The Christian Consciousness BR 121 .B5 1895 | Black, J. Sutherland 1846- I 1923. The Christian consciousness The CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS Its Relation to Evolution IN MORALS AND IN DOCTRINE J. S. BLACK BOSTON LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS lO MILK STREET Copyright, 1895, by Lek a:sv> Shepard All riqhtfi reserved The Christian Consciousness Typography by C. J. Peters & Son, Boston Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co. PREFACE The literature that has been 'devoted to the "Christian Consciousness" has been of a frag- mentary character. It has been employed for special purposes from the time of Schleier- macher to the present day. This will appear more at lengtli in the course of this work. But the employment of any tenet in philosophy or in doctrine for special purposes, Avhile it demonstrates the apologetic value of the doc- trine, is unfavorable to its general reception and systematic study. It receives little more than a passing notice from Avriters on system- atic theology and dogma. It has been called into the court of public discussion as a witness in favor of sensationalism, of Andover theo- logy so-called, and of various views in escha- tology. The opponents of these views naturally and alm6st inevitably regarded the Avitness with suspicion. Current controversy partakes largely of the nature of special pleading, and the first thing to do was to discredit the char- acter and the testimony of the witness. IV PREFACE There are several questions that must be answered, such as : What is consciousness ? Is there a Christian consciousness? If there is, what are its relations to consciousness in general, and to the religious consciousness in particular? What are its functions? Has it been hitherto -neglected ? Is it an old and well-known phase of the truth masquerading under a new name, or is it a hitherto much neglected and little used part of the armor of the Clu'istian apologist? In an interview with General Booth, he is reported to have said that, while he believed the Bible and wished men to read it, the aim of his army was to bring men to God rather than to the Book. Their endeavor was to get men to pray. This was the point of contact with God. He admitted that he rather dreaded Bible classes, because they got men into dis- putation. Removed from the Salvation Army by a whole diameter, but moving in the same circle, we find the German theologians, to whom the usually accepted proofs of the inspiration of Scripture are unsatisfactory and insufficient, but who can accept their inspiration by the appeal to, and the testimony of, the Christian consciousness. Less logical and more vague, but of equal significance, is the Christo-cen- tric contemporary theology. PREFACE V The study of tlie Christian consciousness is in its infancy, but the study of it is an aid to the development of it. It seems strange, at this end of the nineteenth century of the Christian era, that there should be an undevel- oped, and partly unused, function of the Chris- tian life ; a function which not only accounts for moral and dogmatic phenomena, but also makes God more real to men. It comes at a time of need. The glory of the Reformation Avas the exaltation of faith, and the substituting: the infallible Bible for the infallible church. But when infallible systems of theology took the place of the infallible book, the church, that had glowed in its contact with the living Word, became chilled at the touch of dead ortho- doxies. The exaltation of the Word became a delusion and a snare when pains and penal- ties were attached to any interpretation of it differing from that of the majority. The immediate result of the Reformation was the formulation of several creeds and orders of church government, each of which made a practical claim of infallibility for its own faith and discipline. In days of polemic warfare tlie scent for heresy becomes keener ajid keener. It was in order to reason and debate concerning the letter of the Word, but it was VI PREFACE dangerous to speak too freely about its spirit. If any one was rash enough to appeal to his own inner light, his own Christian conscious- ness and divine persu;ision, it was at once declared to be a })resumption and spiritual pride that savored of blasphemy. The tyranny of creeds resembles political tyrannies in its in- stinctive desire to keep men under. The dismal exaltation of the divine sovereignty until it distorted the character of God was the instinctive though undesigned policy of ec- clesiastical oligarchies. The Christian con- sciousness had to hide its diminished head, and even doubt and condemn itself. Times have changed, and the Christian consciousness has its part to play in the momentous era of change and development on which the world seems to be entering. Hitherto we have spoken of the Bible, the church, and the reason as being sources of authority. To these three the spirit of the age demands the addition of the Christian consciousness, as being not only a source of authority in and of itself, but also as being a touchstone for the trying of tlie Bible, the church, and the reason. CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS What is it ? — Tlieories about consciousness supplementary to, ratlier than antagonistic to, each otlier. — Locke, Cousin, Descartes, Sir ^YilliaIn Hamilton, McCosh, Kant, Herbert Spencer. — Instinct, intuition, consciousness. — Religious and Christian consciousness. Opinions of Dean Mansell, William F. Warren, D.D., Professor Candlish, Professor Kaftan. — Definition of the Christian consciousness. — Its imperative categories. — Illumination that comes from will- ing to do God's will. — Reformation theology not favorable to the doctrine of the Christian consciousness. — Contem- porary misconceptions as to Cliristian consciousness. — Relation of the Christian consciousness to progressive morality 1 CHAPTER II THE DIGNITY OF MAN Reformation theology belittled man. — It was one-sided. — Lecky on exaggerations of human depravity. — The Eighth Psalm. — Elohim. — Christian consciousness sees both sides of this truth. — Evolution testifies to the dignity of man. — Professor Drummond's "Ascent of Man." — Obscurity of the beginnings of all civilization. — The progress of Eng- vii Vlll CONTENTS lish-speaking peoples. — Italy. — England. — Scotland. — United States. — Sir William Dawson on inspired achieve- ment 26 CHAPTER III THE DESTINY OF MAN The qualifications of the infallibility of the Scriptures. — In- fallibility not claimed for the Christian consciousness. — The honor it puts upon man. — Evolution and man. — Future possibilities for him do not meet the Scriptural statements concerning him. — His destiny a future of divine possibili- ties. — Tliree great missing links. — Mr. Huxley's view of develoj)ment coming to an end. ^ The estimate which science makes of man. — The Christian consciousness ac- cepts and approves his dignity and destiny 46 CHAPTER IV THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS Considerations that have prejudiced certain thinkers against Christian consciousness. — Sclileiermaclier. — The Ritchslian school. ~ Professor Harris. — Dr. Francis Patton. — Dr. Behrends. — Standards of Scripture interpretation. — Her- bert Spencer. — Henry Lewes. — Historians of civilization. — Utilitarianism. — The struggle for existence. — Present- day sociology. — Maurice's social morality, theoretical and pi-actical. — Views of Benjamin Kidd and Professor Drum- mond 61 CHAPTER V THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY In ancient times. — In Puritan times. — John Bacon's will. — The evolution of opinion about slavery. —The relation of CONTENTS IX discovery and invention to evolution in morals. — The earlier opponents of slavery. — Samuel Sewall. — Legal action of different countries. — Opinions of Washington, Jefferson, iSIonroe, and Patrick Henry. — Opinions of clergy- men during the "War of the Rebellion. — The political econ- omist's explanation. — Dr. ]\Iunger on slavery. — Tiie ijart played by the Christian consciousness 82 CHAPTER VI THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS AS RELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, THE OPIUxAI TRADE, AND GAMBLING Total abstinence a recent reform. — Tlie former and present relation of the church to it. — The Abstemii. — The Naza- rites. — Parallel between slavery and intemperance. — Opium trade. — Its unique character. — The conscience of Britain against it. — The secret of its power. — Relation of enlightened public sentiment to the Christian conscious- ness. — Gambling the vice common to heathenism and to Christianity. — Tlie possibility of heathenism condemning gambling. — The growth of Christian sentiment against gambling. — Mercantile gambling. — Huxley's pessimism. — Silence of Scripture on this vice. — Professor Proctor. — Similar questions that might be considered .... 103 CHAPTER VII THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH TO EVOLUTION IN MORALS The charges brought against the church, and the inferences therefrom. — Misrepresentation of the cliurcli. — Its human side. —Its size. — Its age. — Its prime function. — Its lax discipline in regard to conduct, and its vigilance in dogma. — The environment of moral movements. — The vmion with the state. — The opposiWi extreme. — The church not a club 125 X CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS, AND THE RELIGIOUS CON- SCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN WORLD Agreement of geology and revelation. — Sir William Dawson's view. — Noah. — Abraham. — Melchisedec. — Job. — Jethro, Baalam. — Contact of Hebrew and Greek. — Septuagint. — Huxley. — The logos. — The condition of the religious con- sciousness when Christ came. — The centuries of silence. — Greek thought. — Buddhism. — Confucianism and Taoism. — The condition of morality when Jesus was on earth . 142 CHAPTER IX THE RELATION OF THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS TO DOCTRINE Has there been an evolution of doctrine? — The difficulty of separating morals from doctrine. — Various definitions of doctrine. — The salvation of infants. — Original sin and in- herited guilt. — Sacramentarianism. — The spirit of the age. — Salvation of the heathen. — Andover theology. — Rational sanctions and exegetical justification. — Do Christians be- lieve that the heathen are perishing? — Features common to infant salvation, and the salvation of the heathen. — The character of God, when involved. — The legal infliction of torture. — Exceptions to the prevailing belief. — What has brought about the change ? 163 CHAPTER X CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS AND WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE CHURCH A question of doctrine as well as of polity.— Paul's teaching. — Woman's place in the Roman Catholic Church. — Opin- ion of Robinson of Leyden. — Woman's evolution as a teacher. — As a Christian worker. — Study of medicine.— CONTENTS XI Salvation Army. — Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor. — Woman in college and in theological semi- naries. — Application to this question of Mr. Kidd's philos- ophy. — Of Professor Drummond's. — George MacDonald's • view. —The " Gesta Christi." — Woman in the religious community. — In the age of chivalry 183 CHAPTER XI CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT The thirst for hlood. — War. — The War of the Eehellion. — A moral problem. — As a peacemaker Christianity has been a failure. — The duel. — Severities of the criminal code. — Judicial combat. — The prize-ring and college foot- ball.— Danger a popular attraction. —Societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. — Admiration of personal daring. — Danger of the loss of manliness and courage. — The moral force of Charles Loring Brace. —The problem presented in this chapter 202 CHAPTER XII OBJECTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES Objections to evolution in morals. —View of President E. G. Robinson. — Unchanging morality. —When true. — Xon- Christian ethical systems. —The divine and the human thought. — Joseph Cook. — Christian consciousness and sectarianism.— Hindrance to union. — Schleiermacher's views. —Eschatology. — The questions raised by physical science and by the higher criticism not to be dreaded. — The moral difficulties are real and persistent. —Various kinds of doubt. — The revealing of the Father. — The eve of great changes. — Young Men's Christian Associations, The Salvation Army, and Young People's Society of Chris- tian Endeavor. — The healing of schism 219 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS CHAPTER I THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS Consciousness is the knowledge of that whicli passes in one's own mind. It is at once the knowledge and the power to know. It is the instrument of observation as well as of intro- spection ; and therefore by the observations of consciousness we can attain to conclusions as to principles or morals before we have had expe- rience to guide us. Physiology cannot furnish any explanation of thought or of consciousness. In common speech the knowledge of sensation is familiarly and vaguely expressed by this word, and we have modifying phrases which are not always philosophically accurate. Such ex- pressions as partially conscious, painfully con- scious, semi-conscious, and fully conscious, may not be exact terms in metaphysics, but they convey ideas witli sufficient clearness. 1 2 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS What is consciousness ? What is the prov- ince of it ? and what is tlie power of it ? are questions whicli have been keenly debated by the various schools of philosophy. Is the pure development of reason better secured by ab- straction from all finite and material objects, than by mingling with and comprehending the world in which we live? This question was old in the days of Aristotle. Know thyself is the watchword of philosophy. Knowledge of one's self is consciousness, but not the whole of consciousness. It has been well said that the possibility of science and of morality rests on the amiversality of consciousness. Man comes out of a past about which he learns more or less ; and he dies at the threshold of a future concerning which reason has taught him to an- ticipate a little, and faith has enabled him to prophesy many things. He is a limi'ted frag- ment of an unknown whole ; but he can look over the edge of his territory into the undiscov- ered country, for he can reason from particulars to generals. The unlimited and unexplored be- comes a part of his consciousness. ''It is by the God within that w^e can understand the God without." The Bible assures man that the THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 3 things he does not know now he sliall know hereafter ; and this hereafter is not always and necessarily a futnre state of existence. Science declares that what he does not know now he may know hereafter. We live on an island called Earth. AVe are conscious of ourselves and of our surroundhigs ; but we know only in part, for we have not yet explored the whole of our island. We are not yet masters of the world within or of the world without. The telescope and the spectroscope enable us to land some of the driftwood that floats to us from the other islands, called worlds, in this in- finite sea ; and we refuse to believe that this is all that we are to have, and all that we are to know. The story of the past echoes our heart- cry for more light. It tells of secret after se- cret unfolded. Subjective knowledge has not made as much progress as has objective knowl- edge. The theories Jibout, and the definitions of, consciousness that have been advanced by mor- alists and metaphysicians, may be regarded as being not antagonistic to each other, but rather as supplementary to each other. Locke sa3^s that complex ideas can be resolved into simple 4 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS ideas ; and that simple ideas come to us through sense perception ; that is, by the gateway of the physical senses. This is sensation. The second factor to the production of an idea is reflection. But reflection is anotlier name for consciousness. In many things Locke is more orthodox than he knew himself to be, or than he intended to be. He exalts sense perception, but he has done good in calling attention to the relation of the physical senses to ideas. Cousin says, " Con- sciousness is composed of three inseparable ele- ments ; viz., sensibility, or sense perception ; activity, or liberty ; and reason. The middle element, activity or liberty, is a sort of postu- late between sensibility and reason." The sen- sibility and reason of Cousin are the sensation and reflection of Locke. Descartes' famous " Cogito, ergo su7n " is the reason of Cousin and the reflection of Locke. The primary data of consciousness, accordincr to Sir William Ham- ilton, are truths of perception and truths of reason. He is a realist, and exalts the dictates of consciousness. We do not, however, assert that idealists belittle the commanding power of consciousness. In the words of McCosh, '' We know self as having behig, existence. The THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 5 knowledge we have in self-consciousness, Avliich is associated with every intelligxMit act, is not an impression, as Hume would say, nor a mere quality or attribute, as certain of the Scottisli metaphysicians affirm, nor a phenomenon in the sense of appearance, as Kant supposes, but of a thing or reality." Kant affirms that space and time are the forms given by the mind to the phenomena which are presented through the senses, and are not to be supposed as hav- ing anything more than a subjective existence. McCosh holds tliis to be a fatal heresy, and opposed to the revelations of consciousness. In his well-known chapter on the " Ph3'siology of Laughter," Herbert Spencer says, " There is still another direction in which any excited por- tion of the nervous system may discharge itself; and a direction in Aviiich it usually does dis- charge itself when the excitement is not strong. It may pass on the stimulus to some other por- tion of the nervous system. Tliis is what occurs in cjuiet thinking and feeling. The successive states Avhich constitute consciousness result from this. . . . While we are totally unable to comprehend how tlie excitement of certain nerves should generate feeling, — while, in the 6 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS production of consciousness by physical agents acting on })liysical structure, we come to an absolute mystery, never to be solved, it is yet quite possible for us to know by observation Avhat are tlie successive forms which this abso- lute mystery may take." Tliis is materialism pure and simple. A certain amount of confusion arises from permitting ourselves to get into a habit of in- definite thinkinor about instinct, intuition, and consciousness. An instinct is a faculty inde- pendent of instruction and prior to experience. When we use such expressions as " instinctive reverence," "instinctive worship," our Avords are meaningless, except in so far as they are misleading. The errors of the pulpit in the use of the Avords instinct and instinctive are many and A^arious. An intuition is a self- evident, necessary, and universal trutli. It is not mere insight, nor is it illumination, Avhether sacred or secular. It is not inspiration, Avhich is the gift of infallibility in proclaiming moral and religious truth. It is not illumination, Avhich is the gloAV and white heat \vith Avhicli light comes to our minds. Inspiration may produce this intellectual gloAv ; but it may and THE CUEISTIAK CONSCIOUSNESS 7 usually does come a^ the result of ratiocination, or of memory, or of unconscious cerebration and association of ideas. The intuitions of the mind are not before consciousness, nor are they identical, with consciousness, or parallel witli it, but rather should we say that our in- tuitions are sup[)lied by the exercise of con- sciousness and memory. We have the fruits and results of metaphysics, but the question is as to origin rather than as to mode. It is not a priori or a posteriori^ realist or idealist, de- ductive or inductive ; for to-day the query is is not. What is consciousness ? but, Whence is it? Is our conception materialistic or theistic? Sir William Hamilton declares that " no dif- ficulty emerges in theology which had not previously emerged in philosophy." It is im- possible to conceive of the Christian or religious consciousness which is not of theistic origin. ^ 1 Many writers, while not expressing themselves very defi- nitely, seem to imply that the religious consciousness is quite possible in any form of belief. Livingstone in his last journal remarks that he never had met with an African chief whom he could not make ashamed of selling his own people into slavery, but arousing the conscience is not the creating of reli- gious consciousness. It must always be a question as to how near the theistic conception the more thoughtful heathen are, while within the borders of civilization we may grant the per- sonal honesty of non-theists, who may call themselves agnostics, 8 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS In the use of the terms " Christian Conscious- ness " and "religious consciousness" as inter- changeable, it is to be borne in mind that while practically no confusion of thought results, the terms are not synonymous. All Christian con- sciousness is religious consciousness ; but all religious consciousness is not, therefore. Chris- tian consciousness. The Buddhist and Mo- hammedan have a religious consciousness which is not Christian. The Christian consciousness differs from theirs not only in degree, but also in kind. What is Christian consciousness? This question h:is had many answers. Dean Mansell, in liis Bampton Lectures entitled the "Limits of Religious Thouglit," reasons from the general conditions of all human conscious- ness that there is a necessary limitation to its powers, and tlierefore an inability to conceive tlie Infinite. His conditions of consciousness are : — (1) Distinction between one object and an- otlier. (2) Relation between subject and object. or materialists, or atheists, and yet refuse to believe in the possibility of their being able to free themselves from the theistic conception. THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 9 (3) Succession and duration in time. (4) Personality. He holds that the religions consciousness is reflective and intuitive. The reasonino-s of the reflective consciousness are sufficient to correct our conception of a supreme being, but not sufficient to originate such a conception. The other part of consciousness — religious intui- tion — manifests itself in the feeline of de- pendence, and in the conviction of moral obligation. These two conditions beget praj^er and expiation. Dependence ini[)lies a personal superior, hence our conviction of the power of God. Moral obligation implies a moral law- giver, hence our conviction of the goodness of God. His limits of religious consciousness are : — (1) That a sense of dependence is not a consciousness of the absolute and the infinite. (2) Nor is a sense of moral obligation a consciousness of the absolute and the infinite. (3) Religious consciousness implies the in- finite. (4) God is known as a person through the consciousness of ourselves as persons. There can be no philosophical theism witliout this 10 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS consciousness. The materialist or the pan- theist who denies his own personality is on the straight road to atheism. Fifteen years after Dean Mansell's book was published, the Rev. William F. Warren, D.D., Dean of the Boston University School of The- ology, delivered one of the Boston lectures on " Christianity and Scepticism." His theme was " The Christian Consciousness : its apologetic value." His position is : — (1) Every man has some sort of religious consciousness, e.g., theistic, pantheistic, poly- theistic, atheistic. There are sub-types of religious conscious- ness, e.g., Jewish, Christian, Mohammedan. His leading traits of the ideal Christian con- sciousness are : — (1) An immediate knowledge or feeling or realization of some kind of personal communion with God. He subdivides into the GUI Testa- ment religions or God-consciousness, the ordi- nar}^ Christian consciousness, and the higher- life Christian consciousness. The apologetic value of the Christian consciousness over the atheistic, polytheistic, and pantheistic is, that the votaries of these last three believe, but THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 11 the Christian knows. He holds that in the narrower field of controversy, where theistic naturalism and supranaturalism grapple, the facts of normal Christian consciousness forever settle, for its possessor, every speculative doubf' and difhculty — that miracles and incarnation are easily grasped by Christian consciousness. Professor Candlish, of the Free Church Col- lege, Glasgow, wrote the article " Dogmatic " in the ninth edition of the " Encyclopsedia Britan- nica," since published in fuller shape in book form. He says, " The inward spiritual enlight- enment of the believer corresponds very nearly to wdiat has been called Christian conscious- ness." He ascribes the phrase to Schleier- macher, whose fundamental principle w^as that religion consists properly in feeling, and that we have an immediate consciousness of the divine — a God-consciousness. This Mansell denies. It will be found that the truth lies between the sensationalism of Schleiermacher and the intellectualism against Avhich he re- volted ; but the difficulty is to find a meeting- place for sensationalism and intellectualism which will be satisfactory to both. Professer Kaftan divides with Professor Har- 12 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS nack the honors of brilliance and popularity in the University of Berlin. He brings en- thusiasm and spirituality to his work. He is the most distinguished advocate of the Ritsch- lian school of theology, the avowed object of which is to reconcile supranaturalism and ra- tionalism. The task which this school has as- signed itself does not seem as difficult of accomplishment as it did twenty years ago. With Schleiermacher they assert that the reli- gious consciousness is the fountain of belief. They antagonize metaphysical statement of doc- trine, and exalt the moral side of life and religion. While the}" maintain that the Holy Scriptures are the final and supreme autliority in doctrine, because in them we have the Christian consciousness in its primitive purity, they are not orthodox on the question of inspiration. This most popular school of religious thought in Germany of to-day has many attractive fea- tures ; and it is certain, in the near future, to exercise wide influence in America. Religious consciousness as taught in German}^ to-day ex- alts the subjective determination of trutli, and in this lies its danger. The counterfeits of Christian consciousness will prove as danger- THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 13 ous as the exaofo-erations of it, or the io-norino- of it. Like every real thing, it lias to be sifted and tried, for it cannot be ignored. . Religious consciousness is consciousness plus the theistic conception ; and Christian con- sciousness is religious conscionsness with cer- tain notable additions. These are : — (1) What we know of our faitli and of our feelings in the light of the revealed Word. (2) What we know of our will to do God's will. (3) What we know of the promised result of this willing to do God's will. (4) What we know of being led by the Holy Spirit into truth. (5) What we know of the witness of the Holy Spirit with our spirits as to our divine sonship. The Holy Scriptures are the supreme author- ity in doctrine and in life. We do not claim, like the German school to Avhich reference has been made, that the Holy Scriptures are in a sense subordinate to the Christian conscious- ness; nor need we, like Professor Candlish, maintain that the Christian consciousness is a subordinate authority. It is a co-ordinate au- 14 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS thority. It is the illumined Word. It is not a primary and independent source of authority, but it takes the initiative in all change. Throuo-h it the ne^y lio'ht from the Word of God flashes forth. We do not assert that the Christian consciousness is necessarily and always unerriug. The Papal claim of infallibility is not based on the Christian consciousness. There is no question as to the possibility of the Christian consciousness outgrowing the Holy Scriptures. It is as reasonable to speak of outgrowing the multiplication table as of outgrowing the Deca- lop-ue and the Sermon on the Mount. We make mistakes in our interpretation of the Scriptures. We make mistakes in our inter- pretation of the Christian consciousness. A mistake in dogma is an error ; persistent error becomes the sin of heresy. A mistake of a moral kind is also an error. But the error of to-day often becomes the sin of the future. God is immanent in mind and in matter. Man has a conscience. In that conscience, by God's immanence in mind, a moral law is revealed. A moral law leads naturally to the law-maker, the law-keeper, and the law-breaker. THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 15 The Word of God reveuLs the hiw-niaker and the moral law. God's manifestation of him- self in Christ illumines the sacred Word. Con- sciousness becomes Christian consciousness. It proves all things, and holds fast to that which is good. It has certain imperative categories whicli are its touchstones. (i) What does the Word of God say? (2) Is this or is it not the letter that kills ? (3) What is tlie spirit of it ? (4) In what way can moral certitude be attained ? (5) That is — How shall I know that the Spirit of truth is witnessing with my spirit ? (6) Shall not this be brought to the test of reason ? (7) Shall not the final appeal be the Chris- tian consciousness ? It is self-evident that we cannot get from the Word of God that which is not in it ; but there are treasures in it, both new and old. Our Lord tells us to search the Scriptures. The man who imaq-ines that his Christian conscious- ness is to be the result of a miracle of grace, without effort on his part, is on the high road to fanaticism. '' He tliat wills to do God's 16 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS will shall know the doctrine." ^ Obedience to the divine Avill brings certitude to the soul with regard to moral trutli. A single-hearted desire to please God illumines every question of a re- ligious nature. Looked at from the standpoint of human philosophy, this is a most astounding assertion that Christ makes. When he uttered those words, earth listened to a new truth. He does not say, '• If any man wills to do his will, he shall know that the teaching is wise or good or of superior excellence." Such statements as these are made every day. When any law or business scheme or system of government is presented to the individual or to the commu- nity, we examine it in the light of past expe- rience, and of recognized laws and general principles, and come to a conclusion as to whether we should accept or reject this thing. Sometimes the result proves that we make a mistake. We are overpersuaded by the inge- nious advocacy, or promoters and adopters of this new departure were equally mistaken. When there is great conflict of opinion as to the advantage of this new thing, the plea usually is to give it a fair and pi-actical trial, 1 John vii.17. THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 17 and by so doing demonstrate on which side the sound reasoning is. The political economy of our own and other countries is a practical illus- tration of this law in its workino-. Tliat our putting the Scripture code into practice should convince us that it is very excellent, and suited to mankind, need excite no surprise. From the standpoint of secular histor}^ Mosaic law is as worthy of study as is Roman or Greek law. One of the wonders of history is, that while Rome was in the zenith of her glory, and Pal- estine was but a fragment of her vast domin- ions, the future of earth was being moulded, not in the imperial city, but by a peasant of that insignificant province. In view of the his- torical antecedents, there is nothing Avonderful in the man or the community that models its life after the Bible pattern, finding that the legislation is a model of wisdom and of benefi- cence. But our Lord did not say that he who did the will of God was to find out that the teaching was wise or good, but that he was to know that the teaching came from God. This discovery of the supernatural origin of the Word, this higher evidence of the authenticity of Scripture, is the wonderful thing in this 18 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS statement of our Lord's. He does not teach that the mere performance of the things com- manded Avill produce this result; but lie does teach that if a man's heart he set on doing the will of God, this supranatural divine illumina- tion comes. This divine illumination is the miracle of grace. It is a part, but not the whole, of the Christian consciousness. It has been much neglected by the individual Chris- tian, and has been almost always practically ignored by the church ; but it rises above faith. Faith gives us certainty where reason may fail us ; but the Christian consciousness turns faith into sight. He does not believe that the Word is from God. He knows it. By the genuineness and authenticity of the Scriptures must the Word stand or fall in the presence of that criticism which will not ac- knowledge the function of faith or of Christian consciousness. On such unbelievers we can still bring to bear the external and internal evidence in favor of inspiration. The external evidence can prove that almost all our New Testament was produced by the age to which it professes to belong ; that for the most part it is the word of the livino^ witness, and not the com- THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS^ 19 pilation of dim tradition. But external evidence by itself can never be proof positive of the divine origin of the Bible. The internal evi- dence Avill satisfy certain types of mind as a sufficient proof of the superhuman origin of the Bible; and the external and internal evidence combined will to many minds be a satisfactory proof of inspiration. But this mode of proof is confined to the scliolarly iew. Our Loi'd does not limit his promise to any select group. He does not say, if any man wills to do his will, and then pursues a certain course of study, but if any man wills. The offer of illumination is as wdde as is tlie offer of salvation. Two per- ennial miracles live 3^et in the church of God. The assurance of salvation — of personal salva- tion — is the miracle of peace ; and the certainty that God is speaking to us in his Book is the miracle of knowledge. The keynote of the Reformation was faith. '' The just shall live by faith." Faith versus works, and faith versus morality, was the great theme of the pulpits of Protestantism for a cen- tury after the Reformation. The legend of Rome was, " Do this and live ; " the legend of Protestantism was, '' Believe and live." It was 20 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS natural and to be expected ; but definite teach- ing concerning the knowledge of God, and what it is to know God, was conspicuously absent. The Confession of Faith, the Thirty- nine Articles, and the Catechism unite in hav- ing very little to say on this head. Knowledge was confused with and identified with faith. In the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster divines occurs the question. What is faith in Jesus Christ? It is a fundamental question, and the answer to it is as nearly perfect as Ave can imagine uninspired language to be ; but alongside of it should have been such a ques- tion as. What is the knowledge of God? How man}^ sermons in Protestant pulpits have been preached from Isa. viii. 2 : '' By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many." Jesus himself said tliat it was life eternal to know God. Christian consciousness has been ob- scured, because life-giving knowledge has been neglected or identified with faith, or treated as the synonym of information, and nothing more. What is the province of Christian conscious- ness ? It does not debate. It begins with " I know." Such questions as the mode of baptism and apostolic succession are in the field of rati- THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 21 ocination, not iii the field of the Christian con- sciousness. Knowledge, and tlie processes of knowledge, in so far as the will and mind of God can be found in us, is the field given to us. God gives wisdom liberally, and does not scorn us for our need of it. This is not the talent which we must occupy, but it is the gift that occupies us. It is a constituent element of our Christian consciousness. Christ is with his church always, to the end of the age, but only in so far as he is in the hearts of some or all of its members. Faith moves mountains, but Christian consciousness knows that this mountain is in God's way. Christian consciousness draws the people of God together in spite of the very definite rea- sons which they have for keeping apart from each other. Man was made in the image of God. By his fall he lost communion with God, but he did not lose the likeness. It has not yet been dem- onstrated tliat any man is wholly devoid of the relicifious consciousness. Tliis is at once a more scientific and a more satisfactory ex- pression than the " light of nature." May not the salvation of the heathen be determined 22 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS more by the God consciousness that is in him than by any reasoning that he has been able to do " from nature up to nature's God " ? It is the religious consciousness, and not speculations concerning the attributes and the works of God, that must enable a man to escape judgment by judging himself. There are certain moral and ethical standards into which man has entered by the processes of reason ; but there are moral and ethical dogmas which have come, as it were, ont of a clear sky. Spontaneous genera- tion in morals or ethics is as nnthinkable as is spontaneous generation in matter; but the consideration of this topic, and its relation to consciousness, will come under the head of evo- lution in morals. It cannot be too deeply impressed upon our minds that there is no ne- cessary conflict between the authority of Scrip- ture and the religious consciousness. On the contrary, that German school to which reference has been already made, after drifting from the orthodox view of inspiration, has found the Avay back to reverence for the Word by their Christian consciousness. In one of the best of our religious Aveekly newspapers, which need not be named, an article appeared on the Chris- THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 23 tian consciousness, in which it was cliarged with being an excuse for heresy, and with being the ally of the higher criticism. Sucli an utter misapprehension of the nature and province of the Christian consciousness can scarcely be im- agined. So far, it has counteracted the evil ef- fects of what we may call heresy. The higlier criticism is a detail of scholarship, and it lias neither more nor less connection or afiiliation with the Christian consciousness than any other department of scholarship has. There is a trinity of illumination, — the light of revelation, the light of the religious consciousness, and the light of nature. God is the creator, the Holy Spirit tlie inspirer, and Christ in us the revealer. In the past the cliurch has been undigniiied, timid, and apolo- getic when charged by her enemies with lier changes of front on questions of ethics, of morals, and of interpretation. The right con- ception of tlie Christian consciousness should make the church glory in her changing, in her development, and in her elasticity. Those philosophers who are not inclined to introduce any theological or supranatural element into their conceptions of man's moral and ethical 24 THE CIIBISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS development liave an ideal Avliicli they worsliip after a fashion. Tliey maintain that the good deeds and the good thoughts of men have come from their aspirations after an ideal. We accept it all and go farther. Our ideal has become real to us in Christ. He is not only our hero and example and leader, but we liave a consciousness of him. He is found in us, and we are found in him. It is significant that, in the eighteenth cen- tury, when the pulpit contented itself with preacliing moral essays, the majority of the philosophers of the same century Avere deter- mined tliat theology should not liave any place in their systems of moral philosophy. Locke, Shaftesbury, Hobbes, Hume, Bentham, and Kant are all at one in this respect; and it was almost the only point on which they were agreed. They had a very imperfect conception of reli- gion, and for this the then current religious teaching was responsible. It was a cold, formal externalism. It had no inner life. There was no Christian consciousness. There was a God in heaven, whose business it w\as to deal out rewards and punishments in a fatherly or in a vindictive fashion, as the preacher lia2323ened THE CURISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 25 to feel; but the yearning- love of God for num and man's apprehension of God, were obscured. Hume's utilitarianism, or Bentham's greatest good of the greatest number, or Kant's impera- tive, was really a better scheme of the moral world than was the Dryasdust formalism of the church, in whicli there was no Christian consciousness, and very little of Christ as Jesus the Messiah. 26 THE CUBISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS CHAPTER II THE DIGNITY OF MAN The growth of the Christian consciousness was retarded from the fact that it phaced dignity on man as the cliild of God. The Ref- ormation theology had a tendency to an aus- terity which gave undue prominence to one side of the truth. That Adam fell from the estate wdierein he was created by eating the forbidden fruit ; that all mankind, descended from him by ordinary generation, sinned m him and fell with him in his first transgression ; that the sinfulness of our estate consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, in the want of original righteousness, in the corru23tion of our whole nature, together with all actual trans- gressions which proceed from it; that no mere man since the fall is able perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word, and deed; that every sin deserves God's wrath and curse, both in this life and in that which is to THE DIGNITY OF MAN 27 come, — may all be doctriiially sound, and may be supported by proof texts ; but it is a little depressing, and it gives humanity the gloomiest possible view of itself. Nor is the gloom dis- pelled by the unfolding of tlie plan of redemp- tion ; for, while our soul shrinks at the universal loss and ruin, we are told that God, '' having out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected so7ne to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of their estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into - an estate of salvation by a redeemer." It is a depressing view of the truth, and it led to a conventional habit of self-depreciation that was not always sincere. The Penitential Psalm fits the case of the adulterer and mur- derer, and is an appropriate hymn for tlie condemned cell on the morning of an execu- tion ; but it may be used in a morbid fashion. It is true that in these days there is a tendency to the other extreme, and the " only believe," " trust him," " take him," of certain phases of revivalism, but not of all evangelists, ignore repentance unto life, and belittle restitution ; but the older setting and statement of the truth belittled man. Granting that it is technically 28 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS correct to say that all mankind by the fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever — it is, after all, only a half-truth. If man lost the Adamic communion, it was to find the Christ communion. If he is under God's wrath and curse, he is also under his love and mercy. If he is made liable to all the miseries of this life, he rejoices in hope. If he must encounter the pains of death, he also exultingly cries, " O death, where is thy sting? " If the pains of hell forever and forever lie before persistent choosing of evil rather than of good, he knows that full and free salvation is offered to him ; and in his inmost soul he knows that the guilt of rejection must be his own guilt, and that no divine decree, no iron necessity in the nature of things, will prevent his attainment of everlasting felicity. A departure from the right proportion and perspective of truth has all the evil conse- quences of error. Lecky, in his "History of European Morals," says, " But these exaggera- tions of human depravity, which have attained their extreme limits in some Protestant sects, THE DIGNITY OF MAN 29 do not appear in the church of the first three centuries. The sense of sin was not yet accom- panied by a denial of the goodness that exists in man. Christianity was regarded rather as a redemption from error than from sin ; and it is a significant fact that the epithet 'well deserving,' whicli the pagans usually put upon their tombs, was also the favorite inscription in the Christian catacombs. The Pelagian con- troversy, the teachings of St. Augustine, and the progress of asceticism, gradually introduced the doctrine of the utter depravity of man, which has proved in later times the fertile source of degrading superstition." The Eighth Psalm is an exulting chant, and its theme is the excellence of God as mani- fested in the greatness of man. The central thought, so far as the greatness of man is con- cerned, is the fifth verse : " For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor." The false translation of our Authorized Versioi of this verse did injury to the truth, not only by its own error, but also by affecting our attitude to the New Testament doctrine of man. The Revised Version makes a very striking change : 30 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS "For thou hast made him but little lower than God." How comes so radical a change ? The original word Elolmn is the plural form of the word for God. The plural is by far the more common form of the word. It is the form used in tlie first chapter of Genesis, and in the Dec- alogue. It means god, gods, objects of wor- ship. This psalm is the only case in which the word is translated angels. The translators were doubtless inclined to this rendering by doc- trinal considerations. It was out of harmony witli the prevailing thought of the age, and it Avas in sharp contrast to those Scriptures which enlarge on the distance between God and man. The Authorized Version is unfortunate in its rendering of this word, because the psalm sees the glory of man in his being the lord of crea- tion; but angels are not associated with any dominion over this earth of ours. They are ministering, not ruling, spirits. iMan, in his present earth life, may be lower than the angels Avlio serve God, and who are sent forth on er- rands of " supernal grace ; " but man's inferior- ity to angels is not taught in the Scriptures. In his ultimate destiny he will be greater, for he will be the judge of angels (1 Cor. vi. 3). THE DIGNITY OF MAN 31 On the other hand, it is universally admitted' that it is only in a limited sense that we can ap- 2)ropriate the being but little lower tlian God. This has been felt by the gi-eat majority of expositors. Hengstenberg says, "The Elolihn expresses the abstract idea of Godhead." In Zech. xii. 8, Eloliim may be regarded as identi- cal with, or as parallel with, the "Angel of the Lord;" but m^wj regard the words as dis- tinct images of the glory that was to come to the house of David. The most difficult pas- sage, so far as the use of the word Elohim is concerned, is 1 Sam. xxviii. 13 ; and in this case it is to be noted that the Revision changes " I saw gods," into " I saw a god." Calvin's com- ment is : " Parum ahesse sum jussisti a divino et coelesti statu'' — hicking but little of the divine and heavenl}^, or an almost super-earthly dig- nity. Hengstenberg 's translation is : " Thou makest him to want little of a divine stand- ing." Oar Authorized Version is a literal trans- lation of the Vulgate: '' Minuisti eum paulo minus ah anrfelisy This is tlie same as the Sep- tuagint. The Septuagint and the Vulgate liad a good deal of weight with King James's trans- lators, for the very sufficient reason that they 32 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS knew Latin and Greek much better than they knew Hebrew ; but they knew Hebrew too well to account for this translation being otlier than deliberate choice on their part. Luther's Bible was before them. He translates, as our Revis- ion does : ^' Du wirst ihn lassen eine Heine Zeit von Gott verlassen sein.'^ The reference in this psahn is to certain spe- cial privileges bestowed on man ; but a broad, general truth is also indicated, whicli may be thus stated. Man is made in the image of God. This image has been defaced or marred, not lost or blotted out. It can be restored. The dignity of man is in liis past, a divine origin ; in his present, divine possibilities ; and in his future, a divine destiny. The Christian con- sciousness contemplates its greatness not in any vainglorious fashion, but in reverential mood. It does not ignore the revealed contrasted little- ness of wliicli it is always profoundl}^ conscious. " Verily every man at his best estate is alto- gether vanity " (Ps. xxxix. 5). " Man being in honor abideth not : he is like the beasts that perish" (Ps. xlix. 12, 20). And yet there is a perfect man whom we should study, and an upright man whom we should imitate. To- THE DIGNITY OF MAN 33 day man is saj'ing, " Let us eat and drink, for to-moiTOw we die ; " but when the to-morrow comes, light perhaps has shined into the gross soul, and he cries that he cannot live by bread only: lie hungers and thirsts for every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Poets and moralists like to dwell on these contra- dictions and opposites of human nature. One exclaims, " How poor a thing is man ! " while another declares that " Man is a pendulum, 'twixt a smile and a tear." Pascal says that " Man is at once the glory and the scandal of the universe." Shakespeare had this Eighth Psalm in mind when he wrote, '* What a piece of work is a man ! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties ; in form and moving, how express and admirable; in action, how like an angel ; in apprehension, how like a god." God- like apprehension is Christian consciousness. These extremes of vice and virtue, of benev- olence and malevolence, are peculiar to man so far as we know the universe. Heaven is the home of holiness and of every conceivable moral and spiritual excellence. In view of the fall of the angels, we dare not affirm that sin is impossible to every one of the citizens of the 84 THE CHBISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS kingdom ; but we know that sin cannot enter into heaven, and it cannot stay there. We associate the condition of the lost with that hardened impiety and continuance in sin which we call permanence in evil. The lower animals have good or bad traits, dispositions, tempers, and habits ; but we do not attach any moral merit or demerit to their actions. Science searches in vain for the missing links which will prove the ascent of the physical man from the manlike ape or from any other of the mammalia. But even were such miss- ing forms discovered, we must find many other links to account for his intellectual and spirit- ual development. Theistic evolution demands the existence of God, and liis activit}^ in his universe. But at this point all agreement ends. Charles Kingsley was wise as well as witty when he said that evolution exalted God. He did not make all things, but he made them make themselves. Some theists are contented to find God at the beginning. They reason that we might be able to find the missing links between man and the ape, and go back by visible steps until we came to the simplest forms of animal life, to find a trust- THE DIGNITY OF 31 AN 35 worthy bridge between the animal and the vegetable kingdoms. When we come to the lowest forms of organic life, let us discover tliat spontaneous generation Avhich science has looked for in vain. Let the inorganic earth be simpli- fied, resolved into its elements, nay, let them disappear. In the infinite there float two atoms, call them microscopic atoms, molecules of matter, star-dust, or by any other name. Who made them ? Whence came they ? Who endowed them with the promise and potency of the all to come ? Who ordained that in the infinite spaces these wandering parents of suns and systems should meet? Who presided at the wedlock that was pregnant with the all to come ? God. It is quite conceivable that the theist who accepts evolution of this kind and degree may stop short when he reaches the summit of phys- ical life in man, and say, " Thus far and no farther." The intellectual, the moral, and the spiritual are not to be accounted for by evolu- tion. The physical man began with a full equipment, moral and spiritual, for the battle of life ; and his intellect, if without the gathered knowledge of experience, was a man's intellect 36 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS and not a chilcrs. But while it is quite con- ceivable that the more extreme theistic evolu- tionists may take this position, as a matter of fact they accept the doctrine of evolution in the region of the intellectual and moral. This they try to accomplish without irreverence and without irreligion. Professor Drummond's " Ascent of Man ' ' is an outstanding example and illustration, but we do not assert that Professor Drummond is a theistic evolutionist of the extremest kind. In the other extreme of theism and evolution, we have those who wil- lingly admit the principle of evolution in a general way ; but they also believe that God is in his world, exercising creative energy Avhen and where he wills. Some are not prepared to grant the possibility of the physical man being the product of evolution; and many deny the possibility of evolution accounting for the gift of speech, or for reason, conscience, and wor- ship. The history of the beginnings of civilization can never be written from a subjective stand- point; for races, like individuals, can neither remember nor chronicle their own infancy. The earth is dotted with the sad mementoes THE DIGNITY OF MAN 87 of vanished races. Civilizations that had at- tained a certain height have been Wotted ont by tlie savage. In Mexico and in Peru the higher disappeared before the lower. Hiis is also true of Greece and Rome so far as culture is concerned; but tlie barbarians who overran Southern Europe were cleaner morally than were the sensualists of Rome. But not only does history tell us of races tliat have been overcome by the valor and virtue of an other- wise inferior or ruder race, we also see in our world of to-day, in the Indian population of the United States, in the natives of the South Sea Islands, Australia, and New Zealand, races disappearing before a civilization that has en- deavored in a more or less blundering way to be just to them, and before a Christianity wiiicli has pfiven men and money freely for their betterment. But tlie treatment of the inferior or savage races by the conquering and colonizing races has been neither wise nor just. We kill them before we give ourselves time to elevate them in the scale of civilization. Eioh- teen centuries ago our ancestors were naked or hide-clad savages, living in dugouts, or in liuts of the rudest description. Their food was 38 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS wild fruits, and animals caught in hunting, supplemented by the scantiest husbandry. Their religion was a bloody idolatry which de- manded human sacrifices. They were as low as Hottentot or American Indian or South Sea Islander of to-day. It may be affirmed that at this point the comparison ends. These rude forefathers of oui-s on British moors, by Danish shores, and in deep German woods, had latent capabilities very much superior to those of the savage races of to-day. This is simple assertion, nothing more. It took from six to nine centuries to christianize these ancestors of ours. It took twelve centuries to produce Chaucer and Wycliffe. It took fifteen centu- ries to produce the Reformation, Shakespeare, and Bacon. It lias taken nineteen centuries to produce us of to-day. In the last hundred and fifty years we have done more in discovery and in invention, in physics and mechanics, than was accomplished in the preceding centuries of our era ; but the Greeks were our equals from a purely intellec- tual standpoint, and the Christians of the first three centuries were our equals in excellence of morality. The divine day in which nations THE DIGNITY OF MAN 39 are born contains more than twenty -four hours. The Mongolian or the Negro race may repre- sent the highest culture and the purest religion a thousand years hence ; for who can prophesy what the result may be when these now barba- rous races have had our centuries of training. It may also be true that special causes stereo- type certain races, and launch others on a downward career so inevitable that no help from without' can avert their ruin. In consid- ering the development and decline of races, the " survival of the fittest " explains nothing. It is the mere antithesis to tlie death of the Aveakest. What we want to know is the philosophy of the causes that produce fitness and weakness. AVe are wise after the event. This ex post facto reasoning is interesting and instructive in its way. We have histories sacred and secular, so far as themes and modes of treatment are concerned, and histories of the church, and histories of civilization in abundance. It is easy to reason that the in- vention of the art of printing, the discovery of America, the decay of chivalry, the growing power of cities and trades' guilds as the natural foes of feudalism, the dispersion of Greek 40 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS speech and Greek learning by the fall of Con- stantinople and other causes, had a cumulative force which had to result in the Reformation. And we talk about the times making the man, and the man making the times. God makes the man. He dowers him with the Christian consciousness, and the peasant priest, the mi- ner's son, stands before kings. It is the unex- pected that happens. Take the case of Italy. The States of the Church were badly governed. The rest of the country was in even a worse condition, with the exception of the northern kingdom. The country was cut up into pettj^ principalities. There was no constitutional government. Misrule and grave oppression everywhere except in the north. The igno- rance of the masses was unspeakable. Brigand- age came to the gates oi almost every city in Italy. The ancient spirit seemed dead. The land of Petrarch and Dante, not to mention the greater names of those who flourished Avhen the CcGsars reigned in Rome, had now become a by-word among the nations. There was no reasoning or prophesying of that breath of life at the mysterious touch of which Cavour, Garibaldi, and Victor Immanuel came forth to build up tjie united Italy of to-day. THE DIGNITY OF MAN 41 Take another example, nearer to Eng4ish speakers in interest though more remote in time. In the middle of the eighteenth century a kind of moral and spiritual torpor prevailed in Britain and America. The Reformation was two hundred years old ; and the visible outcome of it, with the exception of an illustrious his- tory, was ecclesiasticism and infidelity. In Eng- land the lower orders of the clergy were too often recruited from men who were utterly in- competent from a moral or a literary stand- point. In its more desirable livings, the church was, to the privileged classes, just wliat the army and navy was, — a good place for younger sons. Fielding, Richardson, and Smollet sup- plied the literature of polite society. There was a little more outward decency than in the time of the shameless vice of the period of the Restoration of Charles II., but gambling was common among both sexes in the best houses of the land. Bull-baiting, dog-iighting, and pugilism without gloves, were popular amusements ; and intemperance was common anion cr all classes of the community. In Scot- land the era of moderatism prevailed. The pulpit was lax. Drunkenness was perhaps 42 THE CHlUSTtAN CONSCIOUSNESS more common than in England. Conversion was sneered at by the greater part of the clergy. The voices that came from the pul- pits, where the heroes and martyrs of the Ref- ormation had thundered, were but passionless definition of doctrine, elegant rhetoric of the cool and collected kind, and a Dryasdust mo- rality. In , America the Puritan fervor of New England had to a great extent disappeared ; and in its place had come an awkward aping of fashion, state, and ceremony, which sat clum- sily on men who were born to faith, but who had lost sight of their birthright in aping an unattainable culture. In the South there ex- isted all the religion and all the morality that were possible where domestic slavery jDrevails, where the mixed color tells the story of the white man's licentiousness, and of the colored woman's degradation. In the North they were freethinkers. In the South tliey were free- livers.; and occasionally a member of the chiv- alry sold his colored daughter into harlotrj^ when he w^as hard up, and occasionally he lost his offspring at a gentlemanly game of cards. There were illustrious exceptions. Tliere were THE DIGNITY OF MAN 43 many Lots in these eighteenth centniy Sodonis. There were pious clergymen, and there were holy families. Purity and piety had not fled tlie earth entirely, but evil was rampant. Al- most simultaneously on both sides of tlie At- lantic, men who were born leaders arose to champion evangelical religion. Great revivals and the birth of modern missions, home and foreign, were the immediate results. Into one soul is born the thought that or- ganized missions to the heathen nations was the will of God and the duty of Christian churches, and many missions arise. Into an- other comes the blessed thought to send leaves from the Bible over the earth, like leaves from some tree of life, — the first Bible society is formed, and many follow in its train. What is the genesis of these movements, and of the men who led them, nay, who originated them. It is easy to be wise after the event, and to philosophize as to the likelihood or necessity of some sucli movement just at such a time. There is a striking passage in Sir William Dawson s last book, "The Meeting-place of Geology and History," which deserves to be quoted as the deliberate opinion of an emi- 44 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS nent thinker, who has devoted himself dur- ing a long life to the study of geology, but who is one of the few scientists who are also scholarly, sympathetic, and competent archgeol- ogists and critics of the Bible. In chapter viii., the subject of which is " The Palantliropic Age in the Light of History," he, inter al'ia^ dem- onstrates that the testimony of history and of geology is in favor of tlie arts of civiliza- tion orig-inatinof Avith g-reat inventors, that so- ciety has at times advanced by leaps and bounds, rather than by a slow uniformitarian process. We quote the closing sentence of liis argument. " It is true that Genesis repre- sents its early inventors as mere men, albeit ' sons of God,' wdiile they often appear as gods or demi-gods in tlie early history of the heathen nations ; but the fact remains, that then, as now, the rare appearance of God-given inven- tive genius is the sole cause of the greater advances in art and civilization. Spontaneous development may produce socialistic trades' unions or Chinese stagnation ; but great gifts, whether of prophecy, of song, of scientific in- sight, or of inventive power, are the inspiration of the Almighty." THE DIGNITY OF MAN 45 In the preceding chapter, inspiration has been defined as " tlie gift of infallibility in the proclamation of moral and religious truth." It is evident that Sir William Dawson uses the word in a wider sense than that of our defi- nition. He is in accord with the conventiojial use of the word. In this more general and popular sense, Shakespeare, and the first man who made a lire, and the first man who repre- sented a sound by a written character, were all inspired ; but in the higher sense, we con- fine the term inspiration to those whose words or thoughts came to them by the special affla- tus of the Spirit, so that they were infallible teachers. In the combination of inspiration and revelation the writers of the sacred Scrip- tures stand alone. 46 THE CHlilSTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS CHAPTER III THE DESTINY OF MAN The Christian consciousness knows. It has moral certainty and spiritual assurance ; but it does not make any claim to infallibility, even in its own peculiar province. The Scriptures are infallible, but there are two serious dis- counts to their practical infallibility. The first is as to what measure of certainty we have that this reading is that which was penned by its inspired author. An unnecessary prominence has been given to this possibility of error creeping in through human fraud and careless- ness in translation and in transcription, by the prominence given to the " original autographs" in a recent deliverance of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church North in the United States. The second discount to the practical infallibility of the Scriptures as the rule of life arises from that diversity of interpretation concernino- docrma and morals to which we shall have occasion to refer in subsequent chap- THE DESTINY OF MAN 47 ters. While theoretically an argument might be made for the infallibility of the Christian consciousness, the doctrine is of little or no practical utility. Nothing is gained by prov- ing the possibility of that which never occurs. We assume the position that the Christian con- sciousness is not always and necessarily infalli- ble. It is not inspiration in the closer definition of tlie word ; but it is inspiration, or it may be, of the more general kind as seen in the use of the word by Sir William Dawson. It often possesses all the joy of illumination ; but it is oftentimes far more than illumination. It is the witness of the Spirit with our spirits con- cerning truth. It is both the wisdom revealed to us and in us. It is the supreme test of spiritual truth. We make the expression ''spiritually minded"' do duty for many things to which the Xew Testament does not apply it. Very often Christian consciousness would be the better expression. When Carlyle wrote, "Nobler in this world know I none than a peasant saint," it was not because there was any patent of nobility at- tached to a combination of poverty and saint- liness. There would really be much more to 48 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS wonder at, and to esteem as noble, in finding earnest piety combined with very great wealth, or with earthly positions of honor and of power. It could not be that the association of saintli- ness with husbandry conferred special honor. None knew better than Carlyle that the humble tillers of the soil of his native land were of the lineage of confessors, saints, and martyrs. Witli the keen insight of the seer, he saw in the peasant saint one whose mind was a tribunal to which grand moral issues came for judg- ment. The rustic could stand among princes, for he could speak the imperative yea and nay in life. The Christian consciousness puts great honor upon man. Christian revelation and scientific evolution unite in declaring that the world was made for man, and that man is the flower of all the centuries, and the lord of this visible creation. The end is not yet. Evolution can- not say that the processes of nature have reached their goal, and that now, or ere long, development is to give place to permanence. Evolution of the scientific kind distinctly repudiates this most unscientific assumption. Nor can evolution consistently affirm that man THE DESTINY OF MAN 49 returns to dust, once more takes his place among elemental matter, and begins once more the mighty circle of life. It is as unscientific to suppose that evolution is a circle, as to suppose that it has reached, or can reach, an ultimate and permanent form. The more thoughtful evolutionists are asking tlie ques- tion. What comes next in the destiny of man? He watches the progress from cosmic dust to life in its lowest forms, but with the origin of life unsolved. From primitive life to the higher mammals is a chain from which links are missing, — from the ape to man the great- est, most obvious missing link of all, and then upward from the lowest savage to the wisest and best men of to-day. And what shall come next? Surely honor is put upon man. Here or hereafter there must be something in store for him who is made a little lower tlian God. Physical science and invention and discovery have faith in the future. They look back but a century, and the many uses of electricity and steam are unknown. Only a hundred years ago, and many of those things which have be- come the necessities of our civilization were unknown. It is almost a certainty that more 50 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS will be accomplished in the twentieth centuiy than has been achieved in the nineteenth, and a hundred years from now they may truly affirm that the twentieth century has accom- plished more than the nineteenth accomplished. Social science has also her forward look. She sees the time when human life will be sweetened and lengthened by a wise hygiene ; when the earth will be able to su^Dport all her children in positive comfort; when labor and capital shall not conspire against each other; when there shall be no darkest England, or nihilist Russia, or anarchist America ; when the submerged tenth shall have been elevated into social comfort and contentment ; when the sa- loon and the gambling-house shall be matters of history ; and, above all, when the vision of the Hebrew seer shall be fulfilled, and men shall learn the art of war no more. Religion has her forward look. By faith's clear vision she sees the day when all the earth shall have heard the proclamation of the gospel, and when no man shall have to sa}^ to his neighbor, *' Know the Lord ; " when men shall no longer exalt this sect or that denomination, but when schism shall be healed, and we shall all be one on earth. THE DESTINY OF MAN 51 But material, social, and religious progress does not answer the (question, '• What is the next step in the destiny of man?" Evil may be diminished, though we cannot tear sin up by the roots. Many moral improvements may come by tlie cultivation of ethics, and by the develop- ment of social science ; but personal holiness may not grow in like proportion. Moral or spiritual growth is not necessarily aided by our achievements in physical science. A man who can cross the Atlantic in five days is not one whit more of a man, is not cleaner of soul or purer in life, is no truer to friend and lover, than he wlio had to battle with Avind and wave for thirty days to reach his goal. Paul's sermon on liars' Hill would not have been more sublime if he had travelled to Greece on a steam-yacht. The hand that bent the yew bow was just as steady, and the heart as brave, as are his who handles the modern rifle. The telephone is a triumph of civili- zation, but is a doubtful aid to morals. We can suppose our social burdens lightened by wise legislation, our churches rejoicing in visible union, and the gospel proclaimed in all lands ; and yet open and secret sin may 52 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS abound, even while the grossness of it and the volume of it may be diminished. In a cen- tury we may make notable progress, and yet the destiny of man is still unsolved. Immor- tality is the only solution of the problem of the present life. Morality demands a future in which the cultivation of virtue and the j^ursuit of knowledge, that have been cut off by death, may be resumed. Truth demands its vindica- tion. Justice declares that every man should face his record. The everlasting right beholds the imperfect administration of justice this side of the grave, and says that there must be a future in wliich wrongs shall be made right. All these natural, reasonable, and moral de- sires are part of our Christian consciousness. Science and religion occupy common ground as to the destiny of man. Science beholds him standing erect, the apex of creation's pyramid, at once the product, and the heir and the king, of all the ages ; and she says, " He is crowned with glory and honor." The Christian sees Him wlio is invisible, and says, '' Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor." Agnos- ticism admits that there is as much to be said for theism as against it. Atheism in any form THE DESTINY OF MAN 53 is a dimiiiisliing quantity. Tlie number of tliose wlio admit the existence and personality of God, the First Cause, is steadily growing. To-day there are many scientific thinkers who are not avowedly Christian, but who are more theistic than agnostic. The divine Word says, " God made man ; " the materialist says, " Man made God." The Word says, " God is from everlasting to everlasting ; " the materialist says, '' Matter is from everlasting to ever- lasting." The science of evolution is not materialism. Science is keen-eyed as far as her vision will carry. She sees the mighty chain of life. High- est of the highest, alone in the completeness of His glory, is tlie Almighty First Cause. There are ministering spirits round his throne ; but of them we are told little, and conjecture ever flies with broken wing. Next is man, — a motley group. At one end we find Wash- ington, Cromwell, Shakespeare, Augustine, Paul, John the Baptist, and Moses. With them class all lovers of God and of their fellow-men, — the virtuous poor and the unselfish rich. We descend through the ranks of greed and lust and shame, of sorrow and of sin, until 54 THE CHBISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS we reach the lowest of tlie low in the disgust- ing and ingenious vice of some great cit}^, or among those wdio dance in glee at the canni- bal feast in dai-kest Africa. But the Salvation Army goes down into the slum ; and this almost bestial man is clothed and in his right mind, living cleanly, and learn- ing to think cleanly. The missionary goes to the cannibal village ; and ere long some of these cannibals are transformed, and they pray to the unseen Father, — they know God. They have Christian consciousness. Science looks upon the manlike ape next to man in nature's descending scale, and sees no soul, no speech, no conscience, and no shame. They w^ll not eat their own kind ; they are not can- nibals. They will fight with each otlier, or witli other animals ; but there is no devilish ingenuity of cruelty, and no skill in torturing, to which western Christian civilization liad resort, not so very long ago, and which flour- ishes in China to-day ; but science sees divine possibilities in these men who to-day are in some respects worse than brutes, and her solemn verdict is, that man is nearer to God than he is to these apes. Nearly three thousand THE DESTINY OF MAN 55 years ago, David the poet sang the greatness of the Creator manifested in the greatness of the creature, and said, '' Thou hast made man a little lower than God." The dream and the hope of the best science of to-day sit at tlie feet of this sure word of revelation. The destiny of man is a future of divine possibilities. In Eden the tempter came and said, "Ye shall be as God," as the Revised Version puts it ; but the suggested act was im- moral, and the result was fatal. It was the true goal by a wrong road. Sometimes the relio'ious consciousness is very low. Man has no language of the spiritual life but a cry; but the cry has been for knowledge of God, for likeness to God. As religious culture ad- vances, our watchword is not so much, " Heaven our home," as it is, " God our Father." The highest aspiration of the child of God is not to escape a condition of loss and suffering, or even to gain a condition of bliss and reward, but it is to become like God. But who shall bridge the gulf between God and man, between humanity and divinity? Here is another missing link. Hitherto the science of evolution has searched, and searched ^6 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS in vain very often, for the missing links in the ascending series of creation. But there are three great missing links ; and could these be found, every other gap is a question of de- tail, and might be left to time. The first miss- ing link is tliat which is between the inorganic and the organic, between death and life. Spon- taneous generation has not been proved. We must go back to the Word of life: "Let the waters bring forth ; " " Let the earth bring forth." The second missing link is that which connects the animal life of the brute with the soul life of man. We search in vain until we fall back on the divine cosmogony, and learn that God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. The third and last missing link is that which connects man with God. We cannot find it in physical development. Suppose that by pu- rity of life and knowledge of hygiene, man were to get back to the length of days of the antediluvians. This is not becoming like Him with whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. He cannot expect to find it by any growth in knowledge; for the pleasant pain of growing THE DESTINY OF MAN 57 knowledge is, that each secret we wrest from nature reveals new regions of the unknown. The development of this missing link is spir- itual. It has to do with likeness. Man who has borne the image of the earthly must take on the image of the heavenly. How is it to be accomplished ? There are two factors to evolu- tion or development of species. The first is the innate or inherent energy ; and the second is the environment, which develops the stream of tendency, and provides for the survival of the fittest. Revelation fulfils the demands of science. It declares that man has this innate or inherent energy, for he was made in the image of God. The second demand is fulfilled by Christ, who is our environment. We can be found in him. With the profoundest reverence it may be affirmed that at this end of the process there is not a missing link. It is found in Christ, who clasps humanity wdth one hand and di- vinity with the other. He took our humanity on him, that we might take his divinity on us. We are children and heirs wdth him. He is our elder Brother. God never gives empty titles. "Behold what manner of love the Father 58 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS hath bestowed on us, that we should be called sons of God." Science, if true to evolution and development, must point to a development of man beyond his present place and power.^ As has been said, 1 This view is not held by Mr. Huxley. In one of his more recent utterances, the Romanes leoture for 1893, he saj^s: "The theory of evolution encourages no millennial anticipa- tions. If, for millions of years, our globe has taken the upward road, yet some time the summit will be reached, and the downward route will be commenced. The most daring imagination will hardly venture upon the suggestion that the power and the intelligence of man can ever arrest the pro- cession of the great year. "It is true that science bears witness to the occurrence of cataclysms and catastrophes in the past; and the thing that has been may be again. It does not require the most daring imagination to picture the gradual or rapid approach of another glacial period, or of another period of extreme, more than tropical, heat. Even if bearable, they would alter the conditions of human life; and in that combat between the microcosm and the macrocosm, — that is, between the ethical and the cosmic force, — the cosmos would regain all the ground that has been lost." All this may be granted. It does not affect the destiny of man. Other races of men may have preceded the Adamic race, but we have no more moral relation to them than we have to the inhabitants of Venus. We have the Flood in the past, concerning which the eminent scientist, Sir William Dawson, finds geological testimony which corroborates the Biblical account, and the Nineveh tablet gives archaio- logical indorsement. This catastrophe was a new departure for the human family. In 2 Peter iii. 5-13 we have an account of a cataclysm to come, and modern science admits that it is quite possible; and this also will end the earth life of man. We need a future for our evolution of man. Mr. Huxley's THE DESTINY OF MAN 59 physical and intellectual progress meet tlie case only in part. Science gropes after immor- tality; revelation declares it. Jolni Fiske, in his " Destiny of Man," says that " The doctrine of evolution does not allow us to take the atlieis- tic view of the position of man." This essay and its sequel, " The Idea of God," by the same author, deserve far more attention than they have received. They state with scrupulous honesty the progress and the limitations of the scientific theist ; and viewed from the stand- point of Christian belief they are among the most significant utterances of science in this generation. Science declares that man at his best is nearer to the divine than to the brutal, and it also declares that at his Avorst he has the inlierent power to rise to liis best. Revelation declares that God lias made him but little less than God, and has crowned him with glory and honor. Science demands efficient causes for phenomena. Revelation points to the ori- ginal God image, and then to Him who was at once the Son of God and the Son of man. view is in accord with the testimony of revelation to the past, and also to the future, of the earth. 60 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS The destiny of the brute is beyond and outside of any volition or plan on its part. Man's des- tiny, in a very important sense, is in his own hands. There is a royal road to his highest development. It is by Him who is the way. Christianity asserts the dignity of man. It declares that a believer has been born again by an incorruptible seed, by a living and abiding ever-continuing word of God. He is in present possession of eternal life. Is not Christian consciousness natural and to be ex- pected? Would it not be strange if this son and heir should be so estranged from his Father that there was no sympathetic knowledge be- tween them? The unused power slirinks, shrivels, and weakens. This is true in the physical, the intellectual, and the spiritual. Is our Christian consciousness atrophied by disuse ? THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 61 CHAPTER IV THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS The consideration of the influence that the Christian consciousness has upon the develop- ment or evolution of morals, ethics, and doc- trine, is to a certain extent influenced by the use which has already been made of it. As has been stated in the first chapter, Schleier- macher's position is, that religion consists properly in feeling. This is with him a fun- damental principle. But those who reject the sensationalism of Schleiermacher will nat- urally be led to reject his assertion that we have an immediate consciousness of the di- yine, — a God consciousness. The attempt of the Ritchslian school to reconcile supranat- uralism and rationalism is the chivalry of dog- matics when looked at from one point of view ; but when the inspiration of Scripture is yielded as a lost cause, so far as its pres- ent lines of defence are concerned, only to be rescued by the Christian consciousness, or- {j:> THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS thodoxy naturally and properly takes alarm, and of course regards with suspicion the Chris- tian consciousness which rescues the doctrine that ouo-ht not to have been abandoned. In the A7idover Bevieiv of October, 1884, there appeared a paper by Professor George Harris, entitled, " The Function of the Clnis- tian Consciousness." This article was a de- fence of, and a plea for, the so-called Andover theology, which for various reasons, into which it is not tlie province of the present work to go, was much more prominently before the public then than it is now. The points which Professor Harris makes and elaborates are: — I. ''The Christian consciousness gives cer- tainty to the individual concerning the truth of Christianity." II. " Another exercise of the function of the Christian consciousness is the progressive devel- opment of theology." III. " The relatiom of Christian conscious- ness to the Bible." It was natural, and to be expected, that in the then active stage of this particular phase of the controversy, criticism of this article was at once prompt and general. Dr. Francis Pat- THl^ EVOLUTION OF MORALS G3 ton criticised it in the Independent ; and it is scarcely necessary to add that it was keenly and trenchantly done. The Rev. Dr. Behrends, in the Congregatmialist^ also appeared as the champion of orthodoxy as opposed to the newer school at Andover. Tlieir contention and tlieir fear was that the supreme authority of the Scriptures was endangered by the func- tions ascribed to the Christian consciousness by Professor Harris. Nor were they without reason for their assertion, for the third divis- ion of the paper in question is lackiug in precision of statement. The general impres- sion which the reader who tries to follow tlie discussion with all possible judicial candor receives, is that Professor Harris used the "Christian consciousness" to support Andover theology, and that the critics who have been named, as well as others, Avere prejudiced against the doctrine of Christian conscious- ness because of the use to which it had been put. There is no need for alarm. The Chris- tian consciousness of the individual is from God. The collective Christian consciousness of the church is from God. Our philosophy of consciousness is put in various forms by CA THE CHBISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS different schools. Christian consciousness will be the subject of debate as to mode of origin, essence, and functions, just as inspiration or conscience is ; but the individual or the church that wills to do the will of God can never be led by the Christian consciousness into rad- ical error of doctrine or of conduct. What is our standard of Scripture interpre- tation ? Tlie Roman Catholic says. My stan- dard is the church. I can rest in blessed satisfaction. The church tells me what to believe and what to do. The great councils have issued their decrees. Emergencies may arise, but the official head of the church is officially infallible. He thinks he has not much need for the Christian consciousness ; but his child dies after a few struggling mo- ments of life. In the hurry and excitement of the moment tlie sacrament of bajDtism has been neglected. This tiny morsel of mortal- ity, this unbaptized babe, is to suffer eternal deprivation and disqualification because of this ; and when he and the mother and the other more fortunate children are safely gathered on the other side, this frailest blossom of the par- ent tree is to be banished eternally. Chris- THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS (35 tiaii consciousness rebels and doubts, and hopes against hope, and finally believes better than the church's creed. In tliese more enlightened times Roman Catholics have so many opportu- nities of taking knowledge of the Christlike lives of some of their Protestant friends, that the doctrine concerning the damnation of here- tics has undergone a modifying process. The Christian consciousness demanded it. Protestant denominations may be said to as- sert that their standard of Scripture interpre- tation is neither church nor creed nor teacher. Each and every one is to search the Scriptures. What do I think about Christ? The Scrip- tures testify of him. The duty which God requires of man is obedience to his revealed will; and the Word of God is the only rule to direct us. Theoretically this sounds beau- tiful, and savors of a large freedom ; but the Protestant sometimes finds that his denomina- tion is a close corporation. The Confessional symbols interpret the Scriptures, and the Gen- eral Assembly or the Conference or the Asso- ciation interprets the Confessional symbols ; and these interpretations, which determine who are orthodox, Avho need discipline, and who de- (jQ THE CIiniSTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS serve expulsion, are the voice of a majority, great or small, — a majority swayed by tlie heat of debate, tlie chronic rivalry of individ- uals and of parties, by the bitterness of po- litical strife, or by the pecuniary interests involved, and often by the avowed determina- tion to ignore the Christian consciousness as a dangerous and misleading factor. It is easy to reply to this, that it magnifies the admixture of error and human frailty which inheres in all man's work, but that these deliberations and decisions are reached by godly men, who believe in, and have prayed for, the Spirit's pres- ence and powder. Most gladly is all this con- ceded ; but history is history, and the tyranny of overbearing majorities is only equalled by the divisive courses of stubborn minorities. In much of our ecclesiastical business and doc- trinal controversy we almost expect to find men stubborn when they are in the right, and sublimely obstinate when they are in the wrong. It is no argument in favor of a con- dition of things to say that it has always been so ; and to say that the thing that has always been is the will of God is a mixture of blasphemy and of fatalism. Surely there can THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 67 be a better way. The consideration of what the Christian consciousness has accomplished will give hope concerning the future. It is desirable to enter upon this investigation with the spirit of true philosophic inquiry. We are not immediately concerned with the re- lation whicli the Christian consciousness bears to this doctrine or to that. The outcome may be for or against this creed or that denomina- tion. It may help, or it may antagonize, the new theology or the higher criticism, or it may have no effect on either of those phases of doctrine. It is also desirable to bear in mind that the common Christian consciousness is that con- sensus concerning doctrine, morals, or ethics which is held by each and every Christian. While this is the strict definition, we usually call that tlie common Christian consciousness which is the common or predominant thought of the followers of Christ. It is self-evident, tliat, while the consensus of a bare majorit}^ or of a considerable minority may be regarded as a form or phase of Christian consciousness, we cannot regard it as being the Christian con- sciousness concerning the point in question. 68 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS The genuineness and authority of Christian consciousness cannot be settled by a majority vote. It is desirable to consider the relation of the Christian consciousness to the evolution or development of morals and ethics, apart from its relation to the development or evo- lution of doctrine. What is meant by the expression? Is there such a law in nature as THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS? Evolution accounts for the growth of the intellectual and moral as well as for the physical man. Herbert Spencer, in his illus- trations of universal progress, says, " Little as from present appearance we should suppose it, we shall yet find that at first the control of religion, the control of laws, and the con- trol of manners, were all one control. How- ever incredible it may now seem, we believe it to be demonstrable that the rules of eti- quette, the provisions of the statute book, and the commands of the Decalogue, have grown from the same root." Now, the very doctrine which Mr. Spencer introduces Avith the un- avoidable conscious self-importance of even a THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS G9 modest discoverer, and tells us how incredible it may seem, is exactly the belief of many earnest Christians. Manners, law, and morals have grown from the same root, have been bruised by rough handling, their kinship is becoming more and more apparent. In well- ordered Christian families, " law, religion, and morals " do spring from the same root. In this lies our hope that the state and the world will yet more and more resemble a holy family. Mr. Spencer evidently takes no small amount of satisfaction in discover- ing tliree fruits from one root. We, too, are satisfied, but not quite so much amazed as he is, for the Tree of Life has twelve manner of fruits. In sympathy with the position of Herbert Spencer, George Henry Lewes, in his "Problems in Life and Mind," says, "The great desire at this age is for a doctrine which may serve to condense our knowledge, guide our researches, and shape our lives, so that con- duct may be the result of belief." i\Ir. Lewes saw no hope of getting such a doctrine from revealed religion. His hope was in a "religion founded on science." The Christian philos- opher maintains that the Scriptures unfold 70 THE CHBISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS such a doctrine ; and Christian philosophy goes deeper than this distinguished doubter's, for it dechires that love keeps the commandments, and he that wills to do His will knows the supranatural excellence of the doctrine. The history of civilization and the history of morals form one great theme. Guizot, Buckle, and Lecky have the same story to tell, however different their motives and their manner of telling may be. It is, of course, with the development of morals in the Chris- tian era that we are concerned. We have not to establish or prove the fact of this devel- opment. It is universally granted. In civil and religious liberty, in the amelioration of the pencil code, in our thoughts regarding, and our treatment of, such questions as witch- craft, slavery, foreign missions, and temper- ance, we recognize the fact that great changes have occurred, and that great advances have been made. It is not so long ago that the slave-ship was carrying on a legitimate busi- ness, and that slavery was a most Christian institution. The clergymen of a hundred years ao-o had not beg^un to doubt tlie propriety of the habitual use of intoxicating liquors. We THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS <1 see more clearly than they did, and we won- der at the witch-burning, and the reckless, if legal, killing of men for so many crimes. We are able to look forward to the time when we shall have overcome many of the evils, and shall have got rid of many of the burdens, of our present social system. While the fact of development in morals is granted, the greatest diversity exists as to the cause or causes of man's progress. Long before there was any evolution theory with regard to phys- ical life, evolution theories in morals were not only promulgated, but were also received with little question. Not until these theories were .pushed to their legitimate conclusions was the alarm taken. The vague term ex- perience was credited with all theoretical and practical progress in ethics. Scholars got into the habit of speaking of the inductive method as being the true and only cause of all prog- ress in moral as well as in physical science. Many scientists scouted the bare idea of a superintending, adjusting, or interfering Prov- idence finding anything to do in the physical universe of to-day ; and, by an easy transition, they also refused to believe in a divine moral 72 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS government and governor. But the moving of God out of his universe, either by denying his existence, or by removing him to the infinite height and solitude of the Great First Cause, that did not in any way shape or interfere with the destiny of man, did not solve the difficulty. What is the philosophy of, the key to, the satisfactory explanation of that human progress which we commonly term the process of civilization or development in morals? Utilitarianism was credited witli much devel- oping power. We are told in the Bible that on a certain occasion when good men were assembled, Satan appeared also,^ as indeed he usually does. He was confronted with the problem of accounting for virtue and for moral and spiritual excellence ; and his reply was, " Doth Job fear God for naught ? " He is the first and greatest of the utilitarians ; and to-day we have the sneer about " worldliness and other- worldliness." The world did not require to wait for some revealed word of reply to this ingenious theory that virtue was begotten of selfishness, and that morality was a kind of insurance against wrath to come, whether in 1 Job i. 6. THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 73 this or in some future state of existence. In his '^ Republic "' occurs Plato's well-known crit- icism of Homer; and one fault wliich the great philosopher finds with the grand poet is that he recommends justice by the inducement of temporal rewards, and thus turns morality into prudence. In passing, let it be said tliat it was a dehcately adjusted religious cousciousness which scorned the idea of morality having no higher inspiration than prudence. He could discern with clearness many of what Sir James Mackintosh, in his ''Progress of Ethical Plii- losophy," calls the ''august and sacred land- marks that stand conspicuous along the frontier between right and wrong." Mr. Lecky affirms that utilitarianism leads to conclusions utterly and outrageously repugnant to the moral feel- ings. Here he stands with Plato against the arch enemy ; but when he claims that general moral principles are revealed by intuition, are progressive, and that theological influences re- tard philosopliical truth, we are not so sure as to what side he is on. Buckle's tests of growing civilization are the absence of persecution for religious opinion, and not going to war; but we naturally ask whether these so-called tests are 74 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS the causes or effects of civilization, or are they not more properly to be regarded as parts of civilization or of morality ? Buckle gives su- premacy to the intellect, but Comte to tlie heart. There is much that is attractive in the religion of humanity which we can learn from, without worshipping humanity. The " struggle for existence " is not as new a thought in social as it is in physical science. Hesiod said that society was constructed on a basis of competition ; that a principle of strife which makes potter foe to potter, produces all honorable enterprise. Physical progress is se- cured by the destruction of unsuitable forms, their Aveeding out, and by the cultivation of the successful ; that is, by the survival of the fittest. Nature w^ants nothing but a fair field and free play for the strongest. Trade is competition, a struo-crle for existence. The survival of the sharpest is not always the survival of the fittest, from the moral, or even from the ethical, stand- point. Moral evolution demands a fair field and fair play for the weakest. It does not break the bruised reed. The Christian sociol- ogy of to-day, as a philosophy, is empiric ^mply because ethical science is so vague ; but in many THE EVOLUTION OF 3I0liALS 75 of the practical outcomes of it, such as the in- stitutional church, coUeo^e residences amone the lowly, and the rescue ^vork of the Salvation Army, it is saved from all nomenclature by be- ing the imitation of Cln-ist, wlio from the stand- point of even those Avho deny his divinity, was tlie greatest, most radical, and most far-reach- ing reformer tliat has ever appeared on earth. F. D. Maurice's " Social jNIoiality " created a good deal of interest when tlie lectures were delivered and afterwards published. It has his- torical insight and elevated moral sentiment, and a generous enthusiasm for virtue ; but the questions at issue now were not on the field of discussion when he wrote. He cannot escape the environment of Oxford and of the State Church. He goes out of his way to make a })lea for aristocracy and for a hereditary legisla- ture. He sees advantage in the inheritance of patrician and plebeian, and with proud humility writes himself a plebeian. Of course not a few of his audience were self-complacent juA^enile patricians. We ai"e not so much concerned about whether the individual or the family constitutes the unit of social life, as to how social life is to be developed in the unit and in 76 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS the family. Hume remarks that " the princi- ples upon which men reason in morals are always the same, though the conclusions which they draw are often very different." Tliis was true in Hume's time ; it is not the case now. Tlie systems of moral philosophy had to ac- count for the developments of virtue and of vice, but it was largely done as an abstract science. The metaphysicians and the moralists dissected the mind as anatomists dissected the body. They had their vivisection too, but it consisted chiefly in the relish with which rival schools cut each other up. The political economists imparted a human interest to moral philosophy which it did not before possess. Biology opened a new and very productive field in the study of man, morally and intellectually as well as physically. The comparatively new science of sociology Avas a study of moral and physical conditions, and it was also an active effort to remedy and to help. The philosopher in his study can tell us a great deal about the moral nature of man ; but the study of the living organism Society by the man who works in college settlement, or in people's palace, or in some Salvation Army rescue work, gives oppor- THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 11 tunities of studying problems in life .and mind and morals in concrete fashion. Those men who are combining culture with practical ^tudy of social conditions, and with practical efforts to help and to elevate, know that their Avork is of unusual significance in these days of communism, socialism, unrest, and discontent. Bellamy and his followers and imitators dream of a social future. Novelists weave their plots round the wa3^s and means adapted to take some moral, intellectual, and social sunshine into darkest England. Slumming becomes a virtuous rage. Altruria becomes a country ; and altruism, instead of being almost a philo- sophical term, becomes almost a household word. The active help was not the only manner in which the quickened social sympathy mani- fested itself. In the past, when a strike took place the general public looked on and grum- bled when their own comfort was interfered with; but the general feeling was expressed by the words, ''Let them fight it out." When the discontent became riotous, rebellious, and revo- lutionary, the policy was to give the dog a bone if you were not able to knock him on the head. Now all is beine changed. Courts of arbitration 78 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS are being discussed. Trades unions and or- ganized labor generally are treated with respect. Wlien a strike takes place, the right and the wrong of it are vigorousl}^ discussed. Eminent clergymen win the applause of all Avhen they are the successful peacemakers. As is usually the case when money has to be raised and ser- vice rendered, much of the work, almost all of it, in fact, which looked to the better under- standing of the miserable, and to their better- ment in a permanent fashion, was done by the churches or by professedly Christian people. The evolution of ethics and morals had been expounded by non-Christian evolutionists. Ma- terialist, positivist, agnostic, and humanitarian had all had their say ; but the actual was, meanwhile, being done, not by the followers of these various schools, but by Christians, by the churches, by ladies living among the lowly, by scholarly young men from universities and theological seminaries, and by the soldiers, male and female, of the Salvation Army. Tt was hio-h time that the evolution of morals should be treated from the point of view which reli- gion supplies. Benjamin Kidd's able w^ork on " Social Evolution " has attracted much atten- THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS T9 tion. It has the merit of being so clear in its reasoning, and so lucid in its language, that it has already secured a wider audience than, as a rule, has been won by works of its class. It has been keenly criticised ; but hitherto its prin- cipal positions have not been successfully as- sailed. He maintains that our civilization is founded upon an ultra-rational system of ethics. He bears repeated testimony to this immense fund of altruistic feeling. But, though he does not say it in so many words, the ultra-rational that makes for righteousness manifested by self-surrender must be inspired. The writer is in hearty sympathy and cordial agreement with almost all Mr. Kidd's argument; for his book has the merit of being an unbroken and well- sustained argument. That whicli it is the aim of this book to prove to be the law of the evo- lution in morals in relation to the Christian consciousness is not inconsistent with his theory of social evolution. It is interesting that Professor Drummond's "Ascent of Man " should be almost contempo- rary with Mr. Kidd's '^ Social Evolution." This work has been severely criticised by the scien- tists, who are not satisfied with its Christian 80 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS spirit; and it has been even more severely liandled by Christian critics, because of alleged shortcomings. But meanwhile it has the win- ning manner of putting things which has made Professor Drummond so popular, and good people who read it are not hurt by it. His scheme of the development of morals appears at first sight antagonistic to Mr. Kidd's ; but they are not really so very much opposed. The author of ''Social Evolution" is not so much concerned about the genesis of the moral idea, as with the fact that religion has moral sanc- tions to spare, and that she does leaven society with these ultra-rational moral sanctions. Reli- gion can give only that which is in the hearts of its votaries ; not in the heart of each one, or in the hearts of all, but the predominant thought and feeling. His altruistic fund can never rise above the level of the Christian con- sciousness ; or, since he avoids the term Chris- tian, let us put it that his altruism, his ultra-rationalism of morality, is the manifesta- tion of the religious consciousness. It may at first sight seem a contradiction ; but perhaps the best way of indicating the relation of these fa- mous books to each other is to note that there is THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 81 some reason for Professor Drummond taking ex- ception to some of Mr. Kidd's views, but there is no reason for which Mr. Kidd should oppose Professor Drummond's book in the interest of his own " Social Evolution." THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS CHAPTER V THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY The study of the evolution of morals is fa- cilitated by taking some particular instance and example. We take human slavery because it has been universal, and, so far as civilization is concerned, it has passed into history. It is now a problem in ethics and in morals. In the earli- est civilization, there were slaves of every kind. Sometimes the slavery was that of subject peo- ples engaged on great public works, or that of races laboring under the burden of a tribute of such exorbitant extent that they were slaves indeed to their conquerors ; or it was domestic servitude. The slaves of the ancient world Avere not confined to that one race so much identified with slavery in modern times, but were captives taken in battle, purchased slaves, and the children of slaves, Avho inherited the bondage of their parents. When the condition of the slave was favorable, or even happy, it was because his owner was kind or indifferent, CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 83 and not because he was protected by liumane legislation. In the dawn of history the laws were made for freemen, and the servile class were wlioUy at the mercy of irresponsible own- ers. When laws began to be made, with regard to slaves, they indicate the unspeakable cruelty which preceded them. It was enacted that it would be wrong for a master to put his slave to death wdthout securing legal permission, l;ut that if he happened to kill a slave when chastis- ing him, he was to be held innocent. When a slave became sick, and in order not to be put to the trouble of caring for him, he publicly abandoned him, and the slave recovered, the master could not claim him again. These laws show how miserable the condition of the slave was. Christianity did not do much to improve the condition of the slave, and the little that was done was accomplished very slowly. Tlie serfdom of Europe was a modified form of bondage, and in the feudal system the mass of their retainers were the practical slaves of the barons. Liberty came slowly, not so much from servile insurrection, as from the growth of cities and the freemen sheltered by their walls, and from the power that the yeomen learned 84 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS tliat they possessed when princes fought, or barons were arrayed against the king, and the king against his barons. When slavery came to an end in Europe, it was from natural causes. Neither church nor state had any convictions on the question. No moral issue was raised ; and almost immediately the pious and the thrifty, as well as the adven- turer and the vagabond, became interested in the slave-trade to the colonies beyond the seas. Nor were negroes from Africa the only victims. In November, 1648, a contemporary authority tells this story : " The two charitable mer- chants that have bought four hundred Chris- tians to send be3^ond the sea for slaves, were brought before the House of Lords, to show by what authority tliey were to transport them, who, upon examination, produced an order of the House of Commons, and being demanded what qualities they were of, they answered that they were all common soldiers and Scots, not one Englishman among them ; then says one, it will be enough : the}^ are as much slaves as ever they can be. But what ! Have they sold none away but Scots? How many hundred poor apprentices of London have they sold per- CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 8ej petual slaves to the Turks, or sent to planta- tions where they shall not be half so well used as are here our horses and oxen ! " There is a vein of sarcasm in this contemporary account of the doings of this famous Parliament. It goes on to tell that these white slaves being only Scots, and the Lords, not knowing but that the Commons Avould sell them next, leave was granted. Just before attending to the specula- tion of these enterprising merchants, the Com- mons sent a message to the Lords, desiring their concurrence in sending the Catechism of the Westminster Assembly to the king at Car- isbrooke Castle. This was the Parliament which defeated the kincr, who in a few months was to be executed. It was altogether in control of Puritans, Inde- pendents, and Presbyterians. Need we be sur- prised at the readiness with which the American colonists in New England and in Virginia ac- cepted slavery as a part of their social system ? This Parliament, containing many men of emi- nent piety, and composed almost wholly of those who had ventured their lives in this successful struggle for civil liberty and for religious free- dom, is not troubled at all about the abstract 86 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS morality of slavery ; but it Avas scarcely fair to sell London apprentices into slavery, because these apprentices were their own kith and kin. As for those common soldiers and Scots, who had been fio-hting^ on the wronq- side, that was another question. John Bacon of Barnstable, Mass., died in 1731, leaving a " negro wench," Dinali, as a ' chattel to be disposed of by will ; and this will was to the effect that Dinah should be sold, and the proceeds of the sale were to be devoted to the purchase of Bibles. This in New England ! And in old England good men gave God thanks for the successful ventures of their slave-ships on the African coasts. We smile at these inci- dents, and marvel at the moral obtuseness which they indicate ; but not so great a blot is this on the eighteenth century as is the taxation of har- lots and of sellers of strong drink in the nine- teenth century. A late senator from Illinois introduced a bill to legalize the education of children by the profits of the liquor traffic. Moses was not a slave, but he was of a nation of slaves, whose freedom lie secured ; and we do not know that he had any theoretic objections to slavery as a system, and yet his statutes de- CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 87 cree that the price of a dog or the wages of sin were not to go into the Lord's treasury. His iBsthetics are as remarkable as are his ethics. There was a time when shiver}^ was con- sidered right by the Christian churches, and by Christians as individuals. We can imagine that the degradation of use and wont made the slaves themselves acquiesce in the state of things. Even on moral grounds the man who is a slave cannot bemoan the radical injustice of his lot, so long as he, without scruple, would enslave the enslaver if he had the upper hand. Every student of history and of the Bible knows that there was a time when, humanly speaking, slavery in and of itself was not op- posed to human v.- even to divine legislation. Just as certainly as there was a time when every body thought that slavery was right, just as certainly there came a supreme moment when there came to some soul the truth that SLAVERY WAS WRONG. And of course the thing that is morally wrong cannot prove a per- manent advantage to the state, to society, or to the individual. Now, the question is, How came this new thought into the world ? What is the genesis of it ? It may be, and it is frequently 88 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS replied, " This is the result of evolution in morals. It comes from observation and expe- rience." Mr. Kidd tells us that tlie altruism with which society was equipped by. religion, the ultra-rational morality, was the axe that was laid at the root of the tree of slavery. Professor Drummond exalts the evolution of love, and self-sacrifice for love's sake, and this provided the altruistic feeling before which slavery was doomed. It may be granted that the development or evolution theories of these two eminent think- ers, as well as the theories that have been ad- vanced by Huxley, Spencer, and others, account satisfactorily for the gradual amelioration of the condition of the slave ; but they do not account for the reversal of the world's thought. To own a slave is right ; to own a slave is wrong. This is a new tiling in morals. Spon- taneous generation in morals is just as unthink- able as is spontaneous generation in matter. It has been the custom, both in and out of the pulpit, to compare the advances in morals with those discoveries and inventions which are pro- ducing such constant change upon the life of man. The changes in the outward life are not CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 89 witliout their reflex action upon the inner life. There is a superficial reasonableness in such comparisons. The discovery is the finding of the treasure which has been lying in the lap of nature, waiting the appropriating hand of man ; and the invention is the combination and ad- justment of existing principles or laws to pro- duce a new result. We may call the new thing in morals a discovery, and declare that it has always been lying in the nature of tilings, and in the revealed Word, waiting for the eyes that were yet to see it ; or we may call it an inven- tion, and affirm that it is in harmony with that law from Heaven for life on earth, to which as to a divine measure we bring it. There is, however, an essential difference. It is one thing to discover or to invent in the physical, to detect the law, or to combine the laws to produce a new result, and quite another thing to discover or to invent, if such terms are admissible, the truth which is a direct and emphatic reversal of the truth which has been accepted in all time as in harmony with morality as a science. And this holds true whether or not our system of morality acknowledges the Word of God as its ultimate standard. 90 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS We do not know who was tlie first to ntter this new trutli. We do not Ivnow tliat he was in a position to reason from observation and experience. It may be maintained that abstract reasoning on theoretic justice, excited l)j the recital of experience on the part of others, or by witnessing the evils of slavery, might be the producing cause. Is it not nevertheless true that the Christian consciousness, the divinity in the man, is the womb, the theatre of the ges- tation time of this new birth of truth ? Like the Christ of extraordinary parentage, both human and divine, it is a fountain-head of good. This new thing in morals is not wholly made of things that do appear. Who was the father of this truth ? ^ Who can tell ? It may be asked Avh}^ those whose names and memories are forgotten should be chosen as the autliors of great truths? We do not know. We have not yet mastered the prin- 1 It may be claimed tliat moral births are the begotten of the times, and not of the individual. Tliis is really no objec- tion. In the moral universe there must always be " A fulness of time." The Christ has a forerunner, and disciples who ac- company and follow him. That a new truth in morals should be revealed simultaneously in widely separated localities does not disprove its revelation, but a case of simultaneous revela- tion has not yet been proved." CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 91 ciples of divine selection and election. We do not know for what reason Mnvy was chosen as the mother of our Lord. We do not know what was the nature or measure of the fitness that Christ saw in each of the Twelve. Before Wil- berforce, Clarkson, and Garrison, are Anthony Benezet, William Dellwyn, and Granville Sharp. Before them are more obscure names. Samuel Sewall seems to have been the first in America to denounce slavery and the laws against witchcraft. He was born in England, 1652, and died in New England, 1730. In 1692 he gave his official sanction to the punishment of witchcraft ; but five years afterwards he ac- knowledged his error. In 1700 he published a pamphlet, " The Selling of Joseph," in which he says that there could be 'Mio progress in gos- pelling" until slavery w^as abolished. There are two points deserving attention in this case. The bondage of penal servitude made slaves of white men in the colonies at this time, and their servitude excited a consideration and compas- sion which would not be as readily given to an alien race like the negro. We can easily ima- gine that had the mixture of races been impossi- ble on this continent, the slavery of the black 92 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS race miglit have continued for a longer time be- fore its final overthrow. The English people of 1G48 had much more tender reo-ard for London o apprentices than thej had for common soldiers and Scots. When quadroons and octoroons, and even those in whom the African taint was even still more attenuated, had to follow the mother's fate, the moral offence became more rank. It " smelled to heaven." It is also of special significance to note that Samuel Sewall was just the man in Avhom we would expect a development of the Christian consciousness. Scholarly, refined, and pious, he used his great "wealth in tlie doing of good. He fell into the prevalent error regarding the legal punishment of witchcraft ; but when light came to him he publicly confessed his error. It will be admitted by all, that we have in him a man who willed to< do the will of God. Why should not he be the man chosen to know the teachinor on this matter ? To be sure, he was only a voice crying in the wilderness, but the voice was the result of a divine persuasion and conviction. From 1700 to the day when Lin- coln issued his famous proclamation of inde- pendence and freedom for the slave, was a long CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 93 time. Nay, it was a long time from 1700 to 1792, when the first legal action in the direction of manumission was attempted in the country that was the first to free its slaves; but there was an unbroken chain of causation, although we may not be able to trace its sequence link after link. Who were the predecessors of Samuel Sewall in holding this opinion that slavery was Avrong, even though they were not moved to proclaim it to all the world ? or into how many hearts did questions and doubts come as to the abstract rio'ht and wrono- of it? Who can tell? We must beware of the easy and unphilosophical talk about the thing that is right in one age being wrong in another. Slavery was just as much a wrong in Abraham's time as was polyg- amy ; but Abraham was not morally guilty, although he was a slaveholder and a polyga- mist. The existence of wrong is one thing, and the innocence of ignorant wrong-doing is quite another thing. We can trace the stream far back, but its living source we cannot find. Aristotle affirmed that slavery was part of the law of nature, but he admitted that some of his contemporaries denied this. But their denying 94 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS that it was part of the hiw of nature does not prove that they regarded shivery as being im- morah^ It was not until 1792 that a bill was intro- duced into tlie British House of Commons, which had for its aim the gradual extinction of slavery; and forty-two years elapsed before its final extinction in Great Britain. In 1794 the French Convention decreed that all slaves in French territory should be free ; and fifty -four years afterwards slavery was finally abolished in the dominions of France. Slavery was not entirely abolished in the Dutch colonies until 1863. The United States has a unique place with regard to slavery, which is worthy of spe- cial attention in the study of moral science, and also in the relation of the church to moral problems. When the agitation against this evil Avas active in England and in France, the senti- ment against it in the United States was strong^ and full of hope. Washington declared that there was not a man livincr who wished more o sincerely than he did to see a plan adopted for abolishing slavery, and he showed his sincerity to the end by leaving the great body of his 1 See note oii page 90. CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 95 slaves free. Jefferson was a slaveholder, and as early as 1774 he said, ''The abolition of domestie slavery is the greatest object of desire in these colonies." It was he who proposed a constitution for Virginia, in terms of wliich all born after the year 1800 were to be free. Monroe's testimony was that slavery had '' proved prejudicial to all the States in which it existed." Patrick Henry thus puts himself on record : " It would rejoice my soul that every one of these, my fellow-beings, was emanci- pated. . . . We detest slavery ; we feel its fatal effect; we deplore it with all the earnestness of humanity." These are not the sentiments of Northern men, but of Southern men ; and need it be added, that these opinions of their great- est men were echoed and indorsed by many of lesser name than they. After listening to these voices, would not any student of history have been justified in coming to the conclu- sion that slavery in the great Republic was doomed. Slavery was an evil inheritance from colonial times. The Declaration of Indepen- dence opened with a ringing sentiment as to the freedom and equality of men, and the posses- sion by all of inalienable rights and privileges. 96 THE CHBISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS It was now a question of wa3^s and means ; but tlie doing a^^•ay of slavery was a foregone con- clusion. Years of marvellous prosperity fol- lowed. The young Republic became the great Republic ; but slaveiy remained, and the num- ber of the servile population increased rapidly. The immorality associated with domestic servi- tude was inevitable ; and as the child followed the class, or rather remained in the class, of the mother, the strange spectacle was witnessed of men and women who were three-fourths, seven- eighths, and even lif teen-sixteenths, white blood, being bought and sold as merchandise. More than half a centurj' of religious activity followed alonof with this strano^e condition of affairs, and we had religious denominations that gloried in their orthodoxy and in their conser- vatism, and a society that was sensitive and punctilious on the score of personal honor. Washington, Monroe, Jefferson, and Henry were honored names, and the mention of them ex- cited hearty enthusiasm in any public assem- blage ; but their feelings and utterances about slavery were ignored and forgotten. As might be expected, there was a change of front in the Southern estimate of slavery. A distinguished CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 97 Southern preacher, who wielded more influence in the South than any other man in his profes- sion, preached a sermon at the end of the year 1860, in which he urged the maintenance of slavery for the following reasons : — (1) As a duty to themselves, because their material interests were bound up in it. (2) As a duty to their slaves, because the negro was a helpless being, requiring Avhite protection and control. (3) As a duty to the world which depended so much on Southern cotton. (4) As a duty to God, wdio had appointed slavery, and whose honor was impeached, and whose cause on earth was imperilled, by the atheistic spirit of abolitionism. He said, '^ With this institution assigned to our keeping, what reply should we make to those who say that its days are numbered ? We ought at once to lift ourselves intelligently to. the highest moral ground, and proclaim to all the world that we hold this trust from God, to preserve it, and to transmit it to posterity, with the unchallenged right to go and root itself Avherever Providence and nature shall carry it." In 1864, the "Nar- rative of the State of Religion," which it is 98 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS the custom to give before the Genenil Assem- blies of the Presbyterian Church, was given to the church in the South, and contained the following passage : " The long continued agita- tion of our adversaries has wrought within us a deeper conviction of the divine appointment of domestic servitude. . . . We hesitate not to affirm that it is the peculiar mission of the Southern Church to conserve the institutio*n of slavery, and to make it a blessing both to master and slave." We have no right to question the personal honesty of these gentlemen, or the sincerity of their personal convictions. At the same time it is quite conceivable that the ran- cor of sectional strife and political feud fed the fire of their convictions. The political economist has an argument of quite a different nature. He has figures to give us and stubborn facts. Eli Whitney invented the cotton-gin in 1793. His invention, supple- mented by the inventions of Watt, Hargreaves, and Arkwrio'ht, converted slave-holdino- from a financially doubtful into a paying business. Slaves doubled in price. The cotton product of 1793 was ten thousand bales. In 1830 it was a million bales. The scoffer says tliat it CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 99 very soon became appareiit that slavery was a divine institntion. While this was the state of affairs in the South, the more violent aboli- tionists were taking the church to task in the North. Some of them left the church because they could not find that- Jesus or the Old or New Testament distinctly forbade slavery. Others left because the churches would not openly espouse their cause, and many of the wealthy conservative people threatened to leave if the church got mixed up in what they claimed to be a political discussion and question. In a subsequent chapter the relation of the church to evolution in morals will be treated. It is not necessary to say whether the North or the South was right. Nor do we need to- dav to go into the merits of the much-debated question, as to Avhether or not the Bible was in favor of slavery. To the oft repeated and in- geniously put arguments of Southern divines, the North had its reply; and a passage from Hunger's " Freedom of Faith " may be given, which, while it appeared long after slavery became a dead issue, expresses in felicitous language the spirit of the rejoinder of North- ern Christians to their brethren of the South ; 100 THE CIIUISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS '• Humanly speaking, slavery could not be kept out of the Hebrew conimonwealtli ; it was too early in the history of the world ; but it was hedged about by strenuous laws, all merciful in their character, and of such a nature in their operation that slave-holding became unprofit- able, and the system died out. Moses, was wiser than this nineteenth century of ours. He sapped the life-blood of the institution by wise statesmanship ; we drowned it in a sea of blood and fire, — blood from a million hearts, fire that touched the hearts of forty millions." All tills is ti'ue, and w^ell and eloquently said ; but then it is quite venturesome to make com- parisons between Moses and the nineteenth century. Moses had not to meet the case of Eli Whitney and his cotton-gin. It is humiliating and suggestive that the line of cleavage on this question of slavery ran through all branches of the church. North and South. As an argument based on the letter of Scripture, and even on the spirit of it, or upon all the spirit of it that could be reached by argument, the position of the South was the stronger ; and yet they failed, not only by for- tune of war, but by the verdict of humanity. CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVEIlY 101 The Christian consciousness was against slaveiy. There was no appeal from its final verdict. The thought born in some unknown soul, To own a slave is icrong, was a living thing. The Christian consciousness of that unknown founder and father of abolition grew until nation after nation broke the sliackles from men's limbs. Those who would not bow to the Christian con- sciousness were ground in the mills of God. " The blood-bought gold fell from the Spaniard's fainting hold, And the Frenchman sunk to his Haytien grave, Beneath the shout of the conquering slave." Dr. Hunger's eloquent words which have been quoted tell tlie experience of the United States in the mills of God. The British Empire was the first, and in some respects the greatest, sinner of all in the matter of slavery ; but its repentance was manifested, not only by volun- tarily freeing the slaves, but also by taxing itself so that the loss might not fall altogether upon the slave-owners, and also by lier vigilance in suppressing the slave-trade in Africa and upon the high seas. But it was easier for Britain to be virtuous than it was for the 102 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS Southern States. The West India pLanters were but an insignificant portion of the Empire, and the British were cotton man- ufacturers while the Americans were cotton growers. AS RELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 103 CHAPTER VI THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS AS RELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, THE OPIUM TRADE AND GAMBLING While slavery affords an opportunity of studying the Christian consciousness as related to the evolution of morals as a reform that has been already, if but recently, accomplished, we have, in the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage, an example of a new thing in morals which is yet subject to discussion. Presumably there never was a time when drunkenness was not considered by some men as a moral and social blunder and impropriety, and the Word of God has always been ac- knowledged as declaring it to be a sin. But there was a comparatively recent time when professedly Christian communities were agreed as to the harmlessness and sinlessness of mod- erate drinking of intoxicants. Discreet exhilara- tion, unaccompanied by scandal, was winked at. A time came when in the Christian conscious- 104 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS ness of some soul was born this new, absolutely new, truth, to make a beverage of the INTOXICANT IS WRONG. The first disciples of this creed had a hard time of it. They were laughed at as fanatics. They could not get as favorable life insurance rates as moderate drinkers got. The medical profession was al- most universally opposed to them. The brewers and distillers, re-enforced by importers and dealers in intoxicants, form the largest busi- ness interest of every civilize.d country ; and of course they were all opposed to the new movement. In America and in every country of Europe one of the larger sources of revenue to the state and to the city was derived from the taxation and licensing of wines, beers, and spirits ; and of course the financiers of the revenue departments Avere in a similar position to that in which the silversmiths of Ephesus found themselves on tlie occasion of Paul's visit. Even to this day total abstinence lias made very little progress except among Englisli- speaking peoples. Our French and German cousins tell us, with too much reason to make the telling pleasant, that we needed the new departure very much. AS BELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 105 Notable results have been already accom- plished. The church as a whole, but not with all its ministers and members, is on the side of total abstinence. Eminent physicians con- tend that hospitals conducted without the aid of alcoholic stimulants are just as successful as those that use them. Those who hold this opinion are yet in a minority, but tlie medical profession as a whole are opposed to the drink- ing customs of society. It is a recognized evil. Every moralist lauds temperance, but the total a,bstainer asserts that temperance was not very eagerly advocated until total abstinence was advocated. The cry of the more earnest social reformers is that the saloon must go. This question has supplied sociology with much matter for thought. Is it to be license or no license? or if we agree to license this business, shall it be a hio-h or a low license? Shall we adopt local option, or prohibition, or the Gothen- burg system? Is drunkenness a disease, and can it be cured ? or is it a crime, and ought it to be punished ? It is a political question and a church question as well as a social problem. When we contemplate the number of soci- 106 TUB CmUSTtAN CONSCIOUSNESS eties and of organizations that gather round this theme, and when we consider the hirge place it occupies in political and in social life, it is scarcely possible to believe that in the beginning of this centur}^ there was none of it. Then minister and layman indulged in the social glass, and imagined that some stimulant was an essential part of a meal. The tavern- keeper, the distiller, and the brewer might be, and often were, pillars of the church; while keeping a public-house or saloon was as re- spectable a business as was any other retail trade or handicraft. In the beginning of this century many men wlio were accounted re- spectable, and who held high positions in liter- ature and in politics, were deep in their potations and profuse in their profanity. Where and when was the beginning, the first Christian consciousness concerning this evil ? We cannot tell. Before all modern movements we find the Abstemii, who could not partake of tlie cup of the Eucharist on account of their natural aversion to wine. This natural aversion Avas in the case of the majority a mere physical disgust and repugnance. Indeed, this is be- yond a doubt, although in the case of some AS RELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 107 the abstinence may have been on moral o'l'ounds. Even in that intolerant age would men shrink from making war against a clear case of physical inability. The Calvinists, usually credited with all intolerance, allowed these primitive abstainers to partake of the bread, and merely touch the cup with tlieir lips without swallowing any of its contents ; but the Lutherans declared that this tolerance of theirs was neither more nor less than profanation. If we see in this glimpse of church history the generous forbearance of the creed which has been most accused of severity in dogma and in discipline, do we not also see in the action of the Lutherans, not only the outcome of their doctrine of consubstantiation, but also a convic- tion on their part that the will as well as the physical peculiarity accounted for the conduct of the Abstemii? The Nazarites of Scripture were abstainers, but their merit consisted in denying themselves in penance and for purification that which it was quite lawful for other men to use. We do not know when and where the first total ab- stainer on the grounds of morality and con- 108 THE CIIBISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS science lived, but there must liave been a first; and when this Christian consciousness came, this truth at once of human and divine origin, a ofreater revolution bes^an than earth had wit- nessed since Jesus walked in Palestine, with the exception of the Reformation of religion. As in the case of slavery, the Bible and the church have been brought into the con- ti-oversy. Did our Lord make an intoxicating wine ? Did he use fermented wine ? Does the New Testament teaching lead to the prac- tice of total abstinence on the part of the fol- lowers of Jesus? Or is all that we can say, not that we have positively found it in the Bible, but that the Bible does not forbid total abstinence? This revelation of the Christian consciousness is in conformity with the spirit of the Word on this matter of abstinence. This is all that can be said. If this or any other new thing in morals were clearly taught in the Bible, and had never been introduced to earth because we could not see it, although it had been there all the time, we might gain a point in debate by belittling our intelligence ; but in point of fact, in this case of total abstinence as a moral and Christian duty, there is as much AS BELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 109 room for debate as to what the Scriptures really teach as there is in the question of slavery. There is a very important sense in which the Christian consciousness may be regarded as revelation. By this it is not to be understood that it is of equal authority or certainty as is the Word of God, as a rule of life to all men, but it may be of as much authority to the individ- ual. God may teach a man so that his con- science is more outraged by the sin of using strong drink than it is by sins of which specific mention is made, such as frivolity of speech; or he may be more shocked at a man owning slaves than at his being untruthful. Like every great movement of social re- form, this ''liquor question,'' as it is familiarly known, is at once social, religious, and political. The parallel between it and 'slavery is very suggestive. (1) Both have come down to us from the earliest dawn of history. Noah's drunkenness led to the prophetic condemnation of Canaan to utter servitude, to be a "servant of servants," or, as it may more forcibly be rendered, "a slave of slaves." One does not know which to condemn most heartily, the shamelessness of 110 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS the son or the drunkenness of the father; but all must respect the severe and unsparing sim- plicity of the narrative. (2) When the master was excessively cruel, or a man was a noted drunkard, human society disapproved, even when it did not punish. (3) The Bible declares drunkenness to be a sin, and modifies slavery with merciful and ameliorating provisions. (4) The Bible does not furnish a conclusive argument against domestic servitude, or against that use of intoxicants which does not reach the stao^e Avhich Ave call drunkenness. o (5) The Christian consciousness has pro- nounced judgment against slavery, and against our social drinking customs. May we not hope and expect that the com- parison may yet be taken one step farther, and we may be able at some future time to add, that the social and convivial drinking customs are as near extinction as is slaver3^ But if hope dares prophesy for good, may not also ex- perience prophesy for evil? An awful price was paid for the extinction of slavery from civ- ilization. Are the civilized nations of to-day laying up for themselves "wrath against the ^18 RELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. Ill day of wrath"? Is it to cost blood and tears and toil and national catastrophes to free tlie slaves of the saloon and of the wine-cup? Another illustration of the function of the Christian consciousness is supplied by the opium trade. We emphasize the word '' trade ; " because it is with it, and not with the opium habit, that we have to do. So far as the haljit is concerned, much of what we say about drunk- enness is applicable to the opium habit. As a trade, or as it has come to be generally known, "the opium trade," is unique. It has no exact parallel. It has been the fashion to make fun of the vessels that sailed from Boston to the African coast freighted with New England rum and with New England missionaries. It was true, too true; but the government of the United States had not treaties with these Afri- can despotisms which compelled them to re- ceive the rum. Any chief could issue an order forbidding any of his subjects from buying a drop of the rum; and perhaps if any of these chiefs were to declare the rum-freighted ship a contraband, and clear it out of his port as a public nuisance, the owners of the ship and of the cargo would not get much active sympathy 112 THE CHlilSTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS from the government at Washington. No chiss of men dislike the rnm trade more heartily than tlie missionaries, and we venture to assert that no class of men use less of it than they do. The rum-traders have a manifest advantage in this business, because the African savage in his natural condition is much fonder of rum than he is of missionaries. The opium trade with China is on an en- tirely different moral basis. By treaty rights between the government of Her Majesty, the Queen and Empress, China is compelled to re- ceive the opium ships. The Chinese are not compelled to purchase ; but their government dare not forbid them to buy, and so they do buy it; for the Chinaman loves opium even better than the African loves rum. Chinamen bewail this importation of the Indian drug, not only be- cause many of them are sufficiently patriotic to bewail the havoc, physical, mental, and moral, which the use of opium is making among the Chinese, but also because there is a native opium business which would " boom, " if the expressive slang may be excused, if the article from Hindustan were excluded. Missionaries from England and America, and disinterested AS liELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 113 European merchants and travellers, unite in bearing witness to tlie evils of the opium habit as witnessed in China. From platform, pulpit, and press, this trade is vigorously denounced. It is wrong by the verdict of the Christian con- sciousness. But, on the other side, there is the Devil's argument that a bargain is a bargain, business is business, and a treaty is a treaty. Tlie ao-ricultural interests of Hindustan must not be sacrificed. East India merchants must not be ruined. We are told by the apologists of this infernal traffic, that the evils of opium have been exaggerated ; that if it was not sent from India, it would be sent from somewhere else ; and that the Dutch or the French would get the business ; or that the stopping of the traffic from India would do no permanent good, for the Chinese] would soon raise an inferior, and perha[)S a more injurious, opium for themselves. Meanwhile, tlie moral and manly fibre of Cliina is strangely weak, as recent events seem to prove ; and while it would be a case of spe- cial pleading to ascribe the pitiful exhibition that China li;io made in her war with Japan to the prevalence of the opium habit, who can deny that thio baneful dru^ has had more than a 114 THE CHlilSTIAN COJ^SCTOUSNESS little to do witli that nervelessness, dishonesty, incompetence, and cowardice which seem to prevade all ranks and all classes in China. We call the Cliristian consciousness in this case " enlightened public sentiment." This is a good phrase. We have no objections to it; but we believe that the torch which enlightens is grasped by the liand of the Christian con- sciousness. It is interesting as a problem in morals to study the attitude of Christian Eng- land in this matter. It may be ventured as an undeniable fact, that from the Empress of India down to the humblest in the empire, there is searcliing of heart in tliis matter. How long will it take to shame the government into doing right? It has got to come. When the Chris- tian consciousness is persistently despised, it may become tlie hammer of God which breaks those who will not bend. The function of the Christian consciousness is also well illustrated in the attitude of Christ- endom to gambling. At this point it may be well to anticipate a criticism which may be made, and which can be put very strongly. It may be charged that the Christian conscious- ness is credited with too much power in social AS BELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 115 evolution. It may be said that we can imagine the case of a social order in which Christianity- is not recognized coming- to the conclusion that gambling was injurious to the man or tribe or state. The Indian tribes of North America are notorious and inveterate gamblers. The fre- quenter of Monte Carlo cannot surpass the Indian in the calmness witli which he stakes and loses his last dollar. The Chinaman is also a gambler of the persistent and seemingly in- curable type. Missionaries among these peoples have to insist upon their converts abandoning this vice, as being foolish, immoral, and non- Christian. The Archbishop of Canterbury and his clergy, great and small, have a similar task ; and if Dame Rumor does not misrepresent the existing condition of social life, they need to beo-in with those of their own order who think there is nothing wrong in playing whist or any other game for an insignificant stake, merely to give some interest to their evening's amusement. Our Indian chief, having his own comfort and the good of his tribe at heart, begins to do some serious thinking. He sees that the win- ners are wasteful, and that the losers, minus their ponies, and even their blankets, are very 116 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS wretched. Bitter quarrels, wliich weaken the tribe, too often arise. And so he comes to the conclusion that he will put his foot down on gambling, and will set a good example by himself ceasing to play games of chance for any stake, great or small. In all this tliere is not even religious consciousness ; for his religion, whatever it is, has nothing to do with the mat- ter. Nor, while it improves what may be called the morals of his tribe, is there any moral sense on his part of abstract right and wrong ? We may well suppose that our dusky warrior is not troubled with any conscience or ideas or convictions about "the greatest good of the greatest number." He has his own comfort in view, and nothing else. He is a utilitarian, pure and simple. It is evident to him, if he suc- ceeds in suppressing gambling, that in benefiting himself he has benefited others ; but though pleased at this, it is not for this that he has un- dertaken this reform. We may, with certain philosophers, follow the development of the moral idea in this untutored savage. He marks the improvement of tribal affairs with satisfac- tion. He sees the good that he has accomplished. He is a man, if a savage ; and he wonders AS BELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 117 whetlier there is not a way in which other cry- ing evils may be suppressed. We are willing to grant all this, but we are not able to produce any instance of the working out of it. We find a condition of sentiment and of practice among Christian people. It is with this that at present we have to do. Lotteries were once highly resjDCctable. Now they are denied the privileges of the United States Mail. Our Capitol was built in part by lot- tery schemes, in which the people in general, and the Federalists in particular, had a promi- nent part. Church fairs in America and ba- zaars in England were noted and ridiculed for their lottery schemes. The schoolboy risked liis marbles, the poor man his coppers, and the rich man his gold, in miscellaneous betting, or in games which might be pure chance, or skill, or a combination of skill and chance. Perhaps this vice was never more rampant than it is in England and America to-day. It has placed its baneful grasp on college sports, on athletic games in general; and the horse-racing of to-day is the saturnalia of the gambler and the book- maker, who is not only a gambler himself, but a pander to the vices of others. When a rich 118 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS American and a prince of England have a yacht-race for five hnndred pounds, it is a tri- fling stake for the deep, well-lined purses of the contestants. It is true that they are not in it for money, but for glory. The paltry stake may be, as it often is, given by the winner to be divided among the crew of the victorious vessel ; but the principle of the game of chance is there. The card-party, in which there is no playing for stakes, but where the host and host- ess give prizes to the winners, has in it the element of gambling. Wlien Ave are told that many of the transactions on the stock exchange, the cotton exchange, the corn exchange, and other commercial centres, partake of the nature of gambling — are gambling, pure and simple, we cannot doubt it. When lambs are- shorn, and successful corners entail suffering on thou- sands, and successful bulls or bears push their rivals to the wall, and clean them out as thor- oughly as ever Bedouin of the desert despoiled the luckless traveller, or border baron or high- land raider cleaned out the castle and cattle- yard of his foe, why should we not with Huxley ^ say, "In my belief the innate qualities, physi- 1 Evolution and Ethics, p. 13. AS Ji ELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 119 cal, intellectual, and moral, of our nation liave remained substantially the same for the last four or five centuries," or, as he puts it in the Romanes Lecture of 1893, " If there is a gener- alization from tlie facts of human life which has the assent of tlioughtful men in every age and countr}', it is tliat the violator of ethical rules constantly escapes the punishment which lie deserves ; that the wicked flourishes like a green bay tree, while the righteous begs his bread; that the sins of the father are visited upon the cliildren ; that, in the realm of nature, ignorance is punished just as severely as wilful wrong ; and that thousands upon thousands of innocent beings suffer for the crime or the unin- tentional trespass of one." It may be remarked in passing that these eloquent words state the case very strongly for that future state in which the. unredressed wrongs of earth shall be riglited, and the everlasting truth shall be vindicated. But while thoughtful men in Eng- land and in America justly regard the prev- alence of the gambling spirit as being a menace alike to social order and to public virtue, there are signs of promise and tokens of good. Tlie Christian consciousness has been aroused. Le- 120 THE cnnisTiAN consciousness gislation has attempted to suppress or to keep in check tliis growing evil. -^ It is remarkable how very little there is in the Scriptures bearing directly on this vice. In this respect it is in the same position as is the use of alcoholic drinks or the owning of slaves. Good people gamble in an honorable way, ac- cording to their estimate of honor, and they do so to-day, without suspecting themselves of wrong doing. The young ladies who taught in the Sunday-school distinguished themselves by their successful disposing of lottery tickets at the church fair. They sighed and groaned over the heartless Roman soldiers who cast lots for the seamless coat of Clirist, the Crucified,^ and they disposed by lot, fifty cents each, of a handsome set of furs. The prize package, the guess cake, and the New Orleans lottery differ in degree, but not in kind. In many States these things are forbidden to-day by legislation ; and in quarters where there is no terror of the law, the church and an ever-growing number of Christian men and women know that the thing which their fathers thought right and proper is wrong — utterly and forever wrong. We do 1 John xix. 24. AS RELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 121 not know where this thouglit was born, we do not know who was the first to utter the everhast- ing yea and nay concerning it. The genesis of the new spiritual life in man the unrerjen- erate is the same in mode as is the birth of a new truth in man the regenerate. " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth : so is every one that is born of the Spirit." ^ Gambling is doomed so far as the moral sentiment and the legislation wliicli the Christian consciousness can secure will doom it. The saloon is doomed. It and the gambling-hell must go the way of the slave-mart and the slave-ship. The spiritual forces whicli are to fight the good fight have been born into the world. / A pleasant story is told of the late Profes- sor Proctor, which, however, we have only by hearsay. At a Boston conversazione he was asked by one of Boston's fair and learned daughters, " Professor, what is the law of grav- itation ? " " Madam," he replied, " the law of gravitation is the will of God." Tlie Chris- tian consciousness in its last analysis is the ^ John iii. 8. 122 TUE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS will of God formulated by men chosen of God. It need scarcely, be said that these three moral and social movements in society and in church life and work are not the only devel- opments in morals that might have been chosen. For example, following a similar train of reasoning, one can study the evolution of the Christian consciousness concerning cruelty to animals, the fighting of animals for sport, pugilism, the duel, and war between nations. Then, there are other great movements which are not yet w^ithin the field of the Christian consciousness ; but, reasoning from analogy, they will yet find their expounder and their place. In this category we place the relation of labor and capital, the solution of the various forms of social unrest and discontent which find ex- pression in socialism, anarchy, and communism. If we recommended prayer, and a devout wait- ing for the light of God, as an aid to the solution, many modern philosophers would join liands, or rather, would join voices, with anar- chist and socialist in laughing us out of doors. Even United States senators have been found who did not believe in uniting religion with AS RELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 128 politics. But there was a Christian as well as a free-thinking abolition, and there were Christian slaves as full of trust as of ignorance ; but they willed to do the will of God as far as they knew it, when they sang : — "'Way down Moses ' Way down to Egypt land, And tell old Pharaoh To let my people go." It had not the ring of Miriam's song by the Red Sea shore ; but it was a cry from the heart. There was and is Christian temperance, and women whom the drink curse has bruised and broken during" the centuries are in the van. There are many honest social reformers filled with the anti-gambling spirit, who are not ac- tive Christians, or who may not be Christians at all ; but men of faith and prayer are in the forefront of the battle. Spiritual forces have to be accounted for in the development of morals. It is easy to try to turn " Sunday School poli- tics " into ridicule, and it is easy to sneer at Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor reformers ; but the future is on their side. It is a simple fact of history, that great moral move- 124 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS ments have sometimes been liid from the wise and prudent, and have been revealed unto babes.^ This was the opinion of Jesus, the Prince of moral and social reformers, those who will not call him Lord being judges. 1 Matt. xi. 25. THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 125 CHAPTER VII THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH TO EVOLU- TION IN MORALS The attitude of the cliurch to many of the o-reat moral developments of history is per- plexing to many minds. If there is a Chris- tian consciousness, if these new moral births are indeed of divine and human parentage, why should they have received such unaccountable greeting from the church, which professes to be the representative on earth of the divine, the supernatural? The objector of to-day is ready to tell the church and its ministers that they do not come from any unseen holy of special knowledge or power or insight. There is a science, and there is a secularism, which says, '' You do not originate anything in morals; true, your Bible has usually fitted the times, but it followed, it did not lead, the grand march ; you have never taken the initial steps in any of the great relorms, moral and social; you are never found in the van until 126 TEE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS observation, experience, and experiment liave proven this or that reform to be the coming thing in morals ; then, but not till then, you are willing to become its apostles. You do not discover that this new thing is in harmony with your Bible and your creed until by its own merits and its own success it has proved its right to live. The church, the accredited ambassador of heaven, ought to be the first to recognize the heavenly Child; but she is not. These thincrs — and moral truths are things just as much as material substances are — were evolved by a natural process of growth, by the law of their being. When Paul said that things which were seen were not made of things which do appear, he was not only unphilosophical, he was meaningless." Such is the position taken to-day by many eminent men in Europe and America. We find it in newspaper and magazine. It is on tlie lecture- platform, and has begun to invade the pulpit. We are told to take the question of slavery as an instance and example. To-day almost all thoughtful men admit that slavery is a moral and social injustice ; and injustice is sin against society, even if there be no personal THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHUllCII 127 God against whom, and in whose sight, we can sin. Why did it take so many centuries of Christian culture to find out this truth? How comes it that the expounders of this word of God did not discover the grand truth long ago, and proclaim it from every platform and pulpit and mountain top? Not only Avas the discovery of this new departure in the life of the world not due to ministers of religion, but after the accursed thing was bravely condemned by the heroic fathers and founders of abolition, ministers of religion de- nounced them, or took refuge in that neu- trality which shelters the coward as well as the sage, or gave but a faint-hearted support until the thing had vindicated its own exis- tence, and demonstrated to the Avorld that it was indeed a moral army on the march, des- tined to move over the land and over the sea. So says the world ; and though the world exag- gerates, it is not altogether wrong. Let a glance be taken at tlie total absti- nence movement. While we may and do differ very much as to the way in which we are to fight this drink curse, it is a growing opinion that the drinking habit, even in moderation, 128 THE CIlItlSTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS in a moral and social evil. But the world afi&rnis that we have not to thank the church or the Bible for this growing sentiment and public judgment. Only after this thing in morals had vindicated its own existence, and demonstrated to the world that it was one of the coming things in social science, did the church take hold of it, and prove to the world that the Bible was on the side of this new movement. When the air was thick with such charges, need we wonder that they were foi-mulated into such shape as : — (1) These things which are 7iow seen, tliese great facts in morals, have been made or evolved out of things Avhich do appear ; tliere is no su- pranatural factor in their evolution ; they have no divine parentage. (2) The church has followed these new movements at a discreet distance, but has never led the van in their promulgation. These are grave charges ; and we have but to read the history of the anti-slavery move- ment in Britian and in America, and the his- tory of the temperance movement, in order to make frank confession that the charges are not altogether groundless. THE ATTITUDE OF THE CllUltCII 129 There is, however, a great deal to be said in defence of the church : — (1) The church has been misrepresented, and lier backwardness in moral movements has been exao-crerated. The church, more es- pecially since the Reformation, has been the warm friend and advocate of all moral move- ments, even granting that she has been some- what slow in recocrnizino- the new. In Enoiand and in America, the fight for civil liberty was won by virtue derived from the previous train- ing in the struggle for religious freedom. Be- fore the church as a body moves, her individual members have been active in all high enter- prises and in all pioneer work ; and the men who have been the high priests, and sometimes the martyrs, of social progress, have been, in many cases, devout Christians.^ 1 Much of the suffering endured by the early Puritans in England was in the cause of moral and social reform; but these reforms were always exalted into religious tenets. An Oxford man named Pi-ynne, in the beginning of the seven- teenth century published a huge unreadable sort of book of one thousand quarto pages, against theatres, dancing, mas- querades, and women actors. He did not spare the queen, but had sundry reflections upon her frivolities. To-day she would not be called a specially frivolous woman. He was condemned to expulsion from Oxford and from Lincoln's Inn, fined five thousand pounds, placed in the pillory at Westminster and at 130 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOWSNESS (2) There is a human as well as a divine side to the church. It sometimes happens that her fniances and material well-being are in the hands of men not remarkable for personal piety. A church edifice ordinarily represents not only a communion roll, but also a society, trustees, pewholders, etc., who may not all be Christians in the higher sense of that word. Zeal usu- ally welcomes sacrifice, but worldly prudence shrinks from and frowns ; on this uncomfort- able and unmanageable zeal. Need we wonder that the human sometimes impedes the progress of the divine. (3) The church is a huge body. Denomina- tions are large bodies, and it is the law of such bodies to move slowly. The fiery apostle runs through the world, and is indignant if every sleeper is not awakened by his passing trumpet- blast. His impatience is natural, but nature is sometimes wise and sometimes foolish. Re- Cbeapsidc. His ears were cut off, his cheeks and forehead hranded with hot irons. They burned his offending vol-nne so literally under his nose that he was nearly suffocated with the smoke; and to end all, they imprisoned him for life. Others were treated with similar cruelty; and his Grace, Archbishop Laud, thanked the lords of the Star Chamber for iheir just and honorable sentence upon these men, and re- gretted that he could not resort to more thorough measures. THE ATTITUDE OF THE CUUIICII 131 dining elephants take a much longer time to rise than reclining mice take. The church is an army, not a mob. It is a deliberative as- sembly even more than it is an army. By the very necessity that is laid upon her to preserve peace within her own borders, and to do no injury to the consciences of her members, a new moral movement may be ^Yell under way before the church with har- monious and united ranks can join the grand march of progress. (4) The church is an aged body ; and in so- cial, political, and ecclesiastic affairs, the old are inclined to be conservative. The youngest sect is usually the most radical. Those religious bodies that aspire to be permanently radical, either in dogma or in formula, cannot make much impression upon society. The average man cannot grow old comfortably in a com- munion that refuses to grow old with him, and comfort is to age what excitement is to youth. There is much current folly about preaching to specific classes and conditions of people. Preach so as to attract the young people, especially the young men. I appre- hend that Paul was all things to all men, not 132 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS by preacliing to young people on courtship, or on the ethics of the Olympian games, or on the morals of the cliariot race, but by seizing the common denominator of the spiritual life and by holding it forth — tlie word of life and of power. Socially the true function of the church, is to maintain a certain moral standard, spiritually its true mission is to hold forth the word of life. The same word that com- forts age should stimulate youth. The church is a home, not a music hall ; a teacher, not a caterer. Tlie church that goes into the dime- show business, and the catering for profit business, reaps present and partial success, and tlie price that she pays for it is — ultimate failure. In this modern tendency, however, we have simply a reaction from, and rebellion against, the churcli of history, which has in- variably been found at the opposite extreme. The church has very frequently resembled an aged father who instils lofty principles into his children. He himself has made them daring and progressive, and yet he trembles and doubts and fears when they begin to manifest his training of them in some unex- pected direction. It is one thing to be con- THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 133 servative, it is quite another thing to boast in the semper idem. Every true churcli is conservative ; every false system, in its ever- Lasting certainty concerning itself, claims this attribute of Almighty God — the unchanging. (5) The prime function of the church is the teacliing and nourishing of that enthusiasm for God and for humanity which leavens so- ciety with spiritual influences. This is ac- complished by the regeneration of individuals as such. The advocacy of any particular item in moral or social reform, though not to be neglected or ignored, is neither her first nor her finest ofiice-Avork. It is a significant fact, that, though some hideous social abuses, and some disfrustina vices which it were shame to name, were common in the days of our Lord, he did not give his apostles special instructions to make a crusade against them. Tliey were to proclaim the coming of the kinofdom of God. The lio^lit Avas to cliase the darkness. The expulsive power which a supreme affection exercises was to be demon- strated. Moses gave manna. The Christian's manna is everywhere, and Christ gives him leaven. The church is not a knight-errant 134 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS running a tilt at this abuse and at that, al- though she delights in her soldiers doing with their might what their hands find to do. She is an army on the march ; and when certain guerillas for good abuse her for not march- ing with them, she replies, " He that is not against me is for me." She is a sage incul- cating the principles that lie at the root of justice and freedom. Just complaint is also made that the church does not reprove the transgressions of the in- dividual sinner as she should, and as she did in days gone by. We are told that it is an army so voluntary that it can keep together only by relaxing discipline. We admit that the church is a little Aveak-kneed. The bond- age of the pulpit is not all a myth. But it must be admitted that if she is not as whole- somely vigorous as she might be on moral issues, she makes up for it by her keen vigi- lance on dogmatic issues. In fact, there is a tendency in churches as there is in certain individuals to make up for looseness of life by rigidity of belief. Tliirty years ago Scot- land had an nnhaj^py notoriety for intemper- ance and for her statistics of bastardj^, and THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 135 the Southern States had all tlie moral turpi- tude which slavery entails ; and yet both were orthodox of the orthodox so far as dogma was concerned. But after all the true work of the church is not so much the cultivation of a keen scent for individual heresy and for individual transgression, as it is to rouse the intellect of humanity, to quicken the con- science of humanity, and to renew the heart of humanity. (6) Every moral movement has its environ- ment. The politician, the economist, and the socialist may all be claiming it or repudiating it. Is it not fair that every such innovation or change should have to struggle into a lusty manhood, and literally prove itself to be a child of God, before the church opens her doors of welcome and of adoption?. Almost uncon- sciously the church has treated principles just as she treats the individuals who seek her fellowship. Men are not received into a church because there is an expectation, or even a prob- ability, that in some future they shall prove to be or will become worthy, good, and true; nor are they usually admitted on a mere verbal confession when there is no knowledge 136 THE CHBISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS of their manner of life. They are expected to bear tlie fruit of the renewed life. The church has treated moral innovations as she has treated men, and this is theoretically fair ; but good men and good measures have often received but scant justice at the hands of the church. Our present point of view dem- onstrates the evenhandedness of her justice, rather than the wisdom of her conduct. (7) In many countries a union exists be- tween the church and the state. At one time this identification of the church with the state was the rule throughout the whole of Chris- tendom. We do not enter into the merits of such connection. Its warmest advocates w411 admit that the church and the civil power are not always like-minded. The priest lighted the altar-lamps, but the state treasury supplied the oil ; and the church had sometimes to pay a bitter and humiliating price for the support of the state. Even wliere there is no connec- tion Avith the state, as in tlie churches of the United States and in the non-established churches of Britain, moral movements are often related to political parties, and social reforms very often find their way into politics. AVhen THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 137 legislation is needed, the political leaders have to be reckoned with, and the action of the church is more or less modified. These seven considerations take the shape of a cumulative apology ; and if to them we add the timidit}-, lukewarmness, and unfaith- fulness to which the churches like individuals, must plead guilty, the wonder is, not that the church has done so little, hut that it has done so much, as a pioneer in ethics and morals. When we have said all tliat can he said in apology for tlie church's relation to the evo- tluion of morals, we feel that there is an unexplained remainder; and this consists in the church's denying of, or ignorance of, the Christian consciousness. She has known the truth that comes by theological science, by interpretation of Scripture, and by the logic of events, and the truth has made her free as far as her knowledge fitted her for freedom ; but her Christian consciousness has been to a great extent allowed to lie dormant. When it lias been discussed at all, it has been put aside with a certain shrinking timidity, Avhich seems to say, "Do not let us have anything to do with it. If we once open our doors to 138 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS its official recognition, we shall be overwhelmed with a whole army of cranks and of enthusiasts, and we shall be forced out of our own well- worn grooves." Let us beware of treating with neglect or with contempt the man who comes before the church or the world with a new thought concerning life and progi'ess ; for this man or woman may be the God-appointed instrument through whom a new idea, a moral truth, is to be born into the world. Sometimes the churches have been eager to rush into the opposite extreme. Some churches in the United States made abolition principles a shie qua non of membership, some to-day make total abstinence a condition, and others non- membership of secret societies. In certain com- munions there is a tendency to increase rather than to diminish such tests. The error of such a course, tlie narrowness and unwisdom of it, are apparent. It is granted that a church must liave such unity in its dogmatic and ethical standards as will enable its members to feel that tliey are brethren living together in unity, but there should be room for the full play of of individualit}^ in faith and in practice. The church is not made strong by dabbling in THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 139 ethics, letting down these bars and putting up those. To-day a member is disciplined because he dances, but unrebuked he takes his Avine. To-morrow the dancing is ignored, and the strong drink is condemned. To-day we cannot see how a Christian can consistently go to the theatre, but there is no harm in his belonging to a secret oath-bound society; but to-morrow we feel kindly toward the theatricals, especially if amateur and devoid of artistic merit, and Ave pronounce anathema upon the member of the secret society. We can suppose the case of a man Avho is a believer, sound on the cardinal doctrines and of exemplary life, save for this opinion that he holds, and Avhich he is man enough to avow. You Avill not let him into your church. If you are riglit, you should rejoice if every ehurcli followed your example. This child of God becomes a pariah, a religious outcast, Avith no Lord's Table Avhere he is Avelcome, Avith none that he can call liis own. In this Avay very ordinary sorts of men have been con- verted into martyrs and heroes, and enriched Avith all the bitter-SAveet satisfaction that comes from a chronic sense of injustice. Coercion 140 THE CIIBISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS ill non-essentials hinders the canse it seeks to help, and a chnrch slionld exercise great care before it makes belief in or participation in any moral movement an essential. The sump- tuary legislation in which both chnrch and state delighted in tlie past is no longer pos- sible, but a good deal of social tyranny in the name of zeal for morals and manners is still possible. One of the glories of the church ought to consist in its being the place where really good men can forget a hundred differ- ences because of their supreme oneness in Christ. You may make rules to the effect that no member of your chnrch shall be permitted to dance, or use strong drink as a beverage, or be a member of a secret society, or play cards in any shape or manner. Suppose that each one of those practices is more or less reprehensible. You have got a clean and rather unique society from an ethical point of view ; but lo ! you have converted your chnrch into a club, and your Lord's Table has become an exclusive feast for those whose own worthiness is the measure of their neighbors' unworthiness. There is an evolution in morals subject to THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 141 the creative acts of God. This evolution the church recognizes and guides, but does not al- ways lead. It advocates without invariably as- suniino- the rio^ht to enforce. It works without assailing the liberties of the individual. It is not pledged to teach any physical science or any mechanical art, but it is pledged to teach a pure ethic to society as such, and to teach the art of holy living and peaceful dying to the individual as such. In doing this its trust is in God, its charter is the word of Revelation. In the daily struggle onward and upward, it knows a superintending, inspiring, and creating God. The Christian consciousness is its hill of vision, and its watchword is, " Things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." 142 TUIi: CUUISTIAN CONSClOUtSNElSlS CHAPTER VIII THE RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN The question is often asked as to how we can explain the elevation of moral sentiment, and the religious consciousness, which are found in some of the so-called heathen writers. When the sayings of Socrates, Plato, iNIarcus Aure- lius, and others are quoted, we speak of their guesses at truth, or of their inspiration, or of their familiarity with the Hebrew Scriptures, or with the Hebrew theology as expounded by masters in Israel. We claim that our view of the Christian consciousness is not radically af- fected or influenced by the views that may be held with regard to the religious consciousness in general. This makes it unnecessary to en- ter upon any minute consideration of the rela- tion between inspiration and the heathen cults. Moreover, this is a subject on Avhich much has been said, and there is an abundance of material for study, though a good deal of it is of a frag- inentary description. But on the other hand, the very abundance of reference, and the many uses to which it has been put, call for a brief review of the outstanding facts in the case. Geology, the Book of Genesis, the Nineveh tablets, and the almost universal tradition of nations, bear testimony to the fact of the Del- uge. We assume the genuineness and authen- ticity of the Mosaic account of the Flood. The closing paragraph of Sir William Dawson's lat- est work, " The Meeting-place of Geology and History," states the case so admirably that we quote it in full. " We have merely glanced cursorily at a few of the salient points of the relation of the primitive history of man in Gen- esis to modern scientific discovery. Man}^ other details might have been adduced as tend- ing to show similar coincidences of these two distinct lines of evidence. Enough has, how- ever, been said to indicate the remarkable manner in which the history in Genesis lias anticipated modern discovery, and to show that this ancient book is in every way trustworthy, and as remote as possible from the myths and leo^ends of ancient heathenism ; while it shows the historical origin of beliefs which, in more or 144 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS less corrupted forms, lie at the foundations of the oldest religions of the Gentiles, and find their true siofnificance in that of the Hebrews. To the Christian, the record in Genesis has a still higher value, as constituting those histor- ical groundworks of the plan of salvation, to which our Lord himself so often referred, and on which he founded so much of his teaching." We are in the best of scientific company and fellowship when we make the Flood a historic starting-point, but one who believes in and writes about the Christian consciousness must be entitled to assume the credibility of the Old Testament record. Noah and his immediate descendants possessed the knowl- edge of the true God. Apart altogether from any supernatural element entering into its pres- ervation, from that continuity of forms which ritual gives, and from that persistence of doc- trine which faith begets, it is simply impossi- ble to conceive of this knowledge of God and worship of him coming to a sudden or abrupt termination. Error dies hard, and there is a sense in Avhich truth never dies. It is ob- scured, almost blotted out ; but there is enough of the stately edifice left to guide the architect CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 145 in its restoration. The Bible is very silent as to the period of over four hundred years which elapsed between Noah and the call of Abraham. The incident of Babel, brief notes of the dis- persions after the Flood and after Babel, and the genealogies of the sons of Noah, are all, about four minutes of reading-matter for four centuries, Tlie worsliip of the true God did not flee the earth entirely, but it was sadly distorted by tlie inventions of mankind. It seems as if, when men, by reason of the growing mists of ignorance, error, and superstition, were no longer able to look into the home of God, at heaven's gates they found the objects of their adoration ; and so it comes to pass that sun and moon and stars are among the earliest objects of worship. It is easier to believe in and to follow the descent from pure theism to this worship of the powers of nature, to this converting of the worthy dead into demi- gods, the unworthy into dismal shades, to the worship of the reproductive principle and power, or of beauty, or of law and order, than it is to believe in the evolution of the native New Zealander or the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands up to monotheism. History tells 146 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS US of nations that have retrograded in morals and in worship, but there is no record of any nation rising without help from without. The most intellectual race of the historic past thanks Cadmus for its alphabet, the British Druids get the fire of the new life from a Latin missionary. The virile races of North- ern Europe completed that Fall of Rome which internal corruption made an easy task, but Christian Rome conquered her captors. So it has always been. We can believe in the un- aided growing worse ; but when from the low- est depths we are to be lifted, help must come from without. This is the history of the be- ginnings of civilization. Terah, the father of Abraham, went part of the way from Mesopotamia, and in Genesis the initiative in the movement is ascribed to him as the head of the clan ; but Moses, Nehe- miah, and Stephen, all unite in declaring that Abraham went to Canaan after his father's death in Haran in obedience to the divine voice. We have a liint that his family had to a certain extent fallen away from purity of worship before this call, but it does not seem to surprise Abraham that God should CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 147 reveal himself. He knows God, and we have no reason to suppose tliat he was the only one on earth who knew the only one and true God. The journey from Mesopotamia to Palestine was, comparatively s[)eaking, a much longer journey then than it is now ; but at the extreme end of it Abraham encounters Melchizedek, King of Salem and priest of tlie Most High God. Abraham w^as the priest as well as the chief of liis clan, but Melchizedek blesses him. Without entering into any of the discussion which has gathered round this most mysteri- ous personage of Scripture, it will be granted that he was the priest of the true God. The generally received interpretations of the Book of Job are at one in agreeing that it bears testimony to the fact that this ancient patriarch was a prominent figure among other believ- ers who were called the sons of God. We have no reason for supposing that Jethro was the priest of a purely heathen cult. In the incident of Balaam and Balak we have a dis- obedient prophet ; but there is not the slightest reason for supposing that he Avas not a veri- table prophet of God, knowing him, and be- lieving in him. Nor need we think the less of 148 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS liim as a patriot and as a man, if he would fain have cursed this people on the march, in whom he saw the foes of his own people, and perhaps their future destruction. If the Magi were Jews of the dispersion, we can under- stand their intelligent thoughts concerning the expected Messiah; but if they were rep- resentations of the Gentile world, is it not rea- sonable to suppose that they represented the men of faith and prayer who had not lost their knowledge of God? It is too common to put tlie case as if it were a question as to whether the ancient world, and notably the sages of Greece, got their knowledge in part from intercourse with the Hebrew nation and contact with Hebrew thouglit, or is all that they accomplished the result of intellectual and ethical evolution? But the real question is as to how much of the traditional and inherited knowledge of God we may reasonably suppose them to have possessed. If it can be demonstrated that in addition to the possession of this lingering remnant of the knowledge of God, we can add the almost certainty of their knowledge of contemporary Jewish thought and writings, CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 149 the case is strengthened, not only by the ex- istence of another source of knowledge, but also by the fact that tliis second kind, that from contact with the Hebrew, comes to minds that are to a certain extent prepared for it by their first source of knowledge of the trutli. What reason have we to suppose that the Hebrew thought had its influence upon the rest of the world, and that the thought of the Gentile world had more or less influence upon the Jews ? The Septuagint is evidently the work of translators of unequal ability, and it is quite likely that it was not all produced at one time ; but there is little doubt that it Avas in the possession of the Alexandrian Jews two hundred and fifty years before Christ. The Jews in many cases were doubtless unable to read tlieir HebrcAV Scriptures, hence this version. But whatever were the reasons for making this Greek version, it is difficult to conceive of its existence in a great centre of Greek literary activity, and yet escaping the notice of the acute and inquiring Greek mind. In the days of David and Solomon the land of Israel occupied a prominent place among the teeming population that was in continual flux 150 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. When civilization centred in the Euphrates Valley, we know from the Books of Ezra, Nehe- niiah, Daniel, and Esther, that the Jews some- times were prominent in the state, and their religions practices and tenets must have been more or less familiar to the peoples among whom they dwelt. In the early Christian church, Seneca was claimed by some as a Christian. Many of his thoughts resemble the Apostle Paul's; and it does not concern our position Avhether Seneca was indebted to Paul, .or whether the great apostle of the Gentiles was indebted to the illustrious Roman. Nor does it matter whether or not we regard the resemblances as being simply the results of similar tra,ining on the part of men of ger- mane intellectual habit. Mr. Huxley tells us with evident satisfaction that " There are a good many people who think it obvious that Christianity also inherited a good deal from Paganism and from Judaism ; and that if the Stoics and the Jews revoked their bequests, the moral property of Christianity would real- ize very little." To do Mr. Huxley justice, it must be admitted that in other parts of his CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 151 versatile authorship lie has spoken more appre- ciatingly of the "moral property of Christi- anity." The Christian scholar regards the New Testament as a growth from the Old. The founder of Christianity said that he did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it. As to the morals which we have got from the philosophers of Greece, we need not inquire as to the bulk or the quality of them. The question at issue is. Where did these philosophers them- selves get their morals, which the New Tes- tament adopts and indorses? Justin Martyr recoo-nizes the worth of much of the Pagan philosophy, and he attributes it to the ''logos'' which was always in the world. We do not know, at this day, the sources of information possessed by Clement of Alexandria, but his opinion is entitled to respect; and he tells us that Plato had the Bible, and that Homer was indebted to it. It is quite within the range of guarded imagination to conceive of a good deal of intercourse between merchants and digni- taries of Israel and the other peoples of the Levant in those days when the wonderful Temple was in course of erection, and the wealth and glory of Solomon were attracting 152 THE CBBISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS attention on every side. The meeting-place was Phoenicia, famous alike for its commerce, culture, and skill in handicraft. In passing, it is to be noted that these statements of Justin Martyr's and Clement's will not fit very well into the ''Higher Criticism" of to-day, be- cause, according to it, there was little or no Bible in the time of Plato, and scarcely any in the days of Homer. If to the knowledge of God which came down from the daAvn of history, the precious, but too easily forgotten, knowledge which the descen- dants of Noah possessed, Ave add tlie knowledge that came from contact with Hebrews, and with their literature, is there not a strong case for the possession by some of a religious conscious- ness which was not wholly the product of evolution ? Our argument is historical, not doctrinal ; nor is it desirable at this stage to introduce such an argument, but from .the Christian standpoint, it is evidently legitimate to add whatever of illumination there came to the men of the pre-Christian era from the eternal logos} He was " the true light which 1 The idea of the Resurrection was held by Democritus, and was scoffingly referred to by Pliny. Lucretius almost CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 153 lightetli every man that conietli into the world." ^ Every man has a part, much or little, of that light. This was something more quotes Ecclesiastes. Homer gave the soul wings by which it flew out of the body into the mansions of the dead. This brief editorial from the Boston Congregationalist of the 28th of February, 1895, is significant : — DO ALL HAVE EQUAL SPIRITUAL OPPORTUNITIES ? No and yes. The child of a Fagan African Bushman certainly cannot be said to have an equal opportunity to acquire spiritual knowledge with the child of an enlightened, consecrated New Eng- land or Ohio household. The one knows next to nothing about God, and nothing at all about Jesus Christ or revealed truth. The other has inherited the Christian riches of the centuries, and understands riot only his opportunities of religious growth, but also his responsi- bility for their use. A wider contrast than that between two such children hardly can be imagined. The one certainly is not upon an equal footing in the matter with the other. But they may be regarded from another point of view. Suppose the soul of the African child, as childhood develops into maturity, to feel a precious consciousness of the presence of the great God, to strive feebly yet earnestly to obey and please him, and to be devoted, however imperfectly, to the effort to live loyally up to the little spir- tual light which has been afforded. Suppose the American child to be, as so many, alas! are, often indifferent, rather than increasingly devoted, to God, and to grow in holiness only sluggishly and by no means as fast or as far as possible. Now, although the latter may attain a moral plane far higher than that of the former, and even, may have started upon a plane much higher than the highest ever attained by the former, it may be the young African, not the American, who at last has risen more from his original state toward God, who has made the longer progress toward holiness, who has exhibited the more genuine spiritual ear- nestness and fidelity. And this may be, and doubtless is, what God values most. So that in respect to the possibility of spiritual prog- ress, which is the essential matter, the two cases supposed, and all cases, stand upon the sam footing. Each has been granted an equal opportunity to rise. How else, indeed, could God be fair, as he must be ? 1 John 1. 9. 154 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS than the mere light of nature. Our plea for the possession of the religious consciousness other and more than natural evolution can give, is a threefold cord. At this point it may be argued that the re- ligious consciousness does not leave much more for the Christian consciousness to confer on those wlio possess it. Saul of Tarsus was a man able to judge in this matter. So far as we can judge, his religious consciousness was de- veloped before his conversion to Christianity. He was not lacking in moral earnestness. Now, it so happens that Paul the Christian throws out a singular and altogether remarkable chal- lenge to history bearing on this matter. He says: "For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it Wxas God's good pleasure through the fool- ishness of the preaching to save them that be- lieve." ^ This is the culmination of an eloquent strain of rejoicing in the power of Christ's death. The world was in — had sunk into — a position which is plainly described as not knowing God. This evidently had not always been the case. The world had come to this 1 Cor. i. 21. CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 155 ignorance of God in, b}', or through its wisdom. This was God's decree. It was in the wisdom, Avill, and pLan of God. It is only a halting logic which limits the Eternal Omniscient. With Omnipotence on the one hand, and the freedom of the human will on the other ; it is not reason, but imagination, conjecture, and h}^- pothesis, which tries to reconcile and explain this coexistence. When man's wisdom failed, then God's plan of salvation, his means to that end, was to come into play. It was the fool- ishness or simplicity of preaching. Without entering upon any discussion of the literature that has gathered round questions as to the date of the authorship of the historical books of the Old Testament, it is to be noted that, by almost common consent, the long line of the prophets came to a close about four hundred years before Christ, and then came the centuries of God's silence. The world was left to its own wisdom ; and never had the wisdom of the world a better chance to excel than in those centuries. They were ushered in by Socrates, who was persuaded about the reality of his religious mission, and who believed in the divine voice that spoke to him. He taught 156 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS tlie doctrine of contented poverty by precept and by example. He was the greatest ethical teacher that the world has ever seen. Plato, his pupil, was the master of dialogue and of phi- losophy. Both were profound moralists. The roll-call of the century which was heralded by these greatest of the Greeks, say from 400 to 300 B.C., is unequalled in history. Aristotle, philosopher, logician, and mathematician ; Dio- genes the Cynic, the keenest of critics ; Euclid, geometrician and philosopher ; Zeno, father of the Stoics ; and Epicurus of the Epicureans, — Avere all men of this marvellous century. Nor were the gentler elements of life lacking. From Homer, Herodotus, Xenophon, and Phid- ias, they had a rich inheritance of poetry and art. It was the age, not only of philosophy, but also of poetry, art, and oratory. Rome con- quered Greece by arms, and Greece conquered Rome by her philosophy. These centuries wit- nessed not only the glory of Roman power, but also her Augustan age of literature. The civilization of tlie West was only that of one-half of the world. Another half lay to the east of this singular people who dwelt in Palestine. There we find Buddhism. It is the CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE UEATIIEN 157 fashion amongst certain visionaries and extre- mists in these days to find wonderful comfort in Buddha. The world is indebted to Max Miiller, Rhys Davids, and other Oriental stu- dents for the light that they have thrown upon that system of belief which influences more or less the destinies of "four hundred millions of our fellow beings. But there are others who are visionaries when they are not frauds, and who are not philosophers in either case, who find what seems to be sometimes a morbid and sometimes an ecstatic satisfaction in certain occult mysteries and puerile miracles. Every man lives by faith. We must believe, even if our faith is a belief in unbelief. The devotees of Western spiritualism and of Eastern occult- ism are cousins-german. David Hume was a bachelor ; and he lived with his mother, a good old Scotch lady, who was not troubled with her famous son's scepti- cism. Nor does she seem to have been much troubled about him. This pleasant story is told of her. It is one of those stories which ought to be true if it is not, — a story which is a parable if it is not history. She was enter- taining certain old ladies of Edinburgh to tea; 158 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS and with engaging frankness of sympathetic intimacy, one of them remarked : '' It must be hard for you, Mrs. Hume, to live with a man Hke your son David, who believes i;i nothing." " My son David believe in nothing I " retorted the eld lady. '' It's little ye ken about my Dauvit. He'll believe anything that is not in the Bible." Edwin Arnold gives the date of Buddha as B.C. 623. Max Miiller places it at B.C. 557. But Rhys Davids, perhaps the first autliority on this question, gives the date as B.C. 492. He belonged to the same generation as Phidias and Socrates. The best thought of India came just before the divine silence began. In China, Con- fucianism assumed its present form about B.C. 500; and Lao-tse, the founder of Taoism, was the contemporary of Socrates and of Buddha. Did ever the world have such a chance as it had in these four centuries that preceded the Christian era ? East and West there was phe- nomenal intellectual activity, aesthetic culture, artistic skill, and literary activity. Nor was there lacking, seemingly, the moral and spirit- ual capital which are required for the higher business of the world. Contact with the Jew CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 159 remained ; but the knowledge of God that once filled the earth was a rapidly vanishing posses- sion. The wisdom of the world was having its opportunity and trial. So Paul says. Even the man who does not believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures has, as a mere matter of liter- ary criticism, to accept the genuineness and au- thenticity of Paul's letters. His inspiration may be denied, but his work cannot be ignored. He tells us that the wisdom of the world Avas on its trial ; and the result was that this wis- dom, whatever else it did, blotted out the knowledgr-e of God. " The world throuo-h its Avisdom knew not God." Let us suppose that some student of moral and social problems flourished b. c. BOO. All the mighty men whom we have named have passed away ; but almost all of them are men of the last hundred and fifty years. Our stu- dent Avatches the throbbing, earnest, quickened life of Greece, and, patriot as he is, dreams fondly of the good time coming from it all. Nor can he help rejoicing for humanity's sake in the vigorous and virtuous Roman Republic, even though he fears while he admires. While this is the state of his mind and of his knowl- IGO THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS edge, an adventurous Greek comes to Athens from far-off India. He tells our sage the story of the great Indian reformer. He gives rose- colored but fair information as to what has already been accomplished, and as to what the hope of India is. And yet another comes bear- ing tidings from afar. He has been to far-off Cathay and beyond, and lias a strange story to tell of a civilization which is young and hope- ful, of a great philosopher, and of a great re- former. The thoughtful Greek hears their wonderful stories, and rejoices. Is there not good reason to believe that the world is on the eve of mighty clianges for good? Why should he not grow prophetic in his zeal, and believe in the comincr crood and in the com- ing wisdom ? What did come of it all ? — of these centuries of philosophy, poetry, and art, which were also centuries throbbing with new spiritual impulses, with the vigor of new creeds, and with the enthusiasm of new leaders? Let the first chapter of Romans answer the question.' Let Gibbon bear his testimony all unswayed by zeal for the Christian faith. Read Farrar's " Early Days of Christianity." All au- thorities unite in telling a somewhat similar CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 161 sliameful story. The wisdom of the worhl was a dismal failure. Insincerity, cruelty, and self- ishness were rampant. Society was honey- combed with vice. The anticipations of the sage had not been fulfilled. The world had grown worse. The pleasant city of Pompeii lies beside the great mountain. It is not a capital like Rome, having the wealth, gayety, and vices of an im- perial centre. It is a fair representative of the average prosperous community of that day. It was buried, as one might say, instantaneously, and it lay buried for long centuries. The ex- cavation of the buried city tells us just how they lived when our Lord walked this earth. It is a sad story of artistic excellence and of moral filth. Christ came in the fulness of time, so far as earth's need of some one to show it goodness, truth, and life was concerned. The Christian consciousness came into a world from which the religious consciousness had almost vanished, so far as any knowledge of tlie true God, any pure theism, was concerned. History tells of the decline and fall, as well as of the evolution and ascent, of nations and of indi- viduals. When the centuries of the divine 162 THE CUBISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS silence began, the world had a good amount of moral and spiritual capital ; but her wisdom proved to have a fatal defect. She lost almost all her capital, and Jesus came into a world that was morally and spiritually bankrupt. BELATION TO DOCTRINE 163 CHAPTER IX THE RELATION OF THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUS- NESS TO DOCTRINE In considering the relation of the Christian conscionsness to development or evolution of doctrine, we are met first of all by those who deny that there is any such thing as an evolu- tion or development of doctrine. Fortunately, however, this is not a question of theory, but of fact ; and to the facts in the case we propose to appeal. We have also to encounter the difficulty of discriminating between moral sanc- tions and dogmatic statements. For example, the Southern preachers declared that abolition was an atheistical principle ; and the abolition- ists of the North, who were in sympathy with relio-ion, in many cases desired a church in which the holding of sound abolition principles would be a test of membership. The issue was transferred from morals to doctrine by both parties. In the temperance question, when a church takes official action in favor of prohibi- 1G4 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS tion, it not only asserts a dogma, or doctrine of the church, but it also lifts the question into the arena of practical politics. To tliis it may be replied that this is not one of the great doctrines of theology. True, it has not a his- tory, because it is new. It does not require an apologetic literature, because there has not been division on account of it, or much or^xanized attack of it ; but it is doctrine, nevertheless, and of more practical importance to-day, and more of a living issue in Protestantism to-day, than is, let us say, baptismal regeneration, or the dif- ference between consubstantiation and transub- stantiation. Much depends upon our definition of doc- trine. Is it the thing taught? Then the word embraces the whole of revelation. Is it that which is necessary for salvation ? Then it covers a few simple truths. Is it those truths that are commonly held in all the churches ? Then many doctrines will be excluded. Is it the con- fessional symbols of each denomination and the sum total of all of them ? Then the field is very wide. There is a sense in which we may claim that every moral movement is related to some pliase of Christian doctrine, and it is DELATION TO DOCTRINE 165 equally true that every doctrine will have moral issues ; but it is easily understood and readily accepted when we say that the thought of the church about the use of alcoholic drinks is a moral problem, and her thought about the sal- vation of the heathen is a question in doctrine. In choosing the doctrine of the salvation of infants as affording our first illustration of the relation of the Christian consciousness to devel- opment in doctrine, let it be steadily kept in mind that the question before us is not as to the truth of the doctrine, or the opposite, but simply a question as to the Jioiv, — the mode by which the present largely prevailing opinion came into the church. What was the prevalent opinion on this question after the Reformation ? It goes without saying that those churches which be- lieve in baptismal regeneration do not believe in the salvation of all infants. It is well known that infant salvation was not taught in the Cal- vinistic churches of the seventeenth century. Their creeds do not teach it, and much of their literature proves that the opposite opinion was held. It was never asserted that all infants were lost, but it was plainly taught that many fell short of salvation. Some of these churches 166 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS held that baptism signified and sealed the par- takin