," so in respect to the old character of sin. The father did not allow the prodigal to complete the confession he had prepared to make, but inter- rupted him and dwelt on the fact of his return home. Jesus said that superficial changes in outward condition and custom are not salvation, that there must be the changed heart, the new man. Of Zaccheus, who turned about facing towards righteousness, Jesus said, "Now is salvation come to this house." Ceremonial religion is unavailing; "Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice." "Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith." There must be right motive, a right spirit, a right heart, right character. This or that kind of food does not defile a man, but the evil thoughts that proceed out of the heart, these defile a man. Theology has obscured the sim- plicity of the Gospel, when it has put imputations and satisfactions in the place of renewed charac- ter. The Gospel is obscured when a man imagines he may go on in his selfish ways and be saved by church, sacrament, profession. The two charac- 111 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION ters, the bad and the good, are often put side by side in the New Testament: the old man of deceit- fulness and unrighteousness and the new man of truth and holiness. Jesus did not say that men are as bad as they can be, but said that all men need to be converted and to become as little children. The bondage of sin is broken, just by turning about. "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Redemption is by the positive method. Faults are corrected by the cultivation of virtues. The new pushes out the old. The leaves of an oak cling to the branches until late in the spring; the winds and storms of winter could not tear them off, but they are pushed off by the propulsion of new buds at the base of the stem. The lusts of the flesh are subdued, not by severe repression, not by holding them down with an iron hand, not by scourgings of them till they bleed, but by the power of the new life. Walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. With redemption goes conversion. We have seen that the Puritans emphasized conversion, and that all along in the Evangelical churches the conversion of the individual by supreme choice REDEMPTION AND CONVERSION was made so definite that the very hour was marked and the exact processes of conviction of sin, of repentance, of faith, were prescribed. "A change of heart" was a usual description of con- version. One passed instantly from despair to hope. Doubtless many had this experience of the great decision, consciously taken. There is a great truth in conversion, however, the truth that a person, by his own choice, is changed in character, and so is redeemed; the truth that the Christian type of character is dis- tinctive, is deliberately chosen and when chosen is a present reality. Complete realization lies in the future, but the type itself, in principle and power, is actual at once. Because the type exists, its full attainment is to be expected. This may be regarded as a unique feature of the Christian religion. It explains and combines the statements of Scripture that man is to be saved in the future and yet is saved in the present; that he will have and that he now has eternal life. By supreme choice one goes over from other types of virtue, as well as from immorality, to the Christian type of love. He abandons the legalism of rules for the freedom and spontaneity of love, as was the case when the Jew became a Christian; he aban- 113 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION dons the repressions of asceticism for the life of self-sacrificing service. This type, which in kind is perfect, is in possession and is controlling as soon as it is intelligently preferred and freely adopted. It is the working principle from the outset. The Christian finally produced, untar- nished and symmetrical, is the Christian con- tinually reproduced; there must be the Christian to begin with that there may be the Christian to end with; the kind of life must be incipient in order that there may be that kind of life complete and beautiful. The result, the advantage, the privilege, are contained in the initial choice that constitutes the new character. This fact has repeated expres- sion in the New Testament. He that receives Christ is as truly a child of God the instant he turns from a self-centered to a Christ-centered, a humanity-centered life, as he is when he attains the glory of heaven, and is clothed in white robes before the throne of God. There is now no con- demnation. The believer has eternal life, has passed from death unto life. Paul put it in bold and sweeping statement: "If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation; old things are passed away, behold all things are become new." 114 REDEMPTION AND CONVERSION Salvation is therefore represented sometimes as future, sometimes as present. "Now is our salva- tion nearer than when we believed"; that is, the complete salvation of the future. "Work out your own salvation"; that is, you have salvation already, now work it out to its issues. The writer does not mean that by working tremendously salvation may finally be grasped, but, let the possessed salvation energize until its appropriate transformation and fruitage are complete. This radical and instantaneous change has sometimes been made a reproach to Christianity, but is really one of its most profound principles. The criticism is made that it promises salvation to a word, an assent, an emotion. When the con- dition of having eternal life is condensed into the words, "only believe," there is danger of immoral indulgence and excess. Any principle is liable to be abused, and the principle of salvation by faith has not escaped; but it is a true principle. Genu- ine faith puts life under the law of love to God and love to man, under the law of Christ. He who is in that life is free from condemnation, is justified, is treated as though he were righteous, because in potency, he is righteous. He has the privileges of the son of God; he is new-privileged 115 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION because he is new-charactered. If men deceive themselves with the counterfeits of faith, with professions, emotions, assents, it does not follow that genuine faith is not a radical transformation of character, and the pledge of its perfection. The counterfeits are a tribute to the reality and potency of that faith which renews a man, which new-characters him. The fact that the future is in the present has abundant illustrations in inventions and discov- eries. Edison experiments with some bits of carbon and electrified wires. If a certain result is gained, it is seen that old methods of lighting and communication must give way to new methods. The invention is instantly worth thousands of dollars, before any useful application of it has actually been made. A power is discovered that is seen to be capable of producing important results, and is spoken of as if it already produced them. As soon as the art of printing was discovered, when as yet no books had been published, it might have been foretold that education would be universal, that all parts of the world would be brought into communication, that the Bible would be an open book to the people. A volume that issued from the first press was ill-favored 116 REDEMPTION AND CONVERSION enough with its coarse print and clumsy letters, but on the title-page might have been printed, education, culture, political and religious free- dom. Cathedrals reared all over Europe in the Middle Ages were teachers of sublimity, beauty and reverence; the great handwriting of noble thoughts. Then books came. The presentiment of the priest in Victor Hugo's story, looking at the Cathedral of Notre Dame and looking at the little book, the first printing, was, as he extended his right hand toward the book which lay on the table, and his left hand toward Notre Dame, that the book of stone, so solid and so enduring, was about to make way for the book of paper, more solid and still more enduring. When books came, the thoughts of men had an expres- sion more fitting and more universal, because they could be read by all. There are epochs in history, starting-points, that ring out the old and ring in the new. There are epochs in the life of individuals. An intellec- tual awakening occurs. A youth who had been frivolous, a pleasure-seeker, all at once, by some book casually read, or under the inspiration of a teacher, is aroused mentally and finds himself in a new world. His intellectual character is 117 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION changed, and he is already a scholar before actual attainments have been made. When in time of war a man enlists, he is honored for his patriotism and has a new character which, under discipline, will make him a soldier indeed. How often it is said that one has turned over a new leaf. The character of faith and love is a present reality as soon as it is initiated. Future results are seen and are regarded as already attained. Therefore there is joy in the presence of angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. To be sure, from an angel's point of view, he is still a sorry object. The hour may be far away when he will be per- fect, but he is a changed man, a new man. It mattered not to the father that the Prodigal Son was in rags, gaunt, dirty, forlorn: he had turned about and come home to his father. It is, then, a commanding idea of Christianity, that he who is in Christ is a new sort of man. The writers of the New Testament never lose the sur- prise of it. A man is not bound by the chains of habit, but is set free at a stroke, is let out of prison. It is not implied that nothing remains to be done; but faith is a principle which works, which works by love, and is ever at work, until the actual man becomes the ideal man. The 118 REDEMPTION AND CONVERSION power of Christianity resides in no small degree in the creation of the new type, here and now. It has power because it is true to nature. It does not follow because faith is a radical change of character, a new life, that the exact time, the very minute of turning, can always be marked. The influence of nurture, the atmosphere of the home, the surroundings of Christian life and Christian thought imprint character, so that the youth may not be aware of a particular time, a day, when he turned from a bad way to a good way. The transition may be gradual, by degrees, extending over months or years, now the melting of a prejudice, now the correction of a judgment, now a new appraisal of a moral value. When does a child become a man, a child yesterday, a man to-day? In some cases in a moment: a certain experience, a responsibility thrust upon him, a loss sustained, a particular event, makes a man of him all at once; or maturing is gradual, due to accretions of knowledge and ripening of judgment. A crisis is pretty sure to come to every life, more than one crisis, some apparently trivial al- ternative, or some momentous appeal. Looking back one sees how much depended on, and how great consequences followed, that one turning- 119 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION point. Yet, crisis or no crisis, contrast of old and new or invisible degrees of growth, the Chris- tian character is distinctive. The mistake of the churches of America, from the great awakening and for a hundred years, was insistence on a stereotyped experience of which one was acutely conscious at a definite time. The sense of sin, some say, and say it with regret, is not as acute as it was in former times. There is not the deep conviction of sin that many of preceding generations experienced. People do not think of themselves as sinful and only sinful. In a general way, of course, every one admits that he is not as good as he ought to be, yet there is nothing that may be called sorrow for sin and deep repentance. Approach to the Christian life, it is said, is no longer by the way of penitence. Young people that come into the church have little to say about their sins. Christ is not thought of as the Sin-bearer, but more as Master and Friend. What is desperately needed to the making of a Christian, say some, is a profound realization of sin. I imagine that tradition had a good deal to do with the specific experience of conversion. It was expected that every one would at some time awake 120 REDEMPTION AND CONVERSION to the dreadfulness of sin, and to the danger to which it exposed him. It was believed that to be saved one must have distressing conviction of sin, that this is the first step in the path of salvation. Men and women, one's neighbors and acquaint- ances, narrated their experiences. In times of re- vival it would be said that William or Mary was "under conviction." That which is expected is likely to occur. Although, in general, we probably do not have the thought of sin that our ancestors had, yet we are not altogether self-approving, we are dissatisfied with ourselves, we long for a better way of life. Conscience does rebuke. We are greatly troubled over the evils of social and national life; we grieve over the wrongs, the heartlessness, the greed which work so much evil in society and to the evil-doers. And this is not exactly a sense of other people's sins; it is the social conscience. It seems to me that in this age the Christian character and life are perfectly distinct, that we know what a Christian is, that many grow up in Christian nurture without a critical turning-point of which they are aware, while others more con- sciously are converted and become Christians. A characteristic of the ideal, the Christ-like 121 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION character, is that it proceeds from the individual to society, rather than from society to the in- dividual. The person is the starting-point, the person is the goal or end. Christianity deals directly with individuals rather than with insti- tutions and tendencies. It saves souls first and creates institutions afterwards and consequently. It singles out individuals, one by one, and does not deal with them in the mass. Institutions are expressly declared to be for individuals, and in- dividuals not to be for institutions, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." This order is frequently reversed by some theories of the natural development of society which look for improvement through ten- dencies and movements, the spirit of the age, the Zeitgeist, an intellectual and moral atmosphere. A slowly improving social condition is to be the result, the individual a means to this magnifi- cent end. Christianity secures the temporal and eternal worth of the individual. It undertakes to reach him, and does reach him, in every stage of social progress and in any stage of civilization, or even in barbarism and savagery. It does not wait for him to be raised up by general influences of intelligence and culture to a higher level. 122 REDEMPTION AND CONVERSION Christianity finds the individual in any land, in America, England, Africa, Japan, and ren- ovates him, so that a new type of character, everywhere essentially the same, appears the world over. One century need not wait for another which will be more advantageous. Paul did not require the conditions of the twentieth century, or of the thirtieth, in order to reach men with his gospel; nor did he believe that the world must wait one or two thousand years before any appre- ciable results in moral progress would be visible. The church and the kingdom of God were dear to him, nor did he overlook the mutual relations of members of the kingdom, which is made up of renewed men and women, which indeed had already come in the new life of individuals. The preaching of the Gospel is with power, because it is direct to individuals appealing to conscience and aspiration. Even in unrefined forms it has this power. One who visits a congre- gation of working people may be offended by the homespun illustrations and slang expressions of the preacher. It may seem as if religion is cheap- ened or caricatured; and yet the earnest speaker may have possession of, or may be possessed by, a lofty ideal, which can be made intelligible and 123 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION impressive to such listeners, and in response to which many of them can be brought not only to rectitude but to the gentleness and holiness of Christian life. It makes no difference, in respect to the ideal which is Christian, about nationality, class, culture, for it is the ideal of human nature, of man. So the disciple says with profound mean- ing : " Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him; where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, . . . bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all." One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. "Put on, therefore," says an apostle, "the new man," "put on a heart of compassion, kindness, hu- mility, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint against any; . . . and above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfectness." Such a man is redeemed, is saved, is converted. He has the faith which worketh by love. He is a Christian. CHAPTER VII THE SPIRITUAL MAN THE constitution of man has been explored in recent years as never before. The brain has been laid bare, as it were, and actions, thoughts, feel- ings, traced to the particular places where they originate. An injury at one point affects speech, so that one cannot get the word he wants, has aphasia. A suffusion of blood may suspend memory. Mental or brain excitation, as of anger, or grief, or fear, is marked by access of tempera- ture. The brain is a ganglion of nerves; a center from which live wires proceed out to all parts of the body, flashing impulses. There are ducts or canals along which thought and action travel. Psychology has mapped the brain, has traced the routes of sight, of hearing, of perception, of choice, has pictured the network of nerves which cluster in the brain and proceed down and out through the organism. While such detailed knowledge of the human body was not attained until recently, yet the dependence of mind on body and of body 125 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION on mind has been recognized so long as men have observed their own actions and feelings. They have always localized the several functions of thought and of affection; thought in the head, love in the heart. An intellectual person has a good head; a kindly person has a good heart; he has brains, she has heart. Yet always there has been perception of per- sonality, a self, an ego, a unity aware of itself, an identity which is single. The body is not a mech- anism, but an organism, and, residing in the body, potential in the body, is self-consciousness, an I, a person. The whole is more than the sum of the parts. Various words have been coined to desig- nate self -consciousness; the mind, the soul, the spirit. It has been described as indivisible, poten- tial, by Bishop Butler in his famous "Analogy," and by others, as we might think of an atom, or radium, or a spark, "vital spark of heavenly flame." The latest investigators use these terms, must use them mind and body, soul and body. Bergson finds in memory something distinct from matter. Memory is the power to recall past acts, events, thoughts, and to select from among them. It is not like films on which impressions have been made, and which, as the crank of circum- 126 THE SPIRITUAL MAN stance or association turns, are brought into view; but more like potential atoms surcharged by what is put into them and commanded by an intelligence which marshals them at its own bidding. There is a centrum, a director, a con- troller, a presiding genius, which, in a way we cannot know, decides and acts. To enter into details of psychology and phi- losophy would be tiresome and is needless. Psychology, to a degree, knows the how, the process, but does not know the why, the power itself. There is self-consciousness and self-direc- tion, and we have to say mind, soul, spirit, person. So science knows in part the how, the process, of the forces of nature. Atoms or molecules act so and so, but the potentiality itself is not known, is a mystery. An atom is a universe, composed of millions of particles whirling in circles or ellipses, but whence came they, what set them whirling? So it is with the soul, the mind, the spirit. Dis- covery of all the parts and of their connection and mode of action, does not explain the whole, the unity, the self-conscious, self-directing person- ality; nor, on the other hand, does it do away with it. We can, in a way, define personality, making 127 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION classification of faculties, as sense, understanding, reason; as understanding, feeling, will; defining, that is, the various ways in which the person directs himself, feeling, knowing, deciding. One can stand outside one's self and analyze one's self. I can look at me, and by the very analyzing, by the being able to do it, demonstrate myself a person. There is the personality to start with, and all the analysis in the world, all the psychology, can only take apart those elements which can never, except in thought, be separated, and which constitute personality. And generally men have not argued about it, or thought much about it; they take the soul for granted. Even when ques- tioning or defining, it is a mind, a soul, an intelli- gent person that questions and defines. I doubt whether any sheerest materialist acts according to his theory. All men act as if there were an I presiding, as if they were self-directing, were free. There was never a fatalist who kept his own hands off from circumstances, who had no sense of ob- ligation, who did not approve himself or blame himself, as the case might be, or approve or blame somebody else. The heading of this chapter is, "The Spiritual Man." It might nearly as well be, "The Intel- 128 THE SPIRITUAL MAN lectual Man," "The Rational Man," "The Moral Man," or simply, "Personality." It means that man is not merely a physical creature, an animal to be fed and warmed, but is a person with duties, aspirations, ideals, with knowledge of the universe and of God, a person who can make to himself a character, a person who appreciates the true, the good, the beautiful. These are general terms, in- deed, yet are sufficiently definite to characterize man as a being with sense of obligation, with affections, with imagination, with reason. The word "spiritual," which has long been as- sociated with religion, has now acquired a more comprehensive meaning. It signifies appreciation of those values which are not material or physical. Thus that quality in art, in music, in poetry, which is not sensuous and which we cannot describe, we characterize as spiritual. It may be heroic, it may be plaintive, it may be sympathetic. A teacher of literature finds, we say, the spiritual in a poem, while another is confined to philology and versification; the one gets at the soul of the poem, the other does not get beyond the method. A lover of music says that he was wafted up and away with no sense of his surroundings, that the music was spiritual. We speak of the spiritual 129 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION in works of art as distinguishing them from mere photography. The spiritual is other than the intellectual, which is only knowledge and logic. Culture, intellectual refinement, may be sordid; an uncultivated person may be spiritual. Spirit- uality is a feeling, not merely a thought. It is a response, a thrill, which rushes at the heart of the matter. Emotion rings true to beauty. Not think- ing of religion at all, we say that such a person is spiritual. Turning now to religion, we have thought of the spiritual man as the saint, the ascetic, the mystic, a man apart, out of the world of men in spirit, or even in body; a man untarnished, a man of abnegations and vigils, or at the best, as a mild, serene, prayerful man. The saints, as we have thought of them, are a class by themselves, in the counsels of perfection. Saint is a good word; it stands for something of sweetness and self-for- getfulness that we should be sorry to lose, but it does not stand in our thought for virility. We have superimposed the mediaeval saint upon the saints of the early church. The word in the New Testament is used generally for holiness, for righteousness, for Christ-likeness; literally it means set apart, or consecrated. At all events, 130 THE SPIRITUAL MAN now the spiritual has been recovered to a large and significant meaning for the higher grades of value in human life. The spiritual man idealizes life. Man is an idealist, is an ideal-forming and an ideal-realizing creature; that is, he perceives and pursues ends. The rest of the universe in what we call its lower stages, in the inorganic and in plants and ani- mals, is apparently unconscious of purpose or end. The rosebud does not foresee the rose and is not aware of its own beauty. Animals pursue ends for the satisfaction of casual wants, but have no aim for their lives, no vision of a destiny to be realized. ^Esop, Uncle Remus, and Kipling anthropomorphize downwards. But, however it may be with the lower sentient orders, it certainly is true that man perceives and pursues ends. He does more than satisfy casual wants; he makes plans for a year, for a lifetime, both for himself and for and with the society of which he is a member. The pursuit of ends includes the entire range of conscious wants, from the physical to the spiritual. When a man wants something, he pictures him- self in the possession and enjoyment of the object. A desired possession may seem to be external, but 131 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION is desired as a source of enjoyment to the person; is himself enjoying it. The satisfaction of that want is his ideal of himself, and he goes from one want to another, in an ascending series. Society advances by the consciousness and supply of new wants, from improved methods of communi- cation and locomotion, to widening knowledge of nature and history, to more beautiful products of art, to finer culture, to purer morality, to more spir- itual religion. Increase of wants means a grow- ing man. The man that wants literature, music, science, philosophy, is the man that is himself literary, musical, scientific, philosophical. In other words, every person has some ideal of him- self and his pursuit of objects is the attainment of his ideal self. This is especially true of morality and religion. A moral person may be characterized as one who perceives an ideal which ought to be realized. Duty is that which ought to be, an idea, a picture, an ideal which is perceived before it is realized, and is perceived as that which ought to be real- ized. A complete ethical system of principles, rules, and maxims is the ideal of a perfect and symmet- rical character. It is a delineation of the man who combines all good qualities, and of a society com- 132 THE SPIRITUAL MAN posed of such men. The moral law-giver brings an ideal to the actual practice of the people; he has seen a pattern in the mount. The ten words on stone tablets are ten bold lines which trace the salient features of a good man. The decalogue might be regarded as the profile of a perfect man, like a great stone face, showing clear-cut in mas- sive features against the sky. The psalmist por- trays the blessed man who is like a tree by the riv- ers of waters. Buddhism describes the man with thirty graces, who is like a lotus-flower, untar- nished by the water or the mud, a child of the clear, cold stream. Now there never was such an Israel- ite nor such a Buddhist, but morality must have in view an ideal, partial or complete, must either take actual men that have exhibited virtue in some of its aspects, or must combine into an ideal character virtues which are scattered and sug- gested in several persons. The most vital inquiry of ethical philosophers is inquiry concerning the nature of the ideal. Systems of ethics have their chief difference in definition of the supreme good, the summumbonum, which is the ideal person. The newest philosophy, tracing the genesis and devel- opment of personality, finds it in the attainment of an ideal by imitation of other persons, who are 133 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION points of initiation, and finds that the process is chiefly ethical, through social relations, customs, and institutions, and religious in that the ideal enlarges and recedes toward the perfect and absolute. Here in all religions is the meaning of sin and guilt, of salvation, redemption, regeneration and sanctification. The ideal person is in view. Sin is doing what one ought not to do, which really is being what one ought not to be. It is failure to attain the ideal, and in many languages is so characterized, as missing the mark. Sin is selfish- ness, which is satisfying the lower instead of the higher wants; that is, it is the bad actual in place of the good ideal person. Salvation is converting a wrong person into a right person, and not escape from pain, since penalty can be escaped only by transformation of the person. Regeneration, as the word signifies, is recovery of the genus, the type, as degeneration is departure from the genus. Redemption is redeeming a man to himself. Sanctification is the perfecting of a person accord- ing to an ideal. Here also is the conception of the Church and of the Kingdom of God, which is the ideal society composed of ideal persons, a renewed or idealized humanity in a new earth wherein 134 THE SPIRITUAL MAN dwelleth righteousness. The spiritual man is he who perceives the ideal. Religion, I say, is perception of the ideal and effort to realize it. It is objective towards God, but it is beliefs about God, what He is, his char- acter, we might say. The requirements of God reveal his character. What doth He require of thee but to love mercy and do justly and walk humbly with thy God? Such requirements show what God is, and show that we are made in his image, the ideal man a reflection of God. The Sermon on the Mount is a character sketch. The Beatitudes picture a blessed person; anger, lust, revenge in thought, even if one does not do the wicked act, are condemned; alms-giving, prayer, fasting, should be in secret, from the heart, and not to win applause; seek not with greatest anxiety material things but be anxious about spiritual things; seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Changes in religious belief and practice are changes in the conception of the ideal man, the spiritual man, and it is here that comparison of one period with another can be made. It would be an interesting study to ascertain the ideals of the several eras of Christianity; the Oriental or 135 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION Jewish Christian, the Greek Christian, the Latin Christian, the Augustinian, the Reformation, the Puritan ideals. It really would be one way of tracing the advances of civilization. It would in- volve a valuation of the interests which men have regarded as of greatest worth. A century ago, and later, doctrine and practice show the ideal which was then cherished; not that it was defined as an ideal, though the words jus- tification and sanctification indicate character. The Puritan strain predominated. We are accus- tomed to think of it as the religion of conscience, which worked largely on the side of negation and of prohibition. The law of God is the decalogue, and all but one of the Ten Commandments say, "Thou shalt not." The things we should not do imply the things we should do, to be sure; but emphasis was on the prohibition. Sunday, as the young people one hundred years ago endured it, was a blue-letter rather than a red-letter day, a day on which certain things could not be done, neither work, diversion, nor study. The writer has been reproved in boyhood for reading Ban- croft's "History of the United States" on Sunday, a book it was difficult to make him read any other day. Sunday was for church, Bible and religious 136 THE SPIRITUAL MAN books. Amusements, except such quiet games as checkers, backgammon, and authors, were pro- hibited. The good old virtues of truthfulness, honesty, purity, were exalted. A child who told a lie was in disgrace and was severely punished: "Do you know what becomes of liars?" The temptation to lie was often strong, in order to cover over some trivial transgression, but truth- fulness was a cardinal virtue. It was bad to do it but worse to lie about it, and we think .so now. Domestic life was rather stiff. Too often, not in all families, there was little display of affection from parents to children. The father was ruler, must be obeyed. (Sometimes it was the mother.) The mother was often the child's confidant, and she, perhaps, would shield the child from the fa- ther's reproof. Parents were not their children's companions but rather their governors. Of course, there were many exceptions; delightful home life was not unknown; but in well-regulated families, childhood was a time of repression. There was strength and fiber in the character of the stern, upright, unswerving Calvinist, but as a type it lacked beauty and grace. Was there not also a certain separation of re- ligion from secular life? Not that our grandfathers 137 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION did not engage in secular affairs far from it; nor that they did wrong, were dishonest. They were shrewd, enterprising, mercantile, progressive. It is wonderful what they did, developing the resources of the country, extending commerce, sailing ships to all parts of the earth; but it was apart from the religious life, at least in thought. Religion con- sisted in beliefs and practices. Just as Sunday was for religion, the week for work, so work was not religious. They did not say, Laborare est orare. Work was not irreligious but non-religious, just necessary, and religion an affair by itself. Some were inclined to lament that the demands of busi- ness gave so little time, not only for their homes, but for religion. So with society: the social was independent of the religious life. Entertainments, parties, amusements, were looked on askance. Worldliness, they thought, was the note of social festivities: at any rate, there was nothing reli- gious about them; they were non-religious. In broad contrast or comparison of present with former conceptions, it may be said that the ideal is Christ, the perfect man; that the law of his life is the true law or principle of character. He was the spiritual man. The ideal of personal worth was clearly presented in the character of Jesus. 138 THE SPIRITUAL MAN He embodied every precept He enunciated, and embodied it perfectly. He did not struggle up painfully and with only partial success towards an ever-receding ideal. The marvel and the power of the life of Jesus is his perfection, the ideal made real. He did not say, "I seek the truth and the life," but, "I am the truth and the life." His per- fection has been described in various ways, all of which show the symmetry of his character. Ap- parent opposites are united: compassion and in- dignation, gentleness and strength, freedom and obedience, contemplation and action, repose and energy, calmness and zeal, sorrow and joy. All of his character went into each quality. There was always appropriateness of act and word to the occasion. No virtue was in excess or dispro- portion; no good trait slid off into its counterfeits; the delicate balance was never disturbed. Criti- cisms have indeed been pointed at some lack or excess in the character of Jesus, but have not been well taken. If He was angry, it is seen that his anger was justifiable and was more virtuous than an easy toleration. If He was compassionate to notorious sinners, it is seen that it was a re- claiming compassion, and that the pity of purity is holier than the condemnation of contempt. 139 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION There have been representations of the character of Jesus as having the passive virtues only, meek- ness, gentleness, non-resistance, attuned to the minor key. Mediaeval art so represented Him a sad face, a sorrowful countenance; but He was strong, virile, positive. He spoke as one hav- ing authority, He drove out of the temple those who made a gain of religion, He sternly rebuked the Scribes and Pharisees. The disciples were sur- prised at his gentleness, his kindness to mothers and children. His was a commanding presence, as commanding as it was attractive. The powerless- ness of criticism to discover flaws in the symmetry and harmony of Jesus' character has given cer- tainty to the agreeing opinion that He is the great- est of the holy and the holiest of the great. When we put the best ideal we can form by the side of the historical Jesus, its every truthful feature is reproduced in Him, yet He, the actual person, transcends it. Although the ideal is personal, is a character, it is not an ideal of the person in isolation. The perfection of the individual is found in right re- lation to other persons. The law of love dominates a good person : it dominated Jesus. The ideal He presents is a person who loves others according to 140 THE SPIRITUAL MAN their need. The service of love is determined, not by affinities, or standing or reputation, but by need. It is not enough to do good to those who do good to us; we should do good to those who need what we can impart. Self-impartation is a characteristic of the ideal person. Jesus expressed it as a law of life in the words, "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister." There had been some perception of this law in Judaism: the precept, "Thou shalt love thy neigh- bor as thyself," was to be found in the books of Moses, but the application was restricted chiefly to the nation. The story of the Good Samaritan gave a new definition of neighborhood. Here and there an individual perceived the law and, on occasions, practiced it, but usually under local or class restrictions. Jesus made it a central and controlling law of his own life and of all true life. He poured out the wealth of his character in a ministration which was the impartation of self. Whatever greatness one has, He said, is the measure, not of exaction, but of service. He who is great should serve, because he who is great can serve. And greatness is attained by service, " Who- soever would become great among you, shall be your minister." 141 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION Because the perfect character imparts itself, even at the cost of suffering, the cross is the sym- bol of that which Jesus personified. The cross is complete self-giving. The service of others, ac- cording to their need, in teaching, in sympathy, in self-impartation, is an essential element in the personal ideal of perfection. The character of Jesus is the complete and final revelation of the human ideal. Philanthropists and reformers apply the precepts and example of Jesus to society and the individual. The type He presented has not been superseded, is still in advance. Many transformations are needed before society will be Christian. If it were truly Christian there would be the ideal State. There is no other morality of which that can be said. He would be laughed at who should seriously maintain that society needs to become Platonic, or Confucian, or Buddhistic. The Christian ideal for society is still in advance. Even those who are outside of the Church, and opposed to it, say that business, politics, social relations, need to become Christian. The ideal which Jesus set before men is the kind of goodness all men should seek to realize. We have now passed from the Christ of the- ology to the Jesus of history, from doctrine to 142 THE SPIRITUAL MAN life; from salvation as external, to salvation as internal. The saved man is he in whom the spirit of Christ dwells. The spirit of Christ is Christ-likeness. The new man is the spiritual man. CHAPTER VIII ETERNAL LIFE A HUNDRED years ago, and later, the immortality of the soul, a life after death, was taken for granted. While individuals may, sometimes, have doubted it, as indeed at all times there have been those who doubted or denied it, yet generally there was no question of it. Indeed, it loomed large and distinct on the earthly horizon. It was regarded as a state of rewards and punishments for the deeds done in the body. Heaven was pictured in the imagery of the last book of the Bible, as a city of pearly gates and golden floors, of effulgent light, of the redeemed in white robes and starry crowns, of perpetual worship, a place where there shall be no more sorrow nor crying, a place of rest, of peace, of glory. And hell was real, a place of physical anguish, of fire that is not quenched, into which those who do not believe in Christ, the unredeemed, the wicked, will be cast. The appeal to men to accept Christ was with motive of urgency, in view of eternal life and dan- ger of everlasting pain. There was the idea of 144 ETERNAL LIFE character, of the redeemed as Christ-like, yet safety was a prime consideration. The penalty of sin would be imposed at the day of judgment, and the penalty is hell; therefore flee from the wrath to come. The belief that Christ bore the penalty of sin and so God's justice was satisfied would be meaningless unless the future is in view, unless the penalty of sin is everlasting punishment. While the conception of heaven and of hell may not have been the same to all persons, some thinking of them literally as external, as localities, others thinking of them as character of goodness and of badness, others as both character and en- vironment, yet salvation and reprobation were projected into the life beyond death with perfect distinctness. That this is a correct representation of the thought of that time is evident from the significance of Universalism, which arose a century ago and crystallized into a sect or church. It was a protest against hell. It was the belief that no human being will suffer everlastingly, but that all ultimately will be saved. That the conception of the future life is some- what changed, cannot be doubted. It may seem also that there is not so clear and strong certainty respecting the continuance of life after death, that 145 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION now survival is very much in question, and by many not believed at all. The change or modi- fication of this belief can best be marked by trav- ersing the grounds on which belief in immor- tality rests, and suggesting the more spiritual nature of eternal life. Everybody has the thought of immortality, of a life which physical death does not extinguish. That this thought ever got into the mind of man, who sees the dissolution of death, is something to be accounted for. He who says he does not believe in immortality is very apt to say that he has abandoned the hope. It is a thought that he had, whether told him or instinctive, a thought that he was capable of having and did have, and that he has, or thinks he has, relinquished. He has spelt the word "Eternity." It is not the case that he argued himself into it, and so can argue himself out of it, for still he has the thought, al- though he may suppose the fact does not corre- spond to the thought. It is not as though the ex- pectation of immortality was indulged for a time, say a few hundred years, while for thousands of years before there was no such expectation; or as though certain peoples but not others, certain countries, but not others, cherished the belief. 146 ETERNAL LIFE The thought of immortality is universal. Those who hope for Nirvana, nothingness, do not ex- pect to get it just by dying, for there may be many reincarnations; and Nirvana itself is not exactly annihilation, but conscious non-existence: the person will be aware that he does not exist, and so will be very happy; though it is said that not the extinction of self, but of selfishness, is meant, the merging of self in the absolute. In one aspect of the case, survival after death seems impossible. The body dies; physical func- tions cease; there is no communication, no re- sponse. Ancients knew, as well as moderns know, that the mind-life, the soul-life, is a body-life, and that the body dies and decays. The analogy of a tree which, stripped and bare in winter, revives in spring, is superficial, for the tree does not die. So said an ancient writer: For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; Yet, through the scent of water, it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. But man dieth, and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? 147 If a man die shall he live again? His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them. Yet men have always believed in immortality, despite the grimness of death and the silence of the dead. The belief has been more influential at some times than at other times, is probably less influential now than it was a hundred years ago. And there have always been some who denied immortality, who have either said, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," or have said, "Death is sad, inexpressibly sad, but it is final." Yet they are few that relinquish the hope altogether, if it is nothing more, as Walter Pater says, than "a vague sense of eternal continuity, with which none of us wholly part." How great the interest in the opinion of a scien- tist that human life continues ! When Sir Oliver Lodge declares that there is but a thin partition between the dead and the living, that we can hear the hammers breaking down the wall, it is pub- lished far and wide. Psychic research, peering into the unseen, fancying that an echo bounds back, an echoed thought or expression, engages eager attention. Granted, say psychic investiga- 148 ETERNAL LIFE tors, that ninety-nine per cent of spiritualistic manifestations are fraudulent, yet there is one per cent that cannot be explained as other than a mental impact from the unseen universe. It is not necessary to belief in immortality that there should be communications from the de- parted; indeed, firm believers in survival after death scout the assumption that there are such communications; but there is a keen interest in the investigations. Modern research is amazed at the potencies of the invisible, of the minute, infinitesimal points of origin. Keys four thousand miles apart, pitched to the same tone, respond instantly to each other, though mountain ranges intervene. These mysterious potencies do not prove that souls survive death, but do bid us halt in affirming that such a potency as the soul of man does not and cannot survive physical death. So science to-day, exploring the physical and the psychic, affirms that it has nothing to say against the continuance of personality after death, saying only that it is beyond the sphere of ob- servation and experience. Evolution has nothing to say against it. Evolution indicates that in- completeness will come to completeness. John 149 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION Fiske says: "The more thoroughly we compre- hend the process of evolution by which things have come to be what they are, the more we are likely to feel that to deny the everlasting persistence of the spiritual element in man is to rob the whole process of its meaning. It goes far towards put- ting us to permanent intellectual confusion, and I do not see that any one has as yet alleged, or is ever likely to allege, a sufficient reason for our accepting so dire an alternative. . . . According to Mr. Spencer, the divine energy which is manifested throughout the knowable universe is the same en- ergy that wells up in us as consciousness. Speak- ing for myself, I can see no insuperable difficulty in the notion that at some period in the evolution of humanity this divine spark may have acquired sufficient concentration and steadiness to survive the wreck of material forces, and endure forever. Such a crowning wonder seems to me no more than the fit climax to a creative work that has been ineffably beautiful and marvellous in all its myriad stages." An eminent physician and psy- chologist, admitting that continuance after death cannot be demonstrated, says that he himself has come to the opinion of Cicero, who would rather be mistaken with Plato than be in the right with 150 ETERNAL LIFE those who deny altogether the life after death; and this, he says, is his confession of faith. It comes back to personality. There is an ab- solute character to personality, it has absolute worth. The soul, the self-conscious I, is related to the ultimate reality, to the imperishable, ever- lasting God. However future life is pictured, con- viction of it is rooted in the quality of human nature, in the fact of personality, and we cannot be rid of it. A person cannot think of himself as ceasing to exist. It is on a range of facts and experiences not material or physical that the belief in immortality rests, although the material, which is life and motion, does not contradict it. The basis of the belief is the fact that we know God. This evanescent, short-lived being has the thought of God, the everlasting God; knows God. The universe is seen to be under laws, to express thought and plan, which certainly are not the thought and plan of man. An animal does not perceive thought, perceive plan, perceive God in the world, but simply roams about in search of food. A creature that can grasp the thought of God, can think God, is more than a physical creature. He is like God in that which is not 151 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION physical, in the intellectual. He is intellectually united to God, who is from everlasting to ever- lasting, who does not die. Though the span of earthly life is brief, yet it is a life which has a conscious relation to the Eternal Spirit. The mere thought of God attaches man, the thinker, to the everlasting. The part that thinks, the invisible spirit of man, is in vital relation with God, the Eternal Spirit. More than that, man trusts and loves God. He perceives the will or plan of God for him and embraces it, so finding peace, strength and the very reason of his life. This is the constitution or nature of man, as truly as his power to eat and drink and sleep and wake. Say there is no God, say man does not know God, and you may say man is not immortal, though in the very denial of God and of knowledge of Him, you affirm the thought or conception of Him, a thought of the eternal. You cannot deny a thought you do not have. Jesus, who had more insight into moral and spiritual realities than any man has had, did not undertake to prove immor- tality. The only word approaching a proof is his assertion that man knows God. To the Saddu- cees, who did not believe in a resurrection, He said: " Now that the dead are raised, even Moses 152 ETERNAL LIFE shewed at the bush when he calleth Jehovah the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. For he is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto Him." God and Abraham know each other, therefore Abraham is immortal. There are values of life which are absolute, pos- sessions which are eternal. These values, these possessions, make us what we are, persons. Beauty is an absolute value. You see that an object is beautiful. You call another to admire, and he says, "Beautiful." Looking at the portico of a temple, one perceives that the various parts are so related in proportion as to suggest per- fection. It is a thought of the mind expressed visibly: a truth embodied, an ideal realized. Plato, or some ancient philosopher, called beauty the splendor of truth, the outshining of truth. Symmetry is determined by ratios and propor- tions. The beauty of Greek architecture depends on mathematical rules, as of the diameter of a col- umn to its height. Beautiful architecture is the outshining, the splendor of mathematical truth, and mathematical truth is absolute: you cannot change it. The musical scale is mathematical; the sweetness or harshness of the tone, its quality 153 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION as joyous or sorrowful, as tender or defiant, is conditioned by the length and rapidity of vibra- tions. The beauty is the outshining or splendor of exact mathematical truth which is absolute and eternal. What, now, has this to do with immor- tality? It has this to do with it, that beauty ex- presses absolute perfection, reveals eternal truths or ideals, and that the mind which perceives, the mind which creates beauty, has itself an absolute quality, is in relation to necessary, eternal truth. Beauty is the splendor of the thought of God, the splendor of the divine. We cannot help speaking of the noblest works of art as immortal, as divine. Abt Vogler improvised on the organ a magnificent beautiful temple of harmony, and reflected: I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star. Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is naught: It is everywhere in the world loud, soft, and all is said: Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought: And there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head ! Then it was gone and all was still in the cathe- dral. Yet 154 ETERNAL LIFE There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live on as before; . . . On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round. . . . All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist; Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. Professor Shaler, the geologist, said: "The fact that nature is beautiful to us, that its action meets a swift response in our minds, is best ex- plained is hardly explicable otherwise by supposing that its informing spirit is akin to our own." Character is an absolute value. No one has ever seen character, or touched it. It is expressed in the face, it is suggested in words, it is embodied in acts, but it does not occupy space, it cannot be seen through a microscope. It can be described, but not in physical terms. It is a moral, spiritual force. It is Tightness. The right is imperative, to be done at all hazards: the right is absolute. One doing the right builds up a righteous character, so that one is sensitive to right and abhorrent of wrong, detects in every relation the righteous, the noble, the honorable. A right man will sacrifice 155 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION fortune rather than do wrong, will die rather than disgrace himself. The feeling of obligation which impels a man to sacrifice comfort, pleasure, friend- ship, and life itself, gives man his nobility. Every one has this feeling of obligation, of duty, and has it every day of his life, yet regards it with rever- ence, almost with awe. As familiar as the starry heavens, it also, like those countless distant orbs, excites unfailing wonder. This, in fact, is the standard comparison, repeated in the well-known saying of Kant: "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the starry heavens above and the moral law within." The Psalmist apostrophized the same associa- tion of natural and moral law : The heavens declare the glory of God : and the firma- ment sheweth his handiwork; The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: . . . The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. Man knows the eternal law of God, and in re- sponse to that law builds a character of truth, righteousness, and love; is a truthful, pure, noble, loving soul. This is permanent, it has eternal quality, it is eternal life. The true, the beautiful, 156 ETERNAL LIFE the good, which have no physical valuation, are absolute, eternal possessions, the inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away. And friendship is an absolute, an eternal value. The "In Memoriam" of Tennyson is on the im- mortality of friendship. The response of mind to mind, of heart to heart, of soul to soul, is a pre- monition of immortality. Where, now, does friendship dwell? In a lobe of the brain? It is person to person; moral, appreciative, refined, companionable persons. When the body dies, the friend, a spiritual personality, exists. An Oxford professor, lecturing a few years ago at Harvard, spent a week in the home of a well- known professor there. He was very nearsighted and not quick to recognize voices. He did not know his friends when he saw them, in fact, he did not see them, but knew them, he said, by their ways of thinking. His daughter said that he would know his friends without their bodies. A remark, we say, is characteristic. Repeated, a flash of wit, a happy, original illustration, one exclaims: "I know who said that; it sounds just like him; only one person thinks like that." Friendship, society on earth, the best thing here, 157 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION is the beginning and promise of friendship, of society eternal. Belief that the person is immortal may seem to have been lost, yet it is in the background of the mind, and cannot be banished. A writer on ethics thus expresses it: And then never can the individual lose the inde- feasible claim that Immortality has symbolized for mankind. Men and women may refuse to regard them- selves as heirs of immortality, but they can neither abdicate nor refuse to concede the claims which only began to exist with that high anticipation. The words "for ever," uttered by lips on which they were a hope or a fear, do not lose their meaning as they fall on ears which receive them as a mere fiction. Those who deny must explain them, and whatever the explanation, it must involve a consciousness in man were he cut off from all political grouping, were he alone in Juan Fernandez, never expecting to look on the face of a fellow man again of something that seems eternal. The eternal can never be subordinated to the perish- able even though eternity be but a hope, and the transient far outlast the span of man's sojourn on earth. The questions that concern the being in whom an infinite hope has arisen can never again be subor- dinated to those which concern the framework of his life in this world, however inferior be the span of his own life here, and however faint and dim the hope of any other. 1 1 Julia Wedgwood, The Moral Ideal, p. 391. 158 ETERNAL LIFE Self -consciousness, the consciousness of self, the I, the person, is the reason of immortality. A person, I have said, cannot think of himself as ceasing to exist. An old person is not always, or often, thinking of death. A man seventy years old knows that in thirty years, very probably in ten years, he will be dead, but death is as remote, as unreal to him as to a youth. He has no less an interest in life than the youngest, is as eager doing things. Even if one is stricken with a fatal dis- ease, I suppose it is not real to him that his exist- ence is to end. It may seem to us that others cease to exist, but no one can make himself realize that he will not be. This going right on, no matter how old one is, with undiminished absorption in this life, is possible and actual because we know ourselves the undying. We do not think much about it, but we proceed upon it, this con- viction, this subconsciousness. If a person had really reasoned himself into the opinion that death ends all, his maxim must be: "Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die; let us have pleasur- able sensations, physical enjoyment; let us make no firm friends, for we shall lose them; let us lead a selfish life." It follows that immortality is continuity of life, 159 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION not merely continuity of existence. It is not a time-measure, a present life, a future life, or time and eternity; but is an absolute value, an eternal good which is not of time-measure or space-measure, but is imperishable. Eternal life is now. Jesus makes scarcely any distinction be- tween now and hereafter, nor do the writers of the New Testament. In his conversation with a woman whose brother had died four days before, he said: "Thy brother shall rise again." Yes, "I know," she said, " I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day " a remote event, afar off; little comfort in that; meantime, my brother is gone. Jesus said unto her: "I am the resurrection and the life." I, the person you are talking with, I am the life and so the resurrec- tion: then, to explain: "He that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live " ; and again, so that she might understand: "Whosoever liv- eth and believeth in me shall never die." There is no death of the soul. The person, your brother, exists, the very same character. He uses the pres- ent tense of that which has the quality of eternal, emphatically: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my voice and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come 160 ETERNAL LIFE into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." The real death is sin, the person going wrong, the degeneration and dissolution of char- acter. The mystical Apostle wrote: "Now are we chil- dren of God." That is the whole of it. "Now are we children of God, and it is not yet made mani- fest what we shall be ; we know that if it were mani- fested (or when it is manifested) we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And he that hath this hope in Him, purifieth himself even as He is pure." The scene will change, not the eternal truths of God, of character, of friendship. On a far shore the land swam from my sight, But I could see familiar native stars; My home was shut from me by ocean bars, Yet home hung there above me in the night. Unchanged fell down on me Orion's light, As always Venus rose, and fiery Mars; My own the Pleiads yet, and without jars In wonted tones sang all the heavenly light. So when in death from underneath my feet Rolls the round world, I then shall see the sky Of God's truths burning yet familiarly; My native constellations I shall greet; I lose the outer, not the inner eye, The landscape, not the soul's stars, when I die. 161 , A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION Christianity, by its doctrine of eternal life, recognizes the absolute worth of personality. This, which has been made a reproach against Christianity, is really its strength and glory. Practicality says that the Gospel, in seeking the future salvation of the individual, neglects his present welfare and neglects the welfare of so- ciety. But the Gospel, procuring the everlasting salvation of the individual, best advances his wel- fare and the social wellbeing, for it thus declares the worth, the absolute worth of the individual. Absolute worth is the very core of the doctrine of eternal life. Even when the representations of a future life are physical rather than spiritual, and when salvation is thought of chiefly as rescue from remote dangers, yet the belief that man is immortal is made distinct, and this is belief in his imperishable worth. To take time as the measure of salvation, so that duration is the principal thing, is, to be sure, to estimate salvation improp- erly; but even so there is recognition of the abso- lute, undying worth of the soul. To picture heaven as consisting of desirable outward conditions is, undoubtedly, to take a low view of man's destiny; but it is not forgotten that, in some sense, worth of character is the indispensable condition of gain- 162 ETERNAL LIFE ing heaven. Besides, whatever may have been true in the past, salvation is now almost invari- ably represented as a spiritual character which outlasts death, rather than as a state of material delights. A Christian does not look forward to a Mohammedan heaven. Dante's representations of the life beyond are permanent in literature be- cause they match outward conditions with inner character. Christianity raises the estimate of man's needs far above his outward circumstances and his mere happiness. It makes man realize that he is not the creature of a day but has a life which is im- mortal. It tells man that he has a soul. Although that word "soul" is often used vaguely, it is well that it has not been relinquished, for it is always understood, even by the illiterate, to mean that man has spiritual and immortal worth. The philos- opher Lotze could find no better word to employ as an exact designation of the rational and spirit- ual faculties of man. At the very first, when the oppressed slave was pointed to the future freedom of heaven, there was more than the removal of discontent. The worth of the slave as a man with a soul was emphasized, a soul for which Christ died. Belief in the immortal worth of every 163 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION human being reduced infanticide, abortion, and suicide in the early centuries of the Christian era. The idea that those who died unbaptized were ex- posed to eternal damnation invested infanticide with peculiar horror. Regard for the sanctity of human life is due in large part to the Christian belief in immortality. Mr. Lecky says: This minute and scrupulous care for human life and human virtue in the humblest forms, in the slave, the gladiator, the savage, or the infant, was indeed wholly foreign to the genius of Paganism. It was produced by the Christian doctrine of the inestimable value of each immortal soul. It is the distinguishing and tran- scendent character of every society into which the spirit of Christianity has passed. 1 In the last century this earthly life was regarded as a probation on which hung the issues of life and death. Men will be judged at the last great day according to the deeds done in the body. Those who had believed on Christ, who had been regen- erated, would go away into life eternal; those who had rejected Christ, into everlasting punishment. This life on earth is the time when men can be saved. Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. There might be death-bed repent- 1 W. E. H. Lecky, History of European Morals, vol. II, p. 34. 164 ETERNAL LIFE ance, though it is better to repent when one is in strength and health; but death ends probation. The thought that this life is decisive of eternal destiny was not merely a conjecture; it was an influential motive. If a man who had given no evidence of conversion, who was not a member of the church, died, there was a feeling of uncer- tainty about his fate, and conscientious ministers at the funeral, however reputable the man may have been, were apt to be chary of eulogistic ob- servation; did not speak confidently of his reward in heaven. I believe that there was a pretty large charity, that something exceptional of good was found in every case, so that, although there had been no profession of religion, the person was thought to be more or less Christian. I believe also that no one, however bad, was consigned to hell by those who knew him, for some good could be remembered, and "God knows the heart." No one ever believed his own child was in hell. Any one who was a church member, or who re- garded himself as a Christian, went immediately to heaven; there was no doubt about it. At all events, this life was regarded as decisive of des- tiny, as a probation. It is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment. How 165 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION real and distinct a future life was! How vivid heaven and hell! How inexpressibly urgent the call to repentance and faith! About thirty years ago a curious controversy arose, as to the decisiveness of this life. It led to the trial of five professors in the Theological Sem- inary at Andover, Massachusetts, who, it was alleged, taught that those who had not heard of Christ in this life, the heathen, the generations before Christ, might, after death, have knowledge of Him and repent and be saved. A foreign mis- sionary society refused for several years to appoint as missionaries young men who thought it pos- sible that those who did not have the Gospel in this life might, after death, have opportunity to believe on Christ, or who went no further than saying that they did not know the fate of the heathen. The accused professors argued from the univer- sality of the Gospel. Christ died for all men, and since none can be saved except they believe on Christ, it would seem that all men will have the opportunity of knowing Christ; that if there are any, and there are certainly many, who do not know Him in this life, they will know Him in the intermediate state, before the day of judgment. 166 ETERNAL LIFE It was thought that Scripture lends itself to such a hope, for an apostle says that Christ, "having been put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit, went and preached unto the spirits in prison which aforetime were disobedient in the time of Noah"; and again says, "For unto this end was the gospel preached even to the dead"; and the most ancient creed of the Church says, that Christ crucified, dead and buried, descended into Hades, the abode of departed spirits. The accusers said that Scripture is emphatic on the decisiveness of this life, since it affirms that men shall be judged according to the deeds done in the body; that now is the day of salvation; and said that the passages in Peter are obscure. They also declared that the "nerve of missions " would be cut, if it were supposed that the heathen would have opportunity of salvation after death; that is, that the motive of missions is the fact that the heathen are going down to perdition. Other charges were brought, as that the pro- fessors taught that there are imperfections in the Bible; but the gravamen of the accusation was that these teachers believed and taught that there may be a second probation, and that such an opinion is very dangerous, that men 167 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION will postpone repentance to a more convenient season. The Board of Visitors of the Seminary, before whom the professors were tried, removed one of them from office, acquitting four, although the evidence was the same for all; the case was car- ried to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts; the decision of the Visitors against the removed pro- fessor was declared invalid, on the ground that the other Board of the Seminary, the Trustees, were not made a party in the trial. It is not yet twenty-five years since the verdict was given, yet it is rather difficult now to realize what it was all about. It shows, however, how real the unseen world was, how intimately related the realms of light and darkness were to this world in the thought of men. We do not now profess so intimate knowledge of the unseen world, nor affirm positively that this life determines the life to come. We do not specu- late about it; we refuse to believe that all who have not consciously accepted Christ, those cut off in youth, those who grew up in vicious surroundings, those who never heard of Christ, are doomed to eternal woe. The mercy of the Lord is from ever- lasting to everlasting. And now a very orthodox 168 ETERNAL LIFE writer says, in a book published by the American Tract Society which is most evangelical, and no one protests : We repeat with all sacred emphasis the words, "the gospel was preached even to the dead." We note the instance that is given, the spirits in prison, which afore- time were disobedient in the time of Noah, that is, the spirits of those who perished in the Flood. We must not dogmatize, we need not vainly guess ; but we may reverently affirm that the Son of man is capable of reaching and influencing the souls of men on yon side of the veil, as well as on this; and that in a degree and by means infinitely beyond anything that science or faith can either dream or discover. The same writer says: The horrible invention of a purgatory, from which man's enlightened conscience revolts, and which the Word of God makes absolutely incredible, has pro- duced a violent reaction in modern minds, whereby even the idea of Hades the Scriptural idea of an intermediate state, where departed spirits await the resurrection of their bodies is rudely blotted out, and so one of the grandest and one of the most fruitful periods of man's education for eternity is an utter blank in the minds of most of us. But we refuse to be robbed of what the Holy Ghost saith; whether by the abuses of Roman excess or by the violence of Protes- tant reaction. We hold to the teaching of Holy Scrip- ture whatever may be the peril to a narrow and 169 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION sectarian type of orthodoxy. There is no purgatory, but there is an intermediate state. And the only glimpse we get into that world unseen (Hades), reveals to us the spirit of Jesus proclaiming his gospel unto the dead. Here let our authoritative teaching regarding the matter begin and end, flooding all the world of Hades with the light of the Saviour's presence and the music of his blessed voice. 1 I think all will agree that everlasting punish- ment is seldom, if ever, mentioned in the pulpit now; that the word "hell" seldom crosses the lips of any preacher. While it is believed that a man may be morally ruined, the conception is rather of character debased, degenerated beyond hope of recovery, than of acute physical suffering. The fire that is not quenched, the worm that dieth not, are, it is thought, figures of corrosion and decay. The lake that burneth with fire and brimstone for ever and ever is symbolic of lost souls consumed with remorse. There is nothing more dreadful than a ruined soul, a hardened heart. Character is fixed by purposes, and it may be that after a time it cannot be changed. Judgment is upon character; heaven is good character, Christ-like character; hell is bad character, selfish, grasping, unsympa- 1 James Paton, The Glory and Joy of the Resurrection, pp. 199, 200. 170 ETERNAL LIFE thetic character. Such is the representation Jesus himself makes : Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world : For I was an hungered and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came unto me. . . . Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Those that are condemned had not done these things. There is a pictorial representation of the judgment in the last book of the Bible: "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God : and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life." Judgment of the individual is here represented as according to the record of the book of life, the book of his life. Of course there is no record in a book; yet there is a book in which all is recorded, and that is the life itself. There is self-registration. Every act reacts on the person, makes a tracing there. Jesus said that every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment, meaning, not that one will be pun- 171 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION ished for every idle word, but that the person is not the same as he would be if he had not thought and spoken it. It leaves its little infinitesimal mark on the speaker. The speech is the man. How well he expresses himself, we say. The imag- inings of the heart, the ambitions of the mind, achievements, experiences, automatically react, and are registered in the fiber, the tone, the de- velopment of the person. Even the face tells what the man is: coarseness shows in the face, and sensuousness, and refine- ment, and kindness. St. Chrysostom said of Bishop Flavian, "The countenance of the holy man is full of spiritual power. " Lord Bacon said : "God did inspire the countenance of man with intellectual light. " The Apostle said of the good men and women he had brought into the way of life: "Ye are our epistles, known and read of all men." The light of the knowledge of the glory of God was in the face of Jesus Christ. The word "character" means that which is inscribed, or en- graved, or written. Salvation, translated, is char- acter, and condemnation, translated, is character. Judgment is upon character, which can be read like the open page of a book. While hell is not mentioned now, except as a spe- 172 ETERNAL LIFE cies of profanity, certainly not with the thought of a place of everlasting physical torment, yet that which hell signifies, the ruin of a soul, is not denied, is in the background of the significance of redemption. Hell was so visualized for centuries that its peculiar, drastic quality expresses, as no other word can express, certain unhappy condi- tions here, as when one says his home is a hell on earth, or, war is hell. Some persons have thought that life and death, eternal life and eternal death, are to be regarded literally : that those who are not redeemed, have not the Christ-like character, perish, are no more, death ending all, and that this is what is meant by the second death. This belief is called conditional immortality, and has had many advocates. Im- mortality can be won. It is conditioned on char- acter, and those who are called the wicked do not have immortality. This notion or doctrine has never been regarded as heretical ; no one has been prosecuted or persecuted for maintaining it. In every age of the Christian era it has been held. It distinctly implies the possible ruin of a soul; it is not the doctrine of universal salvation; and it relieves certain difficulties, especially the difficulty of believing that human beings suffer and suffer 173 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION and suffer for ever and for ever. There are diffi- culties on the other side, for since the basis of be- lief in immortality is personality, the rational, self-conscious person, who, as such, survives phys- ical death, it may be doubted whether man, even if perverse, can cease to exist with the death of the body. If the constitution of man, an intel- lectual, spiritual being, makes him immortal, moral perversity does not change his constitution to make him a merely physical being. I suppose also, as with belief in hell, that no one in particu- lar is consigned to non-existence by those that knew him, for there is some good in every one, and "God knows the heart." It is argued that condi- tional immortality furnishes a motive of great urgency, the winning of immortality. This, how- ever, is an opinion that affords relief and still main- tains the necessity of renewal, of regeneration, in order to have eternal life. A substitute for personal immortality has been suggested, namely, corporate immortality, which is influence that continues when one is dead. That, in a certain way, is immortality, for it goes on and on from generation to generation. A poem by George Eliot was very familiar twenty-five years ago, beginning thus: 174 ETERNAL LIFE Oh may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence, and ending: May I reach That purest heaven, be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardour, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty By the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense. So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world. No one could take the slightest exception to this, for every one desires that his memory may be blessed; but we cannot be satisfied to think that is all the immortality there is. We know that the dead are soon forgotten, that a few great names live, while the multitudes are remembered scarcely a year. The human race, to be sure, is immortal, or at any rate long-lived. It is repro- ductive, and heredity transmits characteristics. One generation goeth and another cometh; the coming generation proceeding from the old. The race is in the individual. He had father and mother, ancestors, and not merely by instruction and influence, but by blood, they are in him. So every one in the line of generation, of heredity is 175 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION continued, but this is not personal immortality. And the value of influence on those who are yet to be, the reason for desiring that sort of perpetu- ation, to have made the world better for having lived in it, is ultimately the undying worth, the eternal quality of the good. Thus this very poem of living again in minds made better by our pres- ence explains that it is to live In pulses stirred by generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars And with their mild persistence urge man's search To vaster issues; and again : And all our rarer, better, truer self, That sobbed religiously in yearning song, That watched to ease the burthen of the world, Laboriously tracing what must be, And what may yet be better saw within A worthier image for the sanctuary, And shaped it forth before the multitude Divinely human, raising worship so To higher reverence more mixed with love That better self shall live till human Time Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb Unread for ever. That is, one cannot get away from the divinely 176 ETERNAL LIFE human, religious aspiration, the supreme value of personality, the thought of vaster issues than mis- erable aims that end with self. My influence, shap- ing the life of others, has in view the values that constitute man immortal. And the thought of im- mortality cannot be banished, but persists in one form or another, even if it be in so attenuated a form as influence on others. Corporate immor- tality, as the only immortality, is not much de- bated now, though we believe in it and delight in it, have pride in the family, backwards to ancestry, forwards to descendants; even as the Scripture saith, the promise is to children's chil- dren, to a thousand generations. A rather bold writer, thinking of past generations of faithful, noble men, links them to the present, which sur- passes them in knowledge of the truth, saying that not only do they help us, but also that we help them; that "apart from us they should not be made perfect." The Jews at the time of Christ believed in the resurrection of the body, except the sect of Sad- ducees, who said there is no resurrection. For several centuries of the Christian era it was the common belief. The earlier creeds affirmed it in so many words: "I believe in the resurrection of 177 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION the body and the life everlasting." The Apostle Paul disclaimed it, and called that man a fool, a foolish one, who supposed that this very body of flesh and blood will be raised up. It is not a phys- ical body, a natural body, that will be raised, he says, but a spiritual body. There are celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial : but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heav- enly. I suppose nobody now believes in the lit- eral resurrection of the body. When we repeat the phrase in the Apostles' Creed we think of that for which it stands and which immediately follows, the life everlasting. We do not think or talk much of the future life, or picture it, though we know ourselves the undying. The best preparation for it is complete absorption in Christian service, through faithful- ness in occupations and friendships. Occasions arise when death is thought of, as in bereavement or at Easter, and then we face it and question it to find it a friend not an enemy, and so return to the blessed activities of home and affairs, with the old dread no longer in our hearts, saying, per- haps, with Rabbi Ben Ezra: 178 ETERNAL LIFE Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith, "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!" So, take and use Thy work: Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o ' the stuff, what warpings past the aim ! My times be in Thy hand Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same! Another Rabbi said: Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us ; and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands, establish thou it. CHAPTER IX THE KINGDOM OF GOD PROTESTANT theology, down to recent years, em- phasized the individual. All centered on personal salvation. Justification by faith, by faith alone, was the dominating note of theology. All the way on, and well into the last century, this opinion was commonly held. There were some qualifica- tions of this individualistic view, which will be noticed later, but now, in order to mark a contrast, I note the emphasis laid on personal salvation. Take any of the Protestant creeds which were accepted for three centuries, and observe that article after article, once the doctrine of the Trin- ity is stated, has to do with the individual, with his sin, his repentance, his faith, his reward, his punishment, and that there is scarcely a hint of anything else. A contrast almost startling is observed when we turn to the last half century. It is within fifty years that this mighty change, or extension of belief, has come about. The new thought is of the 180 THE KINGDOM OF GOD Kingdom of God on earth, of the Christian society. Could there be a vaster change than that from the salvation of the individual, whether to heaven or from hell, but the salvation of the individual, from that to the kingdom of God on earth? Yet such a change, speaking largely, has occurred. The individual is saved, it is true, but he is saved by entering into the kingdom of God. The Son of man came at first preaching the kingdom; He has come again preaching the kingdom. The Church is now dominated by this idea. The children of God are a society beautifying the earth with right- eousness and love. The interest, now, of all this is, not so much that the idea is true, as that it is prevalent, is domesticated, is universally accepted, is everybody's way of thinking. We can see our fathers, or at any rate our grandfathers, following the pilgrim's progress, fleeing the world, making hairbreadth escapes from ruin, and plodding, most of the way alone, to the celestial city. But now, while there may be tumultuous experience in pass- ing from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, yet it is into a kingdom on earth, a re- newed society, a city come down out of heaven from God, in which we live and work and 1 love and worship. The Gospel of the kingdom on earth 181 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION is the latest, the newest, the oldest, the truest gospel. The kingdom of God signifies the brotherhood of men, a society wherein dwelleth righteousness. Jesus employed the word because there was no other form of government then. The kingdoms of this world were the only type of national cohesion. There were no republics of this world, no democ- racies of this world; everywhere kingdoms of this world, a sovereign and subjects. How frequently Jesus used the figure of a kingdom as that which He came to establish, illustrating, explaining, lay- ing down the laws of the kindgom. The first beatitude runs: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The para- bles show what the kingdom is. This kingdom of God, this kingdom of heaven, of which you are always speaking, what is it? what do you mean? Why, it is like many seeds a man sows which spring up and bear fruit; like a single seed, the least there is, say a mustard seed, which becomes a great tree; like yeast a woman puts in meal to leaven bread; like treasure hid in a field, to get which a man will sell all he has; or like a pearl of great price; it is like the fruits of the earth, like bread, like the most valuable possession; it is 182 THE KINGDOM OF GOD human society permeated by righteousness and love. The first petition of the Lord's Prayer is: "Thy kingdom come." The comprehensive in- junction of the Sermon on the Mount is: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." In answer to the question of Pilate, "Art Thou a king, then?" Jesus says: "Yes, of the kingdom of truth." The inscription Pilate caused to be placed upon the cross shows that Jesus had constantly been pro- claiming a kingdom that He expected to establish. Jesus took the idea from Jewish thought, to which the kingdom was a cherished expectation: " They shall be to me a people and I will be to them a God." Their union lay, not in themselves, but in God whose servants and subjects they were. The kingdom was thought of, by some at least, as a spiritual kingdom. Not only would there be bountiful harvests with rich increase of wine and oil, but there would be equity, righteousness, peace, and justice to the needy and him that hath no helper. The prophets were not without the belief that other nations might share the privi- leges of the kingdom of God. The popular con- ception, however, was of a national kingdom. The popular conception, also, was material and political, rather than spiritual. 183 Jesus took up this familiar idea and spiritu- alized it. The external form and limit passed away. The kingdom was to be universal, not national; spiritual, not political. Yes, He said, the kingdom of God is coming indeed, but not with pomp and observation. The haughty Phar- isee who fancied he would have a high place in the kingdom, had not even entered it; indeed, he did not see it. Unless ye become as little children, ye do not so much as see God's kingdom; but any one who became as a little child was of and in the kingdom. " Suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." What is the kingdom of heaven? He called to him a little child that stood near its mother, placed him in the midst of them and said: "That is the kingdom of heaven"; trust, obedience, purity, love. The fre- quent declaration, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand," means that the kingdom so long expected has come at last. But it is not in any particular place as when men say, Lo, here, and Lo, there, out in the desert, away from the haunts of men; nor in the city where men do congregate; nor even in the sacred city whither the tribes go up. The kingdom of God is within you and among you. Jesus took a familiar conception which had been 184 THE KINGDOM OF GOD empty and filled it with moral and spiritual reality. He did not set up society against the individual. There was no need of that, for the corporate life was already of more importance than the indi- vidual. He taught that the kingdom is a society of holy individuals, of right persons ; that men and women must be of a certain character in order to see the kingdom at all. In extent, the kingdom is universal. Its lines are not drawn anywhere inside humanity so that any class or people is excluded. Declarations of universality were deeply impressed on the minds of the disciples, and by them repeated, such as: "And they shall come from the east and west and from the north and south and shall sit down in the kingdom of God." "The publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you." "Go ye and make disciples of the nations." "The field is the world." His frequent designation of him- self as the Son of Man rather than the son of Abraham or the son of David, implies the univer- sality of the kingdom, the kingdom of man, of humanity. The kingdom of God is the restoration of the moral order in society and not merely the rescue of the individual, his deliverance from an evil 185 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION world. It is the man in social institutions, living and toiling for their betterment. The moral order means to-day, as it has always meant, the person in society, and that is in part the modern state, which is a moral institution, the institute of jus- tice, aiming to give to every man his right, that he may realize his true worth in cooperation with others. Democracy is government, of, by, and for the people, in which each has his own rights through respecting the rights of others, for we are members one of another. So politics is part of religion, the kingdom of God is good citizenship, the Christian has a civic conscience. The moral order is international, a union of states, each main- taining the rights of its own citizens, according to the national type, each recognizing the functions of every other state in world-progress, each sus- taining amicable relations to every other. The moral order includes the family within the state, each existing for and by means of the other. In the family the strong serve the weak; there is re- spect, kindness, sympathy, self-sacrifice. It is the institute of love. The moral order includes equit- able economics: to every man his due; to every man that honestly works, the subsistence by means of which he may obtain and enjoy the higher 186 THE KINGDOM OF GOD values of life. The moral order includes the school ; that each generation may possess the intellectual and moral values gained by its predecessors. The moral order is no longer monastic. The modern world and the modern church have spurned that idea, knowing that the kingdom of God is not in the wilderness but in the community, not in the cloister but in the city, not in the retreat but in the market-place, not in celibacy but in the family. The kingdom of God is in the state, the home, the church, in the farm, the shop, the school. This, I say, is the modern idea of Christianity, and quite distinctly the recent, or the recovered, idea. The kingdom of God was revealed in the past when Christ and the apostles spoke immortal words and the church was organized; but it is a church that has been out in the world ever since, at times almost losing sight of the kingdom in lay- ing stress on the salvation of the individual; yet to some degree elevating society, and knowing God's purpose better as his kingdom keeps com- ing in the exaltation of personality and the puri- fying of social institutions. We seem to be at the beginnings as truly as the fresh young church was, and we are peering into the future as eagerly. We do not stand by and observe social movements, 187 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION social evolution, as one observes a panorama, painted and moved by another hand, but we are actors in this drama, actors not puppets, actors who know our parts, and know the significance of the drama. We are led one step further in our comparison; knowledge of man in his nature, his works, and his ways, is knowledge of man in society, of man as a social being. The old philosophy and even the old ethics presented the individual, but now phi- losophy and ethics, as well as history and eco- nomics, are social. The newest science is social science, sociology; tribes, peoples, nations, fam- ilies, the class, the state, the school, the church, constitute humanity. The absorbing studies of scholars are anthropology, ethnology, philosophy, ethics, history, literature, and religion, studies of man in society. In the college is a mighty impulse toward social service. The idea of religion is the idea of service. The university settlement is one expression of it; training for intelligent citizenship is another expression. The American college has always stood for the preparation of young men for great service in the world. Some educated men are selfish, but a broad education is always understood to be not for personal culture merely, 188 THE KINGDOM OF GOD but to make teachers, leaders, ministers, in society. Now it is not literally true that a century ago and later the individual, religiously considered, was in isolation; that as the subject of redemption he stood alone; that, as being saved, he was in no relation with others; that religion was regarded as an affair between the soul and God alone. There was the church, the company of believers, who joined in a common worship. And there was an enormous interest that other individuals should be converted; sons and daughters, friends, neigh- bors. In revivals the whole community was gath- ered together in one place, and that mysterious thrill of multitude was evoked when a speaker swayed great audiences with an enthusiasm that was contagious. Puritans and Pilgrims in America, at the first, wished to have a religious common- wealth. In the Massachusetts Colony, church members only were freemen, that is, voters, and in the Plymouth Colony, while the conditions of the franchise were not so prescribed, yet church members were most readily approved. The Com- missioners, eight in number, of the Confederation entered into in 1643 by Massachusetts, Connec- ticut, New Haven, and Plymouth, were appointed 189 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION by the General Court. The Commissioners fixed the boundaries of the several colonies, settled dis- putes with the Dutch in New York on the west, with the French on the east, and with the native tribes. They had various political functions, were representatives of the General Court, yet they also seemed to have felt responsible for the moral tone of the colonies, the orthodoxy of the churches, the support of the minister. In 1644 they issued orders for the maintenance of ministers, payment from unwilling members to be exacted by the civil power. A century later, it was suggested that the Elders should publish a confession of doctrine, which might confirm the weak, and stop the mouths of adversaries abroad. The several colonies were exhorted to keep a watch at the door of God's house that none might enter but such as had an effectual calling and were at union with Christ through their covenant; and that only such mem- bers and their immediate seed should receive the privilege of baptism. At the same time the Com- missioners urged that steps should be taken against oppression, either in commodities or wages, against excess and disorder in apparel, and indul- gence in drink. 1 In fact, in Massachusetts, as late 1 Winnifred Cockshott, The Pilgrim Fathers, p, 307. 190 THE KINGDOM OF GOD as 1811, citizens were taxed for the maintenance of the church. It may well be admitted that the Pilgrims laid the foundation of democracy, infus- ing religion into its workings. The Rhode Island Colony was a democracy ; the franchise not limited to church members; "It was further ordered that none be accounted a delinquent for doctrine." When the colonies united after the Revolution their Consitution provided for the separation of Church and State. Americans have always been keen politicians. Read a political history of the United States, of parties, of measures, of issues, and see how tremen- dously absorbed the people have been . A foreigner visiting here said when he was presented to the President: "Your country seems to be on the eve of a crisis." " This country," was the reply, " is al- ways on the eve of a crisis." Yet it was not dis- tinctly in the minds of most people that religion has anything to do with politics; that a democracy of right and justice is so far forth the kingdom of God. Slavery was a moral issue. It was a blot on Christian civilization. For forty years or more it clouded the political horizon. Here, indeed, reli- gion was a factor. Ministers in many localities 191 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION preached against it, although some were silent, or, in the South, and even in the North, defended it on scriptural grounds. It was in a profoundly re- ligious spirit that Lincoln spoke the few memor- able words of the Gettysburg Address. There was some opposition a century ago to foreign missions, hardly in keeping with the Chris- tian expectation of the kingdom of God on earth. Three young men, students in Andover Theological Seminary, offered in 1810 to go out as mission- aries to India; a society was organized and they were sent, but there was objection on the part of many ministers. There was difficulty in obtaining a charter from the Legislature of Massachusetts. In the debate one member said that religion is a commodity such that the more you give away the more you have. At first and for a time, the mo- tive of missions was to save the heathen from per- dition. It was said that so many thousands every year were going down to everlasting death. The stress of mission work was evangelical preaching. But now education is about as important as preaching. Schools, and even colleges, are estab- lished. Christianizing is civilizing. Something had been done, or attempted, in this country in the way of evangelizing, first with the Indians, 192 THE KINGDOM OF GOD and then, as people migrated westward, on the frontiers. We have passed from a rather limited concep- tion of the kingdom to a broader conception. We see it in the great variety of institutions: the church, the home, the school, the state. The com- plete ideal is a society of renewed persons, a king- dom of related personalities, each of whom is dis- tinct in his own value. In a general comparison, we may say that stress in religion was laid on the individual, and his salvation, and that now the ideal of the kingdom is regained, with no ignoring of the fact that a renewed humanity is renewed persons. CHAPTER X THE CHURCH: WORSHIP AND PREACHING THE church is a social institution. It has been aptly called the institute of humanity. It is not the kingdom of God, but one of the organs of the kingdom of God. The kingdom comes in all puri- fication of life and progress of society, in business, culture, art, civilization, in the family, and in the state. The church is the organ which most directly promotes that kingdom, as having to do with the worship of God and the service of humanity. In principle the church is universal. It is not limited by nationality, race, or class. Any partic- ular branch of the church, even if it is a national church, is in principle cosmopolitan in its mem- bership. Every church may, and, under some cir- cumstances, should, receive to its communion a person of any nationality. Congress may forbid the immigration of Chinese, but there would be universal consternation if, by act of Congress, churches were forbidden to receive a Chinaman to membership. The early church, from the first 194 THE CHURCH: WORSHIP AND PREACHING moment, was universal. It included Gentiles and Jews, women and men, slaves and masters. How- ever narrow the church may have been in practice at times, it has always in theory been cosmopoli- tan. Without the actual church as a living embod- iment of the universal society, the ideal of that society might have faded from men's minds. The church, perpetuated through the centuries of des- potism, of feudalism, of national wars, of politi- cal revolutions, has been a silent, or indignant, pro test against the antagonism of races and classes. In the darkest days of its corruption it has been a humane institution, and has been self-reforming, by virtue of its own principle of universal brother- hood. Every local church has the world for its field, and, even if it is not actually gospeling in every land, has vital concern in the universal ex- tension of Christianity, praying for the world and giving its mite for the furtherance of the gospel. Foreign missions are a standing reminder that Christianity is the religion of humanity. The Christian Church is the best ally, as it was the precursor, of democracy. The early church was the first international institute. Religion, from primitive times the protector of the stranger, the market-place, the truce, is the forerunner 195 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION of international law; because it alone can create the international spirit, the international obligation; it alone can permanently sustain and ensure that spirit. 1 The church of to-day recognizes more distinctly than ever before that it has a world-mission, and gives service and the means of service gener- ously to all kinds of effort for human betterment. At times the church has sought its own growth and power, its own magnificence and glory, has been an end to itself, but now the church knows itself a missionary. The distinctive functions of the church are worship and preaching. In respect to these func- tions, a comparison of former times with the pres- ent time may be made. Worship is the most significant expression of religious belief. Prayer and praise voice the com- mon faith. In worship, theology, that is, what men and women believe, is concrete. A history of worship would be a history of the faiths of suc- cessive generations. Changes of religious belief find expression in worship. A ritual unchanged for hundreds of years may seem in form and phrase- ology to preserve the ancient faith intact, yet it is interpreted spiritually to express the living 1 Hocking, The Meaning of God in Human Experience, p. 521. 196 THE CHURCH: WORSHIP AND PREACHING faith of the time, and is supplemented by modern hymns of prayer and adoration. The worship of the American churches, from the time of the Pilgrims to the nineteenth century, was almost entirely embodied in prayer. There was little singing, as we shall see. The minister prayed and the people listened. Prayer was not prescribed but extemporaneous. In the earlier times, a prayer half an hour long was not uncom- mon. One writer says: "These long prayers were universal and most highly esteemed, a poor gift in prayer being a most deplored, and even de- spised, clerical shortcoming. Had not the Puritans left the Church of England to escape * stinted prayers'? Everywhere in the Puritan church pre- catory eloquence as evinced in long prayers was felt to be the greatest glory of the minister and the highest tribute to God." Nor were prayers want- ing in breadth and depth. Since prayers were not written, there are no records of them, yet we know what they were : adoration, thanksgiving, confes- sion, petition. As time passed, prayers were shorter but no less devout. The attitude was rev- erence toward Almighty God, the people standing. In Connecticut, the Congregationalists were known as the "standing order," in distinction, 197 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION perhaps, from the Episcopalians, who knelt. Later, many remained seated, bowing the head and clos- ing the eyes, though until a comparatively recent time, the men stood. I can remember, in my boy- hood, most of the men standing during the long prayer, myself with pride by the side of my father while the rest of the family remained sitting. The attitude, I say, was reverence towards Almighty God. In the prayer, the attributes of God were mentioned. He was regarded as a sovereign, om- nipotent and holy, before whom the angels veil their faces, and cry, "Holy, Holy, Holy." The sovereignty of God redeeming men from sin by the death of Christ was the principal note of thanksgiving. Confession dwelt upon the sinful- ness, the worthlessness, of man. The more pious a man was, the more he bewailed his sins. When the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, of Haw- thorne's "Scarlet Letter," in public prayer partic- ularized his own actual transgression in concrete terms, the people thought it symbolic and said, What a holy man he is. There is, indeed, a saying that the holiest men are the most penitent, have the deepest conviction of sin. Sinners and everybody knew who the sinners were, the uncon- verted were explicitly and pointedly prayed 198 THE CHURCH: WORSHIP AND PREACHING for. There was little sympathy or tenderness in prayer, but there was a stern and noble reverence. At the present time, the prayers offered in public worship are expressive of faith, of grati- tude, and of aspiration. The minister voices the thoughts and desires of the silent, reverent con- gregation, either in his own words, or in prayers which have been repeated for centuries, while everywhere the Lord's Prayer is said by the con- gregation. The prayers of our time are uplifting. We find ourselves in the presence of the holy, lov- ing God, our Father, with whom in simple trust we commune. Detached from fragmentary, nar- row thoughts, prayer attaches the wholeness of life to God. The true perspective is gained, the great is distinguished from the little, the soul is poised. Prayer ascribes to our Heavenly Father the blessings, the real values, of life, and is thank- ful. Prayer is sympathetic with the troubles, the struggles, the sorrows of human life, which it carries to God in faith and hope. Prayer gains a world-wide vision, making mention of home, com- munity, nation, the church, of all sorts and con- ditions of men. Public worship is unifying. It draws people to- gether, it deepens the sense of fellowship, of sym- 199 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION pathy, of the oneness of the human race as chil- dren of God. " Worship is imperfect unless when I worship, I am joining the race in worship. Insti- tuted religion has accordingly made worship pub- lic; at its best, it does much to join the minds of all sorts and conditions of men in worship, of all present human worshippers, and with those of the past and of the future." 1 Public prayer to-day is satisfying. It is marked by simplicity, reverence, sympathy, and compre- hensiveness. Music has always been a significant part of wor- ship. It seems to be indispensable. People of every religion express their faith in songs and chants. The Hebrews, at all religious ceremonies, sang the songs of the Lord, and exclaimed in their captivity, How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? Paul exhorted Christians to speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, "singing and making melody in your hearts unto the Lord." In the American churches, until a comparatively recent time, the worship of song was very meager. There were some attempts at singing. Psalms versified and psalms only were sung. Various books of psalm- 1 Hocking, The Meaning of God in Human Experience, p. 522. 200 THE CHURCH: WORSHIP AND PREACHING ody, some with, some without, music were used: Ains worth's brought overfrom Holland; the "Bay Psalm Book," printed by the Colony at Massachu- setts Bay and used for a century; Sternhold and Hopkins, Tate and Brady, all of them versions of the psalms. Some churches would not even have the singing of the psalms, thinking it a sin to set the inspired words to music. The twistings and turnings resorted to in putting the prose version of the Bible into rhyme must have made even the Puritans smile. There were not more than a dozen tunes, which were sung over and over, only three or four surviving, as "York," "Dundee," and "Old Hundred." The psalm was lined out by the deacon or minister, since many had no books and some could not read; a line read, then sung, the next line read and sung, and so on to the end. Later, there were choirs, some one with a pitch- pipe or with a tuning-fork setting the key, all the choir sounding the note, and then singing. Then came musical instruments, the bass viol, the clar- ionet, the violin, the flute. How well I remember, as the congregation faced around toward the choir in the gallery opposite the pulpit, watching the curved top of the bass viol swaying back and forth as melody was drawn out of it. Last of all 201 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION came the organ, first in the Episcopal churches, then in the non-liturgical churches, but they were not installed in all churches till well on in the nine- teenth century. There was opposition to every change; opposition to singing at all; to singing right along, and not by lining out; to choirs, to musical instruments. Of course, when the psalms alone were used, worship was limited to the reli- gious sentiment of those writings. Hymns are, for the most part, modern; the hymns of Isaac Watts had a great vogue and some of them are pretty good poetry, extolling the power, the wisdom, the providence of God. The hymns of Wesley are hymns of divine grace and love, of the relation of the soul to Christ, many of them having a place in all hymn books now. We have now hymns of faith, of trust, of adoration, of aspiration, of the Christian life, of the king- dom. Hymns are a common possession of all the churches. The hymn books of all denominations contain favorite hymns composed by Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Catholics. Indeed, the hymns that all know and love to sing are the most powerful bonds of Chris- tian unity. Could the people of all sects indicate a dozen favorite hymns, I am sure that half would 202 THE CHURCH: WORSHIP AND PREACHING be the same on all the lists. The melodies which go with them are true music. Compared with the stiff and rather dolorous tunes of the former time the harmonious and uplfting strains of sacred music to-day mark a great advance in worship so that now we worship God in the beauty of holiness. In all the non-liturgical churches preaching has had and has the first place. Worship has been en- riched, it is true. The congregation participates in the reading of the psalms, repeating the Lord's Prayer and the Creed and there is much more music; singing of hymns, and anthems and re- sponses by choirs. More time is given to worship now than fifty years ago, but still the sermon is the most important feature of public services. In the early time, sermons were very long; the hour -glass was turned and sometimes turned again. Some sermons were mere expositions of scripture, proving this and that doctrine from the Bible, citing and commenting on all the texts that bore upon it. Sydney Smith said that the sermons of English preachers were Bible and water. Some sermons were doctrinal, metaphysical, logical, di- vided into parts; firstly, secondly, up to tenthly, or more, with the improvement, a distinct category, 203 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION at the end. Some ministers went through a system of theology in a series of sermons, from the attri- butes of God to the final judgment, and published them as theological treatises. The same course of sermons would be repeated every three or four years. Certain discourses, remembered by the text or the subject or the illustrations, were favorites which the congregation welcomed as old friends. Particular sermons of able preachers were famous and the authors were requested to repeat them, as the Peter sermon and the Judas sermon of Pro- fessor Park of Andover, the sermon of Professor Tyler of Amherst, "When will the Sabbath be gone that we may sell our corn? " There is an impression that from the time of the Pilgrims until very recently, extemporaneous preaching was the exception, written discourse the rule, but this may be questioned. For example, the Reverend John Warham, a preacher first in Dorchester and then in Windsor, Connecticut, from 1629 to 1670, departed from custom by writ- ing his sermons. The account of his life in Ma- ther's "Magnalia" says he was the first New Eng- land preacher to use notes : " Who though he were sometimes faulted for it, by some judicious men who had never heard him, yet when they once 204 THE CHURCH: WORSHIP AND PREACHING came to hear him they could not but admire the notable energy of his ministry." So extempora- neous preaching must have been the universal custom. As late as 1723 objection was made to singing by note, that is, from printed musical characters, because, as a writer in the " New England Chron- icle" said; "truly I have a great jealousy that if we begin to sing by rule, the next thing will be to pray by rule and preach by rule, and then comes popery " ; a rather confused argument, since in the Roman Catholic Church there was never such a thing as a written sermon, but it shows that at that time ministers did not write their discourses. But before the Revolution most, if not all, preach- ers read their sermons. Every library has manu- script sermons of Edwards, Hopkins, Bellamy, and others, written in a fine hand and crowded lines, perhaps because paper was expensive. Until thirty years ago, and even later, sermons were written and read, with few exceptions. It was ex- plained that a minister preached extemporane- ously because his eyes troubled him so that he could not write. Beecher was an extemporaneous preacher. Phillips Brooks wrote for some years, then spoke without notes. Bushnell wrote his 205 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION sermons most carefully. Now there are few that write. Methodist preachers, who came in after the Revolution, have never or rarely written. This may seem a digression, and yet is significant of the nearer approach of preachers to their listeners. Sermons now are more practical and hortatory than doctrinal: on duty, on the life of Christ, on the Christian life. A spiritual preacher has the strongest hold on attention. He preaches the simple gospel, one says with approval, perhaps because one is weary of listening to preaching on the topics of the time, on social and economic and political issues. The preacher of to-day is serious, sympathetic, human, bringing to men a message of the deeper things of life. I think that preaching has never been so vital, so inspiring, so real, so Christian as it is now. The church, gathering together people of every nation, kindred, and tongue who have faith in God the Father and love of their fellow men, makes its great way in the world, praying the gospel, singing the gospel, preaching the gospel. It points out the way of truth and righteousness; it keeps alive the ideal of character after the pattern of Christ; it makes real the things which are unseen and eternal. CHAPTER XI RELIGIOUS PRACTICE RELIGION is beliefs and life. The beliefs direct the life. As we now come to a consideration of religious practice, or, as it is sometimes called, practical religion, we observe that this generation takes a broader view than that taken a century ago. Within religious practice we place definite obser- vances not only, but also occupation, service, and enjoyment. The religious life includes work, helpfulness, and pleasure. These expressions of Christian life will now be noticed with a direct or implied comparison of present with former conceptions. First, then, religious observances. We have seen that in earlier days strict observance of the Sabbath, as the specific time set aside for religion, was general, almost universal. The entire day was kept holy. No manner of work, no visiting, no recreation, was allowed. This practice continued until the Revolution, in New England, and after. When penalties were no longer imposed for work 207 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION or play on the Sabbath, tradition and the senti- ment of the people guarded the Lord's Day from encroachments of labor and pleasure. As a matter of course all went to church regularly. He was a marked man who was never seen in the house of God. It was assumed that one absent from his accustomed place was ill, and anxious inquiries would be made. The Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, worked a change in the observance of the Sabbath. News- papers were published on Sunday, so eager was the demand for news from the front. People went to the post office for letters from sons and hus- bands. There was traveling on Sunday, companies and regiments going to the seat of war, friends going to care for the sick and wounded, not hesi- tating to travel on Sunday. The war was the ab- sorbing topic of conversation. In the churches, to which the people went all the more willingly, the ministers prayed for the nation, the army, the soldiers, and preached on the issues of the conflict. One would hardly say that this was secularizing the Sabbath, but there certainly was a consider- able change in the observance of the day and a letting down of many restrictions. At the present time the American Sabbath 208 RELIGIOUS PRACTICE bears only a partial resemblance to the Sabbath of the colonial period and of the first half of the nineteenth century. There are some kinds of in- dustry that are active on Sunday; certain manu- factures that cannot be suspended, as iron and steel processes; journeys by rail or ship that can- not be made in twenty-four hours; means of com- munication, the telephone, telegraph, mails. It would be rather difficult to draw a line now be- tween necessary and needless labor, yet while some is needless, there is a considerable margin in our complex civilization which is necessary. The apprehension, however, that the Sabbath will be completely secularized, as to work, is not well grounded. Labor demands one day in seven free; indeed, a week's labor must not be more than fifty-four hours, or even forty-eight. And while it is recognized that certain kinds of labor must pro- ceed on Sunday, yet in the majority of productive enterprises it is not necessary. It is safe to say that nine - tenths of the people do not work in their regular occupations on Sunday, and there is no likelihood that they ever will. In France, it is the recent law that every one shall have one day in seven off, not necessarily the first day of the week, but one day. At a hotel in Paris I asked, 209 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION where is the elevator boy? and was told that this is his day off. Shops and markets are closed, for the most part, on Sunday. It was rather a hardship at first, for the people did not have facilities in their apartments for keeping food, but pretty strictly the law is enforced. In a great city there is a good deal of movement on Sunday; street cars and motors running; hotels, restaurants, drug stores open; yet the business portion is quiet, the financial district is well-nigh deserted, shops are closed and railroads run fewer trains than on other days. Multitudes in the morning on the sidewalks and in conveyances are going to church. The smaller cities and towns are even more quiet, for all business, practically, is suspended. Church-going is not universal; not as large a proportion of the population attend church as in the earlier days when it was obligatory, or even when it ceased to be obligatory, and there are few who go more than once on Sunday. I think, how- ever, the numbers attending church are usually under-estimated. While many do not attend, many more do attend. There are twelve million Catholics, of whom nearly as large a proportion attend church as of our Puritan ancestors. Be- sides the Catholics, there are twenty-six million 210 RELIGIOUS PRACTICE church members in the United States, and this number does not include children under twelve years of age. Not all church members go to church every Sunday, but nearly all do. In greater New York there are sixteen hundred churches, some small, many large. Taking all the services, I believe that as many as a million persons, perhaps more, attend church once on Sunday. A change more marked than that in respect to work is the change in respect to recreation and social life on the Lord's Day. There was no visit- ing in the olden time, except visiting the sick, on Sunday. One could not go to a neighbor's house, could not entertain friends on that day. This was very hard on children and young people. I think it a change for the better that people see each other on Sunday, families coming together, the married young people with their children coming home, those who are not set in families, young men in cities, invited in. Jesus sat down at meat on the Sabbath Day in good company and said, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. To be sure, lavish entertainment and parade and turning the day into mere amusement, is not fitting, but the recovery of part of the day 211 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION to social life is a gain. The prohibitions of the fourth commandment are directed wholly to work, not at all to good fellowship, to human, social in- tercourse. There are many who devote some por- tion of the day to recreation and amusement. Golf and tennis are played, though the number that can afford these games is relatively small. When, twenty years ago, everybody was riding a bicycle, it was a question whether it was wrong to ride on Sunday; asked perhaps by those who did not hesitate to harness the horse and go off for a drive. Later there were facilities near the churches for stalling bicycles. The public entertainments most in vogue on Sunday are musical concerts. Theaters are closed, and opera houses, except for "sacred" concerts on Sunday evening. Libraries are open. Steamboat and railroad excursions are common, down the bay, into the country. It is to be remembered that there are multitudes who are confined to business the entire week and have only one day for recreation and social enjoyment. Church-going in the morning or evening, as cir- cumstances permit, and the remainder of the day for visiting, healthful recreation, reading, enjoy- ment, with as complete abstinence from ordinary work as is practicable, constitute a pretty good 212 RELIGIOUS PRACTICE observance of the day, a right use of it for spirit- ual, social, and physical well-being. Religious instruction, for the most part, is rele- gated to the Sunday School, where it is Biblical teaching, the catechism being no longer in vogue. Members of the Episcopal Church observe Lent, some of them attending daily services during the six weeks. Other denominations observe the last week of Lent with special daily services in the churches. On Easter Day the churches are thronged, many attending only on that day. Dur- ing Lent in the fashionable world, lavish enter- tainments, parties, balls, are not given. There is little marrying and giving in marriage at that season. Young People's Christian Endeavor Societies are numerous. At the meetings each one present repeats a verse of Scripture and a pledge of Chris- tian fellowship. There are Brotherhoods, King's Daughters, Guilds, which are orders with religious sanction and with customary worship. So much for specific religious observances. It appears that in various forms and ways the religious impulse is strong and worshipers an ever-growing multitude. Turning now to other manifestations of the religious life we observe that, more distinctly than 213 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION in the former time, it is recognized that religion has to do with work. One's occupation is the set- ting of one's life, a framework within which one weaves a pattern. Man is an artificer, a producer, a creator with muscle, with brain. The poet, as the word signifies, is a creator. The workman pro- duces something. Nature under his hand yields a value for subsistence, for comfort, for enjoyment of himself and others. Men till the soil, weave fabrics, build houses, ships, railroads, create homes, states, churches, write books, enact plays, preach a gospel. Always man is bringing some- thing to pass. There is nothing more satisfying than consciousness of power. The keenest pleas- ure is in accomplishing something, in achieving results. The lawyer who wins his case, the physi- cian who cures a patient, the teacher who awakens a dull mind, the architect who creates the state house or library, and does all by his own efficiency, has the purest satisfaction of life. The man with- out a pursuit is as badly off as the man without a country. We have scant regard for those who, because they have money enough, do not work, and make prodigious attempts to amuse them- selves. Blessed is the man who has found his work. 214 RELIGIOUS PRACTICE The good old word "calling" is still employed to designate the particular occupation in which one is engaged. "Let every man abide in the call- ing, wherewith he is called." Everybody under- stands when he is asked, "What is your calling?" and answers, "law, medicine, teaching, manufac- turing, buying and selling, farming, preaching, music." One is called by his abilities, his predilec- tions, his necessities it may be, as though by the voice of God. It is the duty of man, of every man, to produce something that shall be for the better- ment of men; for their physical, or intellectual or spiritual or social betterment, to contribute some- thing to the general welfare. Modern civilization has its many occupations and professions, is de- pendent upon them. There is, then, no separation of religion from business, no difference of religious and secular. Conscientious, faithful work is obe- dience to the will of God. How much the Bible has to say about Christians at work. The home first, husbands and wives, fathers and children; then the farm, the vineyard, the loom, masters and servants; "Servants obey in all things those that are your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service, as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord; whatsoever ye do, work 215 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION heartily, or, from the soul. Masters, render unto your servants that which is just and equal, know- ing that ye also have a Master in heaven." Quaint George Herbert said, "Who sweeps a room as for thy law makes that and the action fine." So we speak of the sacredness of work; we say that a conscientious artist does his work religiously. "Establish thou the work of our hands upon us, yea, the work of our hands establish thou it." A song - off ering of Tagore, the Indian poet, suggests the sacredness of work: He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil! Deliverance? where is this deliverance to be found? Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation; he is bound with us all forever. Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense! What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained? Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow. 1 Yet again the religious life is regarded as serv- ice of helpfulness to our fellow men. As observed in the consideration of the king- 1 Gitanjali (Song Offerings), by Rabindranath Tagore. 216 RELIGIOUS PRACTICE dom of God, the working principle of Christianity is service, and this is clearly seen at the present time, more clearly than ever before. There is no more profound and far-reaching law of religious life than the contrast Jesus set forth between self- seeking and service, in his definition of greatness : "Ye know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; not so shall it be among you, but whosoever would become great among you, shall be your minister, and whosoever would be first among you shall be your servant, even as the Son of man came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister." The second great commandment is, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." This is an age characterized by the spirit of benevolence as no other age has been, and it is due to the spirit of Christianity. Most people regard it as a religious duty to lend a helping hand. Out- ward manifestations of this spirit are the numer- ous charitable and benevolent societies to reach every kind of human need, for the support of which millions upon millions of dollars have been given. In the City of New York there are seven- teen hundred such organizations : hospitals, char- ity organizations, homes for the aged poor, reform- atories, university settlement houses, homes for 217 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION young women of limited means, even for those studying music, painting, acting, Christian asso- ciation buildings, city missions. Criticism is di- rected not at the meagerness, but at the method of service, which is by organization too much, some say, and by person too little. Yet there are thou- sands of social workers who give all their time to service. It is indeed the fashion for well-to-do people to bear some part as directors of an associ- ation, or as helpers. There is scarcely a society woman who is not directly or indirectly associated with charitable work. The motive may not in every case be benevolent, yet the majority give themselves heartily to some good work. College boys meet Poles and Italians of the neighborhood to teach them English. Young graduates in a city organize for social service, each one giving an even- ing a week to teaching, or directing gymnastics, or looking after some unfortunate person. The point is that the gospel of service is preached and prac- ticed, that while many who are helpful do not explicitly regard social service as religious, yet it is the very spirit of Christianity, the impulse of brotherhood, the spirit of humaneness. This goes further than relief of the needy. It would remove evils of the body politic, and so cooperates with 218 RELIGIOUS PRACTICE others of like spirit for municipal reform, for the righteousness which exalteth a nation. It works for economic reform, economic justice, in the con- duct of business and by legislation. Schools, col- leges, libraries, churches, missions, all these which abound, are forms of service. Once more, the attitude of a Christian towards pleasure is not what it was a hundred years ago and later. Then, pleasure, amusement, enjoy- ment, were frowned on. Particular forms of amusements and entertainment were prohibited; especially the theater, dancing, card playing. Cards meant gambling and waste of time; dancing was thought to be immodest; the theater a cor- ruptor of morals. As to the theater, there was little opportunity to attend for some time after the Revolution, for the only cities that had thea- ters were Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. It was only after 1830 that plays had much of a footing in America. Some religious people, no doubt, attended occasionally, with, perhaps, qualms of conscience. A clergyman was never seen at the theater, nor until very recent times could a minister be there without calling forth expressions of surprise. Cards were regarded as an invention of the devil; fathers would not have a 219 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION pack of cards in the house; card playing was by stealth; boys found playing cards would be cov- ered with confusion. Square dances by the middle of the nineteenth century were allowed; round dances tabooed. There were balls and parties on public occasions, as at the visit of a President or Governor. There was a fashionable world which countenanced these amusements, yet aware of going against the religious sentiment of the com- munity. In general, addiction to pleasure was considered as inconsistent with a religious life. At the most, in certain forms, it was barely toler- ated, and was regarded as something quite apart from religion, or even hostile to it. A different attitude is taken now. Amusement is not only legitimate, it is necessary. Every one needs diversion, needs recreation, is better off for it than if he plods and plods and has only serious thoughts. Man has the play impulse. No one would think of checking the play impulse of a child, but on the contrary would be made anxious by the absence of it. Older people love to see children at their sports. Children play all day, and day after day. The most trying repression of earlier times must have been the prohibition of playing on Sunday, a long time for a child to go 220 RELIGIOUS PRACTICE without play. Noah's Ark, which could be opened on Sunday, was one of the greatest blessings ever vouchsafed to infant humanity; it had a human and biological interest. Bible questions, even conundrums, were allowed on Sunday. A child that does not play is an anomaly. By and by there will be a little study, a little work; as years pass there will be more work and less play, but the play impulse is never, or should never be en- tirely lost. If feelings are kept young, the enjoy- ment of amusements will remain to extremest old age. The pleasure chosen depends on tastes and education. Even children show their charac- teristics in their games. Some are satisfied with mere movement, running, jumping, rolling over and over; others are singing and dancing in ex- pression of the rhythm of a musical temperament; some love acting, as if they were other persons; others prefer games of competition in which they may win a prize. So when they are older, devo- tion to athletic games which require strength and agility, love of music and of dancing, fondness of dramatic representation, delight in works of art are but the development of the tastes of child- hood. To the amusement of men the most splen- did gifts of genius have been devoted. Shake- 221 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION speare ministers to the love of dramatic situations; Beethoven to the love of music. Perhaps the greatness of man can be shown in no way more conclusively than by the play of his mind. It has been said that when a man is at his best his amuse- ments are not less mighty than his labors. Man at work has contrived railroads, telegraphs, mas- sive and delicate machinery, but, for the mere en- tertainment of an hour, has created a "Macbeth" and a "Midsummer Night's Dream," an oratorio and a symphony, requiring the highest order of genius to compose, the highest order of talent to perform. Incapacity for enjoyment is a defect. A sour man is as unnatural as a sad child. The sense of humor is a saving grace. Zest is the secret of perpetual youth. Genius has been characterized the feelings of youth carried over into the pursuits of manhood. There is now no line drawn against the theater, only a line between good plays and bad plays. A good play is not only a means of entertainment, it is a moral teacher. It epitomizes life, it idealizes life. It must portray the triumph of the good and depict the folly and the failure of the bad. It may seem untrue to actual life, but the spectators demand the overthrow of lago, of Shylock and 222 RELIGIOUS PRACTICE Macbeth. The drama is the faith of men pro- jected before their eyes in situations and char- acters created by genius. The Old Testament scriptures are dramatic as well as historical writ- ings. Characters are selected; the significance of events is pointed out; wickedness is defeated, righteousness triumphs. The career of Abraham could easily be dramatized, and the story of Jo- seph, and the experience of Job, who was perhaps an imaginary character, and the narrative of Elijah, Ahab and Jezebel. These personages and events have in fact furnished materials for great dramatic oratorios and even plays. In the nar- row compass of a few selected scenes, the meaning of life is interpreted in an epitome of years and centuries. Discrimination is needed. There should be diversion, recreation, amusement, but not in ex- cess. The very words indicate this; it is diversion, diverts us from more serious cares, so that we may return to them with new vigor; it is recreation, re-creation, so that we may be fresh and strong for real work. And, of course, capacity for amuse- ment is limited, the edge of enjoyment soon dulls. The devotee of pleasure is afflicted with ennui ; the society man is habitually bored. It is said that 223 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION indifference, lack of interest, is assumed, is an affectation of fashionable society. I suspect it is perfectly natural, for one soon wearies of an unin- terrupted life of pleasure. A man can be judged by what he enjoys as well as by what he accom- plishes. Tell me what pleases a man, whether the coarse, vulgar, sensual, or the refined, beautiful, intellectual, and I can tell what sort of a man he is. The home is the place of service and enjoy- ment. A beautiful and attractive home is a peren- nial source of social regeneration. It is common to ascribe the easy or doubtful morals of some per- sons to reaction from the strict religious train- ing of their childhood, and no doubt a severity mingled with gentleness was much at fault, but youths have broken loose from high standards of conduct more on account of the barrenness of home life on the side of beauty and enjoyment than by reason of undue extremes in religious teaching and requirements. Homes without books, without pictures, without amusements, without hospitality, homes distinguished chiefly for econ- omy of furnishings, table, and dress were the real sources of reaction. A good deal of money may be judiciously invested in a roomy, handsome house, 224 RELIGIOUS PRACTICE ample grounds, tasteful decorations, profusion of books and periodicals, choice pictures and the entertainment of friends. Home should be a place where a boy can bring his friends. Simplic- ity, dignity and beauty in the home are ameli- orating influences. Parents should be companions of then* children. It is well that the distance or rather the barriers between young and old are now removed. The home is the ideal society in miniature. It is under the law of reciprocal service. Each has his right and his duty. The strong serve the weak; the baby, not the strong man, is on the throne. One who, when full grown, demands serv- ice, reverses the order of nature and of love and is contemptuously called a great baby. To main- tain a true home, to be charged with the nurture and education of children, to engage as husband, wife, father, mother, child, brother, sister, in services of mutual helpfulness, which are expres- sions of mutual love, is to bear a large part in social regeneration. It is, one may almost say, a religion. There is such a thing as the gospel of the home. Life cannot be all enjoyment. There is struggle and disappointment, hardship and sorrow and 225 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION toil for nearly all the sons of men. After childhood there are few sheltered lives. And yet a cheerful faith, a good conscience, diligence, a helping hand, strong friendships, these there may be in spite of, or shall we say by reason of, struggle, effort, even hardship and disappointment. The religious man is the all-round man. He worship and trusts; he toils and enjoys; he loves and serves. CHAPTER XII THE HERITAGE OF THE FAITH THERE are certain vital essential beliefs which are unchanged, are permanent, though expressed at sundry times in divers manners; truths that can- not be shaken. A striking thought is that of an apostle who said of his own generation: "Us on whom the ends of the ages meet." A recent book has the very good title, "The Living Past." The past has handed down to the present great religious values. We have a goodly heritage. Forms of expression, of definition have often been inade- quate, sometimes mistaken, but the core of the gospel has not been lost. I shall attempt to show in the next chapter that in our own time there has been a clarifying and an enlargement of the faith, but shall now emphasize the continuity of the Christian faith, the inheritance once delivered to the saints. One way of showing this is by analyzing the several doctrines that are formulated in the creeds and confessions of the Christian centuries. Al- most every doctrine contains a seed of truth. 227 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION The belief that God reveals himself, the doc- trine of a revelation, is in all the creeds. God, it has been held, reveals himself in two ways: in nature and in Christ. God's works and ways in his universe are a revelation. The Bible contains sublime representations of the revelation of God in nature. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. The sea is his and He made it. The strength of the hills is his also. He calleth the stars by name and lead- eth them out. One writer makes the fine sugges- tion that nature is to God what speech is to thought. "There is no speech nor language; their voice cannot be heard; their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." The silent ordered procession of the worlds, the music of the spheres, express God's thought. So Kepler, contemplating the stellar universe, exclaimed, " O God, I read thy thoughts after thee!" What divine drink wouldst Thou have, my God, from this overflowing cup of my life? My poet, is it Thy delight to see thy creation through my eyes and to stand at the portals of my ears silently to listen to Thine own eternal harmony? Thy world is weaving words in my mind and Thy joy is adding music to 228 THE HERITAGE OF THE FAITH them. Thou givest thyself to me in love and thou feelest thine own entire sweetness in me. 1 Vastness in space and illimitableness in time only enhance the grandeur of the revelation. The more we know of the forces and potencies of the universe, the invisible as marvelous as the visible, the more wonderful and immediate the presence and power of God. The other revelation is Christ, who had God- consciousness in the highest degree. We know the character of God, his disposition, we might say. It was held that the Bible is a revelation, but it is because the books record the life and teach- ing of Jesus Christ. He was the revelation. He revealed God to men, and men to themselves. Man himself is a revelation of God. Humanity is part of nature, the best part. God has created a peopled universe. God rejoices in his habitable world. His thought is found in human beings as well as in the material universe; He is revealed in man as well as to man. In his own self man sees the purpose of God and sees it most clearly in his ideal self. The theory that man was a special, immediate creation is abandoned. But the evo- lutionary theory, as an eminent scientist says, 1 Song Offerings of Tagore. 229 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION "presents a nobler conception of the Supreme Being, or as I should say, the Infinite Intelligence. The conception that man has risen from a low and humble form of life, that he has slowly overcome the brute by force of mind and reason, is a far nobler conception of the method and purpose of infinite intelligence, than the dogmatic idea that man was created a little lower than the angels, but not quite perfect enough to keep him from degenerating from that early pristine condition. . . . The whole long line of ascent from amoeba to man may be regarded on the human line of evolu- tion. Somewhere, always keeping to the center of that line, was a life impulse leading straight to man. Freed from the old teleological line of the- ological teaching, here was the definite purpose. Man was always the heart and core of the tree." Great and unique men have appeared from time to time and have exerted a profound influence on their fellow men. These men see deep into the truth of things; they interpret the realities in which God expresses his thought; they read God's thoughts after Him and read them out to men. Hence we say that genius is inspired, for the mind that perceives truth in things must be responsive to and so inspired by the intelligence 230 THE HERITAGE OF THE FAITH that made things the vehicles of thought. The inspirations of genius are discoveries, not crea- tions, of truth. All realities, then, are revelations. The universe, humanity, and genius which is the epitome of humanity, are embodiments of divine truth, goodness, and beauty. As beauty is the splendor of truth, so law and reason and society and genius are the outshining of the Infinite Intelligence. The supreme revelation is Christ, an inspired man and more, a genius and more, a God- filled man who brings God to men and men to God. The doctrine of revelation is a precious heritage. The doctrine of the person of Christ is a herit- age. The creeds define exactly and minutely, give us the theologic Christ, the second person of the Trinity, define the mode of existence, the Son pro- ceeding from the Father, the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son, the three equal in power and glory, yet not three Gods, but one God. What it all signified was that God was in Christ, that He was a great spiritual magnitude, revealing God, creating a new type of life and establishing a kingdom of righteousness and brotherhood. We have this heritage, though we do not attempt to penetrate the mystery of the Divine being, nor to 231 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION adopt precise distinctions of the relations of this marvelous man to God. We have recovered the true humanity of Jesus and know Him the God- filled man. It may be doubted whether at any time the name of Christ has been more reverenced than in this modern time. Somehow the world appre- hends Him as the great friend of all the sons of men, the severe denouncer of social wrong, of hy- pocrisy, of selfishness, the seer with vision of God, his Father and our Father, the self-sacrificing, loving, sympathizing helper of men. At meetings of workingmen, it is said that the church, when mentioned, has been hissed, the name of Jesus applauded. The Christ idea has got a lodgment in men's minds. It is the idea of a life of integrity, honor, contempt of shams and pretenses, and in- finite pity, a mighty appeal to the best in men and women. The Christ idea is a distinctive, a definite idea of the true life. Everybody knows what is meant when it is said of an act, that is Christ-like, that is Christian. It is a crowning wonder that as the ages pass his presence does not fade and dis- appear in an ever remoter past, but is clearer, brighter, nearer to each succeeding generation. Back to Christ was a rallying cry a few years ago, 232 THE HERITAGE OF THE FAITH back of dogma, back of form, back to the Christ. If Christ should come among us what would He say and do? and we know very well the answer to that question. We recall that famous conversa- tion between Charles Lamb and his friends: What person would you best like to see coming into this room? One and another great person- age of history was named, and finally Lamb stam- mered out, " I suppose if Shakespeare were to come in we should all stand; if Jesus were to come in we should all kneel." Knowledge of true goodness is still gained from Jesus. The creeds of the Reformation and of the Prot- estant churches have a definite doctrine of sin; of original sin, of total depravity, of a depraved nature, exposing one to the wrath of God. We have modified that somewhat, it is true, yet the fact which those statements expressed we cannot ignore. The fall of the first man is not believed, for primitive man was not at all the Adam of theology. That story, at the most, is symbolic of a certain perversity of human nature, a personifi- cation of transgression, an attempt to account for the evil that is in the world. The problem of evil is approached in every literature and philosophy. There are two philosophies of evil: the philosophy 233 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION of necessity and the philosophy of liberty. Both are ancient and modern. To the Greek evil resided in matter. Disorder was there; accident, disease, and death were there. The gods did not create matter; they found it as it was, and did the best they could with it, but its disorder and evil remain in some degree. Every man must suffer more or less from the dire necessities of the world and of the flesh. Evil was misfortune, rather than fault. There really was no sin. The unavoidable was excusable. Evil was the shadow of necessity, of environment, of circumstance. To the Jew God created the world. Evil, therefore, was not in na- ture, for God created all and there is no evil in Him. Evil is from man's disobedience of the law of God. Man is a person with liberty of choice. He chose evil rather than good. Evil is the shadow of liberty. 1 This is the significance of the Adam myth. Even the Persian, who believed that man could choose between right and wrong, thought there was a kingdom of evil ruled over by Ahriman, to whom Ormuzd was opposed. He believed that Ahriman would finally be overcome, and that man could cooperate with Ormuzd, chiefly by 1 Julia Wedgwood, The Moral Ideal. 234 THE HERITAGE OF THE FAITH industry reclaiming the earth to fruitfulness. A parallel to this is found in the belief, prevailing during many Christian centuries, in the devil, who personified enticement to evil. It is needless to say that the philosophy which denies freedom to man and regards evil as a nec- essary incident in a necessitated evolution, and the philosophy which regards evil as a perversion of liberty, are reproduced under different forms hi the modern philosophies of materialism and of personality. A reaction has set in against the materialistic philosophy. Personality is reassert- ing itself. Evil is seen to be the shadow of liberty, not the shadow of necessity. With this revival goes a profounder and more serious thought of sin, but with it also, a more cheerful hope that evil may be reduced and eventually removed by human endeavor. It comes to right and wrong. There are right acts and wrong acts. One may go wrong upon a large scale, in fact his main purpose may be wrong, and then there is more or less of inner conflict, although in the end conscience may be deadened. One approves the right and does the wrong. Paul has said it for us : "For I delight in the law of God after the inner man; but I see a different law in my 235 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing ine into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members." Goodness is supremacy of the higher over the lower in the proportionate satisfaction of all powers; badness or sin is the reversal of this order, is the satisfaction of the lower to the neglect of and in defiance of the higher. This is the popular idea of sin : gratification of the appetites and pas- sions of sense, the sacrifice of truth or honor or purity in order to enjoy sensuous pleasures or gain physical good. But many sins are not physi- cal. Some of the worst sins, such as revenge, pride, falsehood, selfish ambitions, spring from desires which are not sensuous. If there is any one motive which accounts for all sins, that motive is selfishness. It seeks the lower satisfactions, which, when they are made the chief ends, are unworthy of a man. So many sins consist in the use of others to gain lower gratifications that selfishness is rightly considered the very essence of nearly all known sin. But, however regarded, free men make wrong choices. There is retrogres- sion from the ideal as well as progression towards it. A man sinneth against his own soul. So while we cast aside notions of original sin imputed to us, 236 THE HERITAGE OF THE FAITH of total depravity, since there is some good in everybody, a conscience that stirs, we cannot deny that we go wrong and do wrong by our own choice. There could be no wrong if men were not free. The redemption of man from sin to holiness is the doctrine of the creeds about which all other doctrines revolve. Holiness is wholeness, the life centered and harmonious; sin is the fragmentary, broken life, out of tune. Christ restores man to himself. Christ reveals God seeking men to bring them back to himself in faith and love by the way of sacrifice. This has been fully considered in the chapter on Redemption. While we do not theorize about atonement, about justice and penalty, about substitution and guilt, about imputation of righteousness, we hold to the reality of the self- sacrifice of Christ, as the divine way of converting men from selfishness to love. If any man be in Christ Jesus, has his spirit, is touched, moved and conquered by that spirit, he is a new creature; old things are passed away, behold all things are be- come new. Christ's power is in the world at issue still with sin, the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation. We are not satisfied with the conception of Christ as merely a great teacher, 237 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION though He is that; as an example, though He is that; He is the Redeemer, loving men, even if He dies for it, out of sin into goodness. The Cross is the symbol of Christianity. The doctrine of eternal life is a heritage, since Christianity makes it distinct. Jesus lighted up immortality. We do not believe in the resurrec- tion of the body, but we do believe in the life ever- lasting. Death is among us daily, the mourners go about the streets; death approaches us, or we approach death as we grow old, as the number of remaining years dwindles. But Christ brings us into union with God, the everlasting God, our Father, and no man can pluck us out of the Father's hand. We know God and are known of Hun ; we love God and are loved of Him ; and there- fore cannot cease to be. Spiritual life is indestruct- ible: "He that believeth on me hath eternal life and is passed from death unto life." We do not locate heaven, but we know it is a kind of life, the Christ kind, a full life. We are content to echo the words of the mystic: "We know that if he shall be manifested we shall be like him, for we shall see him even as he is." Nor do we picture the condition of perverse souls, whether they literally perish, or diminish to extinction, or remain eter- 238 THE HERITAGE OF THE FAITH nally perverse, or in the everlasting mercy are finally brought up the altar steps to God. Predestination, election, reprobation, we are not interested in. We take the gospel call liter- ally, "Whosoever will, let him come." The Kingdom of God, a renewed society, thought of in former times as the church, in an- cient times more spiritually as the Holy Catholic church, which is the ideal brotherhood of man, is a heritage enlarged and beautified. Thus far the continuity of the faith down the ages has been indicated by distinguishing in the creeds the essential truths of Christianity. There is a larger approach. The gospel is a heritage be- cause it satisfies the fundamental needs of human nature which are the same in every age and clime. For this reason it is a world-wide and perpetual religion. The several doctrines are so many vari- ous aspects of Christianity. Now one aspect, and now another, has been portrayed or over-empha- sized and Christianity may seem thereby to have been narrowed or distorted. Some statements of mediaeval and of Protestant confessions have nothing to do with Christianity, are a wrong psychology, a wrong science, a wrong philosophy : such as the creation of the world in six days, a 239 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION covenant God made with the first man, the fall of Adam, total depravity, predestination, election, the absolute inerrancy of a book. The discredit- ing of such vagaries has brought Christianity itself into disrepute. Much skepticism and infi- delity and doubt have been due to the non-essen- tial and erroneous articles of the creeds and to the claims made for the Bible, which do not, at all, touch vital Christianity. Hence the prejudice against dogmatic theology. Thirty years ago a popular speaker drew great audiences to hear him attack Christianity. His stock in trade was the unscientific account of creation in the Bible, the theologic Adam, the immorality of the patriarchs, the wars and cruelties of the Israelites, the story of Jonah; attacks on certain articles of the creeds and on the theory that the Bible is absolutely free from errors; that if any page of the scriptures is blemished, Christianity itself goes down. But Christianity is none of these things. It is two great realities : the divine entering human life, God manifesting himself in the life of man, and man recovered to himself. The first meets a yearn- ing of the heart, to know God, the Eternal reason and love, and to rest in Him. "Thou hast made us for thyself, and unquiet is our heart until it rests 240 THE HERITAGE OF THE FAITH in Thee." This poises man on the Almighty. Man's life is not a fleeting, fragmentary, aimless existence, but through trust in God becomes a purposeful development. Man has an individual place in the order of the world, for it is God's world and man is God's child. The peace of God in our hearts is stability of soul, is poise. And this is the other thing. Christianity gives man a character, makes a person of him, makes a man of him, so that he is not the sport of circum- stance, but the master of circumstance. It sets man above the world, but does not withdraw him from it. In the world of nature, he does not drift like seaweed on the ocean, but spreads sail and steers. Christianity, we might say, calls man from drifting to steering. In the human world Chris- tianity calls him to brotherhood, to duty, to jus- tice, to righteousness, to love. It calls him from the low ambitions of self-gratification to the high ambitions of service, to helpfulness, to seek for others the goods he seeks for himself, the worth of personality, the value of character; in scriptural phrase, to seek the kingdom of God and his right- eousness. The problem of the ages is human life. There is contradiction and discord. There are pleasures, 241 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION there are pains; there are achievements, there are disappointments; there is good fortune, there is calamity; there are glimpses of the good, there is experience of the bad; there is bewilderment and inner strife. The problem has been studied and this or that philosophy of life attempted. Neces- sity was the solution of the Stoics. Circumstances are the rulers of man's destiny; fate they called it; so let us endure, let us be indifferent. Happiness is the solution of the Epicureans and their descend- ants; let us eat and drink and enjoy; that phi- losophy ignoring pains and sorrows. While there is much that is very noble in the writings of the Stoics, and much that is very human in the views of the Epicureans, neither solves the problem of human life. These names, Stoic and Epicurean, have come down to us, standing for theories of life; Stoical endurance, Epicurean pleasure. This man, we say, is a Stoic, that man an Epicurean. To the Hindu the world is illusion, is transient and disappointing. To extinguish self, to extin- guish desire, to be passive is the solution of the Hindu. Who desires nothing will suffer nothing. "When thirst conquers, thirst the contemptible, that pours its poison through the world, for him will suffering grow, as the grass grows. Who con- 242 THE HERITAGE OF THE FAITH quers thirst, the contemptible, that is hard to escape in this world, from him will suffering flow away like the water drop from the lotus flower." Christianity is positive. It does not think the world is bad, except as man by his own acts has made it bad. What man has made, man can un- make. Let him turn from the bad, the unworthy, the selfish, and stake his life on higher aims. Let him be a positive, righteous, loving person, and he will make the wilderness blossom as the rose, and convert the human world into a kingdom of peace and love and righteousness. The Stoic endures, but does not understand; the Epicurean is super- ficial and darts aimlessly about, sipping any flower ; the Hindu diminishes self to the vanishing point; the Christian overcomes. In respect to nature, the material world, man is a super-natural being. He lives in two worlds, the material and the spiritual. Reason and will, reason and purpose, constitute him a personality, achieving, accomplishing, creating, using nature to further the ends he chooses to realize. He is not merely a result, he is a cause. He lives, I say, in two worlds. As the hull of a ship is in the water, and. if only a hull, is tossed up and down, moved hither and thither by the currents and tides, so 243 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION man's body is in the currents of nature. But the ship has masts and sails in the air, another ele- ment. The sails are set to the winds of heaven, and the ship is propelled on its course whitherso- ever the steersman wills. A person is in a spirit- ual atmosphere, and can guide himself on or across the currents of the denser element to his desired haven. A Biblical writer compares the tongue to the rudder of a ship, "Behold the ships also, though they are so great and are driven by rough winds, are yet turned about by a very small rudder whither the impulse of the steersman willeth. So the tongue also is a little member and boasteth great things. Therewith bless we the Lord and Father, and therewith curse we men, which are made in the likeness of God." The tongue means speech, and speech means thought, reason, purpose. It is reason, it is logic, it is philosophy, it is poetry, it is religion. Speech expresses char- acter. A talking being is a thinking being, a self- directing being. Christianity makes a character, so that man speaks the words of truth and right- eousness. Let us come back to the point. Chris- tianity is the religion of redemption. It redeems man to himself, makes him master of himself, so that there is no discord of desires, no clashing of 244 THE HERITAGE OF THE FAITH motives, but he is rooted and grounded in love, has faith and hope, is out in the world to make it better, is a self-directed, God-directed power for righteousness. It is the Christ idea, the Christ life, making its great way to transform man from sin to goodness, from selfishness to love. And withal it is so simple; a child can under- stand it. Slaves understood it; Zaccheus under- stood it; the woman wiping Jesus' feet understood it ; the Jews, the Greeks, the learned, the unlearned, the ancients, understood it; the moderns under- stand it. For trust in God, true goodness, sym- pathy, love, are the most understandable things in the world. Christ is the appealing power to move men out of their selfishness and frivolity, and to inspire them to love and purity and faith. "Beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory." A comprehensive thought of the unity, the poise of life, is suggested in the Pauline word, "recon- ciliation," which is a bringing together. Man is reconciled to God because in Christ, in the Christ spirit, he is realizing the ideal which is God's thought or plan of man; he is reconciled to him- self for there is no war in his members, but the 245 single-mindedness of righteousness, the simplicity which is towards Christ; he is reconciled to his fellow men in devotion of love, the middle wall of partition is broken down, there is neither Greek nor Jew, bond nor free, but all are one in Christ Jesus, in the Christ life. The word atonement does not occur in the New Testament. The single instance in the Received Version, "through whom we have now received the atonement," is correctly rendered in the Revised Version, "through whom we have now received the reconciliation," and that other word is by some thought to be at-one- ment. Christianity has been viewed objectively in former periods of history. The forgiveness of sins by reason of the sacrifice of Christ who bore the penalty, so that if we believe on Christ there is no condemnation, externalizes religion. It is some- thing done by God long ago, a transaction, and we have only to believe it. This seems remote from character, a sort of magic. The forgiveness of sins means that if God can only convert man to right- eousness, it makes no difference about the past: "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." And justification is by faith. Faith is venturing out on Christ, and Christ is not a mere 246 THE HERITAGE OF THE FAITH name, the name of a man who one day was put to death; He is a character, an example, an influence. Faith is attaching one's self to Him, following Him, reproducing his spirit. Forgiveness of sins is not the cancelling of a bad account; it is the upspring- ing of a new life of trust and righteousness and love, like Christ's life in kind, and the man for- gives himself, the world forgives him, God for- gives him. It is all, in one sense, objective, out- side ourselves, certain marvelous events which occurred centuries ago. It is, in another sense, subjective, pertaining to the moral and spiritual life of the inner man. So, I say, we know what a Christian is, we know the Christ-type, and believe it is true manhood, the freedom of the Christian man. So it was at the first; if any man be in Christ he is a new creation. So it has been when Chris- tianity was obscured by dogma, by the authority of the church, by asceticism; still the Christian character was recognized as the objective of Christianity. We have this heritage; the fullness of moral and spiritual life, after the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; the kingdom of God, the kingdom of purified hearts and lives. CHAPTER XIII THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE FAITH THE previous chapter on the Heritage of the Faith emphasized great essentials, cleared of superflu- ities and contradictions, as virtually the same from generation to generation. The continuity of the faith through the Christian centuries might be regarded as the simplifying of beliefs. Jesus simplified the law. There were a thousand pre- cepts, commandments, prohibitions, and He gath- ered, we may say rationalized them under two great principles, these two really, He said, being one: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two com- mandments hang all the law and the prophets." It is all in one principle, love. So Paul simplified : "Love worketh no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law"; and again, unify- ing the gospel into the simplicity of great princi- 248 THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE FAITH pies, "And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three, and the greatest of these is love." The Christian faith has in these modern times been simplified and by the simplifying has been en- larged. There is an expansion of the faith. We sum it all up in two principles, two essen- tials : the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. This simplifying is not a reduction, but an enlargement of belief. There has been a change in our thought of God, from the conception of Sovereignty to the conception of Fatherhood. Speaking broadly, it may be said, that the Latin theology made sovereignty the central doctrine. The Roman government was a type of the divine government. Augustine exalted God the great almighty ruler. This theology stamped the doc- trines of decrees, of predestination and reproba- tion, the mere good pleasure of God as the cause of all events. The belief engendered fear and awe rather than love and trust. The Puritan, Calvin- istic theology passed this doctrine on to the Con- gregational and Presbyterian churches. It made almightiness superior to love. When the sover- eignty of God is the final resort of religious thought, and the central idea of theology, the assumption is made that in the last analysis it cannot be 249 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION known for what reasons God administers his kingdom of providence and redemption as He does, and that therefore, so far as we are concerned, the divine action is arbitrary. The center of doctrine has shifted from sovereignty to fatherhood. It is believed that power is directed by reason and rea- son by love. It has been represented in the past that the justice and the mercy of God conflict, that a just God requires strong inducement to forego his purpose of punishment, that it could hardly have been expected, is forever a wonder and a mystery, that the claims of justice could be relinquished. There have been theologies which adopted as a fundamental principle this: that God must be just and may be merciful. It has been held that it is morally necessary that God should hate and punish a sinner, but only in an inferior degree, if at all, morally necessary, that in love He should energize to save the sinner. It is needless to say that these notions are aban- doned. Indeed, it is not easy for us to understand them. God is the God of holy love. Love hates and condemns sin, cannot tolerate sin, visits pen- alties on sin, will not have man happy in his sin, and therefore tries to restore the sinner to right- eousness, goes out in sympathy and love and 250 THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE FAITH sacrifice to save him from the self-destruction of sin. The very wrath from pity grew, From love of men the hate of wrong. Jesus gave the world the belief in the fatherhood of God by his words and by living out the life of Sonship, and if we believe in God in whom we live and move and have our being, we believe in his fatherhood, we believe that He loves men, who are the best works of his hands. The great mystic said, concisely, " God is love." God is a person ; He is intelligence, and that is purpose, plan; He is will, and that is realizing purpose; He is love, that is, He is person related to person. Whatever more than personality, as we know it, He may be, He is that in perfect degree which our best is in imperfect degree. He is one who knows and wills and loves. Love includes all. The word has been fused in the heat and glow of human experience. From birth to death, love ennobles and beautifies every period of existence; it gives their value to the nearest relationships. Love is the dearest word of childhood, the deepest word of manhood and womanhood, the tenderest word of age, the sacred- est word of religion. It was gathering meaning through the ages, as the family rooted itself in 251 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION affection, as friendships rang more true, as human- ity became more humane, till it was a prepared word seized by the greatest moral teacher to characterize the absolute goodness. The truth and value of it had been adumbrated in human- ity's best and so could be adopted as the final and comprehensive word for God and for the children of God. Though truths in manhood darkly join, Deep seated in our mystic frame, We yield all blessing to the name Of him that made them current coin. If, as it does seem, this has been obscured or al- most lost at various periods, in the thought of the omnipotence, the sovereignty, and, we may say, the remoteness of God, there is an enlargement of knowledge and faith when God is thought of as a gracious, loving father. The Brotherhood of man has never been so dis- tinctly and comprehensively in view as it is now. It is a religion. Christianity is the religion of brotherhood. This age is philanthropic, or, as the word signifies, man-loving. When we think of all the charitable, benevolent, educational organiza- tions in a great city, of the vast amount of wealth bestowed, of the army of helpful workers, devot- 252 THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE FAITH ing more or less of their time to the service of their fellow men, we are observing a distinguish- ing characteristic of present-day life. Organiza- tion itself, though not always philanthropic in its immediate purpose, the banding together of men to promote every human interest under the sun, is the expression of brotherhood. Labor unions, which at first were benevolent associations, the many societies, guilds, fraternities, all are avow- edly for mutual helpfulness. No one liveth or worketh to himself alone; we are members one of another. It may be said, with a fair degree of truth, that we are good Samaritans. The Levite and the priest do not pass by on the other side; churches are out in the world for service. While in the past the church has been exclusive and self- sufficient at times, intent on making itself strong and large, now its equipment is for service. And now the idea of service, of brotherhood, is not merely missions to distant peoples and to the frontiers, but also service of helpfulness on the street, in the city, in the homes of the neighbor- hood. There is in society, no doubt, the spirit of ex- clusiveness, race prejudice, even contempt and indifference, yet the sentiment of right-minded 253 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION men and women rebukes it. The middle walls of partition, walls of class, walls of culture, walls of wealth, are being broken down, to a great extent have been broken down. The Christian spirit is emphatically the spirit of brotherhood. The Jew of old despised foreigners, whether Greek or Roman. He would not mingle with them on terms of social equality ; nothing would induce him to sit at table with a foreigner. Now this is reversed, for some, in all lands, despise the Jew. Jesus, a Jew, sat at meat with a publican, a foreigner, in- vited himself: "Zaccheus, come down, for to-day I must abide at thy house " ; and when they saw it they all murmured, saying, he has gone in to lodge with a sinner, with a man not a Jew, but to them a pariah. There was conversation no doubt, though there is no record of it. The mere fact that such a man as Jesus sat at his table was enough for Zac- cheus; it appealed to his self-respect, to his man- hood, and at last he got on his feet and said he was going to give half he had to the poor, and so far as he had exacted wrongfully of any man (graft, that is, for he was a tax collector) he would restore it fourfold. And Jesus said, he is a son of Abraham, as good a Jew as any of us. Criticism of the church is aimed not at beliefs, 254 THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE FAITH but at conduct, at its apartness, its unbrotherli- ness, its lack of sympathy. That is no place for me, says the workingman. Much of this criticism is undeserved. The church knows its mission, and, as never before, goes out in service of charity, of neighborhood, of gospelling. And the criticism has in view the Christian law of brotherhood; when saying that the church is wrong, is wanting, implies a knowledge of what the church should be. The Christian sentiment of brotherhood is beau- tifully expressed in the meditation of Tagore, a modern Hindu, in one of his "Song Offerings" to God in the "Gitanjali." Here is thy foot-stool, and there rest thy feet where live the poorest and lowliest and lost. When I try to bow to Thee, ray obeisance cannot reach down to the depth where thy feet rest, among the poorest and the lowliest and lost. Pride can never approach to where thou walkest in the clothes of the humble among the poorest and low- liest and lost. My heart can never find its way to where thou keep- est company with the companionless, among the poor- est, the lowliest and the lost. . . . Is there not an enlargement of faith in this working principle of brotherhood, ample as the human race, caring for no artificial divisions, but 255 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION ministering to human need, wherever it can ? Pure religion and undefiled, says the practical apostle James, before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Unspotted from the world. In how many ways that has been interpreted: renunciation, asceti- cism, abstinence, not doing this, not doing that. In this respect there is an enlargement and a sim- plifying of faith. Christianity is the religion of character. We see more clearly that religion is for life, that it is not merely correct beliefs, but a right life; and we see what kind of a life it is. The object of religion is a type of character, the ideal man, after the image of Him who created him. An apostle tells us to put on Christ and to put on the new man, and these two are one and the same thing. The Christian virtues are likened to a chorus of harmony. We have read in the old ver- sion of adding one after another, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance; and in the new version, supply in your faith virtue, and in your virtue knowledge, and so on. The Greek word, rendered "add and supply," is the word for a chorus. "Choralize, harmonize in faith virtue, and in virtue knowledge, 256 THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE FAITH and in knowledge temperance, and in temperance patience, and in patience godliness, and in god- liness brotherly kindness, and in brotherly kind- ness love." The ideal is embodied in Jesus Christ. It is set forth in a real person. It is not all nor partly in theory; it has been incarnated in an actual person. The virtue of Jesus is reproductive in others who will personally appropriate it. It is a type which does not discourage, but which appeals and moves to the point of choice and adoption. Sympathy kindles sympathy, kindles response. Nothing in the world is so fitted to awaken response and hope as the living, actual Christ, under the burdens and sorrows of life for the sake of men, whom He con- demned, pitied and loved. Such a life is not merely ideal and pattern. It is transforming moral power. Touched and transformed by Him, man leaves not only his old way of sin, but also his old way of virtue, under prohibition and legalism. He has a new principle of righteousness which takes up all that is good in the old, fulfilling the law of injunctions and denials in the higher, deeper law of loving his neighbor as himself. Men see what perfection is and reproduce it as one light is lighted from another. Paul's best charac- 257 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION terization of Jesus is that He is a life-giving spirit. The analogies of life are the most fitting to apply to the power of Jesus. Life was a favorite word of his. It is the simplest, commonest, greatest word of Christianity. Life is reproductive. The life of Jesus is reproduced in men who are Christ-like, Christian. How life produces and quickens life is a mystery; but reproduction and growth are the most real of all facts. Such embodiment, such incarnation of holy character was not a temporary incident in the world's history. It was not a power introduced, only to be withdrawn and soon forgotten, it was an historical manifestation of eternal reality. Having gained lodgment in human thoughts and beliefs, it cannot be dislodged. The recorded biography keeps the image fresh. The mode in which the spirit and law of Jesus are apprehended is of less consequence than some suppose. It is of comparatively little importance whether He is thought of as an historical personage of the past, known only by the records, or as a present spirit- ual power, whether as exemplar, friend, master or redeemer, so long as He is the revelation of God and the inspirer of life. Enough that He is still the way, the truth and the life. That He is such to 258 THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE FAITH millions of men and women, that they have his character, that they trust his Father and their Father, is the great fact showing that his power is still in the world. I say we see this more clearly, the ideal man, the Christian character; that reli- gion is for life, is a life more clearly, that is, than it was seen a hundred years ago, when salvation was one thing and character another, when cor- rect beliefs were more important than correct life, when faith was divorced from works. At all events, we see it clearly now, that the man new-charactered is the saved man, that this is Christianity. The enlargement of faith, then, is perceived in the clearer vision of the fatherhood of God, in recognition of the claims of Brotherhood, and in the emphasis on character after the type of Christ. A sign of the times indicating the enlargement of the faith is Christian unity. The sects of Prot- estantism have been divided, even competitive and antagonistic. Now there is harmony and union. Denominational rivalry has well-nigh ceased. The churches are united for social serv- ice. This spirit has materialized in actual organ- ization. Councils composed of representatives 259 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION of the various communions advise and work to- gether for the communities in which the churches are planted and for the world to promote the king- dom of God. That noble prayer for the church is being answered: "More especially we pray for thy Holy Church universal, that it may be so guided and governed by thy good Spirit that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in right- eousness of life." The prayer of Jesus is answered, "Neither for these alone do I pray, but for them also that believe in me through thy word; that they may all be one; even as Thou Father art in me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us ; that the world may believe that Thou didst send me." Is not Christian unity realized because the faith is enlarged, is comprehensive, because non- essentials are ignored, essentials emphasized? The latter part of the nineteenth century was, in respect to religion, an arid period, comparable, in a way, to the latter part of the eighteenth cen- tury. In the closing years of the eighteenth cen- tury skepticism and even atheism were a fashion. In America and Great Britian many educated men regarded Christianity, not as a subject 260 THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE FAITH worthy of honest inquiry, but to be treated with scorn and ridicule. Students in college boasted that they were skeptics. Some assumed the names of Voltaire, Tom Paine, and other so-called infi- dels. Some added "atheist" when they sub- scribed their names. Religious students were not respected, but were ridiculed. That is all changed. If any student should go about boasting that he is a skeptic, an infidel, an atheist, he would be regarded as a crude, callow, silly and immature fellow. That temper of hostility no longer exists. Loss or lack of faith is now deplored by those who have it not. The late Professor Romanes of Ox- ford in an early work on Theism, in which he con- cluded that we have no certain knowledge of God and must even relinquish faith, said that a terrific calamity like a black deluge was sweeping over the race of men with the loss of religious beliefs; and when later he regained his faith, he published the fact and rejoiced in it. It has been said truly that the feeling of educated men who have no faith, or think they have none, is a feeling of regret. Such men do not call themselves infidels and atheists; indeed, those words have passed out of use. Thirty years ago they were called agnos- tics, a term which also has passed out of use. 261 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION The latter part of the nineteenth century was, in another vein, an arid, or rather, an unsettling period. The scientific spirit was predominant. The theory of evolution had been popularized. It was confidently advocated and vehemently opposed. Deeper than interest in its correctness or erroneousness was interest in its bearing on the conception of God, on the very existence of God, on the authority of the Bible, on miracles and the supernatural, on the fall of man, on sin and redemp- tion, in fact on pretty nearly all of the accepted doctrines of Christianity. Many embraced the hypothesis eagerly and were somewhat effusive and challenging in their advocacy of it. Such as held their faith were apprehensive of the conse- quences. That time was called an age of doubt. Now there is a different and more serious attitude towards religion. New facts and theories have been assimilated, have been adjusted. Disturb- ance of thought and antagonism to religion are the early stages when a theory is first broached. There has been a unifying of knowledge. We do not hear as much as we did about the conflict of science and religion; about the concessions reli- gion has made to science, and the concessions science has made to religion. Each has gained THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE FAITH from the other. Religion has gained a more just and noble conception of God and of his ways; science has become more modest. Science is thrust upon deep mysteries, into which the micro- scope magnifying the germs of life a thousand- fold cannot penetrate. Scientists are not so much their own philosophers as they were a generation ago. They are more often heard to say that they do not know, or that there is an infinite intelli- gence back of all and in all. Each, I say, has gained from the other. It has been sagaciously observed that after the victory of science over religion, science is more spiritual, and that after the apparent victory of religion over science, reli- gion is more rational. We come back upon our- selves, persons in this mysterious world. We are religious beings, with a religious nature, however we may have become what we are. We have religious convictions, needs, aspirations which must be satisfied. The religious man is as real as the scientific man, the spiritual man as real as the intellectual man; indeed, they are one and the same man, no more to be separated than the light and the heat of the sun. Some opinions have been discarded, but there is a deeper sense of awe, of reverence, and of aspiration. 263 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION If I read the signs of the times aright, there is a revival of religion, or, at least, a revival of in- terest in religion. It is the most interesting sub- ject of conversation. Books on the history of religion, on religious experience, psychologically considered, on mysticism, on the evolution of reli- gion, pour from the press. Reviews and maga- zines make large place for articles on phases of religion. The poetry which is most read has the religious motive. The novel of last year that had the greatest vogue, and was most talked of, is a book on true religion and the travesties of religion. Young men in college talk much about religion and have no shyness in speaking of it. At different times it has been predicted that Christianity is doomed. Such prediction was made at the close of the eighteenth century and was followed by great revivals, by the extension of missions, by expansion of the churches. Such prediction was made twenty-five years ago, when it was thought by some that the very foundations of Christianity were tottering, and was followed by widespread revival of interest in religion, by a growing church, in America an increase more rapid than the increase of population, by a wide application of Christianity to social service, by a THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE FAITH profounder thought of God. Human evolution by the sympathetic as well as by the self-regarding impulses; the moral and spiritual character of man; the implication of God in the universe and in human nature; intimations of immortality; these assert themselves. We are not satisfied with material goods, to delve and toil and amass. There are higher values than wealth: art, music, poetry, character, duty, faith. It is difficult to describe this concern about religion, but it exists. Christianity emerges, disencumbered, clarified, enlarged; the essentials, God, Christ, the Spirit- ual Life, Brotherhood, Immortality, not denied, but affirmed. At the time of this writing, a war, which in- volves seven European nations, is being waged. It surpasses in magnitude and in destruction of life any war of history. Hundreds of thousands of young men are killed, plunging as many homes in sorrow; cities and towns are laid waste; even women and children are slain; monuments of art, that can never be replaced, are destroyed. Such a war seems to set Christian civilization backward. The motive of the aggressors is, apparently, the desire of one of the nations to be greatest. The 265 A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN RELIGION spirit of militarism would subordinate all to itself. The doctrine that might makes right is openly proclaimed. This is contrary to Christianity. We note, however, with much satisfaction, a mighty, well-nigh universal protest against this doctrine. The nations attacked say, we will not be subordinated to this spirit of mere power. Above all, the horror which is felt and voiced at the unprecedented, the unspeakable atrocities and cruelty which, it is alleged, accompany the march of a great army over the territory of a neutral and unoffending country, is the stirring of humane, of Christian feeling. The assertion that the war is declared in the name of Christian civilization and culture is derided. , What the issue will be, who can tell? The vast majority of the people of all nations hope and believe that the spirit of militarism will be broken, that one nation after another will be released from the burden of providing weapons of war, that the arts of peace will prevail, that demo- cratic government will be extended, that Chris- tian civilization will, in the end, be promoted, that the right will triumph. The expectation of the aggressors that war would be the occasion of internal dissension in 266, THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE FAITH this and that nation, that England would be plunged into a civil war, and that her colonies would rebel; that the councils of France would be divided; that Russia might be torn asunder by a revolution; that little Belgium would tamely acquiesce in the violation of her neutrality, this expectation has proved groundless. The po- litical parties of England have laid aside differ- ences and are united at home and in the colonies in defense of the country; France has forgotten partisanship and is solid in support of the Repub- lic; Russia has proclaimed Poland free, and has devoted her undivided energy to resistance of tyranny; Belgium has fought an amazing fight for national integrity and, by her heroism, has probably saved other nations from the greatest disasters. Loyalty and bravery in the defense of honor and of right are mighty and will finally prevail. One hundred years ago Europe was swept bare by wars of might against right, yet out of those catastrophes came an advance of civilization. So it may be, must be, will be now. THE END y 4 THE LIBRARY IMV ERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DIE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. IOOM 11/86 Series 9482 I 1205 00847 9055 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 001 033 608 9 230 H51 40832