3 Xi CHRISTIANITY AND THE SOCIAL RAGE BY ADOLPH A. BERLE, A.M., D.D. Director of the NeViingland Civics Institute NEW YORK McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY 1914 COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY MCBRIDE, NAST & Co. Published October, 1914. To WINTHROP MURRAY CRANE A Citizen, most honored where best known; an Employer, beloved by those who labor with him; a Philanthropist, who gives with simplicity; a Public Servant, upright and without fear; a Loyal Friend, through good and evil report; This Volume is affectionately dedicated. PREFACE This volume is the outcome of studies ranging over a considerable space of years in which public opinion has changed many times concerning the subjects dis- cussed in the various chapters. The prevailing note of the period in which we are living is one of social aspiration and communal happiness and well being. It is a noble and holy hope which longs to see right- eousness among men and the Kingdom of God visibly ruling in the hearts and activities of men. There is little in the life of Americans nowadays which is not in some way tinctured with this desire. But like all such aspirations, the border line between rational growth and progress and fanatical rage, is not always observed, with the result that what begins by being a perfectly sound protest against onerous conditions and iniquitous principles eventuates often in a mere rage for change which not only is not rational, but defeats the very purposes for which the reform was originally begun, forgetting upon what it rests. I have endeavored in all cases to state the case for the reformers as vigorously and as clearly as they could or have stated it for themselves. But I have also, in view of the fact, that I see the defeat of many of these things, through their foolish departure from the only sound substructure upon which they can possi- Preface bly succeed, undertaken to give the underlying moral and spiritual base, without which, it is to me foolish to expect that enduring social advance can be secured. I make no apology for finding this base in historic Christianity, because, in the historical unfolding of civilization, as it seems to me, the constant factor of genuine growth, is the increasing acceptance of the moral and spiritual sanctions which Jesus Christ laid down in the Christian gospel. This does not of course, mean any narrow, sectarian or theological Christianity. Theological Christianity has been per- haps the most constant foe of genuine social advance known in history, because theological Christianity has usually meant ecclesiasticism and ecclesiasticism, un- qualified by vigorous and vital civil administration, has uniformly corrupted everything it has controlled. This was inevitable, because no group of men have ever been or ever will be good enough, or wise enough, to have unrestricted supervision over their fellow creatures. Unqualified power has rarely been wisely administered. For this same reason, democracy, without qualifications cannot emerge in anything but tyranny or anarchy. I yield to no man in my devo- tion to democracy. But as an unyielding democrat, I do not find myself bound to believe that every plebiscite reveals a mandate from Heaven! I refuse to accept any sort of infallibility, even the infallibility of the " people " ! But I also believe that the qualifications by which democracy is to be saved must come from the substi- tution for external authority, of an inner moral pur- Preface pose which is grounded in religion and a conception like that of Jesus' Kingdom of God. It is to corre- late the social hope with that inner moral govern- ment that has inspired the writing of this book. To do this fairly is not an easy task, because spiritual aspiration and authority are so easily identified with ecclesiastical control. I do not therefore expect that social doctrinaires will be satisfied with my position, though I do not think any of them will claim that I have not stated the evils they complain of vigorously enough. Mere ecclesiastical Christians, of course, will not approve. They are, however, of no particu- lar consequence in any case. But I hope the genuine Christianity of the land, in the church and out of it, will feel that something worth while has been done, in this statement of the great question, in which whether living or dying we are the Lord's and each other's. Several of the closing chapters have ap- peared in the Bibliotheca Sacra and have occasioned wide correspondence with interested men and women, throughout the land. They will welcome them in this permanent form with the modifications which have been necessary for incorporation here. A. A. BERLE. Cambridge, Mass., Sept. i, 1914. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE i THE TRUE NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY 3 II MIRACLES OR MONEY 41 III RELIGION AND TAXATION 67 IV THE MORAL DISTRUST OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS . 95 V QUACKS ABOUNDING 123 VI SOCIAL JUSTICE ON THE CURBSTONE 145 VII FEMINISM 175 VIII ISRAEL IN BONDAGE 207 IX DEMOCRACY 245 X HEALTH 267 XI 'RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 291 XII UNIVERSITIES AND SOCIAL ADVANCE 333 XIII CIVILIZATION MUST BE BORN AGAIN 365 CHAPTER I THE TRUE NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY If we turn away from abstract selfish conceptions of virtue, and consider the concrete relations in which men stand to each other in society, we shall see at once that without regeneration there can be no true and worthy social life. Take the family, business science, art, social intercourse and the state. In each of these spheres regeneration is an absolute necessity to the realization of its ideal. The principle of life which we derive from nature, and with which we all start out, is one that must be abandoned and destroyed, and a new principle or, rather, the Holy Spirit, must take its place, before a man is fit to be husband and father; before he can be an honor to any craft, business or profession; before he can deserve the name of scholar; be- fore he can adorn any circle of society; before he can be a true and loyal citizen of any state. WILLIAM DE WITT HYDE, " Outlines of a Social Theology." CHAPTER I THE TRUE NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY CHRISTIANITY is a controversy. When it is not a controversy it is likely to be a superstition or a form of fetichism. It had its rise in the effort of a group of individuals who were thoroughly at war with the existing order of human life and the stand- ards governing it and were willing to give their lives in the struggle against both. The old order accepted the challenge of the Founder and promptly employed the usual forms of suppression. It gibbeted Jesus Christ and whenever it became necessary to do the same or similar things to the real followers of Jesus Christ it had no hesitation in doing them. The lead- ers of the old order only failed in doing these things, when they failed to perceive the true nature of Chris- tianity. When they did perceive it they saw that the struggle was one of life or death. Christianity could not triumph except in their extinction. Hence these 3 4 Christianity and the Social Rage leaders set in motion every agency at their command to secure the extinction of the leaders of Christianity. This was a perfectly natural and logical proceed- ing. Christianity looked to a new world, a new social order, a new valuation of individual life, a new conception of human liberty and a new theory of hu- man government. Any one of these involved a revo- lution and together they constituted a menace to almost everything that existed at the time when Christianity appeared. The more astute of the disciples of the old order saw this perfectly clearly. The more clear headed of Christian leaders saw it likewise. Both perceived that anything like a compromise was not only impossible but absurd. Hence nobody thought of compromise. It was a war to the death. And death it meant to many on both sides. This is the simplest reading of early Christian history and the foundation for its understanding. A thorough grasp of this view of the case will ne- cessitate in many minds an equally thorough revision of their view of the personality of Jesus Christ. The prevailing notion that Jesus was a heavenly minded peasant dreaming his life away yvith visions of a beatific world in which all things resembled a sub- limated prayer meeting or a revival chorus, is contra- dicted by every reasonable interpretation of what we find on the pages of the New Testament. In the first place Jesus was not a wanderer in the fields and a recliner by quiet streams dreaming about a glorified world. His life was as nearly an urban life as in the state of things it possibly could be. Most of his The True Nature of Christianity 5 life was spent in the relatively urban communities of Jerusalem and Capernaum. These places were the " cities " of his time and country. They corresponded to the city of to-day in its relation to the rural re- gions and their population. In these he uttered him- self most freely and in these the nature of his personality and teaching most fully expressed itself. In both he met the fundamental problems of human life and in one of them he met the answer of the old order to the same. The priestly oligarchy at Jerusa- lem did, from their standpoint, exactly what they ought to have done. Skilled casuists, as many of them undoubtedly were, they saw that their only hope was in the destruction of the central figure in such a propaganda as Jesus represented. That it did not work out as they expected it would, could not be fore- seen by them. They were acting according to the best light of their time and according to a logic which has not been substantially altered since. There is evidence that Jesus gradually saw this with increasing clearness himself. And He likewise accepted the issue, with this difference, that probably He saw that His cause would be more powerful in His death than it could possibly be in His life. Other spiritual pioneers learning from His example have seen the same thing. John Brown immediately oc- curs to one as the most striking example. He also saw that the struggle with slavery was a death strug- gle. When the opponents of slavery saw this as clearly as John Brown saw it, the end of slavery was in sight, because both sides fought to a finish. It was 6 Christianity and the Social Rage a war of extinction for one side or the other. The Christian martyrs generally speaking saw this truth also. They found out, by practical experience, that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church, because it revealed most clearly and inevitably that the struggle of Christianity with the world as they found it was a death struggle. They reasoned and they reasoned rightly that when all possibility of com- promise is removed, somebody presently makes a de- cisive change. Every period 'of Christian history in which Chris- tianity has flourished, meaning by this, not any insti- tution which called itself Christianity, but genuine Christianity, in the life and behavior of individuals, has exhibited the same phenomenon. Once the revo- lutionary nature of the contest was revealed some- thing had to give way. Sometimes the Christians were literally wiped out. That was logical and so far as it went satisfactory to those who were opposed to Christianity. Not infrequently the Christians, finding that they could not persuade their opponents to become Christians, exterminated them precisely as their opponents had exterminated Christians. This was logical enough, except that it abandoned the Christian way and ultimately reacted upon and weak- ened Christianity, by destroying the fundamental dif- ference between Christianity and the old order which it sought to supplant. But, at least, the fact was kept clear that the struggle was a revolutionary one. It meant not compromises but exterminations. This has been repeated so many times in one form or The True Nature of Christianity 7 another in the history of Christianity that the fact is clear. From all this it becomes apparent that the true na- ture of Christianity is one which demands, nay com- pels, controversy with the existing order of the world whatever that order happens to be. Christianity contemplates a world of justice and brotherhood. So long as justice is wanting in any portion of the life of mankind, Christianity will be, if it is true to itself, at war with the existing order. The religion of Christ has no mission where there are no wrongs to right. It has no mission where there are no imperfections to improve. It has no mission where there is satis- faction and contentment. But in a world which is full of wrongs to right, which is full of imperfections both individual and social, where no rational person can have satisfaction or contentment for any consid- erable period, Christianity must be at war. It is not an accident that so much of the imagery employed in the New Testament and the early and in fact in all Christian literature, is drawn from war. These ex- press the true nature of Christianity's controversy with the world and almost everything in it. In fact, it may be said that the mission of Christianity never can be ended, because it has as one of its fundamental postulates to create sins where none existed before. Habits, institutions, practises, which the world ac- cepts complacently or regards as fixed it is the busi- ness of Christianity to examine in the light of its own demand for perfection and justice and thus create a sense of sin and hence ultimately sins where there 8 Christianity and the Social Rage was no such sense of sin before. A Christian com- munity without a fight on its hands for something bet- ter in manners, morals, social, industrial, political or educational life is an absurdity. For this reason a Christian church that is not a center of world antag- onism is either foolishness or fetichism. Its business is to fight sin. Should such a thing be possible, as a community in where there are " no foes to face " it would be the business to create such by examining its fundamental institutions in the light of pure truth and justice and manufacture new sins, by showing a higher order of life and humanity unattained. But there is no such community nor is there any likelihood that there ever will be. Hence Christianity must be controversy to the end of time. Its work will never be finished and as a matter of fact never can contem- plate a completed moral world. Nor is all this at variance with those conceptions of Christianity which regard nurture and the permeation of society with Christian ideals, through what are sometimes called indirect methods. The truth is, Christian nurture, rightly understood, means rearing a human being who can fight and fight successfully the sin of the world, in whatever form he happens to come into collision with it. The only reason for a Sunday school, for example, is to train a young person in the knowledge of the fact that Christianity means a war on the sin of the world. Of course it begins in the conflict for personal moral standards, conform- ing with the teaching of Christ. But it can hardly stop there. As a matter of fact with fully matured The True Nature of Christianity 9 Christians it never does. The vast majority of Chris- tians who simply go through the motions of Christian worship are simply parasites who live on the labor of the fighting minority who express the real nature of the Christian gospel. They simply enjoy what the few gain and hold in the death struggle in which the genuine Christianity of the world is always en- gaged. They count for whatever the paper strength of a modern army may mean, as contrasted with its effective strength. The effective strength of Chris- tianity is that portion which is actively engaged in creating the forces which can compel the extinction of the things with which Christianity is at war. It does not follow from all this either that Chris- tianity necessarily means warlikeness or violence or force. Under stress, it may mean all these. But that Christianity is a controversy does not mean that it must use the crude weapons of force. Its war may be a war of the printing press, the courts or the ballot box. It may mean the agitation of the revival cru- sade or it may mean the scholarly research into orig- inal sources in the theological cloister. But all these are but the forging of the instruments that must mean, in the end, the destruction of something with which Christianity is everlastingly at war, namely the sin and imperfection of the world. Sometimes the relations of these things are not perceived and theo- logical labors become mere pedantic studies and re- vival crusades become emotional debauches. But at their best, both are a part of the propaganda which looks for the regeneration of the world, not by com- 1O Christianity and the Social Rage promises, not by modifications of the world's program of life, but by the destruction of the sin of the world and the substitution of righteousness. A proper ap- preciation of this fact would destroy the peace of mind of many persons and it ought to. The decline of ecclesiastical authority and power, notwithstand- ing the immense augmentation of the moral forces of the world, shows clearly what happens when the na- ture of Christianity is not understood. When Chris- tianity through its representative institutions becomes the champion of the existing order, no matter what the order happens to be, and apologizes for it, or merely explains it or in fact does anything but assail and try to destroy it, Christianity, or rather its insti- tutions, properly become themselves the subjects of the attack of the expanding moral life of the world. At this stage of the world's history, that expanding moral life is the true Christianity at work. It labors through so-called Christian institutions when and while it can. When they become jejune or lifeless it drops the institutions and starts an extra-ecclesias- tical war for righteousness. Sooner or later the institutions adopt the new order. II The aggressive character of Christianity becomes more accentuated when it is remembered that it is a form of collectivism. Perhaps this is the simplest and most accurate way of stating the fact. But even a casual reading of the New Testament reveals that The True Nature of Christianity 11 while the religion of Jesus contemplates vast personal improvements and a drastic program of personal self- control and self-development these are but preliminary to a larger program which is called the creation of the Kingdom of God. Concerning the exact significa- tion of this term it is not now necessary to speak. It is enough to say that it is a form of collectivism and the only purpose of the individual enrichment or growth is for the perfection of the social whole called the Kingdom of God. It is also to be noted that this collective idea is not a federal thing, created by agree- ment and sustained by statutes, but arising from the nature of humanity and the necessities of the case. It is therefore not a voluntary matter at all. Chris- tians are not a voluntary group held together by vol- untary association. They are members of the King- dom because they are organically members one bf another and the completion of the life of each is de- pendent upon the redemption of all. Here again we have presented to us the most pow- erful of reasons why Christianity can never be at peace and why in its nature it must forever be in the field of an eternal conflict. Self-realization on the part of the individual means that he must be forever on the search for the remaining members of the group, who without him cannot become perfect and without whom he cannot become perfect himself. He must therefore be forever breaking down the impediments to his union with what is his ultimate life, his own self-completion and self-realization. The other mem- bers of the group must be at the same business. The 12 Christianity and the Social Rage group comprising all humanity makes this task as world wide as humanity. Hence the individual can no more think of himself apart from the rest of man- kind than an arm or a foot can think of itself apart from the human body. Indeed the body is the figure employed in the New Testament to express the or- ganic union of all Christians. The net result of this conception is merely that it enlarges the area of controversy. What might easily become a clan or race or national conception of Chris- tianity, is thus kept down in the view of a human Christianity which embraces all mankind. This means war not only with those institutions which sep- arate nations from realizing their own social and human solidarity, but hardly less war with those that separate nations and languages from each other and keep the human race divided into groups more or less alien if not absolutely hostile. The firing line, to con- tinue the military symbolism, is thus far extended. Even supposing peace to have been secured at home, the war must be carried on abroad. It is easy to see from this that there is no end in sight for this strug- gle even with the elements of the contest. The war begins with the individual himself struggling for self mastery, extends to the social group where he happens to be, widens out to the nation and finally to the whole world. And as before stated even then there is no peace, since a perfected world is unthink- able and every fresh development which requires the readjustment of human relations according to justice The True Nature of Christianity 13 and brotherhood requires the realignment of the forces throughout the entire world. The immediate effect, however, of the collectivist conception of Christianity is to emphasize its social obligations. The individual hardly recognizes his personal duties and possibilities than he is plunged into the question of social responsibility and this con- fronts him at the threshold of his Christian conscious- ness of himself. It may almost be said that his Christian self-recognition and his recognition of his social duty are synchronous. At all events for prac- tical purposes they cannot be separated and some thinkers have held that Christian self -recognition is itself proved only by the discovery of social duty. However this may be, there is injected at once by this knowledge into the life of the individual Chris- tian a permanent source of unrest and anxiety for the future of his fellow men. For better or for worse, he is launched on a sea that knows no shores. No single human creature is beyond the imperative which is thus forced upon him. All men become classified to his religious consciousness as either ex- pressing and forwarding this quest and anxiety or denying it and refusing to be bound by it. And this classification inaugurates the struggle in which one or the other conception must perish. It is the collective conception of Christianity which has taught the world the true nature of Christianity. So long as Chris- tianity confined itself to the business of merely pro- ducing admirable persons, amiable, attractive and 14 Christianity and the Social Rage worthy but with no interest or ambition for the sub- jugation of the rest of the world to the Christian ideal, the existing order had no particular use for Christianity except as a periodical salve for its most festering wounds. But the moment it became imbued with the zeal of its real essence, it also became sur- gical in its excision of what was repugnant to its collectivist ideal and then the war opens with vigor and often with virulence. It will be seen in the sub- sequent unfolding of this idea how fully Christian history bears out this statement. So true is the principle which has just been laid down that it may be said that the very metaphysical struggles of the theologians, worthless and stupid as most of them have been, are now seen to have had as their raison d'etre precisely this idea. When such conflicts have been sincere and born out of the vital life of the contending factions, they have always had their spring in the belief by each side that it was fighting for the life of Christianity. It is illuminating to note how zealously each side contended that what it had to offer was not a program, but Christianity itself and with full realization of the vital nature of the struggle of genuine Christianity with the world, the fighting theologians were forced to take toward their opponents exactly the attitude they took toward the rest of the world, namely, no compromise, but utter extinction. Theological warfare has always had a deep interest for mankind because of this fact. Perhaps this is the reason also why it has been the bitterest kind of warfare. But in any case the con- The True Nature of Christianity 15 sciousness of the exclusive character of Christianity made them fight to the very bitter end however mis- takenly, because they thought that what they were saving for the world was Christianity itself. It is highly instructive to observe that such theological feuds rarely if ever ended in compromises. Com- promise was itself perceived to be a form of death. Whatever one may think of their temper and spirit, their logic was flawless. In the midst of these controversies within the sphere of what was called Christian fellowship, there was never wanting for a single moment another con- ception which emphasized the consciousness of the collective nature of Christianity. Each side usually maintained that it was engaged as much in saving the souls of its antagonists as in saving its own. This provokes a cynical smile with us, but it was the fact. It is now known to be psychologically possible for an inquisitor to torture the very life out of his theolog- ical victim and then go placidly to his closet and pray for the peace of his soul and to rejoice that he has been saved from further continuance in his evil ways ! Christian literature has plenty of material which shows this to be the case not merely in the distant but not less so in the more recent history of religious persecution. Contradictory and farcical as this may seem to be, nevertheless it is a form of religious phe- nomena found only in Christian annals. No other religion ever dreamed that in torturing a theological opponent you were doing him a spiritual service. Yet Christianity has such records and they are now psy- 16 Christianity and the Social Rage chologically explicable. But they are also explicable from the fact that, side by side with the idea of per- sonal and individual redemption, the collectivist idea of religion, the solidarity of humanity, the yearning for the realization of the Kingdom of God was so intimately present, as to actually produce the gro- tesque results above indicated. But strange as it may seem, the same influences which produced the demonstrations which everywhere disfigure theological controversy, within the ranks of Christians, so-called, were the very ones which ulti- mately made for religious freedom and liberty of thought. Mere tolerance because the power to per- secute is absent is not much of an achievement. But tolerance because the solidarity of mankind and the realization of justice and brotherhood require the full expression of each individual, because necessary to the completion of the whole, is a sublime idea. Formerly the theological persecutor slew his antag- onist or tortured him into salvation because he thought that was the best way of saving his, that is the victim's, soul, as well as his own. The tolerance that sees that the only way truth can possibly be dis- covered is by fighting for the freedom of each man and securing for him absolutely unhampered spiritual and social liberty because no man liveth to himself, but that living or dying, we are the Lord's and each other's, is the modern way of saying the same thing and the modern way of doing it. Queer as it sounds to say it, these things are not different except in method. There is the same amount of human imper- The True Nature of Christianity 17 fection and often stupidity (and some things not so stupid) mixed in both forms of action. But allowing for changes in general knowledge, enlightenment and experience, they are not fundamentally different. Both sought solidarity. Both sought the unification and expression of the ultimate Christian ideal. Both firmly believed they expressed the unity which is in Christ. The difference in method is not substantially greater than the difference between the armor of the Middle Ages and that of to-day. The striking thing is that, in all cases, men were willing to die for the ideal. They were willing to endure anything for it, believing that the struggle of Christianity with the existing order is a life and death affair. That is the important feature of the situation in every phase which these contests present. From all this it must appear that the controversial nature of Christianity shows that the struggle was not merely for victory but for possession. That is it was not merely for the right to be in the world un- harmed and unhindered, but for the subjugation of the world and all of it. Nothing could be left un- touched. Nothing could be let alone. It has taken ages for Christianity to get at some things but it has finally taken hold of them. There are many things which it has not touched yet, but it may be affirmed absolutely that there is no phase of human life or activity, no possible department of humanity's mani- fold interests which sooner or later will not be brought into the foreground of the Christian consciousness and there made the subject of the scrutiny, that involves i8 Christianity and the Social Rage a life or death struggle. Postponed, with reference to any wrong, does not mean that it is either forgotten or overlooked. Its day will come. Tardily perhaps but surely, the fight comes on. It is impossible that it should be otherwise. Christianity does not con- template peace. It does not contemplate contentment. It has no place for satisfaction for long. Its ideals of to-day vanish over night into new ones to-morrow. Ill A controversy that must emerge in the extinction of one of the contestants involves perpetual revolu- tion. In individual behavior and ideals this is per- ceived clearly enough when confined to simple things. There is no middle ground between truth and false- hood when the issue is simply one of fact. But while Christian conduct is not a simple matter and is largely based upon probable reasoning, the question of alle- giance to a Christian ideal or not is a simple matter that can be determined with almost mathematical pre- cision. It is equivalent to the civic oath of allegiance. Such an oath does not prescribe a standard of citizen- ship nor define all the duties of the citizen. It merely requires that there shall be loyal adherence to one master. In a similar way Christ's demand for dis- cipleship calls for no specific declarations of policy in personal deportment or relations to mankind. It does indeed declare that men shall be governed by the law of love, but how that law shall be applied and with what variations of force or method must be left to the The True Nature of Christianity 19 individual judgment. Every attempt to require uni- form standards has failed. No such requirement is ever likely to succeed. But there is no such latitude in the question of the acceptance of the law of love itself. The individual accepts it or rejects it. That is a simple and thoroughly intelligible transaction. Now the acceptance of the law of love as the rule of life is a revolutionary performance. There may be many moments of confusion as to the practical ex- pression of the law, but as to the finality of the law itself there can be no confusion. The earliest and the latest disciples of Christ have seen this with equal clearness. For the earliest it frequently meant per- secution and death. It has meant the modern equiva- lent for these things for the later disciples in not a few cases. The man who makes the law of love his rule of life is ipso facto a revolutionist in modern society. In spite of the vast philanthropies of our modern world he knows that it is possible to have all these things, and be without love. He knows that vast professional and personal sacrifices are possible without love. He knows that enormous learning is possible without love. His demand penetrates for himself and for all individuals deeper than any philan- thropy or any institutional service. He knows that many a man can give his body to be burned and have not love. The demand of love exceeds every one of these things. He must therefore seem to the mass of men, who point to good works of various kinds to schools, hospitals, libraries, research foundations and the like to be a fanatic who cannot see the Christian 2O Christianity and the Social Rage spirit actually at work. Yet he is right and they are wrong. There is not a syllable in the gospels which can for one moment justify the substitution of insti- tutional philanthropies however great, or charities however wide and helpful, for the personal self-sub- jection to the law of love. That the genuine disciple of Christ is a revolutionary is absolutely beyond ques- tion. There is nothing in the world so exacting, so penetrating, so intolerant of any substitution of a spurious for the real thing, as the love required for discipleship of Christ. Nor does this conception involve a pharasaic atti- tude on the part of the true disciple. He asks noth- ing for himself having already made the supreme sacrifice. He wants no rewards, he fears no penal- ties. He has made the revolution successfully in his own heart and will and cannot profit in the slightest degree by sitting in judgment on his fellow men. But he cannot blind himself, being in the light, to the darkness round about him. Seeking righteousness himself under the rule of love he must simply demand from all others what he has done himself. He has lost his li f e to save it and he sees that there is no other way. There is no truer test of the validity of discipleship than this recognition of the revolutionary effect of genuine Christianity. It is this fact which accounts for the separative nature of Christianity. Those branches of the Christian church which have empha- sized it most, even though it has been merely by separative symbols and signs, have flourished most The True Nature of Christianity 21 because the revolutionary character of the gospel was thus kept clearly in mind. The symbols and the signs have often and indeed usually are, foolish, intolerant and unjustifiable. But the fact to which they owe their existence is unmistakably written on every page of the New Testament. It is for this reason that the decline of the distinc- tion between the Christian and the non-Christian in modern life has had a significance far greater than is commonly supposed. Modern Christianity has gal- lantly tried to permit its disciples to keep as many of the enjoyments, delights and indulgences of the rest of the world as it ppssibly could, without seeming to endanger the Christian discipleship. For this reason, the Christian profession, except in a church, has be- come practically worthless. Nobody would think in any relation of life, in business, politics, public serv- ice or what not, placing confidence, to the extent of influencing decision upon membership in a church. As a practical fact, no church member would think ordinarily of offering such membership as evidence of moral worth or trustworthy character. Even less would such membership be offered as a ground for the placing of deep and weighty responsibilities. The exactions of righteousness, the obedience to the law of love as a rule of life on its practical side, is not even inquired of in most churches. Commonly, ad- herence to some theological statement is the most that is required and the candidate would probably highly resent any inquiry into the moral quality of his busi- 22 Christianity and the Social Rage ness relations, or his professional standards. It is enough ordinarily that does not openly violate the statute law. The meaning of this is, that for much of the mod- ern Christianity, the religion of Christ has lost its revolutionary character and is therefore not Chris- tianity at all. It ought normally to be possible to select a Christian employer from a non-Christian em- ployer on the testimony of the majority of his employees. It ought to be possible to distinguish the operation of the law of love as the rule of life in an institution where a thousand people are employed, from one where there is no such rule, so readily, that the waiting list for places in the Christian establish- ment should greatly exceed its numbers. But as a matter of fact, not only does no such distinction exist, but often the exact reverse is the case. An employer known to have conspicuous Christian connections is shunned for one who is known not to have any. Yet as a practical matter, there could be no more direct and immediate method of testing the application of the law of love as a rule of life. But it is a perfectly safe statement, that hardly a single employer would submit to an examination of his business establish- ment and methods as a test for his admission to the Christian church. Yet such a test would be more reasonable, more readily made, more justly applied and fairer from every possible standpoint than to ex- amine him on the points of religion, in the creed which he generally accepts or its biblical or theological soundness. This is not to say that he is to be sub- The True Nature of Christianity 23 jected to inquisitorial inquiries. It would be merely rinding out what the concensus of judgment among those most affected is, as to the probability that his life is governed by the law of love. How absurd it is to ask a man to have expert theological views of religion and yet not be willing to submit to interroga- tion as to his ethical relations and behavior! It is in an antithesis like this that the revolutionary nature of Christianity is discovered. The truth is the New Testament gives no warrant whatever for the ordinary kind of examination for church member- ship. It gives absolutely every kind of authority for the kind suggested. In the earliest stages of Chris- tianity's development, such an examination was made and discipleship involved life itself. The earliest followers could say truthfully, " Lo, we have left all and followed Thee." There have been periods in the history of the church when this same test was applied. But in general, it may be said, that when Christianity became identified with the church or indeed any form of institutionalism its essential character began to be obscured. What makes a celibate priesthood so much more powerful than a married clergy is that the out- ward symbol of renunciation is always there. The difference between the celibate and the married min- ister is always clearly in view. This is not asserting that a celibate clergy is the best kind or even a de- sirable kind. It is asserting, however, that in prac- tise, such a clergy has always and will always be more powerful, until the revolutionary nature of Christian discipleship makes the differentiation of Christians 24 Christianity and the Social Rage from the rest of the world more easily discernible. In other words, Christianity must recover its own conception of itself. It must mean a revolution for every individual who embraces it. This revolution will take on as many forms as the individuals them- selves. But it will be a genuine revolution in each case and it will be decisive enough to make the indi- vidual thus revolutionized easily distinguishable in his own circle, because of the change which has been wrought. In our modern life, all such distinguish- ing features in personal behavior have been reduced >to the minimum, where they have not been obliterated altogether. The church an4 the world are so much alike that they have no line of demarcation. There is not in this view a plea for asceticism. This is not needful to the accentuation of the differ- ence between the disciple of Christ and the person not so obligated. There is here no call for the regalia of penitence, of humiliation, or indeed any sort of public exhibition of the believer. Such exhibitions even were they proposed would be discredited at the outset. Nobody believes in them any longer and they form, merely, in so far as they exist, the ecclesiastical play- things of immature spirituality. But there are numberless methods by which such differences may be made manifest. The anxiety of a merchant to main- tain his credit and to meet his responsibilities, is a vastly more complicated thing, per se, than the effort of a man to emphasize his Christian character should be. The latter should not require effort, much more extended or persistent than the former. But the mer- The True Nature of Christianity 25 chant will not fail of the former, because his credit is a vitally necessary thing, failure to preserve it meaning bankruptcy. The expression of Christian discipleship, however, not being attended by such immediate results and Christian discipleship itself not being understood as involving a moral revolution, is neglected and finally disappears. Even this is not the worst result. The very capacity for its expression disappears. The only possible meaning of this is the real Christianity itself disappears and in its place re- mains a fetich which simply persists, if it persists at all, through custom or want of interest to change. It is important to note in this personal revolution, which is the only genuine evidence of Christian discipleship, that it must be in terms which the non- Christian can understand. This is the reason why religious exhortations, prayers, ecclesiastical exercises and the like, interesting and valuable in themselves, have no evidential value with the rest of the world. Do not the hypocrites the same? The revolution must be in forms and under symbols which unaided human nature can instantly understand and assimilate and which bring with them no interrogations. Feed- ing a hungry man is an act which admits of no ambiguity as to its nature. It does not indeed betoken the law of love as the rule of life, but hunger and want of food can be immediately correlated as cause and effect. The same thing is true of most of the Christian virtues. A pledge of a thousand or a mil- lion dollars has no such evidential value as the giving of a cup of cold water, in person. Neither, as stated, 26 Christianity and the Social Rage may have any Christian quality whatever, one being simply pride in public philanthropy and the other in- dulgence in a pleasurable emotion. But one can be understood as a personal relation which the other can- not. Nothing can take the place of this personal relation and this personal expression of the disciple- ship of love. That is what makes it so revolutionary and so exacting. That is the one thing which modern Christianity finds it hardest to secure from church members. That is the reason why modern Christian- ity has so few tokens that give it authority in the minds of men. IV Emerson remarks somewhere that an honest man appearing in a drawing room produces an effect like that of a bull in a china shop. The Christian disciple being an honest man and something more, produces the same dynamic result in society. As all the shams, frauds and pretenders instantly fear honesty, so all injustice, privilege and wrong fear the advent of the revolutionary, who has made the law of love his rule of life. It used to be said that this country could not persist half slave and half free. It is even more im- possible that some of society should be governed by the law of love and some of it refuse to be so gov- erned. These two elements as we have seen are engaged in a war of extermination. Having tri- umphed in the individual, the law of love seeks other individuals to conquer and with each conquest en- deavors to extend the area of influence and authority. The True Nature of Christianity 27 This is the explanation of the missionary enterprises of Christianity. In fact, the missionary enterprises have been almost the sole instrument by which much of the Christianity of so-called Christian countries has been kept alive. It gave the semblance of life to what was really dead. It offered the only means of expressing a Christianity which did not render per- sonal service at home and did not affect the distinc- tions which separated Christians from the rest of the community. It was easy enough for a so-called Christian in the United States to give his money for the enlightenment of the so-called heathen in China or Malaysia while he himself at home had not one single distinguishing characteristic that differentiated him from the heathen mass at home. This substitu- tion of the missionary contribution for the personal service offered the easy and natural method for avoiding the demands upon his personal reformation of life, silencing the voice of criticism and preventing the severer demands of genuine Christianity at home from being made. It did more than this. It paved the way for the elimination of the stern requirements of personal revolution and through this, held up, within the church, the movement of social revolution which is inevitably bound up with personal revolution. When any individual or group of individuals once sets up a higher standard than the prevailing one in which they move, the war which has no ending has begun. But the fixing of the interest on foreign lands and away from the problems of immediate need and immediate 28 Christianity and the Social Rage sacrifice did not merely nullify the demand for actual Christian discipleship as distinguished from the nom- inal kind, but it often stifled genuine Christianity itself. Missionary activity became a delightful lux- ury of the well to do. Resounding contributions and the very genuine successes of Christianity in foreign lands, where, by the way, Christianity was gradually forced after numberless experiments of the home kind, to adopt the New Testament method, gave a beautiful semblance of loyal and devoted adherence to the law of love as the rule of life. " Are we not sending the gospel to the remotest corners of the earth?" "Do we not obey the command to go into all the earth? " " See what we are achieving in foreign lands ! " Such exclamations and questions were supposed to close the question entirely. Meanwhile the church at home refused to look at the failures at her very door. She forgot the cries of the hungry, the wails of the oppressed, the bondage of the wage worker and the helplessness of the infirm, until genuine Christianity, without the pale, rudely waked her up with violent criticism and bitter assaults. And when some of her choicest spirits were found to be among those, which the enlightened Christianity outside of the church pronounced thieves and despoilers of humanity, she helplessly looked on, wondering just how it all came about. At the present moment, the church has not gotten much farther than looking around rather helplessly and wondering what it is all about! But if the church had read the New Testament to any purpose she need not have been surprised. Per- The True Nature of Christianity 29 sonal revolution ultimately means social revolution. A bull in a china shop means broken dishes. Or it means a bull expelled or slain. An honest man means a fight wherever he comes into collision with dishonesty. It is not pleasant but it is inevitable. A Christian disciple in the presence of the sin and misery of the world, who knows, as he must know, that all the misery of the world is directly and in- evitably allied with the sin of the world, has no other alternative, if he is to save his own life, but to in- augurate a fight. It is not a matter of choice. To be himself he must fight. All genuine disciples have had to take Luther's attitude. " Here I stand, I can do no other. God help me ! " And be it observed, in passing, that this attitude is not that, commonly de- scribed, as militant. It is an inevitable thing like the battle between light and darkness. Sin and right- eousness are mutually exclusive. Only casuists and time servers can find a twilight zone of piety, where sin and righteousness can co-exist. Genuine Chris- tianity recognizes no such zone; at least not con- sciously. But the church not only has such a zone but broadly speaking it has no other. The " peace of the church " about which so much praying is done and which means in practise the zealous covering up of so much scandal, dishonesty and double dealing, is really the abandonment of Christianity. Christian- ity therefore is not only a personal, but also a social revolution. It can leave nothing alone. Its very na- ture forbids it to permit anything which can hinder the individual revolution which is its primary essence. 30 Christianity and the Social Rage Hence it is socially as revolutionary as it is personally transforming. This is not denied generally, but the method is supposed to be one of " gradual permeation of society by Christian ideals." This would be satis- factory enough, but if you have no Christians illus- trating Christian ideals, if you have a church which makes no demands that its members shall submit to the law of love as the rule of life, if your conspicuous Christians are men who are engaged in loathsome in- dustries and despotic monopolies, in which thousands of helpless human beings are ground to powder and lost to every reasonable conception of happy and useful existence, how in the name of all that is true and of good report are you to " permeate society with Christian ideals"? Could hypocrisy go further than this? Is there a greater illusion possible to the hu- man mind than that you can regenerate society, through people who are themselves judged by every ordinary standard of reason and insight themselves unregenerate ? " By their fruits shall ye know them," is the indig- nant response to this passionate plea of the man, who is really under the law of love. But what fruits? Hospitals, schools, libraries, art galleries, philanthro- pies, what do all these signify if not the permeation of society by Christian ideals? In the first place, it may be said that many of these things are not on Christian foundations nor do they pretend to be. In the second place, we have arrived at a point in the moral and spiritual life of the world, where we ask where and how the man who gives a million dollars The True Nature of Christianity 31 or indeed any sum whatever to charity got the money. The greater his gift, the more anxious we are to in- quire as to its source. In doing this, we are simply following the New Testament method. Does it not seem rather foolish to give adhesion to the divine authority of the narrative in the book of Acts in which Ananias and Sapphira sought to escape a just appor- tionment of a church tax, according to an agreement previously entered into, and then look with indiffer- ence upon the tax dodgers and other avoiders of their just share of social burdens especially when these are supposed to be under Christ's law? Could any fool- ishness go further than this? But let no man say this is an assault upon the rich merely. The rule follows everywhere. The million dollar gift gets newspaper notice. But in less conspicuous circles a hundred dollars which bears the same general relation to the giving that a million dollar gift does to a greater mass of wealth, is scrutinized with hardly less eager- ness and interest. The only difference is that we do not hear about it. It is an entirely proper attitude. When men prosper to such a degree as to make them conspicuous among their fellow men, it is a worthy ambition to know what there is about them that makes them so successful. We do not hesitate to do this freely in the case of scholars and statesmen and in- ventors or discoverers, why should we hesitate about millionaires? Money, being so important a factor in life, representing, as it does, so much of brain, labor, skill, invention, aptitude, ingenuity and the rest, its acquisition is a matter of commanding interest to 32 Christianity and the Social Rage everybody or should be. Why is it unreasonable to inquire how this or that man became possessed of his money? Let a small boy come into his gang with a dollar bill and the first question is " Where did you get it?" a perfectly natural, just and reasonable in- quiry. The gang may presently find itself involved in an arrest for stolen money, if it does not inquire! But the church and society have a much more pow- erful motive than mere curiosity or social interest to ask these questions. It wants to know whether this person who has so much and who is so powerful and influential in the making or marring of human life, is operating under the law of love as the rule of life. It is forced to do this for its own salvation, because every Christian must ask it of himself, every group of Christians must also ask it. No better evidence of the abdication of genuine Christianity can be desired than the failure to ask. But this means revolution. Imagine, if it is possible to imagine such a thing, a man of wealth, not necessarily a millionaire but any man conspicuously well-to-do, proposing to join the church, being asked, " Are your business methods such as can be reconciled with the law of love as the rule of life?" "Are your relations with your em- ployees such that they believe that your membership in this church is the act of a sincere believer in the brotherhood of man? " and the like ! Is there a com- mittee in this land that would dare to ask these ques- tions of the village magnate or the city millionaire? And yet these are the questions which the New Testa- ment suggests should be asked ! " How do you The True Nature of Christianity 33 reconcile your Christian discipleship with membership in a corporation which is under criminal indict- ment?" Is not that a pertinent question, for a prospective church member? And would it not be asked if a man under indictment for burglary were to offer himself? Would or would not a pastor ask of a man who professed himself a Christian, while under a charge of arson, " How do you explain the fact that while you profess yourself a disciple of Christ the public law holds you for setting fire to your neighbor's barn? " And what would be thought of him if he did not? But would he be equally ready to ask the holder of the controlling interest in a copper mine, where there had been bloodshed and rioting, how he explained and reconciled these mat- ters with his Christian profession? If not, why not? Such a proceeding would break up almost any church and quite naturally, because the church has long ceased asking questions of practical righteous- ness, because the church no longer requires the per- sonal revolution described in the New Testament and hence is unprepared for the social revolution which is its inevitable consequence. Such a demand would instantly be branded as any one of the revolutionary doctrines, with which the world has been flooded and most of which are as foolish and futile as the wind. But the fact would be that it was something much more revolutionary than the most revolutionary of all social doctrinaires. It would be Christianity, trying to utter itself in the modern world. It would be 34 Christianity and the Social Rage Christian discipleship trying to get back to its original meaning and intent. The case is not different when we look at the other side of the shield. Suppose that a conspicuous leader of labor felt himself constrained to profess Chris- tianity, that is to make the law of love his rule of life. Suppose him to be questioned thus, " How do you reconcile speeches which incite to riot, murder, dynamite explosions and the like with your Christian profession?" what more reasonable inquiry can be imagined? Yet no such question would ever be put. To the credit, at least of the intellectual clarity of most of the labor leaders, it may be said, that they see this thing with perfect clearness and make no preten- sions to being under the law of love. They want what they call justice, which means ordinarily, merely a larger share of the spoil. Given supreme control they act just as the other monopolists do. There is no essential difference between them judged by the law of love as the rule of life. The dynamiters 'who blew up and slew innocent people from one end of the land to the other and the stock manipulators who rob the poor of their innocent investments, are all of a kind, when judged by the Christian law. It is extremely difficult viewing these various malefactors through the eyes of Christ to see any very great marks of difference. The simple truth is, that the law of love as the rule of life is non-existent among them all. The only reason why the condemnation falls with so much greater force upon those who have the wealth, is because these, for the most part, happen The True Nature of Christianity 35 to be connected with the church and profess to be under the law of love. That is what makes them the more natural targets of assault. The professional revolutionists have long since abandoned the church for two reasons ; first, because they did not themselves wish to be judged by the law of love and secondly, because it was already so largely mortgaged to their opponents. But the moral difference between these classes is entirely negligible. From this condition it may readily be seen why the church has had so difficult a task in finding itself on the larger questions of morals and life. Having lost itself in the matter of personal moral revolution, it had nothing by which to recognize and measure the larger problems. It even lost to a great degree the power to estimate its own condition. This is the rea- son why church discipline has almost disappeared. A church of to-day would probably remove from its membership a person who had committed some flagrant offense which was a matter of public knowl- edge. But if it did, it would not be acting because it felt itself constrained to maintain its attitude toward the personal revolution required and everywhere in- sisted upon in the New Testament. It would be be- cause it was brought into public disrepute. Its respectability would be endangered and probably its economic status would be injured. But beyond this, there is no Christian discipline and the reason is not far to seek. " Quisque custodes custodiatf" Who shall pronounce upon the Christian discipleship, where the idea has become so obscured that the stockrigger 36 Christianity and the Social Rage and the industrial despot may not be mentioned with- out risk of a church convulsion? Who shall speak, where all are afraid? or who shall speak, where the standard has been so corrupted that no one can read his title clear? The most striking fact in connection with the ecclesiastical life of to-day is its moral anemia, due to just these causes. But it is not strange. Its demands are no longer moral. Its re- quirements are no longer those of the revolutionary Christ. And if, to these facts are added the moral and financial bondage, often represented by the fact that the very sanctuary itself is built upon the founda- tions of iniquity and the slaughter of innocents, why should any one heed what the church says or be in- terested in what the church does? August Bebel, the German socialist, was opposed to Bismarck's anti- catholic laws because he said these drove the catholics into politics. " Let them teach and preach anything they please in their churches," he said, " nobody goes to hear them." " But in politics they will be a gen- uine force with which we have to deal." So indeed it proved and the laws expelling the Jesuits did Ger- man Catholicism probably the best service that could be rendered to it at the time. Of course the laws were ultimately repealed. In a similar way the theological and non-moral or immoral Christianity has no interest for any one. But once let it become genuine in the sense in which Christ made it to consist in the law of love as the rule of life and something revolutionary will take place. The old formulas will not do. The old prac- The True Nature of Christianity 37 tises will not suffice. The mumblings and prattlings that pass for religious worship will instantly sink to their true level. But then there will be a fight. Peace in the conventional sense will be gone forever. The restless quest for the unattainable law of love as the rule of life begins, and to that search there is no ending ! CHAPTER II MIRACLES OR MONEY However merciful and kind and valuable the works of the charitable, and the efforts of those who would raise up again the pauper and the vagrant, they are not remedial. In so far as the work of the charitable is devoted to reclamation and not to prevention, it is a failure. Not that any one could wish that less were done in the direction of reclamation. The fact only is important, that effort is less powerful there than in over- coming the forces which undermine the workers and those who are struggling against insurmountable difficulties. It is an almost hopeless task to regenerate the degenerate, especially when, if the latter are to succeed, they must be made to take up again the battle with those very destructive forces which are all the time undermining stronger, more capable, and more self-reliant men than they. ROBERT HUNTER, "Poverty" CHAPTER II MIRACLES OR MONEY THERE is a widespread belief that the earliest disciples of Jesus were also creatures like the fictitious Christ of dogmatic religion, persons moon- ing through the world looking for heavenly visions and dreaming their lives away in contemplation of other worlds than the one in which they lived and moved and had their being. But the record of the Book of Acts seems to indicate that the very first thing about which they thought was property. It seems to be clear that impressed with the serious na- ture of the task they had undertaken, namely, the subjugation of the world to the law of love as the rule of life, they were equally impressed with the idea that this undertaking required some sort of a fiscal program. They accordingly adopted an experiment which at this distance looks like pure communism. They had all things in common. They sold all that they possessed and placed the receipts in a common fund. From this fund they, as it appears, endeav- ored to distribute to all the members according as each had need. Thus the first officers apparently were agents of distribution, carrying out the practical pro- 41 42 Christianity and the Social Rage gram of Christianity. And it followed naturally enough, that the first discipline was one arising from failure to meet the obligations which this program imposed and the first differences arose from the same cause. This is most interesting because it indicates that from the very beginning, important as certain what might be called dogmatic or credal distinctions were, they nevertheless promptly yielded to the more press- ing demands of actual life. They obviously did not expect that the material considerations of human need were to be met by miracle. And this it will be ob- served is in the period which was still considered the age of miracles. But whatever the expectation of supernatural intervention and provision was, it was apparently not expected to apply to money! It would of course be futile to expect that we can reproduce the psychological attitude of the apostolic group or explain how they reconciled their sublime beliefs with their practical sense. The important thing is, that their earliest efforts were directed to a direct, clearly considered and practical measure which was based upon the idea of material communism. That the experiment failed as it obviously did, and that the effort had no successors of record does not alter the fact that they made the first one or that they supplemented the possibilities of miracle with the practical distribution of money. They hoped for the miracles, but they could see the money. They knew all about the ravens feeding the prophet Elijah but they did not, on that account, fail to appoint persons Miracles or Money 43 to gather and administer the common property of the brethren. Their heavenly-mindedness was supple- mented by a very strong conception of the immediate needs with which they were confronted. Indeed, after the death of Jesus, some of the more energetic, thought the natural next thing to do was to resume their old occupations. But in any case not for one single instant, so far as we can now discover, did they lose sight of the great overmastering fact, that, though man does not live by bread alone, without bread he certainly dies. And to this they added the equally discerning consciousness that to get bread, provision has to be made for it. No kindly and op- portune flock of ravens was expected to bring food. No manna was expected to fall from heaven morning and evening. They must have money, and to get it they gathered from all who called themselves Chris- tians in the group. For this they had the excellent example of Christ himself. The only official of the small company about Christ was a treasurer. Whence Judas got the money he carried in the bag is not recorded, though it is not unlikely that it was the fruit of some labor and the voluntary contributions of fresh accessions to the ranks of the Christian community. But as Jesus went about, it is evident that the supplies were purchased and this certainly implies money. It there- fore follows that the Master himself had definitely abandoned the theory of miraculous supplies for Himself and His disciples. With the most unswerv- ing trust in the Father, with unbounded claims to the 44 Christianity and the Social Rage Father's paternal oversight and care, teaching obedi- ence, faith and self-renunciation, it is significant that the Master did not accept the Elijah theory of divine intervention or the heavenly supply of daily manna, as the divine method of supplying the needs of Him- self or His followers. The miracle of the loaves and fishes in no way affects this conclusion. Whatever that was, it was not the rule. The regular method surely appears to have been one of purchase, under ordinary conditions, by a person regularly appointed to administer that part of the affairs of the small company. It was therefore perfectly natural for the disciples to continue a practise in which they had been taught by Christ Himself. Nor had anything Jesus had taught on the subject of money appeared to modify this conclusion. Various persons had raised the money question with Jesus and He had met it with clearness and precision. But nothing that He said apparently made His followers after His death suppose that they were to make any raids on rich men or tax anybody for their support. They did expect certain things from those who called them- selves the followers of Christ, and these things they expected with an intensity and determination which is very impressive even at this distance. It is equally clear that they perceived that this money question was not a purely individual affair. Brotherhood meant apparently what it seems to mean. Withholding one's part from the common fund seemed to them very naturally and very justly worthy of death. They gave to falsehoods about property Miracles or Money 45 the severest name possible, namely, " lying to the Holy Ghost." Nothing could possibly be severer. That seemed to smack of the unpardonable sin and there is nothing which appears in the New Testament which comes nearer to defining it than the incident about the distribution of property recorded in the Book of Acts. And it is perfectly obvious why this should be so. It was an offense, not against any in- dividual but against the entire Christian community, that is, against the essence of Christianity itself, which they collectively represented. The individual sin of greed was vastly multiplied when it became the com- munal sin of cheating the entire church. The indi- vidual ceased to be merely acting out of the line of Christian behavior, but striking at the foundation of the entire Christian life. Hence death seemed both natural and reasonable. No penalty could be too ex- treme for an offense which threatened the structure of the whole church. Nothing therefore could indi- cate with greater definiteness the long distance which Christianity has traveled from its foundations than the horror with which such a suggestion would be re- ceived now. It may almost be said that Christianity, as such, takes little or no cognizance of communal sins to-day. There is, to be sure, a rising sense of obligation toward what are called social conditions, but they rarely have any relation to the personal sense of sin on the part of those who hold them. All such efforts at relief or melioration of communal ills are still regarded as benevolence and as evidences of ex- ceptional piety and devotion. Property has not, in 46 Christianity and the Social Rage any practical sense, a place in the Christian scheme of religion as practised to-day. Of course it is talked about. Of course there is a great deal of poetic as- piration about the new earth wherein righteousness shall prevail, but it does not have any relation to the Christian administration of property. In the place of the Christianization of property, modern Christianity is still talking about dogmas and what is worse has taught the world to do the same as will presently be seen. When the natural difficulties of the problem of Christianizing property, as well as the imported antagonisms, caused the first experiment to fail, benevolence was substituted for duty and dogma took the place of money. The poor and needy were taught to look for the intervention of Heaven and not to the exactions of Christian brotherhood, which required those that were strong to bear the burdens of those that were weak. The weak to be sure were neither forgotten nor neglected. But gifts to the poor were clothed with the garments of sanctity and whoso gave to the poor was lending to the Lord, the lending being interpreted with great strictness, because compound interest was expected in the shape of everlasting bliss in another world. A doctrine so comfortable naturally made great and speedy head- way. Human nature being what it is, could not hesi- tate to accept the substitution of a loan institution, the Lord being beneficiary, for "lying to the Holy Ghost " especially when the loan institution was so much more agreeable and its exactions trifling, when compared with the demands of brotherhood. Hence Miracles or Money 47 the way was opened in which the brother of high de- gree could rejoice with the brother of low degree, without sacrificing his superior comfort, his larger possessions, or his immunity from thinking too se- riously about the troubles of his brethren or the world. The sanctification of property was thus achieved by a simple and natural method, which meant comfort for the propertied brother and organized benevolence for the needy disciple. And as the needy disciple was in no position to protest seriously enough to alter the practise, though he did break forth occasionally in terms which showed that he did not like the bread of charity when he was a member of the family, the sacredness of property became a fixed idea. Thus by easy stages the brother of low degree him- self was indoctrinated with the idea that the dispenser of the bread of charity by which he lived was the agent of Heaven and chosen by the Lord for earthly stewardship, because of some special qualifications for the task. The contumacious protestants were soon silenced or starved and the very idea of brotherhood, in the apostolic sense, perished in the growing sanctifi- cation of property. But the brother of high degree shared in this process also. He came to believe, as did his less favored brother, that Heaven had ordained these inequalities. He took his possessions as an inheritance, specially designed for his own use and conservation. By degrees, his stewardship became so seriously grounded in his own mind, that he felt it needful to apply his critical faculties to the problem and soon he took it upon him to determine, within 48 Christianity and the Social Rage himself, as a court of final jurisdiction, whether it was worth while to do this or that for the brother of low degree. All the while he was repeating to himself the pious phrases and the New Testament terms, which imply brotherhood, but his interpreta- tion of these terms was carefully under the primary postulate, that property is sacred and that community of interest is a spiritual, not a material thing. When this conclusion had been attained he had completed the circle. Hence his business was to consider the spiritual interest of his brethren and the material con- siderations became wholly secondary. In other words he relegated his humbler brother back into the region of Elijah and the ravens and substituted miracles for money. Spirituality, of course, under such circum- stances naturally became dogmatic obedience, and presently the final stage was reached, miracles having successfully been substituted for money, benevolence was equally successfully substituted for personal service. II The natural history of spiritual responsibility for other people is a very interesting story. Responsibil- ity for one's self is interesting enough but so full of prosaic areas that a large part of man's activity is spent in getting away from it. The sin and vice of the world have been explained by some social stu- dents and latterly by psychological analysts, as merely the effort of people to get away from the prose of personal responsibility for one's own behavior and Miracles or Money 49 character. But whether this is the case or not, it cer- tainly is true that such departures from the prose path of duty into the poetic realism of sin and vice have usually had their own natural results, and the final disposition of the matter usually brought the moral excursionist home to himself, and he found that he had not gotten very far from his own fireside after all. The responsibility remained with him to the end. But it never occurred to these interesting persons that they were pioneering for the good of the world. They never thought while the sin was at its gayest, or the vice at its most thrilling point, that they were saviors of the world and vice-gerents of the Almighty ! They have left us no literature, unless the literature of remorse and penitence may be so considered, which gives any impression that they were chosen by heaven for this task. Occasionally you have a notable pro- duction like the Confessions of St. Augustine or the De Profundis of Oscar Wilde, which does give a note which the world may well heed for its moral health, but neither St. Augustine nor Oscar Wilde, while they were enacting the materials which made their master- pieces possible, thought they were acting under divine inspiration and instructions. This is the important point to be kept in mind in contrasting these eminent sinners with those of whom we are now about to speak. But the Christian church after the sanctification of property had been achieved, and the monied minority found themselves placed in a position of spiritual re- sponsibility for their less favored brethren, when 50 Christianity and the Social Rage benevolence had been successfully substituted for per- sonal service, accepted with zeal and in extenso their responsibility for the spiritual welfare of those whom Heaven had supposedly given into their charge. Now spiritual responsibility has some very interesting psychological accompaniments. It gives you a very pleasant sense of superiority which is a lovely thing to have. Nobody who has ever experienced this feel- ing (and nearly everybody has) can fail to recognize it and wish that it might continue forever. It deadens the consciousness of your own sins. It keeps your gaze properly directed at the shortcomings of other people than yourself. It gives your outlook an ex- alted sense of concern for the well being of mankind, and incites to vigorous efforts to regulate, other people. The social propagandists who are now try- ing to regulate everybody and everything in the heavens above, and the earth beneath, are, without most of them being aware of the fact, the logical and spiritual successors of the persons about whom we now speak. It followed very naturally that the propertied Christians thus moved, set about express- ing their responsibility. How should they do it? Of course, being spiritual, the entire area of distribution of money and property was at once automatically exempted from the discussion. Hence it must take the form of regulating the opinions and beliefs of the less favored and the outcome was dogma. The notion that the dogmatic development of Christianity arose from a series of profound convictions about theology, is a pure superstition. The entire theolog- Miracles or Money 51 ical propaganda arose from the desire to be spiritually helpful and hence regulative and controlling, on the part of the more powerful, for and over the weak and this took the form of putting down in fixed and set terms what was needful to gain the benevolent oversight and assistance of the controlling group. As the hierarchy developed, the extension of control and definition of the required submission, grew more and more precise and every emergency called out fresh definitions and set new boundaries or limitations on the part of the submitting group. The hierarchy itself, of course, was but the instrument of the prop- erty-possessing group and had no other function but to register its will. Sometimes, to be sure, the hierarchy was strong enough to raise the question of strength as between itself and the monied brethren, but not often and never for long. And, on the whole, it was easier in any case to give the hierarchy what it wanted and be left free for the larger worldly en- terprises in which the possessors of the world's property wished to engage. Thus was built up the entire framework of dogma of every kind. There is nothing resembling dogma in the Gospels, nothing that can by any stretch of the imagination be called dogma, in the teaching or practises of Christ, outside of the one single imperative, all-compelling require- ment, that Christians must obey the law of love as the rule of life. But beyond this, all application of the demand was left for the Christians themselves. But they must give unmistakable evidence that this was the governing principle of their lives. This done, 52 Christianity and the Social Rage they might operate in any fashion suitable to their time and disposition. Love, it was assumed, would find a way and it usually has. Love never faileth, was the contention and nobody can truthfully say that it ever has. Certainly, those who have tried to conform to the law have never uttered a syllable that gives any color to the supposition that love ever does fail. But for love, the poor and needy were given dogma. They were given government, in opinion and hope, direction in spiritual thought and emotion, rigid formulas as to personal behavior and from all these any consideration of money as related to Chris- tian character and the possession thereof, as involving specially large obligations under the law of love as the rule of life, was carefully avoided. No occupation is so fascinating as that which looks toward the reconstruction of human society, especially if it leaves the reconstructor untouched. Who can doubt that a hierarchy, no matter what it called itself, convinced that it was called by Heaven to take charge of the rest of the world, and itself, therefore, enabled to employ reasoning and to assume postulates which were denied to the rest of mankind, was in a most comfortable and joyous occupation? Who cannot see that such a hierarchy, naturally and inevitably allied to the most powerful elements of society, fa- vored by large gifts and sustained in its arbitrary rulings, which had for their end the holding in proper subjection the less favored of the church, must first of all have offered an almost irresistible appeal for the exercise of great administrative and quasi-spir- Miracles or Money 53 itual ambitions, and in the second place, fallen naturally and again almost inevitably under the rule of the class which supplied it with its great instrument of power money ? There is nothing strange or supernatural about it, unless one looks at the almost supernatural submission on the part of the masses to this program. That was an evidence of divine power the power to forget all natural and human rights, the power to forget personal and spiritual liberty, and most divine of all, to give up one's daily bread for the favor of a group which, without the underpinning of a vast submissive majority, could not possibly have come into existence! But on the side which claimed the divine power and which was and is fond of setting forth its divine authority, there is nothing that can- not be explained by purely natural causes. The de- velopment was in the line of least resistance and in fact, resistance was almost eliminated from the start, because the one instrument by which a difference of opinion could be successfully arbitrated, namely, money, and the power which money gives was ex- cluded from the start. Christian brotherhood car- ried spiritual rights in other people, but none in their property, except as a matter of benevolence. The Christian brother of high degree granted everything except any right to the things of this world, land, goods, houses, and the things which naturally flowed out of the possession of these. On occasions he ostentatiously set forth his adhesion to the elementary principles of Christian brotherhood as stated by Christ. But he never meant that they should be un- 54 Christianity and the Social Rage derstood, nor were they ever understood, as altering in the slightest degree his relation to the things which he held as his own. That is the important point. It may be asked at this stage, whether this brother of possessions did not feel sometimes that something was due to the brother of lower degree for the earthly benefits which he had not the use of, and the response was prompt and altogether satisfactory. He was referred to the compensations and the delights of another world. The Christian dives was perfectly willing to accept torment in the next world, if he could have everything he wanted in this, and the brother of low degree was taught to look for treasures in Heaven, and to Heaven he did look. In other words, he was given miracles for money. For his natural and human rights, he accepted a draft on another world, which was to be cashed in that world, while he accepted poverty, wrong and injustice in this. Nay, more, such is the peculiar psychological effect of this method of indoctrination, he began to be proud of his poverty and began to draw invidious distinctions between himself and the brother of high degree. He called attention to the poverty of Christ, and loved to believe that his own poverty constituted a valid and visible token of his exceptional fidelity to Christ. He talked contemptuously about wealth and the luxuries which wealth begot. It was and is an interesting spectacle. And it was wholly satisfactory to the brother of high degree. So long as it inter- fered with none of his privileges and enjoyments, so long as his work was done and his granaries filled, or Miracles or Money 55 his factories kept running, he had no complaint as to the fulminations about the corruptions of wealth and the danger of the rich man, when he tried the process of getting through the needle's eye of pure righteous- ness. He even made contributions to furnish these brethren places where they might utter these convic- tions to their heart's content, without his presence. And this too has had its consequences, for by easy stages there was achieved a sort of segregation, though that is not what they called it, by which all embarrassing contacts were removed. But be it noted, that thus, by a process purely nat- ural, not at all difficult of explanation, the two classes of Christians were made perfectly clear in their out- lines those who were to be sustained by miracle and those who were to depend on money. It is not as though the line were always distinguishable, be- cause people were always, as they do now, passing from one side to the other, from one cause or 'an- other. When, by some process, the poor brother be- came one of the possessing faction, he promptly discarded the theory of miracle and adopted that of money. If the rich brother was by the fortunes of life thrown into want, he took up the discarded doc- trine of miracle and found consolation and rejoiced that though it was hard, he had at last found the true way! Sometimes he even came to think of his past enjoyments as a pictorial moral lesson in right- eousness, which he found pleasure in portraying to his fellow sufferers. It is an interesting study by itself to follow these movements in Christian history. 56 Christianity and the Social Rage But, broadly speaking, the antithesis was all but com- plete. The poor brother was assiduously taught to put his trust in Heaven and lay up treasures in Heaven and take the rebuffs and injustice of the world as a preliminary to his future dominion. The rich, comfortable, well-fed and conscious only that life was pleasant, satisfactory and without any ills except those of their own seeking, for the most part accepted the doctrines of money. And for centuries the beliefs and practises of Christendom can be dif- ferentiated between those which have their confidence in miracle, that is, supernatural control and govern- ment of the affairs of men, with permanent injustice and inequalities ordained by Providence, and those which have their root in the conquest of the earth and its resources, the building up of human power and human effectiveness, through strength, comfort, health and every other quality by which effective hu- manity is secured, in a word, the things which money can secure. Ill It must not be inferred, however, that the idea of communal responsibility during the evolution just de- scribed absolutely disappeared from the consciousness of the Christian church, even though in practise the communal idea was well nigh extinct. Nothing could prevent the terminology of the New Testament and its ideas from occasionally being taken at their face value. Here and there individuals and groups did take them at this valuation and try to put into prac- Miracles or Money 57 tise what their religion seemed to demand. This is not the place to set forth the history of these experi- ments, except to state that they did occur and with a certain regularity, which might have predicted to the discerning that the time would come when the ques- tion would have to be fought out on its merits. Be- cause of these experiments there was always in the background of all Christian assemblies the feeling that the root of the matter was not being touched. The chasm between the prosperous and the needy grew steadily wider, and while almost every social advance was claimed as the result of Christian teaching, and was, in fact, very considerably due to this teaching, nevertheless the growth of the human mind and the discovery of new lands and new treasures of the earth had a very large part in the advance also. The earth was really too large for so small a minority to pos- sess, as seemed to control it. The partnership of the well-to-do had to be extended, almost perforce, al- though as fast as this class was increased, they adopted the ideas and the practices indicated and left the funda- mental question untouched. Possession has this magic effect upon the mind of him who has it and laws, r ^titutions and the fabric of civilization gen- erally were steadily indoctrinated with the idea of the immunity of property from the serious operations of the religious ideal. But as stated the idea did not die, as indeed it could not, because the demands of benev- olence accelerated with such force, that there began to be a shrinking from the duty of meeting them. Gratifying as benevolence was to those who admin- 58 Christianity and the Social Rage istered it, they very soon found that accepted as a per- manent rule, it increased with enormous strides. And once benevolence is withheld, where you have in- structed the beneficiaries of it that it has been your duty to supply it, there arise not merely uneasy, but ugly feelings. Moreover people who are in dire need and who see, side by side, great opulence and great poverty, are not particularly careful in the language or measures they employ to rid themselves of press- ing and urgent necessity. Hunger, misery and unre- lieved pain are tremendous agents to aggressive thought. If you want a man to stop thinking over- feed him. But if you want him to think very hard, underfeed him, and if once his underfeeding becomes linked with the idea that his want of food is connected with the overplus which he sees in the hands of some- body else, there is created the material for a first class revolution. And if to this material you have the oft repeated statements on the part of the very people who have this abundance, that they are the trustees ap- pointed by Heaven to administer for the poor, there arises at once the question, " Why doesn't the trustee administer?" Now this is exactly what happened. The earliest movements for social reformation arose out of prac- tical facts just like these. The Protestant Reforma- tion is commonly supposed to have been a theological revolt. In fact, it was nothing of the sort, and only became that, because the ecclesiastical machine took the side of the prosperous against the emerging poor. The earliest reformers were social reformers. The Miracles or Money 59 English reformers were notably so. But the conti- nental reformers were not far behind them because their reforms, though mainly known as theological, grew out of the practical social exigencies of the pas- torate in which most of them were. It is now per- fectly clear that without the tremendous social and economic pressure behind them, the reformers would have made no headway whatever. Underneath and about them was the enormous mass of misery, degra- dation and ignorance and above all want. The doc- trine of miracle had done all that it possibly could. But it was found that food did not come by miracle. Miracle did not give justice in the courts and miracle did not provide a just distribution of the products of the soil. Hence miracle broke down! And for alternative there was nothing but to attack property. This has been the story in every land, of every theo- logical or ecclesiastical revolt of which we have any record. Naturally enough, the assault took its first form in an attack on ecclesiastical revenues, and this is the reason why it has generally been supposed to have been a theological matter. But it was not this at all. Ecclesiastical revenues were the most con- spicuously unproductive and idle. They were those whose recipients seemed to be least useful in the mat- ter of alleviating the general and universal need. Lux- ury-loving bishops and full-fed ecclesiastics every- where visualized most clearly the contrast between the simplicity of Christ and the utter worldliness of the representatives of Christ. Hence the attack on these. It was again the most natural and normal method of 60 Christianity and the Social Rage getting at the problem in hand. Attacks upon the church and church property and possessions had, by the way, eminent sanction in certain rulers and civil powers who periodically showed by their own raids, first how rich the spoil was, and secondly, that it could be raided without seeing the heavens fall or the raiders struck down by the lightnings of divine wrath. It needed only a few such demonstrations to indicate to hunger-stricken men where the line of least resistance actually was, and it did not take many demonstrations of their own to prove to them that the panic-stricken ecclesiastics were not the special favorites of Heaven. But the attack on property, especially ecclesiastical property, had an effect much more important than the separation of the church from its money. It caused the whole fabric to be investigated and the doctrines upon which it rested to be studied, and what is even more to the purpose, to be compared with the biblical teachings. Then the end was surely in sight, and it was only a question of time when the downfall of the prevailing social order would appear. The intellec- tual liberation was much the more important, because it showed that the system itself was fundamentally wrong. And this discovery immediately caused a movement all along the line, which began to affect every branch of the social body. Government, as well as church, came into this searching inquiry. Human rights began to be argued and startling claims began to be uttered, which only needed to be uttered to in- dicate their essential soundness and especially their biblical character. Men began to ask whether the New Miracles or Money 61 Testament meant what it said. Whether Christian brotherhood did or did not mean what it naturally ap- peared to mean and out of these interrogations the entire modern social fabric has been reared. But thought once aroused in this direction never stops. The psychological process which caused the prosper- ous to assume naturally that they were chosen by Heaven for the task of administering the good things of the earth, was almost identical with that which took possession of those who thought they were called to restore the old doctrine taught by Christ and knowing no other method, they employed exactly the methods which the others had employed. As the one had in- creased in wealth, the other increased in violence. With the growth of wealth and power on the one hand, advanced the disposition to pass judgment and issue final decrees on everybody's right to live. On the other side there was first the vigorous assertion of in- justice, then the assault upon ecclesiastical property, then the revolutions in government and legislation, with all the pleasant incidents of chopping off heads, burning down palaces, and otherwise emphasizing the pent-up nature of the prevailing wrath and rage, and finally ending up with the denial of the right of all private ownership. This is about where we stand to-day. The only reason why it is not accompanied with the violences of other centuries, is because the emerged masses have learned how to use the legisla- tive and governmental machinery for the accomplish- ment of the spoliation, which formerly was accom- plished by fire and sword. But the process is the 62 Christianity and the Social Rage same. The laboring masses to-day are not engaged in seeking justice, though they use these phrases in ex- actly the same way in which the Dives cult uses the terminology of Christian brotherhood. Actually there is little choice between the two in the matter of the cant terms they employ. The truth is that the emerged masses are engaged in a huge war of spolia- tion frankly and without illusions. The struggle for social justice so-called, once a real and a vital yearn- ing for the pure breath of heaven in freedom and peace and contentment, though not in plenty, is to-day very considerably a revengeful lust for the spoliation of those who are prosperous. No amount of hypo- critical cant can disguise this fact. Many and sincere are the leaders who have social and every other kind of justice earnestly at heart. Serious and anxious are thousands of earnest and honest and prayerful men who want to see brotherhood among men. But no one who has his eyes open or who sees these questions, as they relate to ultimate happiness with an unbiased vision, can fail to see that a large fraction of the en- tire mass which makes up the demand for social jus- tice is morally as rotten and as foul as has been and is, that which glibly talks about trusteeship derived from Heaven and takes the polluted dividends, gotten out of the life blood of women and children. The only genuine difference between the demand of the emerging group and the intrenched group seems to be this the latter still holds the religious termin- ology which the former cannot use, first because its use is already preempted and second, because it sees Miracles or Money 63 its aim more frankly and announced it more unblush- ingly. This is why the church was the inevitable tar- get of the social reformer. But it deserved all that was directed toward it, and it deserves much of what it receives in the way of criticism and assault to-day. But it is not generally seen that the change in the cler- ical position from one of authority and influence, to one of mendicancy, tempered by benevolence, has com- pletely changed its status. The very clergy them- selves to-day are bone and sinew of the emerging classes. They do not know, nor have most of their ancestors for the most part known, anything of the prosperous classes except to be their servants and ben- eficiaries. Most of them have still clinging to them the cerements of the doctrine of the sacredness of property and are bound by it, but on the whole, it is as silly to attack the church to-day for its position upon the social question, as it would be to attack a little child for the sins of its father. The church is no longer "one of the dominant forces of modern society. It is here still and will probably remain forever. It will become one of the dominant forces of society again. But at the present moment, to suppose that the churches of this land hold a strategically important place in the arbitrament of human rights, or have a vital influence in the regulation of human destinies is pure superstition. It is no longer the custodian of its own Gospel. It holds no longer the primacy of inter- pretation which was once its main asset. It no longer contributes to society its conspicuous models of purity of life or loftiness of self sacrifice, by which it 64 Christianity and the Social Rage once thralled the imagination and held the abiding love of mankind. It will do these again some time. But it is not doing them now. The reason is per- fectly simple, it still stands for the doctrine of miracle, as against the doctrine of money. It cannot go over to the doctrine of money without denying itself. It cannot hold to the doctrine of miracle without assum- ing the vast load of responsibility for a social order with which it must necessarily be at war. At the mo- ment, it seems to be unable to turn either to the right hand or the left. It has neither the respect of the rich nor the love of the poor. It has failed mankind in one of its most crucial and trying moments of need. When it comes back to influence, as it certainly will, because it has the recuperative power of having within it the imperishable truths of Christ, and has now, as always, its saving remnant, it will come back by the laborious process of service, the hard and thorny road of toil and humiliation. CHAPTER III RELIGION AND TAXATION The existence of pauperism and of prevailing poverty, in con- trast to the progress of wealth, must be made to weigh upon all men's consciences, especially on those of the ruling classes; and no effort, no change that can be suggested, can be too great, if it results in the wiping away of this reproach to our Christian state. // is not by dealing with pauperism and with poverty in their actual manifestations that this reproach will be wiped away, but much more by such a direction of political interests as will operate through law and administration for the removal of the evil and the further framing of laws not merely to make men equal before the law but so as to afford the poor and the weak the uplifting help which they need. . . . There are men who have worked upon the principle that economic science must not be contented with merely tracing a law, but must minister to the corresponding art of social well-being, that it must show how to apply its principles according to the wants of the com- munity, and must acknowledge the paternal care for the weak, and even the necessity at certain times of giving them a dead lift, to place them in a position in which they can use economical principles for their own advantages. When this is done in a truly Christian spirit, the conditions which political economy reveals may be the light by which we walk in the path of Christian benevolence, and the nation may become the channel of God's beneficence to all its members. FREMANTLE, " The World as a Subject of Redemption." CHAPTER III RELIGION AND TAXATION IT will doubtless be received with something like incredulity to be told that there is any religion in taxation but reflection will show that there is a connection between these things, which at first glance seem so unlikely to have any relation which is of the greatest possible importance both to the subject of religion and also to that of taxation. For let it be understood at the outset that a tax is itself the symbol of some sort of collectivism. Even when it takes the crudest and least attractive form of brute tribute, gathered by force, it nevertheless emphasizes a cer- tain sort of relationship between the spoiler and the spoiled. For the despoiler who once enriches himself at the expense of some one else has within him the natural tendency to repeat the process and is, nat- urally disappointed to find that his preserve is either gone or has been seized by some one else. In the evo- lution of the process which we now call taxation, there has come the universal expectation practise and ap- plication of taxation of some sort. Even when it does not take some visible, tangible and expressed form, the thing is known to be there and there is no- 67 68 Christianity and the Social Rage body now who believes in an untaxed existence or its possibility. There is, of course, a great deal of de- lusion on the subject and the deluded do not belong exclusively to any class of society. Many believe they are avoiding taxes which they pay as surely as day- light comes. Others think they are escaping taxes, which they believe others are bearing for them, usually not knowing that the solidarity of society is such that in the long run nobody successfully escapes what is properly his. History is the ironical comment of Providence on the stupid attempts of mankind to avoid their just responsibilities. They avoid render- ing in one generation by taxation what the next takes by pillage and plunder. The equalizing process known or unrecognized is always going on with re- lentless regularity. The universal belief that there is no such thing as an untaxed existence is itself a confession of faith in the essential solidarity of human interests. It is a crude, but not less genuine, form of collectivism be- cause it indicates that somewhere there is an authority, a power to which we all bow and to which we must all pay. If it happens to be the state, we call it our gov- ernment. If it happens to be a fraternal organization, with sick benefits and a payment to our heirs we call it insurance. In the one case, it is compulsory and in the other it is voluntary, but in both cases it is a tax, by which we express some kind of mutuality or relationship to others and this is the beginning of all collectivism. Thus it comes about that there is no longer any need for arguing about the rightness or Religion and Taxation 69 wrongness of collectivism, as an idea, because that idea through taxation has been lifted out of the area of debate and is the settled expression of the belief and purpose of mankind. But why call this a religious matter? What has this to do with religion? Just this, that it is proving and accepting to the degree to which it is exemplified, the doctrine that no man liveth to himself. That is the essence of religion. Expand that idea logically and you will come to a brotherhood which is Chris- tianity. Apply it to every human concern and you will get the Kingdom of God. Develop the funda- mental idea upon which a tax rests, as accepted by the civilized world to-day, and you will get Christianity, which while not the Christianity of miracle nor the Christianity of money, is nevertheless a Christianity which includes both miracle and money. No man liveth to himself that is the message of taxation. Robinson Crusoe alone on his island is not taxed. Why? Because he must live perforce to himself. But the moment his man Friday appears he must tax himself for Friday as well as labor for himself. The provision for two involves both increased labor and different division of labor and the product of labor. That is simply what all taxation comes to in the end. And if taxation means that no man liveth to himself then the subject of taxation is one of the most se- riously religious themes that can engage the mind of the thinking man. It is doubtless true that most men who have to do with taxes and taxation rarely think of this aspect of 70 Christianity and the Social Rage the case, yet that fact does not alter the truth nor does it alter the fact that some time this relation must come under serious religious reflection. The Ananias and Sapphira episode in the Book of Acts already re- ferred to, has here again its deep and fierce signif- icance when the subject of taxation is approached from the standpoint of religion. The great sums gathered by cities, states and national governments for the maintenance of institutions, which are needful to the happiness and well being of the people who live under them, are something more than so much money. They represent justice, through the courts, they rep- resent all kinds of human relations, through the postal service, in the exchange of thought, interest, emotion and ideas which is thus made possible, they represent the channels of intercourse and communication in the upkeep of highways and transportation facilities, and all these together mean the happiness and moral well being of society. If all these things are not religion then it would be hard to explain what religion is. If you are excluded from the mails, let us say, being in a remote portion of the country you are as effectually starved in one direction as though your food had been taken away in another. Communication as the case stands to-day is not merely a privilege of living it is, in many cases, life itself. Let a snow storm cut off the supply of milk for a few days from one of our great cities and hundreds of children have to die. Communication is life. We submit to this when Providence is responsible for it but we do not submit to it long or patiently, when any one else does it. We Religion and Taxation 71 shall submit to it less in the future than we have in the past. It is the same with other things. All these benefits for which we pay taxes represent life and because we are convinced that to this degree at least no man liveth to himself, we submit to taxation, be- cause we are sure and convinced beyond doubt that if it were otherwise we should die. From this point of view a tax is one of the most altruistic perform- ances which mankind has invented. And the more widely the tax is distributed, the more people who be- come involved in it, and the more that are affected by it, the more altruistic that is the more religious, does the tax become. It is this consciousness which has led in more recent times to taxes which a few gen- erations ago were unheard of, like inheritance taxes and taxes graduated to the size of the fortune, left for disposition. It is an interesting story too long and involved for explication here, but none the less striking, to follow the reasoning by which states have come to impose taxation of one kind and another. It is interesting to see how the power to lay hands upon estates has gradually developed, and not less so to see how surely the conception of a public or social interest in every man's property has extended itself. The only ground for all these advances has been the idea that taxes are the expression of the solidarity of those who are subject to them. If it be argued that this solidarity is a purely material matter, which is ex- pressed only in buildings, parks, roads, railways and the like, one only needs to examine the nature of the things undertaken and the reasons for undertaking 72 Christianity and the Social Rage them, to see that behind this huge money collecting organization is a collective spirit a human solidarity, which matured spiritually, means brotherhood. And be it added that no fitter means could be de- vised for expressing the elementary conception of brotherhood. The money tribute is the one easiest paid and involves nothing of personality. But at least it makes for livability. One hundred thousand people in the same community may not have many things in common on the personal side, but they all have to breathe the same air, drink, for the most part, the same water, travel over the same roads, be subject to the same storms and floods and personal interest and the collective good unite in urging an agreement for government, which involves the tax, which is their expression of acceptance of the common interest. How else shall brotherhood begin? Personal inti- macies are not born in an instant. Tastes, education, habits of life, appreciation of nature and purposes in life, are separative factors in life. Almost every one of these accentuates some form of difference, and they are not easily or rapidly matured to the point where they find fellowship and similarity easy of ex- pression. Humanity could not and does not wait for these before expressing its solidarity. It does not wait even for the expression of what we commonly call religion. A community in which atheists, deists, Christians and Jews to say nothing of various races and colors, were found together, would, in this matter, operate exactly like a more homogeneous group. The process would be more difficult, but it would be the Religion and Taxation 73 same process and almost its first acts would be the expression of their collective sense of solidarity in the distribution of the common burden of securing the means of existence. To these they would add others just as rapidly as they could agree upon them. And for each addition they would tax themselves, in true altruistic fashion. What better manner of beginning a common religion? And how could the duty of the individual to his neighbor be laid down with greater precision and force than in the tax for the community ? Appropriately too at least, in theory, the New Tes- tament motive is carried out in the division of taxa- tion. From him that hath much, much is required. Nobody thinks of requiring much from him who has nothing. But again, theoretically, we do not exempt the possessor of little. We exact his little with the same regularity and rigor that we exact from the pos- sessor of much his larger contribution. Is not this the very essence of religion? Nay, is not this doing exactly what the New Testament enjoins? Is not this Christianity? Certainly, if an ideally just system of taxation could be put into execution, we should have no complaints, for each would be bearing his proper burden and all would be satisfied. It is, of course, not to be expected that an ideally just system could be devised, but it is to be expected that the ideal motive so far as human nature is able thus to govern a system, shall govern whatever system is permitted to prevail. There is probably no single form of hu- man activity, which permitted to develop naturally and held to its ideal motive, would so automatically 74 Christianity and the Social Rage express the material conditions under which Chris- tianity would blossom as that of just taxation. It is not strange therefore that by regular evolution every social advance and every religious advance has also had its rise and development in connection with the forms and the justice of methods of taxation. To suppose, therefore, that any Christian development of mankind can leave untouched questions which relate to this very important and far reaching expression of the solidarity of the community, is to suppose what cannot possibly take place. The religion of mankind, whatever it is or is to be if it has any sense of fellow- ship, must grapple with this problem as almost no other. It must ask itself, over and over again, whether the method for distributing the responsibili- ties of human brotherhood, as represented by their agreed common interests, is a sound method and whether it is what it purports to be. That is a far reaching undertaking. But here again we are suddenly made aware that Christianity as such has never undertaken to deal with this question in the large spirit in which we have set forth the obligation and its significance. The com- munity entirely independent of its formal religion has been much more thorough. For not only does the community fix in definite, intelligible terms, what the duty shall be as expressed by the tax, which its col- lective voice imposes and its united strength collects, but it goes further and enforces penalties for failure to meet the duty which the collective decree provides. The program therefore is perfectly spherical. The Religion and Taxation 75 contrast between the spirit and method of the state and the spirit and method of the church in this respect is very marked. The church for the most part, first of all, takes no cognizance of this form of collective life except in the remotest manner and then, not as a matter of personal religious service. Then again it leaves the corrective for any dereliction to the com- munity, outside of itself and hence its sin extermina- tion program, leaves out warfare against one of the gravest offenses of which men can be guilty, namely, an offense against the expression of brotherhood, through the organization of the community, whose symbol is a tax. Christ here was much more explicit. Render unto Csesar the things that are Caesar's, said Jesus. He perceived that fidelity to this obligation was as fundamental as the moral law itself. It may easily, in certain cases, become the moral law and Jesus therefore imposed upon his followers the duty, however repugnant to every personal and national feeling. It is a singular fact, that the religious sig- nificance of taxation should have so small a place in the consciousness of so many otherwise religious people. It is true enough, that from time to time questions of taxation have been dealt with in a quasi- religious manner, but on the whole, taxation as a form of communal religion has been only dimly recognized. This want of understanding of the spiritual sig- nificance of taxation is justly chargeable to the Chris- tian church, which has, for the most part, had nothing to say on the subject. Nay, she is in even a worse position than being guilty of things left undone. The 76 Christianity and the Social Rage thousands of Christian names, so-called, because iden- tified with Christian churches and Christian enter- prises, which are also notorious for their tax-dodging proclivities and failure to recognize this large duty of communal Christian relations, are a sorry commentary upon the social influence and social instruction of the church. It is not too much to say that a Christian minister who to-day would preach a sermon on the subject of taxation would be regarded as a curiosity by most of his congregation. " What has this to do with religion?" would be the inquiry and if it did not set into motion the machinery for his prompt re- moval, it would indicate exceptional skill on his part and exceptional forbearance on the part of his con- gregation. And yet this is as clear a Christian duty as it is possible to find. It is a duty specifically en- joined by Christ! It is a duty taught by the New Testament and is confirmed by the experience and judgment of enlightened men. Yet it has no place in the church curriculum of instruction and no place in the organization of Christian behavior. Whenever the inequalities of taxation have been made public and under the stress of unusual agitation, the figures have been brought to public attention, the amazing fact is revealed with discouraging regularity, that the pews of the Christian churches and the lists of the tax dodging enemies of the common weal contain many of the same people. Under these conditions is it strange that the church should be attacked as supporting and being under the sway of an evil social system? It would be surprising if the attack were Religion and Taxation 77 not made, because here in the most simple and under- standable form is shown the difference between pro- fession and practise. II It must not be supposed that the situation just de- scribed has been left without vigorous apologies. In fact, there is nothing about which most taxpayers are so generally agreed, as that the taxes are out- rageously unjust either in conception, or execution, or distribution, or all three. And if we add to this protest the unanimous, or almost unanimous, opinion of those who reckon themselves as among the untaxed that the taxes are not sufficient instead of being ex- cessive, you have the unanimous opinion of the entire community, that the system of taxation, whatever it happens to be, is wholly wrong. But it is interesting to observe in this connection that all efforts to secure equitable taxation are met with determined opposition on the part of those upon whom they are likely to fall. The question is thus reduced to one which certainly is not a question of taxation, whatever it is or is not. If the taxed do not want the system changed, except in the direction which relieves them of further or continuing responsibilities, and the so-called untaxed want them changed in the direction of larger respon- sibilities, for those who possess the wealth to be taxed, what shall be done? What we do in such cases is to resort to the iron law of majorities, of which more later. At this point it may be stated however 78 Christianity and the Social Rage that nothing is more foolish or stupid than the rule of majorities, as if majorities meant reason, justice, common sense or any other worth while quality of government or administration! But of this more later also. What practically happens is, that it be- comes a contest for control in which every decent principle of humanity is thrown to the winds and in which Christianity plays no part whatever. There is no story so sordid, so savage, so contemptible as the story of the avoidance of just responsibilities to the community, as represented by the methods of dealing with public taxation. Nor is this to be wondered at, when we remember that the ethical element has generally been entirely eliminated from the discussion. We talk of course about this or that tax being " just " and submit to it when decreed, simply finding that war against it is more expensive than submitting to it. But when war against it is not more expensive than paying it those upon whom the tax falls do not submit to it, as our court records and our political upheavals abundantly show. Why should the tax question not be a purely savage performance? It has been divorced from the one thing that could save it from savagery, namely religion. Why should it not reek with injustice, with bribery, with fraud and every other vice? It has been taken out of the area where these things are called by their proper names and branded with their proper ignominy. There are of course unusual per- sons and Christian people, who make their taxation a subject of moral reflection, but riot many. Most Religion and Taxation 79 people do not regard this as a matter of morals but as a matter of skill, as between the assessors and tax collectors and the tax payers. All unite in condemn- ing the system which imposes so much upon them. Taxation, you will be told is a scientific matter, in the imposition of which we need the highest kind of train- ing and expert talent. But I have sat more than once in legislative halls and heard the " highest kind of expert talent " prove conclusively that every other kind of expert talent and skill but its own was absurd, and unjust. If these are thus at loggerheads, where sha 1 ! the ignorant and the foolish appear? What shall we do when we are told that every plan proposed for greater equalization of the public burden is either anarchic or confiscatory or worse? These are not fictitious terms, they are expressions habitually em- ployed whenever any movement is made toward tax reform no matter what its character. It is hard to see how it could be otherwise. Once eliminate the moral element from the consideration of the problem and there is hardly anything else to be expected. Take away any sense of communal obligation, espe- cially obligation which is enforced by religion, and you have simply the savage struggle to get out of the melee what can be got by fair means or foul. This is a reasonably fair description of our status at the present moment. Any denial that this is a fair description must as- sume the fearful burden of explanation and apology for things as they are. Why the supporters of Chris- tian churches and frequenters of the Christian com- 8o Christianity and the Social Rage munion table rent property for immoral purposes, why they allow the ghastly conditions to prevail in tene- ments and hovels, why they connive at conditions which annually mean the lives of thousands of chil- dren, must then be in some manner reconciled with the prevailing Christianity of the churches. Such a reconciliation would be the damnation of Christianity if it could be made. But it cannot be made. The most rational and simplest explanation is that these things are not considered within the area of Christian behavior. That explains automatically why a man, personally upright and incorrupt, will permit his agent to damn any number of persons in the redlight dis- trict. It will explain why he is savage and saint at once. And it will show the way out clearly, as noth- ing else will. Christianity must include property and with it taxation in the scheme of the work of the Christian religion. It may be admitted that the con- summation of the union is a long distance off. It may be admitted that there are many blunders to be made and much sorrow to be experienced in the per- fection of the details if indeed the details are ever perfected. But certainly a beginning may be made and responsibility can be assumed and admitted even if the practise of the virtue is not instantaneously attained. The antithesis which is here brought into view is one which has had more to do with the loss of repute by the Christian church among the masses of mankind than any other single thing. Personal cor- ruptness is always its own condemnation. A Chris- tian who is found guilty of murder, grand larceny or Religion and Taxation 8l any other indictable offense which involves his per- sonal act, openly and intelligibly, may be understood at once as " a good man gone wrong " or a hypocrite who never was converted. But a property owner who makes a contribution to foreign missions from the proceeds of the rent of a brothel and who refuses to submit to the indictment and keeps on calling evil good, and good evil, and is sustained in his Christian profession, demoralizes and discredits the entire struc- ture of the Christian church. The cases are numerous enough to make the indictment general. No investi- gation committee was ever organized, in any city, that did not strike this very problem. If these offenders had been of the grossly immoral type, which figures in the criminal courts, nobody would have been sur- prised. Indeed nobody would have been offended. THere would have been a sort of fitness in the corre- lation, so to speak. But when the immaculate habitues of the Christian pews on Sunday are found to be collaborators of the general and widespread vice, the feeling is somewhat different. In recent years, this fearful aspect of the question has steadily come more clearly into view. As before stated, the benevolence theory has hopelessly broken down. It would have broken down for economic rea- sons, if it had not broken down from reasons of pure selfishness. But the ever rising mountain of crime and vice, the ever extending slaughter of innocents, could not fail to demand public efforts and with public efforts came public investigation and the question of public taxation. Then these relations began to be in- 82 Christianity and the Social Rage quired into and began to be understood. That has been the great catastrophe for modern religion and especially for the Christian church. It will be observed that the discussion here is con- fined to those things, which the general moral sense pronounces humanly and morally disastrous. But the field is much wider. It was not only found that there was actual Christian partnership in vice and criminal- ity, but Christian avoidance of other obligations, which while not so pronouncedly moral in their char- acter, nevertheless reflected seriously upon the Chris- tian profession. It is the commonest fling at the Christian church at this hour. Now what has re- sulted? Let any serious man ask himself, what under such conditions would naturally result? The answer is plain enough, the vice of the multitudes of schemes and programs for the greater equalization of the pub- lic burden. Not long ago a Christian bishop said that a certain tax program in which he believed had, with him, the same force as the Christian religion itself. That is exactly what it ought to have, because it ought to be a part of his religipn. To be sure many thousands of his fellow citizens do not believe in his program, but that is a minor question. The impor- tant thing is that he links taxation with religion. Let every man who thinks about taxation think about it religiously, and the way out will be found in spite of the overpowering expert talent and knowledge, which is supposed to be necessary for the proper explication of the problem. Genuinely religious men may at least be supposed to want a solution. And men who Religion and Taxation 83 want a solution of anything rarely have any difficulty in finding a modus vivendi. The world has never lagged for knowledge particularly. But it has de- cidedly lagged in the acquisition of the disposition to apply its knowledge to its own conduct. But the main thing to note is, that out of this moral chaos we have seen come a host of plans for the social re- generation of mankind. What most of these pro- grams mean when they say what they mean with truth is, that they want a better distribution of money. They all affirm the duty on the part of others to do the things they desire. They rarely begin with the obligation on their own part to begin the process. What this multiplicity of programs for social re- generation has resulted in will be dealt with a little further on. For the present it is sufficient to notice that the want of inclusion of the subject of taxation in the church curriculum has involved us in moral anarchy with respect to that subject. Think for one moment, now that it is over, of a great church cor- poration for many years holding and deriving revenue from some of the worst tenements of New York City ! Think for a moment of the utter want of understand- ing of the simplest elements of the Christian religion, not only by these, but by the thousands like them in the whole country, who still carry on practises which public criticism and shame forced this particular offender to abandon! Is there cause for wonder at the moral bankruptcy of a religion, which can see such things, without a storm of wrath and shame? But this was not an offender above all that dwelt in 84 Christianity and the Social Rage Jerusalem! It was simply a conspicuous offender! The breed is scattered about everywhere. The re- sulting crime and vice overflows all boundaries. Huge foundations have to be established to work out the sources of these vices, that really have their bases in a moral obliquity which was and is tolerated throughout Christendom because taxation is supposed to have nothing to do with religion! Shylock had a perfectly clear appreciation of this relation when he said " You take my life when you take the means by which I live." But the Christian church at the be- ginning of the twentieth century not only has not, apparently, learned this in practise, but even permits the ghastly participation of its members not only in taking the means of life away from the helpless dere- licts of civilization, but actually deriving revenue from the damnation of humanity. Costly indeed has been this failure of the Christian church to recognize its duty and its own gospel in this matter. Thousands of people are staggering through life faithless and unbelieving in spiritual realities, because they see on every hand the representatives of these realities, nullifying them by practises which can- not be squared with the simplest rules of morality, much less Christian profession. Innumerable cults and societies have sprung up and are springing up daily which have for their objective the very things which the Christian church is supposed to be doing. The very aim which used to be the exclusive asset of the church, namely the task of regenerating the world, is now assumed by all sorts of propagandists and the ' Religion and Taxation 85 pathetic fact, from the Christian point of view is, that no one of these takes the slightest account of the church as a factor, even, in the problem. This contemptuous attitude toward the church might be tol- erated, if it did not carry with it an equally and in- creasing contempt for religion itself. But nobody seems to expect that any one of the vital relations of life will in the slightest degree be made holier or happier or more moral, because it happens to bear the Christian label. And when it comes to the consid- eration of public questions, especially that which most nearly affects the well being of every man, woman and child in the community, namely the taxation, by which the communal obligation is expressed, nobody thinks of Christian duty as having anything to do with the question. For, as far as this matter of taxation is concerned, the Christian church might as well be non- existent. Ill The excision of the moral element from the subject of taxes has had a result far more serious than those which have already been indicated. The moral ele- ment in any question is by its nature the supreme and imperative element. Its expulsion from any discus- sion or any region of human behavior and action, therefore, is more than expulsion; it amounts sub- stantially to extinction. And since the question of equal sharing in the communal burden represented by taxation stretches out into every part of the com- munity life and is fundamental to the community idea, 86 Christianity and the Social Rage the practical denial of the right of religion to enter into this field has meant its exclusion and vitiation in almost every other field. The moral sense of the entire community has thus become corroded and this carried in its train the gradual subsidence of the moral consideration of almost every other public question, and almost every question of private behavior. Apologists for the present social order are prone to compare our present conditions with those which have prevailed in past centuries, and have drawn lurid con- trasts between the atrocities which used to be practised, without public shame and condemnation and the pres- ent quick response to the moral appeal as applied to public affairs. To this there may be made a twofold reply. No critic of present social conditions could make a severer criticism than is implied in the mere contrast between past and present conditions because such a contrast implies a fixed moral standard and does not take into account the advances which men have made in moral feeling and discernment, as well as everything else. To say that we used to hang men for trivial crimes which we do not do now and deduce therefrom a more humane spirit seems to us very foolish. If we were not more humane with the in- crease of human knowledge and with the expansion of human opportunities and intercourse what should we be compelled to say of civilization itself? The question is not whether conditions have improved but whether with all the opportunities for wise and hu- mane action and activity, we are relatively so much better than the centuries past were. That is the real Religion and Taxation 87 question and to this question the answer is by no means clear. Human sensitiveness to misery has in- creased with everything else. The gross brutalities of other periods of the world's history are not nec- essary to-day to crush the life and hope out of men. The very advance in popular intelligence and the con- sequent increase in mankind's expectation of itself would rather tend to make it much simpler to crush a man to-day than it ever has been. This is espe- cially observable in the vast increase of the number of men who are broken in courage and hope in life, though their faculties are not impaired. It is evi- denced in the ruthless " scrapping " of men in the interest of greater dividends or greater efficiency. There was a time when such things were to be ex- pected. They are not to be expected to-day nor any- thing like them. And it is an open question whether relatively bur own age is not morally lower in the scale than some past ages of the world have been. One does not have to be a hopeless pessimist or a worshiper of the past to feel this very strongly. On every hand one sees things persisting which have over and over again been shown to be causeless and brutally in defiance of all right feeling and action among men. But side by side with many of the admitted evils of society we see moral and spiritual paralysis which seems unable to grapple with the problem. Indeed if the truth must be told, there is a subconscious feeling that the whole moral claim is something of a humbug. Few persons dare to say this openly. But that thousands believe it and se- 88 Christianity and the Social Rage cretly believe that to suppose that men as a whole will ever act morally is simply a dream of enthusiasts and reformers chiefly persons without property to be protected or taxed, is unquestionable. In other words the moral claim for social action is in the hands, chiefly, of those who have little or no opportunity to show what they would do if they had the resources to put their theories into action. And as before indi- cated, many of these when they pass from the unprop- ertied to the propertied class find it simpler to adopt the prevailing views and sink into the general disso- lution of morals and taxation. Thus it comes about that the divorce of morals and especially the morals which are virile and gripping, which are based upon religion and its sanctions, has operated as a universal solvent of moral and spiritual conviction, because what will not work in those in- terests which men can see, handle and administer certainly will not work in the higher regions of per- sonal service and sacrifice. And out of all this has come the general conviction, that the world will never be regenerated by moral revolution. On the one hand we are told, and told truly, that you cannot make men good by statute law while on the other hand we face the practical demonstration that if a man cannot or will not be faithful in that which is least, namely purchasable and salable things, he cannot reasonably be expected to be faithful in that which is much, namely personal moral sacrifice and devotion. And thus the social body is divided into two camps, which are clearly indicated by these shibboleths those who Religion and Taxation 89 do not believe you can accomplish anything by law which being interpreted means that they wish to be let alone and not interfered with in their own par- ticular practises and profits and those who believe that the only way in which we can possibly make head- way is by social nostrums and programs which strike at the possession and distribution of property, and this of course means through the instrumentalities of pub- lic administration, the taxing power of the community. The impartial looker on especially if he be a spir- itual and reasoning being sees perfectly clearly that in both these propositions the moral imperative is being entirely ignored. Neither party really believes in it. And they have good reason in the prevailing practise for their belief. If the taxing power of the community is an utterly non-moral affair and if the individual's relation to this communal obligation is one which has no place in his moral code, it is clearly futile to expect him to act upon any other principle than that of personal profit and well being. His attitude is one of watchful observation of what moves the despoilers are going to make next. And he is perfectly right in assuming that the despoilers have absolutely no respect for, or confidence in, his moral purposes. They believe they will get from him only what they exact by brute force of legislation, backed by the authority of the law. And they know or at least believe that if there is any way of avoiding or nullifying the law after it has been enacted, no effort will be spared to secure this end. No one who is familiar with the practise of our cities in the matter 90 Christianity and the Social Rage of taxes will deny that this is an exact description of what happens throughout the length and breadth of the land. But can a society in which such a condi- tion prevails be called moral? And once having de- nied the authority of the moral imperative in this, the fundamental appeal which it makes, the entire moral and religious framework breaks down since loving one's neighbor is made coordinate with loving God in the Christian religion and indeed the former interprets the latter and is the proof of its existence. Having denied the community tie all other ties are broken without any further care or concern. It is therefore easy to see why the fundamental reformers both Christian and non Christian are more and more coming together though from totally different causes. Thus the moral breakdown of society is fully ac- counted for and thoroughly explained. In spite of all the complicated and involved explanations which social philosophers and reconstructors have given us of our social ills, the real cause is not so far removed from the ken of the average man as these would have us believe. It is found in the elimination of the claim of religion, at the point and in the social relations where it most clearly and distinctly announces its character and purpose. Taxation is the public way of saying neighborliness. Taxation is the state's method of affirming the solidarity and brotherly relation of those who are under its sway. Failure to make it just, unwillingness to meet it fairly, evasion of its proper exactions, imposition of it for purposes of spoliation, are all the denial of the principle upon Religion and Taxation 91 which the Christian religion rests, namely the duty to the neighbor. There is nothing in this that the ordinary man cannot fully understand without expert guidance and direction. Strike at this principle and you strike at the root of all helpful and possible hu- man fellowship and cooperation and out comes the huge monster, the giant of all modern iniquity Privilege. And privilege is like all other vice, to be hated, needs but to be seen. But seen too often fa- miliar with the face, we first endure, then pity, then embrace and this is the story of the rise and culmina- tion of the tragedy of modern civilization certain classes exemplifying the extremes of luxurious idle- ness, self indulgence and vice vast millions wallow- ing in helpless pain, shame and degradation. No wonder that the biblical lightning from Heaven, that struck down the man and his wife who lied about the communal duty, has in later times found its fear- ful counterpart in the doctrine of violence, fire and sword. Indeed there are not a few indications that the world is gradually receding back in to a settled belief in violence and force as the only means of re- dress for grievances. At the beginning of the twentieth century we are hearing otherwise respectable persons, and persons not without admirable qualities, baldly advocate violence as a substitute for law and the rule of the mob not less a mob when sandbag- ging through legislatures, initiatives, referendums and recalls, than when burning down palaces and pillaging and looting private homes, to be their fixed purpose as a means of securing desired changes. It is neither 92 Christianity and the Social Rage accurate nor otherwise sound to call the increasing militancy merely hysteria. It is something far more serious. It is indicative of the moral breakdown of the social order, a bankruptcy of moral resources, which denotes a spiritual poverty which is not at all inherent in mere hysterical longing for social changes. Genuine belief in right dealing between man and man, as the real basis of civilized society has broken down. And it has broken down, because Christianity, through its organized instrumentality, the Christian church, did not dare to apply its fundamental law in those things which expressed the brotherhood of man in the most direct and intelligible form. This most di- rect and simple form was the imposition of the general public burden, in the form of taxes which however devised have generally fallen heaviest upon those least able to bear them, have most generally been evaded by those best able to stand them and have been fought most steadily by those who have had the materials of social warfare, namely, quick capital which could be mobilized to resist the collection of the community burden. Of course, for a long period, this was not understood but being understood it was the duty of the Christian church to make this duty clear in her manual of practical instruction. This she did not do and the loss of this teaching caused the duty to dis- appear from the thought of her followers and grad- ually from society generally. Soon not only tax lists but all social institutions felt the moral loss. CHAPTER IV THE MORAL DISTRUST OF SOCIAL INSTI- TUTIONS "Preachers have preached, and people have prayed, and com- mittees have been formed, and inquiries have been held, and schemes have been devised; and, though I will not say that no improvement has been made, I do say that much of the im- provement that has been made in the conditions of labor and the scale of wages has been none of the Church's doings, but has been won by the people themselves, not only without the help of the Church, but often enough in determined opposition to it. I do not say that no progress has been made toward a solution of labor problems, but I do say, and I say most deliber- ately, that, so far as the great body of the churches of this country are concerned, they are not one step nearer any real solution than they were twenty-five years ago, and, more than this, / believe it to be a demonstrable fact that for many years past there have been going on changes in the commercial world tending to put business matters farther and farther beyond the influence of the churches and will continue to do so while the churches adhere to their present lines. . . . There is a strong, steady drift in the direction of great joint stock enterprises managed on the severest system of commercial principles, which continually render it increasingly difficult to get any play at all for the ethics of the New Testament. To this inevitable drift and its consequences most of the churches seem at present to be quite blind. Sooner or later they will awake to the fact, not that the power of Christianity has disappeared, but that the greatest application of its essential truth that the world has ever dreamed of is being made by those who are not only not members of Christian societies, but do not even call themselves by the Chris- tian name." "Commerce and Christianity" (Anonymous) Macmillan, 1900. CHAPTER IV THE MORAL DISTRUST OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS THREE-FOURTHS of the movements for so- cial melioration or reformation in the world are based upon moral distrust. And the fact that the entire civilized world is seething with movements that have the avowed purpose of overturning or alter- ing one or another of our social institutions, proves how absolutely the unbelief in the moral purposes of men pervades the entire framework of society. This is all the more clearly shown by the fact that, broadly speaking, men do not take kindly to changes. A very large portion of society is composed of persons who have passed the age where they want anything about them substantially altered. They have made their plans, have acquired certain fixed habits and points of view, and do not readily think or act outside of the received channels. This is not only natural but is necessary to the stability of things. Revolution- ary changes do not generally mean progress. Society does not advance through explosions, though the ex- plosions do sometimes make clear to persons who would not otherwise be convinced, that something is wrong. The natural changes in the individual are 95 96 Christianity and the Social Rage not as a rule revolutionary in character, and when they are, they are neither healthful nor in keeping with normal growth. But at the present moment the at- mosphere is revolutionary everywhere and society is like a huge boil ready to burst. And if we look a little into the nature of this atmosphere and its creative causes, we shall find them all springing from the source indicated in the previous chapter. Moral confidence has broken down. There is hardly an in- stitution which has evolved in the development of mankind which is not now under fierce criticism. We are hearing uttered freely to-day what we hardly dared to think a generation ago. The most serious and important relations of life are attacked with a ruthlessness and recklessness which would not have been possible in the youth of men not yet ready to be called old. The church as previously shown has al- ways been an object of attack. But to-day the fam- ily, every form of property, education as represented by schools and colleges, legislatures and other law making bodies, courts and business are all enduring a fierce fire of relentless, persistent and scathing crit- icism. Nor is it any longer true that the criticism comes from those who may fairly be called revolutionaries. Some of the severest critics of the church love her and her ways, and are in her service and are heroically trying to make her see her mission in the light of the new social conscience, and the new conception of her mission which is after all merely going back to her fundamental theses. The criticism of the law comes The Distrust of Social Institutions 97 not only from those who have suffered from its delays and its maladministration, but from high and noble souls who still think of the legal profession as an instrument of securing justice between man and man. No severer things have been said of law and the legal calling than have been said by lawyers themselves. There is a nation wide movement going on to secure in the practise of medicine what to a layman looks like an effort to secure the practise of elementary moral- ity. Representative institutions are attacked every- where, because it is believed to be next to impossible to get representatives who will properly protect the people's interests. Business is being attacked with a virulence which reminds one of the passionate denun- ciations preceding the French Revolution. If there is any social institution which is not under such fiery criticism, it merely means that there has not been time to reach it. The prevailing literature is the literature of unbelief in the moral soundness of humanity whether it be in the best selling novels, the most widely circulated newspapers, the most resounding legislative assaults on business, the most drastic legislation, the most thoroughgoing arraignment of education, or the most poignant cry for relief from some open social sore. The universal muckraking so-called would not be possible if it were not that everybody is prepared to believe the worst about everybody else. The one note which you never hear, and which if uttered would excite almost universal derision, is the note that you can and must renovate the moral convictions of man- kind, if you wish to improve the social conditions of 98 Christianity and the Social Rage men. Panaceas are as plentiful as leaves in summer. Of this more later. But for the present let this suf- fice that the one universal note is the note of moral distrust. It is the fashion in some circles to call all this out- cry by hard names. It is the fashion to say unpleas- ant things about the masses who are thus bawling through the world their unbelief in anybody or any- thing. You cannot gather together even the follow- ers of any special social cult without finding, before very long, that while they unite in opposing their enemies they do not believe in each other either. There is not a social program which has not its list of traitors and betrayers as well as its heroes and saints. The heads of two great labor organizations, while these lines are being written, are standing on the same platform, calling each other all sorts of hard names while it is stated fifteen thousand dollars of wages are being wasted by the delay in the business, that these two leaders may tell the truth about each other, accompanied by the cheers and hisses of the convention where they are speaking. A great mining strike is in progress which is challenging the moral strength of two widely different classes of society, is under investigation by Congress and has the usual accompaniments of such an affair, but the solidarity of the labor end of it may be judged by the fact that the leaders are yelling " drunkard," " liar," " grafter " and the like at each other on the platform where they should be considering what to do for the suffering thousands. The Distrust of Social Institutions 99 Now these people are agreed about their opponents. But they do not trust each other. But if you look at the other end of the social scale, you see similar things. You find at this same writing, persons who have the management of high and great interests, in- volving the happiness of many thousands of persons, doing exactly the same thing and at this present mo- ment, a professor in one of the leading law schools of the country has been forced by the revelations at- tendant upon a railroad investigation to resign his position in a great university and have it instantane- ously accepted, by reason of the dubious moral posi- tion in which these revelations placed him. Thus in the university at the top and in the labor convention at the bottom, you have substantially the same phe- nomena. It is likely that the professor in question is neither better nor worse than most of his colleagues. But in the present temper of the people it is an abso- lute impossibility that he should get anything re- sembling a fair review of his case. All you have to do is to shout " grafter " and the welkin will ring. But the impressive thing is that nobody is exempt from this universal suspicion. Men have no longer any moral belief in each other. Nothing is taken at its face value. On all sides, in everything, no matter what the purpose, what the interest, what the activity, nobody believes in the possibility of pure moral action. Universal distrust is the prevailing note of our social life. Now whatever this means or however it came about, it is this which constitutes the real social ques- tion. It makes little difference whether you are 100 Christianity and the Social Rage dealing with trade agreements or party conventions, nobody believes that you are acting from pure mo- tives. But this is not all. Unbelief in the purity of mo- tive might be tolerated, but with it has come the un- belief in the efficacy of pure motives if we could have them. The result is that on every side measures mul- tiply which have for their purpose the removal of the element of confidence of anybody, in anybody else. That is the real meaning of the multitude of measures in the interest of what is called pure democracy. It may be predicted with no hesitation whatever, that the pure democracy thus sought unless it becomes at the same time something moral, and brings about cer- tain moral changes in the people, will prove as great a humbug as some of the institutions which the pure democrats seek to replace. But that is another mat- ter. What the pure democracy aims at is, to get something which means that it will not be necessary to trust anybody, because the checks and recalls and hamperings which will be placed upon those they are designed to reach will be such that there will be no possibility for discretion and judgment and a wise balancing of probabilities absolutely the highest function of the human mind. The intellectual ab- surdity of most of these things is almost as pitiful as their moral poverty. But it is at least logical. If you trust nobody then confer nothing that involves trusteeship. The aim, morally viewed, appears to be to tie everybody hand and foot, so that the usual confidences between man and man or men and men The Distrust of Social Institutions 101 will not be necessary. In the meantime the great trusteeship that which makes man his brother's keeper is absolutely overlooked. Or perhaps does it mean that we shall substitute a universal prison house for our universal freedom and begin the whole proc- ess all over again by winding up in general anarchy till the strong man arrives who will begin again with elemental force! It cannot be denied that there have been great provocatives for this state of mind. The astounding series of disclosures of the last twenty years have shaken thousands of men who were not prepared to believe in the depravity which our numerous investi- gations have uncovered. Nor have these disclosures been confined to any particular area or social class. The corruptions of the manufacturers in Washington have their parallel in the dynamiters at Los Angeles. The insurance investigations involving the princes of high finance are matched by the gunmen of the " sys- tem " in the police department. All this has borne its natural fruit. The reversion to the strong man theory, which is simply the reversion to the theory of force, is most clearly shown at this moment, in that it is seriously proposed to alter the laws of a great state in order to induce a particular man to accept a public office! Thus you have again the ludicrous juxtaposition of Csesarism and Pure Democracy! What makes this possible? The utter loss of confi- dence! Everywhere and always the constant factor in the social question is the overwhelming, discour- aging fact that nobody believes in anybody else. It 102 Christianity and the Social Rage shows how complete the moral breakdown of society is. A similar phenomenon is displayed in the manner in which the moral heroes of to-day are the blacklegs of to-morrow. There is no more dangerous position for any man to occupy to-day than to be a popular idol. The history of popular idols, for the most part in recent years, is simply the narrative of how inev- itably every man who is in any sense public becomes the target for the universal distrust. As with men so with institutions. It is one of the most curious, but at the same time one of the most convincing of evi- dences, that there is nowhere a moral balance or standard only successive enthronements followed by successive dethronements nothing that indicates moral judgments and only the volcanic revolutionary rage which has lost its sources of moral and spiritual authority. If it be alleged that this condition is not new the answer must be " Why have we not out- grown it ? " II Perhaps the most widespread evidence of the moral breakdown of which we have been speaking is that which reveals itself in connection with the attitude toward business, especially what is called " Big Busi- ness." Now there is nothing in the nature of business as such which should cause it to become the symbol for the most general and thorough going moral dis- pleasure from which it is now suffering and the fierce attacks which it is receiving from all sides. Indeed one might imagine that business being the direct inter- The Distrust of Social Institutions 103 change of commercial commodities and for the most part bringing men into relations of acquaintance and fellowship, personal understanding and appreciation, would be the one sphere of operations where it would be easiest to trust men because knowing them person- ally and having the range of intercourse extend over long period, affording the opportunity for careful and just judgments. But this does not describe busi- ness. Business is no longer a matter of the produc- tion, exchange and distribution of commodities. It is a huge fabric involving the issue of stock of vast enterprises, the investment of great sums of money, the banking of these sums and a great variety of other transactions. All this has come about naturally with the growth and extension of commerce. It would seem again that this extension, involving as it does, at every step, personal transactions of individual men and hence their personal acquaintance, would nat- urally expand the area of personal confidence and friendship. Judged by simple standards, one might suppose that the business of the land would be its solidest moral underpinning. But what do we see? " Big Business " connotes to the public mind the Devil and all his works. It means every wrong that it is possible to perpetrate, through every species of dis- honesty, from the rigging of weighing scales to the juggling of stock sales. There is not a single crime in the entire calendar of possible iniquity which the business records of the country, as now laid bare, do not contain. It is the colossal irony of this situation that these 104 Christianity and the Social Rage huge institutions or combinations bear the general title of " trusts." We are authoritatively told, I be- lieve, that they are not technically " trusts " but this is what they are commonly called. Now a " trust " is something which implies confidence, a real or quasi- fiduciary relation. If it means anything, it means that somebody is believing in somebody else, to per- form certain acts for the profit and interest of those who believe in him. That the nation should be legis- lating with all its might against " trusts," therefore, is one of those exquisite and delicious ironies which must give every cynic in Christendom a chance to chuckle. And when you add the usual accompani- ment of " predatory " making this thing of confidence and reposeful belief that your trustee is thinking about you and your interest a " Predatory Trust " the de- lightful contradiction in terms, joined to the ironical attitude toward a thing which is supposed to represent confidence and fiduciary obligation makes for positive hilarity. But the deadly earnestness in which the business of the land is being assailed forbids hilar- ity. If it is a joke, it is a joke on all of us, because we are all a part of it, from the university which re- ceives endowments from these predatory gentlemen to the worker who is willing to stifle his wrath against capitalism in general under the healing influence of an old age pension providently provided to furnish an exhibit of " our contented employees " or an elaborate welfare establishment, in which billiards, cheap lunches, recreation rooms and dance halls, gently but firmly reestablish feudal bonds under the guise of The Distrust of Social Institutions 105 benevolence and social interest. It is true we are hearing something about profit sharing lately made spectacular by certain splendidly alluring experiments in which the dramatics have not been neglected. But the facts remain the same. To be in big business is to be a partner of the devil ! That is the common be- lief and understanding of all large enterprises. That is the view which prevails in Congress and prevails there only because it prevails everywhere else. Large enterprises and criminality are so firmly allied in the public mind that few any longer attempt to point out the possibility of error, while demagogues flourish and fatten on the popular distrust and unbelief in successful men of business. Now commerce is the lifeblood of civilization. Reduced to its lowest terms it involves moral qualities which are absolutely necessary to its existence. As before stated, it should afford the field where the moral qualities of civilization should find their fullest and freest expression. The participants in it know each other. They have the means of making them- selves understood and known. They have the natural incentives to acquire the good will, the confidence and favor of their contemporaries. Yet after all these centuries, it is hailed as the great triumph of the period, that we have learned how to curb the pred- atory trusts and run to earth the robber barons, so- called, who have been despoiling the masses and get- ting rich at the expense of the life and happiness of their fellow creatures ! What shall be said of business toward which it is considered a mark of social heroism io6 Christianity and the Social Rage to fight and to assail which is the pathway to political preferment? What broader or more conclusive sign could possibly be desired of the utter loss of moral soli- darity among men than that such a state of things should actually exist? The past history of trade con- tains some of the finest illustrations of the value and power of high moral worth that can be found in the history of man. But whoso in this day and generation calls it the hardest names and brands it with the most opprobrious epithets becomes ipso facto a social lib- erator and a tribune of the people! Why is this so? It is because in the background of the common con- sciousness there is the deep and sinister unbelief in the integrity of business men. So much has been revealed that justifies this unbelief, that the step to well nigh universal unbelief is not difficult. Perhaps the consciousness of moral deficiency on the part of the mass of men themselves makes it easy to believe in the dereliction of the rest. But in any case what is certain is, that no great corporation can to-day get a fair consideration of its affairs at the hands of the public. If an investigation reveals nothing preda- tory, the verdict is not one of innocence. The belief is merely that sufficient skill has been employed to prevent the facts from becoming known. This is be- cause the very agencies of investigation are themselves under the same suspicion and distrust. It may well be that great business corporations to-day that mean to do exactly the proper thing, so far as the law is concerned, are not able to do so, because they cannot get a fair hearing in the public mind and the instru- The Distrust of Social Institutions 107 mentalities by which such a fair hearing is obtained, are themselves under a similar form of assault. It is this fact which makes the unrest so fearful to con- template. The disease is not one that lies in admin- istration or laws or business practices. It is one which has to do with the fundamental moral stand- ards by which we are conducting the affairs of civi- lization. Now there is but one agency that makes moral standards especially fundamental moral stand- ards its business and that is the Christian church. But the church has had little or nothing to say on these matters. Having excluded communal obligation from her program of instruction, how could she deal with industrial justice or business morality? In fact morality and religion have been excluded from busi- ness in exactly the same way in which they have been excluded from taxation. Where there has been no instruction how could the result be otherwise? That this diagnosis is correct may be judged from the universality of the result. The convicted business spoliators include every type, manufacturer, banker, tradesman, stock operator, contractor, transportation company and all their subsidiaries. There is no differ- ence, every class has contributed its share of the male- factors. The moral poverty of the entire fabric is clear. Nor is there any special differentiation be- tween these criminals on the score of their so-called religion. They have been of all denominations and every type of religious profession. Nor has their edu- cation seemed to make any particular difference be- cause they move over the whole range from university io8 Christianity and the Social Rage heads to illiterates. The one common element through it all is the want of morality. And the at- titude of all these toward each other shows perfectly that conviction in this special field is no loss of moral standing. The number of business men of high standing throughout the land who have paid fines for lawless practices, sometimes willingly, sometimes be- ing convicted after due process of law, is legion. But these gentlemen have not suffered any loss of busi- ness standing. On the contrary it was lately held that such a conviction was a sort of badge of honor, because it connoted a certain standard of prominence and reputability, to be singled out for attack. Guilt had not and has not yet become personal! It would be grossly unfair to say that these men are to be reck- oned roughly in the criminal class. What has hap- pened is that they have not considered their operations " on the street " as having anything to do with their morals or religion. They argued and the argument is often heard that they had no commission to do busi- ness on any other plan than that usual to the " street." That simply meant immoral and not in- frequently illegal business. Ill Turn now from the business situation to the gov- ernment. It would be quite superfluous to attempt even a casual review of the legislative corruption which has formed one of the most sickening chapters The Distrust of Social Institutions 109 of American history since the Civil War. No state has been immune from the general cloud of infamy, as related to the misuse of the powers of government for private ends. Investigations are now a permanent feature of our political life. If it is not in one de- partment it is in another. If it is not in the munici- pal government, then it is in the state government. No state has a penitentiary which does not have as a permanent resident some corrupt public official who has been caught. The offenses include every depart- ment of administration. Legislation has been bought and sold. State institutions have been corrupted and made the subject of private barter through contracts for supplies and the distribution of profitable jobs. State highways are made the agencies for the exaction of huge corruption funds, which are in turn utilized to corrupt elections and dole out offices to faithful henchmen. The beneficiaries of the carnival of crim- inality range from supreme justices and governors to the humblest laborers in the streets. The bribers and the bribed once more are of every sort and kind of men, no social class being without its fair share of the recipients of the spoil. Corruption of every kind infests everything the public purse pays for. The rare exceptions are so few that they dp not figure in the general total. Our chromo democracy is the stu- pidest, most inefficient and ludicrous exhibition of moral imbecility and irresponsibility the world has ever seen when its unexampled opportunities and re- sources are taken into account. No public work is no Christianity and the Social Rage without its rake off and its political parasite. This does not have to be proved. It is the common knowl- edge of all men. Yet with all this before us it would be absurd to claim that it represents the facts as they actually are. The public business gets itself done; the machinery of administration keeps on going; great social and other improvements in which all men are sharers have been instituted ; much remedial and advanced legislation has been passed; the law has steadily been improved and made to operate more equitably and many other things have been accomplished, which greatly outweigh the grave miscarriages of justice which have been out- lined. But all these things are of no account in the general reckoning which hastens to express its unbe- lief in the representative system, because it does not believe in anything. What does the initiative mean when it is analyzed? It means that the people's rep- resentatives cannot be relied upon to respond to the public demand for such legislation as they desire, a perfectly absurd supposition, when it is remembered that these very representatives are chosen directly from the ranks of the people by another supposititious instrument of pure democracy called the primary! If a legislature chosen by direct primary will not do what it is asked to do, then we are in a parlous state indeed and this seems to be the widespread feeling. What does a referendum mean? Exactly the same thing that you cannot trust the man whom you have your- self selected and must keep him in fear of your rebuke or reversal by exercising supervisory judgment upon The Distrust of Social Institutions ill his public acts. If there is anything more inherently stupid or illogical than these things, it would be hard to name it. But it is not the purpose here to discuss that proposition. It is the fact that here again you have the manifestation of the moral breakdown of the institution of government. Thousands of persons want to elect a man and then keep him under lock and key lest he exercise his own judgment and act accord- ing to his lights on a given matter of legislation. It is to be noted once more that nobody suggests greater care in the selection of candidates, and as a matter of fact the direct method has not substantially affected the quality of the political candidates for of- fice. It does not occur to any one that we must get persons of high character and moral reliability and then let them settle the questions at issue by fair and honest discussion of their merits. No indeed, it is the machinery which must be altered. Hence the de- vices for changing the system and methods of govern- ment are without number, crowding for public atten- tion and adoption. This is most clearly shown in the kaleidoscopic changes in municipal government which have ranged all the way from the irresponsible party boss to the responsible party boss, in the shape of a city manager showing that it was not " bossism " that was objected to, but the character of the boss. Be- tween these two extremes identical in principle, at least, we have single chamber schemes, double cham- ber schemes, commission schemes, revisionary and supervisory bodies, boards of control and what not, all indicating thorough and absolute discontent and 112 Christianity and the Social Rage moral distrust. But the changes, not a single one of them, emphasize character as the one thing needful. It never seems to occur to any one that anybody will be trustworthy and hence devices to eliminate the ele- ment which calls for confidence. The backing and filling in the experiments made by American munici- palities are the very best proof imaginable that it is the electorate itself that is to blame. A city decides to place responsibility by giving great powers to its mayor. Straightway the city instead of electing that " responsible citizen " who was expected to come for- ward under this plan, elects a skilful and thorough going politician of not too conspicuous moral eleva- tion and he perfects, by reason of the great power con- ferred upon him, the most powerful machine the city has ever known. Then the city charter is amended again! And this is the story over and over. What is really at work here? What is shown is the melancholy fact that there is no sense of security in anybody. The moral collapse is about as complete as it well can be when thousands of what are supposed to be the most enlightened and best educated citizens in city and state do not think it worth while to go to the polls and vote. " The whole business is rotten anyway and what is the use ? " that represents the attitude. Now it must be evident that no amount of charter tinkering in cities, or initiatives and referen- dums, or recalls will ever meet this problem adequately. Machinery is everywhere necessary and improvable. But it is everywhere subordinate to something else and that something else is the moral purpose of the The Distrust of Social Institutions 113 community. A city which is morally bankrupt will not have good government if a committee of archan- gels frame its charter. A state in which a third of the citizens do not vote and which having before them the choice of representatives for a legislature and choose persons upon whom they need the check of initiative and referendum and recall, will not have sound state administration if the plan of government be devised by a commission of sages and saints com- bined. No government can exceed in worth and effectiveness the moral quality of its constituent body and what our American people need more than any im- provement in political machinery is an awakening of political morality which means awakening in common morality based on religion. It is here where the culpability of the Christian church again appears. Politics has been taboo in the American churches un- til very recently. But if there is anything which touches a man's moral interests more closely than the administration of the laws under which he must live and move and have his daily being which prescribes for him the public standards of justice, truth, decency and morality, one wonders what it is. Yet the mak- ing of these things is what we call politics. But by common consent the religious leaders of the land have been kept out of the political arena and off the political platform. A notable change is taking place and where it is taking place the signs are notable because they indicate that there is a glimmering per- ception of the truth that government after all is inti- mately connected with moral behavior and moral 114 Christianity and the Social Rage character. The various clergymen and priests throughout the United States, who have in recent years been elected as mayors, have been chosen simply for the reason that they seemed to stand for a moral conception of government. Perhaps such a proceed- ing was wise though it may be doubted. But in any case the choice of a man whose only business is the accentuation of the moral duties of life is significant. That is, however, what the entire country needs. And the creation of this ideal and the enforcement of it in its instruction and practise is the business of Chris- tianity. Very poor machinery of government is very efficient when the men who operate it are persons of character and inflexible integrity and honesty. That is the fact which deserves at the present moment most to be emphasized. IV Nor is the universal distrust much less marked when we come to examine the feeling with reference to the most important of all our social institutions namely our courts. The question is not now with reference to mere legal procedure in which there has been regular progress and such progress has been steady throughout a long period of years, though even this part of the discussion is full of moral significance. What we are now considering has to do with the moral influence and authority of the ordinary judicial proc- esses as the masses of men come into contact with them and as they see them working. The indictment here likewise is bitter and severe and has much to The Distrust of Social Institutions 115 justify it. An ex-president of the United States, himself a judge of long experience and of high stand- ing, is authority for the statement that justice is too often on the side of the longest purse. He himself states that it is high time for the courts to take cog- nizance of the social aspirations of the people and that the law should be interpreted by judges who know this aspiration and sympathize with it. But this is a very moderate statement of the case. It is not an exag- geration to say that most men do not regard the administration of justice by our ordinary courts as an honest proceeding in the sense in which a man has to be honest to hold an ordinary salaried position. And there are innumerable instances to warrant the ordinary man in holding an opinion tinctured very strongly with this suspicion. In the greatest state of the Union supreme court justiceships are commonly believed to be purchasable from political bosses who hold the nominations for sale. While this is being written one such boss who made such a sale has been condemned to state's prison for this offense. Cam- paign contributions by these judges are commonly believed to be made to the corruptest political organi- zation in America. The henchmen of this organiza- tion are believed to receive their reward in the shape of appointments as masters and other court officers for hearing cases and the like. In other states the Supreme Court decisions on certain subjects are held to be worthless as law because the court is known to be under certain corporate influences. The innumer- able delays and subversions of justice are by many n6 Christianity and the Social Rage held to indicate that the employment of certain counsel of known political influence and standing is the decisive element in litigation in the courts where these practise. And there are many instances where this has been proved in investigations, impeachments and other efforts at deliverance. True as all this is, once again it must be added that all these facts do not destroy the equally important fact that the vast mass of the litigation in our courts is adjudicated with substantial justice. The excep- tions are impressive and disquieting, but relatively not numerous enough to impeach the entire system, gross as some of the miscarriages of justice have been. But we are faced with the same temper of mind and the same deep and unyielding unbelief in the integ- rity of our main instrument of personal and social justice. If the moral authority of the courts is gone it makes little difference what their decisions are. What makes a decision important is that it is accepted by the masses of the people as the embodiment of as nearly justice as human wisdom can secure; at least, freedom from bias. The masses are pretty ready to condone error. In fact they are entirely too free to condone ignorance and stupidity and error for their own good. But why is it that the courts which like the legislatures and the masses of our business men are at least not wholly evil and certainly full of much that is good and noble and of good report are under this general ban? The reason is that the moral un- derpinning of society has disappeared. The ermine of the judge is tarred with the same stick as that The Distrust of Social Institutions 117 which blackens the character of our legislatures, and which assumes that every form of big business is in- extricably linked with every form of crime. The public mind is apparently unable to think well of any of our social institutions. It finds it so much easier to believe the worst that can be said that it hardly recognizes the existence of anything that is not evil. The disastrous effects of such a state of the public mind a thoroughly psychopathic condition can hardly be estimated. They reach every relation of human life and they darken the national future and stain the national faith. They impeach the best as- pirations of mankind and they make the marvelous additions to knowledge and mechanical resources of civilization but symbols of more skilful rascality and deeper shame. The reason for this is the same which we have already indicated. By a perfectly natural evolution the elimination of the moral sense from the subject of taxation has also eliminated it from our social institutions and the best efforts of the good and noble men who are striving for the upbuilding of so- ciety are nullified and hampered not merely by the natural antagonisms of those who are affected by these efforts, but even more by the moral indifference of those who should be the allies of such labors. Re- form efforts and social uplifting, general as they are and often more or less successful, are themselves based upon the general doctrine that nobody is to be trusted and that if we ever achieve goodness it will be because we have bound our citizenship hand and foot by laws which rigorously limit their sphere of operations and n8 Christianity and the Social Rage which set every public official spying upon every other public official and the general public spying upon them all! Successful government under these circum- stances could it be secured would be a miracle. But successful government cannot be secured by these means because men are superior to machinery and what men invent men can thwart. The one instrument which can affect this state of affairs is the instrument which by constitution, inher- itance, and natural action is fitted to alter the moral views of men. That instrument is religion and the agency by which it is to be brought to the public mind is the church. So true is this that latterly even medi- cine, the most empirical of sciences, has come to rec- ognize the therapeutic value of prayer and spiritual exercises. Well, if the attitude which prayer brings to the human mind and spirit can effect a mental dis- ease in the individual, prayer fulness on the part of the public mind certainly can affect the operations of government. We have no disposition to crowd a creed down the public throat. But certainly when all men are afraid and the hearts of the people are turned to water because they lack confidence, hope and faith, it may not be an entirely worthless suggestion to di- rect attention to the intimate relation thus established between personal piety and just and honest govern- ment. Nothing need be hoped for in the way of a permanent change in the mind of the masses until confidence is restored. You cannot have a sound public body and a diseased public mind. It is the public mind, the social spirit, which needs quickening, The Distrust of Social Institutions 119 vastly more than we need new laws, new institutions and new forms of legal judicature. And this disease is a moral disease. It springs from the steady con- templation of evil and evil effects. It is grounded in ignorance of spiritual processes and spiritual inspira- tions. And it has lacked these because Christianity as a social and governmental force has never been brought to the attention of the people as a part of their necessary religion. The expansion of Christian- ity in this respect would bring almost instantaneous relief, because whatever else it brought it would re- veal the inevitable antagonism between the practises which are based on falsehood and those which live by and through the truth. We must bring the common mind back to the truth, as old as the Christian religion itself, that men make institutions and not institutions men. We must extend the curriculum of public preaching in the churches till there is no exemption left. We must let nothing alone in this wide world that lacks the essence and spirit of the Christian gospel. We must drive the truth home till every man, woman and child in the land knows the difference between genuine Christian- ity and its innumerable counterfeits. Two modes are open to us in this program. One is by the positive interpretation and application of the truths of the Christian religion, not merely to private manners and behavior, but to money, to taxes, to business, to gov- ernment and to law. The other is by the ruthless cleansing of the temple of the corrupt simulators of religion who hold down the truth in unrighteousness. 12O Christianity and the Social Rage Both plans mean war. Both involve the crusading spirit. Both demand the herculean qualities of in- finite study, pains and suffering. We must create a new roster of saints who are linked with the present day aspiration, and who can speak in the dialect of present day longing. We must learn to be powerful in appeal and just in statement. Above all, we must hew to that fine line of impartiality which will win the assent of men, because it knows neither party nor creed nor clan nor condition, but only the truth. Such a Christianity will alter the public mind which will in turn alter the processes through which that public mind expresses itself. It will prove all things but it will also hold fast that which is good. It will lay the ax at the root of the tree, but it will exercise a conservation of humanity which will not needlessly hamper or humiliate. But it must be true and it must have confidence. It must expel the universal distrust by the positive qualities of service and sacrifice and establish a new and more rational age of faith. CHAPTER V QUACKS ABOUNDING In every profession to sum it all up, the root of the evil is this, that we believe that mere dexterity and cunning are incomparably superior to knowledge and that cleverness is infinitely more valuable than sound learning. Those who follow professions be- lieve this, and the lay public that employs the professions is not dismayed by this attitude of the professional class; and so things tend to that equality of charlatanry to which democracy instinctively tends. Democracy does not respect efficiency, but it will soon have no opportunity to respect it ; for efficiency is being destroyed and before long will have disappeared al- together. FAGUET, " The Cult of Incompetence." We are witnessing today beyond question, the decay perhaps not permanent, but at any rate the decay of republican institu- tions. No man in his right mind can deny it. FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS. CHAPTER V QUACKS ABOUNDING SCIENTIFIC as the age loves to think itself, it is actually an age of triumphant quackery. In- deed, not a few of the scientists themselves have un- consciously perhaps, but none the less really, yielded to the insistent demand for reforms of one kind and another that they have hastened to produce remedies for the long standing ills of society. As a result it is possible nowadays to cite names of first rate repute for almost every kind of folly, whether it has to do with government, law, medicine, business or religion. The one thing that strikes the impartial observer looking over the entire field is that there is everywhere a ruthless scrambling by special means to deal with fundamental human troubles. The one great discov- ery of the nineteenth century notwithstanding it has produced such wonderful results was that nothing happens by accident but that underneath all the com- plex phenomena of life there are fixed laws and that the business of the human mind is to find those laws and obey them, but nevertheless the short cut method to social and political reformation is the prevailing method. The list of grotesque propositions for re- 123 124 Christianity and the Social Rage making society and altering human habits are legion and they seem to be increasing. Perhaps it is not fair to call all this activity quackery. A large pro- portion of it certainly is inspired by genuine zeal to help mankind. But the wreckage which this process reveals is impressive and not encouraging as an index of the growth of rational thought and well directed effort. No scheme is too absurd to find advocates. No proposition is too foolish or too expensive or too obviously against all the previous experience or judg- ment of enlightened m^en to be advocated with zeal and seriousness. And the public mind receives these proposals in about the same spirit in which they are presented. Legislatures fairly tumble over themselves to pass impossible legislation. Commissions of states and the national government fill the public thought with ideas and hopes which cannot possibly end in anything but disappointment and disaster. Religious conventions, medical associations and legal assemblies all add to the din until the average man has arrived at a mental state which makes him well nigh incapable of judging anything by the ordinary standards of sound reasoning. All the while the one need of the public is sound instruction and careful leadership but these are the things which we conspicuously lack. This is the ideal stamping ground for the quack of every description. In an age when medical science is peculiarly active on the side of investigation and experimentation, that undoubted efficiency is being in large measure discredited because so many well known Quacks Abounding 125 if not eminent names are connected with schemes or programs which nullify in toto the simplest maxims of scientific investigation. The medical quack faces us at every street corner. His advertisements fill the newspapers. His testimonials are legion and his financial returns are such as to encourage the increase of the species to such an extent that there seems to be no end in sight. The moment a new drug is dis- covered, the very instant some fresh experiment reveals possibilities, it becomes the subject of commer- cial exploitation and the miraculous serums and injec- tions and cure-alls which are offered to the afflicted people of the nation make the cure producing legends of the medieval age look like amateurish efforts in the same line. But it must not be supposed that these things are exclusively in the hands of the ignorant and unlearned. Nothing much more astounding can be fished out of the purlieus of dark lantern medical quackery than the recent exploitation of a miraculous turtle serum for the cure of tuberculosis. But this was not done in a corner by persons without. name and reputation. Nay, it came to us with the sanction of high reputation from the intellectual capital of the world. But it was quackery pure and simple. The lucky box seller of Boston who was captured a few years ago in Boston with many sacks of mail convey- ing thousands of dollars for the purchase of a miracle performing alleged lucky box, found to be manufac- tured in a saw mill down in Maine, was not essen- tially different in character from the bringer of tidings of certain cure for the dreaded white plague. 126 Christianity and the Social Rage And this is an age conspicuous for its scientific spirit and attainments! We are hardly better off when we examine the propositions for the readjustment of our colossal business problems. Let us concede that we have learned much in recent years about business. Let us admit that we have found sins where none existed before. Let us acknowledge that we have found grave and fearful methods and conditions prevailing which call for severe and drastic methods of reform. But the very gravity of the disease calls for profound seriousness and especially for a deep and alert moral sense in dealing with them. The very complicated character of the problem would seem to make men rationally inclined, see to it that we do not kill the patient in the endeavor to cure him. The present writer certainly has no particular sympathy with the big business or the little business found to be engaged in the spoliation of his fellow human beings engaged in the labor of making a living. But that fact does not incite anybody capable of understanding the mul- tiplication table to a reckless and ruthless increase in taxation or interference with private matters which can only end in national bankruptcy or governmental tyranny. The preservation of human liberty is vastly the greatest of all the problems which are now before us. Few persons seem to be aware of the fact that where the collective programs are most effective pri- vate initiative and liberty are also the least. They do not seem to appreciate the fact that under these very programs class conditions tend to become fixed Quacks Abounding 127 and the fluid alteration of social classes tends to cease. It happens to be one of the fixed laws of this world that you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Cer- tainly if there is one fact more impressive in this world than any other it is this: that men unhampered have produced the most capable and effective specimens of the race. This is not to say that every man is to be permitted without any sort of regulation or control to run amuck in the world, performing only his own sweet will. It is not saying that there is anybody in this world who will not bear the careful scrutiny of his fellow men and all the aids that can be given to help him to be just and fair in his dealings. It is, however, saying that a civilization which is grounded in the idea that nobody is to be permitted to initiate anything until the mob has had time to assimilate it, is to gag the human mind and to stop the progress of the race. That seems to be the policy at the present moment. The business reform quack, whatever he calls himself, is not so much to be feared because of the particular doctrine which he advocates, since most of these things come to their natural end in time as they are surely found impossible, but because they are based upon an idea which is inherently destructive of the intellectual and social future of the race. There is no creature so sensitive to interference as he who has the capacity, imagination and skill to organize the large enterprises by which human life has been revolutionized and humanity made able to see itself with clearness and understand the processes by which it has been evolved to its present state. Destroy that 128 Christianity and the Social Rage and your " collective mind " soon becomes vacant be- cause the productive agents by which you have the collective mind have been destroyed or crippled. The situation is even worse when we turn to the sociological mania which is sweeping over the land. It would take a much larger volume than this to pre- sent in review the wholesale effort to regenerate so- ciety by legislation which is now going on throughout the United States. From the regulation of the length of hatpins to the standardizing of babies the whole field is covered. There is evidence that the most en- lightened sociologists are themselves becoming alarmed at the turn of events which cannot but eventuate in a discrediting of a very important and useful field of human effort and research. Here again the evils are great. They are more than great. They cry to Heaven for relief and reformation. But this should be the very reason why the deep and poignant ills of mankind should not be confused with trivial and fool- ish matters. To put a matter of the length of bed sheets into a state constitution would be merely a piece of rural foolishness if it did not connote a state of mind which is far more dangerous than any particular legislation which it can possibly bring forth. It shows a lack of conception of fundamental law which in personal affairs would spell ruin and destruction. Fiddling when Rome is burning is a highminded performance by the side of sticking into a state con- stitution trivial foolishness which blurs the idea of fundamental law. It is not strange that the natural next step is already at hand in the proposals for un- Quacks Abounding 129 written constitutions and the destruction of all funda- mental lav/. In a similar manner the ideas brought forth for the regulation of marriage, for the care of offspring, for the maintenance of the family, notably mothers with dependent children and the like, admit- ting every one of them to spring from a benevolent impulse, carry with them seeds of social decay which are infinitely more to be feared than at least very many of the ills under which we are groaning. The pathetic result of all this is precisely that which we have already seen in medicine. The medical quack often with high degrees and reputable name brings into disrepute the thoroughly sound and rep- utable advances of medical science. The sociological quack in exactly the same manner is discrediting the work of social amelioration and bringing all such effort in to disrepute because destroying all perspec- tive. The scrap heap of worthless and absurd legis- lation, both that attempted and that enacted, is moun- tain high. Fortunately we have still with us the sound processes of law and the courts. It is still possible under our jurisprudence to safeguard the in- dividual and prevent the utter destruction of liberty. But such is the sociological rage, and such the patho- logical state of the public mind that this last restraint against what is essentially mob law is likewise in the way of being so altered that it will mean nothing presently if the public mind is not instructed and wisely directed. And the political quack is not want- ing to make the fullest use of the public frenzy for his own uses. It would not be fair to say that the great- 130 Christianity and the Social Rage est demagogue of to-day is he who inveighs most loudly against our social ills. It would be fair to say that the clear headed citizen and public leader who re- fuses to follow the will-o'-the-wisps of " social jus- tice " so-called and follow reason instead of passion gets scant hearing. It is this want of ability to prove all things and hold fast only what is good which is our real social danger. Every ill can be borne and survived but the loss of rationality. And this loss of the power of self restraint and ability to hold in solution the questions at issue until something funda- mental has been reached, constitutes vastly the greatest social problem of this generation. Not because the ills are not great. Not because the need for remedy is not urgent ! Not because the impulse to find a way out is not creditable and praiseworthy! But because the very remedy we seek, the very belief for the need of which we suffer and the very " social justice " by which we are to advance, is thus automatically placed beyond the range of possibilities. There is no social justice without reason. There is no social remedy not grounded in character. There is no social hope that culminates in a flaming outburst of social pas- sion. All such can eventuate in either one of two things tyranny or anarchy. II There remain to be examined in this respect the sphere of education and religion. It was a dean of Harvard College who wrote some years ago the whim- Quacks Abounding 131 sical sentence in the preface of a book on school, col- lege and character, when somebody wanted to know who he was and why the review in which his essay was printed, published such nonsense as he was writ- ing, that " whoever wrote nonsense on the subject of education wrote in good company." But that is putting it rather mildly. Educational humbug is al- most as rampantly trampling over the country as medical or sociological humbug. It is not merely nonsense which is invading every form of public and private education. It is the nullification of the sim- plest principles of the human mind, which constitutes the educational problem. After years of educational glory, the Boston School Committee has just issued, while this chapter is writing, a remarkable announce- ment that the elementary grades are to give more at- tention to reading, writing and arithmetic! The document goes on to state that the elementary educa- tion is going to have some relation to the ordinary processes which most of the pupils have to face in their later life! Now if this is what we have reached after all these years in the Athens of America, we may well wonder where the rest of the country stands. But this committee has at least discovered that on the point of preparing the children for their ordinary du- ties in life the public school system has made some very lamentable failures. And perhaps it may finally prove that this document may be evidence of a very remarkable kind of public courage. It is very much the fashion to assail public education and there is much to assail. It is observable, however, that most 132 Christianity and the Social Rage of those who make the assault have nothing very positive or intelligible to offer as a substitute for what we are receiving. Certainly nothing that indicates very profound knowledge of the problem or of the agencies by which reform is to be secured. For be it remembered education involves many things in- cluding buildings and equipment, but most of all teachers! And the training of the teacher and the organization of the teaching force psychologically and practically are not exactly the simplest matters in the world. Teachers have an unfortunate habit of think- ing they know what they want to do. And the more effective they are, or the more precisely trained, the more difficult it is to treat them as a mass and handle them by executive orders from the superintendent's office, especially if the superintendent aforesaid be an intellectual inferior of his subordinates, a not un- common thing, or a political hireling held in position by powers that have nothing to do with education per se, an equally common spectacle. Almost any- body with a reasonably good vocabulary can success- fully assail certain results of our public education. It certainly is not the purpose of the present writer to join that happy throng. But after all is said and done, the fact remains that educational quackery abounds like all the other quackeries, because there have been taken out of edu- cation certain qualities without which education in any rational sense is almost impossible. Here, as in gov- ernment and law, the rage is to reform the system, without fundamentally inquiring into the ideas and Quacks Abounding 133 personal qualities of the persons who are to do the work. On every side we are clamoring for German thoroughness and German efficiency and German ef- fectiveness. Well and good. Are the advocates of these things willing to accept German supervision, Ger- man autocracy, German industry and German tyranny? That is the real question. Pure democracy is a beau- tiful and joyous vision. But pure democracy does not contemplate a rigid rule of powerful individuals inflexibly capable and inflexibly determined that the recipients of their favor shall above all things work! It would be amusing were it not so very nearly tragic to observe the frantic efforts of our educational officers to secure results which shall answer the social rage for results. Not content with all kinds of tin- kering in the school itself, it includes propositions which contemplate the regulation and organization of the household, with school credits for baths, sweeping of rooms, washing of teeth, blacking of stoves, and a vast variety of things which we once happily supposed constituted the functions of the home. Almost every- thing seems to be proposed except the theory that study is work to be performed, like other work, with the concomitant qualities of industry, patience, fidel- ity to duty, subordination to proper authority, respect for elders and superiors and the like. The strike of school children has become one of our prevailing forms of social hysteria. And against the process of raising standards by the imposition of conditions which presuppose hard work, let it be noted that one of the leading medical schools of the country which 134 Christianity and the Social Rage a few years ago sought to raise the standard of the medical profession by requiring college degrees of its students, has been compelled to abandon that standard because it was proved to be impossible of execution. What the Harvard Medical School thus found could not be done in the matter of intending doctors is symptomatic of the disease of the entire educational system. The insistence on all sides is on everything except the moral qualities by which the other results alone are possible. The defeat of one of the strong- est educational institutions in the land in this matter is fairly indicative, not merely of what takes place in less favored institutions, but of the state of the public mind on the subject generally. And it is the oppor- tunity of the quack, who comes forward with the general discrediting not merely of the prevailing edu- cation, but finally of all education beyond the mere rudiments. But even these rudiments, at least in Boston, it appears, have been neglected and are now to be taken up with seriousness! There is no indictment of our education, public and private, lower or higher, which will lie so absolutely proved as that which attacks it on the side of its moral capacity. This is not on the side of what are com- monly called " morals " but on the side of the inculca- tion of thorough training and discipline of the powers by which alone men become useful, capable and satis- factory members of society, namely, concentrated industry, obedience, respect for law and properly constituted authority and the expectation of success, through these qualities and these only. Here also the Quacks Abounding 135 rage for panaceas has overturned the ability to think soundly, and to labor with patience and with stolid indifference to the hallelujahs of the educational sal- vation army! It is hardly to be wondered at that we have the manifestations in the maturer portion of the nation when we contemplate the utter absence of the agencies for moral discipline in the formative periods of life. Children who are not taught to obey proper authority are not likely to have much respect, as citi- zens, for courts and laws. Children to whom are supplied every possible adjunct of their earlier edu- cation without effort or expense on their part, are not likely to expect to live by their own efforts, but continue to look to the public authorities not merely for work, but for support. What kind of a society can be reared upon a foundation which automatically denudes the youth of the land of ideas of personal responsibility and duty? And which adds to this defect miscellaneous notions about hard work, faith- fulness and good manners! Is it much to be won- dered at that we have to have innumerable societies to do what should be presupposed as accomplished at the emergence from school, namely to reform elemen- tary moral conceptions, teach fundamental duties and bring about friendly relations between fathers and sons? The very existence of these agencies outside of the school and the home divide the interest and authority and make the subjects of such confusion of control the natural subjects of exploitation by the agitator and the demagogue. But they are making them also nat- 136 Christianity and the Social Rage ural subjects of exploitation by the predatory ele- ments of society, which do not wish to deal with intelligent and self controlled labor, and intelligent and self controlled masses, who by their very reason- able demands are able to bring about permanent and beneficent reform. If there was ever a program en- tered upon by a nation with consecration and zeal, the educational program of the American people was such an undertaking. But where has it brought us? Into a wild rage for alteration without improvement, for sociological advances defiant of natural laws and widespread and growing juvenile delinquency and no diminution, perceptible, of what President Eliot called the barbarian vices of drunkenness, gambling and licentiousness. It would not be just to say that the rage for educational improvement has brought all this about. It would be just to say that the educational rage for fresh devices, which do not touch the root of the problem and the educational quackery, which obscures the moral elements of the questions to be considered and keeps on adding fringes, while the garment is dropping to pieces, has a large share of the responsibility for the present situation. The simultaneous announcement of failure from the edu- cational bottom and the educational top in Boston fairly illustrates the problem. With all the other quacks the educational quack has the floor. Quacks Abounding 137 III The consideration of religious quackery presents many difficulties which are not present in the discus- sion of quacks in other fields of human endeavor. Religion is itself a subject of mystery. It therefore lends itself readily to more mystification than that which is inherent in the subject itself. Moreover the expansion of religion in recent times has been so great that the limits of the subject are not so apparent as they once were. This has affected the church, as well as religion, in a manner which will be the subject of a subsequent chapter. But for the immediate ques- tion in hand, it may be asserted that if education, law, social service and the like are all infested with nos- trums of one kind and another, which have well nigh drowned out the sober and sound discussion of these matters, it is hardly less true concerning the most vital of the interests of humanity, namely religion itself. Let us admit that we know more about man than we ever knew before. Let us admit that religion has a larger sphere of operations than it ever had. Let us admit that the subject of the relations of humanity with God have received much enlightenment and illumination at the hands of critics, archaeologists, in- vestigators and psychologists. It still remains that religion has a history and that historically some things have been established as firmly as the human reason itself. We need not quarrel with fresh psychological hypotheses, provided we keep on living rationally, while discussing them. We need not become hyster- 138 Christianity and the Social Rage ical over the discovery that some cherished theory has been found based on myth or imagination, provided we remember that the imagination of man has always been active, and very likely will continue to be active as long as man remains on the earth. Nor need we even become over-excited about the historical falsity of something we have hitherto supposed to be his- torically true, if we keep steadily in mind that history as a science is a comparatively recent discovery itself. No one can have the slightest desire to stop any sort of intellectual activity in the sphere of religious in- vestigation, always provided we keep before us the main propositions of sound living, namely that human relations and human behavior are themselves the re- sults of the experience of mankind, with itself, over many centuries and in the long run represent the workable doctrines of that experience. But this is not the prevailing attitude of our gen- eration. The prevailing attitude is that all things have become new. Hence the door has been opened wide for every species of nonsense and buffoonery and the sincerely religious man, looking over the field, is harassed on every side with frantic and insistent ap- peals to meet the impending crisis in the religious life of the world! If he be at all a person of sensitive- ness he is immediately plunged into an atmosphere of dubiety from which once in he finds it very hard to emerge. 1 Sound doctrine disappears and in fact all most remarkable case in illustration that has come to my knowledge is that of the Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, who depressed by the fact that three suicides had Quacks Abounding 139 thoroughgoing religious teaching has substantially disappeared from the vast body of our churches. On the one hand we are faced with the immovable, un- yielding mass of dogmaticians, who have long since passed out of the region of vital religion and keep on uttering and proclaiming the impossible dogmas of a bygone age. But as a substitute for these we have the irresponsible clamor of innumerable strident voices, which indicate the reign of universal quackery. Thus we have every form of delusion, not only with adherents but with organization, from a quietism which eschews everything that looks like duty and moral imperative, to religion that grounds itself in bodily ailments and their cure, the regulation of di- gestion, the expectation of the miraculous transforma- tion of the world, the unconscious absorption of the spirit of God, the voodoo incantations of the oriental word juggler, the dark closet spiritualist and the ab- sent treatment financier. Indeed this is but a meager list of the varied and grotesque assortment of reli- gious appeals which are made every week in the news- papers of the land. They are all based upon the general notion that all things have become new! To be sure none of these things are new, but that makes little difference with the thousands who flock to them in public and private for instruction or relief. occurred in the student body within two weeks, could think of no more effective expedient to arrest the " suicide wave " than to send for the base ball evangelist, the Rev. Billy Sunday, to address the students and bring them back to spiritual things! See in this connection the editorial "Religion with a Punch." Nation, Mar. 19, 1914. 140 Christianity and the Social Rage Nor are these thousands among the poor and the ignorant. It might be forgiven the poor ignorant negro in the Southern cotton field if he followed his voodoo doctor around as a person possessing super- natural qualifications for communicating with the Deity. But stately temples are reared to these super- stitions on beautiful boulevards and are visited by thousands of persons with education, human experi- ence and otherwise thoroughly responsible and sane. On the roster of believers in these things are found not merely names of upright responsible people, but the names of persons with scientific reputations and eminent in education and public service. You may see coming home from some of these functions men whose diplomatic services are reckoned of the highest worth to the nations they have represented. You may see individuals to whom great interests pay vast sums for their knowledge and advice, in the profoundest legal questions. You may see men who know thor- oughly what the meaning of law is, in the chemical laboratory and the dissecting room. You may see men and women who are as nearly as human judgment can decide such matters, absolutely familiar with the scientific processes by which civilization has been ad- vanced. And you will see no delusion so grotesque, no buffoonery so absurd and contradictory to the nor- mal operations of the rational mind, but reckons among its followers some who correspond to the de- scription just given. It used to be possible to say that these phenomena could be found in the field of religion alone, but as Quacks Abounding 141 previously stated this is no longer the case. Trium- phant quackery has long since left the area of reli- gion as its particular and exclusive domain. But it must not be forgotten that the contrast between sanity and quackery is most glaring and vital in the matter of religion, because here it is fundamental and de- cisive of human interests en bloc. It means vastly more here, because it governs all other operations and especially those which affect human conduct. A law- yer, for example, who has eliminated the possibility of sin from the scheme of human conduct, may readily find it possible to use the law for every kind of what other people call rascality, with no consciousness that he is doing anything wrong. A quasi-medical prac- titioner, who believes that there is no such thing as disease, may readily contemplate death from neglect with no particular emotion of regret, especially if the deceased can be charged with having been wanting in the kind of faith needful for restoration to health. A religious absorptionist who has cast aside every claim of rational behavior as between man and man may very easily absorb his neighbor's wife or his neighbor's money without feeling that anything un- usual or especially disastrous to himself or the ab- sorbed has occurred. And these are not fanciful cases. They represent actual occurrences. The amazing prevalence of affinities of one kind and an- other, and the ease with which wife-transference and exchange is accomplished, both legally and illegally, illustrate the point. The hideous feature of these things is that many of them call themselves religion 142 Christianity and the Social Rage and are actually believed to be religion. And as the case now stands there is no effective means at work to counteract these influences or call them by their proper names. The spirit of quackery, called also the spirit of inquiry, or the spirit of tolerance, forbids that we should designate these assaults upon the integrity of the social bond by their proper names. The church dares not do it because the church itself is honeycombed with them. One need not have a single word of reproach for any effort to solve a bad marriage problem by divorce or remarriage or other- wise, that is openly, intelligibly and frankly entered into by the contracting parties. Indeed this would tend to keep the reasoning spirit supreme and the re- lations clearly understood. With these we have no quarrel. But with the religionizing of lawlessness of every kind, and the religious quack setting the pace for the rest of humanity, we seem to have a large problem on our hands. The insufferable stupidity and inertia of the ultra conservative is bad enough. But with the moral anarchy of universal religious quackery, civilization itself is threatened unless there shall be set in motion a stern and drastic agency for moral regeneration and recuperation. And thus once again, as often before in the history of humanity, we have side by side with deep and pervasive distrust of every form of social effort and relations, the wildest heyday of quackery, defying the human reason at every point and crowning that defiance by parading in its train some of the most famous names in science, art, politics and law. CHAPTER VI SOCIAL JUSTICE ON THE CURBSTONE What we need now is to rouse our profession to speak out. We must be heard in defense of the good there is in our present society and in pointing out the social injury which a retrograde step may involve. But we also must put ourselves more in touch with the present thinking of the people who are being led in foolish paths. We must study sociological jurisprudence. We must be able to understand the attitude of the sociological reformer. We must show our sympathy with every sincere effort to better things. . . . The valuable lessons of the past will be given proper weight and real and enduring social progress will be attained. We shall avoid, then, radical and impractical changes in law and government by which we might easily lose what we have gained in the struggle of mankind for better things. W. H. TAFT, before the American Association of Law Schools. CHAPTER VI SOCIAL JUSTICE ON THE CURBSTONE REFERENCE has already been made to the al- most universal distrust of the courts of justice. The subject, however, deserves somewhat more ex- tensive discussion because the social rage is exploiting itself more especially under the striking demand for social justice. This term in itself is interesting, be- cause in a large degree it is one of those elusive expressions which defies definition though it may be admitted that it fairly connotes a very real demand in the public mind. Just what does social justice mean? Justice itself is a moral quality and its ad- ministration through the agencies of courts and laws and other instruments of public action is almost abso- lutely dependent upon the moral qualities of the indi- viduals who manage and direct these agencies. Then again justice is usually discovered and administered in causes between man and man and usually in the question of the disposition of property. It is based upon rights and duties. There is hardly a case where justice is sought where the question does not turn upon the duty of one or the other of the parties to the controversy and in the light of the failure to perform i45 146 Christianity and the Social Rage this duty the right or the violation thereof of the other party to the controversy is proved. Thus what we call justice is nothing more or less than a very elaborate administration of rights and duties, what the rights are and what the duties are gradually be- coming settled through the careful and judicial examination of persons wholly disinterested, called judges. That is all justice is and it never can be anything else. Nobody ever seeks " social justice." What everybody wants is the possibility of securing individual justice when the occasion for it arises. If nobody ever felt his personal rights invaded there would be no use for courts or lawyers nor any one of the elaborately developed instruments by which we administer our laws. Indeed there would hardly be any laws, because laws themselves spring up because a sufficient number of individual experiences have educated the community to the necessity for exact definition of the rights and duties in particular causes. Thus the general or social law is discovered. For a man to bawl for " social justice " unless he means merely a general outcry against the state of things in general is the stupidest of all forms of the social rage now confusing the public mind. Every cause at law has a plaintiff and a defendant. That means that every cause has a man who wants one thing and another who wants something else and usually the diametrical opposite of what his opponent desires. Finding out who is right is simple justice. What else possibly can "social" justice be? If it be alleged that social justice has regard to communal Social Justice on the Curbstone 147 rights or the rights of groups against individuals or the rights of the masses as against let us say corpora- tions there can be not the slightest reason for depart- ing a hair's breadth from the pathway by which society has emerged to the state of civilization which calls for the so-called social justice. If it be alleged that justice is not properly administered then the case is one against the individuals who administer the instru- ments of justice. And as these are for the most part in their positions through the agencies which the peo- ple themselves have inaugurated and employ, the case returns to the people themselves and the circle is com- plete, namely, that social justice is an appeal for a higher state of morality and righteousness among the very people who are calling for the reform. It may be admitted that there is much of real wrong and much of iniquity behind this cry for social jus- tice. The powerful members of every community having been bereft of moral sense, property having been exempted from moral scrutiny and the moral im- perative of religious sanctions as heretofore shown, naturally take over unless hindered the agencies for the administration of justice as they do every other agency of civilization. Anybody who supposed that the monopolist in principle would leave the courts out of his scheme of control has no conception of what the monopolistic principle is like. By its very nature it takes in every avenue to the control and increase of property possession. If this requires a judge, or a jury, or a law, or a sheriff, or a district attorney, only the most simple minded can possibly imagine that 148 Christianity and the Social Rage there would be any hesitation on the part of the monopolist in providing for the contingency. But this is nothing specially new nor should it throw sober minded persons into rage and hysteria as though it were a matter of recent history or discovery. Least of all should it throw that portion of the public, mor- ally desirous of improving social conditions, into a frame of mind which ultimately can result only in strengthening the monopolistic grip and still further deadening the moral sense of the masses of the popu- lation. For let it be stated once more that every method at reform which is not soundly grounded in morals only means in the long run a hindrance in the attainment of the reform desired. This is the one lesson which the American nation needs to learn to- day above all others. It may be worth while at this point to state a fact which is historically beyond controversy. No single one of our public institutions has done more to ad- vance humanity and render the conditions of civiliza- tion like what they ought to be than the courts of justice and the judges who have sat upon their benches. This statement is made with the fullest pos- sible recognition of the equally incontrovertible fact that judges have been corrupt, laws have been doctored or nullified or defied, court procedure has been and is in many cases hopelessly involved, and suited beauti- fully to the purposes of the predatory interests of society and justice so-called fitly framed and com- pacted together to make the increase of property among those who have already despoiled the multi- Social Justice on the Curbstone 149 tudes of the fruits of their thought and labor. Let not one single derogatory fact be overlooked. But the fact still remains, after all is said and done, that the courts of law even badly administered and the judges human and fallible, as all of them have been and must ever be, have been the safeguards of civili- zation and when they break down civilization will break down with them. Civilization has often dis- trusted its instruments of justice. It has often modi- fied, changed and discarded one kind for another. But civilization has never yet come to the point until now where it was willing to throw justice to the curb- stone and try to administer the mysterious and futile thing called " social justice " on the sidewalk. This is the frame of mind in which we now seem to be. Of all the stupid, foolish and insensate schemes for social reformation and progress most of the plans for the reformation of justice by throwing the courts to the administration of mobs seem to be the worst. And they are the worst, not because they are not the result of a sincere desire for reform, nor because there is not a great and urgent need for reform, but because the proposed reforms will defeat the things desired and open the way for a rule of tyranny and injustice vastly more violent and vastly more subversive of human progress than any single thing that can be imagined. The weakest court is in the great majority of the cases which come before it the best instrument human skill has devised for justice, because as a general rule it represents the moral altitude of the people who create it. Moreover the 150 Christianity and the Social Rage weakest court is not as a rule corrupt except in a very few of the cases which habitually come before it. It may be asserted with perfect safety that in the vast majority of cases at law substantial justice is done as between the parties to the controversy. This does not mean that any two litigants ever go out of a court room satisfied. It is not in human na- ture to be beaten in any contention with rejoicing. But with all our resentment against the law's delays and the intricacies of legal procedure, and our rebel- liousness against what seems to us and often rightly the needless expense and worry of getting a judicial ruling in matters of controversy, who is there that does not rejoice in every opportunity for these things when they seem to further his own cause? Who has ever heard of a criminal who had the slightest com- plaint to make against the numberless ways of de- feating what to the common mind seems like simple and prompt justice? What defendant does not re- joice at the innumerable delays which tend to confirm him in possession of what some other man contends he is holding unlawfully? Has any man ever heard of complaint against the courts, when the courts seemed to favor him in his personal contention ? No- body ! There is no cry for " social justice " from the litigant when the very things he abstractly assails having no business before the courts are found to be useful for the furtherance of his private interests. Men cry for justice and against the courts only when something they regard as personal to themselves has been invaded or when they have no experience as lit- Social Justice on the Curbstone 151 igants whatever. Then the judge becomes the " pliant tool of wealth " or even the opposing side. Then the lawyer who failed to secure a decision was probably " bribed by the opposition." Then the law of the land becomes a " fraud " and then there goes up a wail for the reformation of the court. And usually not until then. This is not designed in the slightest to discredit those persons who see the ills of society and who see millionaires evading the proper penalties of the law. These are common phenomena and have been for centuries or at least since wealth has had any chance to affect the decisions of courts and the framing of laws. But why should any one have been surprised at this manifestation in our social life? Has not prop- erty been taken out of the realm of morals? Have we not with great unanimity agreed that our religion should apply to everything except taxation and prop- erty? Have we not, just as soon as we have passed out of the non-holders to the class of holders of prop- erty adopted precisely the code and precisely the meth- ods which have been handed down to us since property was exempted from the sphere of religion? What is there so new in this situation that calls for the over- throwing of the most powerful single bulwark of human rights and opening the way for mob law or no law? Or is there any considerable portion of the sober thinking portion of humanity that believes that such a thoroughly Mexican process as recall of judges or recall of decisions will eventuate, if it succeeds logically, in anything but mob rule and the extinction 152 Christianity and the Social Rage of real justice? It is one of the most interesting facts in connection with the Mexican doctrine that most of those who avow it do not expect it will be much applied. Then all it can possibly mean is a threat to the court which is itself a form of mob rule, which is, if anything, more disastrous than the other. The assault upon the courts is perhaps the last method which sane men can employ against the evils of the courts. Laws may be changed by constitutional proc- esses. Judges can be impeached and taken off the bench. Judicial procedure has often been improved and may be improved again. But civilization has ad- vanced and steadily advanced because there was in the background working steadily, and working for the most part wisely and well, this instrument which as between man and man operated with substantial jus- tice, at least a justice comparable to the moral altitude of the people among whom it existed. That remains the great unquestionable fact and the one most to be kept in mind in periods of social raging. II But the question arises whether the real difficulty of the situation as respects our courts has been touched. In our judgment it has not, and there has not a cause come to public attention in recent years in which the remedy for difficulties of administration was not readily at hand. On the other hand the great and the most significant evil of all courts is one for which the remedy is not so apparent and that is the Social Justice on the Curbstone 153 universal prevalence of perjury. This is mainly what is the matter with justice and once this evil could be successfully attacked most of the other troubles would automatically disappear. Nothing has so deeply im- pressed observers of legal operations in the last two decades as the glaring fact that while witnesses swear that they will tell the truth, the whole truth, and noth- ing but the truth, they have generally told only what it pleased them to tell, have told much that was mani- festly not true and have conveniently forgotten what was most essential, to the full explanation of the par- ticular matters under adjudication. A collection of the famous lapses of memory on the part of persons entrusted with vast responsibilities when they have been brought into courts of law would reveal us as the most perjured nation on earth. Mr. Gladstone is re- ported to have said that the income tax had made England a nation of liars. There is not an assessor of repute in this land who will not say that most of the people who come before him are, in his private judgment, liars. There is not a judge who in private will not tell you that the vast majority of the people who testify in his court do not tell the truth and never intended to tell the truth when they came. The preparation of witnesses by lawyers for the trial of cases may be said to be the skilful arrangement of testimony for, at best, the suppression of a part of the truth. Reduced to lowest terms this is perjury and perjury is one complete adequate and satisfying cause of every judicial evil now complained of by those who are making the grand assault upon our courts. 154 Christianity and the Social Rage Nor has this evil stood still with the advance of years. Perjury which was once furtive and ashamed is now open, daring and unashamed. Witnesses say they do not know or have forgotten, when if what they testify to in this manner was the truth they would be confined in insane asylums or have guardians ap- pointed for their estates. And with singular unanim- ity they forget only those things which are damaging to the cause they have at heart. Let it be admitted that it is easy to forget what one does not like to recall. Psychologically this is probably true. The human mind does not like to dwell upon unpleasant truths. But when such lapses are found to be in con- nection with written documents, signatures, involving the payment of money, incidents in which the entire framework for supplying the missing fact is present, the daring and notorious perjury becomes one of the most impressive exhibitions of the moral deterioration of the general public that can be imagined. It is so open, so apparent, so frankly determined to hinder the progress of justice that it is hard to see how any court with the record before it and with the very best intention can proceed with anything like justice, when every important cause is honeycombed with lying, deep, purposeful, and planned with special reference to precisely such contingencies as those described. Double or false sets of books planned for exhibition to courts or investigating committees, false and du- bious entries, misleading notes and directions, are all a part of this universal perjuring program which can be seen in every tribunal of justice in the land. And Social Justice on the Curbstone 155 yet, because we have witnesses who are deliberate and determined and trained liars, we propose to throw the court into the scrapheap and go to curbstone for jus- tice. And here, once more, the striking fact is exhibited that the perjurers belong to no particular class of so- ciety. The corporate perjurers embrace all kinds from presidents to entry clerks. They embrace ex- perts worth many thousands of annual salary and laborers working for the daily wage. They take in men eminent in business, transportation, law and science and often education. They are graduates of all kinds of colleges and many of them are famous for benevolences and religious activity. Liars, all, they come into the courts of justice and lie with force, freedom and skill and throw upon the judges and the courts the odium of making decisions upon evidence which nobody in private believes and which nobody but an absolute idiot would believe. One might as well kick a carriage that did not move because a horse balks as attack the courts for such results. What shall the court decide upon if not evidence? What shall a judge base his decision upon, if not upon what witnesses tell under oath? And if courts are to be governed by evidence and the evidence is so largely mixed with lies, deliberately framed, where shall we go for a remedy ? But this is a phase of this problem that is rarely if ever touched upon in the discussion of the miscarriage of justice. The revision of the rules of evidence has been suggested but can any rules trap a witness determined not to tell the truth or who can 156 Christianity and the Social Rage forget in a critical moment? When the case has been carried far away from the one in which the testimony was originally taken, what judge has the supernatural intuition that can make him, in every case, decide whether the witness did or did not really know and was withholding the truth ? We have here not a legal matter but a moral question of the first order. And it may as well be stated first as last that until we get into the common people of this country a higher re- gard for truth, especially truth in controversy, justice will always mean what it means now, the best possible effort, human nature being what it is, to get the truth out of a mass of liars determined to tell only a part of it and that part favorable to themselves. This is not a matter of " social justice." It is a question of personal morality. No reflecting man will for an in- stant believe that the average judge, even of the sec- ond class, would not rather have every decision of his court represent absolute justice than anything else. It is pure folly or superstition to imagine a man capable of sitting on a bench would feel otherwise. But what shall we do? He sees that no influence that or- dinarily should operate between man and man can get the truth told where property interests are involved. He sees so-called religious men, high in ecclesiastical influence and position, lie just like common rascals who can be hired to testify to anything for the price of a drink. He sees the sanctity of the oath made a joke every day of his life. And out of this muck of perjury, deliberately planned and arranged for, with Social Justice on the Curbstone 157 precision and minuteness, he is to extract justice! That is the task of the American judge of to-day. One cannot in very truth repress admiration for the skill with which this wholesale perjury is concocted. The ingenuity with which moral perplexities are met and apparently satisfied, the arrangement of things apparently remote, so that at the proper time they may come to the surface as corroboratory evidence, the sublimely wonderful doctoring of records and books, are things to excite the utmost admiration as products of the human mind. The acute collocation of words, the equivocal statement of facts, the beautiful jugglery of truth and falsehood, are a vast and amazing tribute to the possibilities of the human intellect. But side by side with this amazing exhibition of mental force, power and foresight come the hardly less amazing and dazzling lapses of recollection, which are as miracu- lous in their precision and significance as the others are in the effectiveness and orderly progression. To be able to forget with such unerring accuracy at the right moment, the right thing, the material fact, the crux of the problem ! Sublime is the only word ! Added to this there is another psychological fact which must be taken into the account. Lying has this quality that persisted in, it soon deceives the very liars themselves, who become unable to distinguish the truth when they see it. A famous advocate said of a certain felon who was convicted in New York that he believed that in telling some of his most obvious lies, the felon himself believed he was telling the truth! 158 Christianity and the Social Rage He had carried on the process so long that he believed himself to be telling the truth. Deceiving he was himself most deceived of all. But this only compli- cates the problem for the court. Are we to club judges because we cannot get behind the psychological intricacies of long continued experienced and double dyed liars? The same infection applies to records of one kind and another. False entries soon become mere automatic affairs and the clerk who makes them habitually may in time fail to perceive which is the false and which is the true. It certainly would not be strange if this were the case, especially when we see that this is the commonest ecclesiastical vice. For let us not mislead ourselves in this matter, the liars of the ecclesiastical bodies are not different in kind, but only and not always in degree, from those of business and litigation generally. One can see almost any Sunday men of highest character for probity obviously lying in the interest of Christian truth! There is hardly an interest which does not breed this sort of thing, even in innocent persons, who have their causes very much at heart. But because we all want our cause to be strongly represented, because we desire to see jus- tice and love and mercy prevail, and are through that very zeal led into misrepresentation and falsehood, are we to take out the judge from his court and assail, if not morally lynch him, because he cannot untangle by some occult method the admixture of truth and error? Is this the way to secure the mythical thing called " social justice " ? Is this the way to secure any kind of justice whatever? Social Justice on the Curbstone 159 And when to all this there are added the natural dif- ferences of opinion and judgment and interpretation of the same facts, the possibilities of miscarriage of justice are immensely increased. Men should wonder not that the courts do so poorly in these matters but that they do so well. For, on the whole, and in the long run, as before stated, the courts do out of the mass of lying and falsehood really get some sort of understanding of the greater portion of the causes they adjudicate and do really, strange as it may seem, get something which often resembles justice. Perjury is the real source of the corruption of jus- tice. Perjury practised, by all kinds of men, high, low, educated, ignorant, rich, poor, in big business, in little business, with college degrees, with ecclesiastical connection and repute, with no religion and with all religions, all-pervasive perjury, that is what ails our courts and this is the root of the trouble with the administration of justice. And while the rules of evidence may be altered, and while the practise of the courts may be simplified, and while justice may be made cheaper and whether we have a public defender or a miscellaneous bar, the fact will still remain that lying witnesses will make the course of justice often futile. And they will continue to lie, because the thing they lie about most and most persistently for and about, namely property has been exempted from the operation of the one thing which can secure truth, namely, pure and undefiled religion. This is the impressive and overwhelming fact which the seek- ers for " social justice " must face before all else. 160 Christianity and the Social Rage III And for this orgy of lying, this wild riot of perjury we are offered the recall of judges or the recall of decisions or both ! It seems almost beyond belief that any serious man familiar with the facts should offer such a program. Why not hack a millwheel to pieces because the water is low ? No single thing could illus- trate the length to which insensate social rage has gone than these propositions. In the first place, as indicated, the recall of a judge who has made a de- cision which the mob may not like is to take from his place the one man who has patiently listened to all sides of the controversy. And to take it to the curb- stone is to take it to the very persons who know least about the whole matter. It would seem as if stupid- ity or demagogy or both could not go further. But this is not the main objection to the recall, whether of judges or decisions. The principal and the enduring objection is that this is the surest possible means of defeating the very object which the recallers desire. There is a good deal of prattle in our country about the sanity of our citizenship and in certain large mat- ters there is an amazing power in public opinion. But to question its technical skill, and its sobriety of judgment, in matters concerning which it has no knowledge is not to impeach the value of democracy ! When any one questions the ability of the voting masses to decide properly and with wisdom the most intricate questions of government and industry and law, he is usually assailed as having no faith in democ- Social Justice on the Curbstone 161 racy. But nothing is farther from the truth. There is nothing supernatural about democracy as such. We have long given up infallibility in religion. Shall we assume infallibility of the mob? Shall we go back to medieval notions, in the matter with which the best hopes and greatest interests of man are bound up, by assuming that a miscellaneous group of citizens are better able to decide intricate questions of justice be- tween man and man than a trained and skilful and reasonably honest man on the bench? But the more impressive fact that stares us in the face is that we shall never get, never have been able yet to get it, the decision of the very court to which we are thus making our appeal. Has any state in this land ever cast approximately its full vote even in the most fiercely contested elections with all the political machinery in motion and every stump resounding with frantic appeals to save the nation from impending ruin? What would happen, nay what has happened, when for any reason political committees have felt it needless or found themselves unable to carry thou- sands of voters to the polls? Are we not constantly governed by minorities? Do we not awake at every election to the fact that great blocks of voters never go to the polls and other great blocks do not even register? Has it not been true that small compact bodies of determined politicians have again and again carried through their purposes because the so-called better element forgot all about the primaries or the election or both? And if we are not able to get the decisions of our democracy upon the fundamental 162 Christianity and the Social Rage questions of government, are we likely to get them upon causes which are thrown at them from the courts? It must be a strange sort of faith in democ- racy that can expect it to change its nature instanta- neously in these particular matters, when it remains, so much of it, inert in matters of much more moment than any single case in court can be! And if it is thus aroused, does it not argue, almost ipso facto that some vast prejudice is at work, which creates the very worst atmosphere for securing a really just decision? The mob court thus offered as a substitute for the regular judicial form of procedure is itself evidence of a pas- sionate prejudice which tends to exclude justice. And who will benefit, if a ruling is thus thrown to the masses for decision, masses which must rely upon fragmentary newspaper reports, upon partial and partisan statements of the case, masses which see no witnesses, masses which are themselves when in court, tinctured with the same virus of falsehood by which probably the decision was induced? Who but the interests, most able and most ready to employ the agencies of deception and trickery, and most able to spend money for publicity and the misdirection of public opinion? Is not this the most obvious result of such a policy? And who will suffer most, under such circumstances? The very people whose wrongs we are trying to right. The very people who are now burdened and harassed, because we have caused lying to become such a fine art and have clogged up our courts with every kind of chicanery and deceit. Let no one be deceived in this matter. The surest Social Justice on the Curbstone 163 way of destroying the courts, as instruments of jus- tice, is to place a revisionary mob outside of the court room itself, in part already corrupt, and to be made the subject of every kind of temptation and ex- tending only, for those most capable of producing it, the area of public corruption and falsehood. That is what the recall of decisions and judges really means, and that would be a social disaster so great that most men cannot possibly imagine it taking place if the people have their eyes open. Let those of us espe- cially who want what we call " social justice " be- ware how we play into the hands of those who alone can profit by anarchy in the administration of the law. And let those who profess to believe in Christianity look to it that they do not pull down the very founda- tions of justice itself by throwing to the winds the laboriously attained results of the experience of man- kind. No court can withstand ultimately the con- demnation of enlightened public opinion. No corrupt judge can long operate at a lower moral altitude than that of the public am'ong which his activities are dis- played. The remedy for such judges is at hand and has been applied and can be applied again. Where there is an elective judiciary the very choice in the judge can be made exact at the very outset, though, as stated already, such a judge will represent the moral altitude of his community and nothing else. But to endeavor a revisionary judgment by popular appeal seems very much like a plebiscite on a case of typhoid fever! It is hardly to the credit of democracy itself that 164 Christianity and the Social Rage such a proposition can have the vogue that it seems to have and one reason why it has had such widespread acceptance and presentation is because we are all so enmeshed in the common muck of guilt. We are ready enough to accept anything that seems to offer relief, because in the consciousness of us all there is the knowledge that in matters of property we have no morals and we grasp vaguely at anything that seems to offer relief and often without thought of the fresh dangers into which we are thus led. Democ- racy will be really great when it recognizes its own limitations. Popular government will be really ad- mirable when it recognizes what it cannot do and ought not to attempt. Liberty is the priceless posses- sion of mankind, and when liberty under the law be- comes a matter of curbstone justice the foundation of the whole structure of democracy has been broken down. Democracy will then only exist till the strong tyrant appears to take possession of our government and of us all. Curbstone justice is but lynch law in another form, and when the supreme lyncher appears as he has already appeared in some forms, in the use of the agencies of government for private ends and private revenges throughout the country, the end of democracy is in sight. The recall of judges is the beginning of lynch law and nothing else and the only hope concerning it is that it will not be used as many of the instruments for self government with which democracy has provided itself are not used, even the very ballot itself. And then it must not be overlooked that the instru- Social Justice on the Curbstone 165 ments by which the matters complained of with re- spect to the courts are induced and carried on by the people themselves. The " thousands of shysters, am- bulance chasers and other unworthy members of the (legal) profession whose misdeeds are doing more than all other agencies combined to bring the profes- sion into public contempt and to destroy that respect for the law which is absolutely essential to the success and happiness of organized society," to quote the dean of one of our law schools, are directly employed by persons who hope and expect to derive some personal benefit from their labors. Without an actual plain- tiff and an actual defendant there can be no litigation before a court. All such are a part and parcel of the social body and these are they who make every possi- ble miscarriage of justice. No court ever organized or that ever is to be organized can successfully over- come the moral derelictions of society itself. The best such a court can do is to pronounce as between persons equally ready to employ every resource of falsehood, double dealing and misapplication of rem- edies designed to be operated in the interest of up- rightness and justice between man and man. The same revolver that kills a 'burglar in self-defense may be used and is used in a wicked and shameful murder. To hold the revolver guilty and forget the hand that wields it is not only stupidity but a species of wicked- ness itself. The courts are for common defense and protection. If they have become instruments of tyranny and offense it is because they have been so employed by the people themselves. To substitute for i66 Christianity and the Social Rage the orderly processes of impeachment and careful re- view of the proceedings of an unjust or corrupt judge, the recall is to take a step backward into the barbar- ism from which we thought we had in part, at least, emerged. IV But what has Christianity, as the organized religion of the land, to say to all this? Indeed, it may be asked, what has Christianity had to say in the past to all these conditions, while they have been accumulat- ing, in the face and eyes of civilization? Substan- tially nothing. The courts have had to do mainly with property and property rights. But religion hav- ing been successfully divorced from property, and money having been excluded from the consideration of religious men, except in the light of voluntary benevolence, it is not strange that Christianity has had no voice in the presence of abuses that have grown up and which were plainly within the natural sphere of its activity and instruction. Christianity has had as one of its oldest doctrines that no man should bear false witness. But while the doctrine has not per- ished, its modern applications have been so meager and when applied so silly that it may as well not have had the doctrine at all. Lying and perjury are moral defects which if attacked and attacked by the church, with all its might and power, might have held in leash the fearful orgy which has tended to disrupt civiliza- tion at its very foundation. Who has ever heard a sermon on the sanctity of an oath? Who has ever Social Justice on the Curbstone 167 heard the fearful personal illustrations furnished by our courts and matters of common knowledge made the subjects of direct and penetrating moral teach- ing? What organized system of instruction deals with these things as they must be dealt with, if we are ever to have any sort of conception of personal verac- ity, by which the courts can be cleansed from the reign of liars and their instruments? What liar, known and understood to be such, has ever been ex- pelled from his pew and made an example for the youth of the land as an illustration of what not to do, and also as a signal of the opinion of the church con- cerning such deeds ? Obviously this is a matter which belongs to the_ Christian church and its leaders and its teachers. Christianity by abandoning these duties has been the ally of destruction and has opened itself to the just reproach of honorable men that it is the refuge of every form of scoundrelism if only it belongs to the ruling cult, which being interpreted, usually means the financial oligarchy by which it is generally gov- erned. Of this more later. But for the present it may be stated and no man familiar with the machinery of ecclesiastical procedure in this country will dare to deny it, that the great and crying offenses which have been brought to light concerning men well known and of high standing in religious circles, have never re- ceived even the careful moral scrutiny of the church, much less its formal judgment and condemnation. It is not here urged that the church shall set up a moral inquisition. It is the familiar cry, whenever such an i68 Christianity and the Social Rage argument as that here urged is presented, that the moral freedom of individuals is being invaded and a pharasaic standard is being set up to bring all men into bondage and fear. But is this the case? Are perjurers of high degree to be passed over, and the church to carry its fearful burden of shame and dis- grace? Are we to take the ground that no matter what judgment the world at large pronounces, what the administration of courts and public service inves- tigation reveals, these persons shall still officiate at the communion table and stand before the congrega- tion as the symbolic figures of piety and Christian behavior? Yet this is what we have done and this is what we are doing and it is the shame of Christianity and its church that no church of any name or creed has ever dared except in the most shameful cases, where public opinion has made the continuance of the anomaly impossible, or where the offender himself took himself out of the public gaze, to stand morally erect and pronounce its verdict of truth and upright- ness. And if the church does not do this, what insti- tution in society shall perform the service? On the contrary she has held up, denounced and assailed and expelled men against whose moral purity she had not one syllable to utter, because they varied a hair's breadth from her metaphysical creeds! She has made service impossible to men against whose purity of life she had not one breath to whisper, in her pulpits, because they dared to tell the moral truths, for the lack of which society as a whole is reeking with filth and shame. This she has done, though hap- Social Justice on the Curbstone 169 pily she is doing it less under the lash of outraged and enlightened public opinion, mainly without rather than within the church. Let no man accuse us of want of respect for doctrinal interests or the soundest demand for scholarship, wisdom, knowledge and thorough training for the Christian pulpit Let us even admit the need for a certain uniformity of opinion for co- operation and successful organization. But to expel the preacher for slight variations of doctrines, most of which are in the region of nebulous metaphysics, while exalting the liar and perjurer who sits in the pew or officiates in the ecclesiastical council, is not only not Christianity, but not religion of any kind and the most shameful betrayal of the very name and purposes of Jesus Christ. Justice is bound hand and foot to the prevailing sin of perjury. The perjurers are of every type and form and cult, religious as well as non-religious. If we wish to grapple with this problem in a real vital fashion, justice must begin at the house of God. We must make the Christian reli- gion alter, in some fashion, the behavior of the per- sons who profess to have it, when it comes to testi- fying in the courts, under the sanctity of the oath and make a man who swears to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, do something approximating that or at least have it modified only by the natural infirmities of humanity. It is in the light of such a moral demand as this, which every man must recognize as absolutely just and of the very nature of Christianity, that we see what a revolutionary force Christianity really is. 170 Christianity and the Social Rage Moreover it is in the light of such a conception of the possibilities of the Christian religion that we see how foolish and superficial are most of the panaceas pro- posed for the reformation and deliverance of society. These at best grapple with certain conditions. But Christianity grapples with the men who make and perpetuate the conditions. Take out from under every social crime the responsible agent, take out from under every social wrong its financial exploiter, take out from every court its dishonest litigant and his shyster representative, and all will shine with purity and all will glow with the intimations of the coming of the Kingdom of God. But whose business is this ? Not of social settlements or legislatures or public service commissions or investigation tribunals! It is the business of organized Christianity, represented by the Christian church. But well-nigh voiceless she has staggered along, happy to be the bond servant of the very criminals who have denuded her of her strength and made her very name often the symbol of syco- phancy and shame. Yet there is nothing in her war- rant of existence to suggest this! The New Testa- ment is still here and its teaching is perfectly intelligible in these matters without the aid of meta- physics or encyclopaedias! The personality and the example of Jesus Christ are here clearly outlined and His message and teaching can be read and understood by all! But Christianity has carefully hidden away the great practical application of her gospel and gloriously invaded foreign lands and foreign evils, while at home she was corrupted and degraded by Social Justice on the Curbstone 171 those who stood in the forefront of her roster of illustrious sons! That this is no simple task may well be admitted and that it may be demanded more readily than com- plied with may also be conceded. But we have not been without martyrdoms for minor and spurious causes in the Christian church in recent times. If we must have our martyrs, then in the name of decency and morality let us have them for genuine Christian- ity. If we must break Christian ministers, and cast out men from the synagogue, let us at least cast them out for something that has a real relation to the vital interests of mankind. No man who has any concep- tion of the Christian gospel will whine over a martyr- dom which is based upon a genuine devotion to the vital truths of Christianity. Let us have men who will dare to be cast forth because they are ready to say " Thou art the man ! " The story of the ewe lamb is told often enough, but it stops with the dec- larative accusation which gives it point. The wrongs of men are aired often enough, but there has not yet been the grip and grasp of moral courage to point out the offender even when every newspaper, every magazine, every stump, rings with his name and his crimes. If there has been a place of refuge for the malefactor of every kind, especially the high class perjurer who has made our courts an object of scorn, where has it been if not the church? There at least he has been safe. There still circulated the perjured word at face value and there the pious pretences were still accepted while all the world looked on with won- 172 Christianity and the Social Rage der and pain! Let the Christian church revivify its teaching against false witness, let it make the liar, whether he be of high or low degree, to stand forth in contempt, let her denounce the men who are within her own border, who make mockery of justice and the issue will be clear and we shall have not ideal justice through our courts, but at least a purifying of the atmosphere and best of all an attack of the trouble at its source! CHAPTER VII FEMINISM The universal prevalence of the androcentric world view, shared by men and women alike, acts like a wet blanket on all the genial fire of the female sex. Let this be once removed, and woman's true relation to society be generally perceived and all this will be changed. We have no conception of the real amount of talent or of genius possessed by women. It is prob- ably not greatly inferior to that of men even now, and a few generations of enlightened opinion on the subject, if shared by both sexes, would perhaps show the difference is qualitative only. If this is so, the gain in developing it would be greater than merely doubling the number of social agents, for women will strike out according to their natural inclinations and cultivate fields that men would never have cultivated. They will thus add to the breadth, if they do not add to the depth of the world's progress. LESTER F. WARD, "Applied Sociology." CHAPTER VII FEMINISM IT was not to be expected that in the world-wide social turmoil the cause of women should be over- looked. It was to be expected that in the evolution of civilization the relations of women to the wider activities of mankind should and would receive a great deal of attention and thought. It was to be expected that as a result many received notions of the women's sphere would have to be modified or abandoned alto- gether. All these natural expectations have been ful- filled. The woman question politically now takes in not merely the question of suffrage, but almost every form of violation of the penal code in England and is extending this form of activity in America. Assaults upon ministers of state in England, which a few gen- erations ago would have been considered symbolic of possible overthrow of the national constitution, are now commonplaces and looked for at the breakfast table as a part of the daily news. Suffrage militancy in England and syndicalism in our own land seem to run upon about the same lines and with the general processes of reasoning. Broadly speaking they may be said to rest upon the same logical foundation, in J75 176 Christianity and the Social Rage so far as there can be any logical foundation in such proceedings. In our own land the movement has aside from its political expansion taken the form of innumerable movements for the uplifting of women in industry, care for wage earners, mothers' pensions, with investigations into the causes and extent of white slavery and similar phenomena. The woman phase of civilization has multiplied material for discussion and reflection so rapidly, that it was almost inevitable that as a final result we should have a singular and amazing compound of all these things, called feminism, which now engages not only the serious and earnest thought of many persons of sound and healthful moral status but also of vast numbers of persons whose moral status it would be very difficult to characterize with justice or clearness. No adequate definition of feminism can be given or has been given. In general it means the liberation of women from most of the obligations which hitherto have rested upon them and the assumption of a great number of social, industrial and political privileges and duties, from which they have hitherto been ex- cluded or released. With a program which looks to the deliverance of any human being from any unnat- ural or unjust restraint, Christianity can have not the slightest quarrel. It is the business of Christianity to engage in just such contests and as a matter of history, Christianity has always been doing this when it has been itself. With respect to women especially, it may be said that Christianity has waged its most successful war with the sins and iniquities of mankind. Feminism 177 But after all is said, and we have admitted many or even most of the allegations against which the fem- inists are striving, it still remains true that every such wrong has to be considered in its relations to the total problem, if we are to make any successful advance either for women or for civilization. As indicated in the previous chapter, we can throw our justices out on the street and ask the mob to pass upon their fitness for office, if we please, but that does not mean that we have materially advanced the cause of justice. In a similar way we may remove all the disabilities, ad- mitting them to be such, under which women now labor and yet leave woman in no better position than she was before. What shall be done in any given case should be determined largely upon a careful weighing of the probabilities of the case and the more radical the action or the more desperate the wrong the greater the necessity for making no error in the action taken. Nothing could be more damaging to the cause of women if there be a woman's cause, which is not also the man's cause, than that serious errors should be made in the form of supposititious relief adopted. In this as in all things haste is likely to make waste and if it be alleged that the troubles are ages old, let us at least admit that even this civilization has advanced and women are in a vastly better position before the law and in the larger activities of mankind than they have ever been, and that most of these ad- vances have been made chiefly through the initiative and moral growth of the race, entirely irrespective of the agitations of women as such. 178 Christianity and the Social Rage Nothing in the present discussion is to be inter- preted as being in the slightest degree opposed to the largest and widest participation of women in every activity of human life. As a mere matter of history, such opposition would be foolish and futile, because the natural law which places at the head of things those most capable and most able to perform certain functions is the most widely operative of all natural laws. Hindered here and there, or for the moment held up by the recessions of public opinion or civili- zation, it nevertheless remains true that in the long run the functions of society have been administered by those most capable of exercising them. Power to do has always meant the chance to do, and the doing itself. The exceptions to this law have been too few and too trivial for notice. Hence no age of the world has been without women exercising influence, author- ity and power, vastly greater than that of the average man. Women rulers are as old as the history of the world. Dominating minds, cased in female frames, operate in exactly the same way and broadly speaking with the same results that dominating minds operate in the masculine frame. It is not a question of abil- ity. It never has been a question of ability. It has always been a question of choice of function and when a particular woman or group of women have chosen to perform some function other than that which the majority of the sex have chosen, and have been able to show ability and power superior to that of the com- peting man or men, there has never been the slightest doubt as to the result. It may not always have been Feminism 179 in the usual or conventional form. But potentially there has never been a moment in the known history of the world when superior power did not govern and the power to do carry with it the chance to do, and usually the doing itself. This law has had no need of modification nor of suffrage privileges. It has been the natural law which has governed the world. But because one has no feeling of opposition to the liberation, illumination or enfranchisement or what- ever else you choose to call it, of women, does not mean what is commonly called feminism. A man may believe in roast pig, without burning down a house to roast the pig. The modern feminist doc- trine carried out cannot mean much else than burning down the house and for this reason it may be assumed with reasonable safety that feminism is merely a sporadic form of hysteria or neuroticism, which will presently disappear entirely or assume the form in which it can be considered along with the general up- ward movement of society. As it stands at present, it is part of the prevailing social rage, which is fraught with danger and disaster to multitudes of human be- ings, who while not numerous enough to destroy the steady movement of the race, are yet large enough in numbers to spread great unhappiness and misery abroad in the world. And opposition to the feminist movement is not only to be desired because of many of the doctrines themselves, but even more for the safety of the woman's cause itself. It is from this angle that we seek to approach the question. There is probably not a single problem that so sorely needs 180 Christianity and the Social Rage to be saved from its foolish advocates as the cause of women. The hopes and welfare of the thousands of wage earning women, the care and future of the thou- sands of mothers and dependent children, the budding aspirations of the great host of educated young women coming forth from school and college never demanded the protection and instruction of impartial thinkers as to-day to preserve for them that which civilization has already secured for them, and to continue the up- ward movement which has thus far characterized the march of man. In this as in the other great social aspirations of our time our greatest danger is rage, rage for immediate action, rage for novelty and fresh social alignment, rage for satisfaction in newly awak- ened emotions and aspirations, rage for participancy in activities without either knowledge, aptitude or experience of any kind, and above all rage for throw- ing off the sublimest fellowship, by which the world lives and in which it lives and moves and has its being, the marriage bond. II The participation of women in any function of hu- man society can in no manner fundamentally endanger it. Let that be set down as fundamental to any con- sideration of the subject. Those persons who see in the mere activity of women in certain social, indus- trial or political movements the overthrow of rational society may be dismissed at once as utterly outside the bounds of serious thought. As already stated, there never has been a human society which has affected Feminism 181 anything in which women have not been potentially present and often potentially dominant. It is the sheerest ignorance to suppose that because this pres- ence and participation did not take on certain ex- pressed forms or utter itself by means of accepted channels, it was not actively present and exercising its due and worthy influence upon the relations of man- kind. This has been true even of such activities as those of war, in which women as a whole never have taken an active part. And because women have al- ways been present, and have always been potentially active and often dominant, to suppose that the mere outward assumption of powers, which they have al- ways exercised and the assumption of responsibilities, visibly, which they have always borne more or less invisibly, will shake the foundations of society is pure superstition. Nothing of the sort will happen. Hu- manity being what it is and consisting of both men and women, must divide both the honors and the shortcomings of civilization between men and women. If our present society has anything in it worthy and of good report, women are as much potentially re- sponsible for it as men. If it has shame and short- comings, women are equally responsible, with men, for these also. To suppose that these two branches of humanity, being responsible for the existence and con- tinuance of the race, have been so far apart, and so utterly distinct in the common movement of mankind, as represented in the growth of civilization, that their responsibilities and common interest in all that this civilization represents are fundamentally different in- 182 Christianity and the Social Rage dicates a type of thinking which is worth no serious man's respect. It is this assumption which makes the feminist movement not only intellectually con- temptible but humanly impossible. No one need oppose feminism because it threatens these things which we have held dear, simply because it seems to promise a larger participation of women in the affairs of humanity. But this is not the ques- tion. If civilization has been predominantly mas- culine, a proposition which is open to very serious question, all that need be said about it is that it has been with the connivance and consent of both branches of our common humanity. It may well be alleged that one branch has not been cognizant of all its possi- bilities, but this is not specially significant, because many portions of masculine humanity have also not been conscious of their possibilities, and are slowly emerging into a larger consciousness of themselves. If it be contended that women have been forcibly held back from their rights, it may also be stated that very considerable groups of men have also been thus held back and the emergence of one group is not essentially different in kind from the emergence of the other group. The talk of masculine conspiracy for dom- ination is simply too laughable for consideration by persons who know the history of the world, as it is written not in books but in life and human relations. A " masculine conspiracy," supposing such a thing even a tacit conspiracy, might last about a minute but hardly longer. The thing is too absurd. When therefore we are urged to assist at the emergence of Feminism 183 women and their wider participation in the affairs of humanity, let us not be afraid. All that this can pos- sibly mean is that women will assume openly respon- sibility for things which they have been potentially responsible for ever since the world began. Indeed it is high time that such positive assumption of respon- sibility should come. The moral development of the race, men as well as women, demands that women should assume responsibility for matters which for too long have been assumed to exist by the exclusive fiat and practise of men. Indeed the working out of the problem of the social evil can only be secured by this means. Until now the underlying assumption of this great and crying iniquity has been that men are re- sponsible for it and almost solely responsible for it. Almost all legislation has been with this as its under- lying assumption. Courts and juries take to it nat- urally and almost necessarily and by this make the monstrous additional assumption that the lust of the human race is almost exclusively masculine. This arbitrary division of humanity into a chaste group, called women, and a lustful, licentious group, called men, is the most monstrous and scandalous falsehood that ever received acceptance in the practical workings of civilized life. In fact, all men and women of ma- ture years have always known and know now that this is nt)t the case. But nothing has been said of the genuine and real responsibility in this matter, and it is high time that the burden of responsibility were assumed by all who have a share in it. This can only be for the advancement of humanity on the moral 184 Christianity and the Social Rage side, and with it can come only good, for the destruc- tion of error of this kind makes for moral improve- ment. In similar way it is high time that with our educa- tional program so largely in the hands of women, they should assume responsibility for its results, its failures, as well as its successes. The vast majority of our teachers in the elementary schools are women. If it be claimed that the successes of our lower educa- tion have been due to this fact, and there seems to be no doubt on this score, then it is also necessary for the proper understanding of our educational prob- lems that these same women should assume their part of the burden for the notorious moral defects and failures of the system. Participation here is to be welcomed and more than welcomed. It is to be sought in the effort to find out just who, or what, is at fault, that with our gigantic appropriations for popular edu- cation and the vast extension of the resources and instrumentalities for popular enlightenment, the moral problems of the nation have remained essentially un- touched. The question of human culture and dis- cipline will thus have full consideration and we shall find out whether or not mere political management in the government of the schools is also responsible for the moral derelictions which are making our common schools almost negligible factors in the moral educa- tion of the youth of the land. No one who is familiar with this latter problem can wish for anything but the fullest assumption by women, as a whole, of their part of this burden. Feminism 185 Nor is the case materially different when we come to the problem of women in the industries. The woman stockholder in our great industries is a large and increasing factor and probably destined to be a still larger factor. It is highly desirable that we should know whether the woman stockholder has any different conception of dividends than that which pre- vails among men. It will be of great worth to civili- zation to know whether, when her personal income is threatened and her personal indulgences are cut off, she acts in a manner fundamentally different on the subject of child labor, minimum wage and other ques- tions. Indeed nobody at this moment knows how women in the mass will take to the rule of other women, except that whenever the problem has been examined in the concrete the evidence seems to show that most women would rather be under the govern- ment of a man or men than under that of a woman or group of women. But by all means let us know. If the woman capitalist is as effective and as pro- ductive as the man capitalist, and more humane, more honorable, more susceptible to justice and honor than the man, who can be otherwise than anxious for the earliest appearance of the woman capitalist? Precisely the same desire must govern every ra- tional human being on the subject of government and taxation. If it lies in the power of women to admin- ister justice and the business of government more wisely than men can do these things, who can possibly desire that they shall be excluded from them? Let us admit that the predatory interests of iniquity and 186 Christianity and the Social Rage the despoilers and jackals of society will not want any more severe restraints than are now imposed upon them. If women can place more severe restraints and can enforce them, all will be well. Of course, this is the question we are trying to solve. But of the welcome of the advance, if it is possible, there is not the slightest possible doubt, unless we are willing to assume, as stated, that one-half of society, namely that called men, are ipso facto morally different from the other half. But it may be noted, in passing, that society is longing for such a group among the men, and will give a hardly less joyful welcome to such a group, even if they happen to be women. The idea that society is not ready, as such, to bow to capacity wherever it finds it, or that it will not bow whether it wants to or not, is very foolish. But if women as a group or as a sex can do these things better than men have been doing them, or give us any lift toward ideal conditions, by all means let us have it. And if they succeed the success will teach us many more things than better lessons in government. And if they fail we shall at least not have upon our con- sciences the regret that we might have had a superior civilization if we had been willing. But one need not be a feminist to hold these views! Merely being a rational human being will lead to most of these views. This is not feminism, it is merely civilization working along in the lines in which it has always worked. Christianity certainly has no inherent hostility to these movements, considered as a part of the program of civilization. Quite the contrary! The Greek ob- Feminism 187 jection to Christianity, in the earliest centuries of its existence, was precisely this, that Christianity was a kind of " feminism " and to be opposed on that ac- count. The machinery of Christendom is feminist and has always been. The church is what the women have made it. Religion in Christendom is now and has almost always been dominated, at least upheld, by women. Christianity has within it nothing that looks askance at the woman capitalist, the woman voter, the woman wage-earner or the woman educator, artist or scientist. By all means let us have the widest par- ticipation of women in everything that has to do with civilization, determining all such participations upon exactly the same lines upon which we determine them for men, their rationality, their wisdom, their ex- pediency in time and circumstances, and their ultimate result. Applying the collective good sense and judg- ment of enlightened human beings, by all means let us have all of humanity taking a part in the business which belongs to all. But this is not feminism ! This is the human mind working at its own growth and expansion and endeavoring to subdue the earth and make it the Kingdom of God. Ill But all this is completely overshadowed when we come to consider the erotic naturalism which is offered for the social institution called marriage. Here we have not merely the overturn of a social foundation, which society has laboriously, through many experi- i88 Christianity and the Social Rage ments evolved, built up, hedged about and 'endeavored to protect and purify, but to reversion to the savage regime of sex lawlessness and the subversion of the moral rule in sex relations entirely. This is the point at which feminism becomes not merely dangerous, but antagonistic to every principle by which permanent human relations have become established. It may be admitted that marriage as we practise it has many a great defect. It may be admitted that we have not heard the last word even on durable sex relations, but whatever we have or have not learned, we seem to be pretty sure in the belief that lawless sex relations not only make permanent society impossible, but will de- stroy the process of race evolution through which progress is possible. Nor does it require any elab- orate technical disquisition to establish this fact. Men and women have never had any very large knowledge of the creative processes which have gov- erned the higher development of the human species. They have not such knowledge now. And those who have most of it, or at least that portion of it which seems to be established as knowledge, do not show that the knowledge as such has a very powerful in- fluence in their own effectiveness as producers of a hardy, virile and sound human stock. But what the humblest man with a family knows is that such a fam- ily established in good faith, adhered to in good faith, with its burdens mutually borne and its trials fairly distributed, and its labors jointly sustained, makes for the most satisfactory type of human (existence known. Perhaps it may not be called marriage in the Anglo- Feminism 189 Saxon sense but if it be the form of domesticity and fellowship which we commonly understand by the permanent family relation, having as its primary aim the rearing of children and the faithful assumption of the duties attendant on this aim, the collective ex- perience of the race testifies that it makes for growth and happiness of the race and for its progress morally, physically and spiritually. There is no need to com- plicate the discussion with a mass of scientific data. There is no need to enter into long examinations of the physical characteristics of humanity, interesting and valuable as all these things may be. The common consciousness on the subject is sufficient and the ef- forts of civilization to hedge about and protect this relation, always by the way, through the extension of the mutual rights and duties of the parties thus re- lated, are the indisputable evidence that what has thus been achieved, through long experience and patience in well doing, yes, even by hardship and inequality, has been the sublimest chapter in the history of the human race. To substitute for this relation the wild orgy of erotic naturalism is to throw out of the win- dow the costliest possessions of the human heart and mind. That is what feminism proposes to do. Nor is this conclusion altered by the recital of the sexual irregularities which form so large a problem of civilization at the present moment. Whatever causes these, it is very certain that they are not caused by one fraction of humanity without the cooperation and assistance of the other. And so long as we are in a world where there is room for infinite develop- 190 Christianity and the Social Rage ment, and also one in which there is vast and universal frailty, we may well be pardoned for refusing to leave the beaten path of experience, even when it is not ideally satisfactory, for a savage substitute which eventuates nowhere and destroys the possibility for harmonious solution of the main issue. Marriage even under the least favorable conditions offers more to its subjects of happiness, contentment and useful- ness to self and to mankind, than the most ideal collaboration, on the theory of natural selection and sex freedom as proposed because the latter when suc- cessful will be so like ideal marriage in its domestic form and expression that it will simply be marriage without its name and sanctions. And to claim that this result is secured merely by removing the normal restraints and inducements to fidelity and loyalty in the interest of a supposititious freedom is to suppose nonsense, because there is no parallel to such a doc- trine in any other department of human action and cooperation. What we have here is merely another form of social rage, the regularly recurring resistance of the lawless elements of society to the gradually ex- panding law of social intercourse, which for security always extracts a certain measure from the area of private initiative. But as a matter of fact, where the conditions approximate to satisfactory sex relations, not only is there little or no consciousness of restric- tion, but on the contrary an extension of the power of life and usefulness, because of the most powerful and significant form. of human cooperation known. Not only has marriage as we know it been thus Feminism 191 powerful as the rational basis of society, but it has taught the race all that it now knows of domesticity and the possibilities of permanent residence, with all that this has meant, for the development of civilized life. Thus men have been brought to improve their surroundings because they intended to abide in them. Thus have they been led to study and analyze human qualities, because they planned to live with them and adjust themselves to them. Thus has the moral status of the race been lifted, because it has taught patience, self-restraint and reciprocal rights and duties. Thus has the savage in man been tamed and he has become fit for his work out of the home as well as in it. This is not a matter of abstruse science. It is the common experience of common men who have simply sought to do their duty in an ordinary way. It is not merely this institution which erotic naturalism threatens, but through it threatens almost everything else because it takes away from humanity the most powerful single instrument by which its moral growth and personal increase of power and use- fulness has been developed. And if protest be lodged against the permanence of such an arrangement, against the will and desire of the contracting parties, let the whole world bear witness that when the limit of endurance has been reached and possible domestic- ity has been destroyed as a goal of attainment, no arrangement within or without the law has been able to hold the contracting parties together. This is why such a bond, without the possibility of release, is an unwarrantable tyranny. But the same facts which 192 Christianity and the Social Rage make it an unwarrantable tyranny to hold men and women in so close and so significant a relation, against their will and desire, make it also the most potent power for the upbuilding of mankind the security of life, health and the proper and successful rearing of offspring and the natural fulfilment of the hopes and expectations which such a union raises. The mere suggestion of reducing this form of human alliance to the capricious status of a fly-by-night cohabitation, called natural union, should awaken the fiercest re- sentment in all well meaning men and women, not because the occasional tyrant finds it possible to use marriage as a tool of oppression, but because the rights, the duties, the hopes, the aspirations of man- kind, receive through such action a blow from which they cannot possibly recover. It is not a question whether ideal marriage exists. It is a question whether what mankind has discovered by so slow a process, by patience, by love, by self restraint, by vi- carious fortitude, shall at once be thrown to the winds in the interest of a fictitious freedom. The marriage relation with all its admitted defects has probably been the greatest teacher of the human race. It has fitly become the symbol of the ultimate hope of humanity, and when we say " human family," we mean just what we know the ideal family to be, out of the actual experience of the race. It is this which makes the feministic propaganda so ruthless and so damaging to the hopes of men and socially so dis- figurative and menacing. Let once the essential in- tegrity of the family relation be destroyed, and ninety Feminism 193 per cent, of the incentives by which men have striven to build up society and through which they have struck at social wrongs will disappear. We shall doubtless come some time to the recognition of the fact that no child is a child of shame and that the frightful and disastrous penalties which we visit upon innocent little children are a scandal in Christendom; but the road to deliverance does not lie in the direction of lessen- ing the individual and personal responsibilities through the increasing responsibility of the state for childhood, but through the strengthening of the marriage bond, in such a manner and through such an enlarged sense of duty as will reduce the number of such innocents, now ruthlessly slaughtered for no offense of their own, by the sanctification, not the socializing, of sex relations. The feminist rage, like the general social rage, is once more the social mass, acting without judgment and without reason and playing into the hands of the predatory interests who never flourish as when the plain path of sobriety is exchanged for the wild and multifarious by-paths of personal self- indulgence and casting off of the natural and neces- sary restraints by which genuine progress is always secured. IV The feministic rage appears in its worst light, how- ever, when we come to think of its results as applied to the childhood o'f the country. The problem of the child in America has come to be so real a problem and so fraught with danger to every human interest, that 194 Christianity and the Social Rage whatever affects it, affects fundamentally every rela- tion of life public and private. Public education hav- ing proven morally so very defective, that it may well be called a near-failure, the industrial development having expanded in so anarchic a manner that no fixed principles prevail in the land as applied to the humani- tarian side of industrial growth, the great maw of commercialism has opened its jaws and is swallowing still, in spite of laws most of them foolishly conceived and imperfectly executed, thousands of children and destroying them forever, as helpful assets, in the fu- ture development of the nation, because crippling their thinking power and limiting their industrial capacity and possibilities. Hitherto we have looked to the home and the natural affections as providing at least one impregnable barrier against these assaults. The stability of the home, the natural love of parents for children, especially the supposed devotion of the mother for her offspring, have been 1 for us the one enduring hope of respite till the public conscience and the public intelligence could be brought to see a more excellent way. But this stronghold of civilization now is in a fair way to lose if the feminists have their way. Step by step the home is being denuded of its responsibilities. The public school instead of having become, as was intended, the ally of the home, has taken its place in the matter of intellectual responsi- bility. Not only the ignorant and the incapable now blindly give over their children to the public educa- tional machine, taking what its offers, too lazy or too incapable to ask whether the product is good or other- Feminism 195 wise, but the more intelligent and often the highly in- telligent also, have now assumed this attitude. The result is that the intellectual problem of the nation is dumped into the public school hopper and all further responsibility dismissed. But this is not all nor even the wprst. With this dismissal of intellectual re- sponsibility has come substantially the more disastrous dismissal of moral responsibility and there is hardly a high school from the Atlantic to the Pacific which does not present moral questions which should shock the community in which it exists into throes of anx- iety, as to the moral future of its pupils. For a long time these facts were concealed or ignored. Nobody likes to appear disloyal to the public schools, and its great achievements, and they are undeniably great, make most of us moral cowards when it comes to dealing with their shortcomings, especially their moral shortcomings. Before many persons looms the spec- ter of the resumption of religious teaching and with this state church and state religion or possibly foreign religious dominion and control, the ultimate division of public school funds, with the vast increase of de- nominational and parochial schools, and the final de- struction of our public school system, along the great lines along which it has been developing, of freedom from sectarian or religious control. It is the pre- vailing superstition among thousands of our people that by blinking these great defects, we can avoid these final issues. But no power on earth can prevent the moral elements of the community, whether they are Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Jewish, from finally 196 Christianity and the Social Rage demanding and finally getting some sort of altera- tions which will provide for direct moral instruction unless we frankly face the facts and secure the changes ourselves as a whole people. Unless the people make their public schools more effective morally and bring out of the moral confusion something like orderly di- rect and effective instruction and discipline in morals, the unbelievers in our public system of education, both of the kind who are its natural antagonists and those who will feel the need for change, will combine to bring about the changes indicated. Of all the ene- mies of the public schools, the feminist agitators are the worst and most dangerous. It is they who create the reactionary public opinion which will proceed to take the backward steps for religious and ecclesias- tical control if these steps are ever taken. By regu- larly progressive steps they will drive the more capable children out of the public into private schools, and the more careful parents to take their children out of the common group where they naturally would be and should be, and leave only the least capable and those who will fall most naturally into the line of approach and control set forth. In some communities this is already happening, where quasi-ecclesiastical control is in practical operation under the forms of public con- trol and under public taxation. The thinly disguised efforts to put into clerical supervision and direction the important officers of public education can be seen in almost any industrial center in New England and ultramontane efforts in this direction are in evidence on every hand. But it is not to be wondered at. No Feminism 197 seriously religious man, be he Protestant or Roman Catholic, can view with equanimity the moral dissolu- tion of public education and the increasing moral dis- order of what should be the strongest bulwark of American civilization. And if the people as a whole are too indolent and themselves morally incapable of taking hold of these questions, it is hardly to be won- dered that the natural law of the rule of the most capable should manifest itself here, as elsewhere. It is not in the first instance a question of sectarianism at all. It is in the first instance a matter of throwing overboard responsibilities which belong, by every law of nature and of God, to parents with respect to their offspring. But at this critical juncture come along the femin- ists with the destructive ideas of the function of women. With these ideas come the hazy ideas or want of ideas about the control, government and re- sponsibility for children. Some frankly avow the state responsibility for the generation, rearing and ed- ucation of children and the dissolution of the family. With these we can reckon for this is a thoroughly intelligible proposition. But with the mass who have neither the courage to avow that they stand for abso- lute promiscuity of sex relation and no responsibility for children nor the readiness to take up and bear with courage and fortitude the duties which every im- perfect civilization must put upon the best parents, as a part of the price of progress for the race, all that we get is the gradual loosening from duty and the hideous results of brutality, licentiousness and world 198 Christianity and the Social Rage filled with children for whom nobody, but a thing called " state," is responsible. That is what femin- ism followed out to its logical result amounts to, what- ever be alleged and whatever claims are put forward. Strip all the high sounding nonsense about " woman's mission " and " woman's responsibility " and " woman's self-expression " and the like of their tin- sel and what they mean in practise is promiscuity and homeless and parentless children future citizens to whom father and mother are terms without meaning and who by that very fact are automatically derailed from the great highway of human progress, which those terms connote. The divorce evil is bad enough and with the troubles incident to the adjustments of the marriage relation we have a problem large enough for the best heart and conscience of the nation. But with the entire fabric of stable marriage dissolved, and with the relations of men and women and the re- sponsibility for children reduced to the status of ca- price, what possible statement can describe the future of the race and the nation ? V Once more scanning the entire horizon for relief from this impending disaster, we see the futility of every remedy proposed, except that of religion and Christianity in particular. To the enlightened mind what we have here is another of those moral aber- rations which call not for statutes, not for repressions, not for tidal waves of hysterical revival, but for teach- Feminism 199 ing, sane, sincere and thorough-going. The Christian church for the most part has been silent upon the whole subject of sex. Its pulpits have talked vaguely about certain forms of sex evil, but for direct, clear, unequivocal teaching we look in vain. The reason is partly moral and partly economic. But whatever the reason is, the vast mass of our young people never have received and under the present disposition never will receive the forcible and vigorous indoctrination into the responsibilities of manhood and womanhood, on the side of their sex responsibilities and duties, which is one of the imperative needs of the nation. Whether this instruction should be given in the public schools may well be a question. But that it should be given somewhere by somebody is unquestionable. The policy of silence has not only failed, but has let loose upon us the flood of libertinism and license, now organized and given intellectual sanction under the alluring program of feminism. The one instru- ment which can and which ought to perform this serv- ice for civilization is the Christian church. Chris- tianity has the message and has it in a form calculated to bring the truth home to the heart, the mind and the conscience. Christianity has the historic interest in humanity and the historical achievements for hu- manity behind it, which entitles it to speak with de- cision, force and authority. That the Christian church does not so speak is the denial by the church of its historic message and once more proves that Christianity may have to leave the church to get itself uttered and integrated into the life of mankind. 20O Christianity and the Social Rage It is a singular fact that on this particular point Christianity should have the clearest and most de- cisive moral message of all, for its inheritance from the religion of the Hebrews is here so rich and the dicta so obviously based upon human experience and wisdom that it would seem that upon this point Christianity would never be at fault. Upon the beauties of the Christian household it has never failed to dwell with emphasis and pride. But the enemies of that household and the foes which have tended to break it down have latterly had no reason to fear Christian teaching in actual practice. The doctrines are there, but the emphasis is wanting and the pulpit has been silent where it should have thundered forth the inevitableness of the destruction which must fol- low where those teachings are nullified or ignored. Christianity which is by its nature a controversy, a war with the sin and misery of the world, has had only a passive quarrel with the home breakers of the world ! Feminine itself to so large a degree in its com- position, it has had nothing to say and only passive resistance to the prevailing ignorance of the profound- est problem of humanity! It has suffered its youth to grow to maturity without positive instruction in those duties, which have most to do with the happi- ness and peace of men. It has permitted its women to become filled with ideas which can have for their logical end only the dissolution of just and honorable moral relations between men and women. It has suf- fered men to remain within its borders, untouched by the deeper responsibilities which fatherhood brings Feminism 201 and split the home itself into numberless fragments by innumerable religious associations of one kind and another, which differentiated the religious longings of the various types to such a refinement, till the religious unity of the home was destroyed and its moral soli- darity made impossible! No amount of casuistry can relieve the Christian church from its awful responsibility in this matter. And this responsibility is not confined either to faults of a merely negative character. It is not only that the church has not uttered a positive note, and given no decisive and clear instruction. It has connived at the evil by failing to exercise the disciplinary vigilance upon its own membership and it is not an unheard of experience, that men of known immorality have been prominent in its councils and sat in the high places of influence and power. But where the moral laxity was so great, who was there to rise up and take the initia- tive? Why did not the clergy take up these duties and these questions and bring them into the forefront of the popular consciousness of the religious congre- gations? Why does it not do so now, except in the form of agitations about " white slavery " and other public menaces which while they are real and impor- tant, leave the vital question untouched because they fail to stop the supply at its source? While these lines are being written, there has been in a neighboring city one of those periodical round-ups which the nastiness of the situation and the general outcry compelled the police authorities to make, with the frightful result that fifteen young girls under fifteen years of age were 2O2 Christianity and the Social Rage found to be regular instruments of immorality and were as a result of capture distributed around in the various state institutions! Significant fruit of civ- ilization! Fifteen children under fifteen, potential mothers of a small army of criminals of every sort and kind, and all that we know to do with them is to ship them to institutions, most of them themselves under suspicion and periodically, themselves, requiring cleaning up for their moral dirtiness and worthless- ness! But what strikes the thoughtful man here again, is not what is to become of these children now, but how did it happen that these children were suf- fered to become what they now are! And these are but a small fraction of many thousands like them. When these cases are examined, the heartrending fact is discovered that not infrequently these children have been members of Sunday schools of all denominations there is no denominational differentiation here, the Protestant, the Roman Catholic and the Jew are alike in the mire of this horrible pit and have at least been brought into sufficient contact with our religious institutions, to give these the opportunity of making an impression which should have at least prevented this form of immorality at this age. Interesting, too, was this particular instance, in that the roundup em- braced half a dozen cities and towns which indicated that the practise was widely spread and indicative of a general condition. Why were children of fifteen, from half a dozen cities and towns, found in another city and a disreputable part of it, to be rounded up by the police? To answer that this is the result of Feminism 203 our social conditions and to prattle about the economic enormities of the time as responsible is sheer non- sense. Where were the fathers and mothers of these children? That is the main question and its answer comes immediately home to the subject of this chap- ter. Under the influence of the general loosening of home ties and the general disregard for home duties, and the vast flood of new duties of women, the con- sequent spread of irresponsibility of a personal kind, these people were simply the first fruit of what under the feministic program would become the general and universal rule. This is not primarily a matter for statutes and laws! It is primarily a concern of reli- gion and every church in the land should feel itself disgraced when such occurrences take place within the sphere of its influence. But it is likely that most of these young people never had the slightest guidance or leading on these subjects. It is probable that they never knew what authority meant in the home. Let there be no illusion in this business; feminism that means anything other than the natural increase of woman's participation in the affairs of mankind, preserving her main and most important function in society unimpaired, as to purity, effectiveness and sur- rounded with the most sacred associations and sanc- tions, means the downfall of the home as the nursery of upright, capable citizens upon whom the welfare of society rests. The preservation of that home de- pends not upon laws, but upon the sound and sincere domestic fellowship, helped through hard places by religious faith and trust, because taught in the vital 204 Christianity and the Social Rage and morally sustaining truths of Christianity. Sub- tract the Christianity and for a period the traditional moral sactions will prevail, but the lapse into savagery and barbarism will be as inevitable as the tides. The place to take this brutalizing theory of woman by the throat, the place to proclaim its shamelessness and its destructiveness, is in the Christian church. No other institution has the resources, the constituency and the authority to do it so well. CHAPTER VIII ISRAEL IN BONDAGE My work is finished which I had to do as a minister: You have publicly rejected me and my opportunities cease. How highly therefore does it now become us, to consider of that time when we must meet one another before the Chief Shepherd? When I must give an account of my stewardship of the service I have done for, and the reception and treatment I have had among, the people he sent me to. And you must give an account of your conduct toward me, and the improvement you have made of these three and twenty years of my ministry. There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, nor hid that shall not be known; all will be examined in the searching, penetrating light of God's omniscience and glory, and by him whose eyes are as a flame of fire; and truth and right shall be made plainly to appear, being stripped of every veil; and all error, falsehood, unrighteousness and injury, be laid open stripped of every disguise; every specious pretense, every cavil, and all false reasoning shall vanish in a moment as not being able to bear the light of that day. . . . Then every step of the conduct of each of us, in this affair, from first to last, and the spirit we have exercised in all, shall be examined and manifested and our own consciences shall speak plain and loud and each of us shall be convinced and the world shall know ; and never shall there be any more mistake, misrepresentation, or misap- prehension of the affair to eternity. JONATHAN EDWARDS, Farewell Sermon at Northampton. CHAPTER VIII ISRAEL IN BONDAGE NO just consideration of the condition and atti- tude of the clergymen of the American churches can begin without the recognition of the splendid part which this calling has had in the unfold- ing and organization of American life. Such a recognition, if adequately performed, would show that there has been hardly a part of our varied history in which the minister has not taken a creditable stand, worthy of his profession and worthy of the religion which it is his duty to proclaim. It would have to do with almost every form of activity also. It would show 'that he has been active in the social and politi- cal organization of the nation, has been a wise and helpful adviser and inspirer, and has nothing to fear by comparison with any other profession or calling in the land. Let this be taken for granted. The past at least is secure. But because this past is so splendid and because the activities of the times gone by have been so fruitful and so effective, the present debacle is the more depressing and lamentable. We are not now discussing the minister as a theologian. The the- ological aspect of the Christian ministry as a rule has 207 208 Christianity and the Social Rage had little or nothing to do with the practical aspects of the minister's life. The American people have been too practical to have their social and moral inter- ests interrupted for long by metaphysical distinctions only dimly comprehended by those who made them, and which, if true, had no practical bearing upon the life and well being of those who were supposed to be under their sway. In practise, the American churches have tried to be moral and social leaders. They have tried to benefit their adherents in the ordinary work- ing out of life duties and in the ordinary endeavor to make life helpful, worthy and of good report. There is no evidence that many communities as such ever were deeply stirred by theological quarrels and merely endured their ministers when they discussed these, as necessary to the clerical peace of mind or professional satisfaction. But this very fact brings into bolder relief the un- welcome truth that relatively the Christian pulpit is the least effective of American social institutions and this result has come about by no accident or mystery of Providence. The American pulpit started exactly as it should have started. It came with the founders and partook with the founders in the business of na- tion building and proved itself capable and worthy of its task. It ground into the early life of the nation certain fundamental habits of religious thought which have not yet wholly disappeared. It created a form of allusion to phases of the national life, which have not yet dropped out of our habits of speech or out of our public documents. It even established certain Israel in Bondage 209 religious days, which still remain on our calendar and are memorials of what has been, even if they are now dead letters as to their actual signification. The start was right and at the beginning, the task was under- stood and its duties met with decision and firmness. Perhaps they were met with too much decision and too much firmness. But whether this is the case or not, the history of the American clergyman as a fac- tor in the social, industrial and moral upbuild- ing of the national life, is a record which shines with glory and deserved honor. He has been an instructor in times of peace and an inspirer and consoler in times of depression and war. He has been a monument of energy and zeal. He has been a miracle of heroic devotion and sacrifice. He has forsaken all to follow his Master and there are few who can stand up and say aught against him as a contributory factor in the civilization of his coun- try. It does not lie in the mouth of any man or class of men to have aught but praise for the men who have made the American pulpit glorious. But it must also be remembered when this record is studied and its glory appropriated, that he had ma- terials for such achievements which were not gen- erally in the possession of his contemporaries. He had, for the most part, education, which his fellowmen had not. He had authority which they had not, or having, dared not exercise. He had a prestige aris- ing from his unquestioned superiority in mental ca- pacity, which was made even greater by his un- doubted purity of life and devotion to the common 21O Christianity and the Social Rage good. He was the agency for the making of public opinion and his resources for molding that opinion were unmatched. He was without competition in the realm of moral obligation and public duty, and was the censor of his contemporaries. All these things placed upon him large responsibilities and these in turn developed ability and power to apply himself to their proper performance. His fiat had the authority of the moral law itself and was not infrequently su- perior to the civil law. A profession which, under these conditions did not develop powerful personali- ties and attract to itself masterful men, would be very remarkable. As a matter of history the profession did attract men who were not only churchmen but statesmen. It attracted men who were not only churchmen and statesmen, but financiers, men of af- fairs, thinkers in the larger sense of the word and pioneers in social and scholarly research. They were in the best sense educators and leaders in education. There is scarcely a project during the golden age of the American pulpit which did not succeed chiefly be- cause it had behind it clerical sanction and clerical en- couragement, to say nothing of clerical initiative and support. That is what the minister used to be. It would not be fair to say that now there is none so poor as to do him reverence, but it is true and noth- ing but the truth to say, that he is the least effective figure in the national life when his education, his preparation for his work, and his abilities for use- fulness and effective mastery of social forces are taken into account. There is no waste in American life at Israel in Bondage 211 all comparable to the waste in the uses of the manhood, conscience and abilities of the American church of to-day of all denominations. The minister is no longer the leader in education. His zeal in this department of human activity had its natural result when he re- leased to others the tools of knowledge, of which he had formerly the exclusive control. No class of men have had a greater pride or worked with greater in- terest and joy for popular education than the Amer- ican clergymen. That naturally resulted in a steadily rising tide of knowledge, to which he had to minister, increasingly capable of self direction and personal initiative and steadily more restive under the dominion which once belonged to the ministerial profession. It was the minister himself who did this. He encour- aged his congregation to read and to think. He brought to them the problems of life and in the older days trained them in habits of reflection in which he was par excellence, a trained master. He reared the men by whom he was superceded. He made often in his own study the statesmen by whom his own powers were presently to be restricted and curtailed. He sought the funds and begged the endowments for the colleges from whence he was presently to be thrown out as overseer or corporate member. All this he did and did it well, knowing that he was rearing a race of giants, who would presently be beyond his own control. There is no record like this of any calling under heaven and the American ministers are the lead- ers in the work. Moreover, he encouraged investiga- tions in science and industry, which created the vast 212 Christianity and the Social Rage wealth which finally came to be his taskmaster and to bind him hand and foot. He rejoiced to keep out of the struggle for material advantage and manfully relied upon his doctrine of miracle for his own future and that of his family. When the story of the Amer- ican ministry on this side of its life is fully written, if it ever can be written, it will make the perform- ances of the early Christians look very simple and childlike. Heroic virtues in the story of our ministry are as plentiful as the dreams of youth. The indus- trial and scientific miracles of to-day are nothing com- pared to the moral efforts of the pioneer clergymen, struggling with not merely titanic and utterly unregu- lated humanity, grappling with a new land, but the combination of this struggle with the hardly less herculean task of subjugating the new land and mak- ing it habitable for man. He did all this, because he was not only pastor but teacher. Out of his study came the weekly instruction of the community. Out of the same study came the instruction of the youth and the guidance of the school and the college. Out of this same study came the projects for community improvement and activity. Out of this same study came the warnings against dangers and pitfalls which threatened the interests of the flock. It is no wonder that the old time pastor was a miracle of men. It is no wonder that he was given sublime authority and unquestioned obedience. He was worthy of them all. He was the teacher of them all. But that primacy is gone and gone forever. His sons are still the lead- ers and commanders of the people in the sciences, the Israel in Bondage 213 arts, and the literature. The story of the sons of clergymen who have made the records of science, in- dustry, statesmanship and art glorious, is almost as wonderful as the record of the fathers in their call- ing. But the minister himself has steadily declined in importance and power, and to-day is a negligible factor in the formation and direction of public opinion. His value as an agitator is still large, due mainly to the fact that he has a weekly platform where, within certain limitations, he may speak on a limited range of subjects, within a more limited area of ideas. But as an educational leader he has disappeared. This- is not saying that he has dropped out of education. It is merely saying that he no longer occupies the posi- tion of primacy. The minister is no longer a social leader, by reason of his profession. The backwardness of the church in the great social emergence of the nation and its alliance with the backward interests and the social de- fectives of the nation has reacted in a similar manner upon the profession, so that while there are a great many ministers who are interested in social questions and social matters of one kind and another, the ef- fective and genuine leadership which naturally should go with the ministerial profession is, in fact, else- where. There is hardly a department of social en- deavor, innumerable as such efforts now are, in which the primacy is accorded to the ministerial profession. This is. true even of the administration of charity, once the exclusive function of the church and its min- istry. So true is this that the school of social work- 214 Christianity and the Social Rage ers connected with Harvard University teaches its stu- dents that not only is charity administered by the churches worthless, but on the whole damaging to the wise administration of charity. Whether the case is as bad as this, may not be easily decided. It is enough that, while the social workers are glad enough to enlist church members for their work and glad enough to take church contributions, they have little or no respect for anything in the line of charity which the church performs. Indeed in some communities the churches actually turn over their cases of charity to the organized charity of the city, preferring to ad- minister their charities in this fashion, a most amazing exhibition of the abandonment of one of its primary functions in the community by the Christian church. Here again there is no contention that the minister is not engaged in social effort. What is maintained is that he is by no means an important or decisive factor by reason of his profession. When he is a factor the cause is one of personality just as it is in the matter of education. Individual clergymen by reason of special talent of temperament or force of character, may emerge from the obscurity of their profession in these matters, but the professional equip- ment and standing has almost nothing to do with it. Quite the contrary, if the minister does become con- spicuously capable in any of these lines, he ceases to figure in the public mind as a clergyman and not in- frequently finds himself called upon or comptelled to leave his profession by reason of the new duties or opportunities thrust upon him. This is one of the Israel in Bondage 215 most singular developments of the entire situation. Given a clergyman with large administrative capacity, public spirit and talent for administration, all of them qualities which should find the fullest possible op- portunity for exercise in the church, he invariably emerges as a publicist, commonly called a politician, or a public officer or an administrator of some public or organized charity or reform. Nearly all these things ought to be possible in the ministry and are in thorough consonance with the ministerial calling, jus- tified by the profession itself and by its history and documents. But it is no longer possible to do these things in the ministerial profession as such, except in rare and exceptional cases. Hence the procession out of the ministry of the men of public capacity of ad- ministrative talent or social initiative. The reason will presently appear. The minister is no longer the religious leader of the community. This is perhaps the strangest fact of all. But it is perfectly explained, when we come to examine the uses to which the church has been put and how it has been bound in such a way that it can- not give the fullest outlet for the most thoroughly religious activities of the minister who is at its head. The layman, especially the layman who is himself un- trammeled and without private interests to subserve, develops naturally, where the minister reaches the limit of his parole and hence becomes and often is the real religious pioneer and exponent of true reli- gion in the community. Certain it is that the free- dom of expression in matters religious, which prop- 216 Christianity and the Social Rage erly belongs to the ministerial profession, is now ex- ercised chiefly by laymen. The experiments in religious work, which are called for by changing con- ditions and necessities are dominated, not by the men who are to do the work, but by the real leaders in religion, namely, the men who dominate the agencies and the machinery by which such a program is car- ried out. There is not a minister of first rank in the country who does not chafe at the spectacle of ill in- formed, crass, self-satisfied members of the laity, pro- nouncing upon the wisdom or unwisdom of plans for religious progress of which they have not the slightest comprehension. Every national assembly is thus made ludicrous by the laymen trying to discuss mat- ters of which their knowledge is but slight and that little contemptible. But the clergymen are compelled, as a profession, to submit to such a situation, as no other profession with similar education would for a moment submit. Thus religion is deprived of its nat- ural leadership and for it often is substituted that of the so-called man of business, whose only recom- mendation ordinarily is that he figures largely in the financial budget of the church or the denomina- tion! We may well admit that the position of the earlier clergy was unnaturally preeminent. But the fall of the clergy in influence, in power, and in effectiveness, is not satisfactorily explained merely by the rise of new competitors for power and influence. The rea- son is much more complex in its working. It deals with the adoption by the church of standards which Israel in Bondage 217 have no business to govern any church. It is because the modern clergyman is not a free man. II Whenever the subject of the freedom of the clergy is discussed there is a quick rejoinder from three ex- tremely diverse quarters. It is natural that the min- isters themselves should not be willing to admit that they are not free to perform the duties of their pro- fession without let or hindrance, since such an admis- sion must necessarily vitiate the moral quality of their services. But it is to be noticed that such admissions have been increasing in number and importance in recent years. Nor is the psychology of the situation difficult of interpretation. The minister deals with many things which are not capable of demonstration in the scientific sense. He deals with moral and social and community problems, of the facts of which he is morally certain, but which in the nature of them he cannot absolutely prove. It is one of the fundamental hardships of any calling which deals with moral ques- tions, that things which everybody knows to be true, cannot always, or even often, be asserted categor- ically. Sometimes even to hint at them occasions trouble for everybody concerned. Yet it is precisely these things which constitute the major portion of the clergyman's work. He knows, for example, often, that the moral conditions of the schools is deplorable, or that certain political conditions are intimately and often causally related to the moral conditions of his 218 Christianity and the Social Rage parish, yet to state these things is to affront large portions of the community and he is placed in the po- sition of assailing individuals and assuming the role of moral censor of people with whom he has no spe- cial relations. Yet these are the things which it is his business to do. It is a common experience that the young minister deals with these matters frankly, and gets into trouble because the politician and the vicious classes together unite in demanding categorical accusations which cannot be made, or if made, involve possibly legal proceedings for which the minister has no provision and for which his church makes none. It may be observed, however, that where such pro- vision is at his command and where the church sus- tains and supports the minister financially in his war upon the baser elements of the community, he usually is triumphant. But this is rarely the case, unless he happens to be skilful enough to unite the militant ele- ments of the community, irrespective of political or religious affiliations, and becomes their natural leader and representative. But this process accomplishes what has been indicated already he passes out of the community m-ind as a clergyman and makes for himself a reputation as a publicist effective in spite of his calling, not because of it. But the minister by the terms of his profession must be an optimist. He must believe in the salvability of his community and the souls in it. Hence he cannot readily admit to himself that as the representative of a triumphant and divinely directed Gospel he is not also a free man, though at every step he sees his Israel in Bondage 219 efforts nullified and his work frustrated by conditions that, given the resources and the freedom to attack, he could overcome to the great advancement of every moral interest in the community. But not infre- quently he does attempt these things without the re- sources named and the result is failure and defeat. By the time he changes his parish several times he subconsciously doubts the wisdom of his former plans, begins to think that possibly he has no mission in this direction, lets the direct and forceful elements of his preaching gradually die out into platitudes and assertions that nobody thinks of questioning and the metamorphosis is complete. In this he is mate- rially assisted by his economic status of which more later. But the simple truth is, that he is not con- scious of actually leaving the field or of abandoning his platform though he does both. Perhaps he thinks he is growing wiser and that these attempts were the sins of his professional youth. But he still thinks he is free though he knows absolutely that he cannot, will not, and dare not deal with the practical hin- drances which mar and unmake his professional serv- ice to his church and the community in which it op- erates. He therefore rejects the statement that he has ceased to be free. This is both natural and in part creditable because it arises from his own reflections upon his own work, and his disposition to agree that he is not infallible in his judgment as to what may be wisest, under certain conditions, to do. A similar protest arises from the congregation it- self for reasons not entirely unlike those which in- 22O Christianity and the Social Rage fluence the minister. To admit that the titular head of the church is not free, is an impeachment of the institution that employs him and puts him forward in the community as its representative figure. Of course such an admission cannot be made. But here again the subconscious working of the congregational mind is explained by the fact that it knows perfectly well that the antagonism of certain elements is usually fatal to the well being of the church, especially on its finan- cial side. Just as it is not necessary always for rail- roads to control or a group of financiers to control or actually handle the majority of the stock in a subsidi- ary, the scattered status and inability to get together on the part of the vast majority rendering them abso- lutely helpless, so in the churches a few men perhaps and not infrequently a single man, is observed to be so determined and the rest so undetermined or unable to act together, that the oligarchy or the individual tyrant governs and directs the whole. Everybody knows it. Nobody as a rule utters it. Everybody yields to this dominion, though nobody admits that the power does not exist to dethrone it, whenever there is any determination to do so. But the admis- sion that freedom does not exist is both a moral and a social impeachment which does not come readily from any social group. Hence the protest against the statement that ministers are not free. The third protest arises from those who are the beneficiaries of a situation which involves a bound clergy. These of course cannot admit with any com- fort to themselves that they are oppressors and take Israel in Bondage 221 the responsibility of such an admission. Not infre- quently these persons operate through the very people whom they are governing and sometimes through the minister who is their bond-servant. But it is to their advantage to keep up the illusion that the minister is free, and being free is choosing his course. It is this group who usually want the emphasis placed upon what they call the " gospel " as distinguished from the elements of that gospel, which have to do with the practical moralities of daily life. Like the sim- ilar group in the wider community, they are against controversy, especially controversy with personal morality, when it affects the life and well being o-f the multitude. They think socialism to be a form of demoniacal possession and hate to hear the word " social " in the pulpit or out of it. They are the ef- fective government of the church, and they are the portion which has always brought and is now bring- ing organized religion into contempt. They always know where they are going and are not hesitant to visit prompt and decisive punishment upon what they do not like. Upon the question of their right to gov- ern they have no conscience and for the most part they have no consciousness of the social problem, ex- cept as it relates to evils of which they are not guilty and have no pecuniary interest. Being in the church, and utilizing the church for their own ends and direct- ing it in such channels as suits their own interests, they of course must resent and do resent the imputa- tion that they are the oppressors of the clergy. The moral character of this group, existent in almost every 222 Christianity and the Social Rage church, is a very curious problem in itself. At its best it is simply a group of men who do not take to yachts, horses and operas, and other costly social di- versions, utilizing the church as their playground for the satisfaction of private whims and for the enjoy- ment of the sense of personal supremacy. Nothing is much more striking in this connection than to observe that men can become prominent influential and de- cisive in ecclesiastical matters, who, outside that field, could never be heard from in any connection unless they combined with their personality wealth enough to make them desirable on that account. Nothing in the church has been so humilating to its first rate in- tellects as the emergence of a horde of mediocrities who, judged by the standards of the world, are not only second rate people at best, but upon whom mere effort to appear anything but second rate would in- stantly bring down upon them the wrath of the com- munity in which they live. There are notable excep- tions, of course. Every community has some. But the rule is as stated, and it is this fact that has stead- ily driven out of the ministry the first rate men, who, by intention, spirit and desire would be glad to serve the Christian church. All altruistic callings involve almost by their very nature a certain subservience to the providers of the funds by which they are carried on. In the case of the ministry this subservience car- ries with it the personal subjugation of the minister himself to a class of men who are his inferiors in character, in education and in moral worth and zeal. This is the waste that the capable young men of the Israel in Bondage 223 country are not ready any longer to continue. Other reasons have a place in the decline in the character and capacity of the clergy, but the main one with the capable portion of its natural supply now almost cut off is, that the ministry, as now constituted, in a man of first rate powers, forms a waste of manhood and capacity which is without any parallel in American life. Ill But if the loss of the intellectual freedom and ut- terance of the clefrgy is deplorable, the loss of his eco- nomic freedom is pitiable. One-third of the clergy of this country are on the poverty line. Here again the statistics are not available though the facts are beyond doubt. While every interest in the land, rep- resenting either capital or labor has been pounding for relief from onerous conditions and demanding and usually getting what it had a right to have, while the cost of living has steadily mounted, the clergyman has felt himself inhibited by his moral professions from dealing with this matter, with the result that the household of the ordinary minister is a financial tragedy. A former president of Harvard University discussing this subject a few years ago and especially with reference to country parishes, admitted the in- ability of these to secure the ministers they needed and ought to have and proposed the startling and in- teresting remedy that young men of wealth, either by inheritance or marriage, should enter the ministry and take these places for the raising of the standard of 224 Christianity and the Social Rage the profession! That was the only thing a great financial administrator had to offer for the fact that the rural districts have become moral and social wastes for the last twenty-five years and in some cases dropping into conditions of immorality which are al- most unbelievable. Young men of wealth should undertake these tasks for the uplift of the profession, that was the remedy! Of course the wealthy young men, whether their wealth be that of inheritance or marriage, will do nothing of the sort and if they did they would soon find that what these rural parishes want is not such young persons, but ministers of their own stock, who are free and economically self-existent and self-sustaining. That so serious a thinker and so religious a man as President Eliot could make such a proposition is itself the surest index of the hope- lessness of the situation as the case now stands. The Christian ministry is the most helpless to-day of any class of workers who represent even approxi- mately their training, cost of preparation and service to the community. Their very helplessness has had the effect erf taking away from them many of their natural prerogatives, just as the attack by parasites is always made upon those least able to stand it. His moral and religious authority have already been un- dermined as has been shown. But his financial help- lessness has made it impossible for him to defend his freedom, even to alter his location at will or to com- bat assaults on his professional usefulness because he cannot call to his aid the assistance he needs, when his authority in his own field and province of activity Israel in Bondage 225 is assailed. Here again the proof is seen when we have cases where the minister's financial status is such that he can defend himself. Few assaults are made upon the minister known to have powerful financial support either of his own or from relations or friends. Such a clergyman can often for years hold his posi- tion against the otherwise dominant oligarchy, even those being actively against him or his continuance in his office. Or he may get the same result by being exceptionally serviceable to the community outside of his own church which gives him substantially the same result, though it is not defined in financial terms. But the rule is one of economic helplessness, because his income is now so reduced that he is literally tolerated in the community. Here again we are faced with the curious situation. Whenever the financial needs of the ministry are discussed, his advocates are faced with the lofty interrogatory as to whether he is in business " for money " as though anybody but an ab- solute fool ever engaged in any altruistic calling for the money in it. But the scoundrels who hold the lash over the clergyman still are able to bamboozle that portion of the community which feels any moral responsibility in the premises, while the vast mass of the community anxious with their own trouble are totally indifferent to the matter. A good many years ago there were many clerical privileges which were based upon the recognition of the fact that the minister was by the nature of his calling bound to be underpaid and bound to be dumb about it. Hence discounts in purchases, half- fare on 226 Christianity and the Social Rage railways, and many other similar things were his. But these have largely disappeared partly by economic necessity, and largely because the minister is no longer an important enough a figure to make any such con- cessions worth while. They persist of course in some cases but they are survivals. If the whole story of the privation of the clergyman's household could be told, as in the nature of things it cannot be told, it would be the most sickening and heartrending story of misery and pain and shame that could be penned as a part of a great wealthy civilization which has made wealth its deity. Taking into account the re- quirements made upon him,, his intimate knowledge of the needs of the less favored of his fellow beings, and his constant contact with the story of mankind's wretchedness, sin and want, his own position is one of pity and commiseration, which should damn half the members of the Christian church for their care- lessness, indifference and lack of suitable regard for their representative of the religion of Jesus Christ. Let any long continued sickness or other extraordinary draft upon the minister's purse arise, and over the poverty line he goes. The economic waste of the incessant removals, entirely needless in most cases and due almost exclusively to the loss of freedom, which alone makes it possible for him to build up the eco- nomic resources of his parish, under the tyranny of a ruthless and conscienceless oligarchy he drags along a harassed miserable existence, which makes most of them old before their time and wasted in mind and broken in spirit, a sad heap of wreckage among men. Israel in Bondage 227 That this wreckage is not standing on the street cor- ners begging bread does not alter the fact. That it is not crying out at public meetings does not alter it. It is there, one, if not the saddest fact of our economic muddle. The one redeeming feature about it has been and is, that the ministerial privation breeds sons and daughters trained in the closest economy and observ- ance of the cost of things, with the result that when these same sons bravely throwing overboard the in- sane claim that they should perpetuate the misery they have seen at home, enter other professions, they come to the fore and soon become able to keep from the poorhouse the parents who begot them. This is the reason and almost the only reason why ministers are not more often than they are objects of public char- ity. There is again a chapter worth looking into, that of the sons of clergymen who have refused to follow the profession of the father. Let those who try to pretend that the results indicated have come about by the sole channel of the minister's personal inefficiency and lack of ability examine the record of the sons in commerce, in law, in medicine, in science or in educa- tion. It would be a curious soil that bred such fruit, having itself no elements of power and natural force and f ruitfulness. By their fruits ye may know them ! Perhaps no evidence could be more convincing of the economic dependence and helplessness of the min- isters than the change of attitude toward them by the wage earners of the community. Formerly they looked upon him with a little of envy as having a " nice, aisy job," seeing only his good clothes (often 228 Christianity and the Social Rage gifts), and his general air of prosperity on the out- side and his blithe assumption of an important posi- tion in the community. But all this is now changed. Skilled workers, secure in the backing of their power- ful trade union, not only do not envy the average minister, but take it for granted that he is a creature of charity. " We always pity the minister," shouted a great meeting to the present writer, on one occasion, when an effort was made to show the natural diffi- culties of the clergyman in taking hold of social re- medial movements within his own parish. But the saddest part of this whole story of the financial helplessness of the clergy comes in the fact that because of it they have become competitors with each other, in such a way that they are made instru- ments of their own further humiliation. There is no minister in this land that does not know that the mo- ment his parish is vacated, the great horde of the min- isterial submerged third will rush in to try to lift some of the burden and hence there is general rest- lessness and uneasiness in almost every parish. Few clergymen expect, as indeed few could, to continue long in the places where they are. Many, even of the first class, are living not on their salaries, but on other resources, sometimes private funds, but generally money earned by supplementary activities, working with the pen, hack work for newspapers, editorial work, library work and research, the credit for which presently somebody else will have, lecturing and the like. It is this also which tends to obscure the prob- lem in all its enormity. Moreover the general rest- Israel in Bondage 229 lessness of the period falls with crushing force upon him and unless he be a person specially skilful in per- forming functions not naturally a part of his profes- sional activity, he is the first victim of changing con- ditions. One has only to read the flood of letters that rolls in upon a committee of a parish, that promises the possibility of a decent living, nothing more, to be- come aware how the ministers are literally battering each other to pieces in the frantic effort to get to a point where they must not worry day in and day out, concerning the barest needs of the professional life. They all know this but nobody knows the way out. And when to all this is added the tyranny of a para- sitic class of ecclesiastical officials, who by methods which fairly compare in moral corruptness with some of our political performances, ecclesiastical gunmen ready to assassinate the character or prospects, or both, of an independent youth, intent only upon fulfilling his ordination vow, the bondage becomes well nigh ab- solute. IV The two forms of limitation just described have in the case of the ministry resulted in a third which is perhaps the most disastrous of all. This is the loss of the power of sound social and intellectual discrim- ination, which is the greatest necessity of our time. Broadly speaking, the clergy of the country are di- vided into two hopeless classes, in so far as social progress is concerned; they are either enamored of wild and untenable schemes which no similarly trained 230 Christianity and the Social Rage class of men in the country hold or can hold, or they are hopelessly reactionary, unable to see the real rela- tions of religion to the social question in its entirety. On either count, permanent, sound and effective pub- lic influence is impossible. It is this third result of the loss of freedom by the clergy, which has destroyed its influence in the large and powerful sense, in which it should naturally be found in any body of men hav- ing had the contact with education, social relations and the varied classes of men, which it is peculiarly the privilege of the minister to meet and know. By all the natural tokens, no man ought to be better able to speak for the entire community than he. As an actual fact he is the real spokesman of nobody, not even for his own class. His natural round of serv- ice should make him the soundest analyst of social conditions and his range of opportunity for absolutely reliable testimony as to the workings of social laws and social practises is unrivaled. But by reason chiefly of the limitations we are now discussing, he is able to make no use of these opportunities, is denied the ability to make sound deductions or if able to make them, to utter them with freedom, and the re- sult is that the reactions of his own mind make him impossible as a social leader, linking him almost in- evitably with unworkable radicalism or with impos- sible inertia. It requires no special insight to see that this loses for him and for his profession the respect, the confidence of the very portion of the community which is best able to secure needed social reforms. It alienates from him the virile elements of both classes Israel in Bondage 231 and makes him a figure which can only, in many cases, be pronounced absolutely despicable. If this seems a severe pronouncement, let any reasonably well in- formed man take up and tabulate the list of absurdi- ties, insolences, ridicule and contemptuous sayings which are to be found as respects the clergy in every daily newspaper throughout the land. Not that the real, sound, well disciplined and thoroughly effective clergyman does not exist; but that nine-tenths of the population does not believe him to exist, and makes no effort to find out. But the ministry is not the greatest loser in this unfortunate situation. He, to be sure, drags out a weary and unhappy existence struggling with adversi- ties till he lands upon the scrap heap, forgotten and ignored, but the greatest loser is not he. The great- est sufferer is society itself, which has thus incapaci- tated the one class through which it might have the truth told, because this one class has, and can have, no possible interest in anything but the truth. A free clergy, whenever there has been one, has always been the guardian of civil liberty and the stoutest public defense against encroachment upon the people's rights. A free clergy, when it has existed, has always been for the fullest investigation of every condition of man- kind and for the freest expression of every form of judgment upon those facts. In Anglo-Saxondom, this is certainly the case and not a few of the liber- ties we now enjoy are directly due to clerical resist- ance against aggression by the superior, against the weaker elements of society. A free clergy has always 232 Christianity and the Social Rage been able likewise to hold in check the foolish out- bursts which have threatened social disaster and ruin and bring back to reason and morality the inflamed mobs which have been conscious only of their own wrongs and not at all conscious of the rights of any- body else. Thus a free clergy because it was un- tainted by worldly interest, because it could not and did not take part in the race for wealth and what wealth usually carries with it, was the one class which could, and which did, call things by their proper names and bid men seek the Kingdom of God and hold their selfish passions in check until the path of natural and sure progress was discovered. Society to-day is rag- ing furiously and raging without reflection, because for the most part it has no longer any class in which it has the confidence that its judgments are sound and trustworthy on the moral side. It is here that the waste becomes most apparent. It is here also that the social loss of the downfall of the clergyman as a social figure is most to be discerned. No surer method could possibly be devised for producing such a situation as we see to-day than to fetter the clergy and bring it into bondage as it has been brought. The moral leadership and the moral force which could be heard above the din of contending interests and selfish classes which once belonged to the churchman are gone and there has been no substitute. Those per- sons who once hoped that scientific knowledge and scientific leadership would supply what the church had lost, must be looking ruefully at the scene before them. Those who thought that general education Israel in Bondage 233 and the diffusion of intelligence would supply moral repose and moral responsibility, must be having bad times as they contemplate the skilled crime and the literate rascality which now makes crime so fascinat- ing and the criminal so powerful. Those who have thought it great sport to bait the minister, as the rep- resentative of other worlds, with no particular use or mission in this, must be rather surprised to find when the appeal comes for a moral arbiter who can be trusted, to learn that there is none in sight and that the whole world is on a war footing, class with class, because religion has been so largely dethroned alto- gether or disorganized by the downfall of its repre- sentative figures. The end of this is not yet. By easy and progressive stages not only has society been organized on a war footing, grimly giving the lie to many and most of the so-called movements in the di- rection of brotherhood, but the most intimate and basic relations of humanity are being assailed and un- dermined, because there is no body of men authorized to speak for the rights of all as against the will and desire of any particular class who command confi- dence. We shall see how this comes about when we examine the question of the disease as a symptom of the moral disorganization of society. One of the most lamentable as well as ludicrous evidences of this may be seen in the fact that many of the social service organizations are now competitors in exactly the same way in which the churches are competitors. Favorite charities are matched against each other and their re- spective agents plead against each other. Social 234 Christianity and the Social Rage sectarianism is almost and absolutely, where highly developed, organized on the same absurd, wasteful, competitive lines on which the churches are proceed- ing. There is of course much loose talk about fed- eration and clearing houses and mutuality and the like, but in practise everybody knows that it means the elimination of some body and few have the moral courage of self-immolation for the common good. The man who has a little to give, who will place side by side the appeals which come to him in the course of a year, will see duplication and reduplication in exactly the same socially, economically and insanely foolish fashion in which the churches do the same thing. The reason is plain. There is no moral com- mon denominator. They have no common authority to which they appeal and whose judgment they all accept. The church used to be the moral supreme court of society. The clergy were the expositors of that court, feeling by natural and normal means the pulse of society as a whole. They knew what the so- cial law on its moral side demanded as nobody else knew it and as nobody else could know it. Where you find men free, trained and religious in this pro- fession this is still true. But when the moral leader- ship of the church and clergy was lost all this van- ished and as a substitute we are offered the recall of morals by popular fiat. All this produces the anomalous situation that, whereas formerly the minister represented the whole people, demanding that all submit to the law of the moral need and requirement of all, now he is, when- Israel in Bondage 235 ever he attempts to utter that law, the natural target for assault from all. From being the representative of all, he is the one against whom all level their as- saults, as being in part responsible for the situation about which all complain. And he himself, under this general assault, reacts in a perfectly natural man- ner; either he becomes the violent, untempered and irresponsible radical or the stupid, impossible and equally irresponsible reactionary. And since it is one of the psychological peculiarities of religion to make more intense whatever it affects, we have these two types, the most conspicuous and the most highly de- veloped. This of course does not take into account that vast mass of utter helplessness which is not worth consideration at all, which crawls along in its poverty, only too well satisfied if it can get its daily morsel of bread and creep quietly, unnoticed into an obscure grave. What we have been saying latterly applies chiefly to those voices that are heard at all. As pre- viously indicated the vast mass of the clergy belong to the non-existent class, in so far as the dominating power building and determinative forces of the com- munal life are concerned. V What happens all the time to genuine Christianity, while its representative figure is held in the position which has just been outlined? What recognition can the fundamental principles of the Christian religion receive in the social and legislative progress of the 236 Christianity and the Social Rage nation under these conditions? The answer is two- fold. In the first place, the genuine Christianity of the nation gropes along, endeavoring to find some- thing that answers to the conception of Christianity which it holds and tries to incorporate it into perma- nent social forms. But this genuine Christianity, be- ing for the most part alienated from the church, knows little concerning the historic development of the Christian religion and therefore is unable to pro- ceed with the knowledge which that history gives, an almost final guide in such matters because the funda- mental problems of humanity change only in their manifestations, not in their essence. A clergy in- structed in the social history of Christianity and thor- oughly trained to recognize the permanent problems under their changing aspects, would be the most val- uable factor that could be brought to the solution of the social question, in so far as it admits of solution, in any age or time. But since we have no such clergy and since we are still in the dark ages of the substi- tution of miracle for money, in proceeding with the great social interests of humanity what we really get, is a chaotic and confused endeavor to identify Chris- tianity first with one movement, then with another, and so on down the line of the great meliorating move- ments of the time. And with these partisans, not to bring the sanctions of Christianity to their particular cult, is to lose caste and to sacrifice influence. Hence the proper relation of Christianity to democracy is not understood and is one of the first things that needs to be analyzed and explained. We all think we un- Israel in Bondage 237 derstand what democracy is. We all think we under- stand what religion is. And the coordination of these two seems like a simple task. As a matter of fact it is one of the most difficult of problems by itself. Because this coordination is not properly made nor the relations of these elements of the social question understood, the genuine Christianity of the land is split up, divided, because the moral earnestness of spiritual and social progress is as helplessly divided as the power of the clergy is destroyed. You will generally find the members of one social group assail- ing the members of another social group who differ as to the means to be employed quite as severely often as they assail the common enemy. And when these groups represent as they often do the genuine Christianity of the land, trying to utter itself, and try- ing to apply its religion to the social needs of the time, what you get is not light and leading, but mere social rage, utterly futile in the working out of any permanent or healthful result. Sometimes it is ac- companied by what seem to be triumphs, but analyzed, they emerge in nothing but momentary communal outbursts and willingness to try anything " for a change." This at the present moment is what our social movements amount to. Not that advances are not made and that we have not steadily integrated first into the consciousness, and finally into statutes, many of the best conclusions of the Christianity of the time but that most of these have neither coordina- tion nor effectiveness as related to the ordinary social life of the people. As has been stated they are now 238 Christianity and the Social Rage parts of programs of spoliation by one side or the other. They hold nothing that anybody regards as permanent and are merely signals for the next effort along the same line. No sooner is a law upon our statute books than simultaneously forces are organ- ized for its extension and repeal. Sometimes one side wins and sometimes the other and thus goes on the eternal see-saw of social ebb and flow. If we had a clergy which could utter and utter continuously a sane and thoroughgoing Christianity, conscious of its true nature, conscious of its power of adaptation, con- scious of its sources and capable of meeting with precision and firmness the various problems as they arise, this situation would soon be materially altered. Such a clergy would have to have clear ideas upon the fundamental relations of Christianity and democ- racy. It would see how the physical conditions of mankind are inseparably allied to their moral and spiritual and hence social interests, and would see that public health is so allied with every other problem, that it cannot be ignored in the working out of the Christian problem of the age. And they would see that behind and below all this lies the question of religious education. In these may be said generally to rest the expression of the practical Christianity, which will sooner or later, in accord with the true nature of the Christian gospel, grapple with every form of social need and press to its solution, so far as the time and the conditions admit of permanent expression of the principles of Christianity. This is what a Christian clergy should do. It should study Israel in Bondage 239 the relations of Christianity to democracy and should vigorously assert both the freedom and the tolerance of opinion and judgment under democracy. But before this can be done we must have a clergy released from every form of bondage. We must have a clergy with large conceptions of the Kingdom of God which are not blunted by too intense devotion to a particular phase which may vitiate the authority of the whole. We shall get relief from the rage which is now de- stroying the morals of the nation, under the guise of seeking its moral and social regeneration, only as we have men of God who dare, without fear, to proclaim the whole counsel of God. With such a leadership we shall also have men who are able to aid in bring- ing mankind out of the psychopathic state in which society apparently now is, by a sane therapeutic, not administered by churches and clergy, but through the recognition of the spiritual elements of humanity in the working out of their physical relations. And underneath and continually feeding from below into the social cauldron, there must come a race of reli- giously instructed youth, who will bring sound knowl- edge and an instructed conscience to the social needs of humanity. In this triad democracy, health and education, apparently lies the road to social regenera- tion, at least to the beginning of that regeneration which Christianity assumes as its mission to bring about. But all of these must be qualified, instructed and held under the restraint of a genuine Christian- ity. And Christianity must stand over all, as the enlightened mother of human nurture, to instruct, to 240 Christianity and the Social Rage guide, to encourage and to restrain. These functions it is the high privilege of the Christian clergy to exer- cise. But to exercise them they must be free from the galling humiliations which now make them impo- tent for the greatest of all tasks which the Christian re- ligion has ever faced. But though often submerged, Christianity has never disappeared. Though often misrepresented, it has always ultimately appeared in its true aspects and affected its divine work. It will do so again. It will rear once more a race of moral and spiritual supermen who will dare to grapple with the sin, misery and want of the world and will brush aside the sophistries by which men delude themselves and with the sublime power of the Master Himself will once again assert that man does not live by bread alone. But in asserting this they will not mean that he shall trust in will-o'-the-wisps of social doctrines that lead only to fresh social catastrophes. They will not mean that men shall become visionaries who know not the world and glory in their ignorance. But they will mean that man made in the image of God must become steadily more like his Maker. They will demand justice and judgment which are the habita- tion of God's throne. But their justice will be in- exorable and their judgment will be true. They will not substitute class damnation for the divine decrees and they will not accept the ravings of fanatics, whether religious, social, or economic, as the super- natural evidences of being possessed by a divine spirit. They will demand democracy and maintain it. They will see that a sound democracy cannot subsist except Israel in Bondage 241 on the principle of mens sana in corpore sano. They will see that a people tminstructed spiritually is a peo- ple receding from virtue and social power, and hence upon this triad, democracy, health and education, they will build the secure structure of the Christianity of Jesus Christ. CHAPTER IX DEMOCRACY My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. ... Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity and a firm re- liance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best way all our difficulty. . . . We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth- stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, First Inaugural Address. CHAPTER IX DEMOCRACY CHRISTIANITY assumes as one of its primary postulates the possible regeneration of human society. This appears on every page of the Gospels, and is apparent to the most casual reader of Jesus' teachings concerning the Kingdom of God. There is no longer any need for discussing this phase of the relation of the Christian religion to the social order prevailing in any state of society. Whether the method chosen be by the personal reformation of the individual man through conversion or through the Christianizing of the great social agencies by which human life is more and more largely being directed and controlled, the underlying assumption must be that the end to be achieved is a society as regenerate as the individuals that compose it. Moreover, this assumption appeared from the moment the Christian church attained any consciousness of itself as a part of the social life of the world. Its earliest disciples not only saw that this was the end to be achieved but took immediate steps for its attainment. With such knowledge as they^had and with such instruments as 245 246 Christianity and the Social Rage they could command, they undertook the task of re- generating the world. It is also clear that the very largeness of this under- taking spurred them on to extraordinary activities, and these activities in turn reacted upon them to such a degree that they not only undertook to regenerate the world, but believed that it might be accomplished within their own time. From the period of the im- mediate followers of Jesus to this very time there has never been wanting a considerable number of Chris- tians who have believed that they would see the world made over into the actual demonstration of the King- dom of God. It is true that this has usually been allied with some expectation of supernatural inter- vention of one kind or another, notably with the re- turn of Christ to rule and reign in the world; but whatever the particular form of the hope it has always been present in the church and is present now. Even when it has not been openly confessed and preached, this lurking expectation of the final visible triumph of Jesus Christ and his actual rule in the world has held a large place in the Christian thinking of men. Even in its most grotesque forms it commands a certain measure of respect, because of the underlying idea that Christianity assumes that the world both can be and will be regenerated and made coextensive with the Kingdom of God. Viewed in a broad sense, the course of history has justified the hope and the expectation. Society since the advent of Christianity has been and is steadily becoming increasingly moral. There is no evil so Democracy 247 great, no social wrong so heartrending, no difficulty so colossal, that it can for a moment weigh against the historical fact that Christianity has steadily moved onward in human society and has forced men to the conviction which is its own primary postulate. Men whether avowedly enlisted under the standard of Christ or not have acquired this conviction no less than Christians who first gave it to the world. One of the great contrasts with which Christianity startled the Roman world when it actually began its world- wide propaganda for Jesus Christ was, that society could and must be made Christian. Over against the prevailing skepticism and unbelief in the salvability of humanity and the regeneration of human relations, the gospel steadily affirmed and demanded both. Be- ginning with the least capable members of the Roman world and often with the most inert morally, it steadily proclaimed that there was no soul without hope, and consequently that there was no humanity be- yond the pale of the final triumph of Christ in the world. The faith of those early teachers and followers has been justified in the event. It does not need recapit- ulation in detail but only the now unchallengeable statement, that the moral order of the world has under the influence of Christian teaching and preach- ing not only advanced but become increasingly sensi- tive to the moral motive in both individual and cor- porate action. Christian ideas are now the property and heritage of all men, who scarcely dream that there could have been a time when they were not. Indeed, the multiplicity of social programs of one 248 Christianity and the Social Rage kind and another is itself evidence of the almost uni- versal belief that the world is a subject of redemption, and that the redemption may possibly be accomplished within the lifetime of the propagandists. Confident assertions are made on every hand that the adoption of this or that plan of social adjustment will bring about justice and fair dealing in the world. The advance from the ideas of a fair distribution of the spoil to the demand for justice is itself one of the most emphatic evidences of the moral advance of men. If it be asserted that this advance is not due to Chris- tianity, then the reply may be made, it has come coincidently with the spread of Christian ideas and the general acceptance of the Christian idea of the value of human life and human relations. It is not necessary specially to quarrel on this point. Chris- tianity and the moral advance of the world have gone hand in hand and, whether the latter is the result of the former directly or not, the two are so inseparable that nobody will ever be able to say that we should have attained the state to which we have emerged had there been no Christianity to affirm the possibility and to assist in the regeneration of mankind. What may be stated without any risk of successful denial is, that before the advent of Christianity there was no such hope in existence and almost no consciousness of such a possibility as is expressed on every platform which discusses the condition of the world to-day. This is the greatest service which Christianity has ren- dered to the world. This alone makes it a fixed factor in human society. Democracy 249 Ey the same tokens it may be affirmed that the moral order of society is inseparable from religion. The expansion of religion and the increase in the varieties of the application of the religious motive to human affairs, whether these be social, political, or legal, is the most striking fact in the thought of the modern world. Many of the leaders of the various forms of social propaganda state that they are en- gaged in religious work. To many of them the par- ticular plan which they have is in a very real sense a religion. The writer has seen one of the venerable founders of a great labor organization stand before a crowd of thousands and hold up his union card and say with great impressiveness, " This is my Bible." The thought underneath that statement was that he held his social program as a religion, as, in fact, he did. In hundreds of meetings of almost every kind the same thing can be seen, and has been seen by the writer. In fact, so common has this become, that, in some of these assemblies, if the particular local color of the meetings were extracted and the terminol- ogy of the particular social creed held by the assem- blies were replaced by the terms distinctive to the Christian religion, they would pass anywhere as Chris- tian meetings. There was no distinguishable differ- ence in the end and aim which these men sought to achieve and that which is affirmed on every occasion when the Christian church has need to speak on social questions of any character. The inseparableness of 250 Christianity and the Social Rage religion with the advancing social order must be ap- parent to everybody who has given even the slightest attention to the matter. It would probably surprise a great many of these leaders to be told that they were advocating Christian- ity. But not a few, however, have arrived at the consciousness of the identity between their own aim and that portrayed by Jesus in the Gospels. Where the identity is recognized, it is almost always accom- panied by violent onslaughts on the Christian church with the claim that the church has ceased to be Chris- tian. And here we are in the presence of a great question on which many things may be said in both directions. For the present, let it be understood that whether the Christian church has or has not ceased to be genuinely Christian, this has been the fact in times past and is therefore not impossible. But the natural alliance of religion with every form of moral progress and the completeness of the identity of aim between the moral aspirations of the leaders of so- ciety and the teaching of Jesus are unquestionable. So continuous has this fact been through the Chris- tian centuries that it may be said that the two are inseparable, and that, without religion interpreting religion in its broadest sense, there can be, as there has been in the past, no moral progress in the world. It is hardly less true that this religionizing of social theories is a part of the work of Christianity in the democratization of the world. Christianity is democ- racy if it is anything. There is no armory which furnishes more weapons for the teaching of democ- Democracy 251 racy than the Bible. And here, again, while we may not say dogmatically that the expanding democracy of the world is directly due to Christianity, it must be acknowledged that the immediate effects of Chris- tianity are such as to produce democracy naturally and spontaneously. While it is possible to conceive of a high state of personal religion absolutely apart from any form of institutional organization, it is also true, historically, that where there has been any consider- able religion it has been allied to some form of insti- tutional life. Christian institutions in their earliest form were the expression of a pure democracy, and that idea has never been absent from the thought of the church, whatever its practise may have been. The Christian church could not read its own sacred writings and utter the words of its Founder without teaching a democracy as absolute and far-reaching as that contemplated in the most advanced social pro- gram known. In fact, every Christian assembly the moment it utters the most elementary form of Chris- tian teaching begins to teach democracy. For this reason the churches have been schools of democracy from the times of the apostles. If democracy has a natural atmosphere anywhere, that atmosphere is in the church. This, again, is not merely the plain teaching of the Gospels, but it is also the undeniable teaching of Christian history. It would be difficult to conjecture how democracy could have made the advances which it has made in the world without the cooperation of the Christian church. The one thing needful for a successful 252 Christianity and the Social Rage democracy is a clearing house which will bring all ideas to the test of some fundamental law which shall be the acid test distinguishing genuine from spurious democracy. The Christian church is the only known organization in the world which has such an acid test for genuine democratic ideas. Its doctrines of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, which it has always held and holds now, whatever its practise may have been or is now, are the final tests of genuine democracy. They have always been the rallying cries for social advance; and the one social institution which has uttered them repeatedly and unceasingly, in fair days and foul days alike, has been the church of Jesus Christ. Democracy needs, and always will need, just such a clearing house for the various forms of democracy which are presented for general adoption. The Christian church is naturally adapted to be such a clearing house, by reason of the fact that constitutionally it is bound hand and foot to the fundamental ideas by which alone democracy can be comprehended. A democracy which does not rest upon such conceptions as are the basis of Jesus' teaching of the Kingdom of God is a political illusion which will go the way of all illusions. But, based upon the fundamental ideas which Christ affirmed and which His disciples have been automatically forced to preach as the necessary postulates of Christian propaganda, democracy is not only firmly grounded, but offers the natural pathway for the progressive steps needful for socializing and redeeming mankind. The weakness of democracy has always been its Democracy 253 institutional inefficiency. The Christian church is adapted by its constitution, by its elementary doc- trines, and by its history, to give democracy the work- ing model of institutional efficiency upon the only principles by which we can democratize the world. It is sometimes affirmed that the Christian church is particularly assailable on this very point. But all such accusations seem, when critically examined, to be based upon very limited observation. There is at this very moment no institution in the world which has a vital relation to humanity, which exhibits such institutional effectiveness as the Christian church, even when most of the common accusations against it have all been admitted. Viewed on the world scale, including the vast foreign missionary enterprises of the various branches of the church universal, it is the most colossal social propaganda the world has ever seen, and embraces every possible form of social serv- ice and method. It would not be possible to state a single area of human interest into which the Christian church has not at some time pushed for the purpose of carrying out its fundamental ideas of democracy. It could not do otherwise and be Christianity. Not ta do this would be to deny itself. Nor have in- stances been wanting illustrating chis very fact. When the. revival of world-wide evangelism arose in America it is unquestionably true that the mission- aries were sent out with a purely theological idea of Christianity. The idea was to evangelize the world by means of a particular kind of Christian teaching. Confronted with the facts and forces of alien civiliza- 254 Christianity and the Social Rage tions, Christianity was compelled to adjust itself to the elementary demands of the gospel, with the result that the theological Christianity which at the begin- ning of the nineteenth century undertook to save the non-Christian nations has become a social Christianity addressing itself to the immediate needs of men in their social and institutional life. The result every- where has been the indoctrination of the oldest em- pires of the world with the ideas of democracy and the expansion of the practise of Christianity, so that now it embraces every possible form of social activity. The vitality of the Christian religion and its essential and inevitable democratic character have thus been demonstrated on every missionary field of the world. This has not come about by accident. It came because Christianity is democracy; and when Chris- tianity ceases to be in a vital and effective sense dem- ocratic, it ceases to be Christianity. And it is effective democracy too. It is the one form of democracy which has no limitation of race or previous condition. It is the one form of democracy which grafts itself naturally and efficiently upon every form of civiliza- tion and culture. There is an additional reason for this, apart from its fundamental constitution. Christianity must be an efficient democracy in order to be any kind of a democracy. And its efficiency is assured because there is no domain of human life to which it has not a real and necessary relation. It thus provides at once for the utilization of every form of talent, for the expression of every kind of need, and the devel- Democracy 255 opment of every form of resource for meeting the needs expressed. It is, moreover, in a continual state of readjustment, by reason of the fact that its reserves are always coming forward with fresh capabilities to be expended and a wider theory of the application of its fundamental doctrines. There is no other social institution known that thus, by its nature, couples itself with almost any conceivable situation. It is literally all things to all men. It must be, to be any- thing to any man. And these fundamental elements of its nature are always reacting upon each other. Christianity has thus within itself the capacity for continuous rebirth, stating itself in the form best adapted to the particular field in which it is operating. By this means it provides the laboratory for many things beside itself, because its nature requires it to prove all things and hold fast what is good. Here again history is suggestive, in that it shows that there is no social program extant that has not, in some form or other, been tried, at least within some limited area, under Christian auspices and under Christian inspira- tion. Ill Christianity then as a religion, and the Christian church as the institutional expression of that religion, becomes democracy's most potent and effective instru- ments for its development and the corrective for its blunders. The very differences of Christian organi- zation have contributed to this result, because com- plete functioning in a democracy requires many 256 Christianity and the Social Rage varieties of tools. The Christian church is the one instrument which will respond to every need, because it sets up no fixed standard other than those which are fundamental to the democratic idea. The em- phasis in one part of the world or in one portion of society may be one thing, the emphasis in another something different, according to the state of devel- opment in that particular branch of society or portion of the world. The Christian church operates in them all. It must, as stated, affirm democracy in them all, in order to be itself. The inevitable outcome of this must be that, finally, there will be a common tongue which they all speak and a common platform on which they can all stand. This is the greatest outstanding fact in the social history of the world. Nor is it necessary to deny that sometimes this has not been the case in such a manner as to make the various types of Christianity recognize their common destiny. To state this, is simply to say that in a long road many people do not know who are in front of them and who are behind them. History is a long road. The world is wide. Many believe themselves alone who are not alone at all. And in the turns of the road, as on the winding tracks of mountain railways, the train which seems to be going backward is really going forward. The history of the Christian church is full of such apparent recessions. But so is the world. Yet the long view through the centuries must convince the candid thinker that it has been Chris- tianity as religion, and the Christian church as the institutional embodiment of that religion, which have Democracy 257 made the fragments of democracy throughout the world intelligible to each other as parts of a growing whole presently to be revealed. When any part of this world-wide fellowship has failed to function properly to this great end, it has almost always been assailed angrily from both without and within. The world without the church, and the world within the church, alike have at such times forced Christianity to face its fundamental documents and the practise of its Founder, and together they have usually secured the desired result of restoration to fundamental ideas. This may be safely contended, no matter what form the church has taken or what its excesses have been. In a certain sense this has made the church the moral barometer of society. This does not mean that it has had, nor that it has now, the highest types of Christianity within its own numbers, though it is reasonably safe to assume that the finest expressions of Christianity are found within the Christian church. But it is saying that, on the whole, the attitude of the natural constituency of the Christian church has re- vealed the moral height or depth of society. When the church has been corrupt, society has been corrupt. When the church has been pure, holy, and vital, so- ciety has exhibited these same qualities, so that the state of the church generally reveals what the prevail- ing social ideals are. The relation of the church to the total democratic movement may therefore be described as friendly relations with all social programs and entangling alliances with none. And both phases of this relation 258 Christianity and the Social Rage are inevitable. If Christianity ever should become inseparably allied or identified other than in the ulti- mate aim with any social program, its life and influ- ence would be limited by the life and availability of the particular program which it espoused. By its nature it cannot do this, since its constitutional doc- trines cannot be thus limited. The Fatherhood of God is not a social program. It is a spiritual concep- tion of regenerate men. The Brotherhood of Man is not a social program. It is the life of regenerate men. It is a principle of approach capable of infinite varieties of expression. It may mean war or it may mean peace. It may mean electrocution or pardon. It may mean municipal ownership or it may mean competition. Whether it means the one or the other, depends upon a great many conditions which are themselves pendent upon influences some of which are fixed and others of which are constantly changing. The brotherhood of man may mean the wage system or it may not It would be absurd and obviously absurd to hold that man could not believe in the wage system and at the same time believe and practise the brotherhood of man. But Christianity cannot pos- sibly avoid facing the question whether any system at a given time appears to embody its cardinal doc- trines. Neither can the church avoid noticing and declaring what appear to be the human values in terms of brotherhood of any given system in which it operates. The simple truth is, that it has always done so, and is doing so at the present moment. In this sense Christianity is always facing a social crisis, be- Democracy 259 cause Christianity is always at war with an unregen- erate world, and always at variance with a program which indicates any inequalities which do not express its consciousness of the brotherhood of man. But it cannot be limited to any statement of social reform and cannot be bound to any platform of social prin- ciples wider or deeper than those which are inherent in its very life. Thus democracy and the church are natural allies and must ever be so. There is good reason for the statement that this has always been the case even when the outward terms of the church life have been in a form which did not seem to be indicative of the democratic content of the religion for which it stood. IV There is still another phase of the relation of Chris- tianity and the church, its representative institution, to democracy which is worthy of careful notice. This is the question of liberty. Democracy must mean liberty if it means anything. But liberty is itself a very spiritual thing, and rests upon qualities which are, if not religious, so nearly religious, that it would be very difficult to make the distinction per- fectly clear. The liberty which is necessary for the widest expression of the social hope of mankind can be found under the constitution of Christianity, but hardly anywhere else, and reveals again the futility of trying to limit Christianity to any particular social plan. The recent national convention of the Socialist party illustrated this point with great vividness. A 260 Christianity and the Social Rage very considerable minority of that convention were syndicalists and wished to embody the special dogma of syndicalism in the platform of the party, which led to a fiery interchange of opinions as to genuine and spurious socialism. Now of course this does not prove anything, about either socialism or the par- ticular form of it called syndicalism. But it does indicate that the moment the broad substantial plat- form is left for the narrower declaration of special interest, you have instantaneous disruption and di- vision of forces. Christianity has been divided and subdivided world without end. But the interesting fact is that it has never been subdivided on the ques- tion of the Fatherhood of God nor of the Brotherhood of Man. It has quarreled about many things, and usually such quarrels have been disgraceful affairs. This is true even to the present day. But it is worthy of note that no such division could possibly have taken place except in the obscuration of its fundamental ideas ; and it is again historically true, that the return to unity has always been by an irenicon based upon the fundamental ideas which Jesus taught, tolerance and liberty, especially liberty. A similar scene was enacted at a more recent meeting of the American Federation of Labor at Buffalo. Here again the division was so acute that the members assaulted one another, and the police had to be called in. This is not unknown in the history of Christian churches. But it again emphasizes the futility of limiting men of like minds to particularities of program. Still later, at a meeting of the Joseph Fels Fund Commis- Democracy 261 sion for the propagation of the Single Tax doctrine in Boston, an outbreak occurred almost exactly anal- ogous to the other two. The founder and chief con- tributor to the Fund objected to the form in which local devotees were experimenting, and made a per- sonal attack upon one of the most devoted members of the cult. Immediately there was uproar and con- fusion, while later other differences appeared as be- tween those single taxers who were individualists and those who were socialists. Now, as before, this argues nothing as to the validity of the single-tax doctrine. But it does show that harnessing men to a limited program generally means the destruction of liberty. It is also indicative of the fact that presently there will be division in the ranks of these various bodies, which will be only repeating what is the out- standing fact about Christianity to-day, with this important exception, that on its fundamental ideas Christianity is not now and never has been divided. It is entirely within the possibilities that all these brethren might work harmoniously and effectively within and under the aegis of the Christian church. In fact, many of the most ardent Socialists are also Christians, so much so, that there is a distinct branch of that comradeship which calls itself Chris- tian Socialists. There might conceivably be a similar branch of single taxers who called themselves Chris- tian Single Taxers. And so on down the line. In fact, the liberty which is the sine qua non of the fullest exposition and discussion of all these various ideas for social amelioration can be found only within 262 Christianity and the Social Rage the Christian church, strange as this notion will sound to many of these advocates. Indeed, it may be said that the most effective teaching of the valid parts of socialism is now being done in the churches. The social nature of Christianity permits it. It does more, it invites it. But what the social nature of Christianity also, by its democratic content, demands, is that Christianity never shall be limited to socialism, and socialism only. It is not outside the bounds of possibility that in a given community the single-tax question might become a religious issue. The local church might conceivably become committed to it as religiously expedient and wise. But no Christian church which was truly Christian, and therefore also truly democratic, could define Christianity in terms of single tax. The very statement of the supposition reveals its absurdity; and yet the whole weight of Christian influence might point to that system as most effective, under the time and circumstances, for affirm- ing and demonstrating the brotherhood of man. Only the democracy which affirmed, obedient to the inclusive character of its constitution, the duty to stand by the best possible expression of brotherhood, supposing the single tax for the moment to be that expression, would at the same time affirm the liberty of any dissenter for holding a view exactly the oppo- site. Not to do so would be to become the ally of a tyranny. Social and individual liberty are thus bound up in the idea of a Christianized democracy, and are safe in no other. It will come to many as a new and a Democracy 263 strange idea that the Christian church is the custodian of liberty, but the logic of the situation is pretty clear. One of the strongest proofs of this function of Chris- tianity is that the Christian churches very generally in democratic countries have insisted upon the dises- tablishment of particular churches, not so much for the protection of themselves against other branches of the Christian church, but because they feared tyranny and feared most a tyranny that called itself Christianity. It would not be an unheard-of thing if the very church itself should have the final voice in protecting many of those who, dealing with revolu- tionary ideas, found themselves expelled from every other association bu that of the church. The church is the natural asylum from persecution for all social revolutionaries by reason of its teachings and the ex- ample of its Founder. A democracy that is genuine, and not itself a form of tyranny, must coincide with the fundamental law of Christ. This has already appeared in many other things beside the political agi- tations. It has shown itself in education and medi- cine and law as well as in politics. But the striking fact everywhere has been that when Christianity has held sway and has held to its own fundamental law, it has been the natural progenitor and custodian of democracy. CHAPTER X HEALTH Men's thoughts and opinions are in a great degree the vassals of him who invents a new phrase or reapplies an old one. The thought or feeling a thousand times repeated, becomes his at last who utters it best. ... As soon as we have discovered the word for our joy or our sorrow we are no longer its serfs but its lords. We reward the discoverer of an anaesthetic for the body and make him a member of all the societies, but him who finds a nepenthe for the soul we elect into the small Academy of the Immortals. LOWELL. CHAPTER X HEALTH AMONG the most remarkable manifestations of the larger applications of religion in our times is its invasion- of the field of therapeutics. Not that there has not always been a subconscious relation between religion and medical practise, but that, until lately, it had not attained the distinct consciousness of itself or attempted to define those relations as it is doing with increasing emphasis to-day. It is not an extravagant estimate to say that this emphasis will increase as time goes on. In a certain sense, the re- lation will become more and more accentuated and lead to very considerable modifications of medical practise, as, in some quarters of the world, it has already. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that this is a new thing or one that ought to excite a great deal of surprise. It is merely when historically examined the resumption of a very old relation and one that came most naturally and almost inevitably with the introduction of Christianity into the world. But even long before Christianity appeared, in the ruder forms of social life, the medicine man and the priest 267 268 Christianity and the Social Rage were one and the same person. In some of the forms of primitive life, which, in remote quarters of the world, still remain, the functions of medical practi- tioner and minister of religion still reside in the same individual and are practised as the normal domain of the religious teacher. To what may relatively be considered a late period of civilization, this alliance of therapeutics with religion still continued, though it generally took forms which we are now pleased to call superstition. Considering the question, however, within the pe- riod called Christendom, even into the period when there emerged what we now call science, and even to the present day, that hereditary connection between medical service and religion has never quite disap- peared. Though subjected in the more recent years to every form of ridicule and shown to be scientifically worthless and often distinctly harmful to both body and soul, the belief has continued that there was somewhere a definite relation between the thing which a man calls his religion and the welfare of his body. Nor is it at all strange that this should be the case. Here again we are faced with the fact that Christian- ity brought to the world a very distinct conception of the value and influence of bodily relations and states upon spiritual conditions and expectations. The Hebraic origin of Christianity made it inevitable that the Christian church should have a very large consciousness on this particular subject. The earliest Christians were Hebrews, and the Hebrew literature on this subject is so full, so minute, and affects so Health 269 directly so many things which act immediately upon the physical conditions of men, and is withal so accu- rate, especially on the side of symptoms, that it is held in the highest repute by medical science of the most advanced kind to-day. Indeed, it is among the most likely things that we shall see in the not too distant future that the sanitary codes of the Hebrews, found in the so-called Mosaic books, will be studied with even greater care than they already have been. One thing is very certain, and that is, that if a modern city block were subjected to the severe regimen of the Hebrew codes seven-tenths of the troubles in them would disappear. Not only did the Hebrews legis- late for the relations of the sexes, the relations of parents and children, of special groups to each other, but in a thousand ways, too minute for detailed de- scription here, made their religion govern almost the very breath that its adherents took into their lungs. Ablutions, dress, food, sexual relations, childbirth, dietary, and almost every other form of what we should now regard as the special field of medical supervision were not only controlled, but highly or- ganized, so highly, that it remains a wonderful thing to this day, and many of its precepts, as already stated, have the sanction of expert medical authorities. Religion and medicine were one, not so much through the practise of medicine as through the sanitary reg- ulation which made the religion of the devotee his physical salvation. It broke down in the presence of plagues and other scourges which it did not under- stand, of course. It was not science, of course, unless 270 Christianity and the Social Rage that term be extended to include this kind of control. But it affirmed^ so absolutely the necessary relation be- tween the religion of the people and their bodily wel- fare, that it remains to this day. This conception Christianity inherited. There is no doubt whatever that the most complicating 1 problem which Christianity faced in its earliest history was one which grew out of this very matter. What should be done with the Gentile believers who had not been reared in the sanitary codes of the Hebrews was a very vital matter, and caused the earliest schism in the ranks of the Christian community. It was the subject of fierce contention among the apostles, and was settled only by the appeal to the fundamental law of Christian liberty, a signal illustration of the principle which we have laid down in the previous chapter. It was desirable of course to have the future church of Christ as able, physically as pure, and as cleanly as the ideal Hebrew was supposed to be. But desirable as these things were, and soundly established as they were in the theory and practise of Jews, they could not be imposed upon the Gentile Christians, be- cause they were not a part of the fundamental law upon which Christianity alone sought to appeal to the world for its salvation. In fact, precisely the contrary happened, which shows at once the nature of the motivation of Chris- tianity and its prompt and definite acceptance of the practical problems with which it was confronted. There happened just what has occurred on our mis- sionary fields in recent times. Paganism was sub- Health 271 merged in general debauchery. Not only were there no adequate restraints upon men, but the human body was not regarded in any manner which made the ap- peal to self-preservation in the slightest degree avail- able. Christianity met the situation by declaring that the body is the "temple of the Holy Ghost." This was a new phase and a totally fresh idea to the de- bauched and decadent pagan mind, and by its asser- tion on this point, Christianity became the instrument for social regeneration almost instantaneously, and that by the simple assertion of the spiritual nature of man. But even more than this occurred. The Chris- tians, seeing the prevailing license all about them, asserted their principle of the spiritual character of the body as the habitation of the Holy Ghost to such a degree, and with such emphasis, that it actually led to a reaction which undertook to make asceticism a special form of Christian virtue. Even in the New Testament, marriage was held to be a lower form of spirituality than celibacy, and great numbers of men and women hastened to enroll themselves in brother- hoods and sisterhoods organized for this purpose. The history of this movement forms one of the most impressive chapters in the development of Christen- dom. But its origin lies directly in the conception that there is a relation between religion and the care, nurture, and control of the human body. And this relation has never been lost sight of in the history and practise of the Christian church. It has made the material for some of the brightest and also some of the most sinister pages of Christian history. 272 Christianity and the Social Rage II It would be folly to suppose that the earliest Chris- tian teachers, indurated as they were with the Hebrew teachings on the subject of bodily care, with its at- tendant rites and observances and its exacting de- mands as to diet, sex relations, and sanitary procedure, did not see that universal celibacy would mean the extinction of the race. But characteristically they faced a problem, which, as appears even from the pages of the New Testament, was so important to the spiritual life of the church that they had to take decisive measures. Hence they did not hesitate to lean backward in their determination to fight what they saw, with horror and dismay, made spiritual reli- gion and social salvation impossible. But it would be equal folly to assume that they did not see here cer- tain interests which had to do both with the future of the church and the happiness and usefulness of the believers, which must be made the subject of discus- sion and reflection. The practical aspects of the mat- ter are fully discussed in the New Testament, and have formed the terminus a quo of the discussions in the Christian church ever since. But, even aside from all this, there were the sacred writings and the practise of the Founder. It is not necessary to hold any particular theory of the healing work of Christ to state that he was a healer, and that this portion of his ministry was so large a portion of it that no conception of his work in the world can ignore it. Whether it was of a supernatural charac- Health 273 ter, or whether it was the utilization by him of nat- ural laws unknown to his contemporaries, or whether it was through psychic influences not yet fully under- stood, the facts are undeniable. The tradition of Jesus must include his healing work as a large and effective portion of his ministry. It is impossible to separate Jesus the Healer from Jesus the Teacher. He must have been both, and this one fact is large enough and pregnant enough with significance to make some sort of a relation between the religion which he founded and the physical well-being of be- lievers, a permanent element in Christian thought. Nor has any modern science been able to shake this consciousness very much, though it has driven the expression of it into the dark corners and among the dernier resources of Christian necessity. But prayer for the sick, however explained, has always been made and is made now. When all other means have been exhausted, the appeal to God for help has not been wanting. That this should bring about, almost of necessity, a perpetual conflict between medical science and the teachers of religion is not to be wondered at. On the one hand, the teachers of religion saw one of their means of power and influence being taken away from them. It is not surprising that they did not willingly see themselves superseded in a field in which they had long held a monopoly. On the other hand, the lead- ers of science were men who loved to display their independence of what they felt to be ecclesiastical tyranny and superstition, and did not hesitate to make 274 Christianity and the Social Rage demonstrations which might easily have been identi- fied with moral anarchy. That their doctrines were revolutionary is not to be denied. The world is grate- ful to them for being revolutionaries even to the scaffold and the stake. But it should not strike the modern student as strange that they should have been regarded with anxiety and fear by those who saw the authority of religion threatened, and themselves cast away as custodians of the spiritual well-being of hu- manity. There are innumerable parallels to this in other fields of human action, and religion has no particular monopoly of persecution of what is new and strange. Medical annals and legal lore furnish all the evidence necessary to show that human nature is essentially the same, whether it operates in law, medicine, or religion. But the main fact is not altered, that such a relation as the one indicated was not only declared, but that time proved that the relation was real and vital. This is the important truth to be kept in mind. The Chris- tian adaptation of the Hebrew doctrine was of the kind which would distinguish the difference between the application of the same law under a theocracy and a democracy. When Christianity affirmed the holiness of the body, and when it designated the Christian church as the " body " of Christ, it made a confluence of ideas which made the thought of a therapeutic function of Christianity as inevitable as anything can be. Events and experience proved that the generalization which was first made as a protest against license, embodied a very fundamental human Health 275 concern; and the more the church experimented with the matter, the more it found that it had struck a lead which was destined to have great results in the moral and spiritual future of men. Without knowing it the early Christians struck the fundamental philosophical and practical problem of human life. Our own time is furnishing ample evidence that this relation was of the importance just indicated. There is to-day a world-wide cult which has linked together the names of Christianity and science. Lu- dicrous as this combination must seem to the scientific mind, yet the conjunction of terms is significant and wholly natural. Our age has had the word " scien- tific " as its distinctive epithet of intellectual freedom and illumination. Science has held sway in the uni- versity, on the platform, and in the legislative hall. Not to be " scientific " was to be beyond the pale of the intellectual movement of the age. Hence the cult promptly took on the term " science " as a challenge to the spirit of the age, and in the face of scientific ridicule and opposition has made converts in every land in the civilized world. Nor will it quite do simply to style this a new form of superstition. Natural laws have their revenges, like all other forces which are temporarily thrust to one side or unduly suppressed. What has happened is the reassertion of the primitive relation which modern science refused to recognize, and which it refused to give its proper place in the theory and practise of medicine. As- suming a purely materialistic attitude for the most part, medical science arbitrarily suppressed a relation 276 Christianity and the Social Rage which is as vital as any relation in this world. It re- fused to recognize that there is anything spiritual about the bodily life of men; and when the suppression had reached a point where it could no longer be en- dured, the outraged natural law broke forth, and what we could not have given to us naturally, we had to take unnaturally. There is nothing strange or unex- pected about it. It is a perfectly normal reaction from a condition which was impossible and untrue. But the cult in question has done more than merely erect itself into a position of prominence in the modern world. It has caused the whole question of the thera- peutic office of religion to be reopened, and has al- ready caused very material modifications of medical procedure, and is likely to cause more. The criticism of medical practice which hitherto was assumed to be the private business of medical men is now known to be the business of human beings everywhere. The re- assertion of a man's right to be the final arbiter over the affairs of his own body is what is being rediscov- ered, and the sentence of death is not going to be pronounced by anybody again, for a long period cer- tainly, without the patient's consent. And if the pa- tient be a person who has some sort of a spiritual con- ception of his own life and destiny, he is going to be increasingly unwilling to have judgments pronounced without reasons or explanations being given. That this contention is soundly grounded, medical evidence itself proves beyond the possibility of reasonable doubt. Medical chaos and crime have accumulated a mass of testimony, which is simply overwhelming in Health 277 proof, that a medical papacy is no more to be trusted than a theological one. The reason why medical au- thority could grow to the vast proportions and power that it has assumed in our own time is, that for the most part it meets men at a time of great need and helplessness, in fact, at the point when rational scrutiny and protest are least able to assert themselves. Moreover, it disguises its operations, generally in an unknown tongue, and buries its blunders and defeats under a mass of unintelligible jargon, which nobody not trained therein can comprehend. This could not result in anything but tyranny, and in fact it did so terminate. It was impossible that the modern mind should subject itself to this kind of bondage forever. It was also impossible that relief should come by a mastery of the medical science itself, in the terms in which it utters itself and declares its judgments. Hence the modern mind took the only way out pos- sible. It matched the finalities of medical science by the finalities of religion. In the more drastic forms of the revolt it threw medical science out of the win- dow altogether. It refused to deal with what had over and over again proved to be false, misleading, and even criminal. It pointed to the authentic rec- ords of the history of medical science itself. It raised up a vast cohort of " cured " persons who dumb- founded the world and medical science alike with their positive assertions of physical transformation with- out recourse to any of the " proved " methods of med- ical science. It awoke the latent skepticism of medical science abroad in the world, and organized it, and 278 Christianity and the Social Rage brought the whole world into a fresh consciousness of something fundamental that had been overlooked. In this juncture the medical men behaved just as the theologians have under similar circumstances. They saw their prerogative threatened, and they raged, ridiculed, and stormed. They called names and in- voked the law, and in fact exhausted the whole gamut of possibilities to suppress what they held to be the destruction of their science and a menace to human- ity. But all to no purpose. Bullying by medical men has gone the way of bullying by theologians. The facts were too widely known, the excesses of medicine too pronounced, and the materialism too gross and sensual to be denied. One of the first results of this movement was one which could hardly have been expected. The lesser members of the medical fraternity and the ones who had themselves latent feelings on the subject of reli- gion began to announce themselves and raise up their voices. To be sure they kept on using the old nomen- clature; but, in general, they tried to include the new relation under some medical formula and tried to ex- plain the new " phenomena " by the old medicine. In fact it was just like the effort of the old religious devotees, the primitive as well as later theologians trying to meet the new facts by the statement that they had always suspected some such thing and tried to make it their own. But the effort is likely to prove futile, because the break was too complete, and we shall see a bitter war of these two elements for a gen- eration at least. In fact so far has the movement now Health 279 gone, that there is a distinct resistance to many legiti- mate forms of medical science; and everywhere grim and dire rumors are heard of " medical monopoly," one of the most interesting of which is the opposition to a national board of health, on the ground that it is the establishment of a national monopoly in med- ical practice. Certainly such a board will have dif- ficult steering if it is to provide for the medical super- naturalists as well as all others. It is merely the fact which we are now noting, without respect to the rights or wrongs of the controversy. Why did this revolt from so well-established and so highly regarded a science as medical science gain such enormous headway? That is the main ques- tion. Men who believe in the law of cause and effect must know that there must be somewhere a sound and adequate reason for this world-wide protest, which, besides organizing itself and developing a vast propa- ganda of its own, has impregnated all forms of re- ligion and all classes of society. The answer is per- fectly clear when one looks at the question from the historical side. Christianity is reasserting the old doctrine that the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. It is reasserting the sanctity of the bodily habitation of the soul. It is extending its area of control and coming back to its Hebraic sources. Moreover it is doing this, because it found that the motive of self- interest was not sufficient to secure attention to these things. Men could not be induced to be pure in body, merely because destruction awaited them if they were not pure. But it was found that if they had any spir- 280 Christianity and the Social Rage itual sense of any kind, if that spiritual sense could be extended to control the mental and bodily life, the result would be secured. This simply means that men would do as religion what they would not do as science. It merely meant that a dynamic was found in spiritual conceptions which could not be found in materialistic persuasion. Perhaps this is the essence of superstition. But whether it is or not, it is real and vital, and nobody with a thimbleful of sense will deny it. Medicine, like everything else, must submit ultimately to the test and the corrective of the uni- versal experience. If this world-wide experience is to be styled superstition, the position of science is rather pitiful. What use has it made of its splendid opportunity, how has its almost unquestioned author- ity been used, that this should be the outcome of it all? What is the use of a " science " that throws the whole world into a spasm of superstition? Plainly either horn of the dilemma is painful. But there is no more reason for pessimism here than in the consideration of any other phase of social growth. Two forces of immense power are here act- ing in conjunction, and together they are usually ir- resistible. The first has already been indicated. The spiritual nature of man is finding itself again, and re- asserting itself under the influence of Christianity throughout the world. The democratic spirit, which is inherent in Christianity, is lifting men out of the sense of bondage, whether it is to a social program, a medical program, or any other kind. We are really in a kind of new reformation. The contempt for Health 281 popular intelligence which had reached its greatest in- tensity among medical men, with the legal men a close second, is bearing its natural fruit revolt. Human values have been raised, and the medical men knew it not. The spirit of democracy has found that the individual is a creature of vast value if he is property conserved. It sees that a very large part of this con- servation rests upon his freedom, especially his spir- itual freedom, and so, under the joint influence of re- ligion and democracy, health begins to be regarded not as an asset, but as an obligation. The moment health begins to assume a moral quality, the doom of materialistic science is sounded. Because it is abso- lutely certain that as soon as health is regarded as a personal moral obligation, its social nature will also become recognized, and it will become a public moral obligation. And, from this point onward, democracy is acting with entire consistency. It has hospitals, to be sure, and does not abandon the old science; but it taxes itself for playgrounds, parks, bathhouses, and a vast variety of things which it can comprehend with- out the aid of a medical dictionary. And the more it does this, the more it sees its ultimate emancipation from a bondage which, as freedom is attained, seems more costly, more cruel, and less valuable than ever. Ill These national health movements are therefore to be regarded as a part of the moral movement of the world. They rest upon a distinctly new conception 282 Christianity and the Social Rage of the value of human life and of its spiritual quality. More and more the forces of social redemption are seen to be linked with forces which are distinctly spir- itual in quality and character. It is this discovery that makes the social crisis which the world, as well as the church, is facing. It is so like the situation prevailing at the time the Christian religion faced the Roman Empire at the beginning of Christianity's career, that it is not difficult to see what the end will be. There will come a time for meditation, when all things have to be proved and that which is good pre- served, while the rest is cast away. How shall this come about? The answer is at hand; and, unless something unforeseen occurs, what is likely to happen is, that the Christian church will become the agency for the reconciliation of medicine and religion. By its character and by its constitution the one agency which can deal with this problem is the Christian church. Its vast numbers, its democratic nature, its simple and inclusive platform, its social life and aim, form the natural channels for the adjustment of the sound and proper relations of medical science and the spiritual aspirations and consciousness of men. This will never mean what it once meant medical science under the dominion of ecclesiastics. There will never be a " Roman Catholic " medicine and a " Presby- terian " medicine and a " Protestant Episcopal " med- icine. But there are, and there always will be, Holy Ghost hospitals and Presbyterian hospitals, and prob- ably various other kinds ; and all these will simply be reminders to medical science, that men will not have Health 283 their spiritual natures insulted, and fundamental movements of the human soul left out of the calcula- tion, in dealing with their bodily ills. Very likely a broken arm of a Presbyterian elder will not differ fundamentally from the broken arm of a Roman Catholic priest. But it may make, and probably will make, to both Presbyterian elders and Catholic priests, a very great difference whether the gentleman who comes to set that arm be a man who recognizes certain facts about human nature and the spiritual na- ture of man. And given the choice, he is already be- ing given a great deal more than he used to be, both the Presbyterian and the Catholic will prefer to have his trouble handled by somebody with whom he has some social interest in common. That is the funda- mental factor in the future of this matter. There is no argument here for the resumption of the mediaeval ecclesiastical control over medical sci- ence or any science. What there is here is the evi- dence that, as, in the non-Christian lands, the social expression of religion has taken on the form of med- ical assistance and supervision and has, in accord with the social tendencies of the time, magnified the spir- itual nature of social service ; so in this country there will grow a closer alliance between that form of re- ligion which speaks directly to the spiritual experience of men and that which speaks directly to his bodily condition. And it does not need a seer to predict that the medical science which speaks both tongues will be the one which will prevail. And it will prevail simply because it is more real, more vital, and more 284 Christianity and the Social Rage true to the facts of human life and experience. It will still be possible to say that a typhoid fever has absolutely no relation to the inspiration of the Bible; but it will make a difference as real as the rise and fall of the tides whether the man who is treating the typhoid fever is or is not hostile to the believer's ideas on the latter subject. Nor will this be at all in the nature of a theological test. It will simply be symp- tomatic of a state of mind, an attitude toward belief and faith, and faith will simply recognize itself; and, the common bond discovered, whether it be inspira- tion or the transformation of the sacrament is entirely immaterial, there will be a gain to all concerned. It will be simply because a social bond is discovered which will make for confidence, for dynamic power. The medical man can still have fun with himself about " placebos " and the like, but his fun will not be all his own. His patient will have some of it also. If he does not, his friends will have it for him. And all this will come about simply because the demand and necessity for some expression of the social tie will make the progress of genuine science more steady and more real. But this progress will be the surer because it has a corrective in the form of a demand for the recognition of the spiritual nature of man. It may be unreasonable and not altogether logically de- fensible. But it will be human, and perhaps it may not be so unjustifiable as at the first glance it ap- pears. The part which the Christian church will have in this movement will of course be very large. How Health 285 large may be guessed from the wick extent for the original movement referred to at the beginning of this discussion. But, with the increasing spiritualiza- tion of religion through the socializing and democra- tizing movement within its special sphere, its influence must also enormously increase, because religion will never be without a social institution to embody and express its aspiration. If the Christianity of the fu- ture grows more spiritual, it will more and more in- sist upon the spiritual qualities of its own nature, for the direction of those with whom it retains its influ- ence. In other words, it will come back to its original Hebraic doctrine. Its high priests, whether they be in the church or the medical school, will have to be men specially cleansed and specially capable in their functions, but they will have to be " priests " in their calling. They will have to maintain a character con- sistent with their high and spiritual function, because no man will be permitted to meddle with the temple of the Holy Ghost who does not know what such a temple is or ought to be. Those who hold a pigsty theory of the human frame will doubtless find their own kind of ministers, to abet them in their monstrous rites of bodily degradation and self-indulgence. But the spiritualized man will demand clean hands and a pure heart, in exactly the same sense as he now, the- oretically at least, demands it of his spiritual adviser. Medicine itself will be baptized in a bath of some spir- itual antiseptic, which will not divest it of one single principle which is true, one single discovery which is real, one atom of liberty for research which is hu- 286 Christianity and the Social Rage mane and just, or one resource which is consistent with the Christian estimate of humanity. No theological dogmas will be imposed upon it ; but, dealing with high and holy things, it must come with clean hands and a pure heart, as befits a priest of the temple of the Holy Ghost. It is impossible to contemplate this result without seeing, also, that it will have important effects upon the development of medical science and medical edu- cation. Already social service departments are being organized everywhere in connection with hospitals. Already " social welfare " appears among the subjects which are to have a place among legislative commit- tees. The present widespread agitation in connection with the social evil, the establishment of great founda- tions for the special investigation of sexual crimes and the diseases allied to them point the way toward the erection, in the medical school itself, of departments which must not only organize medical knowledge of these things themselves, but hardly less coordinate that knowledge with the social movement and find the point of communion and cooperation. That re- ligion must figure largely in this synthesis nobody can doubt. That the Christian church must be brought into the alliance for the effective enforcement of the new program is equally beyond doubt. Already the relation of this particular phase of medical investiga- tion is being related to industry. It will also be re- lated, even more than it already has been, with reli- gion; and, through this means, religion will become Health 287 more scientific, and the practice of medicine more spir- itual and refined, and the power of both made more effective in the life of the individual and in the com- mon standards of society. CHAPTER XI RELIGIOUS EDUCATION The requirement of civilization into which a child is born, determines not only what he shall study in school, but what habits and customs he shall be taught in the family before the school age arrives; as well as that he shall acquire a skilled acquaintance with some one of a definite series of trades, pro- fessions or vocations in the years that follow school; and fur- thermore that this question of the relation of the pupil to his civilization determines what political duties he shall assume and what religious faith or spiritual aspirations shall be adopted for the conduct of his life. W T. HARRIS, Report of the Committee of Fifteen on Elementary Education. CHAPTER XI RELIGIOUS EDUCATION THE present revival of interest in, and discus- sion of, the subject of religious education, may well be said to mark the beginning of a new epoch of Christian thought upon the question of the religious training of the young. It is epoch-making, first of all, because it points out with relentless clearness and tenacious reassertiveness the utter failure of certain scholastic programs to produce certain other religious results. It makes it evident that there is a very clear and unmistakable difference between religious and secular education. It shows that the progressive elimination from all public educational institutions of anything like definite religious teaching has resulted in a moral and spiritual decline, which all the optimism in the world cannot gloss over. It accentuates a re- lation between religion and morals which many have been fond of saying did not exist, and has produced a religious situation in the land which is as bewildering as it is disheartening. Moreover, it indicates that there is no present expectation of accomplishing any- thing by means of a general reformatory movement among the adult population. Nobody appears to think 291 292 Christianity and the Social Rage that either the habits of thought or the practices of the generations mature enough to think for themselves will be changed. By a common consent which is rather remarkable, every one turns to the young for a new order, and seems to hope that only in the edu- cation of the youth will a change be brought about. This skepticism concerning the mature mind, and this prevailing unbelief in the possible reformation of the adult population, is itself one of the most significant things about the whole movement. " Educate the young," is the universal rallying cry. " To the school and the college," is written on all the battle standards of the new crusade. Coincident with this general skepticism concerning the present governing adult population in the church, and allied to it, is a prevailing feeling of the incapa- bility of the clergy successfully to grapple with the question. The new movement generally looks not to the clergyman, but to the college professor, as its leader and inspirer. We know this is true, because the college professors tell us so, and because they alone appear to have the materials and the training by which the reform is to be successfully accomplished. The new movement is to be an educational movement. It is to have the form and the methods of education. It is to be allied pedagogically and psychologically with the most advanced ideas in these branches. It is to have scientific character and to be scientifically justi- fiable. Now the ministry, in general, is not held to be competent for this task. The present generation of ministers, it is said, has not had the opportunities Religious Education 293 which are absolutely needful for sufficiency in these things. The sciences which are supposed to create ca- pacity for this work have been developed so recently, and applied so lately to the question of religious train- ing, that there has been no time for the doctrines and methods to get into the pulpits of the land except in very rare cases. It is by no means an exaggeration, to say, that, in general, the feeling of the incompe- tency of the ministry for the new tasks of religious education is as wide-spread as is the feeling that the whole existing regime for the religous instruction of the young has hopelessly broken down. Indeed, the two opinions rest substantially upon the same facts. A competent ministry would not have permitted the present situation to arise. The deplorable inequalities of the prevailing methods of training the young, and the pitiful failure of the existing means for their in- struction in the fundamental truths of religion, prove the fact. The depressing situation and an incapable ministry are corollary facts. This, in general, repre- sents the situation in the minds of those who seem to be in the foreground of the new crusade. Perhaps it may be worth while to reen force this view of the case by quotations, which will lift the dis- cussion out of the realm of mere personal opinion. President Eliot, speaking before the Connecticut State Teachers' Association, urging more money for the public schools on account of their shortcomings, dis- tinctly enumerates drunkenness and gambling as hav- ing, in the main, not been diminished perceptibly by public-school education, and goes on to declare that 294 Christianity and the Social Rage the unpunished crimes, the abounding mass of bad or degrading reading-matter, the prevalence of medical delusions, the failure of city government, the general practise of divorce, the survival of the spoils system in politics, and a variety of other ills show conclusively that the American public-school system, certainly up to this point, has failed to keep down the growth of evil in the land. The southern belt of the country is still blood-stained with the ravages of lynching parties, whose revolting details cannot be repeated in mixed assemblies. Says President Eliot: "Our forefa- thers expected miracles of prompt enlightenment ; and we are seriously disappointed that popular education has not defended us against barbarian vices like drunk- enness and gambling, against increase of crime and insanity, and against innumerable delusions, impos- tures, and follies. We ought to spend more money on schools, because the present expenditures do not pro- duce all the good results which were expected, and may reasonably be aimed at." Therein the president of Harvard University states his view of the facts, and also what he considers the next step in the direction of improvement. It will be noticed that he does not dis- credit the theory that education will ultimately cause moral improvement, but merely suggests that the thing has been inadequately performed. But that the fail- ure of the school on the side of morals is palpable and beyond question, he affirms without hesitation and with abundant citation. Now it must not be overlooked that this arraign- ment of the public school is at the same time an ar- Religious Education 295 raignment of the churches of the land, for these also have had their opportunity ; they, too, have spent abun- dant money, and have been carrying on vast enter- prises which were supposed to emerge in the moral and spiritual enlightenment of the multitudes. If the facts are as President Eliot presents them, then the Christian churches of America cannot escape their measure of responsibility for the existing situation. Indeed, it is the recognition of this fact that has led to the religious-education movement which we are now discussing. In the secular field, President Eliot says, it is the lack of expenditures which has made the schools morally inefficient. In the field of religious education, notably in the Bible schools of the land, in the main it is charged to an incapable ministry, which in turn has produced incapability through the whole educational machinery of the church. It is worth while to mention, simply in passing, that, among the propositions which the president of Harvard Uni- versity brings forward for the betterment of the sit- uation in the public schools, is one which has to do with pensions for teachers, and various other proposals which shall give to the teacher greater security, more permanent tenure, greater peace of mind, and other conditions sine qua non to effective teaching. If these are needful for power and efficiency in teaching, what shall we infer as to their necessity to the preacher and pastor? To show that the president of Harvard University is not alone in his opinion, let us cite the testimony of another eminent educator, who represents a totally 296 Christianity and the Social Rage different type of thought. Speaking on the subject " State Education : Its Rise and Present Standing," President Jacob Gould Schurman, of Cornell Univer- sity, after reviewing the conditions prevailing in the public schools of the land, closed his estimate with the following paragraph : " Here then is the situation as I see it. The schools at present do next to nothing for moral culture, and nothing whatever for religious training, which is in- dispensable for the energizing of moral culture. Yet these ends are all-important. In Germany and in England they are legally assigned to the schools, as they were also by the Puritan founders of the New England commonwealths, and in China they form the most important object of all education. Our schools are criticised for this notable deficiency. The teach- ers, in my judgment, are not qualified to meet it." Here we have, not only the judgment expressed as to the conditions with which we have to deal but we have the important addition, to the estimate of the conditions, that the teachers are not qualified to meet the emergency which is thus thrust upon them. It is interesting to note that, as a partial remedy for this state of affairs, Dr. Schurman proposes the coopera- tion of the churches, and to introduce religious train- ing into the public schools through the introduction into the schools of the ministers of all denominations according to the proportion of the students who choose their teaching. Dr. Schurman, expanding what we have already quoted, adds here also an interesting testimony, which Religious Education 297 certainly cannot be supposed to proceed from any in- stinct of religious conservatism, or from any particu- lar fear of radical or destructive teaching. It wiU be seen, in the passage we are about to cite, that sev- eral things are distinctly affirmed ; namely, the essen- tial difference between mere academic instruction and religious teaching, the general inability to link the two successfully together, the power of personality as the supreme factor in religious teaching, and the neces- sity for authority, that is substantially the requisition for a kind of conviction in the teacher which is the assertion of a superior and effective authority for the message imparted. Says President Schurman : " The school provides intellectual instruction ; it is neither a state church nor reformatory. For this moral and spiritual vocation the teachers have neither the necessary aptitudes nor credentials. Much as I am devoted to the public schools, and greatly as I ap- preciate their democratic spirit and the discipline they furnish in prudence and the minor virtues, I do not want the teachers either as priests or moralists for my children and that though teachers be proficient in their work and of character irreproachable. " Do I then disparage moral and religious instruc- tion? Far from it. That men be pious and good seems to me more important than that they be edu- cated. And I am firmly persuaded that children are trained in goodness, not by any study of ethical text- books, but by contact with good men and women and also through the awakening of the sentiments of duty and righteousness by means of direct religious teach- 298 Christianity and the Social Rage ing. In children, as indeed in the generality of man- kind, morality without religion is in constant danger of degenerating into expediency and convenience: it lacks both support and authority." There is probably not a single intelligent observer of the situation as it exists in this country at present, who has thought along these lines for any considerable period, whose convictions these words do not express with substantial accuracy. II In discussing the possibilities of the new educational movement for religious education, it is to be noted that there is here a demand for a scientific training which shall be in accord, as the statement goes, with the peda- gogical and psychological principles which govern, or are supposed to govern, in other departments of in- struction. In other words, scientific instruction is to be the norm by which religious education is to be judged and carried on. Now it cannot be regarded as irrational opposition to the proposed program, if we raise the question whether there is not a vital dif- ference between scientific education and religious edu- cation which renders the methods of the one subject to more or less variation when transferred to the other. Scientific teaching of chemistry or geology is possible, undoubtedly. We raise the question, Is there no fun- damental difference between the scientific method em- ployed in teaching chemistry or geology, and that necessary for teaching religion? Religion here must Religious Education 299 not be confused with the history of religion, observe, or even the Bible ; for the external facts of the Bible, or the history of religion, or even church history may be taught utterly without any bias, or even the slight- est personal interest, on the part of the instructor. But it is religion we are to teach, and it is religious instruction that we are to seek. Moreover, religious instruction here is not to be confused with ethics or the teaching of moral maxims. Let us steadily keep in mind what we have in view, namely, religious in- struction. Is there no essential difference between the method and fundamental requirements incident to the teaching of chemistry and those required in religious teaching? To ask this question is itself in part to an- swer it; but, nevertheless, we will answer it directly. Professor Trowbridge, of Harvard University, has lately given us the determinate quality of scientific knowledge or experiment. It lies, he says, in the qual- ity of " repeatableness." A genuine scientific experi- ment, says Professor Trowbridge, is one which any one suitably skilled, and with suitable appliances, can reproduce at will. This takes it out of the region of individual opinion, caprice, or point of view. This is what makes it " science," and everything that has the character " scientific," has, as its determinate char- acteristic, this quality of repeatableness. Now we know this can be done in chemistry, geology, or any of the recognized sciences. Is a purely scientific dem- onstration from this point of view possible in religion? Can religion be scientifically taught, keeping in mind what the professor in physics at Harvard says is the 300 Christianity and the Social Rage determinate quality of a scientific experiment or method ? Moreover, scientific education takes no account of personalities. The professor of physics or chemistry or geology may, or may not, be personally admirable or otherwise. He may be agreeable or disagreeable to his pupils. On the moral side he may be abso- lutely neutral, without vitiating the scientific author- ity of his instruction, or the validity of his conclusions in his particular field of inquiry and instruction. But is this true in religion? Or has the personality of the instructor a value, in the department of religion, which it has not anywhere else? And is not this value an educational value; that is, one that gives greater or less validity to the method and material of instruction? To ask this question also seems to be answering it ; for, if there is anything that seems to be settled, it is that the personal element in religious teaching and work is so largely the predominant element, that orthodoxy and heresy are becoming almost exclusively matters of personality. At all events, certain personages are allowed to hold opinions and express them which are not tolerated in others, and the judgment of most coun- cils and other bodies which have to do with authoriz- ing teachers of religion, takes more account of what they call " the spirit of the man " than they do of the special doctrines he holds. They somehow seem to feel that a right spirit will ultimately teach the right things. Of course this is exactly along the New Testament line that, " Whoever will do the will, shall know of the teaching " ; but of this circumstance at Religious Education 301 present we take no account. The main fact to be noted is, that almost universally the personality has not only force, significance, and authority in the mat- ter of religious instruction, while it has absolutely none in scientific teaching, but that such personality is the supreme and often decisive element, almost to the ex- clusion of many other important elements in such in- struction. If there is an exception to this contrast, it is in the science of pedagogy. We are not aware whether pedagogy is or is not yet properly a science; but, if it is, it is a science in which provision must be made for the personal element. Pedagogy and personality are so inextricably linked together in the teacher, that it would be exceedingly difficult to know which was which. The most successful teachers, as a rule, are not able to define exactly what it is that gives them their success; just as the greatest preachers seem un- able to explain satisfactorily to intending candidates for the pulpit, what it is that gives them their power. Certainly, when we discuss the science of teaching, we introduce a personal element which must qualify, if it does not often invalidate, whatever scientific in- struction may be given in this department. The difference which is here brought to view is, in the judgment of the present writer, fundamental and vital. There is a large measure of difference between scientific and religious instruction which rests upon data, materials, and facts of personality which makes what is sound and effective in one sphere, only ap- proximately so in the other. Whoever states he has 302 Christianity and the Social Rage a scientific method for religious instruction, therefore, either cannot mean what the clearest-headed men of science mean by scientific method, or else ignores ele- ments which in religious teaching cannot possibly be ignored, or fails to make proper and absolutely neces- sary distinctions between religion and the mere ex- ternal data by which religion expresses itself to the world. But there seems to be no escape from the con- clusion, even most superficially viewed, that, where there is religious instruction in the true sense, the para- mount authority and effective dynamic lies in the per- sonality of the instructor. Nor is this the whole argument for the view that there is a significant difference between the method and factors of scientific and religious teaching. It is asserted that active identification with the cause of re- ligion by a teacher of philosophy, the branch of knowledge with which pedagogy and psychology are most closely allied, is a distinct hindrance to efficiency in this department. Professor Royce, of Harvard University, read lately, before the American Philo- sophical Association at Washington, a paper on " The Attitude of Teachers of Philosophy toward Religion," which, after stating that such an attitude should be " frank as it is conciliatory, as judicially critical as it is reverently earnest, as free from dogmatic presump- tion as it is from indifference," has the following pas- sage : " For the rest, I am glad when, under the condi- tions as they exist to-day, the philosophical teacher's convictions are such that he sees his way to avoid all Religious Education 303 connection with any sect or form of the visible church. I say, I am glad of this result when it occurs ; because, first, I am persuaded that a personal relation to the visible church has to-day a value which concerns chiefly the man engaged in certain practical philan- thropic tasks. These tasks are indeed of utmost so- cial importance, but they form no part of the philoso- pher's peculiar and special social function a function that I have already characterized. I like to see the philosopher devoted to his own business. And, sec- ondly, as I hold, the philosopher, by holding aloof from the visible church, helps himself to maintain in him- self, and to display to his students, that judicial spirit which I have insisted upon as his special possession. The mass of mankind cannot cultivate this judicial spirit, except as a mere incident of their practical life. The philosopher has to make it his professional busi- ness, and I think, therefore, that he gains by an avoid- ance of relation to the visible church, just as a judge gains by declining to be a party man. To the invisible church the philosopher, if loyal to his task, inevitably belongs, whatever be his opinions. And it is to the invisible church of all the faithful his loyalty is due." Thus science and philosophy unite in making con- ditions which are practically impossible in religious in- struction. Scientific teaching demands that what is taught must have impersonal veraciousness, capacity for repetition, utterly without relation to the personal element in teacher or pupil, no concern for moral qual- ity or defect in either, and purely responsive to an academic standard of physical or intellectual truthful- 304 Christianity and the Social Rage ness. Philosophical teaching, according to one of its most eminent representatives in America, gains in judicial spirit and poise by holding aloof from all organized religion in the form of any visible church. As religious teaching properly viewed cannot produce the first condition, it must necessarily remain outside the sphere denominated scientific. As it must almost necessarily be allied to some form of the visible church, it must lose philosophical poise and the judicial spirit. Is anything further necessary to show that religious teaching and secular, or what generally may be termed scientific teaching, are two things, in which there are certain deep, fundamental, and ineradicable differences, which cannot be glossed over, and which are palpable, permanent, and must be taken into ac- count in any serious and fruitful discussion of the mat- ter of religious education ? Ill We have shown that there is a far-reaching and fundamental difference between the method which is involved in dealing with the factual material of scien- tific phenomena, and that which takes into account the personal quality of the teacher, which is so predomi- nant in the religious sphere. We have indicated, with reasonable clearness, that this difference is recognized best by those who are clearest in their outlook, and whose judgment is least controlled by merely external conditions. There is the difference indicated. The question now is, What is its cause? Here again we Religious Education 305 must not be dogmatic or persumptuous. There may be more than one explanation, or there may be many elements in the true explanation. We propose now to give an outline of one possible explanation of the difference, which may or may not be the right one, but which is at least entitled to consideration on its merits. If, as we have shown that in the matter of religious instruction, the personal quality counts for more than any other single quality, it is worth while to inquire if one line of explication may not lie in the difference of end to be achieved by the contrasting methods and points of view. What, for example, we may ask, is the end to be achieved in making a given experiment in chemistry? Is it the transmission of so much knowledge of the physical world? Is it the cultiva- tion of a form of intellectual approach to the phe- nomena of the world, or is it the attainment of a men- tal discipline which will result in a well-developed, all-round intellectual life? Probably most educated men would say, that, except in special cases, where the aim is original research or teaching, the chemistry which the average student is taught, partakes of all three of these elements; all, however, culminating usually in the general purpose of giving a thorough discipline of mind and an academic touch, which shall make for a reasoning and reasonable life. This is in general the end of education. When it has more added to it, it becomes technical or special education. But for the most part it is to produce reasonable and reasoning characters. The aim, therefore, of all such 306 Christianity and the Social Rage instruction, is academic discipline. Now is this end the one which we are accustomed to think of as that in which religious education is finally to emerge? When we think of religious instruction, do we think first of an all-round reasonable approach to the world, or do we think first of a definite special alliance of heart and purpose with God, out of which shall come a holy and a godly life? Probably the scientific in- structor would say that a reasonable life is such a life. But is it? Is a scientific view of life and the world necessarily a religious one, or one that has duty, love, and sacrifice as absolutely necessary elements? Again, religious instruction almost invariably and almost necessarily allies itself with institutional life of some kind. Certainly, if there is to be a Bible school, there must be a church to maintain it. And if a church is to maintain religious instruction, that in- struction must contemplate, as one of its certain re- sults, a constant inflow into its ranks of those who are thus instructed. Is not this the fact? Would the great mass of the teachers in the Bible schools of the land go to their work as they do, voluntarily, and without compensation, and often at the cost of time, strength, and sacrifice, which such work faithfully per- formed requires, were there not behind it the hope that those thus taught would take their places in the Christian church, and help thus to perpetuate the teaching, the inspiration, and the faith which the Christian gospel inculcates? Now this aim of itself must count for much in the instructor ; and the degree with which he sees the relation of his instruction to Religious Education 307 the future of Christianity in the life of the world, is usually the degree of his efficiency in his chosen form of Christian work. Of course this is propagandism. But all missionary work is propagandism ; and, unless we are prepared to affirm that all missionary work is to cease, we must hold that the spirit of propagandism is a necessary element in religious teaching. And is not this expressly enjoined in the New Testament? What else does the command, " Go ye into all the world, and disciple all nations," mean, if not this? We think that the difference of aim between the form of instruction which contemplates merely the perfec- tion of the individual life on the side of its own ap- proach to an understanding of the world, and that which regards the subject-matter of its teaching as life-giving and fundamental to happiness and joy in the world, to say nothing at all about the question of relation to Jesus Christ, may account for a good share of the difference between these two methods of teaching. But there is a deeper reason, and one which is much more satisfying; namely, that the religious teacher is endeavoring not so much to discipline, that is train, as to create, life. He is working not in the factual region of data, but in the spiritual region of motive. He must, to be sure, deal with facts, but only as facts suggest motives, and as motives lead to decisions which involve creative purposes and personal trans- formations. To point out the evils of selfishness with all the abounding illustrations which are lying about everywhere, is a very different thing from creating 308 Christianity and the Social Rage the motive to adopt an unselfish life. The one may be done by a selfish person, one with only a slender equipment of unselfishness. But whosoever would move men to be unselfish, or teach children and youth to be such persons, must not only show the evils that follow in the train of selfishness, but illustrate the un- selfish life also and at the same time; and the latter fact gives the teaching authority and power. This is true in the area of simple ethics. When we come to the sphere of religion, the thing is tenfold more im- portant. To convey the idea of relationship to God, sonship in fact; to show the joy of such a relation, and its power and worth in life, requires not knowl- edge first, but godliness as the primary equipment for successful teaching. We take it that most of us still believe that men turn to God under the persuasion of the Holy Spirit, and that it is the Spirit that " con- vinces of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment." Is not the teaching of the Bible, for example, with the hope that those taught will be impressed sufficiently to become the proper and obedient subjects of the Spirit's teaching and guidance, a totally different object from that we have described as one of academic discipline? And is not the difference a world-wide one in content, outlook, form of procedure, and general spiritual ex- pectation? Why is it that we feel it just and right, and altogether fitting, to pray on beginning such a task, while we cannot but feel a certain incongruity in asking God to cause certain chemical reactions to take place, or certain geometrical propositions to prove true? What is there about the teaching of a Bible Religious Education 309 lesson that makes the devotional attitude artistically exact, and that renders the same attitude with refer- ence to a problem in surveying, ludicrous? Is it not that, under one form, the teacher's own relation to God is a part of the task, and that the vital and im- portant part? We cannot but believe that the spiritual equipment of the teacher of religion which equipment is not an academic, but a devotional or spiritual, product is of the first and most far-reaching importance in the discussion of this whole problem. It is the confusion of ideas alone that raises the hope that mere revision of academic method will lift us out of our Slough of Despond, and set us upon the highway of effective re- ligious instruction. Thoroughness of identification, on the part of the teacher, with the ultimate things which he seeks to see produced in the life and char- acter of his pupil, is the first and the greatest object to be achieved in any really effective reformation among us, in the matter of teaching religion. The view here expressed has lately found utterance in the singularly clear and felicitous discussion of some of the fundamental moods and facts of life by Carl Hilty in his little volume on " Happiness, Essays on the Meaning of Life." Professor Hilty is the pro- fessor of Constitutional Law in the University of Berne, Switzerland, and has no particular school of theology or philosophy in mind. Speaking simply as an observer of life and life relations and influences, he remarks on the subject of idealism and religion: " No one becomes an idealist by being taught about it or by 31 Christianity and the Social Rage reasoning concerning it. Nor is this so strange as it might seem, for the very trustworthiness of the human reason itself is proved to us only by experience. The very truths of religion remain unproved unless the moral power issues from them which provides their proof. That which has power must have reality. No other proof of reality is final. Even our senses could not convince us if our experience and the experience of other men did not assure us that we could not unconditionally, but under normal conditions trust them not to deceive. That which brings conviction to one is his experience, and that which rouses in him the desire and inward disposition to believe in his own experience is the testimony of others who have had that experience themselves." Here we have a per- fectly lucid and untheological statement of what most men know to be the facts concerning themselves, and in it the element of a believing and experienced per- sonality is seen to be the supreme factor, not merely in the matter of the religious experience itself, but in the sustaining of confidence in the human reason, which is its ultimate court of appeal. This again is true, because it springs from the qual- ity of disinterestedness, which lies at the base of all genuine religion. This quality allies religion much more with art than with science or philosophy; and, for this reason, poetry and song have been the favorite vehicles for the truest expression of genuinely reli- gious ideas and emotions. A recent writer on this subject has a passage which, to our mind, is suggestive in the extreme : " What message has Shakespeare, Religious Education 311 Milton, Dante, Virgil, or any true poet ? The message we have the power to draw from him, and no two of us will draw the same. Art is a circle ; it is complete within itself; it returns ever upon itself. There is no great poetry without great ideas and yet the ideas must exist as impulse, will, emotion, and not lie upon the surface as formulas. The enemies of art are re- flection, special ideas, conscious intellectual processes, because these things isolate us, and shut us off from the life of the whole, from that which we reach through our sentiments and emotions." Substitute for " art " the word " religion," and it remains almost as true. It is the same author, Mr. John Burroughs, who says : " Teaching literature is like teaching reli- gion. You can give only the dry bones of the mat- ter in either case. But the dry bones of theology [he might have added literary and historical criticism] are not religion, and the dry bones of rhetoric are not lit- erature. . . . From every art certain rules and prin- ciples may be deduced ; but the intelligent apprehension of these rules and principles no more leads to mastery in that art, or even helps in the mastery of it, than a knowledge of the anatomy and the vital processes of the stomach helps a man to digest his dinner, or than the knowledge of the gunsmith helps make a good marksman. ... To be a fiddler you must fiddle and see others fiddle; to be a painter you must paint and study the painting of others; to be a writer you must write and familiarize yourself with the works of the best authors. Studying an author from the outside by bringing the light of rhetoric to bear upon him is 312 Christianity and the Social Rage of little profit. We must get inside of him, and we can only get inside of him through sympathy and ap- preciation. . . . The laboratory way may give one the dry bones of the subject, but not the living thing it- self." Insert here in the appropriate places the words " religion " and " Bible," and you have a pretty truth- ful record of how most of the effective Christian work of the world has been done, and is being done. Sym- pathy and appreciation, which are personal qualities springing from personal experiences of like character, form the basis of effective Christian teaching, and in fact of all religious teaching. And these are not taught by academic processes. They are the product of that continuous activity of the Spirit of God in the hearts of men by which truth is revealed as truth, and is translated into life and service. IV Every educated man, and in fact every man who is intelligent enough to be familiar with the intellectual and scientific movements which are now in progress, knows that in the matter of. education there is a so- called atmosphere, which is one of the most powerful elements in the whole business of education. Every university has an atmosphere, which makes or does not make for certain things. This is the reason why, from time to time, as the old graduate goes back to visit his alma mater, he is very severely tried to find that the spirit of the place has so completely changed that he often feels sorry that he came. The atmos- Religious Education 313 phere is different. The things which were uppermost in his time have vanished, and other things are su- preme. Now this prevailing temper, or point of view, is the real point of departure of all education, and especially of religious education. The young student goes to college with all his home-bred habits of steadi- ness, self-restraint, and sobriety. He finds very soon that the practises with which he is surrounded, and the standards by which he is judged, are very much broader and less exacting than those with which he was formerly acquainted. Gradually his own stand- ards take on the qualities of those which prevail around him. He does not consciously abandon any idea which he held before, or deliberately vacate his views on given questions of morality or conduct: he simply extends his practice to fit those who are in constant contact with him, and makes the doctrine which he held before sufficiently elastic to include his present practises. Now this is exactly the procedure which has taken place in the last twenty-five years in the religious life of the nation. Many a man who would fight with all his might to-day for his ortho- doxy, in practise nullifies every fragment of moral standing-ground upon which it rests. The vocabulary of morality and religion has greatly increased, and brought into the sphere of quasi-religion many things which are only forms of philanthropy; in fact, so much is this the case, that many, like Professor Royce, think that the only good reason for belonging to a church is the attainment of some practical philan- thropic aim. Severe thought the church no longer ex- 314 Christianity and the Social Rage acts of its worshipers. But this is not all : it makes no more severer drafts on faith or behavior. And this general extension of what is, so to speak, religiously tolerable, has produced a religious demoralization which has made an atmosphere in most churches which is itself the greatest bar to religious teaching of any effective kind. Some years ago the late Mr. E. L. Godkin, editor of the New York Evening Post, wrote an essay on the subject " The Church and Good Con- duct," in which, stern, unyielding logician that he was, and relentless pursuer of shams as well, he stated some things from the point of view of a mere observer of men which may be interesting to theologians. It should be said that for theology Mr. Godkin had the supremest contempt. He could hardly speak with re- spect of the ministerial profession as regards its claim to intellectual recognition and worth ; but he saw some things steadily and clearly enough, notwithstanding. Speaking of the Unitarian effort to make Christ's in- fluence and authority rest on his moral teachings and example " without the support of a divine nature or mission," he says that the attempt has " failed. The Christian church cannot be held together as a great social force by his teaching or example as a moral philosopher. A church organized on this theory speedily becomes a lecture association or a philan- thropic club. . . . Christ's sermons need the touch of supernatural authority to make them impressive enough for the work of social regeneration; and his life was too uneventful, and the society in which he lived too simple, to give his example real power over Religious Education 315 the imagination of a modern man who regards him simply as a social reformer." Speaking further on the moral decline of the church, and especially its loss of moral authority, he adds these very impressive words : " Church-membership ought to involve dis- cipline of some kind, in order to furnish moral aid. It ought, that is to say, to impose some restraint on people's inclinations the operation of which will be visible and enforced by some external sanction. If, in short, Christians are to be regarded as more trust- worthy, and as living on a higher moral plane than the rest of the world, they must furnish stronger evidence of their sincerity than is now exacted of them in the shape of plain and open self-denial. The church, in short, must be an organization held together by some stronger ties than enjoyment of weekly music and oratory in a pretty building 1 , and alms-giving which entails no sacrifice, and often is only a tickler of social vanity. . . . The practise of the church will have to be forced up to its own theory of its character and mission, which would involve serious collision with some of the most deeply-rooted habits and ideas of modern social and political life. That there is any immediate probability of this we do not believe. Un- til it is brought about, members must make up their minds to have religious professions treated by some as but slight guarantees of character, and by others as but cloaks for wrong-doing, hard as this may be for that large majority to whom they are an honest ex- pression of sure hopes and noble aims." It is the serious judgment of the present writer, 316 Christianity and the Social Rage that this quotation touches the sore spot which we are trying to heal to-day by means of a new system of instruction. The question is not fundamentally one of intellectual method after all. It is a question of moral demand and of spiritual power. The modern church has in it little of the atmosphere which is itself an education in benevolence and righteousness. It lacks the great force which comes of numerous majes- tic spiritual natures who are giving the visible evidence that their religious life is something more than weekly aesthetic enjoyment, and appreciation of the efforts of a body of earnest men to steadily extend for them the area of the enjoyable things of life into which they may come without loss of Christian status or charac- ter. The one thing which must impress every careful thinker on this subject is the paucity of the require- ments which are made for membership in the church. In fact, it is not too much to say, as Mr. Godkin in another paragraph does say, that " of late years the church has been making a gallant effort to provide accommodations for the successful, and enable them to be good Christians without sacrificing any of the good things of life, and in fact, without surrendering anything they enjoy, or favoring the outside public with any recognizable proof of their sincerity." This attitude of the church itself is a vastly greater factor in the problem of religious training than are any mere changes of method, or the introduction of new principles of pedagogy, or even changes in the conception of the psychological elements of religion. Character is built up, and moral strength comes, by Religious Education 317 being compelled to do those things which are not spe- cially pleasant, and which are outside the domain of aesthetic enjoyment. The modern theory of the reli- gious life seems, for the most part, utterly to ignore this fact. It seems to imagine that the world has neither interest nor right in calling for proof that protestations of religious devotion are sustained by sacrifices in life. It was no careless, thoughtless man who made the observations just quoted, but one of the strongest intellects of the generation just passed away. The theory of the religious life itself needs to be re- examined; but we need to discover, first of all, just what the nature of the religious life to which the young are to be led is, and what its practical demands and bearings are, before we set about a new form of the Sisyphean task of rolling this great human prob- lem up the hill of intellectual theory again, only to have it roll down upon us once more. The young will feel the impulse and the power of religion tenfold more in a single example of sacrifice on the part of their religious instructors than in all the theory and method in the world. A daring personage, the other day, questioned whether the church as constituted to- day was a suitable place to teach the religion of Jesus Christ. This was, of course, startling, ill-mannered, and severe. But certainly the contrast between the theory of the church and the actual life of the church is marked, impressive, and uncomfortable. It is this contrast that nullifies the undoubtedly biblical, faith- ful, and sound teaching of many pulpits. It is this failure to provide the working model which makes all 318 Christianity and the Social Rage our appeals of none effect, and more than all creates the atmosphere alien to the growth of religion: The distressing and unquestionable fact is, that many of the church people are not religious people. And many churches are not properly churches, but Sunday audiences which, in general character and re- spectability, are somewhat above the average, but gov- erned by essentially the same ideals, and ready to enforce about the same standards, that are applied to the theater, the concert, and the lecture platform. If the services give pleasure and are enjoyable, all is well. If they become too severe either intellectually or in moral demand, or too uncomfortable in their search- ingness, the average church-member holds that it is his alienable right to go where more satisfactory condi- tions prevail. That this has its effect upon the vast body of the Protestant clergy, who are dependent upon the good-will of the congregation for support, is beyond denial. And it is this fact which has brought about the religious and moral decline, which has now reached the secondary stage of crass ignor- ance, on the part of a large body of the constituency of the Christian church, concerning the Bible, Chris- tian doctrine, and in fact all that makes for a distinc- tive religious, as contrasted with a worldly, life. To hope that this situation can be remedied by better in- struction in the Bible, even by the most enlightened methods, is in our judgment a great error. To sup- pose that it is a question entirely of theological view is equally foolish. Where there is a genuinely sac- rificial life enacting in the full view of mankind, no- Religious Education 319 body cares whether it is governed by a broad, a liberal, or a conservative theology. Few people care to know whether the man thus illustrating his religion is of one denomination or another. Not many are dis- turbed even if he has numberless personal eccentrici- ties, if these are seen to have no bearing on the main question. It is the union of teaching and life that tells the story, and that persuades. It is teaching by example which, after all, is the most effective teach- ing known to man. The factor of the spiritual life and habitual moral and religious tone of the church, as furnishing the medium in which religious ideas are absorbed, is more important even than the factor of a strong religious personality. V There is another feature of the discussion of this subject which quite curiously seems to be left out of most of the utterances concerning it. It is the rela- tion of instruction and advocacy in the matter of reli- gious teaching. The prevailing theory of religious teaching seems to be, that the facts of religion, and especially the facts of biblical history, can be taught in a perfectly dispassionate way, and that this is reli- gious teaching. But, as a matter of fact, this is not religious teaching, and cannot ever become such. Nor is the principle which is implied in this statement con- fined entirely to the domain of religion. In Mr. Web- ster's great speech on Samuel Dexter, he uses these words : " He had studied the Constitution that he 320 Christianity and the Social Rage might defend it. He had examined its principles that he might maintain them. . . . Aloof from technicali- ties, and unfettered by artificial rules, such a question [one of constitutional law] gave opportunity for that deep and clear analysis, that mighty grasp of princi- ple, which so much distinguished his higher efforts. His very statement was argument. His inference seemed demonstration. The earnestness of his own conviction wrought conviction in others. One was convinced, and believed, and assented, because it was gratifying, delightful, to think, to feel, and believe, in unison with an intellect of such evident superiority." This is one of the most interesting pen pictures of a great man by a man, as a recent writer has remarked, who was himself the embodiment of precisely these things. Mr. Webster is here dealing with a great student and expounder of constitutional law. He was himself foremost among Americans in this same field. It is, therefore, doubly interesting to notice the elements upon which Mr. Webster lays stress in the matter of securing assent and allegiance for the the- ories of the Constitution for which Mr. Dexter stood, and for which Mr. Webster himself stood. Notice, first of all, that the great advocate accentu- ates the motive which governed Dexter in his study of the Constitution and its underlying principles. " He studied the Constitution that he might defend it." This is no accidental choice of words. Mr. Webster knew exactly what he meant when he chose the word " defend." Now the teaching of religion, Religious Education 321 in a peculiar and exceptional sense, requires just this element. Religious opinions, and especially religious faith, are always in danger of assault by the careless, the unbelieving, and the ungodly. It is notorious that no opinions in this world have to run the gauntlet of indifference and hostility to the degree that religious opinions do. Therefore it requires, in a peculiar and exceptional sense, an underpinning of conviction girded with weapons of defense. If a great consti- tutional lawyer was great in the interpretation of the federal Constitution because the motive power of his study was the defense and the maintenance of the principles which it contained, it is of tenfold more importance that those who teach the Bible, and under- take to give religious training to the young, shall speak out of a conviction and an attachment which amounts to advocacy. Of course this opens one to the charge of partisanship or sectarianism to a greater or less degree. But the alternative, as we have al- ready shown, is Professor Royce's no-churchism. Religious teaching requires, for effectiveness, belief in the doctrines taught, and anxiety that they who are taught shall not merely get information, but shall ac- quire conviction. Who cares how eloquently the orator sets forth the party principles if the votes are not won? Who cares how exquisitely a text may be expounded or the historical setting may be displayed, if the net result is to produce people who simply stand twirling tidbits of unusual information around in their minds, and, while always learning, never arrive at a 322 Christianity and the Social Rage knowledge of sufficient truth to enable them to iden- tify themselves with the cause of Christianity in the world ! Observe again, if you please, the vocabulary which Mr. Webster employs in speaking of Samuel Dexter's persuasiveness in his pleading : " One was convinced, and believed, and assented." Is not this the language which we habitually employ in religion ? Is it not the supremest purpose of all Christian teaching to con- vince, to cause to believe, and to win assent? And if, as Mr. Webster says, conviction, namely a position to maintain and uphold, is necessary to secure these results in the law, how much more true is it in the matter of religion! The attitude of intellectual catholicity in these matters is the merest pretense. Men cannot be colorless in religion. Convictions are convictions precisely because they have color, and are differentiated from other convictions. The idea that religion can be taught, or that anything but the barest facts of religious history can be taught, without at the same time having in the teacher a great passion to win the pupil to his own view and to his own atti- tude of obedience and reverence, is as absurd as to imagine that merely to cause a sick. man to look at a prescription is to take effective measures for his res- toration. Oftentimes the prescription of the spiritual physician may also be in a foreign language. But just as often the taking of the medicine brings spir- itual health and strength. Surely the phenomena of various wide-spread and current superstitions among us ought not to be lost upon us. Surely we ought to Religious Education 323 have learned by this time that giving expositions and treatises upon the various elements of religion is not inculcating faith, or producing the conditions ante- cedent to a religious life. The objective point in religious instruction is to convince: that involves advocacy. Its purpose is to secure belief: that involves conviction. Its aim is to gain assent: that involves faith in the thing ex- pounded. And this advocacy is of paramount impor- tance. It might, once for all, be accepted as a truth, that most people never will attain the judicial attitude described by Professor Royce; or, having attained it, will be happy, useful, or religiously inspired by impar- tial aloofness from the church and her fellowship and ordinances. This everlasting attitude of neutrality, this eternal balancing of probabilities, is both prac- tically useless and logically defective. This interroga- tive attitude in the schools has sent forth a type of men who cannot be relied upon in any emergency to grapple decisively with the great facts of life; and the whole municipal situation in the United States proves it. It has sent forth moral indeterminates ; and the facts in the change of the character of the criminal population show that. It has sent forth as allies and substitutes for the grafter of low degree, the grafter of high degree, whose veneer of civiliza- tion has been but the effective disguise for deeper iniquity and greater shame. We are not advocating now any particular theory either of religion or the- ology. The bigotry which has characterized the lit- eralists of other days, is in some ways more than 324 Christianity and the Social Rage matched by the bigotry of the literalists of our own day. The vocabulary of scholastic vagueness and un- certainty has grown tenfold faster than has the de- velopment of scholastic announcement of effective principles. We appeal from the indeterminate dis- penser of religion, to the advocate of the Christianity of Jesus Christ. All religious teaching involves ad- vocacy, belief, conviction, and determination to win assent, as conditions sine qua non of power and per- suasiveness. We have the authority of the foremost name in the history of American constitutional law, that this is true in that sphere. It is vastly more true in religion than it ever can be in the law. Better far indefensible doctrine with a brave heart and an un- swerving faith behind it, than a defensible doctrine with a wavering, insecure, dilettante proclaiming it. We plead for conviction in teaching. We do not now discuss the quality or the character of the conviction. Let those who hold one class of theories take them bravely, faithfully, and aggressively into the school- room, the Bible school, and the pulpit. Let us have determinate, intelligible teaching from men who be- lieve in their teaching. Let those who hold other theories do likewise with theirs. By their fruits shall ye know them all. We do not believe that the inde- terminate attitude can be successfully maintained in many of the sciences. But whether that be the case or not, it is certain that religious teaching must have behind it religious conviction; that the teacher of reli- gion must be an advocate for the thing which he is set to teach. If this means that he is classified and Religious Education 325 limited as to range and area of power, then that is simply saying, that what he loses in extensiveness, he may gain, and usually does gain, in intensiveness. But it is as clear as noonday that we must teach the Bible, to maintain its principles; that we must speak out of such warmth, such belief, such love, and such faith, that, to use Mr. Webster's phrase once more, the earnestness of our conviction shall create convic- tion in others ; that men may be convinced, may believe and may assent, because it is gratifying, delightful, to think, to feel, and to believe with intellects of such evident superiority. We may not convince them of our intellectual superiority, but it is our great privilege and our unquestionable purpose to prove to them the superiority of the belief and faith by which our own lives are governed and regulated, that they may seek it for themselves. The instruction which has no ad- vocacy behind it may be academically sufficient. It will never be religious instruction until to it is added a passion for winning adherents and allies. VI From what has already been said, a few general inferences and working principles on the general re- lation of academic discipline and religious teaching may be gained, which may well be made the basis for further thought on the subject. They are offered here, not as finalities, and not at all as embodying any- thing other than a certain measure of experience and observation in the matter under discussion. They 326 Christianity and the Social Rage represent, however, so far as they go, what we think every working minister can verify in his own parish, and what every Christian worker of even the most limited experience knows to be approximately true. 1. It may be laid down then, first, among the infer- ences and conclusions from what we have said, that no amount of academic discipline in the materials of religious knowledge necessarily emerges in religious instruction. This is one of the fundamental differ- ences between the methods prevailing in general be- tween the study of the sciences and training in reli- gion. Biblical knowledge does not carry with it ex- perience of the religion of the Bible, and, ipso facto, biblical instruction is not religious instruction. It obviously requires something more than the materials of religious knowledge, and something more than his- torical data and linguistic equipment, to produce capacity for adequately and effectively inspiring in students and others the spiritual desires which ulti- mately result in the religion of the Bible. Hence effort along this line, while useful and instructive for other purposes, gives us no substantial hope that in this direction shall we find light upon the perplexities involved in the need and general craving for religious education. 2. The disciplinary function in a religious educa- tion is always subordinate to the element of repro- ductive personality. That the teaching of religion has a disciplinary side, no one would care to deny. But that it is always subordinate to the element of personal love and quality of character as operative Religious Education 327 forces, is also beyond question. Here again we have one of the essential contrasts between the method of the sciences and that of religion. Experiments in chemistry or mathematics may be repeated without regard to moral or personal qualities of any kind whatever. There is no need for communion between the student and the teacher, either in local conditions, moral outlook, or relations of life. All these are of imperative importance in teaching religion. Chris- tian teaching involves the elements of spiritual fellow- ship and mutuality of spiritual interest, which, being absent, cause a void which nothing else can supply. The Christian personality is the first and most impor- tant equipment for effective religious teaching. 3. Religious instruction takes account mainly and primarily of the discovery of the dynamic motives in character building. Academic discipline, even with the materials of religion, looks first at the covering of a given area of intellectual effort. The teaching of the sciences raises no question as to the individual aims or purposes of the student. No university ever discusses the question of the moral uses to which the knowledge acquired at the university shall be put, or endeavors to inject a moral or spiritual motive into the knowledge thus dispensed. Religious teaching does this at every point, and cannot proceed a step without doing so. Christianity is first a spiritual mo- tive, and then a philosophy of life. The motive makes the life, not the life the motive. The teacher of reli- gion is in the sphere of motive-production, not in the attitude of a religious analyst. When he is a Chris- 328 Christianity and the Social Rage tian teacher, he is in the sphere of the operation of supernatural powers also. 4. Religious instruction contemplates, as a direct and constant end, the alliance of the subject of such instruction with the institutions of religion, because religion is essentially social in most of its expressions. An engineer may construct an engine which another may govern and direct. An architect may erect a building which another may inhabit. But the build- ing of a religious habitation by any one, involves that he shall inhabit it himself. The teacher of religion may not say: Yonder is your habitation; go into it. He must be able to say: This is your home; come into it; and must reside there himself. Religion, with very few exceptions, has not existed, except under social forms. The few experiments which are other- wise in quality and character have simply proved the rule, and have rarely survived the individuals who gave them birth. Christianity contemplates a church. A church contemplates a fellowship. A fellowship requires, as its basis, a communion of faith expressed in a covenant. This practically makes religious teach- ing different in kind from all other instruction, in re- quiring a faith capable of social expression for its successful teaching. 5. Among Christian people, the supernatural ele- ment of teaching, namely, the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, cannot be left out of the consideration of the problem. Shall it have any place? If so, what place other than the first and supremest place? Any rea- sonable or intelligible adhesion to the teachings of the Religious Education 329 New Testament would seem to imply that, among Christian people, the greatest source of dependence for the teaching of the message of Jesus Christ lies still in the power of the Spirit of God. These, then, are some of the reflections which we have to offer on the general theme which we have been discussing. We share, with all earnest thinkers on the subject, the great anxiety lest the truths which have been brought to us through many ages, shall die with us, because of our inability on the one hand, or our unwillingness on the other, so to master them that we may be made the suitable instruments in the hand of God for the proper dissemination of his truth. Let us at least patiently hear all that can be brought to us from whatever source. Let us not be stampeded from the common sense which has always been the stronghold of the church's effective service in the world. Above all, let us, in faith and prayer, prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. CHAPTER XII UNIVERSITIES AND SOCIAL ADVANCE The American college or university stands for social ad- vancement as well as for intellectual discipline. The university is the gateway through which democracy passes to the refine- ment of its strength. Universities in the older countries assume for the most part certain social qualities which are here in the making. It is impossible to ignore the peculiar responsibilities which must be borne by the higher education in a country which is still new. WILLIAM J. TUCKER. Two things are essential for the production of men with vigorous virile ideas on moral questions : First, such clear, ra- tional instruction in regard to ethical matters, that lawyers, physicians, clergymen, journalists, publicists, politicians, and business men looking back to their university life will say " I owe much to the instruction of my university for the views I hold upon public and private moral questions." The second thing that is necessary for the existence of this ethical life in the character and views of university graduates, is such a per- sonal influence in the character and personality of the teacher himself that the inner life of the student will be awakened and the conscience made responsive. W. F. SLOCUM. The Christian gospel is the only sufficient basis and inspiration of moral training. ... I believe that the presidents and faculties of our universities should address themselves with renewed earnestness to the task of creating and encouraging a deep and serious sense of the value and importance of religion in the minds and hearts of their students; for true religion is the foundation and safeguard of true morality. THOMAS F. GAILOR. CHAPTER XII UNIVERSITIES AND SOCIAL ADVANCE I PROFESSOR WILLIAM JAMEiS, addressing the Association of Collegiate Alumnse at Rad- cliff College in 1907, near the close of his address made use of these words : " It would be a pity if any future historian were to have to write words like these : ' By the middle of the twentieth century the higher institutions of learning had lost all influence over public opinion in the United States. But the mission of raising the tone of democracy which they had proved themselves so lamentably unfitted to ex- ert, was assumed with rare enthusiasm and prosecuted with extraordinary skill and success by a new educa- tional power, and for the clarification of their human sympathies and elevation of their human preferences the people at large acquired the habit of resorting exclusively to the guidance of certain private literary adventures, commonly designated in the market by the affectionate name of ten-cent magazines.' " If almost anybody but one of the most gifted men who has inhabited the college precincts of Cambridge for many years had made this speech, there would have been a contemptuous shrugging of shoulders on 333 334 Christianity and the Social Rage the part of the illuminati who reside there and there- abouts, implying another appeal to the galleries. And some did actually thus shrug their cultivated shoulders and sniff that anything or anybody could or should destroy their influence. But William James has in these many years created so large and powerful an influence and following that recent utterances of the apostle of a superior class * seem like a belated sur- vival of another age beside the sane and human utter- ances of the psychologist who has discovered and dared to proclaim that humanity has a soul and a heart as well as a head. But Professor James's utterance was itself a trifle late, and the historian of to-day, while not able to say just what this conjectural future historian might say, is able to affirm that the premier influence in the American mind is no longer that which springs from the universities and colleges, in spite of the enormous increase of their endowments and students. He is able to say that in the last fifteen years no single cherished American institution has lost much more in the public esteem than the univer- sity. He is able to say, that a distinct and growing chasm exists between the public mind and the univer- sity habit of mental approach which is sure to have lasting and determinate results in the development of American character and the democratization of American education ; that sooner or later there will be a revolution of opinion on the subject of university 1 For a classic example of the mixture of trifling and social ignorance and dilettantism, see Professor Barrett Wendell's " Privileged Classes," Boston Transcript, February 5, 1908. Universities and Social Advance 335 education; and that the facts which are now upper- most and regnant in the public mind, and which are demanding the rigid application of democratic stand- ards of judgment and approach to every other insti- tution and practise, will also finally require that the university shall conform. There is no idea which has had larger force with the American public in the past century than the idea of the value and power of education. The worship of the public school has amounted almost to fetichism and the nai've expectation that a trained mind will be able to do almost anything and bring the kingdom of God forthwith still lingers among the choice supersti- tions of the American intellect. Not that it has not had certain rude shocks, especially lately, and that gradually it is filtering into the common mind that mental training is only one kind of training, and that what is called an educated man is a man who has, as the case now stands, one point of view of life, and usually only one, and that a very narrow and very distorted one, crammed into his brain; that the so- called educated man has a bundle of prejudices which make him, as well as the uneducated man, an unfair dictator of the social life and purposes of the multi- tude. In other words, education so-called is seen to be merely one form of life, and that it may, under its most favorable conditions, not only not make for so- cial advance, but may make for social deterioration; that it may destroy the activity and building up of the social conscience; that it may elevate false moral standards, and enthrone viewpoints which in their 336 Christianity and the Social Rage .logical development forbid social advance; indeed, that the university may itself be the last stronghold f of social injustice, and that every such institution not subject to popular control is a danger-spot in demo- cratic life; in short, that a university which is not allied to the public educational system, and subject to public inspection and regulation, may be the worst kind of a social force in the community, and infinitely more dangerous to the moral health of the nation be- cause it hides its real effects under the fair name of education. II One of the most interesting and suggestive symp- toms of the possibilities in this direction may be found in the increasing natural alliance between the male- factors of great wealth so-called and their criminal associates and the universities of almost every name and kind throughout the land, except those under public direction and control. The almost continuous story of crime among the very wealthy men of the great corporate and other organizations of the coun- try discloses also that these names are also those which figure largely and most frequently in some form of endowment and giving to the great colleges of the land. In this way, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and others are at this moment using money which is known to have been amassed by thieves robbing in some instances the widows and the orphans. Some of these foundations actually bear the names of the thieves who thus sought to divide the proceeds with Universities and Social Advance 337 alma mater, and who, till they were discovered, were welcome in all that was loveliest and best in the official university life. These are names we used to see at the official and social assemblages as among the men the university delighted to honor and put forth as the representative product of the college, " sons of the college who had done well," as a professor of Chris- tian morals felicitously put it on one occasion. Since these " sons of the college who have done well " have been discovered to be among the most expert and abandoned criminals in the land, has the college has- tened to disown her sons who had not only not done well but ill ? No, indeed ; she has serenely kept close to her other sons of great wealth who have not yet been discovered, and has deplored " savage attacks upon capital " and other frightful depredations against society. N6r is this alliance of the criminal rich with the uni- versity accidental. The university itself has become a financial institution with a huge capital and with a huge fund which must be made and kept productive. It must buy stocks and bonds and make investments, and this of necessity allies it with the financial in- terests. It does not require very clever thinking to see that the financial interests of the university lie along the pathway of the financially influential and prosperous. Under the most favorable conditions it is easy to see how the paramount influence in the uni- versity readily becomes a financial influence, and that the habit of deference to expert financial opinion (even though later it proves to have been the opinion 338 Christianity and the Social Rage of railroad wreckers and common gamblers) soon becomes the university habit. The very legitimate character of much of this intercourse opens the way for a constantly increasing power by the financial in- terests over the university authorities. Then, again, when the competition becomes stronger, and the uni- versities enter, as they have entered, upon one of the fiercest contests ever known, namely, for size and en- dowment and equipment, and millions are needed, to whom shall they go but to the millionaire exponents of high finance? Now it happens that we have lately seen that high finance is for a large part corrupt! We have seen that men honored in church and uni- versity and academic council have exhibited a char- acter status which differs in no way, except in degree, from that of the common thieves and burglars who fill the common jails. Some of them have had the strength of mind to get themselves out of the world, to the world's betterment. But their beneficiaries the men who feted and dined and wined and honored them, and ate their dinners, and honored them with degrees they are still in the universities, and they still stand as sponsors for the intellectual leadership of American youth. Can this continue? Obviously not. Nothing but the most absurd discrediting of the simplest abilities of the average man can hope that such an institution can have niuch influence with the public mind ; while, as for " raising the tone of democracy," such a suggestion simply fills the air with laughter. The apologist may come forward at this point, and Universities and Social Advance 339 say that the universities have no supernatural means of knowing who is honest and who is dishonest. Certainly not. But it seems they have no better pow- ers of observation and judgment than the common mass of men either. It is their very specialty which is impeached, namely, to discern the tendencies and influences which are at work among men, and to guide the less illuminated multitude in the pathway of sound discrimination. Professor James says that " the best claim which a college education can possibly make on your respect, the best thing it can aspire to accomplish for you is this: that it should help you to know a good man when you see him." The italics are his own. But have the universities shown any particular prescience in this respect? Have they known the good men of high finance from the bad men? Why then are so many of the most discredited names linked to university foundations and lectureships and other university functions and privileges? If Professor James is right, the universities have failed at the very heart to do the thing which he thinks is the one thing they should enable men to do. But they have not only failed in this, but they have given the high seats of honor to the corruptors and thieves who happened to be rich. Ill Leave now the sphere of financial alliance between the university and the criminal rich, and enter the political sphere and see what the relation is between the notorious beneficiaries and representatives of po- 34-O Christianity and the Social Rage litical corruption in municipality, state, and nation, and the colleges. Here again we are confronted with a state of affairs similar to that which prevails in finance. The university, which ought "to know a good man when it sees him " and teach its students likewise, not only does not go behind the returns, but flies in the face of obvious common knowledge in bringing to its platform men who are known through- out the length and breadth of the state and nation as political corruptors. The influence behind this, how- ever, it must be admitted, is that the corruptionists are such because they are allied to and usually repre- sentatives of the predatory interests also; and since these through their financial representatives have com- manding influence in the university counsels, they easily and readily influence in the appearance, in honor, of their political agents, it may be in the United States Senate, it may be in the House of Representatives, or some lesser office. To gain the recognition of your university in public life you need only what you need with the lowest politicians and strikers, namely, win. How you win and what means you use are overlooked in the fact that you actually won. Probably if you win twice you will be a marshal at commencement parade, and if you win several times you may become an officer in the university. That you slaughtered the morals of a whole congressional district, and made bribery and drunkenness and debauchery the rule at the humblest cross-roads throughout the district, is of no consequence at all. The university should know a good man when it sees him, but apparently Universities and Social Advance 341 university morality, that is, official recognition moral- ity, is made by winning, whether in a stock exchange gamble or a political debauch. Men who are now in middle life can recall the days when the great civil service reform revival called into being and utterance some of the finest political idealisms this country has ever known. How the university was stirred by them, and the undergraduate youth felt nothing so thoroughly, and longed for nothing so steadily or finely, as to be allied with these majestic men whose note of civic purity was like a gospel in politics. It was a gospel in politics, and nothing less! Contrast that epoch with the march of the bribe-giving and perjured public officers throughout the academic halls. Compare it with the men who sit in the seats of the mighty at commencement and pass out platitudes to the undergraduates, men whose pathway in public life is one long streak of moral degradation and shame, but who, having the powers of finance behind them, were able to win. Why has the college man in pol- itics become a hissing? Because the college man has been found to be like other men except that he brought exceptional talents to the work of political jobbery, and was able to avoid the dirtiest of the dirty work by hiring men to do it for him. Take, for example, the Essex district of Massachusetts, and we have, as the representative in Congress, a son of Harvard Col- lege, who is there by the most shameless and demoral- izing debauchery that could possibly prevail in any district in the land. Language cannot do justice to some of the results of this debauchery, which was 34 2 Christianity and the Social Rage open, shameless, confessed, has been denied by no- body, and is beyond refutation or apology. Yet in the election this person was able to bring to his sup- port, in his fight for reelection, when decency was in revolt, an ex-governor of the Commonwealth, three attorneys-general of the Commonwealth, three con- gressmen, one United States Senator, a Justice-elect of the Supreme Court of the United States and finally a letter from the President of the United States, though not a single one of this great aggregation of forces had one syllable to say in refutation of specific, detailed, and particular charges of debauchery and corruption which were brought on the platform every night against the man whom they were helping to reelect. Probably no district in the United States had so great a force of notabilities sent into it. And the striking thing about it is, that they were all college men, from the President down. They were the col- lege output as it operates in public life, and each and every one of them knew that the charges were made, and some of them in private admitted them to be true, but felt the pressure of political necessity, the shame- less incumbent being the son-in-law of a United States senator, also a distinguished Harvard alumnus, and frequently honored by his alma mater. This was the one thing which university training and university influence ought to have made impossible. Yet it was university men who were assembled to maintain and perpetuate, as they did maintain and perpetuate, a situation which is as absolutely one of criminal pros- titution as can be found in American public life. In Universities and Social Advance 343 other words, the university influence and environment acted here just as it did in the matter of the represen- tatives of high finance. The bond was as strong, for this criminaloid congressman was also a rich man, and the social tie to the university that made the Hyde lectures also made the university influences rally to the support of the political corruptionist. For twenty years the favorite public man at Yale University was the man who is now among the dis- carded public men of the nation, and who misrepre- sented New York in the Senate of the United States. But apparently Yale was no better able "to know a good man when it saw him " than Harvard. The speeches of this particular man were wont to be ex- ploited by the university as among the finest type of the Yale product in public life. But just where does the discovery that he was not only a hypocrite, but a thoroughly corrupt and degraded man, leave the gen- tlemen and the institution, who were proud to put forth this particular man as the finest product of the Yale theory of education in public service? If they say they did not know and had no supernatural means of information, then they must abdicate with the dis- tinguished company at Cambridge all ability of know- ing a good man when they see him or having any better powers in this direction than less educated peo- ple. The truth, however, is far simpler. He repre- sented wealth. That was his open sesame. He represented power and high finance (stolen from wid- ows and orphans too), but the university had to have its alliances with the powerful, and university invest- 344 Christianity and the Social Rage ments must be kept productive! How ridiculous has the scholar in politics become! There is a favorite story among Tammany men of a college man who came to Tammany, and, till they knew him, they re- spected his supposed scruples against the lower forms of political procedure. When they knew him they felt differently, and one of them, speaking of this par- ticular man, said, " By , that fellow is the limit. He made a new record for me." And the present writer heard the man thus referred to say, with cynical indifference to the opinions of the college bred, when he was asked what they might think of his choice of means and alliances, " I don't care a d what they think. All I need, to be cheered next com- mencement, when I go back, is to win." And right he was. And he went back, and was introduced as the victorious hero of many a hard- fought political battle, and cheered to the echo at the university. His name had been dragged through the mire, and he was guilty of political debaucheries without number, open and unconcealed, but his college honored him! Did the college know or had success made right? Every one knows, who has thought about it at all and has observed university practise in this regard in recent years, that the university has simply either shut its eyes entirely to the means by which its eminent grad- uates have become rich or has taken their financial success as the measure of their moral status. And the university as an institution has been in alliance with political corruption in exactly the same way as it has been in alliance with corrupt finance. Universities and Social Advance 345 IV A distinguished New York lawyer, the Hon. Ed- ward M. Shepard, addressing the Illinois Bar Asso- ciation in 1907, began his address by saying : " We American lawyers who are not already moralists, as by virtue of our office all of us ought to be, must be- come moralists right soon if the profession is longer to hold the powerful place in American public life which has traditionally belonged to it for a century and a half. . . . We must frankly confess that the American lawyer has lost some of his preference and prestige in political life . . . the profession has to remember that its ability practically to influence the masses of men in their affairs of politics and state, depends upon the measure of popu- lar belief in its devotion to the general welfare of those very masses and upon the measure of popular belief that lawyers are not, whether by money retainer or by in- grained habit of thought, dedicated to the service of narrow, special or selfish interests." Here you have a restrained and careful statement, by a leader in his profession, of the status of his pro- fession in the public mind from his point of view. It is entirely optimistic. If any one but a man of Mr. Shepard's standing and power were speaking, he would say that the American lawyer has well nigh lost his position as mentor to the American masses, ex- cept when they are forced to resort to him as a power by which they can meet the exactions of some other member of the same profession. It is no exaggera- tion to say that any assumption of ethical interest by 346 Christianity and the Social Rage lawyers in the practise of the profession, would in any club in the country produce a convulsion of derisive laughter. And it is even less subject to the charge of exaggeration to say, that the vast mass of the people outside professional circles do not regard the mass of lawyers as honest men in the sense in which a clerk working for an employer has to be honest or lose his job. Now it is not necessary to affirm this to be the fact. The truth probably is, that honesty is just as certainly existent among lawyers as among clergy- men, doctors, or business men, probably no more, no less. But that there has been a distinct decline in professional influence and standards Mr. Shepard has brought out, and many others have again and again stated the same thing. Of the decline in professional ideals among clergymen, we have already spoken, and it is also not the purpose to discuss the decline of professional ideals among lawyers. The mere fact is the important thing in this discussion. And the dis- tinguished barrister of New York puts his hand quickly upon the cause, namely, when he says that, popularly, legal powers are supposed to be for sale to the highest bidder, and legal abilities can be pur- chased for every kind of rascality for which legal abilities are employed. Nor is this now a matter of conjecture. Even the lay mind can easily see in the story of the traction frauds in New York City that they would have been impossible without the leader- ship and skilful manipulation of the leading lawyers of that city, names which figure among the foremost names in the nation's intellectual life. Now it is fair Universities and Social Advance 347 to say that the legal profession is among the most sensitive to university opinion. It is therefore also true to say that, if these gentlemen who represent the highest development of the legal profession had had the slightest intimation that their standing as lawyers and gentlemen would have suffered at the academic centers, by reason of their serving these representa- tives of high finance (they are the constant factors in the problem), and performing these acts which allied their brains with the robberies, the trickeries, and the frauds, which these men committed, they would have hesitated to render these services. But they knew perfectly well that they stood in no such danger. They were cognizant of the fact that the university authorities were in intimate relationship with the same men for whom they were providing the legal means for duping thousands of innocent in- vestors, and were thereby estopped from criticising them, the mere employees of the financial interests whom the universities were themselves courting. Every one connected with professional life knows that a few leaders make the standards for the whole pro- fession, and that just as soon as it was seen that the leaders of the bar in every city had placed their tal- ents at the command of the predatory corporations and other corrupt interests, the ideals of the profes- sion began to sink, and they have been sinking in the legal profession for twenty years. Just at the present moment the prosecution of many of these interests, made necessary by the breakdown of the colossal framework of fraud which had become too topheavy 348 Christianity and the Social Rage to sustain its weight, has brought into the foreground a breed of men who seem to be differently fibered. But this, for the moment, is also the pathway to public recognition and preferment, and before its real value to the profession can be estimated it is worth while to wait. The outstanding fact, as the matter now stands, is, that the country has had before it the evi- dence that the profession upon which it has most to rely for the making and maintaining of its laws has been for the most part sold to the highest bidder, and has furnished to interests now known to be corrupt, vicious, and thoroughly dishonest its choicest intel- lects for the period of the last twenty years. Now what was the relation of the university to all this? It was the relation which the academic center, which is the heart of professional life, sustains to the ideals of the profession. If the profession had even in the slightest degree supposed that by accepting com- missions to obfuscate the public and cheat the courts by such performances as characterized the handling of the traction roads in New York City it would incur academic condemnation, there would have been a pause instantly certainly by the men highest up in the profession. But did the heart of the professional life, did the mother of professional ideals, send out to her children any note whatever of how she felt about these things? On the contrary, these lawyers have been the men she has called back to her halls to indi- cate what a successful lawyer is like, in other words, the custodian of the professional ideal gave over her custody to the same interest to whom she had given Universities and Social Advance 349 her material interest, and thus she completed the cir- cle of her own shame. Having accepted the bounty of the corrupt, she was bound to condone the practises of those who served them. Many young lawyers have told the present writer that this fact of the pur- chasability of the best legal talent for any use what- ever was the most perplexing ethical question before them, and was constantly raising distressing questions of personal honor and uprightness. Professional ideals are made in the university, and are as surely the product of university opinion as is the education which makes .the professional life itself. It is therefore fairly chargeable to the want of sound opinion at the universities that the legal profession has steadily declined in power and usefulness and prestige as regards the higher forms of American life and so- cial development. Indeed, as regards this particular profession, though mutatis mutandis, the same thing is true of every other profession, the culpability is specially great, since the law has so much to do with social advance of every kind. The administration of the courts and the general attitude toward laws and law-making is itself one of the greatest of social forces, and its contamination may therefore be said to be a matter of particular importance. If the men who are to interpret the laws, and who are to make the public opinion which prevails in respect to its judgments of the relation between the administration of the law and the administration of justice, lose their sense of the social significance of these things, the loss is something almost too fearful to contemplate; and 350 Christianity and the Social Rage this, in fact, in some cases has actually happened. The insurance thieves, for example, had been so forti- fied by legal opinions and legal advice that it is not hard to believe that some of them thought they had a perfect right to do the things which they did. In- deed, in almost all the exposures of great corruption in recent years, the curious thing is, that step by step it was given legal basis, and, in the final acts of some of these cases, it was found that the tracks had been so carefully covered, that, while all the facts were known, skilful reservations and ambiguities made criminal incarceration and conviction impossible. And thus the public has seen the legal profession at its lowest, the highest talent employed for the pur- pase of enabling thieves in high finance to avoid the consequences of their crimes; while lesser men were unable to employ such talent, which they could not afford, and therefore went to jail. But partnership in this regard by the university cannot be avoided. The school had a duty and a voice in this matter. She uttered no voice, and she abandoned a duty, and she honored her abandoned children to the exclusion of honester men. Upon the university a large share of this riot of crime rests. It will afford an interesting contrast, however, to turn from these attitudes and alliances of the univer- sity to the state of mind which has prevailed at the academic centers with reference to the general social Universities and Social Advance 351 advance as represented in the movement of the social body toward a larger and a finer life. It would be interesting to know what, if any, meliorating move- ment of the last twenty years has received the spon- sorship of any university, especially one that affected any "interest" in any appreciable degree? The last twenty years have seen remarkable advances in the conditions of workmen, in the operations of charity and philanthropy. It has seen great movements to- ward larger liberty and toward the greater restraint of the strong in their grasp upon exclusive privileges; and, indeed, for twenty years the distinctive note of modern society has been the greater equalization of the opportunities and enjoyments of life. In other words, society has set itself to abolish privilege, by whatever name it calls itself, and has set to work res- olutely to break down every form of injustice which it can lay hands upon. This has become so much the movement of the best spirits of the time that it con- stitutes a kind of chivalry of the period, and has en- listed more heart and soul and sacrifice than most people not a part of the movement can imagine. Out of the universities themselves it called a choice group of youth who bravely grappled with the terra in- cognita of the other half of the world, and undertook to know it and to serve it. It practically created a new profession. It injected a kind of poetry into modern life, and began a career of social discovery which is not ended yet. It began with an attitude of humility and self-abnegation which was itself a kind of romance, and simply gave itself to the careful ob- 352 Christianity and the Social Rage servation and study of the masses of mankind, with a view to serving them and helping them. Now as a matter of course many of these social pioneers were university men and women. But the university did not teach it to them, nor did the university encourage them until the thing had reached a stage where the imagination was appealed to, and each university had to have a pet social settlement to exploit as one of the evidences of " what our university does for the less favored," etc. But from its beginnings and its earliest developments, this was a human movement that began with passion, fire, and with love. It has grown until it has a thousand activities. It stimu- lated a thousand new forms of itself, and has over- leaped all its original bounds, and is now operating in ways which the original promoters could not possibly have anticipated. In short it has created the modern social uprising, the insistent demand for real democracy. It is at this moment the most vital thing in life among Americans. It is the idealism of America reappearing in forms of social advance and social emergence. Now such movements in the olden times were the outcome of the university spirit and teaching. But synchronously with this movement what has the university as an institution been doing? It has been standing for conservatism, falsely so- called, it has been holding up the hands of the brigands of society, it has been accepting and growing on the endowments of public plunderers, and has made the university the bulwark of the predatory interest. It made its special bids to the millionaire, however crude Universities and Social Advance 353 or vulgar, and left many of its honest sons without the recognition or help of the academic friendship in the battles for justice where justice was obviously on their side. Indeed, in the last twenty years it has been the most effectual bar to academic recognition to stand for any popular interest, and the public and the uni- versity interests have practically become things over against each other. In other words, the battles of democracy have gradually revealed, that, in so far as the universities had to be reckoned with, they had to be reckoned as on the side of the intrenched injustice and the moneyed brigandage of the land. That this is not violence in statement may be readily seen by looking over the names which have figured in the academic recognition of the last twenty years, and those which have figured in the discredited financial operations of the same period in so far as these have been laid open to the public. The Hyde dinner which finally brought the rupture which let in light on the Equitable Insurance scandals had university presi- dents, men of light and leading, present, giving the weight of their academic presence to what is now known to have been the wild orgy of a thief. Of course they did not know ! But there stands the fact that the university dignitaries were present, and they did not, apparently, know a good man or a bad one when they saw him. But even this could have been forgiven, if the uni- versity had not gone farther, and ventured to brand the men who looked for a larger life as enemies of public order, " anarchists," and other undesirable per- 354 Christianity and the Social Rage sons. They undertook to rebuke the men who cried out against the now acknowledged social injustice, and undertook to throttle the social conscience just as it was beginning to make itself felt in the wider public relationships of men. Was there a more an- archistic assembly held in the last twenty years than the Hyde dinner with its luxury, its extravagance, and its wanton waste, while society was groaning with injustice and pain and shame, and millions were hun- gry and travailing over the ills of life? Every man who was at that dinner should have known, the uni- versity heads especially, that underneath that luxury there was groaning a mass of human misery, that should have shocked and awakened them. But the university, the stock exchange, the railroad clique, and the insurance gang of looters were all at one at that assembly. The social conscience there was non- existent. No wonder men held their breath!- No wonder a shudder of fear ran through the country as thoughtful men began to contemplate the effect of these things upon the masses. And the uprising of these masses was stimulated even more. But there stood our alma mater smiling beside the looter and the grafter, and bestowing her fairest awards upon the successful enemies of the social whole. If this seems an overdrawn picture, let the reader just quietly go to the library, and look over the records of the past fifteen or twenty years, and see what has been happen- ing, and see what the attitude of the university has been to the social uprising; and then let him wonder why the last place to which the masses turn, " for the Universities and Social Advance 355 clarification of their human sympathies or the eleva- tion of their human preferences," is to the university. VI President Eliot, in his address already referred to in a previous chapter, in 1902, on " More Money for the Public Schools Because of the Failures and Shortcomings in American Education," enumer- ated a number of these shortcomings and the relation of public education to them. It was an interesting exhibit and the conclusions were for the most part fairly drawn, though allowances were not made for certain complexities and forces which inhere in the nature of public education which do not or ought not to affect education under private auspices and control. A private institution, for example, may, and in gen- eral does, prescribe the conditions and qualifications of those who seek its benefits. The public schools cannot make such distinctions. Barring known phys- ical and moral defects which can be justifiably brought to the attention of a public tribunal, the public schools have absolutely no option as to whom they shall re- ceive, and cannot go behind the returns as to ante- cedents, environment, or other conditions affecting character and habits. A private institution, on the other hand, can do all of these things; and, if it does not do them, it is because of neglect on its own part, not because it has not the powers for such control and inspection prior to the admission of any student. It will be interesting, therefore, to take President 356 Christianity and the Social Rage Eliot's arraignment of the public schools and, with this distinction in mind, raise the question as to just what difference exists, if any, in its effectiveness when applied to the universities as well as the public schools. In this connection, of course, the privately controlled universities are chiefly in mind. The great state uni- versities are comparatively of so recent origin as not to be reckoned with the great privately controlled universities. Then, too, they, like the public schools, are subject to the distinction above noted. President Eliot says: " For more than two generations we have been strug- gling with the barbarian vice of drunkenness, but have not yet discovered a successful method of dealing with it. ... The public schools ought to have made it impos- sible that benevolence and devotion (in the form of wrong temperance teaching in the schools) should be so misdirected. The courts have failed to deal wisely with habitual drunkards as a class, both the theory and the practice of fines and short imprisonments as applied to drunkards being entirely futile." But what about the colleges? If there is a more dis- graceful chapter in the college life than that which has to do with the drunken orgies of classes at annual dinners and other functions, the present writer, with fifteen years' careful observation of this particular phenomenon before him, does not know it. It is safe to say that when the results are carefully examined, in proportion to its per centum of the population, the university men have contributed quite their share of drunkards, and are as much creators and disciples of Universities and Social Advance 357 the " barbarian vice " as any others. The indictment against the public schools holds with tenfold greater force against the colleges, because the latter repre- sents a class of much greater selection. Again he says : " The persistence of gambling in the United States is another disappointing thing to the advocates of popular education. ... It is a prevalent vice among all savage people, but one which moderate cultivation of the intelli- gence a very little foresight and the least sense of responsibility should be sufficient to eradicate. . . . The passion for gambling affects the market not only for stocks and bonds but for the great staples of commerce and the necessaries of life." And here again how do the colleges compare with the public schools? The children play craps and other small gambling games, but the form of gam- bling which best suits the temperament and class in life of the students finds as full and perhaps fuller expression among the university population as among any other ; while the great stock gamblers of the coun- try, the men who do the thing on the large scale which affects the masses of mankind, are, as previously stated, many of them, men actively allied to college endowments and benefactions and administration. If the case against the public schools is a bad one (and it is), the case against the colleges is vastly worse. Again President Eliot alludes to the disappoint- ment with reference to universal suffrage, and holds that popular education here has not done what we 358 Christianity and the Social Rage expected it to do. But here again, without leaving the boundaries of his own city or his own state, he can see university men allied to every form of cor- ruption and misuse of public service that exists in the Commonwealth. He can go among the graduates of the universities of the land and he can find the con- spicuous offenders against civic and social righteous- ness bearing degrees often honorary of the highest institutions of the land. The distinction between the university and the public schools cannot be found. If any exists, all the facts considered, the balance is against the university, especially when we consider that the non-voting, civic-indolent population is al- most always the university bred. In New York it is an axiom among the reformers, that there is more conscience on the lower East Side than on the ave- nues, and the Back Bay of Boston rarely votes except in a great crisis, and then only because the money nerve drives it. " Since one invaluable result of education is a taste for good reading, the purchase by the people of thou- sands of tons of ephemeral reading matter which is not good in either form or substance, shows that one great end of popular education has not been attained. . . . From the point of view of the social philosopher or the ethical reformer this is the worst disappointment of all in regard to the results of common school education in the nineteenth century." But ask an honest undergraduate, or ask any honest graduate of fifteen years' standing, on this subject, and you will find that the mass of the university-bred Universities and Social Advance 359 men have as their chief literary diet the newspaper and this not always the best. The ten-cent magazine, which Professor James suggests as a possible sup- planter of the university as a great educative force, stands next, and probably the vast majority of the men not actually in professions which require book reading, will frankly admit that they are not reading men. If this indictment is true and sound as to the public schools, and it appears to be, though President Eliot is not just to the masses in this respect, as in most things, it is a thousand times more condemnatory of the men who have been through college. In fact, the " masses," strictly speaking, are not the buyers of the ten-cent magazines. The advertisements show who make and support the ten-cent magazines. Here again, proportionately, the indictment holds equally against the college as well as the public school. In fact, when the conditions are taken into account, the balance is again against the college. And last among the things which we shall select in this contrast is the theater. President Eliot says: "If the public education had been mentally and mor- ally adequate, surely the public theater would be very much better than it is to-day." Possibly the distin- guished head of Harvard has not attended the chorus- girl shows and the claptrap stuff with which the theatrical trust has flooded the American stage and made it a scandal. But let any show peculiarly bad come to Boston or New Haven or any other univer- sity city, and he will see the college crowd conspicu- ously lined up in the front rows. In fact, the 360 Christianity and the Social Rage undergraduate support of such things is one of the things which have led to their exploiting so exten- sively. It is a curious estimate of the facts that fixes on the public schools in this matter as the repre- hensible influence. If there is a peculiar spot where the college lawlessness, the college rowdyism, the col- lege want of breeding and taste, and the college lack of manliness and fairness have come to the surface with greater force than any other, it is in connection with the degraded shows of the modern theater. Evidently the colleges have not helped much in this matter. Now in all this there is no want of recognition of the forces on the other side. The good men in the universities, the noble graduates who labor for the public good, and the minority who come out of the universities prepared to make some sacrifice for the public good commensurate with the privileges which they have enjoyed, not one of them is over- looked. But, viewed from the same angle from which President Eliot views the public schools, , and in the same spirit, the university-bred population have not justified their cost to the country, and the universities as social institutions have failed quite as much as the public schools. In fact, their failure has been greater because they have furnished the leaders of the great predatory enterprises, they have furnished the stock gamblers and market manipulators, and they have not denied to these social pests academic recognition and fellowship. This fact is one reason which has in the Western States steadily caused the rising tide in favor Universities and Social Advance 361 of state universities. Democracy has seen higher ed- ucation perverted to the use of an exploiting class, and has seen the institutions which should have been the liberators become the allies of those who have sought to make private gain of public necessity. It was probably this fact which led President Hadley some years ago to propose social ostracism as a pun- ishment for these persons. But has Yale ostracised anybody except those who were actually caught with the " goods on " ? Of course not. Nor has any uni- versity which has had to rely upon its alliance with the stock market and the clearing-house to keep its funds productive. The present outstanding fact is, that, as related to the struggle for social advance, the universities have, as of yore, been against the popular interest, and the privately controlled institution has steadily stood against the progress of democratic ideals and their realization. And it has done more. Many young men who came to it full of high and sacrificial notions of public service and devotion, it has weaned away from these passionate strivings of youth, and substantially bidden them first to put money in their purses and then strive to lift the body politic. And in this influence, the church, the state, and the social fabric alike have been weakened and made more subject to the social ills inherent in our gigantic experiment in universal suffrage and popular government. CHAPTER XIII CIVILIZATION MUST BE BORN AGAIN If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunt- eth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, en- dureth all things. Love never faileth : but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away ; whether there be tongues, they shall cease ; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child : now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known. But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the great- est of these is love. Corinthians xiii. CHAPTER XIII CIVILIZATION MUST BE BORN AGAIN WHAT, then, is the conclusion of the whole mat- ter? It seems like a hopeless picture without any relief in sight and it may be charged, perhaps, that this book simply points out troubles without offer- ing any suggestion looking toward the lifting of this terrible burden of failure which has engulfed the civ- ilizing agencies of the world. But the whole story is not even yet told. While this closing chapter is being written, the fearful and heartrending indictment of the whole world is being written in letters of fire and blood which the most obtuse intellect in existence can- not fail to comprehend. Europe has finally un- sheathed the sword, millions of men are hastening to slaughter each other, and the great governments of the world, custodians of law, order, culture and hu- manity, have temporarily laid aside these functions and have lapsed back into a barbarism so savage and so heartless in its preparation for precision and effect- iveness in slaughter as to stun the most optimistic soul that breathes. What could possibly better verify the truth of the arguments and illustrations of the preceding pages than this final catastrophe? What could show more absolutely that the law of love as 365 366 Christianity and the Social Rage the rule of life not only has not been comprehended but even the miserable pretenses for it have broken down absolutely? What could so clearly show that the vast resources of education have absolutely no effect on the rationality of the human mind when a great crisis strikes it and when its vast and incalculable interests are at stake? If an assassin's bullet can overturn, as it has overturned, the entire intellect and conscience of Europe, what shall we say of that in- tellect and that conscience? If this same assassin's bullet can throw out of the court of reason and judg- ment all that science has done to enlighten the world, what shall we say of the science and knowledge of the world? If the enormous achievements of education can be thus ruthlessly set aside or, worse still, organ- ized for more effective slaying of millions of men by other millions against whom they have no conceivable grievance, what shall we say of such an education? If any one believes that the statements of the preced- ing pages have been too severe or the indictment too ruthlessly drawn, let him look at Europe! But this is not Europe, some indignant American will hasten to say. But are we so different? I have just returned from a ten days' investigation of the so-called Colorado mine war. Are Americans aware that civil government has broken down in that part of America? Are they aware that the only reason men are not flying at each other's throats in that great and wonderful State is that the troops of the United States are encamped there and that whatever of civil process remains, continues by the sufferance of the Civilization Must Be Born Again 367 commander of the United States' forces? Are they aware that the upright citizens of that State are at this present writing trying to forget all their political differences and get together under the standard of law and order merely to reassert that Colorado is not a wild uncivilized mining camp filled with brutal and lawless desperadoes, and restore the normal processes of civil administration? Are we so different after all? Do Lawrence and Paterson and Butte and Ludlow and many other places that might be named indicate that we are after all so very different? Or is it rather that two great oceans separate us sufficiently for the time being from the great armed camps of Europe and Asia to make the first onslaught sufficiently far off to give us time to breathe and think? And even so, is Mexico so very far away or have we or have we not recently been almost as near a ruthless call for thousands of men for war as Europe which is now actually employing them? It must be a curious use of the intelligence which can see very fundamental differences here, or fail to see that the seeds of what we are seeing in Europe are all here and springing up in many parts of our own land and only needing a sufficient continuance in the paths of the past to bring us to exactly the same result. Let us not be deceived in this matter! Every voice lifted against the courts with reckless misstatement of the truth, every care- less charge against the administration of justice, every immoral exploitation of great wealth, every brutal organization of the laboring masses against the civil and political working out of our national problem by 368 Christianity and the Social Rage the use of dynamite and force instead of the appeal to the judgment and reason and conscience of man- kind, and the steady education of that reason and conscience by persistent marshaling of the truth and the truth only, is to bring about just what we see in Europe at the present moment. The solidarity of mankind has become such that to imagine that we can stand apart from this vast catastrophe and not be a part of it, is an aberration not far from insanity itself. We are a part of it and the already rising note of antipathy between the nationalities abiding under our flag predicts the rumblings of the slumber- ing volcano underneath our own national life. The breakdown of civilization is the renaissance of bar- barism, nothing more. When your courts are gone there remains only the appeal to arms. When rea- son is dethroned, passion is supreme. When judg- ment is expelled, then comes prejudice and with it lies and all that lies imply. But what is your remedy again, cries the indignant man, who trained in the sophistries of our politics, the quackery of our medicine and the superstitious ex- pectations of our religion, and who wants me to hand out instantly a cure-all for these manifold ills. And I shall not disappoint him though my remedy is not of the kind he expects. He wants a new statute, a new rag of political claptrap, another sensational heaven-compelling Utopian doctrine. But I give him the message which is as old as Christianity and which is Christianity, CIVILIZATION MUST BE BORN AGAIN! What Christ described as the regeneration of the in- Civilization Must Be Born Again 369 dividual, civilization must experience now in its col- lective life. Socially, institutionally as well as indi- vidually, we must be born again! Let every rational soul bear witness that one insane man's bullet has broken in pieces the old order at its centers of knowl- edge, culture, science, art and civilization. And why ? Because it has no heart! It has not had, in spite of its philanthropies, in spite of its culture, in spite of its science, and in spite of its education, the new heart which Jesus Christ stated to be the basis of the new world in which righteousness was to prevail. Again the Nicodemus of old, this time representing European culture, European religion, European science and Eu- ropean knowledge, stands before the Christ of God and is asking once more, " How can a man be born when he is old?" But as relentlessly as of old the reply is " You must be born again." Civilization must begin again. It must be now satisfied that it cannot live by the old rallying cries or persist accord- ing to the old formulas. What one madman's bullet has done, a madman's bullet may do again. We must be made immune to madmen, whether they deal with bullets or ideas. We must be lifted to a plane of life and action and ideals where the knowledge and cul- ture and science of the world will not give their best products to the perfecting of instruments of destruc- tion while they leave its instruments of industrial pro- duction back in the barbaric ages. We must have a civilization which can distinguish between man and the things that pertain to man. We must have a civili- zation which will not utter platitudes to the reason 370 Christianity and the Social Rage and conscience of mankind while it sharpens its tools for the ever-recurring lapse into savagery and slaugh- ter. Civilization must be born again ! II Civilization's new birth must begin with the Chris- tian church. This is the natural, the logical, in fact, the only place for the regeneration of society to begin. It can begin nowhere else because, as already pointed out, there is no place where the ideas and ideals of democracy can have their natural and necessary trying out and comparative value ascertained as in the moral and spiritual brotherhood of a church which is truly organized on the basis of the law of love as the rule of life. If it be alleged that such a new birth of the Christian church involves a cataclysm, then all that needs to be said is that it is vastly more desirable to have a cataclysm which has for its use and aim the spiritual renovation of mankind than one which uses fire and sword for the devastation of life and property through Christendom. The moral struggle will, at least, as it advances purify and cleanse and enlarge instead of destroying life. It will in its advance bring light instead of darkness. It will revive the hope and faith of millions of human beings who now have neither hope nor faith of any kind. It will call into being forces which now are not dreamed of, being impossible in the existing order and useless in the face of the prevailing maxims of human life and behavior. It will release the bound heroes of humanity who are languishing in bonds unable to serve, because the in- Civilization Must Be Born Again 371 struments of service are likewise hidden away or pre- vented from being put to use. It will be a Red Cross movement, not over fields of slaughter, but a micro- scopic search for every fragment of humanity that is not feeling its divine birthright in order to make it feel its divine possibility and capacity. It will be a campaign, world-wide and minute, for the whole of humanity and for its building up in the proper uses of human life, not to be ministered unto but to min- ister. The heroic phases will not be wanting even in this humane and world-wide war of love. For war it will be. The dirt, the disease, the shame, the mis- ery, the greed, the helplessness and the hopelessness of the world are not to be conquered without the vi- carious offering of many a life. But the deaths of that war will every one of them be a mighty paean of praise to God because each one will be a new Christ to his generation, helping the successive generations to be born again in the law of love as the rule of life. Those persons who imagine that such a task will not afford a sufficient area for the exercise of the more masculine and energetic qualities of the race have little conception of what genuine love demands and what its tasks involve. Let such a person simply try to lift up, and make sweet and wholesome and morally clean the humblest village of the land and he will have a problem that calls for a heroism which will make the sublimest battle-field seems foolishness. For be it known, he will not have to face cannon and shell, but the daily grind of small-minded prejudice, the corroding waste of misunderstanding and petty 372 Christianity and the Social Rage tyranny, the anger and wrath of insufferable jeal- ousies, and the heart-breaking disappointments, con- stantly recurring, in finding that work supposed to be finished must be done over and over again. He will find that he must do all this without bands of music and without flying banners and with patience and kindness and the love that suffereth long and is kind. He will find that he must overcome not only the ene- mies in front of him, but, not less, the enemies be- hind him, in the shape of the blind and passionate friends of his cause who imagine that with violence and without reason of judgment, they can match the lies of the enemy with lies for the truth. How often has the righteous cause been defeated thus by its very friends, who simply seeing what seemed to them the effectiveness of the weapons of the enemy could not resist employing the same weapons for their own cause ! The serious Christianized man will guard as the citadel of his own soul and the righteousness of his cause the motives of his own heart. He will not stand with liars when they lie for him and his cause. He will not stand, in the church, with the foolish and ignorant persons who believe that they can triumph at the ex- pense of some other branch of the Christian church. He will not be a party to the devices of ecclesiastical scoundrels, no matter what places of influence they hold or what instruments they control. And if all this does not call for all his heroism, his moral, physi- cal and spiritual energy he will certainly have use for what remains in a noble self-restraint in still holding fast to the Christian church though he sees often at Civilization Must Be Born Again 373 the head of her column, rascals who put to shame every elementary instinct of a Christianized nature. But let him not despair! The Christian church has had to be born again many times in these centuries. And the righteous remnant has always responded and the mere ecclesiastics have always come to naught. They have filled the denominational offices and fig- ured large in the denominational and public demon- strations, but nobody has been deceived by their clap- trap but they themselves. The righteous remnant of the church, which has been the real custodian of its truth and the real bearer of its message and the real expounder of its gospel, has never been forsaken and has never failed to achieve its work in the final reckon- ing. The very religious anarchy prevailing in this country at the present time shows what humbugs have been leading the truly Christian millions of people who have wanted only the truth to prevail and the love of Jesus Christ to govern the life and actions of men. But they are no longer seeking the denomina- tional headquarters nor taking counsel from the mis- leaders in high places. They are beginning to ask themselves what the liberty of Christian men means and they are beginning to demand the freedom where- with Christ makes them free. This is the process of new birth taking place and on every hand the process is making itself felt. The symptoms which we have been noting are significant for much that is not down in the philosophy of men. They are the pangs of the new birth throughout the church. They signify the loosing of the narrow bondage of creed and denomina- 374 Christianity and the Social Rage tion and the demand for the larger brotherhood of Jesus Christ. They show that the mark of Cain which is upon so much of the ecclesiastical leadership is rec- ognized as the mark of Cain. That identification means much for the cause of Jesus Christ. It means much for the Christian church. The release of the bound heroes of the gospel will mean a new life and a new leadership. The humbug of a dead and cor- rupt ecclesiasticism will try to utter the new cries of passionate striving for liberty and truth, but they do not know the tongue. Nothing is more ludicrous than to see the church leaders of the old order trying to make themselves and others believe that they know what this new birth of righteousness in the masses of the church really means. But the new leadership is arising. It is found in every factory town. It is found in every large city, simultaneously in the slum and on the broad avenue of wealth and knowledge. It is being found out on the broad prairies and amid the mountains of the West. From Maine to Oregon the mighty cry of liberty and righteousness is re- sounding and from their obscurity and out of their places of humble service, the new leaders are coming. The old ecclesiastical order is perishing and the new, with the law of love as the rule of life as its corner- stone and the leadership of true men, learned in sacri- fice and heroic devotion to ideal ends, is steadily aris- ing. The church is being born again. When the last wretched cannon has been fired and when the last mis- erable pretense has been proved the fraud that it is, when the last miserable humbug of prudential maxim Civilization Must Be Born Again 375 has been exploded and the war-weary world sits down to reckon with itself, to whom shall it turn? To whom but to the new-born church of Jesus Christ, bid- ding them to begin anew with the law of love as the rule of life? To whom shall it turn but to the leader- ship of men who know sacrifices greater than those of war, who know hardships for which there is no commissariat organized, who know pains which no medical corps can assuage or heal, but who know that love never faileth! And civilization will begin its own birth-throes into freshness of life, because a new-born church of Christ is at hand to point the way! When the heart-sick, sin-weary, war-burdened, mo- nopoly-cursed civilization turns and asks to whom it can turn in in its pain, shame and humiliation, the answer once more will be, " Lord, to whom can we go? Thou hast the words of Eternal Life." It will be to Jesus Christ, the Christ of the Gospels, who will lead it forth again to newness of life and new- ness of hope and newness of love! It will be Jesus Christ, lifted up, who alone can once more hearten men to try again and with fresh courage and fresh zeal build up the former wastes upon the secure foundation of the law of love as the rule of life. This is the hope of the world and the only hope. This is the way out and the only way out. This is the only path that will not again lead to the old sickness, the old sin, the old curses and the old savagery. And it is the only way because Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. 376 Christianity and the Social Rage III Education must be born again. The long neg- lected spiritual elements of human culture must be dis- covered and emphasized as they have not been em- phasized and men must be made to feel that the train- ing of the human intellect for efficiency, for power and for productiveness is a spiritual task for which the nurture and discipline of the human spirit is the greatest qualification. The coxcombs flaunting about in the rags of academic degrees which have in them no whit of the greatness of the human spirit, who confuse the distinction of clubs and learned societies for greatness of heart and largeness of human under- standing, will be swiftly sent to the junk heap of worn- out royalties of which they are the educational coun- terpart. Our educators must be great men, not per- sons who can juggle faculties and creep into educa- tional prominence by the pathway of university poli- tics and educational nepotism. The public education must be freed from the incubus of pothouse political chicanery and made to become a sacred, sweet, spiritual burden tenderly to be borne and humbly to be ap- proached in the spirit and method of Jesus Christ. When we write " For Christ and the Church " on our university seal we shall mean something which has a relation to the great heart and soul of the world and the spiritual longings of the masses of humanity. When we pursue truth as our ideal, we shall have in mind truth which is visualized in upright and admira- ble men and women who know and are known as Civilization Must Be Born Again 377 having learned the greatest message which can come to the mind and heart of the race. We have had such men and we shall have them again. We shall look to the school and the university with the same spirit in which we look to the church and we shall not have to alter one single form of our approach or change one syllable of our vocabulary. Our young men will come forth not to be masters of things but leaders of men in the work of saving men. They will not build our bridges one jot less securely, nor write one line less effectively nor halt an instant in the search for the truth, knowing well that in that truth alone lies freedom and the rights and duties of men, but they will be reverent men who will not display in their character and life a constant insult to the inward striv- ings after righteousness and love which lie at the heart of real civilization and culture. Let no one fear that such men will not dare to do as much and more for the intellectual freedom of the race than has ever been done by the most blatant atheist that ever filled a uni- versity chair. Let nobody believe for an instant that such men will cover up one fact essential to the in- tellectual clarity of mankind or hold in bondage one iota of scientific knowledge necessary to the building up of the mind of youth to its fullest perfection and development. But the perfected youth coming forth from the halls of learning and knowledge will come forth not to exploit the ignorance of his fellow men or to become one seven times worse a tyrant and mo- nopolist because he deals with the things of the in- tellect instead of those which can be handled and 378 Christianity and the Social Rage hoarded. On the contrary, freely having received, he will the more freely give. In political life he will bring in the era of truth and a public service uncor- rupted by private gain and seeking only the enlarge- ment of civilization through high purposes nobly planned and great service freely and unselfishly ren- dered. Education thus born again will bring to the world vast resources for the liberation of fresh forces for the new life. The university will not become a medieval cloister where pious laziness is substituted for work and theological hair-splitting is substituted for earnest thought about the serious problems of life. Its products will not turn away from the high task of Christianizing the world and bringing it under the yoke of the law of service and of love, in order to fasten the more securely the chains by which the mind of man has been held in bondage : On the con- trary every youth who has sat at the feet of men new-born in the spirit of Jesus Christ, will long to make himself more effective for the uplifting of the world than he can ever long for subjugating it to his own aggrandizement and profit. He will see that no man liveth to himself. He will see that no man upon whom vast endowments have been bestowed and upon whom great personalities have showered their choicest gifts can be aught than great in the service of man- kind. He will enter the holy war of Christianity de- termined to bring into civilization the armament of a trained and spiritualized intelligence for the saving, not for the destroying of life. Such monstrous per- formances as that recently inaugurated for luring the Civilization Must Be Born Again 379 college youth into the militaristic ideal of life and eternally preparing for slaughter howbeit still called the humbug of preserving peace by being prepared for war (after the breakdown of European war camps, will any one ever believe that lie again?), will be char- acterized by university heads as they deserve to be characterized, as shameful perversions of the power and energy and capacity of educated youth. The trained mind instead of being put to building new and more effective battleships and high-powered guns will be put into cleansing our industrial slums and purifying our municipal wastes. The cultured youth with his own high-powered intelligence will be ashamed to be exploited in the interest of death and the instru- ments of death. He will long to be agent of the abundant life instead. He will study to serve and to sacrifice. He will bring his purified and sanctified knowledge of the history of the past to save civiliza- tion from eternally repeating blunders thousands of years old. He will shrink from human waste as he now shrinks from the waste of the raw materials out of which the products of the factory and the labora- tory are secured. He will spend as many hours and spend them as laboriously to bring forth something that blesses man as he now gives them for things that destroy both the minds and souls of men. He will be a builder, not a destroyer. Thus will education be born again because under the stimulus and the guid- ance of a genuinely Christianized church, man will see that his efforts are not wasted and his ideals not abused. Under the appeal of a religion which is not 380 Christianity and the Social Rage full of shams and a service which is as full of heroic sacrifices as any futile butchery called a patriotic war, he will come forth a man of God battling for God and for man who is made in the image of God. He will regard the loss of any single human being as his own personal loss. He will see defeat for him- self where the ideal strivings of the race are bound or defeated. And he will storm with an abandon, which will thrill the hearts of men, the citadels of wrong, the intrenched fortresses of oppression, that have masqueraded as the real triumphs of civilized man. His banner will be love. His warlord will be Jesus Christ, who calls upon him to battle with the sin, the misery, the shame and the disorder of the world. And if he die in that war, as many must, because some men must always be dying that others may live, he will have about him in his death the music of liberated and regenerated men and women, singing praise to God that he has lived among them. This is what education new born will do for man- kind. And here too the pangs of the new birth are all around us. University endowments and buildings still bear their legends of the destroyers and exponents of the shame and exploitation of the race. But they will grow less and finally disappear. Already every such building which bears the hideous symbol of some robber baron makes the high-minded youth hang his head and starts unspeakable pains in his heart. Some day the treasures of knowledge will not be under roofs which are reared as memorials to those who have Civilization Must Be Born Again 381 despoiled human beings of life and the necessities thereof. Some day laboratories will be reared which no perverted wealth has erected. Some day the re- sentment now spoken in the closet will be shouted upon the housetop. Some day the noble-minded youth will shrink as from a plague spot from the thing that calls itself a university, which lives by the increment of the skeletons which lie at its base, of thousands slain in industrial oppression or political and financial ma- nipulation. The rumbling of this advance of the army of God is already heard. It is education trying to free itself from its cerements of death and trying to be born again. It is being born again and the new birth though painful and possibly slow, is none the less sure. The old order here as in the Church is breaking down. The incoherent cries of adolescent radicalism will presently give way to the reasoned attack of the veterans trained in the holy war of righteousness. And it will fall, not because a crowd of irrational and untutored individuals are crying out against personal injury or inconvenience, but because the enlightened and Christianized intellect refuses to be a party to the shame of seeing high learning and noble knowledge prostituted to the uses of death and destruction. Education is being born again painfully, laboriously, but steadily. And when this process has been completed it will not be possible to overthrow the mind of man by an assassin's bullet or to harness it to the Juggernaut of militaristic sophistry or indus- trial and social peonage. 382 Christianity and the Social Rage IV Science must be born again. No achievement of the human mind in the last century was so splendid or affected so many human interests as that which, speaking generally, may be called the achievement of science. It revolutionized human life because it revo- lutionized almost everything that had to do with hu- man life. It changed the destinies of humanity be- cause it placed in the hands of men instruments which almost automatically altered human destiny. It liter- ally transformed the mindstuff of the world because it filled the world with new and strange ideas which almost instantly changed the attitude of humanity to- ward the world and itself as governing and directing the world. That it affected and altered the course of religious thought goes without saying. But its ef- fects upon the minds of scientific men themselves were hardly less significant and revolutionary. Per- haps it would be too much to say that scientific men, realizing that for the first time in the history of the world they were absolutely free, celebrated their free- dom with one vast drunken spree of defiance of all that the world had laboriously and through much pain and travail worked out, as to habit, behavior and ideals, but that this general result came as the effect of the freedom of science is beyond question. Like any gen- eration happy in the possession of a new toy it played itself out with its plaything and the science that be- gan with a joyful consciousness of itself as a free in- strument of human development and power, ended the Civilization Must Be Born Again 383 century with intellectual inability to be conscious of anything but itself. No intellectual arrogance has been more disgusting to thinking minds than that which bawled loudest about what it called the scientific spirit. No group of thinkers so recklessly threw out of the window the aspirations, the longings and the experi- ence of common men as did the group distinctively labeled " scientific men." And like the nouveau riche of all generations they exhibited their newly acquired wealth of power and influence much as a vulgar woman bedecks herself with masses of jewels. No newly dubbed doctor of philosophy, however ignorant of the sound and serious knowledge of the world but having successfully dug out some insignificant fact out of the vast mountain of human ignorance, conscious that behind him was the vast power known as Science (or was it all a vast joke, the Ph.D. certainly has be- come one!) but hastened to insult his elders and prattle learnedly about his unbelief in the things of the spirit, winding up finally with good scientific au- thority for lofty inability to worship God in any of the known formulas by which the mass of human be- ings were trying to express their reverence and de- votion to spiritual truth. In this they simply gave a grotesque imitation of the intellectual attitude of their superiors and instructors in the lecture room and lab- oratory. Intellectual drunkenness, that is what it was, and the scientific drunkenness of that last half of the nineteenth century had exactly the effect that all drunk- enness has, Science awake with a headache and with the respect of masses of human beings for its researches 384 Christianity and the Social Rage destroyed and its message discredited and Supersti- tion stalking abroad taking the very language of Sci- ence as its own catchwords. The spiritual ignorance of scientific men operated in so interesting a fashion, that soon men were unable to tell the real from the pseudo- science and at this present moment amid the many strident voices, even sober and sensible people often find it hard to distinguish the real from the false. No angry theologian could have more successfully overthrown by divine fiat, the real and substantial in- fluence of the scientific knowledge of the world as it relates to behavior and human interests, as the scien- tific men did it for themselves. In addition to all this, gradually men became aware that the undoubted re- sults of the scientific liberation and advance were be- ing applied not for the deliverance of the masses of men but for the strengthening of the very agencies against which they were battling for freedom. The world saw that the increased knowledge, for the most part, was applied to things which had little to do with human progress as it operates in the larger life of the individual man. They saw the luxurious life of the well-to-do grow more luxurious but they saw no corresponding advance in the lot of the in- dustrial worker. Every new transatlantic steamer was a fresh marvel of beauty, luxury and comfort. But the new factories in which thousands worked the major portion of their waking hours exhibited no such changes. Light, air, sanitary conditions and condi- tions of labor still lag ages behind the glories which lie scattered abroad in the homes of the wealthy, even Civilization Must Be Born Again 385 of the second or third class. We are still building cities in which the slum is steadily developing. With all our preventive measures of one kind and another, we still exhibit the vast chasm between the life of those who work for wages and those who employ them except in rare cases. The rise of the corporation, one of the most beneficent instruments of human develop- ment and self-expenditure ever devised, has carried with it not only its vast possibilities for good, but also its vast possibilities for evil and it would be hard to say which had predominated. Certainly the most recent developments do not indicate that corporate power has been regarded as a very sacred thing. But science, through the corporation, has given its best efforts to the few rather than to the many. It has enhanced and glorified the life of those who already had the major portion of the delights of life within their grasp. In other words, science became a part of the money making activity and gave itself for the most part to that pursuit, so that what at its best was the liberation of knowledge for the higher develop- ment of mankind, became simply one more tool for the powerful with which to enslave the weak. All this was possible because of the want of the saving grace of spirituality. Materialized to the very marrow, science became heartless and lost its best possibilities in that fact. Better a thousand times, said the toiling millions, a superstition with a kindly emotion than science with stony arrogance and heart- less self -sufficiency. Stupid as all this was, and is, it is the fact. It was fine sport while it lasted, to 386 Christianity and the Social Rage simply cry " Tut, tut," to the timid souls of the earth bringing their hid treasures of faith and hope for ap- proval and encouragement! But the sport defeated itself at last. But as we have already indicated this attitude is changing perforce and under pressure but none the less changing. Science itself is beginning to know its limitations and the thousands rallying to the spiritual pioneers who are demanding that devo- tion to the " truth " shall not ignore one branch thereof especially if it happens to be one of the things that men live by. It will not do to call all this philis- tinism and ignorance. Some of it is philistinism and some of it is ignorance. But the vast mass of the recoil from the scientific attitude is based upon the undoubted fact practically learned and practically burned into the life of humanity that man does not live by bread alone! Now in all this turmoil what we are seeing is the new birth of science. Science is going to school to humanity. The first to learn the lesson was medical science and the social sciences all of them are rapidly following. Political economy is find- ing out a few things in this direction and presently will learn more. All the physical sciences are taking no- tice and when the whole roster is assembled, it will be found that after all is said and done, everything depends upon the human element in every problem. It will be found that if a man have all knowledge and have not love, it profiteth nothing. Knowledge shall pass away. But the heart of man shall not pass away and the law of love as the rule of life is the governing element even in the true uses of scientific knowledge. Civilization Must Be Born Again 387 All this is being dimly comprehended and struggling for application and incorporation into a new scientific attitude which shall have a place for the spiritual na- ture of man. Synchronously with the struggle in the church and in the university and school, there is a struggle going on which amounts to be being born again, in the ranks of the scientists of the world. It will not fail because grounded in a truth so sure and so immutable that one may predict without hesita- tion, that a new age of faith is about to dawn. It will not have the attitude nor will it be like the ages of faith of the past. But it will with open-eyed and open-minded reverence realize that it is possible for a human being to gain the whole world, even of knowledge, and lose his own self. And that fact thoroughly realized and made the basis for reflection and research will give not less knowledge but more knowledge, because it will be a knowledge which in- cludes and provides for the aspirations of the heart and soul of man. Thus rage will yield to reason and the social ad- vance of the world will be no longer a zig-zag of vol- canic explosions followed by equally volcanic reac- tions but the gradual displacement of what is false by what is true and the steady lifting of the entire human family by the enrichment and growth of any portion of it. But let no one ever hope that we shall be able to make an intellectual synthesis which shall express all this. No such synthesis has ever been 388 Christianity and the Social Rage made or ever will be made. Men were not created, if we may judge by the known history of the world, to think alike for very long about anything. Intel- lectual harmony for any considerable period can even- tuate in nothing but intellectual death. It is futile therefore to pin the future of man to any particularity of social doctrine or to hope for much upon any special line of political or social action. Not that we shall not have these and work at them with might and main. And perhaps out of them all we shall make some advances which may have a decisive influence upon the life and habits of men. But let us beware lest in the social sectarianism which clings obstinately to particularities we defeat the very thing we have most at heart. It will never be possible for all who hope for the social emergence of the world and its deliverance from sin, misery, bondage and shame to utter themselves in the same terms or work together in the same harness. This is the outstanding folly in the multiplicity of social programmes which are now appealing to men and dividing the social hope and aspiration of men. If the Christian church broke to pieces in the vain attempt to establish an intellectual synthesis for Christianity, we may be reasonably sure that no sound synthesis of the social hope of mankind will ever be framed. But there is a synthesis which is possible. It is based upon conduct and feeling. We may all be governed by the law of love as the rule of life whether we be socialists, anarchists, wage- workers or capitalists. We can all feel the human bond which unites us in spite of the varieties of opin- Civilization Must Be Born Again 389 ion and estimate of the things which must form the warp and woof of our daily life and service. We can respect and honor human life and love its nurture and furtherance. We can choose the attitude which makes for life as against that which makes for death. We can be just and of good report. We can prove all things and hold fast what is good. And such is the compelling power of righteousness, that once in- troduced into the practise of individual men with force and power it soon dominates others also. One shall chase a thousand and two shall put ten thousand to flight. It is especially the mission and the message of Christianity to convince and persuade men that in Jesus Christ they have the real leader of liberated humanity. In the Christian church they have their real instrument of social growth and development. And in the Fellowship of Christian men everywhere, the only abiding hope for the redemption of the world ! THE END VAIL-BALLOU CO., BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000 981 725 5