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HALF YOUR LETTER
POST. ATAX.LIBRARY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

 

GIFT OF
HARCOURT PARRISH, B.A. ’20

IN MEMORY OF HIS MOTHER

FANNIE HARCOURT PARRISHb
M

Cees eer ne eee“¢ Blest be the Light that shows the Way,
And blest the Way the Light has shown!”

 

FIVE POINTS OF PAI Te

BY

CHARLES GORDON AMES

MINISTER OF THE CHURCH OF THE DISCIPLES, BOSTON

BOSTON
Geo, H. Evais Co:, 272 CONGRESS STREED

1903

 

For sale at A. U. A. Book Rooms, 25 Beacon Street, or at the Library of

the church. Price 50 cents net.msPREDATORY NOTE,

On the walls of many Unitarian churches and Sunday-
school rooms hangs a large square of card-board, bearing

these words : —

OUR FAliy.
WE BELIEVE IN
THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD;
THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN;
THE LEADERSHIP OF JESUS;
SALVATION BY CHARACTER ;

THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND ONWARD AND UPWARD FOREVER

‘Such will be the theology of ‘the Church of the Future,
which will be emancipated from ritualism, dogmatism, and
sectarianism, and will possess more and more of the mind
and heart of Christ Jesus.” So wrote James Freeman
Clarke, who formulated what he called these ‘Five Points
of the New Theology ” in a sermon preached May Io, 188s,
in the Church of the Disciples, Boston, and printed and
reprinted in America and England. ‘The title presents it
as a contrast to those Five Points of Calvinism ‘‘ which have
been the main and essential doctrines of Orthodoxy in
the past.”

Dr. Clarke saw the Divine Word “revealed in creation,

embodied in Christ, and immanent in the human soul”;taught by Jesus, not as a definite system, but as an ever-
unfolding principle; not as something we are to grow out of,
but as something we are ever to grow into; and, decause it
is a living and growing germ, it has “no finality in any of
its past forms.”

Many of us regard this simple statement as so compact
of spiritual verity, vitality, and sweet reasonableness as to
make it “ profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction
and instruction in righteousness ”; and we believe it will
be helpful to sincere and inquiring souls who are looking

for the city that hath foundations.

The five discourses gathered into this little book were preached in the

Church of the Disciples during November and December, 1902.CON FEN TS.

THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD
THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN
THE LEADERSHIP OF JESUS
SALVATION BY CHARACTER

ENDLESS PROGRESSeres a

fh
a

ae ee

eeeTHE PATHE ROOD OF Gor

 

‘I bow my knees unto the FATHER, from whom every family

in heaven and on earth is named.’’— EPH. iii. 14 (Rev. Version).

<>

THESE are.words of light and power. They offer us
no dead and empty theory of .theism, but the Living
God, in warm and loving relations to us all, as born to
be sharers of his nature. They bring before us a vision
of the spiritual universe as a home, and of the count-
less multitude of beings who inhabit it —in whatever

17
|
Lh

part of the infinite realm they dwell—as belonging to
one household, all bearing the name of one Father,
because, even though they know him not, they are
known to him as sons and daughters. The mansions
are many; the family is one.

The end of the apostle’s toil and prayer, like that of
his great Master, is “to make all men see”’ this blessed
mystery of the Fatherhood,— a mystery hidden from the
ages (along with many another waiting wonder), but
now made manifest by the appearance of one great Son
of God, who impressed those who knew him best as pre-
eminent among many brethren. Paul thus sees Jesus
as the Leader of a mighty procession which in the ful-
ness of time will gather the spiritual creation into the
unity of a Divine Humanity, that God may be all in all.
Such is his grand conception of the eternal purpose that
runs through the world’s history.4

Of Absolute Being we may not speak, for we cannot
think Unable as we are to fathom “our own mature
how by searching can we find out God? Ina very real
and awful sense, he is hidden in impenetrable darkness
and silence. No man hath seen him, nor can see. No
image of the Infinite can be fixed or graven on our
minds as an object of worship;.nor is it probable that
there is any such God as we fashion to ourselves, be-
cause the Reality must be inconceivably beyond our
childish measurement. But his greatness adapts itself to
our littleness. Of all the vast breadth of sunlight, one
ray suffices for the human eye; of the seemingly bound-
less ai) one breath ata time 1s enoughyior Our lie
Perhaps we may “know God” as we know any author
or artist by his works, or as we know what infinity
means, without being able to grasp it; or, better still, as
a little child may know the parent.

Thus. the Tigh and Holy One,the Inhabitant of
Eternity, may dwell and reveal himself in the lowly
heart

‘‘ As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew.”

ihe: God Absolute is: above tie reach - ot eur puny
thought, but the God Relative —the God with whom
we have to do, because he has to do with us —is mani-
fest in nature, in mind, in history, and in experience.

We cannot ¢hink him, but we think about him, be-
cause we must. And we can apprehend, or take hold
of, that which we cannot comprehend, or take in. We
feel after him, because we have unspeakable need. We
did not make ourselves, and there must be a Maker.
We cannot care for ourselves, and the world would be
a bedlam if there were no Care-taker. How welcome,then, is the message that this Maker and Benefactor is

also our Father !

The doctrine of the Fatherhood of God, whatever
else it may include, appears to hold these implications :

1.: That he is the only Source and Producer of Duc,
the exhaustless and ever-active Power behind evolution.
Once there was no life on this planet. How did non-
living matter ever become living? How did breath
enter the forms which arose from the dust? How did
the primal egg get laid, or the first vital cell get itself
formed? Philosopher and scientist can give but one
answer: “There is an infinite and eternal Energy from
To that Cause of all causes

,)

which all things proceed
Jesus gives the name of Father.

2. That the Divine Love, being the Supreme Parent-
age, must be also the continuous and friendly Providence.
It is just as impossible that we should live another min-
ute by our own power as that we should have given
ourselves life at first. This is the ground of our de-
pendence. We have nothing, and can have nothing,
which does not come to us as a gift. If some forms of
esood are placed within our reach, the very power to
reach them is itself a gift. We are capable of self-help
only as we are helped by ‘the Power of ourselves.”
The Maker keeps making us ; the Father keeps provid-
ing; and he ‘“knoweth what things we have need of
before we ask him.”

3. The fatherly guardianship includes impartial disci-
pline. We are placed under a system of wise law and
order. Man’s freedom, within elastic limits, is a part
of the order, and is necessary to his development as the
child of such a Father. The Power which produces and6

supplies whatever is necessary to welfare supplies also
the faculties for the appreciation and appropriation of
good. The Father keeps his human child at school.
Retribution and redemption are two aspects of paternal
care.

We are more closely related to God than to our human
parents; for thein lite and ours is his lites) so) that ave is
more than, Pather and Mother of us all. Not merely
because he brought into existence our remotest ances-
tors, and led the course of development from lower forms,
but because he is now brineing us into ‘existence.
Something from him isin every heart-beat, every nervous
vibration, every movement of body or mind.

Do we not feel, at every stage of our existence, that we
are capable of becoming more than we are,—that we
are born heirs of an inheritance not yet in our posses-
sion? This on-reaching ope is one sign that it is our

‘ather’s good pleasure to give us kingdoms and crowns
when we grow to them.

The men of the Old Testament and some of the more
advanced Greeks had come in sight of the Fatherhood of
God, but it was rarely brought home to the private soul
as a personal experience. The best ancient thought of
the Deity made him, like a good king, the ruler, leader,
and protector of his people as a whole.

Each tribe or nation had its own god. Any man who
belonged to the tribe was supposed to be under that
sacred authority and shelter. To forfeit the tribal or
national relation was to be “cut off from among the
people,’ to become an outcast and outlaw. A man
without a city or a country was also without a
god.

To the Israelites, Jehovah was a national deity, limited/
and local, save to a few illuminated minds. At best
Israel was his favorite, his chosen, his first-born, or his
only begotten son. He could be approached by partici-
pating in the public ceremony, by visiting the temple,
by sharing the sacrificial feast, by bringing a gift to the
altar, as we pay our taxes.

The destruction of city and temple, the breaking up
of the priesthood and the dispersion of the nation, must
have thrown each man back on himself, and deepened a
sense of personal néed,—the need of a God nigh at
hand. What a welcome message was this which en-
couraged the lowly and simple to enter into the closet,

shut the door, and whisper, ‘“ Father ”’ !

_ systems of religion may be fairly graded by the sig-
nificance they attach to their name for God. When the
deepest impression the world made on the minds of men
was a sense of power and awfulness, God was thought of
as E] Shaddai,— “God Almighty.” When communities
were gathered under the guidance and control of sov-
ereigns, he was worshipped as King and as the national
Chief. As the intelligence that goes to the making and
management of the world grew more apparent, he was
called the All-wise, the All-seeing. To the few whose
moral sense was largely developed he was the Holy One,
who required “truth in the inward parts.” At last, One
who felt the inward assurance of his own sonship
uttered with new fulness of meaning the name “ Father.”
And those who caught this spirit began to sing the new
song, “ Behold what manner of love the Father hath
bestowed upon us, that we should be called sons of
God!”

«Weare his offspring,’ sang the Greek poet Aratus,8

two hundred years before Christ. Zeus or Jupiter had
been pictured as “Father of gods and men,” holding
court on the summit of Olympus. But he was jealous
and suspicious of his own family. Similar notions are
traceable in the Hebrew writings. “Who among the
gods is like unto Jehovah?” “God is jealous, and
Jehovaln revengeth, . “ The fear of the Lord “besame
the synonym for piety; and the commandment to love
him must have seemed to the common mind a@ hard
saying.

The doctrine of the Fatherhood may be very austerely
and repulsively presented. But inside the shell of an
intellectual conception may there not be a sweet kernel
on which the soul can feed? Are we otercd merely.a
Verbal FOrMmWa Oris itwne Dread or Ine? Wier us tee
atter the inner reality. “Woctrme alone, however truc, 1s
like an unlighted lamp. We must explore and appropri-
ate the truth with our hearts as well as with our intellect,
that we may find those deep things of the spirit which
are only spiritually discerned.

What would it mean to us — what would it zo¢ mean ?
—to be fully persuaded that the chief or highest use
for which this earth exists is as the nursery and school
of a race of beings who are to wear the image of God?
That what we call Nature is the scene of his unceasing
industry ? That the bringing up of a family for himself
is his purpose and habitual business? That to this
end he provides, through their own activity, for their
maintenance, instruction, discipline, opportunity, and
moral inheritance ?

Every theory of the world is beset with difficulties.
But a purely materialistic conception seems to have be-
come impossible. There is no ground for rationality2

in a view which makes the universe irrational; no re-
pose in a view which consigns us to helpless orphanage,
uncared for by any wisdom or goodness beyond our
own. But reason and our conscious need may join in

welcoming the only view which makes the universe
safe and friendly, and supplies a valid justification for
its existence. “Show us the Father, and it suffices
us. Can any lower faith suiice?

Now we come to inquire for the way by which the
Father is found and known. Two of the Gospels at-
]
I

tribute these words to Jesus: “No man knoweth the

Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son willeth
to reveal him.’’ Sayings at once luminous and mystical!
Perhaps our own experience may give us the key. We do
not find the deepest meanings in surface facts. We
do not find our friends till friendship springs up in our
own hearts. How should we find God except through
sonship,— through the awakened sense of our kinship
with him? And, as he is best known, so is he best
shown, by the best men. Have we not found it easier
to believe in the reality of goodness after seeing it made
alive in good men and women? They are our bene-
factors, indeed: they reveal to us our own _ higher
possibilities.

Dr. Bartol once said: “There are aspects of Nature
which do not show us God. I do not know my friend
by his back: I must see his face.” Let us push tac
simile a little further. To know man or God,-we must
see the eart. Any human goodness gives us a hint
of the higher kind; as if the heart of God were throb-
bing in any pure heart of man. So in a degree every
son reveals the Father; and still more that Son who
‘s most like him, or in whose heart the higher Heart

beats most strongly.IO

Jesus himself thus reasons upward from human love
to the divine: “If ye, being evil, know how to give
good things to your children, how much more shall the
heavenly Father ?”’

There must be something in man which answers to
God,— responds to his touch. He has not left us with-
out a witness. Our wisest thoughts cannot be very
wise; but, when we try to think of God as F ather and
of man as his child, the thoughts that reach highest are
likely to be truest. Ernest Crosby writes, “I know
those best whom I have known only at their best.”
How low we sink when we let go our ideals! How we
rise when we let them bear us upward!

We learn something from self-study. Our organs of
sense correspond to something in the mind. It takes
an eye to see, an ear to hear. Also something in the
mind corresponds to the laws and truths of life. It
takes a heart to feel, a mind to learn and understand,
and a moral sense to hear and heed the call of duty.
At these vital points of conduction we seem to be in
communication with “the Power, not ourselves, which
makes for righteousness, and for every form of excel-
lence.” It is as if a continuous dialogue were carried

on between the finite spirit and the Infinite.

‘“ Dwelt there no divineness in us,
How could God’s divineness win us?”’

You sometimes hear a kind of music that sets the blood
to dancing and puts the feet in motion. The vibrations of
the violin-strings are repeated in the nerves. And you
have sometimes heard or fe/t a Voice like that which
called out, or called in, to Abraham, ‘1 an thee
mighty God: walk before me and be thou perfect”; andri

which said to Israel, “ Be holy, for I am holy.” When
we ponder these rare experiences, can we doubt that the
Eternal Father delights to win us into communion with
himself, that we may be perfected in his moral likeness ?

Now we see the basis and reasonableness of that first
and greatest commandment which bids us love supremely
the Supremely Lovely. We cannot love fate nor chance
nor blind force nor arbitrary authority. We might
admire mere power, we might be filled with wonder at
the thought of a Being who could be everywhere, know
everything, and do everything at once. We might
crouch in dread and servility before a universal monarch.
But how can we love even a God with heart and soul
and mind and strength, unless fully persuaded of his
love to us? And how mighty must be the love of a
God who is almighty! In this matter, he must take the
initiative. This will make it possible to say, “We love
him, because he first loved us.’ How many of us would
ever have been persuaded of this love, if we had never
heard “the good news of God” brought by his mes-
senger Son?—a message which wakens the inward
response.

Ona Sunday afternoon, my California friend was read-
ing the New Testament to his boy. They came to the
saying of Jesus, “J and my Father are one.” . The ttle
fellow exclaimed joyfully, “ Just like us, ish bt ib, fatners =
What human child, growing up in a happy home with a
sweet, natural sense of the duty and privilege of son-
ship, does not delight to give honor and love, confidence
and obedience, to the parent who is wise and kind?

But the Fatherhood has been sadly clouded by theo-
logical inventions, and still more by the distorted and

disordered aspects of personal and domestic sife,- xs2

—

faith in the goodness of God is made easier by the sight
of human goodness, so, on the other hand, faith in his
Fatherhood is made difficult by all parental unkindness
and folly. Joseph May knew a man whose father had
been so cruel that he could not hear the opening words
of the Lord’s Prayer without a shudder. An Ohio boy
came home from Sunday-school with a sad piece of news
a

 

ton fis ttle brother. “Weve sot another tather
father in heaven, teacher says; and 1 Suppose fa 7%
swear at us, and beat us, too!” Do not all disturbances
and perversions of our earthly relationships tend to con-
fuse our notions and feelings about spiritual realities ?
God seems lost to us when we are lost to ourselves.

When we say, ‘‘Our Father,’ whom do we address?
The Maker and Manager of all worlds; the Power which
upholds the seen and the unseen; the Wise Mind from
which no mystery is hid; the Light that shines in the
uncomprehending darkness; the Love which is the pul-
sating heart of the universe and whose Everlasting Arms
are around each and all the creatures in the form of
natural forces; the Mather of our spirits, and the God
and Pather of jesus *Chist.

See how Jesus explains his own nature and helps to
explain ours: “Iam in the Father, and the Father in
me. Ican do nothing of myself. He loveth me; and
he sent me because he so loved the world.” In our
lowly degree may we not say the same? Nay, if a little
bird, or insect, or grass-blade could be so enlightened as
to read its own origin and history, might it not say, Sol
came not of myself,—he sent me, and he came with
ime?

The Divine Paternity covers everything — or nothing.13

It gathers in its sheltering care all affairs and needs, all
of time and all of eternity. When we seem to be most
remote, it is as near to us as we aré to ourselves. In
dealing with our follies, errors, weaknesses, sufferings, and
sins, we are dealing with the patient Love that can
transform them all into processes of redemption and
means of spiritual culture. The retributions that work
along the lines of causation, or under the laws of moral
consequence, are a part of the gracious family discipline.

“ Behold the coodness and severity of God!’”’ Nothing
could be better for us than the uniformity of nature and
the rigid enforcement of the laws which we can break,

but cannot bend. There is no lowering of the standard,

no excusing the careless or willing offender, no reversing
of the rule that we shall reap what we sow; yet there is
a fatherly

 

free, ungrudging pardon for every penitent,

welcome for every returning prodigal.

The blessed assurance of sonship to God can become
a real experience only as the spiritual life — the ule. of
wisdom and love which is his image in us—lifts us
above the animal plane. How should heavenly things
ye discerned by the earthly-minded ? How should they
vearts gross with worldliness ?
It is this grossness which makes us blind. The sun-

be visible to eyes heavy with slumber or enjoyed by

light streams in through these windows. It cannot
penetrate the walls of brick. And every colored or
crinkled pane of glass is partially obstructive or distort-
not all degrees of mental and moral

transparency and opaqueness ?

The purest thought 1s possible only to the purest

ing. Are there

mind. Every trace of selfishness hides the divine gen-14

erosity. The falsities which darken the mind, the pas-
sions which becloud reason, the coarse and low or friv-
olous interests which occupy our attention, the selfish-
ness which cuts off or interrupts our human connection
with God and man,— these are the shadows that eclipse
the divine light within us, and leave us wandering in
darkness, as if there were no God.

We have seen that sonship is the pathway by which
Jesus would lead us to his Father and ours. Can we
not also see that this is the only true way of life, the
way of our proper destiny ?

A real and living faith in the Fatherhood of God
would do more for mankind than to set a new sun in
the sky: it would set a new sun in the firmament of
the soul; the sun of righteousness would arise “with
healing in his wings.” What gladness and cheer would
flood our being if we half believed, half realized, our kin-
ship to the Highest and Best! Conscious of that high
connection, we should stand erect in new dignity and
freedom; we should move through the exposures and
trials of the world with such a sense of security as
angels might feel if sent here on the King’s errands.
And what mighty motives we should have for keeping
our robes clear of soil and stain, our princely rank un-
dishonored by unworthy conduct or bosom sins! How
joyfully we should take to heart the apostle’s injunc-
ton, =" Wali worthy of God, as dear children |”

With this brave faith, why could we not look out of
countenance all the seeming evils of the world? Those
evils may come in the guise of prosperity ; but then we
should be like the queen who amid royal splendors
found “God in all.” ©r, if they came in’ the sombreform of adversity, we, like the same queen driven into
exile and poverty, should find “all in God.”

‘‘ Not a sparrow shall fall on the ground without your
Father.” The poor helpless bird falls, indeed, pierced
by the arrow, torn by the beast of prey, dashed on the
rocks or into. the sea by the storm; yet, even ims
falling, the loving care goes with it. Does that same
loving care, think you, really forget or forsake any
victim of the earthquake, shipwreck, or massacre,—
any sufferer from private malice, cruelty, oppression, or
social injustice,— any son of God who hangs on a cross,

whether innocent or guilty?

The faith of the Fatherhood supplies the loftiest
standard of human character and conduct. It inspires
the purest of all passions,—the love of perfection, the
desire to be like him,—to be perfect as he is perfect.
«Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth him-
self as he is pure.’

We come round’ again to the great phrase of Peter
about becoming “partakers of the divine nature” by
escaping the corruptions of the world. For we have
found in the soul a germ of the God-quality, or cer-
tainly a capacity for acquiring that quality through
obedience to the truth; and this germ or capacity is
to be quickened into activity by the touch of love... Is
not this, indeed, “the grace that brings salvation’?

The Christian Church, in all its great Confessions,
has made the Fatherhood of God its first article of faith.
Has it been held only as a dead dogma or as a vital and
vitalizing truth? And to us, who blazon it on these
walls and repeat it in hymn and prayer, how much does16

it really mean? What is it doing for our life? Does it
mspire us with filial reverénce and aftection? —- with
higher self-respect and respect for all our fellow-beings,
of every creed, color, and condition? Does it give us
strength to do and endure, and comfort us under daily
trials? Does it give us peace in believing and joy in
the spirit of holiness? Does it draw us into happy fel-
lowship with all lovers of the good and true,—the Chil-

 

and fill us with
compassion for those who walk in darkness? Does it

dren of the Light of every name,

shame us away from evil and encourage our aspiration
to be “righteous as he is righteous”? Does it fill us
with great expectations of better things in reserve for us
as heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ? It doth
not, indeed, appear what we shall be; but sonship can
mean no less than growing likeness and full inheritance.

What, now, is the richest possession of mankind in
this twentieth Christian century: Not our material
gains, not our liberties and laws, not our arts and sci-
ences, not the rich flowering of literature. It is not
even Our beliei in God. It is our belief in God as the
Father; in his boundless, impartial, unpurchased love
for us all; in our kinship with him, and therefore in the
greatness and incalculable worth of the soul. It is our
elief that, while we have bodies, we are not bodies; be-
cause as God is a spirit, so we are spirits; that our life
is hidden and safe in his lite; that the love in our hearts
is his love; that he is the living Head of the family of
souls, and that not one of us can ever fal] out of his
hand.

But every man’s thought of God is determined by the
quality of ithe man’s own life. He cannot put into hisa

deity any attribute with which his experience has not
made him acquainted. A man with a conscience will
easily recognize a supreme Lawgiver and Sovereign ; or,
even if he doubts the divine personality, he may still be
sound in his moral purpose and nobly loyal to duty. But
there is something far beyond this for our enrichment
and delight. Jesus, the Son of Man who knew himself

also Son of God, has made that sacred secret the com-

 

mon property of mankind,—a fountain of life for who-
soever will come and drink.

But no disobedient child fully loves or trusts or enjoys
the father or mother. Only those led by the Spirit of
God can know themselves sons of God. What, then,
of those who are not so led?

When the prodigal turns his back and wanders away
to a wild and wicked life, he will banish the thought of
his father; he will prefer not to think of his home ; and,
worse still, he will be lost to the innocence of childhood
and to his own better nature. Could he ever be called
a man again until after bitter suffering “he came to
himself’? It must have been like an awakening after
a hideous dream. But all the time he has lived in the
sorrowing heart of the father, who welcomes and cele-
brates his return. ‘This my son was dead, and is alive
again,’—a son all the time!

The Lamb in the midst of the Throne, the change-
less Love which is at the centre of the government of
the universe, the Christ-spirit which we all accept as
the truest and highest manifestation of God yet known
to us, the meeting-place and harmony of Fatherhood

 

and Sonship,—this is our present and everlasting rest.
Here man is no longer an orphan and outcast, no longer
a homeless wanderer, forlorn and uncared for, feeding18

on husks and a companion of brutes; but a child at home
in the Father’s house, wearing the royal robes, provided
for at the royal table, and honored by a place in the
royal service ; living and rejoicing evermore in the light
of a countenance that is never darkened with a frown,
and which is never hidden from any of us save by the
blindness of ignorance and fear, or by disobedience and
distrust.

And now, with ever-deeper meaning and richer faith,
with new serenity and sincerity, let us join with Jesus
in praiseful prayer to his Father and our Father, to his
God and our God.THE BROTHERHOOD GF MAN.

“Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us? Why
deal we treacherously every man against his brother ?”— MALACHI ii. ro.

“ He made of one every nation of men for to dwell on all the face of
the earth, .. . for in him we live and move and have our being.”’— Acts
XVll. 26, 28 (Rev. Ver.).

THE Fatherhood of God is the basis of the first and
greatest commandment,—‘‘ Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart.’’ The Brotherhood of Man
is the basis of that second commandment which is like:
namely, ‘* Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. ’’
Jesus takes these great words of the ancient law and
sets them up in the highest place of faith and worship.
As his own summary of the law and the prophets, he adds
the Golden Rule: *‘ All things whatsoever ye would that
men should do to you, do ye even so to them.’’ Alas
for us and for mankind, if these oracles of life have lost
their impressiveness through familiarity |!

The sublime truth that ‘‘ God is love’’ supplies a
ground for both commandments, and brings them out in
glorious relief. Swift and sweeping comes the infer-
ence that those who are made in his spiritual image
ought also to love one another. How can we hate, how
regard even with indifference, any who are objects of in-
terest to the universal Father?

Our chief interest in this world arises from its being
the home of mankind. Our chief interest in life arisesOx

  

20

from our human relations. These relations alone make
pessible the family, society, civilization, and our com-
plete life as individuals.

Within this feeling of regard for our fellow-men is
another feeling that throbs like a heart: we ave all of
one kind; we are kindred; we have a common nature;
‘all minds are of one family.*’ This basis of umity In
our mental and moral or spiritual nature would not be at
all disturbed if it were proved, as it is not absolutely
proved, that the human world has been peopled from
several different stocks and centres.

Whatever faith we have in human nature is rooted in
this instinctive or very general belief that we are en-
dowed with common qualities. It has made us exacting
in our demands upon each other. We expect great and
good things of a man because he zs a man, and we are
easily angry or contemptuous with those who fall below
the standard: An unreasonable and often cruel rule
of judging; but it proves at least that we have a high
ideal.

Yet this ideal has been in the air rather than in the
actualities of life. By a curious and tragical paradox,
the prevailing estimate of human nature has not been
based on our thought of man as we know he might be,
but on our observation of man as he is, and on our ten-
dency to judge others by our own meannesses. Think
what a woful part has been played in history by jeal-
ousies, suspicions, and distrusts, or by personal and in-
ternational antagonisms and murderous hatreds !

It is another curious fact that the so-called superior
race feels obliged to justify its contempt for a less de-
veloped people and its domination over them by pretend-
ing to regard them as sub-human. Red men, yellow21

men, brown men,— we ask superciliously, ‘‘ Ave they
really men?’’ To admit the negro’s manhood would
be to confess his claim to equal rights. Yet he is ‘‘a
man and brother ’’ for all the purposes of criminal law ;
and his capacity for rising is admitted by every effort to
keep him down.

But faith in the essential nobility of mankind is at the
foundation of free society, and is the spur to all prog-
ress. Where this faith is weak, men have little satisfac-
tion in each other, little capacity for consulting and co-
operating, little force for any great enterprise. Where
such faith is strong, there is active public spirit,
energy for creating and utilizing resources, a disposi-
tion to establish and maintain all kinds of useful institu-
tions. And it is strongest of all where there is the
most ardent conviction of our relation to a higher being,
— our common Father.

The brotherhood is provided for in deep-seated in-
stincts. Watch the children when they meet as
strangers. heir shy and eager eyes tell of hungry
hearts. In an hour they will be as fond of each other
as of nuts and apples.

Their seniors never outgrow this craving for their
kind. Every social clique or coterie, every sect or
party,— nay, every group on the sidewalk and every
chatty interview or hurried greeting between two or
more who meet and pass,— tells the story of human
brotherhood.

See what endless organizations spring from this com-
mon impulse. In Boston alone, besides the churches,
there are more than a thousand lodges, fraternities, so-
cieties, circles, and clubs.

Civic life, testifies. Ihe city, state, or nation mimes22

   

be thought of as a mass of individuals drawn together
because they belong together and cannot keep apart.

Wie Church 1S the Supreme instance.

It builds

fraternity, not only on the need which all men have of
each other, but on their slowly awakened sense of rela-
tionship to the common Father; and it most strongly
draws those who respond to the call to *‘ be followers of

God as dear children. ’’

There are ways of thinking about man, as about God,
which make love difficult or impossible. But we do not
learn these ways in the school of Christ. Says Har-
hack ~ We have become dearer to One another ifom

learns of the Father. Fle quotes ‘from

another,

‘“ The value of a truly great man consists in his increas-
me the value of all mankind.”  TMmerson held that

‘“ Jesus alone saw the greatness of man.”’

He brought not so much a new religion as a new

moral code, a humanization of the older faith and prac-

tice. He swept away the clouds that conceal us from

each other, and that darken the sky above us.

In the

light that shines from his own face we see that what

seemed our poor distorted humanity is stamped with

the image of divinity.

Now open the Old Testament. Across some of its

pages there is a bar of cloud. The pride and exclusive-

ness of Israel put reproach and contempt

on other

nations. You read in one sentence that they should not

oppress the foreigner; in another, that they might make

him into a slave; in one sentence, that they should not
eat the flesh of any animal that died of itself; in an-
other, that they might sell it to the stranger. One

psalm is a breath of tender prayer for all nations: an-72
=

other breaks out in maledictions and ‘‘ perfect hatred ’’
of the enemies of Jehovah. The Gentile had no such
strong claim as the Jewto justice or mercy. To love
the neighbor and hate the enemy had become a part
of the ethical code. Then came the higher teaching, —
= Love your enemies: bless them that curse you.”

From one point of view it is easy to justify a certain
disparagement of the masses of mankind. Voltaire
thought the common herd not worth taking into account.
‘“ Mostly fools’’ was Carlyle’s description of his coun-
trymen. Mephisto tells the Lord that ‘‘man uses his
reason only to make himself the most brutal of brutes;
that he is like a grasshopper that will not lie in the
grass, but thrusts his nose into every puddle.’’ And
the writer of the fourteenth Psalm represents Jehovah
himself as searching the earth in vain for one righteous
or rational man.

Certainly, the rulers and managers of men have not
believed it possible to raise them far enough above the
monkeys to trust them with the powers of self-direction
or self-government. Those of superior culture and
position have been as reluctant to own the universal
brotherhood as the more enlightened nations have been
to treat on equal terms with those of lower develop-
ment. To see ‘‘a man and brother’’ in the savage, or
semi-barbarian, or in the clodhoppers of civilized lands,
one must look with other eyes.

Yet all the despotisms and cruelties and stratifications
of caste have not wholly stifled the deep instinct of our
common humanity. Whose name is most honored and
loved through the ages? Not the name of the con-

queror who
« Wades through slaughter to a throne,

And shuts the gates of mercy on mankind,”24

but of the man who, with or without reason, is regarded
as a disinterested benefactor; the patriot who lives or
dies for his country; the king who is beloved as the
father of his people; the philanthropist who searches
out the unfortunate and lifts up the fallen and the
weak ; or the man who is bravely just, and who accepts
obloquy and loss because he will not be a party to a
popular wrong.

All these Christian ages has not the world adored
that great Son of Man and of God for the gracious words
that proceeded out of his mouth as he spoke to the com-
mon people and to those whom even these despised?
And does not the highest Being show his divineness by
stooping to the lowest? What becomes of faith in God,
when we have no faith in his creatures ?

Probably all the diseases of civilization and the prin-
cipal evils which afflict our communities can be traced
to the prevailing selfishness, to the lack of brotherly
feeling, —a thinly disguised form of dishonesty, which
makes us willing to shirk our share of the common bur-
dens, willing to profit by others’ losses, willing to take
what is not our own, and to live by fraud or cunning.

There are many among us who are innocently and
honestly unproductive; many who would gladly be self-
sustaining if they were not disqualified by various
causes. Society is fortunate, as any of us are fortunate,
in being able to help the helpless, just as it is a sacred
privilege for parents to care for their children. We
that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak,
and to “‘remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how
he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.’’
Mischief begins and spreads when material interests25

are set above humanity, and wealth above welfare; when
the workman is sacrificed to the work, the producer to
the product. So we go on piling up the millions, while
morals are forgotten, hearts are crushed, and our
brothers and sisters are cheated of those benefits of ex-

istence which heavenly bounty has provided for all.
Does not Cain still stand with his hands red with blood,
defiantly asking God, ‘‘ Am I my brother’s keeper ’’ ?

Every land is burdened and endangered by the in-
crease of a base population; yet every land cherishes the
customs, policies, and vices which tend to multiply such
a population. Every land permits, if it does not en-
courage, the heartless greed which plunders or taxes the
many for the enrichment of the few; and often this
wrong is done by an abuse of the powers of government.
Thus every land suffers from those social antagonisms
which make men forget that they are brothers.

How deeply and cruelly the sense of brotherhood is
wounded by the war spirit, or the military passion!
This was never more apparent than now. Who won-
ders at Kossuth’s complaint that ‘‘ there is not yet a
Christian nation’’! But evolutionary science teaches
us to regard all this brutality as a survival. There
was a time when every private man carried a weapon
for offence or for defence. A happier social order
set in when civilized people learned to look to the
law for protection and for the settlement of personal
grievances. But the zatzons still go armed; and every
government in Christendom acts on the old rule that
there is no safety except in maintaining a sufficient
array of force to make others afraid. Voltaire had
some reason for saying that ‘‘ war is the natural con-26

dition of mankind’’; for this will be true so long as we
are living so little above the plane of the beasts of prey.
But

‘« The thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns” ;

and millions are asking in all seriousness, with Franklin,
‘if the nations cannot find some more reasonable way
of settling their differences than by cutting each other’s
throats.’’ Even the rulers who keep up and increase
the armaments are asking that question.

But every standing army cultivates the war spirit by
necessity. Not one of us who are here would find
pleasure in killing a man, even if we felt it to be neces-
sary and justifiable, as in personal or public defence.
But the average professional soldier welcomes war, and
rejoices in it; and every boy who hopes to wear a uni-
form hopes also that he shall see a battle.

An officer home from the Philippines told me that he
liked it, and should like it still better ‘‘if there were
more fighting.’’ I heard a naval chaplain describe the
exultation with which our marines entered into the attack
on the Spanish fleet off Santiago; and he justified this
feeling, for he said, ‘‘ When a preacher has written a
sermon, he wants to preach it; and, when a brave man is
in the service, he wants a chance to do something.’’
And just what is that something which he wants to do?
Quite above his bloody business was the captain who
silenced the cheers because ‘‘ the poor devils were dy-
ing.’’ But when the trouble with Spain was brewing,
we heard of a company of naval officers who clinked
their glasses to this sentiment: ‘‘ Here’s to a long war,
and a bloody one! ’’

Ah, my brothers, what sights that sad face on theD4
=]

cross looks down upon, nineteen centuries after the
angel song of peace and good will!
Two ministers were together. One of them said,

“If our boy grows up a soldier, my wife and I shall be
The other said, “* Better that a

a)

perfectly satisfied
child of mine should die in the innocence of infancy
than that he should grow up to be a shedder of blood!”’

To those who accept the principle of Human Brother-
hood, every case of international hatred and _ strife

iA

and a family disgrace. Then let us have no part in the

must appear like a family quarrel, a family misfortune,

propagation of ill-will or ungenerous judgments, or in-
jurious and irritating trade regulations, as between
different nations and races. Weall rejoice that it is
no longer an American fashion to hate the British
because their forefathers and ours were enemies. But
we were never further than now from being either gen-
erous or just toward those whom we count our inferiors
in development and culture, especially if we happen to
want anything which is theirs.

We need to rediscover and confirm a rational doc-
trine of equality. Certainly, there are superior breeds
of men, as there are superior persons in every com-
munity, and as there may be superior children in a
given family. The old tradition gave to the superior
man mastery over the rest of his community, and es-
tablished a hereditary order which retained mastery, not
by merit, but by position and power. In the same way
the eldest son gained and held the advantage over his
brothers, and often used it selfishly and cruelly. We
have left these things behind, with other rubbish. But
we are taking up again the false principle which was
at the root of the old despotisms. We are making28

the natural inequalities of races and nations an excuse
for claiming dominion over them and robbing them
of equal rights to life, liberty, and the means of happi-
ness, for which they, like our fathers, are willing to die.

There is no cure for this growing disease but in the
Christian doctrine of brotherhood. They who will be
truly superior or great must be the helpers and ser-
vants of the weaker. The strong do not exist for them-
selves alone. They are not created to set themselves
above their brethren, nor to rule them as subjects and
vassals. ‘There is a nobler ambition: ‘‘ He that will be
chief, let him render the larger service to all.’’

Flow slowly men discover each other! What trifles
keep them apart! And, when cruelty or injustice be-
comes a custom, how difficult it is to eradicate it! and
how easily good men hide its hideousness with excuses,

reasons, and divine sanctions! How it tortured poor
Cowper !
‘“‘ My ear is pained,

My soul is sick with every day’s report

Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.

There is no flesh in man’s obdurate heart:

It does not feel for man. The natural bond

Of brotherhood is severed, as the flax

That falls asunder at the touch of fire.

Lands intersected by a narrow frith

Abhor each other. Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations who had else,

Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys.”

We cannot quote these lines from a poem written more
than a hundred years ago without rejoicing that im-29

mense advances have been made toward better neigh-
borhood between the nations.

But Human Brotherhood is still very far from realized.
Millions who would be made better and happier by
knowing, loving, and serving each other are kept apart
by high and thick walls,— walls of prejudice, party,
sect, creed, caste, social exclusiveness, business rivalry,
and selfish interest.

Aversions and antagonisms are propagated like the
bacteria which produce foul disease. In one city the
boys in neighboring streets found some cause for quarrel,
and made it a point of honor to shower missiles and
blows on any lad who was caught outside the limit. In
a village of North England, as the workingmen were
going home at evening, they spied a stranger in homely
garb; and one of them was heard to say, “‘’Eave a
brick at him!’’ When an Ojibway Indian was asked
the cause of the bitter feud between his tribe and the
Dakotas, he answered: ‘‘ I do not know; but, whenever
an Ojibway sees a Dakota, he wants to kill him, and
they feel the same way toward us. It was so with our
fathers and with their fathers.’’

We may all be brothers, but it goes hard to own the
relationship ; and the scientists do not make it easier by
telling us that the lowest races are still nearer to the
ape than to the highly civilized man. But science can
bear a different testimony; for the idiot can be edu-
cated, the criminal can be reformed, the barbarian can
be reached and set in the path of progress, and the fore-
most people are the descendants of naked savages and
cave-dwellers.

But progress is slow, especially in the early stages ;
and so serious are the obstacles that those who are bestAan

  

30

endowed do nat find it easy to advance. As these
obstacles are immensely greater in the case of the back-
ward peoples, it is all the more cruel to impose on them
needless disabilities and difficulties.

The altruistic sense, or feeling for others, is likely to
be most active in natures that are in other ways the
noblest. The man of fine grain and high honor is ready
in courtesy toward men of all sorts and conditions, and
is incapable of contempt toward those of less culture or
social consequence. And this would soon be a different
world, if the professed followers of Jesus could but share
the vision of him who saw in every nobody a somebody.

Roger Wolcott, when Governor of Massachusetts,
could never sink the gentleman in the official; and the
woman who scrubbed the State House floor was not too
lowly to receive a bow and kindly word as he passed to
his office. George Washington, lifting his hat in re-
sponse to the salute of a negro, loses his dignity no more
than when presiding in a council of war or at the head
of his cabinet.

William Morris tells how he was saved from feeling
hard and angry toward the brutal and rufanly crowd
that went yelling past the window of his beautiful work-
shop. He asked himself, Why was he on this side of
the window, among lovely works of art and delightful
books, and not on the other side, in the empty, ugly
street, the drink-reeking gin-shops, or the foul, de-
graded lodgings? His own feelings, tastes, and desires
told him what they had missed, and stirred in him a
compassionate desire to promote uplifting movements,
or cheerful and wholesome employments, which might.
check the downward drift of many English workingmen,31

  
 

Thank Heaven, the air of our time is musical with

voices that call to the lowest to come up higher!

The Brotherhood of Man gives the true basis and

impulse of co-operation.

One spirit alone can make one

body. Only the combining peoples are strong. Com-

petition qualified by brotherliness would make the in-

dustrial and commercial wheels go round with far less

friction and with immeasurable good nature. This kind

of wisdom has long been coined into proverbs. ‘‘ In

a2

union is strength.

‘“ Many hands make light work.’’

This is Mill’s test of civilization: Can the people con-
Can they pull together and

sult toward agreement?

take along the common load? That is, the more
brotherliness, the higher the type of society. Spinoza
has the same idea: ‘‘ Nothing is more useful to man

than man.’’. ble adds,

‘“ Reasonable

men desire no

sood for themselves which they do not also desire for

other men; and so they are righteous, faithful, honor-
able.’’ His ideal, like Saint Paul’s, is that ‘‘ all minds

and bodies should make up as it were one mind and

body. ’’

All this looks toward social harmony and unity OL ihe
terests. It hallows every helpful activity, and brands

all hurtful occupations with infamy.
able a business may be, if it injures humanity, an
honest man would keep out of it as he would keep out of
hell. The liquor saloon is a case in point. In the
words of a New York judge, ‘‘ No man has a right to
live at the expense of the life, health, and happiness of
his fellow-beings.’’ But every industry, trade, or pro-
fession that contributes to welfare, if chosen and. pur-

i. ee
sued on the higher human principle, becomes a" voca-

However profit-tion, a sacred calling.
as good as a prayer, even

22
I“

     

An honest day’s work may be

saves him from becoming a burden.

if it only feeds the worker and

The love of our human kind, like our sympathy with

lower

Mature, PuULS Sweetness into every Cup.

Grearures

and

Our

affinities

with

inanimate

It invigorates

every faculty and makes life better worth living, by

claiming all resources and energies for honorable and

happy uses.

conceit.

of human interest.

It cures us of weak self-pity and silly self-
It enlarges life to make room for every variety

It is the only antidote for a thou-

sand virulent poisons, — personal, domestic, social, and

international.

And it opens the door of the heart to

the love of God, which flows in more abundantly as we

give it free outpour in self-forgetting service.

The Fatherhood and the Brotherhood belong together,

and neither can mean much without the other.

The

more fully we receive the Sonship, the more we shall
see in Divinity and in Humanity.

Certainly, we can say ‘‘Fatherhood’’ with very little
filial feeling, — very little confidence, gratitude, or glad-

ness.

Certainly, we can say ‘‘ Brotherhood’? with
; 4

very little regard for mankind, or for the men, women,

and children whom we meet every day.

To forget and
neglect —to be blind and insensible—is as easy as
lying, to which it is closely related.

But if our faith in these great realities is real and
vital, and if our perception of the truths which they
represent 1s unclouded by selfishness, sordidness, and
sensuality, we shall cease to think of heaven and earth

as far apart.

Our little planet will seem more worthy
of its place in the Kosmos.
among the stars of God.

It will move and shineTHE LEADERSHIP OF [reds

‘‘ Behold, I gave him for a witness to the peoples, for a leader and

,

commander to the peoples.”—IsAtaH ly. 4. (Rev. ver.)

THIs saying originally applied to David. Like each
other king of Israel, he was called Messiah, or the Lord’s
Anointed, which in Greek is Christus,—the “ Christ.”
Let us take it as the starting-point of an inquiry into
the historic conditions that led up to the career of Jesus
of Nazareth, and the way in which he came to be known
by this lofty title.

From 700 to 500 B.c. the nation was breaking to
pieces, under the press of domestic disorder, foreign
invasion, and religious apostasy. At last the capital was
burned, and most of the people who had not been killed
were carried into far-away captivity.

But, in their affliction and chastisement, they re-
membered the ancient covenant, and grew confident
that Jehovah, the God of their fathers, would bring
them again to their own land; that Jerusalem would
rise from its ashes; that a temple more splendid than
Solomon’s would stand on Mt. Moriah; that the
monarchy would be re-established in righteousness and
peace under a king of David's line; and it would be as
if David himself had returned to reign forever and (to
subdue all the nations to his authority.

These glorious visions never came true. Some thou-
sands of Jews did indeed return from Babylon to rebuild34

the city and to set up the altar of a purified worship,
and in time their descendants were counted by millions ;
but in twenty-five centuries the Jews have not recovered
national independence, and no son of David has ascended
the throne of his fathers. But as through the seventy
years of exile they were sustained by the prophetic assur-
ance that Jehovah, who led their ancestors out of Egpyt,
would lead them out of Babylon, so, in the long cruel
centuries of oppression that followed, the hearts of
pious patriots glowed more and more with a flaming
vision of Israel’s divine mission and future greatness.

The burning Messianic hope, the hope of a divinely
sent human leader,—cherished through many genera-
tions and intensified by suffering and persecution,—
created a national ideal which fashioned itself around
an imaginary popular hero. ‘This passionate expectation
made it easy for fanaticism and imposture to set up the
standard of revolt against foreign dominion. Time after
time the beacon fires were lighted on the hills, the
trumpets were blown, and impatient patriots raised the
ory. rl he Messiah has. come to save us!” Dut only
to discover that they had followed a false light into
deeper darkness, and brought down more heavily than
ever the iron hand of the hated foreigner.

Now we can understand the construction which the
popular mind put upon the proclamation of John the
Baptist and Jesus: ‘ Repent, for the kingdom of heaven

is at hand.” It was the: watchword of a national up-

 

rising,— at once a moral and a political manifesto. It
was a call to become righteous in the sight of God, so
as to be sure of his favor when the signal should be
given. John, probably suspected as an incendiary, was

soon thrown into prison. Jesus, whose preaching, like35

John’s, looked only to a spiritual reformation, soon
found himself subject to the same misconstruction; for
the excited country people “were about to come and
take him by force to make him a king,” so that for a
time he was obliged to withdraw from public observa-
tion.

As the multitude from Galilee escorted Jesus into
Jerusalem, they burst into a tempest of vzvas,— ‘The
kine cometh! Hosanna to the son of David!” Bat
a sad and sullen silence fell when he gave no signal for
drawing the sword. Then the priestly party took ad-
vantage of his popularity to accuse him of heading a
movement against Czesar; and Pilate tried to justify a
cowardly judicial murder by putting on the cross the
contemptuous accusation, “ Jesus of Nazareth, the king
of the Jews |”

We know that the minds of the apostles were ob-
scured ‘by the same political illusion; for James and
John, set on by their ambitious mother, asked Jesus to
give them the highest offices when he should come into
his kingdom. And, even after his crucifixion and reap-
pearance, he was asked, “ Wilt thou at this time restore
the kingdom to Israel?”

Quite as noteworthy is the legend of Herod's
slaughter of the children, because of a rumor that the
expected king had been born in Bethlehem; also, the
supposed necessity of tracing the ancestral line of Jo-
seph back to David, although the genealogical table
given in Luke is quite different from that in Matthew.
The expectations of a temporal sovereign melted into
thin air, like morning mists. A Mohammedan mosque
stands on the rock foundation of the Jewish temple;
and the children of Abraham have found a home in36

every land more than in Palestine. No expositor claims
that the word of the prophets has been literally fulfilled.

But something incomparably greater and more glo-
rious has actually come to pass in the face of all the
world. “The old ideal of the Messiah appears poor,
cheap, and almost vulgar, when contrasted with the real
leadership of Jesus, accepted as a spiritual prince and
deliverer. The great words of Isaiah, when he applies
them to himself in the synagogue of Nazareth, are
transhgured with heavenly meaning: “The Spirit of the
Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me [echrise me,
-—- “made me a Christ |. to preach good tidimes to. the
poor. He hath sent: me to: proclaim release fo the
captives and recovering of sight to the blind; to send the
oppressed away free; to proclaim the acceptable year of
tne Lord.

This was no mere political harangue; and we can
understand the lofty and true sense of Peter’s bold
words on the day of Pentecost: ‘Let all the house of
Israel know assuredly that God hath made this Jesus,
whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ.” And later:
“Unto you first, God having raised up his servant, sent
him to bless you, in turning away every one of you
from his iniquities.”’

In the Bible, the word “king” occurs about two

 

thousand eight hundred and seventy-five times,— a proof
of the powerful impression made upon the thought and
imagination of mankind by the institution of monarchy,
and the tremendous part it has played in national life
and in human history. The king was the centre and
symbol of government. His authority and majesty

gave reality and vitality to the collective life or unity of3/

a people. The kingdom itself was organized about his
sacred person. He was believed to reign by divine right,
as the representative of the Deity. In many countries
he was hardly thought of as ‘“‘a mere man.’ He was
honored as a god, and wore the title “ Son of God.” If
he had conquered other kings, he was “King of kings ”
or Lord of logds7’

Oriental sovereigns made a selfish and brutal use of
their arbitrary power, as the Jews learned only too well
from long and cruel sufferings. In the New Testament

+)

“the kings of this world” are often referred to in such
a tone as modern labor unions fall into when they speak
of capitalists and unscrupulous. corporations. The
groaning multitudes were longing for a Deliverer; but
they thought only of outward bondage, and not of salva-
tion from their inward slaveries. The time had come for
setting up a new kind of government, whose foundations
should be laid in human hearts, and whose higher law
should be graven in the human mind.

Now, if we look through the reported discourses of
Jesus, we shall find that no phrase is so often on his lips,
no subject so often illustrated by his parables, as this
one of “the.kingdom.” “The kingdom. eof heavem | 5
the common form in Matthew; “the kingdom of God,”
in Mark and Luke.

«The gospel of. the kingdom’ is the subject at tie
new proclamation. But it is something very different
from the kingdom they are looking and longing for;
something at once more simple and more sublime. It is
not to come with observation: it 1s to grow from small
beginnings like a mustard-seed ; it is to spread in human-
ity like leaven in the meal. Its subjects are the new-
born and childlike, the humble and meek, the merciful,38

the pure in heart, the much-enduring, who are: yet the
men of stout-hearted faith, who can outface all opposition
and die for a principle. Such is not a kingdom of this
world, with its endless wrangles for power and advan-
tage ; it is not the old priestly formalism and ceremonial,
nor the meat and drink of religious festivals : it is a new
order of righteousness and peace, of willing service and
sacrifice.

Did Jesus think of himself in boyhood, or at the out-
set of his public ministry, as the Messiah, or the Christ ?
Some of the early Christians believed that the divine
Anointing first came at his baptism, when he saw or felt
the Spirit descending upon him like a dove, and heard a
voice salute him as Son of God. We cannot fix a date
fOr tmis Sreat experience: it is Enough’ that he camew
tire Tull. persuasion that the predictions or“ One thar
should come” were fulfilled in himself,— that it was the
Father’s good pleasure to set him at the head of a move-
ment which, though it was to begin with “the lost sheep
of the house of Israel,’’ was destined to be enlarged by
its own vital spirit and inner principle to the breadth of
the world and the length of the ages.

Thus the words “ king” and “‘ kingdom ”’ were charged

with a new meaning,

 

a meaning unknown to the chil-
dren of this world, who hold in love or awe the palace,
the throne, and the crown. No wonder they who felt
the blessed spell and uplift of the spirit of Jesus, and
obeyed the upward call, were ready to salute him as the
Captain of Salvation, the Prince of Life.

But never was a more unofficial person than Jesus!
It is not least of his services that he leads us away from
personal and churchly domination. Those who love to
salute him as Christ, King, or Lord, will do him thehe
erossest injustice unless they exclude from these titles
of honor every trace of suggestion borrowed from human
sovernments. How can he “see the desire of his soul”’
so long as the reign of Incarnate Love is displaced by
an arbitrary despotism, set up in the name of one who
took on him the form of a servant, and who was never
more a servant than now?

He was no usurper of his more than royal position and
power. He did not force his place at the head of the
movement for human redemption; he found himself
there, simply by obeying the inward call and by letting
his light shine. He could not help realizing his superior-
ity to the dull human throngs. Moved with compassion,
he acted the part of any wise teacher who offers his
services to the ignorant, of any physician who flies
to the relief of suffering, of any strong man who
reaches help to the weak. Here is the true king of
men,.——their noble brother, who delights to serve the
lowest and the least. Can any who do not share this
spirit be truly his followers ?

How shall we explain his origin? Ask as well how we
shall explain the origim of any greatness — or of any
littleness. Who explains a grass-blade? Who can tell
why one tree towers above all the forest, or why one

ll the gifts of genius?

‘

child of the family carries off a
Dr. Gordon thinks that Jesus may have had the root of
It is a beautiful mystery

9)

his being “ deeper in God
that his humanity should have held so large a measure
of divinity,— such a fulness of that blended love and
wisdom as rounded out his sonship, and fitted him to be
at once our wonder, our example, and our inspiration.
Was he miraculously born? Did he heal the sick and

raise the dead? Did he still the tempest, and walk on40

the waves, and create food for thousands? Did he only
swoon and seem to die on the cross, and then revive in
the cool air of Joseph’s tomb? Or did he come back
from real death, reanimate what had been a corpse, and
show himself to his friends with the same flesh and
bones and open wounds? Or did he appear in ‘a spiritual
body,” which only anointed eyes could see, and which
could glide through closed doors, and appear or disap-
pear mysteriously ?

Questions like these press on the thoughtful student.
They must be answered or left unanswered, according
to the impression made on candid minds by the evidence.
The time has gone by when a question of fact could be
settled by a feeling; and thoughtful men and women
do not care to be told that their eternal welfare will be
imperilled by seeking honest answers to fair questions.

Yet there is no reason to doubt that the first three
Gospels contain what was best remembered by eye-
witnesses and ear-witnesses of Jesus, though their re-
ports were written and compiled by others, and were
embedded in a deposit of traditions which grew rapidly
in a credulous age. For, the deeper and more divine
was the spiritual influence of the Master, the more cer-
tain it was that the loving faith of uncritical converts
would welcome, multiply, and magnify the wonder-
stories which went round from mouth to mouth and
added to the fame and glory of their great Benefactor.
All this helps to measure the powerful impression pro-
duced by the words and works, the life and death, the
character and personality, of one who is now honored by
many fair-minded Jews as the greatest of the Hebrew
prophets.

The wonder-stories also have a remarkable consist-AI

ency. They go well together, and have a beautiful
hiness to the. character of the man, His miracles
especially are nearly all works of mercy, such as would
never be told of Nero or Catiline. Stories of this kind,
whether fact or fancy, do not grow around the name of
any ordinary man: they shadow forth, even when they
are grotesque or improbable, the outlines of a great
personality and the wonderful power of a master.

Jesus wrote nothing. He took no pains to have any-
thing written by his friends; and, probably, nothing was
written for several years after his death. Yet he was
sure of the deathlessness of the truth he came to pro-
claim. ‘“ Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my
words shall not pass away.’ So he has become a mighty
spiritual force, working on through the ages. His great
message of the Fatherhood and Brotherhood — the trans-
figured soul of Judaism — sounds and resounds over the
lands and through all changes and confusions. In the im-
perfect letter we still hear the voice of the living spirit.

Here is a leadership that represents more than kingly
authority,— the leadership of one ‘‘ whom God anointed
with the Holy Ghost and with power,” and “ exalted
him to be a Prince anda Saviour,” that he might rule
the world only by truth and grace. His words are still
articulate, even in their echoes, and come home to our
hearts ; for he speaks as one who has the authority of in-
sight and conviction, backed by the urgency of his love
for God and man, blended with faith in both. What is

so purely human, natural, and rational, why not call it

divine ?

We are thus brought to recognize the real leadership

of Jesus as it represents the progress ol mankind from theA2

lower levels of existence to that higher state where we
know and share the quality of children of the Pure Spirit
and become brothers in a common heritage. For, if we
ask in deep seriousness, What is the greatest human
need ? the answer would not be, A reform in government,
a larger measure of liberty, an advance in science and
economics. We should cry out for light and leading
toward a wiser and better life.

Then, if we “heard a‘clear voice saying, “Seele amar
the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and these
things will follow in their order,” our reason and con-
science would say; This is the highest trith this isa
word worthy to come from God. Leadership in the up-
ward path,— this is what we need, and all we need.

I think, when we heard such a message, we should
look twice at the messenger, and wish to know more
about him and what he would have to say of himself.
Now one of the most striking facts about Jesus is his
entire confidence in his own mission as a spiritual leader ;
his sense of open communication with the Divine Mind,
——a source of inspiration of which he claimed no monop-
oply, but which he sought to make the common property
of mankind.

Of what Jesus said or did we cannot be positively cer-
tain, The precious frapments of biography and dis-
course preserved for us in the Gospels are too meagre,
and are mixed with more or less doubtful matter. Yet
they put us in direct touch with his mind and heart ; they
make it easy to discern his spirit and quality: “We
know something of an artist by the work of his hand-
something even of an animal by the print of his foot.
We know something of the great men of the past by the
effects they have produced on the world. Plato and43

Aristotle have illuminated the path of philosophy and
science for the scholarship of more than two thousand
years. In making Rome an empire, Cesar helped to
shape the history and law of modern Europe. Such
men leave their mark, even if the events of their life are
imperfectly known.

The New Testament writings, however uncertain their
date or authorship, show very clearly the kind of impres-
sion Jesus made on the men of his time. They all pict-

ure to us a man of wonderful purity, power, courage,
and kindness, unworldly and careless of human praise or
blame: a man who was full of compassion and helpful-
ness. who “went about doing good,” and taught the
people lessons of divinest rectitude and pity, as i all
heaven were moved with desire for the salvation of man-
kind from error and evil.

He produced also the impression of extraordinary wis-
dom, as if the light of God were shining in his mind.
When Dr. Channing lectured in Philadelphia, a lady
said, “Oh, I wish he would go on and tell us what he
thinks about everything!’’ So did the people hang on
the lips of the new prophet. He seemed to know what
was in man, and what was in God; and he seemed to
come to this knowledge by some secret method, unknown
to the doctors of the law. “How knoweth this man
letters, having never learned?” Yet it was written in
their sacred scroll, “ They shall all be taught of God,’ —
an experience of inward enlightenment which was very
real to him, and which he encouraged his disciples to

seek and trust.

Jesus leads to the Father. No one could lead that

way unless he walked in it. No one could show us the44

Father unless he knew him. No one could know him
save by living with him. So, in drawing us to himself,
he takes us beyond himself. To share the life of son-
ship is to be at home in the upper mansions, with a
place in the divine family and a share in all the supplies.

Is it too much to claim that the world is indebted to

the Carpenter of Nazareth for its most rational and
exalted thought of both man and God, and especially for
its most helpful and satisfy’ ing feeling about the friend-
liness of the world and its mysterious Author? I sup-
pose that when a man of ordinary intelligence tries to
think at all about God, it is the God of Jesus that comes
into his mind,— the God of the great Hebrew prophets
brought still nearer to humanity and cleared of the semi-
barbarous traits of the earlier Jehovah. Any other
deity, it is well said, is becoming impossible to thought,
as it always was unsatisfying to faith and love. For we
are not led to the Father merely as an intellectual con-
ception, but as an indwelling Presence, a eround of
reposeful trust, and a living, loving Will enthroned in our
own.

Thus also we are led toward the purest and sweetest
morality, whose root strikes into the law of love. Only
the good tree can bear good fruit; only out of a good
heart caz a man bring forth good things. Only the
pure caz discern the All-pure. What teacher ever gave
so high a standard, or such mighty motive to personal
ae Can human aspiration ever go beyond the call

1} he perfect as, the Bathen imomeaven is pertect 7
sae way, then, Jesus leads,— toward the perfection of
God! In showing us the Fatherhood, dwelling in all
souls, he shows us the equal brotherhood of mankind.
Until we find man, we have not found God ; until we are45

forgiving, we cannot be forgiven. Until we love and
honor and serve the brother, we shall not acceptably
love or honor or serve the Father.

Moreover, our way of treating our fellow-beings must
correspond with the Father's. way. As he is kind to
the unthankful and evil, so must we be. As he stands
ever ready to receive and forgive the penitent, so must
we. As he does not hold himself above the lowest of
his creatures, so must not we.

To follow such leading would change our attitude and
animus toward the human world, with all its sorts and
conditions. His spirit leads every movement for social
betterment, for enlightenment and refinement, for
the relief and prevention of poverty and misery, for
undoing of the heavy burdens, for rescuing the lost and
fallen, for cleansing all the filthy leprosies of our deeply
disordered civilization.

When the Chinese throw their girl-babies into the
river, as the old Spartans cast out their feeble infants to
die, we ask, Could they do such hideous things if they
had ever heard of him who took the peasant children in
his arms and blessed them? When the African tribes
used to kidnap their neighbors and sell them to the
white slave-traders from Europe and America, do you
think either party could have been taught in the school
of him who declared that any wrong done to “the least
of these”’ offended himas if done to himself? When we
who boast of Christian civilization send a great force of
men and guns across the seas to shoot down thousands
of men of another color, in order to compel them to
acknowledge our supremacy and their own inferiority,
would it be believed that we held in our blood-stained

. atin
hands the Heaven-sent instruction which says, “ Ye know46

inat jthe rulers of the nations exercise dominion over
them, and they that are great exercise authority upon
them’; ‘but it shall not be so among you?” The voice
of Jesus utters more solemnly and sternly than any
other a rebuke of all the unscrupulous uses of power,
as well as the unjust acquisition of wealth and the
degradation of humanity by its abuses.

The leadership of Jesus also takes us to a new point
of view for nature and human experience. There has
come a time when the sprouting of a seed, the beating
ola heart, the sight of a sunset, the whispers of con-
science, the perception of the simplest truth that may
guide our feet in the ways of wisdom or instruct us in
righteousness, comes home to reason and to faith as a
surer proof of the Real Presence than all the sacraments
or the records of marvels and miracles.

How came about this great increase of spiritual
insight? Partly, 1 think chiefly, because such multi-
tudes of men and women have become unconsciously
habituated to look out upon nature and in upon them-
selves through the eyes of one who saw in the worlds of
matter and of mind the scenes of divine activity. We
see all flowers differently because he bids us consider
the lilies; all birds, because he spoke of the sparrows ;
all thought and feeling, because he taught that tHe
spirit of God acts in the spirit of man; all questions of
right and wrong, because he found the kingdom, the
lawgiver, the law, and the very throne of Ged im the
human soul.

What are the qualities we want in a leader? Clear
vision to see the way, and courage to walk in it; large
humanity and entire unselfishness ; superiority to our
weakness, yet exhaustless sympathy and helpfulness; a47

commanding personality and sure confidence in the
Unseen and, Eternal,, And. he must«not hypnotize us,
or draw us into servile relations to himself. He must
give us full leave and encouragement to act in freedom.
He must come that we may have light, and see with our
own eyes; that we may have life, and have it more
abundantly.

We have seen that Jesus made no provision for any
record of his words or his works. ‘This proves, at least,
that he did not mean to shut his followers up to the
letter of his own teaching. There is no reliable evidence
that he privately taught the apostles a system of doc-
trines which they in turn were to communicate to in-
itiates. His biographers certainly deny that he said
anything in secret which was not to be proclaimed upon
the housetops. He seems to have trusted everything
to the free spirit, to the contagion of truth and love; to
the word which, once spoken, could never again fall into
silence ; to the creative energy of which he knew himself
the receiver and transmitter; to the continuation of his
own life in the lives of others ; and perhaps to the spirit-
ual power he should henceforth exert from the invisible
realm. Thus the leadership of Jesus is both personal
and more than personal. He bids us learn where he
learned ; he leads us to the ever-flowing fountains.

The early Christians did not depend on their own
precious writings. They felt themselves committed to
the guidance of a Spirit which could lead into all truth.
They took heed, indeed, to the sure word of prophecy,
and cherished the sacred oracles; but they expected
more revelations from the same source. They walked in

the light that “shined in their hearts ">; and they idente
fed this light with the present indwelling Christ. It

oO48

 
 
  
  
  
   

was Paul’s glory not to “know Christ after the flesh” ;
and he enjoins upon the believers that they give attention
to “whatsoever things are true, just, pure, honorable,
lovely, and of good report,” and that every man should
be fully persuaded in his own mind. His converts,
probably, did not have in their hands any record of the
words of Jesus. His own letters and sermons make no
reference to the gospel narratives ; and his aim seems to
have been to plant Christ in the heart by quickening the
same spirit of sonship to the Father, and the same readi-
ness to live and die in the service of truth and righteous-

Hess,

Why do we hesitate to pive to Jesus the title cE
“Lord”? Simply because the term is now liable to be
misunderstood. It should not mislead any one who
| literature of Lord Moses, Lord Solo-

reads in Orienta
mon, lord Buddha, er Lerd Mohammed ; but, as the

theologians insist that it signifies absolute Deity, it has

become too ambiguous for the use of those who think of
Jesus as a divine being and as the sharer as well as the
leader of their worship. But the Unitarian conception
of the Father as “the only and all-sufficient God” will
be sadly impoverished if it does not include all the
historic manifestations which Trinitarians attribute to the
Son and all those gracious influences which they call
the Holy Spirit.

The mistake of calling Jesus God seems to me far
less harmful than the mistake of undervaluing the
Divinity that wrought in his humanity ; for it leads us to
doubt or disparage the universal law of incarnation, which
alone gives sanctity to life. And, if through Jesus we
have been helped to a clearer discovery of our own high

~~49

rank as children of the Perfect Spirit, why can we not
say with Paul that ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the
world unto himself” ?

Our Leader, indeed! What can we do but follow him,
so long as we desire to move in the same direction, and
so long as we cannot get ahead of one who is so
far in advance? We believe in him because our own
personal experience verifies the truth which shone like
sunlight in his own soul,—the truth which makes men
free, yet binds them in happy loyalty to the highest law!
We believe in him as the Teacher who lays open the realm
of spiritual realities and bids us seek and find for our-
selves. We believe in him as a glorious illustration of
what the indwelling grace of God can do for a man.
Most of all, we believe in him as one who has brought,
and still brings, the fullest and richest disclosure the
world has yet received of the love of God,—a love
which seeks and attends us in all our lowness, 1mperfec-
tion, and sin, that it may cleanse, renew, and transform
our lives, and perfect in us that quality of sonship which
is Our proper nature, and which is also the image of the
Father.

For some of us, these ancient phrases may all be
translated into ‘the Power behind evolution,’ or the
«‘ Power not ourselves,’’ which makes not only for right-
eousness, but for every imaginable or unimaginable excel-
lence and perfection.

We follow this leadership of Jesus because, up to this
time, we have found no other such mighty aid to the
evolution’ of a higher life for ourselves and for all
humanity, and because his high calling sounds in our
souls like heavenly music,— the ever-growing charm of
the Glorious Gospel of the Blessed God.nt
Be

a ek ee pat eon eaeSALVATION BY CHARACTER

‘‘If ye know that He is righteous, ye know that every one that
doeth righteousness is born of him. ... Let no man deceive you:
he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous.”
i JOuN H. 20. ML 7.

“RIGHTEOUSNESS,” or rightness, is the great word of
the Old Testament, as “life” is of the New. Each in-
terprets the other. Is a man truly and wholly alive so
long as there is anything wrong about him? And, if he
is created for the very highest form of life, will not that
kind of life make him “a partaker of the divine nature”?
It will follow that the purest human rectitude, or right-
eousness, is of the same quality with that from which it
is derived and by which it is inspired and sustained.
This must be what was meant by “walking with God,”
or having ‘‘fellowship with the Father.” But we could
not be called to be pure as heaven and perfect as God,
unless we were offered the means of becoming so. To
acquire a God-like character, this is our blessed and only
business.

If we think a little, it may grow clear to us that this
subject of Salvation by Character is closely related to
the themes of two former discourses,— the Fatherhood
and the Brotherhood. For the kind of character which
makes aman safe in this universe must be such as to
put him in due and orderly relations with the laws of
the universe and with its whole population,— the beings
above and around him. Later we may see how thea2

subject connects itself with the Leadership of Jesus and
with rational ideals of life and destiny.

When we speak of a man of character, we mean a
good character ; just as, when we call one lucky or fortu-
nate, we mean that he has met with good luck or good
fortune. When such words are used in a bad sense, we
qualify them with an adjective ; and we speak of poor luck,
ill fortune, ‘bad character.. Of course, the phrase “sal
vation by Character” expresses our belief that a man of
good character is safe, and that all that is necessary to
make him safe is that he be sound at the centre,—‘‘a
good man,” such as would bear the scrutiny and win the
approval of the Judge of all the earth.

This is nonew-doctrine. It is the teaching ot Ole
Testament and New, and of all the great religions.
Nothing is required by the highest law but that a man
shall really be righteous, pure in his inward life, and
thence pure in. his: outward’ lite, like “the Sood “tree
that brings forth good fruit. Easily said: is it easily
done? It may mean vastly more than at first appears.

Character, good or: bad, inclides the sum total of
permanent qualities that go to make the man. It is
what he really is, not as his neighbors see him, not as
he may see himself; but as he really is, and as he must
appear to the all-knowing Searcher of hearts.

A right character, such as secures safety or salvation,
must have at the centre a fixed principle, a commanding
sense of right, an overmastering conviction of duty, a pur-
pose which is to the spirit of the man what vitality is to
his body, and which corresponds also to perfect health.

A recent writer says: “God is a free moral agent.
Hecan be evil if he chooses; but heé{ don’t) choose.SS

Saints in heaven can fall if they choose; but they have
no wish to fall. Every lost soul might repent ; but none
ever will.” This writer believes that all intelligent be-
ings are endowed with moral freedom, and that in the
exercise of this freedom some become confirmed in sood-
ness, like that of God, while others are confirmed in evil,
like that of the fabled fallen angels.

An ancient Poem of Creation tells us that the first
man was tempted and fell. We have read also of a sec-
ond Adam, founder of a more righteous race, who was
tempted in all points, and fell not. Between these two
extremes, what countless myriads have struggled and
aspired, and sunk or risen, buffeting the waves, and
clinging to any plank that might keep them afloat !

It is supposed that Jesus alone, of all who ever lived
on this planet, could say in truth, “I do always the
things that please the Father.” If Salvation by Char-
acter depends on absolute sinlessness and there is no
redemptive provision, the final harvest of souls must
leave the upper heaven very thinly populated.

“He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we
are dust.” He neither exacts mor expects impossibilities
from his creatures. For thejr weaknesses, exposures,
and liabilities, he is more responsible than they. There
is some reluctance to amend the creed which declares
that men by nature are incapable of good. But the
time has gone by when we could think of the Creator
(to borrow an illustration) as leaving his infant child
“on a plank, in mid-ocean, during an equinoctial storm,
and telling him to pull for the shore !”’

When we talk of Salvation by Character, we are not
talking of impossibilities : we are dealing with man in all
his physical, mental, and moral limitations, yet as a being54

under considerate and just parental discipline. Pertec-
tion for such a being is a relative term. With all his
imperfection, he is yet perfect in a true and reasonable
sense, perfect like God when, like God, he is as good
as his knowledge and power permit. But still his ideal
of a higher perfection will compel him to “ walk humbly.”

«A man’s reach must exceed his grasp: else what’s
aheaven for?” To falter through weakness, while as-
piring and striving toward the best, is not to fail. The
really “good men” of whom we read were of like pas-
sions with ourselves, and confessed their follies and
faults. Indeed, such confession was a part of their
goodness. In this transition state, we may call any man
good who, amid all his besetting infirmities and hereditary
disabilities, keeps steadily, though stumblingly, to his
leading purpose of fidelity to such light as is given him,
under whatever sky he was born, and in whatever code
or worship he has been taught. He is a good sailor who
holds his rudder true, however tossed by wind and wave.

The ancient oracles do not mislead us when they
divide mankind into the righteous and the wicked;
though when measure« by an absolute standard, “ there
is none righteous ; no, sotWne.” It still remains true that
character, such as is possible for us all, is the only basis
on which we can build for happiness, welfare, or moral
safety. The clean heart and the right spirit are the only
essentials, and they are not unattainable.

This idea of Salvation by Character needs to be
emphasized fora Guite serous reason, * [tis te be
feared that many have been looking for salvation in the
wrong direction. They have been asking, ‘‘ What will
become of us?” when he more: vital question “1s,
“What ought we to. become?’ » They have been‘seek-55

ing for safety when they should have been seeking for
soundness. They have been concerned to escape the
consequences of sin rather than to escape from sin.
This is much as if the sick man should be more anxious
to be rid of pain than to be restored to health.

The traditional idea of religion needs to be clarified
and rectified. When you hear that a man has become
religious, what is the first thing you think of? Now he
will be interested in doctrines, in ceremonies, in church
life, in Sunday observance; and you suspect that his
coming into the company will operate on the young
people like a wet blanket. Of course, you give him
credit for trying to become a better man; yet his re-
ligion is thought of as something non-natural,— not as
the awakening of his proper life, not as the orderly and
rational development of the man, not as the upspring-
ing or outflowering of a seed planted in his being, grow-
ing with his growth and nourished by influences of
truth and love which are provided like summer’s light
and warmth.

It cannot be said that a man is right in character
because his actions are right on the outside: they
must be right on the inside,—right in intention and
motive. Many a useful action is done from policy or
selfishness ; and many an act done with evil intent brings
a good result. It has been said that, if a man stabs
another with intent to kill, but accidentally opens an
abscess and saves the life he meant to destroy, he is not
less a murderer; and we cantot even give him the
credit of being a skilful surgeon.

Suppose that a man has committed some offence for
which the judge has imposed a fine, and has sent him56

to prison till the fine be paid. The court doesn’t care
who pays: any generous citizen can put down the
money, and the prisoner will be set free. The man
may be just as guilty as ever. But his legal status has
been changed: the law treats him as innocent, and
restores him to society. Shall we call him a “saved”
man? Yes, saved from further punishment under the
law, even though he may still be a lost soul,—a wan-
derer from the true way of life, perhaps not fit for
heaven or earth,— like many of his neighbors who were
never convicted.

This illustrates a superficial view of salvation which has
been wide-spread in Christendom. All mankind, we are
told, are under condemnation for breaking the law of
God, which requires perfect obedience and _ spotless
purity. No soul can escape, even by future good be-
havior; for the old debt stands on the books, and man
has nothing to pay. God has been wronged out of so
much service which was his just due; and the fiery
dungeon claims its victim. Then, as if by a merciful
afterthought, a scheme of salvation is brought forward.
The Son of God, who is God himself, puts on a human
torm, and submits..to bleed and’ die on-a cross, On
account of the dignity of the victim, his sufferings are
accepted as a substitute for the execution of the penalty
upon the race of guilty, helpless, and doomed apostates.

“God, the mighty Maker, died
For man the creature’s sin.”’

‘“‘Fverlasting Justice struck the guiltless Son of God;
And Mercy, smiling, bade the sinner go.”

With this construction the gospel is presented to man-
kind as a proclamation of pardon to every offender whoaf

will take advantage of the offered amnesty by putting
in the plea that “Jesus paid it all,” provided he will
take in good faith an oath of future allegiance.

By this theory the moral government of the universe
is simply an infinitely expanded absolute monarchy, of
which every man is a rebellious subject, under sentence
of.endless imprisonment. What is called the plan of
salvation gives the impression of a patch to cover an un-
expected rent in the moral order. The magnanimity
of the Sovereign provides indeed for human redemption,
and for the restoration and cleansing. of sinful souls,
through repentance and faith in the atoning blood. So
far as this regenerative process produces personal right-
eousness,— however clumsy the contrivance of the
theologians,— it falls quite into harmony with the prin-
ciple of Salvation by Character.

But now mark the mischief. The imagination of
mankind has seized upon the alleged fact that the fine
has been paid and the criminal let off by merely saying,
“7. accept:.the. terms ” ;. while: the calleto aijife. os
loyalty has made no deep impression. The dramatic
scene of the Crucifixion, as the supreme tragedy of his-
tory, has been portrayed thousands of times, and has
melted millions of hearts. But emotion alone does not
make character nor purify life. The superficial effect
of such teaching on the population of Christian lands is
a sad proof that a man may give full credit to the letter
of gospel history, or to the doctrine of imputed righteous-
ness, and be no more saved from sin than the criminal is
saved from guilt by being let out of jail.

The protest against this irrational and immoral per-
version was needed in the interest of Christianity itself,

which has suffered such a caricature. For Christianity58

would be inferior to Judaism if it did not teach that
“when the wicked man turneth from his wickedness,
and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall surely
live.’ To confess and forsake our sins is to find mercy.
When “the prodigal’ returns a “penitent, the elder
brother has no need to bear the father’s wrath or to
suffer the penalty of transgression, in order to satisfy
some theoretic demand of justice.

When the brethren say ‘salvation by faith in Christ,”
do they not really mean “ Salvation by Character,” or by
ar rectified personality ? Suppose some modern rich
man is convicted in conscience of making dishonest
gains, and makes haste to restore, or put to some rational
human use that which he has wrongfully called his
own, might he not hope to hear the word of Jesus to
Zaccheus, “This day is salvation come to thy house”?

Suppose a soldier of the Salvation Army lays hold of
a gutter drunkard,—a poor hopeless wretch, lost to
society, to his family, to himself ; suppose the apostle of
faith, hope, and love takes him by the hand, and says, “In
the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk !” what is
this but putting in practice the doctrine of Salvation
by Character? The whole object is to restore the
fallen one to self-possession, to the proper use of his
faculties, and to reinstate him in self-respect. The
whole business fails unless the appeal of light and love
produces a response in the mind and heart and will;
that is, unless the man is saved by the method of
character.

Whether the human race has fallen from a primitive
state of innocence or has never risen out of a semi-
animal condition is a question on which the last worda2

may not have been said. Those of ‘us: who accept
evolution as the historic process may yet admit that
sinless innocence must have preceded any clear knowl-
edge of the moral law, as is still true of infancy. We
must also admit that, with the development of reason
and conscience, all mankind have failed to conform per-
fectly to the perceived law of right, and thus in a very
real sense have become fallen and sinful. But any
man may stumble and fall, even when he is advancing
along an upward path. We may, therefore, say that
the sins of mankind are incidental to progress: they
belong to the experience and discipline of beings 1m-
perfectly developed and imperfectly enlightened. We
may still believe that the Creator is not disappointed in
the outcome of his work and has not repented that he
made man upon earth.

We must look in the face the tragic facts of sin, suf-
fering, and retribution ; for we all know them to be real
from personal experience, observation, and history.
They are not to be winked out of sight nor belittled.

But there is another and greater fact of which we
also know something: “ There 7s plenteous redemption.”
There is ample provision for the fallen to rise and the
sinful to be saved. Even the Mohammedans — who
simply echo Christianity — say that “Tslam is possible
to every soul”; that is, none are so low that they may
not rise, or so bad that they may not become good.
There ts salvation to the uttermost; and tt ts by the way
of character. The curative power which heals our bodily
hurts is busy with our deeper disorders.

But even the good man walks amid serious perils.
The physicians warn us that a weak or sore spot, or a
functional disorder of stomach, brain, or any organ, 1s60

not to be treated as merely local; that it may be only a
symptom of some general ill condition, like impure blood
or nerve-exhaustion. ‘They prescribe “constitutional
treatment,” a systemic building-up. If the whole vital
tone is low, the weakest part may be the first to give
way; and this may be the only part which we accuse
of failure. But there is no complete health until we
are clean and sound all through. And if any part is
sick, every part may be impaired, either as a cause or as
a consequence.

The body is never in fine running order or fullest
force for work or resistance, unless it is rightly adjusted
to the larger world of which it is a part, and in which
it lives and moves and has its being. The mighty en-
ergies that are in the air and light, in heat, electricity,
and chemic agency, all play through and through these
physical frames of ours; and, if we are in harmony with
them, they are ministers of life, strength, and gladness.
But if we break or mar our connections, these very
forces will slay us or become our tormentors. Try what
the beautiful fairy sun-ray will do to the inflamed eve,
or what the purest air will do to the sick lung, or what
wholesome food will do to the outraged and disabled
stomach,

Let all this pass for a spiritual parable. Man does not
live by the physical elements and forces alone. He
lives by receiving and appropriating the fine and subtle
influences of truth and love, which flow to him from the
Lord. and Giver of life. His moral energy 1s measured
Py his receptivity. © Elis receptivity depends on use; for
he can take in only as he gives out. Both getting and
giving depend on his keeping in harmony with the larger
spiritual order to which he belongs,— in harmony with61

the higher Spirit and all the open channels of communica-
tion through nature or grace; in harmony with the laws
which are at once his guides and protectors and their
own avengers; in harmony with humanity, by preserving
in himself the spirit of loving good will and ready ser-
vice, quite regardless of the attitude or. animus of men
toward himself.

“Do not impair the life-principle,”’ said Napoleon to
the physician. Character means moral vitality. To be
indifferent or to parley with inferior standards threatens
us with heart-failure. Our most common weaknesses
spring from a sneaking desire to serve two masters,— to
be “about right,” and yet to avoid self-denial, to secure
pleasure or profit that can only be had by some secret
bargain with Satan. Just as we wish for bodily health
yet weakly remain in bondage to the appetites and habits
that invite disease.

Character is built up strongly by continuous disci-
pline, by holding ourselves habitually to the best stand-
ards, by availing ourselves of the helps and opportuni-
ties which are set down in the programme of every day
and every situation. Self-indulgence, negligence, or
over-confidence, is fatal. The student who sees little
value and feels little interest in books and instruction,
for whom learning has only moderate attraction, and
who catches no breath of inspiration from the college
atmosphere and the emulation of intellectual comrade-
ship, will probably go out as foolish as he went in.
With suitable changes, the same formula may be filled
out for every man and woman on earth. To be careless

is to be characterless.62

We may now see in clearer light the value of all
“means of grace,’ or helps to improvement. No man
can lift himself to higher moral conditions by sheer
force of good resolutions. The bird does not rise alone
by wings; there must be air. The mountain-climber
must find at every step a place for his foot. And the
human mind does not work in a void. In trying to
think, it must think of something. The affections
must clasp an object, actual or ideal. The will must be
moved by some motive beyond mere willing; and its
emotions must not waste themselves in aimless agita-
tion.

In short, we make no gain in wisdom or in good-
ness —no advance in character— unless we put our-
selves in relation and contact with the three worlds of
which we are a part: with the world of nature, human-
ity, and God; with the realities of life which concern
us, as thinking, loving, and acting beings. Character is
not built out of nothing. Its foundation and superstruct-
ure require solid material, just as every tissue of our
bodies must be packed with actual substance.

The test of character is fitness to the environment,
the ability to live well in all circumstances, and especi-
ally the fitness for social adjustments. Can we live with
other imperfect human beings usefully and happily,
ready and willing both to give and to take such benefits
and burdens as belong to the situation ?

The environment also helps to make character. Every
contact with men and things leaves its mark upon us.
Our bodies are subject to a tremendous pressure from
the atmosphere,— fourteen pounds to the square inch,
the books tell us; yet we are not only able to bear
this pressure, we really find our life in the air, and enjoy63

every breath. The pressure from within balances that
from without. There is a mightier social pressure; and
we need to be fitted both to resist it and to profit by it.

Much of this pressure takes the form of temptation,—
a game we can all play at. We tempt and are tempted.
Every word, look, or action, takes effect: we give each
other our worst or our best. How much we need that
central force of principle which makes it safe for us to
be together !

To what influences and forces from without may we
safely yield? Ah, we can quickly tell! We have
learned by glad and sad experiences that in some com-
panionships we are exalted and refined, in others we
are depressed and coarsened. Yet it is not the com-
panionship that helps or hurts: it 1s our way of taking
it. We shall miss the benefit of the best if we are un-
receptive : we shall take no harm from the worst if we
are inwardly protected. Character is its own shield,
its own antiseptic. The wise and good select by a kind
of affinity or unerring instinct the things that are in
harmony with wisdom and goodness ; and they reject the
rest as a healthy taste rejects what is ugly or rotten.

Character never needs vindication: it is its own de-
fence. If there should be a burglary in Roxbury, would
anybody charge it to Edward Everett Hale? If the
White House should be set on fire, would the detectives
suspect Theodore Roosevelt? Yet so confused are the
elements of this human world that the purest and best
of men have been falsely accused and sent to the dun-
geon, the scaffold, the cross, Even thus, in the long

run, character holds its own.

«The hooting mob of yesterday with silent awe return
To gather up the ashes into history’s golden urn.”64

The earth-life is a school of character, and it 1s worth
our while to take the whole course of study and training.
Some say, “‘ The sooner we are fit to become all spirit,
the. better,” —This*opens'thesdoor to mischter, We have
no right to disparage our bodies or our physical sur-
roundings. Every man is an animal, with some modern
improvements: a superior animal he should be by
virtue of his psychical outfit.

‘And flesh helps soul, now, much as soul helps flesh.”

Body and mind belong together:at every stage of the
present life,—in education, industry, morals, religion.
Complete character must take in the whole man. What
death may do for us is none of our concern. We shall
have our hands full if we mind our present business.
To live wisely and thoroughly to-day cannot hurt our
prospects for any possible to-morrow.

Yet, it may be, we are just now in danger of lowering
our ideal through reaction from the excessive emphasis,
which has been put upon mental development. We
have been producing big heads, thin chests, dyspeptics,
neurotics, and consumers of patent medicines. The pen-
dulum swings the other way ; and there is some contempt
for weaklings, and admiration for feats of strength in the
arena and prowess in the world of conflict.

There is growing demand for more out-of-door life,
deeper draughts of air, plenty of sunshine, and free play of
muscle ; in short, for a return to whatever was good in
the free life of savages. All this will count for a better
basis of character unless we revive also some of the less
lovely aspects of savage life, and lose the costly gains of
refinement and a higher humanity. “I keep my body
under, and bring it into subjection,” says the apostle; or,65

as a little maiden puts it, ““we must keep the soul on
Eop.

This supremacy of the higher nature is just what we
mean by character and by salvation. Give us this su-
premacy, and all the forces of modern life may safely be
directed to making the earth more fit for human uses as
a home, a school, and a temple. There will be room for
a noble worldly-mindedness; and we shall not be ex-
horted to leave business and attend to religion, but rather
to attend religiously to business.

These seventy-five millions of Americans are said to be
worth ninety billions of dollars. Is ¢hatall? So much
manhood as there is, so much worth there is. Emerson
calls men of character “the: conscience’ of society.”
They admonish and restrain and inspire us all: The real
wealth of the country is in the people who cannot lie, who
will not steal, and who cannot be bought by any bribe
offered to their self-love or their interest. The real pov-
erty of the country is in that part of the population,
learned or ignorant, high or low, who lack character,
whose spirits go up and down with the weather and the
markets, who are on the hunt for spectacles and sensations,
who can find no good use for solitude, who put out their
thinking to be done by the preacher, the political leader,
or the journalist, and whom any wind can pick up and
sweep along as it does the litter of the streets.

There is one kind of character about which we all
think alike : it is open as the day because it has nothing
to hide. It combines the boldness of the lion with the
gentleness of the lamb. It is rooted and erounded in
love. It suffers long and is kind; it envieth not;
vaunteth not itself ; is not puffed up; doth not behave66

itself unseemly ; seeketh not its own; is not easily pro-
voked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but
rejoiceth in the truth. It is ready for every good word
and work, full of mercy and good fruits, without par-
tiality and without hypocrisy. It is not overcome of
evil, but overcomes evil with good. We do not forget
in what school we formed this ideal.

As we can have nothing better for our bodies than
perfect health, so we need nothing for our souls but
right character. But, as we have seen, it is not a light
matter nor to be cheaply bought in any market. It
costs everything else, and is worth all it costs. It is the
product of all the finest forces of the universe,—a result
of the long, steady working together of the Divine
Spirit with the human. God alone never made a good
man, as he never made a good book. Man alone never
made himself good, as he never made his heart beat or
his brain think. They must work together.

Right character is simply the result of habitually
choosing what is seen to be morally the best. A steady
traveller along the right road reaches his destination.
Any man who will do justly, love mercy, and walk
humbly with God,—taking no glory to himself, but
always ready for orders, will be like the wise man
who builds his house on the rock. He is helping all
the time to make good society on earth; he is fitting
himself all the time, without much concern about it, for
the best society in the universe,—for the company of
the spirits of the just, made pettect.. Pon it mise ior
ever be true that “no honest mind is without com-
munion, with God,’ and that am honest man is his
noblest work, the crowning glory of his creation.ENDLESS PROGRESS.

“If children, then heirs; heirs of God.” — Rom. viii. 17.

‘““Fletrs of God”! Let us ponder this amazing
phrase. It expresses an inference from the doctrine of
the Fatherhood. ‘“ /f children, then heirs ; heirs of God,
and joint-heirs with Christ.’ We have here the Chris-
tian conception of the destiny of all who share that kind
of life which is spiritual and indestructible. - The fort-
unes of the human family are thus brought before us
for contemplation. All questions of the future are open
questions ; for “it doth not yet appear what we shall
be,’ even on the morrow. But we are forelighted by
experience, by the provisions of our nature, and by all
we know of the order of the world. We may also be
advised by the sages and seers,— by the great voices of
those who have communed most deeply with the realities
of existence.

All men are the offspring of God, but not all men
have the sezse of sonship: this comes only through a
spiritual awakening. The unborn child is unconscious:
it does not breathe, or think, or feel; but the potential-
ities of- complete life are latent. ‘There is a’ second
birth — quite as natural, and more marvellous — by
which we come to breathe and think and feel as spirits ;
an unfolding of our deeper nature. To promote this new
life is the special aim of Christian teaching, and under
any system of religion it is the true method of progress,68

But there are many stages of development. Emerson
says: ‘We wake, and find ourselves on a stair: Phere
are stairs below us, which we seem to have ascended ;
there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward
and out of sight.’’ What are these stairs? Ascending
stages of experience. Not only do we mount to higher
levels of faculty, we also reach new resources and
values, we become susceptible of new joys and new sor-
rows. Wecome in sight of wider regions of being; we
are occupied with higher ranges of interest; we engage
in new and nobler activities. From childhood to youth,
and on through middle age to maturity, who has not
found this true?

It is evident that we are living in a wide universe. In-
deed, it appears to be boundless. We are living in it,
and know it. The birds, beasts, and creeping things do
not know it, therefore they continue on a stationary
plane: they make no progress. They see no stairway
above or below; they look neither forward nor back-
ward. But we are haunted by “thoughts that wander
up and down eternity.” We are in a wide universe;
we know it, and we believe that we are here to stay.
But not to stay still. We are capable of great changes
and improvements ; and such changes we call progress.

“jay your ear close to -yourseli, and listen,* says
Montaigne. A Hebrew sage had said long before,
“7 anan's:’ mind, 18° sometimes: wont to ) tele dim
more than seven watchmen that sit above in a high
tower.” Back of all our thinking, feeling, and willing is
That which thinks and feels and wills. Even when
thought, feeling, and volition are suspended,— as in
sleep or swoon,— we know that Life is there in full
force, ready to resume business. Each one of us can69

,)

eye i “T think, and feel, and will, and remember —
er forget,” What is this “I”? A form of life: 2 living
and conscious being.

This conscious being is on the stairs. Every upward
step takes him higher, even though he stumbles. One
result is that what was impossible yesterday becomes
possible to-day. With every step we surmount an obstacle,
overcome a difficulty, win a victory. Why not say
that with every advance we take further possession of
what was already ours, through our heredity from God?
A man who is climbing a mountain begins to take pos-
session when he starts. What he leaves behind as he
rises is still his; his actual attainment includes all he
seems to be leaving behind; and what he has yet to gain

is already his in hope or expectation.

The title to our inheritance is not impaired by our in-
ability to measure its value. The Father’s bestowals
are not limited by the child’s comprehension. Our poor
little thinkings do not affect his generous purpose.
Theory is often inadequate; but it never hurts a fact.
Whatever the astronomer may say, there are the stars.
Whatever may be the guesses of the geologist, the rocks
abide. The physicians are often bewildered; but we
have our living flesh and blood. So let theologians,
churches, and creeds have their freest say, and let us
accept or question whatever we must: we shall still be
Sure that man is: here in the universe. He knows a,
and he knows himself. “ Let him doubt what he will,
he cannot doubt that he doubts!”” Heis here! And,
whatever puzzles beset us, there are the stairs below us,
and the stairs above us. Weare like the living. creat-
ures of John’s vision, “full of eyes, before and behind.”7O

Let us keep looking, both ways by turns; but mostly
forward.

There are many proofs that man is in a continuous
process of creation. His faculties show a progressive
development. He is ever finding larger uses for them.
His ideals are enlarged and elevated by experience. His
thoughts, affections, interests, and activities widen their
range and deepen their quality. How much more we
care about and live for than in our childhood and early
youth! How much may this mean? It means, at
least, that our being ts laid out on a large scale, that zt zs
written all over with promises not yet fulfilled, and that
there 1s no vistbhle limit to the possibility of growth.

Let.us look at, the subject in two’ quite different
aspects: first, the general progress of the humanirace
on the earth during successive generations; next, the
possible progress of a spiritual society and its members
in a future state of existence. Tremendous themes!
Our minds move through a sea of difficulties, where
thought goes “sounding on its dim and perilous way,”
and every inquiry is at once a confession of ignorance
and a prayer for light.

I. Science traces the development of mankind from
low animal conditions, and calls it evolution. Long,
slow, complicated processes of change — physical, bio-
logical, psychical—led up to humanity, and fitted and
furnished the planet to be the scene of our history.
Then progress enters on a new method. The Creator
takes man into partnership, saying: “Help me make
things. Help make yourself and the world. Behold, I
have given yqu understanding and power!” But, as the7a

Creator himself has been in no hurry, he cannot expect
rapid results from his still feeble creature. The upward
stairway is long and steep. No part of the race has
made rapid progress in intelligence, in virtue, or in civili-
zation. It seems likely that there are some lessons of
wisdom that can be learned and practised only through
long and costly experiments, many failures, and bitter
disappointments.

We know now that it is a sad mistake to over-stimu-
late a child, or to attempt to force a backward people
to take on a higher type at once. All the high and
enduring forms of life are slow in coming to maturity.
That “infinite and eternal Energy from which all things
proceed’ has taken immeasurable time to form and
people this little world, and will doubtless take immeas-
urable time to carry forward the never-finished creation.
Could power and wisdom be better occupied ?

What thousands or millions of our years were taken
to mould the globe from fire-mist and formless void;
to cool and crystallize the granite crust; to condense
and separate and gather the gases into the ocean and
atmosphere ; to sculpture the hills and mountains, and
plough the channels of the streams; to grind the
strata and mix the material for soils; to plant the
plains and forests with green and growing things! And,
after all these ages, there still was not a man to till the
ground! Had any time been wasted ?

Yet progress has been comparatively rapid since
this human animal caught the trick of standing erect,
learned the use of his hands, and began to realize that
life is a science, or something to be learned, and an art,
or something to be practised, and that the world is rich
in resources of which he is born heir and master.fz

Still more rapid was the progress when men could
put their heads and hands together; when they found
that all are wiser and stronger than one; and when the
generations were enriched by savings and accumulations.

Every tool or trade, every labor-saving invention or
subdivision of service, every house, road, or ship, every
animal tamed and trained to human use, every newly
harnessed power of nature that could turn a wheel, has
been a contribution to the general advancement. Much
more must this be said of the institutions that represent
associated life,—the stable family, the school, the
temple of religion. They are all imperfect still, but
once they were impossible.

We are not less heirs of God because we inherit from
each other, or because we are heirs of all the ages. The
stores of knowledge, the verified teésults of humen
observation and research, the treasures of wise maxims
and traditions, the codes of morals and of civil law, —
are not these parts of fzs ways, as well as of ours?
See by what infinite and loving patience the beastly and
hairy savage has been tamed, cleaned up, combed,
trained, and made useful to himself! He thinks himself
civilized and enlightened now, and does not like to believe
that he came up out of the muck and mire, even though
some of it still clings to his body and mind! Think
how many stairs have been toilsomely climbed to bring
us to a landing where the truths and laws once known
only to a few sages and seers are brought within easy
reach of every aspiring youth over a large part of the
earth! And the stairs before us still go on and up, and
out of sight. Why should there ever be a limit to the
possibilities of human progress on earth?

But hold! For this is not a simple question to be#3

answered by our wishes and hopes. What if we sweep
through a curve to come round to the same. point? So
have taught the seers of India. They say that inva
remote age men grew to the enormous stature of forty
feet and lived a thousand years; that a gradual decline
set in, and will continue till the race is dwarfed to a few
inches and life shortens accordingly ; that at last earth
and skies will vanish, and the Creator himself will sleep
through a night as long as his active day has been; after
which he will wake, and will send forth anew the mighty
order of worlds and living beings which are emanations
of his eternal being. To him these inconceivable alter-
nations of creation and destruction are no more than
pulse-beats.

Science discredits the permanence of those physical
conditions which make the earth habitable for living
beings, and predicts the gradual running down of the
cosmic clock-work. The light and heat stored in the
sun must finally be spent, and then our planet — like
every other — will die into a cold stone, like the moon.
This remote probability need not affect the present price
of real estate, nor check the long and indefinite expan-
sion and improvement of mankind; but it must qualify
our hope of exd/ess mundane development, and confine
our talk of progress within certain or uncertain limits.

Our optimism is sobered by another consideration.
Emerson, in a mood of ludicrous extravagance, describes
Thoreau as a man who “in a short life exhausted the
capacities of this world’! Possibly, a few have lived
who got out of life the essence of its benefits,— all that
was within their reach in their time, as some famous

 

scholars are said to have mastered all the learning then
available. But the branches of learning continually mul-74

tiply, and every branch grows more fruitful. There is
no limit yet apparent to the physical, intellectual, and
spiritual resources of humanity. But it is easily possible
to overdo, as well as to underdo; and even the most
orderly normal progress may at length come up to a
boundary which cannot be passed. Zhe bank may
break ; or, at least, mankind may “exhaust the capac-
ities of this world’ in dead earnest, “Phere seems at
present more danger that we shall exhaust our own
capacities by various over drafts and excesses.

Still, progress is the order of the day, as it has been
and is to be, in the world’s long history. It is true that
nations and civilizations, like individuals, have their
phases of childhood, youth, maturity, and decline; and
the most vigorous stocks run out. But may we not
say, for our comfort, that the race, as a whole, has been
enriched by its own losses? The dead empires and
systems have left their deposit, and new life has sprung
from their decay. The gains have been cumulative, as

)

well as costly. To be “heir of all the ages ”’ is no small
fortune ; and we occupy a real vantage-ground, standing
On our dathers) eraves:  Vinus; ‘within. cermin yacue
limits, and with many fluctuations and set-backs, the
ages have witnessed a large advance of the straggling
human procession. Progress on the earth may go on,
if not infinitely, yet indefinitely.

II. May we reasonably hope for endless progress in
an endless life beyond this transient scene? We are
told that whatever has a beginning must have an end.
But did our spiritual substance ever have a beginning?
Was there ever a time when it was zot? Before the75

foundation of the world, must it not have been hidden in
God? In a sense, we have had many beginnings and
endings ; but, adso/utely, is not the generation of our son-
ship and heirship from everlasting to everlasting? Why
may we not go on living as long as our Father lives, as
long as we draw existence from his exhaustless fulness,
as long as the primal Cause operates unspent ?

Endless? Can we foresee any terminus to the road
which the soul travels? In our highest states of thought
and feeling, when consciousness is cleared of clouds and
disorders, is not the persuasion of our permanance most
sure and confident? Tennyson confides to us that in
his most exalted moods non-existence seemed “a laugh-
able impossibility.” The road before us opens and
widens, on and up!

After George Eliot lost her hope of immortality, she
cried out ina passion of defeated aspiration, ‘‘ What great
things we could do, zf we only had time!’ ‘That is,
progress might indeed be continuous if life could be;
we might then grow forever in knowledge, wisdom, good-
ness, power, and joy. Grant immortality, and we feel
ourselves capable of endless advances.

Such expansive powers are lodged in our souls, as if
waiting their opportunity! We see and feel that God
might do everything for us, might make everything of
us. Does he tantalize and mock his creatures, or are we
really children and heirs? Dr. Peabody, when in Rome,
looked on the frescoed effigies of patriarchs, prophets,
and apostles, and they affected him like representations of
high personages, long exercised in wisdom and goodness,
matured in power by the discharge of great trusts, and
educated by ages of intimate communion with the
Almighty. Are there no such beings in the universe ?70

Mohammed reports that he saw, in his visit to heaven,
an angel of such vast proportions that his eyes were
seventy thousand days’ journey apart! The greatness
of Jesus has sometimes been explained by supposing
that, ve was “ithe. first-born of every creature, <.% the
beginning of the creation of God,” who through count-
less zeons has been gathering into himself the elements
and forces of divinity, so that he exercises the delegated
power of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence.
Amd still “he. must anerease’’ |

These are not arguments: they are harmless fancies ;
helpful, too, if they prompt us to larger ways of thinking.
All noble fiction expands and clears our views of human
nature; and the grotesque imagery of mythology falls
far short of the realities that may by: and by bevas
familiar to us as this common world, which in our in-
fancy was inconceivable. What can be too good to be
tmle,) t00. great to -be hoped for, of too: hieh to ‘be
reaiehediby the “hems of God” 7

Flesh and heart fail: body and brain go back to their
kind; but is there any such limitation to

*« The soul that, born of God.
Pants to see his glorious face ”?

Our hope of endless life and growth rests on the
identity of man’s deeper or spiritual nature with the divine
nature, which is Love and Wisdom, and which it con-
sciously partakes whenever it becomes loving and wise.
To as many as receive this principle, the Spirit bears
witness that they are children of God, “and if children,
then heirs,”’

How passionately men have desired to find the key of
destiny! How welcome, then, should be the messagetif

which brings life and immortality to light by stirring in
us the sense of our kinship to the Eternal! Yet Jesus
is but a forerunner,— one of many who have felt them-
selves caught up into the assured possession of divine
life, so that even in the body they felt themselves to be
inhabitants of the world which eye hath not seen. Cer-
tainly, we can know nothing of a spirit world, unless we
live as spirits; but we can know much if we do so live.
And to live as spirits is to grow in that wisdom and love
which constitute the spiritual life of man and God.

But what if we do zot so live? Is it possible to go
down the stairs,—down into deepening darkness, as
well as up into the perfect day? The Christian world
is facing with tremulous interest this problem of con-
ditional immortality, and wondering what awful meaning
there may be in the Scripture which says, “There is a
sin unto death.” To be persuaded of the annihilation
of spirits confirmed in evil is indeed a welcome relief to
those who have held the hideous traditional doctrine of
endless and hopeless torment.

Victor Hugo tells how Dante once wrote two lines,
and left them on his table: Said one of ihe lines 1
feel that I shall: be immortal.” Said the other, “tf have
mo such feeling.’ When the poet retumed, he drew
his pen through the second line. Is there in some men
a kind of life that persists, and in others a kind of life
that fails, because it has not acquired the God-quality
of wisdom and love? When Lincoln was asked if he
thought some men immortal, and others not, he was
silent fora moment. Then he answered, “ All, or none.”
It is here that we trust the larger hope.

Yet we know by woful experience that there is a
downward way, from which every step must be retraced78

with penitence, pain, and toil. Our only safety is in
yielding to the upward drawing which gently solicits us
like a still small voice.

The dog is said to be a converted wolf, a creature
partly made over by contact with a superior being.
And we,—what hope of large spiritual improvement
except as we are attracted by a Life that is higher and
purer than our own? Does not all progress come from
beins:| “ledy by the Spint”)? The Spirit may pemem:
bodied or disembodied. We are touched to finer issues,

we know not how.

‘¢ The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares.”

I believe, what I cannot prove, that we are affected
by a vast realm of spirit-influence, because the universe
is all a-throb with vibrations and energies that are the
product.ol /7¢.... Lhe. staxs.jame,. fan apart, yet Tey are
HOt separated: they attract and are attracted) fieg
clasp bands, across the measureless spaces: Ave we
separated from those above—or below? There are
drawings both upward and downward, and we must
choose. li we are true and pure, we shall help to lit
the sunken: we shall be saviors.

We can dream of a life essentially like this, yet ever
ascending; free as the light, fresh as the morning,
young as the sun. But we have not yet grown to it.
Little blame; yet blame enough to spur us out of care-
lessness and sloth. But there is time enough: there is
all the litetime of God, which may be a part of our in-
heritance.

Ask the oldest man, Do you see or feel any reason79

why you might not keep on living with ever-increasing
interest, if there were no bodily clog? “He died
learning,” was the epitaph chosen by Green, the Eng-
lish historian. And J. H. Thom asks of you and me,
‘Who would not like to carry into eternity an ever-
purer stream of conscious being?”

“The Progress of Mankind onward and upward For-
ever ’ seems adequately provided for: 1. In the fulness,
adequacy, and good will of the infinite, mysterious, all-
producing Energy which we call God, and which Jesus
has taught us to trust as our Father. 2. In the consti-
tution of man as a spiritual being,— receiver, sharer, heir
of the immanent, deathless divinity. 3. In the ordered
amplitude of the universe. There is room enough for
endless expansion, without crowding; time enough, with-
out haste; resources enough, without stinting. Plato,
dimly glimpsing the Christ-doctrine of the Fatherhood,
calls the world “the product of the divine wagrudging-
ness.’ Yo that exhaustless generosity —that mercy
which endureth forever—we may safely trust the des-
tiny, as we trace the origin, of every creature born to
bear the image of the Creator.

There are deep things of God: push out from shore!
Hast thou found much? Give thanks, and look for more.
Dost fear the generous Giver to offend?

Then think his store and bounty have no end.

He needeth not to be implored or teased ;

The more we take, the better he is pleased.

Nor is it alms, dispensed in high disdain ;

He loses nothing: ’ tis his only gain

To make thee rich. What can he do but give?
Since there’s not one from whom he may receive.
He quitclaims nothing: what’s bestowed on thee,
Immortal Child, stays in the family.8O

 
 
 
 
 
  
   
  
   
  

This exercise of giving out his wealth

Preserves him fresh in everlasting health.

For how should Goodness be the Perfect Good,
If Goodness slept, nor cared for his own brood?
But Love and Wisdom, kept in circulation,

Are life, and light, and law, for all creation.

What service can we render Thee, kind. Heaven,
But freely take what is so freely given?

Best gift of all is wit to keep the cup,

Wherein Thou pourest blessing, right side up.
Dwell Thou within us, Lord of Charity,

And we, from Thee, shall endless givers be.

)
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