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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924050974694 
 
THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT 
 
 PROCEEDINGS AND PAPERS OF THE 
 
 FIRST CONGRESS 
 
 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF 
 RELIGIOUS LIBERALS 
 
 HELD AT PHILADELPHIA, PENN., 
 
 MEETING HOUSE OF THE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY 
 OF FRIENDS 
 
 APRIL 27, 28, 29 and 30, 1909 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 CHARLES W. WENDTE, D.D. 
 
 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF RELIGIOUS LIBERALS 
 25 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 
 

INDEX OF TOPICS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Title Page i 
 
 II. Index of Topics iii, iv, v 
 
 III. Introduction, by Chas. W. Wendte, D.D i 
 
 Origin and Aims of the National Federation of Religious 
 
 Liberals. 
 The First Congress at Philadelphia. 
 
 IV. Officers and Executive Committee of the Federation . i6 
 V. The International Congress of Religious Liberals . . i8 
 
 VI. Program of the Philadelphia Congress, with Illus- 
 trative Readings 20 
 
 VII. Resolutions Adopted by the Congress 38 
 
 VIII. FiKST Topic of the Congress : 
 
 Religious Tolerance and Good Citizenship. 
 
 " The Jew and Good Citizenship," Rabbi Dr. David Philip- 
 son 44 
 
 "The Roman Catholic and Good Citizenship," Hon. 
 Charles J. Bonaparte 56 
 
 "The Protestant and Good Citizenship," President W. H. 
 P. Faunce 66 
 
 " The Negro and Good Citizenship," Dr. Booker T. Wash- 
 ington 73 
 
 IX. Second Topic of the Congress : 
 
 The Nature and Mission of Religious Liberalism. 
 
 Presidential Address, Henry W. Wilbur 75 
 
 " What is Religious Liberalism ? " Rev. William Channing 
 
 Gannett, D.D. 76 
 
 "What Liberal Religion Does for Man's Higher Welfare 
 and Happiness," President Frederick W. Hamilton, 
 D.D .87 
 
 " What Liberal Religion has done for America," Edwin D. 
 Mead ... .93 
 
 " Liberal Religion a Positive Faith," Hon. Curtis Guild, Jr. 95 
 
 " The Obligations and Opportunities of Religious Liberal- 
 ism in America To-Day," Rev. Frederic W. Perkins, 
 D.D 103 
 
INDEX OF TOPICS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "The Relation of Liberal Religion to Foreign Missions," 
 
 Albert Bowen "^ 
 
 Remarks, Rev. Clay MacCauley "° 
 
 X. Third Topic of the Congress : 
 Religion and Modern Life. 
 
 "The Religion of Democracy, as exemplified by the Ca- 
 reer of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1909)." Rev. Jenkin 
 
 Lloyd Jones, LL.D 123 
 
 " Evolution and Religion. Religion's Debt to Charles Dar- 
 win (1809-1909)," Rev. Charles E. St. John . . .132 
 " The Bible in Modern Life," Rabbi David Philipson, D.D. 143 
 "The Church in Modern Life," Rev. Frank O'. Hall, D.D. 154 
 "Jesus Christ in Modern Life,'" Professor George B. Fos- 
 ter, Ph.D 164 
 
 XI. Fourth Topic of the Congress: 
 Religion and the Social Question. 
 "Religion and the Social Conscience," Professor Francis 
 
 Greenwood Peabody, D.D i8s 
 
 "Religion and Politics," Justice F. J. Swayze . . . .197 
 " Religion and Social Service," Alexander Johnson . . .207 
 "Religion and Modern Industrialism," John Mitchell . .211 
 XII. Fifth Topic of the Congress: 
 Religion and Reform. 
 
 "The Duty of Religious Liberals toward the Peace Move- 
 ment," Dr. William I. Hull 222 
 
 "The Duty of Religious Liberals with Respect to Mar- 
 riage and Divorce," Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer . . 227 
 "The Duty of Religious Liberals with Respect to the 
 
 Child," Mrs. Frederick Nathan 247 
 
 "The Duty of Religious Liberals toward the Temperance 
 
 Reform," Wilson S. Doan 256 
 
 Remarks, Rev. Pedro Ilgen, D.D 264 
 
 XIII. Sixth and Closing Topic of the Congress : 
 The Fellowship of the Spirit. 
 
 " The Church Universal," Isaac H. Clothier of Philadelphia 267 
 " Liberty and Union in Religion," Rev. Charles G. Ames, 
 
 D.D., of Boston, Mass 269 
 
 Addresses by Representative Members of the Following Re- 
 ligious Bodies : — 
 Baptist, Rev. Dr. George H. Ferris, of Philadelphia . . 271 
 Christian, Rev. Wm. H. Hainer, Irvington, N. J. . . . 273 
 Episcopalian, Rev. Dr. Henry Mottet, of New York . . 275 
 Ethical Culture Society, Mr. Percival Chubb, of New York 275 
 Friend, Prof. Dr. Jesse H. Holmes, of Philadelphia . . 277 
 
INDEX OF TOPICS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 German Evangelical, Rev. Carl A. Voss, D.D., of Pittsburg, 
 
 Pa 279 
 
 Jewish, Rabbi Dr. Joseph Krauskopf, of Philadelphia . . 280 
 Lutheran, Rev. Luther DeYeo, Germantown, Pa. . . . 282 
 Schwenkfelderian, Rev. H. Heebner, of Philadelphia . . 283 
 Universalist, Rev. J. Clarence Lee, D.D., of Philadelphia 284 
 
 Unitarian, Rev. Wm. H. Fish, Meadville, Pa 286 
 
 Closing address by Henry W. Wilbur, President of the 
 Congress 287 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 I. ORIGIN AND AIMS OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF RELIGIOUS 
 
 LIBERALS 
 
 BY CHAS. W. WENDTE^ D. D. 
 
 In the closing days of April, 1909, there was held in the city 
 of Philadelphia, in the Race Street Meeting House of the Re- 
 ligious Society of Friends, a three days' conference of the friends 
 of liberal and progressive religion and a fellowship based on 
 character and service, instead of creed or rite. 
 
 This Congress of Religious Liberals, as it called itself, was the 
 first public meeting of the National Federation of Religious Lib- 
 erals, an association formed some months previously (December 
 3rd, igo8), in the same city and place, by a number of pro- 
 gressive Christians, Reform Jews, Ethical Culturists, and others, 
 eleven different religious fellowships being represented in person 
 or by letter at the meeting. 
 
 The organization of this Federation was, in turn, the out- 
 growth of a previously established and still larger association of 
 free and progressive believers, the International Council of Uni- 
 tarian and Other Liberal Religious Thinkers and Workers, 
 founded in Boston in the year 1900. This Council, after several 
 large and successful congresses in European cities (London, 1901; 
 Amsterdam, 1903; Geneva, 1905), returning to the country of 
 its inception, held in Boston, in the autumn of 1907, an Interna- 
 tional Congress of Religious Liberals, at which 16 difEerent 
 nations, 26 different church fellowships, and 93 religious asso- 
 ciations were officially or unofficially represented. This Congress, 
 which lasted for five days and enrolled nearly 2,400 paid mem- 
 bers, was a notable event in the history of reverent free-thought. 
 It brought the liberal denominations and the liberal elements in 
 nearly all denominations, as well as free and advanced thinkers 
 
 I 
 
outside the churches, into closer aiSliation with each other, dis- 
 closed to them the beauty and advantage of united counsels and 
 endeavors, and prompted among them a general desire for some 
 form of association which should conserve on American soil the 
 helpful fellowship which this International meeting had made 
 possible. These great international gatherings are held at com- 
 paratively long intervals and in difEerent countries. The next 
 one will be convened in Berlin, Germany, August 6th-ioth, 1910. 
 The one succeeding that may be welcomed to Paris in 1913. It 
 will be a number of years before this body again assembles in 
 America. 
 
 In the meantime there is danger that the large and congenial 
 fellowship which the Boston International Congress brought into 
 existence and the liberal and reconciling influences it radiated 
 through the American community may be imperilled or lost. To 
 prevent this, to unify and concentrate the forces which make for 
 religious sincerity, freedom and progress in the United States, 
 and bring them, from time to time, into council and cooperation 
 concerning the spiritual and ethical interests they hold in com- 
 mon, — this was the purpose of the founders of the National 
 Federation of Religious Liberals. 
 
 An extended correspondence with a large number of representa- 
 tive religious liberals throughout the country, conducted by the 
 present writer, who, as secretary of the International Congress 
 since its establishment ten years ago, enjoyed exceptional oppor- 
 tunities for this work, disclosed the conscious need for such a com- 
 mon and unifying center of free and progressive sentiment in 
 the religious life of America. Encouraged by the responses re- 
 ceived and adhesions gained, at the kind invitation of members 
 of the Religious Society of Friends in Philadelphia, a meeting for 
 the organization of a national federation of liberal-minded and 
 religious men and women was called, and, as has been stated, after 
 serious conference, the new association was formed. But three 
 articles of organization were adopted. The first concerns its 
 name — The National Federation of Religious Liberals. The 
 second states its purpose — " to promote the religious life by united 
 testimony for sincerity, freedom, and progress in religion, by 
 
social service, and a fellowship of the spirit beyond the lines of 
 sect and creed." 
 
 The third article provides that " participation in the Federa- 
 tion will leave each individual responsible for his own opinions 
 alone, and affect in no degree his relations with other religious 
 bodies or schools of thought." 
 
 All the other interests of the Federation were committed to 
 an executive committee of twenty-five, whose names will be found 
 elsewhere in this volume, and whose high and widely representa- 
 tive character is an assurance of the wisdom and catholicity with 
 which the affairs of the Association are likely to be conducted. 
 
 It is intended to hold, from time to time, in centers of American 
 thought and life, Congresses for the consideration of religious and 
 social questions, especially in their relations to our national wel- 
 fare. So far as possible these meetings will be held in alternate 
 years with the international gatherings already referred to. 
 These local congresses should be made notable events in the 
 religious life of our country by the freedom, largeness, and 
 weight of their united testimony on great topics of religious, eth- 
 ical, civic and social import. 
 
 The advantages of such an organization for religious fellow- 
 ship and counsel are many and apparent. Liberal opinions in 
 religion, tolerance and -charity in its administration, the demand 
 for sincerity in avowing one's convictions, and the desire for 
 progress in matters of belief as in all else — these are sentiments 
 widely disseminated in the American community. They fail to 
 exert their full and just influence, however, because they 
 are not effectively organized for mutual support and action. 
 The testimony we give on great topics of thought and life 
 gains immeasurably if it be not merely the opinion of 
 an isolated thinker but the expression of a great num- 
 ber of truth-loving and earnest men and women Combined for 
 that special purpose. The existing liberal denominations are but 
 few in number and feeble in resources. The rational and pro- 
 gressive believers in the churches called orthodox, or those outside 
 of all churches, may exercise greater or less influence because of 
 their intellectual gifts and moral courage, yet they are the ob- 
 
jects of suspicion and theological rancor, disowned and persecuted, 
 and especially need to be heartened and sustained. The Federa- 
 tion will afford them a larger opportunity for testimony and service 
 to truth, and bring them into congenial fellowship with other like- 
 minded spirits. Endeavors to bring at least the so-called liberal 
 sects into closer relations have mostly failed, nor are they likely 
 to be successful hereafter, unless a common meeting-place for 
 united conference and action outside their present organizations 
 can be found. Such an association should not attempt to dupli- 
 cate or become a substitute for any of the existing denominations. 
 It should respect their historical and doctrinal difEerentiation and 
 leave intact their denominational activities. It should strive to 
 strengthen them in their own proper work and bring them into 
 union for the furtherance of the principles and aims they hold 
 in common, thus promoting among them a fellowship of the 
 spirit beyond the lines of sect and creed. 
 
 If such a union cannot be formed it will go far to justify the 
 contempt in which the champions of infallible authority and tra- 
 dition in religion hold liberal believers because of their spiritual 
 impotence. A faith which is not social cannot be meant for so- 
 ciety. A religion without vision and virility and self-sacrifice 
 enough to devote itself to the larger good of humanity has no 
 call to lead and no place to fill in our modem world. " To- 
 gether! " was as true a sentiment on the consecrated lips of a 
 liberal believer like Edward Everett Hale as in the impassioned 
 message which General Booth flashed around the world to in- 
 spire his orthodox followers. 
 
 Our liberal testimony and service are needed more than ever 
 to-day. A speaker at our late Congress in Philadelphia* uttered 
 a word of warning: 
 
 " One of the great dangers in public life is that the great gen- 
 eral principles which have actuated the past and become the ax- 
 ioms of conduct may, by their very success, become mere com- 
 monplaces, and be lost sight of or disregarded in the strenuous 
 effort to accomplish practical results of apparent immediate im- 
 portance. Our political principles may become atrophied for want 
 of question and discussion. The great principles of religious free- 
 
 * See Address of Justice Swayze, p. 197 of the present volume. 
 
dom and political liberty which occupied the attention of the sev- 
 enteenth and eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, are in danger 
 of being forgotten for want of the debate which attended their 
 establishment. They arose out of the fierce heat of political con- 
 flict; they may perish because it is no longer necessary to struggle 
 in their behalf. Citizens of foreign birth often seem to have a 
 better knowledge and a greater appreciation of the fundamental 
 principles of our government than many native born Americans 
 who take their inheritance as a matter of Course without stopping 
 to consider its value." 
 
 It will be a proper function of this Federation to recall atten- 
 tion to these fundamental guarantees of our civil and religious 
 liberties in state and church, in school and home, to explain more 
 fully their nature and purpose, and to apprise our people of the 
 dangers resultant from ignorance and apathy on this subject. The 
 very next public meeting of our Association, it is now hoped, 
 may deal thoroughly and juridically with this topic. 
 
 Furthermore this Federation will accomplish an important work 
 if it disabuses the public mind of the prevalent and mistaken no- 
 tion that liberality in religion means simply negation and destruc- 
 tion on the one hand or indifference on the other. There was, 
 indeed, an era in the development of religious freedom in this 
 country when its endeavors were chiefly, and perhaps necessarily, 
 antagonistic and destructive. There was an excuse for this, and 
 in some remote communities among us, densely ignorant and 
 prejudiced, that excuse is still valid. No new superstructure of 
 religious opinion Can be reared on the old, eternal foundations 
 of religion in man's breast until many existing temples of error 
 and superstition are shattered and laid low. Negation and de- 
 struction are thus only a preliminary stage of affirmation and con- 
 struction. Every such denial holds an affirmation in its bosom. 
 It would be fatal if the latter were to be suppressed and not 
 permitted to germinate. The better and more enduring part of 
 each radical protest lies in the truth for which it clears the way. 
 
 The Federation of Religious Liberals aims to become such a 
 herald of religious truth, and not a mere iconoclast in the temples 
 of Christendom. It will not occupy itself to any extent with the 
 refutation of ancient dogmas, established and orthodox. The 
 
latter, in an age of enlightenment and re-interpretation of faith 
 may be safely left to the dissolving influences of historical crit- 
 icism, natural science, and modern life. An age which, like ours, 
 lays the emphasis of religion on the social conscience and serv- 
 ice of manicind, is not likely to attach undue importance to 
 dogma and rite in the administration of Christianity. In these 
 respects the contributions of Drs. Wm. C. Gannett, F. G. Pea- 
 body, and others, to this volume, utter the grovi'ing conviction of 
 radical thinkers. The free-thinker whose main strength is given 
 to smiting outworn and dying dogmas and excoriating their up- 
 holders belongs to a past and archaic age. He displays neither 
 the wisdom nor the temper of a true liberal. He is more likely 
 to fan into a brighter flame the embers of orthodox belief than to 
 put them out. He would be better employed in proclaiming the 
 splendid affirmations of the new and loftier faith that is dawning 
 upon man's sight. 
 
 Again the unlovely contempt which so-called liberals often visit 
 on still more advanced phases of religious thought, and especially 
 on the mystical philosophies and cults of our day, is equally out 
 of place. Aside from the evil done one's own soul through such 
 displays of spiritual arrogance and ill-temper, it will be well to 
 take to heart the noble advice of Coleridge: 
 
 " There are errors which no wise man will treat with rude- 
 ness, while there is a probability that they may be the refraction 
 of some great truth still below the horizon." 
 
 Liberality in religion, then, is not to hold this or that set of 
 opinions, however advanced. It is not to hold no opinions what- 
 ever, and be alike indifferent to all the problems of the human 
 mind. It is not to belong to this or that sect or fellowship. 
 
 Liberalism is a temper, not a creed. It is an attitude of the 
 mind towards truth, a disposition of the heart towards mankind. 
 It is a pervading spirit of freedom, justice and charity, a spirit 
 to be found in and outside of all sects, but more likely to exist 
 in men of free and progressive opinion. 
 
 To cherish this spirit and advance these ideals of affirmative 
 and reverent free-thought is the task which the National Federa- 
 tion of Religious Liberals sets itself. It has a mission to the 
 free as well as to the orthodox believer. It must induce the 
 
latter to form a higher and juster opinion of reverent free-thought 
 and to deal more tolerantly with it. It must awaken in the 
 former a more fair and irenic temper in treating of orthodox doc- 
 trines and those who uphold them. Above all, it must arouse the 
 liberal thinker to more earnest efforts in behalf of his own prin- 
 ciples and ideals. It is disastrous for him to deceive himself with 
 the current sophisms that: "The evolution of things will bring 
 all out right at last," and we have only to fall back indolently 
 and supinely and let the procession pass on to victory, or to de- 
 clare that since the whole course of events, scientific, moral, so- 
 cial and mechanical is coming " our way " we have no duty or 
 responsibility in the matter. Such indifference to the opportuni- 
 ties and problems of our time is nothing less than criminal. For 
 we are each and every one a factor of the evolution, and our 
 faithfulness, or our want of zeal, appreciably affects the accelera- 
 tion, the character and the scope of events. No one can measure 
 and no one can escape his personal share of responsibility in this 
 divine service for truth and humanity. Loyalty is the only course 
 that assures individual happiness and social salvation. 
 
 It may be that things are tending our way in the intellectual 
 and social life of man. If so, the power that is bringing them 
 our way is the dedication of human wills and human labors to 
 truth, justice, and fraternity. But what arrests of human prog- 
 ress, what triumphs of reaction, what lapses from the ideal, what 
 cruelty and persecution and agony are caused by man's spiritual 
 sluggishness and disloyalty to the higher vision! And what are 
 we who claim to be heralds and types of the new and larger 
 faith, doing to fit ourselves to become its leaders, inspirers and 
 guides? What are we contributing to frame its philosophy, 
 deepen its reverence, devise its worship, shape its conduct, organ- 
 ize its activities, and enlist its service for the true, the beautiful 
 and the good? 
 
 Never was there such an urgent need for the true liberal in re- 
 ligion, devout as well as free, and loving as well as earnest, to 
 dedicate himself to these higher interests of humanity, and uniting 
 with other like-minded men and women of his time to lead the 
 way to loftier faith and more enlightened service. 
 
 It is in this sense that the new Federation will seek to bear 
 
8 
 
 strong and effective testimony in behalf of the great, universal 
 affirmations of the moral and spiritual life; it will endeavor to 
 increase the faith of free and reasoning men in the underlying 
 principles of pure religion held in the spirit of perfect liberty and 
 charity; it will devote enlarged attention to the paramount inter- 
 ests of individual character, social service, and good citizenship. 
 By united testimony on the great topics of American thought and 
 life it will seek to become an influence for good in the community, 
 and to cooperate heartily with every agency in State, Church, and 
 School which aims to uplift the national character and invigorate 
 it with high ethical and social ideals. 
 
 To accomplish these ends it seeks the countenance and aid of 
 every lover of religious freedom and progress in the American 
 commonwealth, and invites all, without reference to their indi- 
 vidual opinion or denominational allegiance;, to enroll themselves 
 in its membership. Applications for this purpose may be made 
 to the writer, who, as its secretary, is commissioned to receive 
 adhesions and the annual fee of one dollar which accompanies 
 them. The office of the Federation is at 25 Beacon Street, Bos- 
 ton, Mass. 
 
 II. THE FIRST CONGRESS IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 It was fortunate for the success of the first public meeting of the 
 National Federation of Religious Liberals that it should have been 
 held under the hospitable roof, and in a measure under the au- 
 spices of the Liberal Friends of the City of Brotherly Love, a 
 society whose traditions have so honorably identified it with reli- 
 gious freedom and progress while its relations with the prevailing 
 and orthodox systems of Christianity have yet remained cordial 
 and conciliatory. 
 
 The spiritual tone and temper of these fair-minded and gentle 
 advocates of a religion of liberty and love communicated itself 
 to all who participated in the Philadelphia meeting, repressing 
 harshness of utterance and aggressiveness of disposition, if any 
 tendency to these existed, and promoting that mutual Courtesy, 
 that readiness to understand and sj'mpathize with opposing forms 
 of belief, that large inclusiveness of spirit which mark the true 
 
liberal in religion. The very simplicity of the old Quaker meet- 
 ing-house in which the sessions were held rebuked all extravagance 
 or sensationalism on the part of the speakers, and promoted the 
 sincerity and soberness with which the great themes they dealt 
 with were presented. 
 
 These characteristic aspects of the Congress were well exhib- 
 ited at its very first session, when men of national importance 
 spoke their earnest word on the relation of Religious Tolerance 
 to Good Citizenship. Their utterances are elsewhere reported 
 rn this volume, but it would be impossible to reproduce the pro- 
 found impressiveness of the meeting itself, the great auditorium 
 packed with nearly 2,000 hearers, despite the rain which fell 
 without, the eager attention, the warm response to the sentiments 
 of the speakers, and the gratifying assurance to those who for 
 months previous had planned and labored hard for the success of 
 the Congress, that their efforts were to be rewarded. 
 
 These experiences were repeated at every subsequent session. 
 The audiences were made up largely of residents of Philadelphia 
 and vicinity, especially of members of the Society of Friends, but 
 also comprised many from other cities and States of the Union, 
 and represented a score of religious fellowships, orthodox and lib- 
 eral, Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Christian. In numbers 
 they ranged from 500 to 1,000 at a day session, while in the even- 
 ing every seat was occupied. 
 
 On the morning of the second day, after an inspiring word of 
 prayer from a Universalist brother, and the Presidential address, 
 a model of simplicity and brevity, the programme devised by the 
 committee was entered upon. Its first theme was The Nature 
 and Mission of Religious Liberalism. Thoughtful, large-minded, 
 and affirmative, these addresses were still more significant as 
 indicating the new spirit and change of emphasis which char- 
 acterize the religious liberalism of to-day, its respect for op- 
 posing opinion, its recognition of the historical element in religious 
 development, its sweet reasonableness in argument, its inclusive 
 sympathy, combined with absolute sincerity of statement and devo- 
 tion to the truth. These qualities are admirably displayed in 
 the addresses of Revs. Wm. Channing Gannett, Frederick W. 
 Perkins, ex-Gov. Guild, and others contained in this volume, as 
 
lO 
 
 well as in its concluding symposium, " The Fellowship of the 
 Spirit." We recommend the reading of them to both radical and 
 conservative believers. 
 
 The Affirmations of the Liberal Faith were dealt with more 
 particularly at the third session of the Congress. Its general 
 theme, Religion and Modern Life, included tributes to Charles 
 Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, whose centenaries occurred this 
 year, and both of whom by their lives and services made notable 
 contributions to a liberal and progressive conception of religion. 
 It was especially fitting that an exposition of the great doc- 
 trine of evolution, a philosophy of the world-order in which 
 our modern systems of faith are grounded, should precede the 
 papers on the Bible, the Church and Jesus Christ which were 
 included in the program. These last are living questions in the 
 religious consciousness of to-day. Presented in a forceful man- 
 ner by able thinkers, no other topics awoke a wider variety of 
 opinion in their auditors, both in support of and dissent from the 
 speakers. Prof. Foster's paper, especially, while it moved some to 
 enthusiastic agreement, especially among the Society of Friends, 
 whose chief seat of authority in religion has ever been the inward 
 witness of the ever-present Spirit of God rather than the historic 
 personality of the Christ — provoked others, in discussions that fol- 
 lowed, to pained, and more or less explosive, affirmations of their 
 loyalty to Christ as their Savior, Lord and God. All alike were 
 listened to with coftrteous attention. It is to be regretted that 
 in presenting Prof. Foster's paper the magnetic personality of 
 the man, his profound reverence, and scholarly aloofness from the 
 sectarian temper cannot also be reproduced. 
 
 A lively discussion was precipitated by the proposal following 
 Mr. Bowen's and Rev. Clay MacCauley's addresses, given else- 
 where, that the Congress take a hand in the movement already 
 begun under Unitarian, Universalist and liberal German au- 
 spices to conduct foreign, and especially foreign medical missions 
 on a non-creedal, non-sectarian basis. Our Jewish friends, espe- 
 cially, could not easily reconcile themselves to the idea of a 
 propaganda under Christian influences, whose perverted mission- 
 ary zeal has so often wrought them cruel injustice and wrong. 
 Whether the motion as finally modified to meet objections pos- 
 
II 
 
 sesses sufficient significance to make it worth while, and whether 
 the material resources at the command of the Congress are suffi- 
 cient to permit of its practical fulfilment is doubtful. In any 
 case this agitation of the missionary duty of Religious Liberals 
 towards other races was timely, and may pave the way to action 
 hereafter. 
 
 No sentiment was more frequently heard on the lips of the dele- 
 gates at these meetings than that religion is life, and has little 
 value apart from life, the life that now is. A careful perusal of 
 this volume will newly prove how widely modern Christianity has 
 departed from that interpretation of the gospel of Jesus, so long 
 regnant, which conceived it as hostile to this present life and 
 chiefly concerned with the welfare of the soul in another and 
 future state, and which made the supposed interests of the indi- 
 vidual paramount to the larger good of the community. 
 
 In these respects a great change of emphasis is taking place in 
 Christendom, whose prophets and teachers are proclaiming by 
 word and example, as never before, a religion for the life that 
 now is, a gospel of social responsibility and social service. It was 
 inevitable that in framing the program of the Congress this aspect 
 of religion should be included and certain of its sessions devoted 
 to the serious consideration of topics of political, economic and 
 social importance, in their relation to religion and ethics. The 
 addresses of Prof. F. G. Peabody, Justice Swayze, Alexander 
 Johnson and John Mitchell, dealt with the more general aspects 
 of social duty, and with the papers on specific and burning re- 
 forms of our times, such as The Movement for International 
 Peace, the questions involved in Marriage and Divorce, Child 
 Labor, and Temperance, form in their aggregate a contribution to 
 the social ethics of our day which go far to justify our purpose 
 and aim as a national federation. A resolution in favor of 
 woman's suffrage introduced by Mrs. W. C. Gannett was adopted, 
 after a brief but strenuous debate, by 137 votes to 16. 
 
 The closing meeting of the Congress was an occasion of pro- 
 found impressiveness. In the speakers' seats were assembled the 
 representatives of a dozen different sects and fellowships. After 
 an introductory word from Hon. Isaac H. Clothier, who presided, 
 and a ringing declaration in behalf of " Liberty and Union in 
 
12 
 
 Religion " by the venerable dean of the ministers present, — like 
 Dr. Channing, " always young for liberty " — these spokesmen for 
 freedom of thought, in brief addresses reaffirmed their loyalty to 
 the principles on which the Federation is founded and their joy 
 at the inspiration and goodly fellowship it had brought them. 
 Their words, for the most part, are reproduced in this volume, 
 but who can reproduce the fervor of spirit, the kindliness of look 
 and tone, the outpouring of the heart, with which they were 
 accompanied! The meeting fitly closed with a brief and tender 
 word from the President of the Congress, Henry W. Wilbur, 
 which ended with a prayer, and a moment's " gathering into the 
 quiet." As a sympathetic participant in the meeting reports in 
 the organ of his denomination, The Congregationalist, of Boston: 
 
 " There was a solemn joy during the closing session as repre- 
 sentatives of once persecuted forms of faith rose to commit them- 
 selves to the new-found fellowship of character and service, and 
 in the solemn devotional hush in which the meeting fitly closed 
 there was felt the brooding of the Spirit who rests upon all men's 
 intellectual strivings and incites the faithful energies of those who 
 walk alone with their own consciences." 
 
 It remains to be said that the testimonies in the form of reso- 
 lutions adopted by the Congress as the expression of its opinion 
 on current questions of personal and social religion will be found 
 in their proper place in this volume. A feature which cannot be 
 reproduced, however, was the social opportunities afforded by 
 the meetings, the interchanges of thought and sentiment between 
 its members which culminated on Wednesday evening in a de- 
 lightful reception at the Hotel Bellevue-Stratford, tendered the 
 Congress by a member of the Society of Friends. Some 300 per- 
 sons were present and addresses were made by Henry W. Wilbur, 
 Revs. Lewis G. Wilson, secretary of the American Unitarian 
 Association, and Chas. W. Wendte, of Boston, Rev. Hugo Eisen- 
 lohr and Rabbi David Philipson, of Cincinnati, and Rev. Dr. 
 A. S. Crapsey, of Rochester, N. Y. Miss Elizabeth Powell 
 Bond, Dean of Swarthmore College, made touching reference 
 to Lucretia Mott and other brave spirits, members of the Society 
 of Liberal Friends, whose faithful testimony in former days had 
 made possible these Philadelphia meetings, concluding her remarks 
 with the lines which follow: 
 
13 
 
 A SUMMARY. 
 
 From height to height of thought our guides have led 
 Our feet where Truth's most holy places glow 
 With presence of the Lord — our privilege 
 A moment's ecstasy of vision clear, 
 Ere girding on fresh armor of God's knights. 
 There in the holiest place stood those who plead 
 Arrested manhood's cause — the dwarfed, fast bound 
 To whirring wheels, or in the earth's dark depths; 
 A voice for womanhood was heard; the child's 
 Sad plaint for more than bread, for motherhood's 
 Sweet care, and freedom with the birds and flowers. 
 
 Forth must we fare to think the highest thought, 
 To be swift feet and loving hands for Him 
 Who needs our thought made manifest through deed; 
 Oti earth to plant the kingdom of God's heaven. 
 
 Another social occasion was an automobile excursion to the 
 beautiful suburbs of Philadelphia, arranged for by the Hospitality 
 Committee, which was made up of members of All Souls' and 
 Church of the Restoration, Universalist, the First, Spring Garden, 
 and Germantown Unitarian Churches, the Ethical Society, the 
 Hebrew Temples Keneseth Israel and Rodeph Shalom, as well 
 as the Society of Friends. Its chairman. Miss Susan W. Janney, 
 was indefatigable in providing for the reception and entertain- 
 ment of the delegates. 
 
 The number of members enrolled was i,oio. The total moneys 
 received by the treasurer, Mr. Henry Justice, from membership 
 fees and contributions were $1,164. To this amount should be 
 added some $300, expended for preliminary expenses in organiz- 
 ing the Federation, which sum was donated by the American 
 Unitarian Association. The latter also contributed the time and 
 services of its foreign secretary for the furtherance of this object. 
 The Congress has thus been enabled to meet all its expenses, in- 
 cluding the printing of the present volume. Especial thanks are 
 due to Messrs. Isaac H. Clothier, Henry C. Lea, Howard H. 
 Furness, and Chas. W. Eliot for their generosity to this cause. 
 
 Acknowledgments are also due to the many men and women 
 who helped by wise counsel and unselfish service to make the Con- 
 
14 
 
 gress a success, as well as to various churches and associations. 
 Dr. Samuel A. Eliot, President of the American Unitarian Asso- 
 ciation, Dr. Frederick A. Bisbee, editor of the Universalist Leader, 
 Edwin D. Mead, President of the Free Religious Association of 
 America, and Dr. Jenkins Lloyd Jones, editor of Unity, and the 
 inspiring soul of The Congress of Religion, were prominent among 
 these. Especially noteworthy was the generous interest taken by 
 the two last-named in the Federation, for whose activities the asso- 
 ciations they represent may be said to have blazed the way and 
 prepared the ground. They gave their younger sister and ally 
 in the work of religious enlightenment and reform an unselfish 
 and warm welcome and the benefit of their large experience. 
 
 The Congress was greatly indebted to the public press of the 
 United States, and especially the city of Philadelphia, for the 
 large attention it paid to its sessions, heralding the organization 
 of the Federation and reporting its proceedings and papers. Cer- 
 tain religious journals printed the Congress program in full, and 
 gave large space to reports of its sessions, among them The Chris- 
 tian Register, Universalist Leader, The Unitarian, Friend's In- 
 telligencer, Unity, Reform Advocate, and Geist und Gemueth, 
 while others, like the Outlook, Congregationalist and Herald of 
 Gospel Liberty, contained friendly notices. In England The 
 London Inquirer, and in Germany Die Christliche Welt con- 
 tained full and excellent reports, the latter written by Rev. Hans 
 Haupt, of North Tonawanda, N. Y., a delegate at the meetings. 
 From the League of Progressive Thoughts and Social Service, 
 instituted by the Rev. R. J. Campbell in England, a cordial invi- 
 tation to enter into fraternal relations with it has been received. 
 
 It would be impossible to give due credit to all who aided in 
 the conduct of the Congress, but acknowledgments should be 
 returned to its President, Henry W. Wilbur, whose wisdom guided 
 and whose happy wit enlivened the meetings ; to Rev. G. G. Mills, 
 of Watertown, Mass., who faithfully assisted the Secretary; to 
 Rev. Geo. H. Ferris, D.D., who was a perennial source of inspira- 
 tion; to Rabbis Joseph Krauskopf and Henry Berkowitz, whose 
 counsel and help were invaluable; to Revs. Dr. J. Clarence Lee 
 and J. L. Dowson, instant and untiring in service ; to Revs. Fred- 
 erick A. Hinckley and Oscar B. Hawes, and R. Barclay Spicer 
 
15 
 
 and S. B. Weston, members of local committees; and especially to 
 the chairman of the Business Committee, Rev. Charles E. St. 
 John, whose devotion and resources never flagged, and whose 
 large experience and excellent judgment skillfully guided the pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 In summing up the results attained by the Congress attention 
 may be called first to its inclusiveness of spirit. 
 
 Not only liberal Christians, so-called, but members of orthodox 
 bodies, spoke from its platform and took part in its proceedings; 
 not Protestants only, but Roman Catholics, and Jews, and Ethical 
 Culturists, and free-thinkers of various shades of opinion, while 
 Dr. Booker T. Washington and others represented the colored 
 race. In spite of all these wide divergencies of opinion unbroken 
 harmony reigned throughout the sessions. Furthermore not only 
 men but women spoke at the meetings and shared in their con- 
 duct. Secondly, the large part borne by the laity in the Congress 
 was noteworthy and in refreshing contrast to the almost exclu- 
 sively clerical representation of many religious assemblies. Nine- 
 teen of the forty-five speakers on the program belonged to the 
 laity — surely an encouraging sign of the religious times. Fi- 
 nally, the emphasis laid on the affirmations of religious faith, rather 
 than on negations, the growing endeavor not only to speak the 
 truth but to " speak it in love," and the identification of true re- 
 ligion with the life of love and service, good citizenship, industrial 
 righteousness and social reform, were characteristics of the first 
 Congress of the National Federation of Religious Liberals, and 
 entitle it to the sjrmpathetic attention and generous support of 
 enlightened and progressive believers throughout the Americali 
 commonwealth. 
 
i6 
 
 OFFICERS OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF 
 RELIGIOUS LIBERALS 1909-10 
 
 President, Henry W. Wilbur, 140 North 15th Street, Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 General Secretary, Rev. Charles W. Wendte, D.D., 25 Beacon 
 Street, Boston, to whom communications may be addressed. 
 
 Treasurer, Henry Justice, 122 South Front Street, Philadelphia, 
 Pa. 
 
 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
 
 Rev. Frederick A. Bisbee, D.D., Boston, Mass., Editor Univer- 
 salist Leader. 
 
 Rev. Algernon S. Crapsey, D.D., Brotherhood House, Rochester, 
 N. Y. 
 
 Rev. Samuel A. Eliot, D.D., President American Unitarian As- 
 sociation, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Rev. Hugo Eisenlohr, Pastor German Evangelical Church, Cin- 
 cinnati, Ohio. 
 
 Rev. George H. Ferris, D.D., Pastor First Baptist Church, Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 Professor George B. Foster, Ph.D., University of Chicago. 
 
 Rev. Frank O. Hall, D.D., Minister Church of the Divine Pa- 
 ternity, Universalist, Newr York. 
 
 President Frederick W. Hamilton, D.D., Tufts College, Mass. 
 
 Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Miss Susan W. Janney, Philadelphia. 
 
 Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, LL.D., Minister Abraham Lincoln Cen- 
 tre, Chicago, 111. 
 
 Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, D.D., Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Rev. J. Clarence Lee, D.D., Pastor Church of the Restoration, 
 Universalist, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Rev. Henry Mottet, D.D., Rector Church of the Holy Com- 
 munion, New York. 
 
17 
 
 Edwin D. Mead, President of the Free Religious Association of 
 America, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Rev. R. Heber Newton, D.D., East Hampton, Long Island, 
 N. Y. 
 
 Rabbi David Philipson, D.D., President Central Conference of 
 American Rabbis, Cincinnati, Ohio. 
 
 Rev. Charles E. St. John, Pastor First Unitarian- Church, Phikr 
 delphia. Pa. 
 
 Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer, Director Summer School of Ethics, 
 New York. 
 
 Rev. J. J. Summerbell, D.D., Christian, Dayton, Ohio. 
 
 Rev. Carl A. Voss, D.D., Pastor Smithfield Street German Evan- 
 gelical Church, Pittsburg, Ohio. 
 
 Rev. J. B. Weston, D.D., President Christian Biblical Institute, 
 Defiance, Ohio. 
 
 S. Burns Weston, Director Ethical Culture Society, Philadelphia, 
 Pa. 
 
 Rev. Charles W. Wendte, D.D., Foreign Secretary of the Ameri- 
 can Unitarian Association, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Henry W. Wilbur, General Secretary of the Committee for Ad- 
 vancement of Friends' Principles. 
 
i8 
 
 THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF RELIGIOUS 
 LIBERALS 
 
 The National Federation of Religious Liberals is affiliated with 
 the International Congress of Religious Liberals. 
 
 The purpose of this Congress is " to open communication with 
 those in all lands who are striving to unite pure religion and per- 
 fect liberty, and to increase fellowship and cooperation among 
 them." 
 
 It seeks to bring into closer union for exchange of ideas, mutual 
 service, and the promotion of their common aims the historic lib- 
 eral churches, the liberal elements in all churches, scattered liberal 
 congregations, and isolated workers for religious freedom and 
 progress in many lands. 
 
 It aims to be a source of encouragement and strength to them 
 in their struggles against dogmatic intolerance and ecclesiastical 
 tyranny. 
 
 It cultivates large and fraternal relations with the great liberal 
 movements in religion now going on under various names and 
 auspices throughout the world. 
 
 To promote these ends, it holds a triennial Congress in some 
 acknowledged seat of religious enlightenment and freedom. 
 Largely attended and successful meetings have been held in Lon- 
 don (1901), Amsterdam (1903), Geneva (1905), and Boston 
 (1907). At the last named nearly 2,400 members were en- 
 rolled. The papers and proceedings of these Congresses have 
 been published. The next international Congress will be held 
 at Berlin, Germany, August 6-10, 1910. A general participa- 
 tion is invited. 
 
 Some 93 religious associations are now affiliated with the Coun- 
 cil, send official delegates to its meetings, and make it the inter- 
 national organ of their fraternal relations with each other. 
 
 The Committee for 1907-10 consists of Rev. Samuel A. Eliot, 
 D.D., Boston, U. S. A., Chmrman; Rev. Charles W. Wendte, 
 D.D., 25 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass., U. S. A., General Secre- 
 tary (to whom communications may be addressed) ; Prof. G. 
 
19 
 
 Boros, D.D., Kolozsvar, Hungary; Rev. W. Copeland Bowie, 
 London, England; Prof. J. Estlin Carpenter, D.D., Oxford, 
 England; Prof. B. D. Eerdmans, D.D., Leiden, Holland; Rev. 
 George A. Gordon, D.D., Boston, U. S. A. ; Rev P. H. Hugen- 
 holtz, Jr., Amsterdam, Holland; Prof. E. Montet, D.D., Ge- 
 neva, Switzerland; Prof. Martin Rade, D.D., Marburg, Ger- 
 many; Rev. J. Emile Roberty, Paris, France; Rev. G. Schoen- 
 holzer, Zurich, Switzerland; Miss M. B. Westenholz, Copen- 
 hagen, Denmark; Rev. Max Fischer, D.D., Berlin, Germany; 
 Prof. G. Bonet-Maury, Paris, France. 
 
20 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE READINGS 
 
 THE ONE RELIGION. 
 
 ■■ All humble, merciful, just, pious, and devout souls are everywhere 
 of One religion. Holiness, purity, and charity are not the exclusive 
 possession of any church in the world, but every system has produced 
 men and women of the most exalted character." 
 
 SPIRITUAL INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 To conceit that men must form their faith according to the pre- 
 scriptions of other mortal men is both ridiculous and dangerous. . . . 
 The understanding can never be convinced by other arguments than 
 what are adequate to its own nature. Force may make hypocrites, but 
 it can make no converts. — William Penn. 
 
 A PROPHECY. 
 
 The time is coming when the more liberal of the Catholic and 
 Protestant branches of Christ's Church will advance and meet upon 
 a common platform, and form a broad Christian community in which 
 all shall be identified, in spite of all diversities and differences in non- 
 essential matters of faith. So shall the Baptists and Methodists, Trini- 
 tarian and Unitarian, the Ritualists and the Evangelical all unite in a 
 broad and universal religious organization, loving, honoring, serving 
 the common body, while retaining the peculiarites of each sect. Only 
 the broad of each sect shall for the present come forward : others will 
 follow in time. The base remains where it is: the vast masses at the 
 foot of each church will yet remain, perhaps for centuries, where they 
 now are. But, as you look to the lofty heights above, you will see all 
 the bolder spirits and broad souls of each church pressing forward, 
 onward, heavenward. 
 
 Come, then, my friends, ye broad-hearted of all the churches, ad- 
 vance and shake hands with each other, and promote that spiritual fel- 
 lowship, that kingdom of heaven, which Jesus predicted. — Keshub 
 Chunder Sen, Hindu Theist, in 1833. 
 
21 
 
 PROGRAM OF THE 
 FIRST CONGRESS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF RELIGIOUS LIB- 
 ERALS 
 
 HELD IN 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa., April 27, 28, 29 and 30, 1909. 
 
 The sessions of the Congress were held in the meeting house of 
 the religious society of Friends, Race Street, near North Fif- 
 teenth Street, Philadelphia. 
 
 OFFICERS OF THE CONGRESS 
 
 President, Henry W. Wilbur, 140 North 15th Street, Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 General Secretary, Charles W. Wendte, D.D., 25 Beacon Street, 
 Boston, to whom communications may be addressed. 
 
 Treasurer, Henry Justice, 122 South Front Street, Philadelphia, 
 Pa. 
 
 HONORARY VICE-PRESIDENTS 
 
 Rev. J. Coleman Adams, D.D., Hartford, Conn. 
 
 Charles Neal Barney, Lynn, Mass. 
 
 George Batchelor, Editor Christian Register, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Elizabeth Powell Bond, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Samuel McChord Crothers, D.D., Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 William W. Cocks, Congressman, Long Island, N. Y. 
 
 Robert Collyer, Litt.D., New York, N. Y. 
 
 Joseph H. Crooker, D.D., Boston, Mass. 
 
 Gen. Newton M. Curtis, New York, N. Y. 
 
22 
 
 Mrs. Caroline H. Dall, LL.D., Washington, D. C. 
 
 William L. Douglas, ex-Governor of Massachusetts, Brockton, 
 
 Mass. 
 Eben S. Draper, Governor of Massachusetts. 
 Charles W. Eliot, LL.D., President of Harvard University, 
 
 Camhridge, Mass. 
 Samuel A. Eliot, D.D., President American Unitarian Associa- 
 tion, Boston, Mass. 
 William H. P. Faunce, LL.D., President Brow^n University, 
 
 Providence, R. I. 
 Lewis B. Fisher, D.D., President Lombard College, Galesburg, 
 
 111. 
 Rabbi Charles Fleischer, Boston, Mass. 
 Henry P. Forbes, D.D., President Theological School, Canton, 
 
 N. Y. 
 Miss Emma F. Foster, President Woman's National Missionary 
 
 Association of the Universalist Church, Boston, Mass. 
 Horace Howard Furness, LL.D., Philadelphia, Pa. 
 Rev. Miss Eleanor E. Gordon, Des Moines, la. 
 Mrs. Frances A. Hackley, Tarrytown, N. Y. 
 Edward Everett Hale, D.D., Chaplain United States Senate. 
 James S. Haviland, New Rochelle, N. Y. 
 Rabbi Maximillian Heller, New Orleans, La. 
 Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, D.D., Chicago, 111. 
 
 Jesse H. Holmes, Ph.D., Swarthmore College, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Boston, Mass. 
 Charles L. Hutchinson, Chicago, 111. 
 William De Witt Hyde, LL.D., President Bowdoin College, 
 
 Brunswick, Me. 
 William M. Jackson, New York, N. Y. 
 Dr. O. Edward Janney, Baltimore, Md. 
 David Starr Jordan, President Stanford University, California. 
 Rabbi J. Leonard Levy, D.D., Pittsburg, Pa. 
 John D. Long, LL.D., Hingham, Mass. 
 Miss Emma C. Low, President National Alliance of Unitarian 
 
 Women, Brookl}^!, N. Y. 
 Lee S. McCollester, D.D., Detroit, Mich. 
 
23 
 
 Prof. Arthur C. McGiffert, D.D., Union Theological Seminary, 
 
 New York, N. Y. 
 Benjamin H. Miller, Ashton, Md. 
 Mrs. Sarah T. Miller, Ashton, Md. 
 J. T. Mitchell, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 Prof. George F. Moore, D.D., Theological School of Harvard 
 
 University, Cambridge, Mass. 
 William J. Ogden, Baltimore, Md. 
 A. Mitchell Palmer, Congressman, Stroudsburg, Pa. 
 Edward A. Pennock, Chatham, Pa. 
 Frederick W. Perkins, D.D., Lynn, Mass. 
 Jacob H. Schiff, New York, N. Y. 
 Jacob G. Schurman, LL.D., President of Cornell University, 
 
 Ithaca, N. Y. 
 Edward C. Stokes, ex-Governor of New Jersey, Trenton, N. J. 
 Jabez T. Sunderland, D.D., Hartford, Conn. 
 Joseph Swain, LL.D., President Swarthmore College, Swarth- 
 
 more. Pa. 
 Dr. Booker T. Washington, President Tuskegee Institute. 
 Mrs. Helen Magill White, Ithaca, N. Y. 
 
24 
 THE FOUNDERS OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 
 
 If we were to single out the men who from the beginning of our 
 colonial state until the present time have most eminently contributed 
 to fostering and securing religious freedom, who have made this coun- 
 try of ours the haven of refuge from ecclesiastical tyranny and persecu- 
 tion, who have set an example more puissant than army or navy for 
 freeing the conscience of men from civil interference, and have leavened 
 the mass of intolerance wherever the name of America is known, I 
 would mention first the Baptist, Roger Williams, who maintained the 
 principle that the civil powers have no right to meddle in matters of 
 conscience, and who founded a state with that principle as its keystone. 
 I would mention second the Catholic, Lord Baltimore, the proprietor 
 of Maryland, to whom belongs the credit of having established liberty 
 in matters of worship which was second only to Rhode Island. I would 
 name third the Quaker, William Penn, whose golden motto was " We 
 must yield the liberties we demand." Fourth on the list is Thomas 
 Jefferson, that " arch infidel," as he has been termed by some religious 
 writers, who overthrew the established church in his own state, and 
 then, with prophetic statesmanship, made it impossible for any church 
 to establish itself under our national constitution or in any way to 
 abridge the rights of conscience. — Oscar S. Straus, in " Religious Lib- 
 erty in the United States." 
 
 RELIGIOUS BELIEF AND PUBLIC OFFICE. 
 
 What if I dififer from some religious apprehensions? Am I there- 
 fore incompatible with human societies? ... I know not any unfit 
 for political society but those who maintain principles subversive of 
 industry, fidelity, justice, and obedience. . . . Five things are requi- 
 site for a good officer, — ability, clean hands, despatch, patience, and 
 impartiality. — William Penn. 
 
 To discriminate against a thoroughly upright citizen because he 
 belongs to some particular church, or because, like Abraham Lincoln, 
 he has not avowed his allegiance to any church, is an outrage against 
 that liberty of conscience which is one of the foundations of American 
 life. You are entitled to know whether a man seeking your suffrage 
 is a man of clean and upright life, honorable in all his dealings with 
 his fellows, and fit by qualification and purpose to do well in the great 
 oflSce for which he is a candidate; but you are not entitled to know 
 matters which lie purely between himself and his Maker.— Theodore 
 Roosevelt. 
 
 RELIGIOUS BELIEF AND GOOD CITIZENSHIP. 
 
 We love and revere this country as our home and fatherland for 
 us and our children, and therefore consider it our paramount duty 
 to sustain and support the government, to favor by all means the 
 
25 
 
 PROGRAM OF THE CONGRESS 
 TUESDAY EVENING, APRIL 27, 8 O'CLOCK 
 
 First and opening session of the Congress. Welcome by the 
 President of the Congress, Henry W. Wilbur, of Philadelphia. 
 
 Topic of the session, " Religious Tolerance and Good 
 Citizenship." 
 
 Mutual toleration and good will between all classes, races, and 
 churches of the republic a fundamental condition of religious and 
 civil welfare. 
 
 8.20. Address, " The Jew and Good Citizenship." Oscar S. 
 Straus, of New York, late United States Secretary of Commerce 
 and Labor.* 
 
 8.40. Address, " The Roman Catholic and Good Citizenship." 
 Charles J. Bonaparte, of Baltimore, late Attorney-General of the 
 United States. 
 
 9.00. Address, " The Protestant and Good Citizenship." 
 President W. H. P. Faunce, of Brown University, Providence, 
 R. I. 
 
 9.20. Address, " The Negro and Good Citizenship." Dr. 
 Booker T. Washington, Principal Tuskegee Institute. 
 
 Dismission. 
 
 " With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness 
 in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to do 
 all which may achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves 
 and with all nations." 
 
 system of free education, leaving religious instruction to the care 
 of the different denominations. — From Resolutions of Conference of 
 American Rabbis, Cleveland, Ohio, 1870. 
 
 Fifteen million Catholics live their lives in our land with undis- 
 turbed belief in the perfect harmony existing between their religion 
 and their duties as American citizens. It never occurs to their minds 
 to question the truth of a belief which all their experience confirms. 
 Love of religion and love of country burn together in their hearts. 
 They prefer our form of government before any other. They admire 
 
 * Mr. Straus was at the last moment prevented from keeping his engagement 
 by the illness of a member of his family. Rabbi David Phillipson of Cincin- 
 nati, at a subsequent session of the Congress, gave an address on the theme 
 assigned to Mr. Straus, a report of which will be found in this volume. 
 
26 
 
 its institutions and the spirit of its laws. They accept the Consti- 
 tution without reserve, with no desire, as Catholics, to see it changed 
 in any feature. They can with a clear conscience swear to uphold it. 
 
 The separation of Church and State in this country seems to them 
 the natural, inevitable and best conceivable plan, the one that would 
 work best among us, both for the good of religion and of the State. 
 Any change in their relations they would contemplate with dread.— 
 Cardinal Gibbons, in North American Review, March, 1909. 
 
 Give me liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according 
 to conscience, above all liberties. . . . How many other things 
 might be tolerated in peace and left to conscience, had we but charity, 
 and were it not the chief stronghold of our hypocrisy to be ever 
 judging one another. — John Milton. 
 
 " No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity 
 in tilling a field as in writing a poem." 
 
 "In the economy of God there is but one standard by which an 
 individual can succeed,— there is but one for a race. ... We 
 are to be tested in our patience, our forbearance, our perseverance, 
 our power to endure wrong, to withstand temptations, to economize, 
 to acquire and use skill in our ability to compete, to succeed in 
 commerce, to disregard the superficial for the real, the appearance 
 for the substance, to be great and yet small, learned and yet simple, 
 high and yet the servant of all." — Booker T. Washington. 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIBERALISM. 
 
 George Fox — The basis of his teaching was the belief that each soul 
 is in religious matters answerable not to its fellows, but to God alone, 
 without priestly mediation, because the Holy Spirit is immediately 
 present in every soul, and is thus a direct cause of illumination. From 
 this central belief flowed two important practical consequences, both 
 essentially modern : one was complete toleration, the other was com- 
 plete equality of human beings before the law. — John Fiske. 
 
 PROGRESS IN RELIGION. 
 
 The whole system of traditional orthodoxy, Greek, Latin, and 
 Protestant, must progress, or it will be left behind the age, and lose 
 its hold on thinking men. The Church must keep pace with civi- 
 lization, adjust herself to the modern conditions of religious and 
 political freedom, and accept the established results of biblical and 
 historical criticism and natural science. 
 
 God speaks in history and science as well as in the Bible and the 
 Church, and He cannot contradict Himself. Truth is sovereign, 
 and must and will prevail over all ignorance, error, and prejudice. — 
 Dr. Philip Schaff, address at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago. 
 
27 
 
 WEDNESDAY MORNING, APRIL 28, 9.30 a. m. 
 
 SECOND SESSION SESSION OF THE CONGRESS 
 
 Topic, " The Nature and Mission of Religious Liber- 
 
 AUSM." 
 
 9.30. Devotional Service. Conducted by Rev. John Clar- 
 ence Lee, D.D., Pastor Universalist Church of the Restoration, 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 9.40. Presidential Address. Henry W. Wilbur, Secretary 
 Committee for the Advancement of Friends' Principles, Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 10.00. Secretary's Report. Rev. Charles W. Wendte, For- 
 eign Secretary American Unitarian Association, Boston.* 
 
 10.10. Business. Appointment of Committees. 
 
 10.15. Address: topic, "What is Religious Liberalism?" 
 Rev. William Channing Gannett, D.D., Rochester, N. Y. 
 
 10.40. Address: topic, "What Liberal Religion Does for 
 Man's Higher Welfare and Happiness." President Frederick 
 W. Hamilton, D.D., Tufts College, Boston, Mass. 
 
 11.00. Discussion. 
 
 11.30. Address: topic, "What Liberal Religion has done for 
 America." Edwin D. Mead, President of the Free Religious 
 Association, Boston, Mass. 
 
 12.00. Discussion. 
 
 12.30. Adjournment. 
 
 THE INNER LIGHT. 
 
 Having for a considerable time past found, from full conviction, 
 that scarcely anything is so baneful to the present and future hap- 
 piness and welfare of mankind as a submission to tradition and 
 popular opinion, I have been led to see the necessity of investigating 
 for myself all customs and doctrines of a moral and religious nature, 
 either verbally or historically communicated, by the best and greatest 
 of men or angels, and not to sit down satisfied with anything but a 
 plain, clear testimony of the spirit and word of life and light in my 
 own heart and conscience. — Elias Hicks. 
 
 * The substance of this report is included in the Introduction to this volume. 
 
28 
 
 THE LIBERAL FAITH. 
 
 A religion wide as the widest outlook of the human mind, a 
 religion free as human thought, concurrent with reason, co-ordinate 
 with science; a religion in which the present predominates over 
 the past, and the future over the present, in which judgment tops 
 authority, and vision outruns tradition, — this is the instant demand 
 of a liberal faith. — Frederick H. Hedge, D. D. 
 
 "Why does the meadow flower its bloom expand? 
 Because the lovely little flower is free 
 Down to its roots, and in that freedom bold. 
 And so the grandeur of the forest tree 
 Comes not from casting in a formal mould, 
 But from its own divine vitality." Wordsworth. 
 
 THE LIBERAL PROBLEM. 
 
 Our problem is not primarily intellectual, but moral. It is the 
 reconciliation of the Spirit of Truth with the Spirit of Devotion. 
 Our task is to bring together thought and reverence, the fearless 
 mind and the uplifted heart. — Rev. A. W. Jackson. 
 
 The truly liberal build no citadel for themselves; they only parol 
 and keep the streets of the free city. — Julia Ward Howe. 
 
 Liberty is conservative: it builds up; it is like the sap of the oak 
 that courses to every twig and root, creating as it goes new genius, 
 developing ever more perfect forms, and ever greater strength. 
 License is liberty made insane — the household fire become a con- 
 flagration. — Celia Burleigh. 
 
 All progress is from less to more freedom; from ignorance and 
 subordination to intelligent self-direction. — Ibid. 
 
 We must look forward in trust to a better future. The difficulty, 
 however, is this : a narrow faith has much more energy than an 
 enlightened faith; the world belongs to will much more than to 
 wisdom. It is not, then, certain that liberty will triumph over 
 fanaticism, and, besides, independent thought will never have the 
 force of prejudice. — Henry Frederick Amiel. 
 
 ' Truth is great, and must prevail ; 
 
 Write the adage, where? and when? 
 Truth has failed, will fail again. 
 If not backed by earnest men." 
 
 A. J. Ellis. 
 
 Great is truth and stronger than all things. Truth abideth and 
 is strong forever; she liveth and conquereth forevermore. — Esdras, 
 First Book, chapter iv. 
 
29 
 
 WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 28, 2 p. m. 
 SECOND SESSION {continued) 
 
 2.00. Address : topic, " Liberal Religion a Positive Faith." 
 
 Ex-Governor Hon. Curtis Guild, Jr., of Boston, Mass. 
 
 2.20. Address : topic, " The Obligations and Opportunities 
 of Religious Liberalism in America To-day." Rev. Frederic W. 
 Perkins, D.D., of Lynn, Mass. 
 
 2.50. Discussion. 
 
 3.30. Adjournment. 
 
 Special arrangements made for afternoon sight-seeing, automo- 
 bile rides about Philadelphia and its environs, and personally 
 conducted tours about the city. 
 
 WEDNESDAY EVENING, APRIL 28 
 
 Social Reception. In the Clover Room of the Hotel Bellevue- 
 Stratford. Admission by membership badge. Brief addresses by 
 various speakers. 
 
 THE ESSENTIAL THING IN RELIGION. 
 
 Inward sanctity, pure love, disinterested attachment to God and 
 man, obedience of heart and life, sincere excellence of character, 
 this is the one thing needful, this is the essential thing in religion; 
 and all things else — ministers, churches, ordinances, places of wor- 
 ship — are all but means, helps, secondary influences, and utterly 
 worthless when separated from this. To imagine that God regards 
 anything but this, that he looks at anything but the heart, is to dis- 
 honor him, to express a mournful insensibility to his pure character. 
 Goodness, purity, virtue, this is the only distinction in God's sight. 
 This is intrinsically, essentially, everlastingly, and by its own nature 
 lovely, beautiful, glorious, divine. It owes nothing to time, to circum- 
 stance, to outward confessions. It shines by its own light. It is 
 God himself dwelling in the human soul. — William E. Channing. 
 
30 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S RELIGION. 
 
 "The conversation turned upon religious subjects, and Mr. Lincoln 
 made this impressive remark: 'I have never united myself to any 
 church, because I have found difficulty in giving my assent, with- 
 out mental reservation, to the long complicated statements of Christian 
 doctrine which characterize their Articles of Belief and Confessions 
 of Faith. When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole 
 qualification for membership, the Saviour's condensed statement of 
 the substance of both Law and Gospel, "Thou shalt love the Lord 
 thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
 mind, and thy neighbor as thyself," that church will I join with all 
 my heart and all my soul.' " — From " Six Months in the White House." 
 
 CHARLES DARWIN. 
 
 Acute as were his reasoning powers, vast as was his knowledge, 
 marvellous as was his tenacious industry under physical diffi<:ulties 
 which would have converted nine men out of ten into aimless in- 
 valids, it was not these qualities, great as they were, which impressed 
 those who were admitted to his intimacy with involuntary vener- 
 ation, but a certain and almost passionate honesty by which all his 
 thoughts and actions were irradiated as by a central fire. — Thomas 
 Huxley. 
 
 THE OLD-NEW BIBLE. 
 
 In the light of modern science, the sacred text has been trans- 
 formed. Out of the old chaos has come order. Out of the hope- 
 lessly conflicting statements in religion and morals has come the idea 
 of a sacred literature which mirrors the most striking evolution of 
 morals and religion in the history of our race. Of all the sacred 
 writings of the world, our own is the most beautiful and the most 
 precious. It exhibits to us the most complete religious development 
 to which humanity has attained, and holds before us the loftiest ideals 
 our race has known. — Andrew D- White. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 There never was a time in the history of the world when the 
 Church was a greater necessity than at present, because human society 
 was never in more need of the moral quality which it contributes to 
 man's life. Not more legislative statutes, but more of the spiritual 
 convictions of a rational piety; not more luxuries, but more of the 
 ethical motives that flow from the spiritual nurture of the Church,— 
 . . . this is the one supreme preparation for life to-dsiy.— Joseph 
 H. Crooker. 
 
 An enthusiasm for humanity is needed to transform the Church, 
 and, thus transformed, the Church would soon transform the world. 
 — Josiah Strong. 
 
31 
 
 THURSDAY MORNING, APRIL 29, 9.30 a. m. 
 
 THIRD SESSION OF THE CONGRESS 
 
 Topic, " Religion and Modern Life." 
 
 9.30. Devotional Service. Rev. Hugo Eisenlohr, Cincinnati, 
 Ohio. 
 
 9.40. Address: topic, "The Religion of Democracy, as exem- 
 plified by the Career of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1909)." Rev.. 
 Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Minister Abraham Lincoln Centre, Chi- 
 cago, 111. 
 
 10.20. Address: topic, "Evolution and Religion. Religion's 
 Debt to Charles Darwin (1809-1909)." Rev. Chas. E. St. John, 
 minister First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia. 
 
 11.00. Discussion. 
 
 11.30. Address: " The Bible in Modern Life." Rabbi David 
 Philipson, President Central Conference of American Rabbis, 
 Cincinnati, Ohio. 
 
 12.00. Discussion. 
 
 12.30. Adjournment. 
 
 THURSDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 29, 2 p. m. 
 third session (^continued) 
 
 2.00. Address: "The Church in Modern Life." Rev. 
 Frank O. Hall, D.D., Minister Church of the Divine Paternity, 
 New York, N. Y. 
 
 2.35. Discussion. 
 
 3.10. Address: "Jesus Christ in Modern Life." Prof. 
 George B. Foster, Ph.D., University of Chicago. 
 
 3.45. Address: "The Relation of Liberal Religion to For- 
 eign Missions." Albert Bowen, of Philadelphia. 
 
 Discussion. Led by Rev. Clay MacCauley, formerly of Tokio, 
 Japan. 
 
32 
 
 HONEST POLITICS. 
 
 "The Republic, the noblest form of government, is also the most 
 difficult of governments to maintain. Its integrity and perpetuity 
 depend, as in no other form of polity, on the righteousness, loyalty, 
 and incessant watchfulness of its citizens, both in their individual 
 and collective capacity. For either liberty must cast out corruption, 
 or corruption will destroy liberty." 
 
 SOCIAL BETTERMENT. 
 
 It is our duty to be a leaven of hope and help in the world. It 
 is our duty to serve our generation, to purify the blood of the 
 social organism, to arch the world of human life with a fairer sky, 
 to become ourselves a social Providence, to uncover in our own souls, 
 before the eyes and hearts of men, the face and life of God. — 
 William Thurston Brown. 
 
 We are trying to live on with a social organization of which the 
 day is over. Certainly equality will never of itself give us a per- 
 fect civilization. But with such inequality as ours a perfect civi- 
 ization is impossible. Our inequality materializes our upper class, vul- 
 garizes our middle, brutalizes our lower. Political freedom may very 
 well be established by aristocratic founders, social freedom, equality, 
 that is rather the field of the conquests of democracy. — Matthew 
 Arnold. 
 
 I confess I am not at all charmed with the ideal of life held out 
 by those who think that the normal state of human beings is that 
 of struggling to get on; that the trampling, crushing, elbowing, and 
 treading on each other's heels, which form the existing type of human 
 life, are the most desirable lot of humankind, or anything but the 
 disagreeable symptoms of one of the phases of industrial progress. — 
 John Stuart Mill- 
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 There is no fundamental antagonism between labor and capital. 
 Capital is, in large measure, the product of labor, and there can be, 
 or at least there should be, no conflict between him who creates and 
 the thing he creates. In the final analysis the problem is in the 
 distribution of wealth; there always has been, and possibly there al- 
 ways will be, a difference of opinion as to the equitable distribution 
 of wealth. But I am optimistic enough to believe that, as time goes 
 on, the men of both labor and capital will, to a greater and greater 
 extent, adjust their relations amicably and honorably, and without 
 recourse to the strike or lockout.— /o/tn Mitchell. 
 
33 
 
 THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL 29, 8 O'CLOCK 
 
 FOURTH SESSION OF THE CONGRESS 
 
 Topic, " Religion and the Social Question." 
 
 8.00. Devotional Service. 
 
 8.10. Address: "Religion and Politics." Justice F. J. 
 Swayze, Supreme Court of New Jersey. 
 
 8.40. Address: "Religion and Social Service." Alexander 
 Johnson, General Secretary National Conference of Charities and 
 Correction, Fort Wayne, Ind. 
 
 9.10. Address: "Religion and Modern Industrialism." 
 John Mitchell, late President United Mine Workers of America. 
 
 Whatever demoralizes the man and the citizen, whatever violates 
 the dictates of conscience or lowers the standard of rectitude in his 
 soul, inflicts a more dangerous wound upon the Constitution, and 
 shakes the fabric of our nationality more than any open treason. The 
 basis of all public law is private virtue. The anchorage of our na- 
 tional Union is in personal rectitude and reverence. If it holds by 
 anything more shallow than this it is unsafe, and they who flout 
 individual conscience and the moral law in the soul do violence to 
 the strongest guarantees of all order and all law — Rev. F. H. Chapin. 
 
 THE SO-CALLED PHARISAISM OF REFORM. 
 
 No American, it seems to me, is so unworthy the name as he who 
 attempts to extenuate or defend any national abuse, who denies or 
 tries to hide it, or who derides as pessimists and Pharisees those who 
 indignantly disown it and raise the cry of reform. If a man proposes 
 the redress of any public wrong, he is asked severely whether he 
 considers himself so much wiser and better than other men that he 
 must disturb the existing order and pose as a saint. If he denounces 
 an evil, he is exhorted to beware of spiritual pride. If he points out 
 a dangerous public tendency or censures the action of a party, he is 
 advised to cultivate good-humor, to look on the bright side, to remem- 
 ber that the world is a very good world, at least the best going, and 
 very much better than it was a hundred years ago. It is an ill-sign 
 when public men find in exposure and denunciation of public abuses 
 evidence of the Pharisaic disposition and a tendency in the critic to 
 think himself holier than other men. To the cant about the Phar- 
 isaism of reform there is one short and final answer. The man who 
 tells the truth is a holier man than the liar. The man who does not 
 steal is a better man than the thief. — George William Curtis. 
 
34 
 PEACE ON EARTH. 
 
 From the beginning Friends have been advocates of peace. A 
 Quaker civilization would abolish armies and navies, do away with 
 all war and preparations for war. It would eliminate altogether the 
 principal of destructive force from governmental control. — A. M. 
 Powell. 
 
 My first wish is to see this plague to mankind banished from the 
 earth. — George Washington. 
 
 War is the most ferocious and futile of human follies. — John Hay. 
 
 A SOCIAL CONSCIENCE. 
 
 Our days witness a recoil from the extreme inwardness of our 
 forefathers' religion. Human affections warm us more. Human du- 
 ties are nobler in our view. Social interests are of deeper moment, 
 and the whole scene of man's visible life, no longer the mere vesti- 
 bule of an invisible futurity, has a worth and dignity of its own, 
 which philanthropy delights to honor, and only fanaticism can despise. 
 — James Martineau. 
 
 TRUE MARRIAGE. 
 
 In the marriage union the independence of the husband and wife 
 should be equal, their dependence mutual, and their obligations recipro- 
 cal. — Lucretia Mott. 
 
 A NORMAL CHILDHOOD. 
 
 The new view of the child, — normal birth, physical protection, 
 joyous infancy, useful education, and an ever fuller inheritance of 
 the accumulated riches of civilization. — Edward T. Devine. 
 
 A REFORMER'S VISION. 
 
 Am I sure of the success of the temperance movement? As sure 
 as I am that the sun will rise to-morrow. Let me only feel that 
 the everlasting right of God is underneath my feet, and sometime, 
 somewhere, I win. I have lived a good many years in the world. I 
 have gone through many reforms. I have at last arrived at the point 
 where my confidence in the certain victory of all moral effort, in the 
 immortality and triumph of what is right, is fixed, and never will 
 die. Victory may be postponed, but I am confident that it will come. 
 The time will be when, if we continue this work against the liquor 
 traffic, the end will come. You and I may not live to see it, but our 
 children and our children's children will be the gainers, and we on 
 the other side shall take our part in the great rejoicing, when the cry 
 of jubilee shall rise, " Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reign- 
 eth!" — Mary A. Livermore. 
 
35 
 
 FRIDAY MORNING, APRIL 30, 9.30 a. m. 
 
 FIFTH SESSION OF THE CONGRESS 
 
 Topic, " Religious and Social Reform." 
 
 9.30. Devotional Service. 
 
 9.40. Address : " The Duty of Religious Liberals towards 
 the Peace Movement." Dr. William I. Hull, Swarthmore Col- 
 lege, Pennsylvania. 
 
 10.10. Discussion. Led by Miss Anna B. Eckstein, of Bos- 
 ton. 
 
 10.40. Address: " Religion and the Social Conscience." 
 Prof. Francis Greenwood Peabody, D.D., of Harvard Univer- 
 sity. 
 
 1 1. 1 5. Discussion. Led by W. J. Ogden, Baltimore. 
 11.40. Address: "The Duty of Religious Liberals with Respect 
 to Marriage and Divorce." Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer, Director 
 Summer School of Ethics, New York. 
 
 12.10. Discussion. 
 
 12.30. Adjournment. 
 
 FRIDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 30, 2 p. m. 
 
 FIFTH SESSION (continued) 
 
 2. Address : " The Duty of Religious Liberals with Respect 
 to the Child." Mrs. Frederick Nathan, President Consumers' 
 League, New York. 
 
 2.30. Discussion. 
 
 3.00. Address : " The Duty of Religious Liberals toward the 
 Temperance Reform." Wilson S. Doan, Indianapolis, Ind. 
 
 3.30. Discussion. Led by Rev. Pedro Ilgen, D.D., Pastor 
 German Evangelical Church of the Holy Spirit, St. Louis, Mo. 
 
36 
 
 THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 We have grown up under different influences. We bear different 
 names. . . . Diversities of opinion may incline us to worship under 
 different roofs, or diversities of tastes or habit to worship with dif- 
 ferent forms. But ... we may still honor and love and rejoice in 
 one another's spiritual life and progress as truly as if we were cast 
 into one and the same unyielding form. ... In many great 
 truths, in those which are most quickening, purifying, and consol- 
 ing, we all, I hope, agree. There is a common ground of practice 
 aloof from all controversy, on which we may all meet. We may 
 all unite hearts and hands in doing good, in fulfilling God's pur- 
 poses of love towards our race, in toiling and suffering for the cause 
 of humanity, in spreading intelligence, freedom, and virtue, in mak- 
 ing God known for the reverence, love and imitation of his creatures, 
 in resisting the abuses and corruptions of past ages, in exploring and 
 drying up the sources of poverty, in rescuing the fallen from intem- 
 perance, in succoring the orphan and widow, in enlightening and ele- 
 vating the depressed portions of the community, in breaking the yoke 
 of the oppressed and enslaved, in exposing and withstanding the spirit 
 and horrors of war, in sending God's word to the ends of the earth, 
 in redeeming the world from sin and woe. . . . May this universal 
 charity descend on us, and possess our hearts; may our narrowness, 
 exclusiveness, and bigotry melt away ! — William Ellery Charming. 
 
 PEACE AND LOVE. 
 
 With the sweet word of peace 
 
 We bid our brethren go, — 
 Peace, as a river to increase 
 
 And ceaseless flow. 
 With the calm word of prayer 
 
 We earnestly commend 
 Each other to thy watchful care. 
 
 Eternal Friend! 
 
 I 
 With the dear word of love 
 
 We give our friends farewell; 
 Our love below and Thine above 
 
 With them shall dwell. 
 With the strong word of faith 
 
 We stay ourselves on Thee, 
 That Thou, O Lord, in life and death 
 
 Our help shalt be. 
 
37 
 
 FRIDAY EVENING, APRIL 30 
 
 SIXTH AND CLOSING SESSON OF THE CONGRESS 
 
 Topic, " The Fellowship of the Spirit." 
 
 7.45. Devotional Service. 
 
 8.00. Address: "Liberty and Union in Religion." Rev. 
 Charles G. Ames, D.D., Minister Church of the Disciples, Bos- 
 ton, Mass. 
 
 8.15. Seven-minute addresses by representative members of 
 the following and other religious bodies : 
 
 Baptist. Rev. Dr. George H. Ferris, of Philadelphia. 
 
 Congregationalist. Rev. C. S. Patton, of Ann Arbor, Mich. 
 
 Christian. Rev. Wm. H. Hainer, Irvington, N. J. 
 
 Disciple. Rev. L. G Batman, Philadelphia. 
 
 Episcopalian. Rev. Dr. Henry Mottet, of New York. 
 
 Ethical Culture Society. Mr. Percival Chubb, of New York. 
 
 Friend. Prof. Dr. Jesse H. Holmes, of Philadelphia. 
 
 German Evangelical. Rev. Carl A. Voss, of Pittsburg, Pa. 
 
 Jewish. Rabbi Dr. Joseph Krauskopf, of Philadelphia. 
 
 Lutheran. Rev. Luther DeYeo, Germantown, Pa. 
 
 Schwenkfelderian. Rev. H. Heebner, of Philadelphia. 
 
 Universalist. Rev. J. Clarence Lee, D.D., of Philadelphia. 
 
 Unitarian. Rev. W. H. Fish, of Meadville, Penn. 
 
 Closing remarks by the President of the Congress, Henry W. 
 Wilbur. 
 
 Glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh good! — Ro- 
 mans ii, 10. 
 
38 
 
 TESTIMONIES ADOPTED BY THE CONGRESS 
 
 A STATEMENT FOR THE YEAR 1909 
 
 With the world hungering for righteousness, and thirsting for 
 the love and sympathy which belongs to brotherliness, the first 
 Congress of the National Federation of Religious Liberals in 
 session in Philadelphia April 30, 1909, expresses its firm con- 
 viction that the time has come for definite and united efforts to 
 benefit the world, with such purpose overshadowing differences 
 of creed or diversity of belief. 
 
 To this end we declare it our purpose by the presentation of 
 ideals, by the appeal to public sentiment, by efforts to secure the 
 enactment of law, where law may help, and by the employment 
 of all possible orderly and constructive efforts to make it easier 
 for men to do right, and more and more possible for our human- 
 ity to reach its divinely ordered estate. 
 
 With an acknowledgment of the intellectual, moral and spir- 
 itual uplift which has come to us during these three days of com- 
 munion; with an added appreciation of the good thing it is for 
 brethren to dwell together in unity; we hereby express our de- 
 sire for a second Congress at such time and place as the executive 
 committee, in consultation with the members of the Federation, 
 may determine. 
 
 Whereas, The first Congress of the National Federation of 
 Religious Liberals is meeting in Philadelphia, the City of Broth- 
 erly Love, the City of William Penn's Holy Experiment, at a 
 time in the world's history when there is a great and fruitful 
 promise that William Penn's ideal of international arbitration 
 by means of a Court of Arbitral Justice can be speedily realized 
 by the nations: 
 
 Be it resolved, That the said Congress urge upon our American 
 Government its opportunity of fulfilling the aspiration of gen- 
 erations of the best American citizens by enacting the role of 
 
39 
 
 Peace Maker among the nations, by pushing forward in every 
 pacific way the positive programme for the realization of univer- 
 sal peace adopted by the two Hague Conferences, and especially 
 by the promotion of the Court of Arbitral Justice. 
 
 And whereas, Both reason and experience prove beyond the 
 shadow of a reasonable doubt that increasing armaments are in- 
 evitably and irresistibly opposed to increasing arbitration. 
 
 Be it further resolved by the said Congress, That our American 
 Government be urgently requested to enter upon negotiations with 
 the governments of the other nations to bring about an interna- 
 tional agreement for the limitation of armaments, and thus to 
 lift from the people's backs an oppressive, increasing and iniqui- 
 tous burden, as well as to remove the chief obstacle from the path 
 of international arbitration. 
 
 We, members of many different American denominations, 
 assembled in the National Federation of Religious Liberals at 
 Philadelphia, desire to express our deep concern over the present 
 conditions in Turkey and its dependencies. 
 
 Assuming that the terrible reports recently received of the mas- 
 sacre of many thousands of Christians by fanatical and mis- 
 guided Moslems are correct, we can find no words to express the 
 intensity of our horror and indignation at such crimes against 
 humanity. 
 
 In all tenderness we sympathize with the endangered Christian 
 missionaries. At the same time we recognize that there are high- 
 minded Moslems, and we would express our hearty interest in 
 all their efforts for the reformation of their government and the 
 improvement of their people. 
 
 Therefore, be it resolved. That we respectfully urge the Presi- 
 dent and Congress of the United States to do all that may be 
 possible towards rebuking these atrocious crimes, and towards 
 preventing their repetition. 
 
 Resolved, That this Federation expresses its hearty sympathy 
 with all persons in all walks of life who are engaged in efforts for 
 human betterment. 
 
 Resolved, That especially we pledge our support to those who 
 
40 
 
 seek the abolition of the child-labor evil, the overthrow of the 
 " sweating system," the establishment of the living wage as the 
 minimum in any industry, and the protection of the workers from 
 dangerous machinery and unsanitary conditions of employment. 
 
 Whereas, The traditions of this house, embodied in the prac- 
 tice of the Society of Friends and nobly and sweetly set forth 
 by Lucretia Mott and other true men and women, are wholly for 
 equality of opportunity and service for men and women. 
 
 And Whereas, Freedom of thought creates and should go hand 
 in hand with freedom of service. 
 
 Resolved, That this body places itself on record as believing in 
 political equality for men and women; that women and men 
 should receive equal protection from and recognize an equal duty 
 to the State; and that to this end the ballot should be granted to 
 women on equal terms with men. 
 
 The Congress refers to the executive committee, with the prom- 
 ise of our support and approval, the devising and working out of 
 plans for the employment and support of a physician who shall 
 render skilled public service in some foreign land, if in the judg- 
 ment of the committee plans for his labor seem right, wise and 
 practical; the only requirement of such missionary being ability 
 and a willingness to do good. 
 
 Acknowledgments. The thanks of the National Federation 
 of Religious Liberals are returned to the monthly meeting of the 
 Society of Friends in Philadelphia for the use of their Meeting 
 House during the sessions of this Congress, and for their unre- 
 mitting and generous activity for the success of our gathering, and 
 the comfort and welfare of the speakers and members of the 
 Federation. 
 
 We would acknowledge especially the large-hearted hospitality 
 of the member of the Society of Friends to whom we are indebted 
 for the delightful reception at the Hotel Bellevue-Stratford, on 
 Wednesday evening last. 
 
 Our gratitude is due also to the American Unitarian Association 
 for its large contribution towards the preliminary expenses of the 
 
41 
 
 organization, as well as for the services of its international and 
 interdenominational Secretary, Rev. Charles W. Wendte, in this 
 connection. 
 
 The Congress furthermore returns its thanks to the officers and 
 committees who have labored so faithfully and effectively for the 
 success of these meetings, especially to Henry W. Wilbur, its Presi- 
 dent, and to its Secretary and Treasurer; to the denominational 
 and other journals which have heralded and encouraged its for- 
 mation; to the newspaper press which has reported its proceedings; 
 and to all friends of our Congress who have contributed by gen- 
 erous gifts and efficient service to insure the realization of this 
 endeavor to unite the religious liberals of the United States in 
 testimony and service for their common principles and ideals. 
 
 It was voted that the present Executive Committee of twenty- 
 five be continued ; that Rev. Charles W. Wendte of Boston act as 
 Secretary to the Federation and Henry Justice of Philadelphia as 
 Treasurer. Furthermore, that Henry W. Wilbur continue to 
 serve as President until the next Congress, when a local chair- 
 man is to be chosen by the organizations which have invited the 
 Federation to their city. 
 
 The place of the next meeting was referred to the Executive 
 Committee with power to act. 
 
 It was voted that the Proceedings of this First Congress of 
 Religious Liberals be published in pamphlet form for wider dis- 
 tribution, and that a copy be sent to every member of the Federa- 
 tion. 
 
42 
 
 First Topic of the Congress, 
 
 "RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE AND GOOD 
 CITIZENSHIP " 
 
 welcome by the president of the congress, henry W. WIL- 
 BUR, of the RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS, PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 Assembling in this plain place of worship, you will miss the blare 
 of the trumpets and the playing of the harpers, and many other 
 spectacular features which are to be found elsewhere. We have 
 none of these things, but such as we have, give we unto you. 
 We wish it understood, however, that the welcome is none the 
 less cordial because of the lack of outward demonstration. We 
 trust that you will feel at home with us, and whatever we can 
 do for your comfort and happiness we will cheerfully perform. 
 
 Near where the chairman now stands in this meeting house, 
 one of the gentlest spirits and broadest thinkers of our religious 
 body for twenty years delivered her testimony to the truth. On 
 what we call the men's side of the gallery was the associate of 
 this gifted woman. In their day it would have delighted the 
 hearts of Lucretia Mott and George Truman to see this com- 
 pany of people, representing different communions, gathered to 
 consider the vital interests of the truth under the roof-tree of 
 the Religious Society in which both these ministers lived and 
 labored. In their name, in the name of all the spirits of just 
 men and women made perfect who have struggled and labored 
 and passed on, and in the name of the broader brotherhood of 
 our time, I bid you welcome to this house, which this year cele- 
 brates the fiftieth anniversary of its occupation as a place of 
 worship. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, REV. CHARLES W. WBNDTE, BOSTON, 
 SECRETARY OF THE CONGRESS: 
 
 On the water-gate of the great world's fair in Chicago was 
 graven this sentence: "Toleration in Religion the best fruit of the 
 nineteenth century." This sentiment, which is said to have been 
 
43 
 
 framed by President Eliot of Harvard University, admirably 
 embodies the lesson of history and the spirit of our meeting this 
 evening. Of all the evils which have arisen from man's igno- 
 rance and unreasoning hatred, the worst are those which have 
 resulted from religious bigotry and intolerance. From the latter 
 have sprung the terrible persecutions which in all ages and sys- 
 tems of faith have brought unspeakable suffering and misery upon 
 the human race, arrested the free development of truth, and ren- 
 dered nugatory the beneficent influence of religion itself. 
 
 What a terrible misconception was this of the spirit of true 
 religion, and of the teachings of the Founder of Christianity, who 
 said : " By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, that 
 ye have love one toward another." 
 
 Nothing so truly measures the progress of mankind as the in- 
 creasing tolerance manifested among modern and civilized na- 
 tions, and which is so characteristic of our own time and country. 
 In America to-day the reign of fire and sword in religion is 
 over; the era of reason and conscience, of sympathetic justice 
 and good will has begun. Catholics and Protestants, Calvinists 
 and Socinians, Christians and Jews, live together in comparative 
 harmony, and mutually respect, even if they do not always share, 
 each others opinions. The last stronghold of intolerance, the 
 prejudice of race, is undermined and gradually disappearing. 
 The creeds of the churches may not have changed to any great 
 extent; it is the spirit of the age which has changed. Men 
 have come, through sad experiences, to learn the folly and futility 
 of persecution, the waste and wickedness of war for opinion's 
 sake. They have come to recognize that goodness is of no sect, 
 that character is above creed, life more important than thought. 
 Love, not intolerant hatred, is the master-passion of our age, 
 the common brotherhood of man the ideal of its religion. 
 
 With the growth of republican institutions there has come 
 into birth a new sentiment of personal independence. Finally, 
 science has entered the field as a great emancipator, enlarging 
 and broadening men's minds and teaching the relativity of all 
 truth. In the dawning of this twentieth century, liberty of 
 thought and speech, tolerance to others' opinions, breadth and 
 liberality of mind, are distinguishing characteristics of the best 
 and most influential elements of American society. 
 
44 
 
 Not that displays of intolerance have entirely ceased among 
 us. The instances of racial antipathy and religious prejudice 
 are too numerous and too recent to enable us to make that asser- 
 tion. But we may claim that they are greatly modified in in- 
 tensity, and are comparatively harmless. They are in no in- 
 stance representative of our American people, as a vphole. When 
 they are exhibited, the leading voices among us are raised 
 in condemnation, and the nation promptly disowns and sup- 
 presses them. For we live in a tolerant age; we are a peo- 
 ple which has a passion for freedom of thought and speech, 
 for justice and equal rights. It is to newly vindicate these 
 ideals of American society, to protest against any attempts 
 to revive among us the racial and religious bigotry which dis- 
 figured other and earlier epochs of human history, that this con- 
 gress has been called. This opening meeting, especially, is to 
 be devoted to the aiBrmation that mutual tolerance and good- 
 will between all classes, races and churches of the republic is 
 a fundamental condition of our religious and civil welfare. The 
 eminent speakers who are to address you represent creeds and 
 churches widely divergent in their antecedents and opinions. 
 From them you will learn anew that differences of religious 
 belief form no necessary barrier to mutual consideration and 
 good-will, to a common love of country, and the faithful and 
 equal performance of the duties of good citizenship. 
 
 THE JEW AND GOOD CITIZENSHIP 
 
 RABBI DAVID PHILIPSON, D.D., OF CINCINNATI 
 
 In length of residence and active participation in every strug- 
 gle for the welfare of the country, the story of the Jew in America 
 equals in interest that of any other religious denomination. The 
 Jew in the United States is American to the core, and has en- 
 tered with his fellow-citizens of every faith and opinion, who 
 understand the principles upon which our American institutions 
 rest, into the true spirit of this government, which (in the words 
 written by George Washington, in answer to a congratulatory 
 address directed to him by the Jewish congregation of Newport, 
 R. I.), "gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assist- 
 
45 
 
 ance, and requires only that those who live under its protection 
 shall demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occa- 
 sions their effectual support." 
 
 The discovery of America. Jews were instrumental in mak- 
 ing the voyage of Columbus possible. Negotiations between the 
 navigator and Ferdinand and Isabella, the King and Queen of 
 Spain, had been suspended when the Jewish favorite of Ferdi- 
 nand, Luis de Santangel, chancellor of the royal household of 
 Aragon, induced them to lend favorable consideration once again 
 to the appeal of Columbus. He himself advanced 17,000 ducats 
 out of his own fortune, for which he would not accept interest, 
 toward fitting out Columbus' first expedition. The discovery 
 of this fact has destroyed the century-old legend that Queen 
 Isabella pawned her jewels to secure the money for the equip- 
 ment of the expedition of Columbus, and led the late Prof. 
 Herbert B. Adams, of the Johns Hopkins University, to coin 
 the epigram, " Not jewels, but Jews, were the real financial basis 
 for the first expedition of Columbus." It was undoubtedly be- 
 cause of the assistance given him by Santangel that Columbus 
 wrote him the first detailed account of his voyage. This was 
 in the form of a letter written by Columbus on February 15, 
 1493, from the Azores, where the navigator stopped on his home- 
 ward voyage. 
 
 The first European who set foot on American soil was a 
 Jew by birth, Luis de Torres, the interpreter of the expedition 
 of Columbus. He settled in Cuba and lived there the remainder 
 of his life. He was the first European to discover the use of 
 tobacco. 
 
 Dr. M. Kayserling, who pointed out these facts in his book, 
 " Christopher Columbus and the Participation of the Jews in the 
 Spanish and Portuguese Discoveries," mentions a number of 
 other persons of Jewish descent among those who sailed with 
 Columbus on his epoch-making voyage, viz.: Alonzo de la Calle, 
 Rodrigo Sanchez, and Maestre Bernal, the ship's surgeon. 
 
 Early Jewish settlers. The: first Jewish arrivals in the 
 New World settled in South America, and the islands of the south- 
 ern sea. But we are concerned here with the story of the Jews 
 in the United States, and therefore must dismiss with this mere 
 
46 
 
 mention all reference to the settling of Jews in other portions 
 of the western hemisphere. 
 
 In 1654, thirty-four years after the Mayflower landed the Pil- 
 grim fathers at Plymouth, Mass., the St. Caterina arrived at New 
 Amsterdam (the present New York) with twenty-three Jews 
 on board, who in all likelihood came from Brazil, which coun- 
 try the Jews left when it passed from the possession of the Dutch 
 to the Portuguese. Shortly before the arrival of this band of 
 Jewish pilgrims, the first Jews known to have arrived at New 
 Amsterdam, came on the ship Pear Tree. These were Jacob 
 Barsimson and Jacob Aboab. It is quite likely that even before 
 this, stray individual Jews may have found their way to some 
 portions or other of the country. 
 
 These first Jewish arrivals did not secure the permission to 
 settle in New Amsterdam without difficulty. Governor Peter 
 Stuyvesant was much opposed to them and desired to expel them, 
 and it was only after the directors of the Dutch East India Com- 
 pany in Holland espoused the cause of the new comers that he 
 receded from his position. 
 
 The most masterful of these first settlers was Asser Levy. He 
 made the first fight for the rights of citizenship. In 1655 an 
 ordinance was passed that no Jews be permitted to serve in the 
 militia, but that in lieu of this they be taxed sixty-five stivers 
 each per month. Asser Levy refused to pay this tax and peti- 
 tioned the council for permission to perform military duty like 
 all the other citizens of the colony, or else to be relieved from 
 paying the tax. His petition was rejected. He seems then to 
 have appealed to the authorities in Holland and they appear to 
 have granted his petition, for we find that he did perform guard 
 duty like other citizens. He continued to fight the cause of equal 
 rights for the Jews, for eventually Stuyvesant and the council 
 granted them burgher rights. 
 
 New Amsterdam having passed from the possession of the 
 Dutch to the British, its citizens were required to take the oath of 
 abjuration. The General Assembly of New York passed an act 
 on November 15, 1727, to the effect that when this oath was 
 taken by a Jew the words " upon the true faith of a Christian " 
 might be omitted. 
 
47 
 
 In 1658 fifteen Jewish families arrived at Newport, R. I., 
 from Holland. This community grew apace until in time it 
 became very prosperous. In 1763 it built the handsome syna- 
 gogue which is still standing. The congregation was disorganized 
 at the time of the Revolution, when a large number of the Jews 
 who sympathized with the patriot cause left the city upon its cap- 
 ture by the British. Aaron Lopez, the foremost member of the 
 community, with seventy others, removed to Leicester, Mass., 
 where Lopez founded the Leicester Academy. 
 
 Mention of Jews in Pennsylvania occurs for the first time in 
 1657, but there were no Jews in considerable numbers until the 
 following century. The first Jewish name met with in the 
 annals of Philadelphia is that of Jonas Aaron, 1703. Jews as- 
 sembled for religious service in Philadelphia about 1745. There 
 were Jewish settlements elsewhere also in Pennsylvania; Joseph 
 Simon arrived in Lancaster in 1740; Meyer Hart was one of 
 the founders of the town of Easton in 1747; and Aaron Levy ar- 
 rived in Northumberland county in 1760; he became a large 
 landowner, and the town of Aaronsburg, which he assisted in 
 laying out, was named for him. 
 
 The interesting character, Dr. Jacob Lombrozo, " the Jew 
 doctor," is first mentioned in Maryland archives in 1657; he was 
 one of the earliest medical practitioners in Maryland ; letters of 
 denization were issued to him investing him with all the privi- 
 leges of a native or a naturalized subject; he owned a plantation 
 in Charles county along Naugeny Creek. 
 
 Occasional mention dating from the close of the seventeenth 
 century is made of Jews in South Carolina (Simon Valentine, 
 in 1695) but they did not arrive in numbers till after 1740. 
 The first congregation dates from 1750. 
 
 The Colony of Georgia was settled in the year 1733. In July 
 of that same year a company of forty Jews arrived. Jews may 
 therefore be considered in the light of original settlers of the 
 colony; in truth they constituted one-third of the inhabitants of 
 the colony. The first native Georgian is said to have been 
 Philip Minis, the first Jewish child born in the colony. In the 
 general conveyance of town lots, gardens, and farms, executed 
 December 21, 1733, we find among the grantees the names of 
 
48 
 
 seven Jews. These original settlers demeaned themselves in 
 such fashion that Georgia's authoritative historian, Charles J. 
 Jones, says of them, in his history of Georgia: " In the record 
 of the Jews of the Colony of Georgia, there is no stain." 
 
 The revolutionary period. In all the wars of the country, 
 Jews have taken prominent and honorable part. How great 
 this participation was, has been made clear by Mr. Simon Wolf, 
 of Washington, in his book, "The American Jew as Patriot, 
 Citizen, and Soldier," the immediate occasion of whose compila- 
 tion was the slanderous charge made by a writer in the North 
 American Review of December, i8gi, that no Jews had served 
 in the Civil War. 
 
 Beginning with the Revolutionary struggle, Jews have fought 
 on all the battlefields where patriots gave their lives that the 
 country might live. A brief resume of this record vdll prove 
 of interest. 
 
 The first step which led eventually to the War of the Revolu- 
 tion was the signing of the Non-Importation Resolutions of 1765 
 by merchants of the Colonies. Among these signers were nine 
 Jews. Citizens of the Colony of Georgia issued a protest against 
 the blockade of Boston Harbor and taxation without representa- 
 tion; this was signed by the prominent citizens of the Colony; 
 among the signatures appear the names of two Jews. 
 
 Among the foremost citizens of South Carolina at this period 
 was a Jew, Francis Salvador. He was a member of the pro- 
 vincial Congress of the Colony which assembled at Charleston, 
 January 11, 1775. He signed, on the part of the patriots of 
 South Carolina, a compact between the Tories and the patriots. 
 He was also a member of the second provincial Congress which 
 assembled in Charleston in November, 1775. He was killed on 
 an expedition against the Tories and Indians on August i, 1776. 
 
 The records of the Revolutionary army are incomplete; there 
 is no way of discovering how many fought in the colonial armies. 
 Of the list of Jew soldiers whose names have been preserved a 
 large proportion are officers. The names of twenty-seven of 
 these officers are given. It is more than likely that the names of 
 many Jewish privates are unknown, for the number of officers is 
 disproportionately large. Among these officers special mention 
 
49 
 
 may be made of Col. David S. Franks, Col. Solomon Bush, Col. 
 Isaac Franks, Major Benjamin Nones, Capt. Jacob de la Motta, 
 Lieut. Abraham Seixas, and Lieut. David Sarzedas. 
 
 The company of the Charles Town ( Charlestown ) , S. C, regi- 
 ment of militia, commanded by Captain Richard Lushington, 
 included twenty-six Jews. 
 
 Esther Hays was a Jewish heroine of the Revolution. Her 
 husband, David Hays, was in the patriot army ; she was left with 
 her children in the home in Bedford, Westchester County, New 
 York. In July, 1779, Tories entered her home while she was 
 lying ill, and demanded of her information concerning the patriot 
 plans which she was supposed to possess. When she refused, her 
 home was fired; she and her children were saved by a faithful 
 negro servant. 
 
 The Jewish congregation of New York, led by its patriot 
 rabbi, Gershom Mendes Seixas, disbanded when the British ap- 
 proached the city. Mr. Seixas left New York and, after a 
 brief sojourn at Stratford, Conn., removed to Philadelphia, tak- 
 ing with him the sacred belongings of the synagogue. Quite a 
 number of the patriot Jews who had left New York on the ap- 
 proach of the British had settled in Philadelphia, and desiring 
 to organize a congregation, induced Mr. Seixas to come to Phila- 
 delphia for this purpose. He did so, and organized with them 
 the Mickve Israel congregation. In 1784 he returned to New 
 York, where he continued to be a prominent figure ; he was trustee 
 of King's (now Columbia) College. In 1789, at the inaugura- 
 tion of President Washington, he participated 'in the ceremonies 
 together with thirteen ministers of other creeds. 
 
 Ha}rm Salomon rendered invaluable financial services to the 
 government during the darkest days of the Revolutionary War. 
 He was the chief individual reliance of Robert Morris, the Gov- 
 ernment's Superintendent of Finance. In Morris' diary, in which 
 he recorded his financial transactions, Salomon's name appears 
 seventy-five times. The sums advanced by Salomon in aid of 
 the Government aggregated apparently 200,000 dollars. 
 
 Another Jew, Isaac Moses, helped out Robert Morris by pledg- 
 ing 3,000 pounds to the patriot cause. 
 
50 
 
 Philip Minis advanced 7,000 dollars towards paying the troops 
 of Virginia and North Carolina in the State of Georgia. 
 
 The services of the Jews at this critical time, when the whole 
 Jewish population was scarcely three thousand, were referred to 
 by Col. J. W. D. Worthington, in 1824, during the delibera- 
 tions of the Maryland Legislature on the so-called Jew Bill, in 
 these words, " There were many valuable Jewish members, officers 
 principally, in the Revolution, from the South chiefly, and these 
 were ever at their post and always foremost in hazardous enter- 
 prises." 
 
 Other wars. Just as Jews fought side by side with their 
 fellow-citizens of other faiths in the War of the Revolution, so 
 also were they at the front in all the other wars which have been 
 waged in defence of their country. The lists of Jews who fought 
 in the War of 18 12, the Mexican War, and the Civil War on 
 both sides, can be found in the book of Simon Wolfe, already re- 
 ferred to, while the list of the Jewish soldiers in the Spanish War, 
 which was fought after the publication of this book, is given in 
 the American Jewish Year Book for 1900-01, published by the 
 Jewish Publication Society of America. 
 
 Forty-three Jews are recorded in the War of 18 12, among them, 
 Brigadier-General Joseph Bloomfield, Col. Nathan Myers, Cap- 
 tains Myer Moses and Mordecai Myers, and Captain Levi Charles 
 Harby, who fought also in the Mexican War and the Seminole 
 War in Florida. 
 
 Fifty-seven Jews are recorded in the Mexican War, among 
 them. General David de Leon, who received the thanks of Con- 
 gress twice for his gallantry; David S. Kauffman, aide to Gen. 
 Douglas, who, as speaker of the Texas Assembly, had advocated 
 annexation to the United States, and who served In the United 
 States Congress as representative from Texas from the date of 
 annexation to his death, in 1 851; Lieut. Henry Seeligson, who 
 bore himself so well in the battle of Monterey that Gen. Taylor 
 sent for him and complimented him highly. In Baltimore, a 
 volunteer corps of Jews was organized in July, 1846, for service 
 in this war. 
 
 In the Civil War the records of soldiers who fought on both 
 sides are better kept than in the earlier wars. From these rec- 
 
51 
 
 ords it appears that over 7,500 Jews fought in the Northern and 
 Southern armies, a larger number in proportion to the number of 
 Jews who were then in the United States, about 150,000, than 
 was furnished by any other religious denomination ; seven Jews 
 received medals of honor from Congress for conspicuous gallantry. 
 Of staff officers who were Jews, forty are mentioned; there were 
 eleven Jewish naval officers. There were nine generals, eighteen 
 colonels, eight lieutenant-colonels, forty majors, two hundred and 
 four captains, three hundred and twenty-five lieutenants, forty- 
 eight adjutants, and twenty-five surgeons of the Jewish faith. 
 Where so many brave men on both sides performed conspicuous 
 deeds of gallantry, it were invidious to single out any for special 
 mention ; I must therefore content myself with referring any that 
 desire further detailed information to Mr. Wolf's book and 
 Volumes three, four, six, and twelve of the Publications of the 
 American Jewish Historical Society. 
 
 For the Spanish-American War, 2,451 Jews enlisted in the 
 army, and forty-two in the navy; thirty-two were officers. 
 
 In a letter addressed to Mr. Wolf, Gen. O. O. Howard, 
 Major-General of the United States Army, wrote, " I can assure 
 you, my dear sir, that intrinsically, there are no more patriotic 
 men to be found in the country than those who claim to be of 
 Hebrew descent, and who served under me in parallel commands 
 or more directly under my instructions." 
 
 Presidents and Jews. When Washington was inaugurated 
 as the first President of the United States, the Jewish congrega- 
 tions of Savannah, Ga., Newport, R. I., and Philadelphia, New 
 York, Richmond, and Charleston, addressed letters of congratu- 
 lation to him. Several extracts from Washington's answers to 
 these letters are here given : 
 
 " I rejoice that a spirit of liberality and philanthropy is much 
 more prevalent than it formerly was among the enlightened na- 
 tions of the earth, and that your brethren will benefit thereby in 
 proportion as it shall become still more extensive." 
 
 " The liberality of sentiment toward each other, which marks 
 every political and religious denomination of men in this coun- 
 try, stands unparalleled in the history of nations." 
 
 Major Mordecai M. Noah delivered an address at the con- 
 
52 
 
 secration of the Mill Street Synagogue, New York, in 1&18. He 
 sent copies of this address to ex-President John Adams, Jefferson, 
 and Madison. 
 
 Jefferson wrote in reply: "Your sect, by its sufferings, has 
 furnished a remarkable proof of the universal spirit of reli- 
 gious intolerance inherent in every sect, disclaimed by all while 
 feeble, and practiced by all when in power. Our laws have ap- 
 plied the only antidote to this vice, protecting our religious as 
 they do our civil rights by putting all on an equal footing. But 
 more remains to be done, for although we are free by the law, 
 we are not so in practice." 
 
 Adams wrote: "You have not extended your ideas of the 
 rights of private judgment and the liberty of conscience, both 
 in religion and philosophy, farther than I do. Mine are limited 
 only by morals and propriety." 
 
 Madison said, among other things : " Having ever regarded 
 the freedom of religious opinions and worship as equally belong- 
 ing to every sect, and the secure enjoyment of it as the best human 
 provision for bringing all, either unto the same way of thinking, 
 or unto that mutual charity which is the only proper substitute, 
 I observe with pleasure the view you give of the spirit in which 
 your sect partake of the common blessings afforded by our Govern- 
 ment and laws." 
 
 Madison wrote similarly in acknowledgment of the copy of a 
 discourse delivered by Dr. de la Motta at the consecration of the 
 synagogue at Savannah in 1820. "Among the features peculiar 
 to the political system of the United States," wrote he, " is the 
 perfect equality of rights which it secures to every religious sect. 
 And it is particularly pleasing to observe in the citizenship of such 
 as have been most distrusted and oppressed elsewhere, a happy 
 illustration of the safety and success of this experiment of a just 
 and benignant policy. Equal laws, protecting equal rights, are 
 found, as they ought to be presumed, the best guarantee of loyalty 
 and love of country; as well as best calculated to cherish the 
 mutual respect and good-will among citizens of every religious 
 denomination which are necessary to social harmony and most 
 favorable to the advancement of truth." 
 
 The notorious Damascus affair of 1840 took place during the 
 
53 
 
 administration of Van Buren. In a letter addressed by John 
 Forsyth, Secretary of State, to David Porter, United States Min- 
 ister to Turkey, instructing him to use his good offices with the 
 Sultan in behalf of the accused Jews, occur these words: " The 
 President is of the opinion that from no one can such generous 
 endeavors proceed with so much propriety and effect as from the 
 representative of a friendly power, whose institutions, political 
 and civil, place upon the same footing the worshiper of God of 
 every faith and form, acknowledging no distinction between the 
 Mohammedan, the Jew, and the Christian." 
 
 President Tyler, in a letter to Joseph Simpson, of Baltimore, 
 Md., wrote: "The United States Government have adventured 
 upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have 
 been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent — thit 
 of the total separation of Church and State. No religious estab- 
 lishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free 
 from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker 
 aiter his own judgment. The offices of the Government are 
 open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an established 
 hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgment of man set up as the sure 
 and infallible creed of faith." 
 
 When the famous order No. ii, commanding the expulsion of 
 Jews from his department was issued by Gen. Grant, President 
 Lincoln ordered it revoked as soon as it was brought to his no- 
 tice. Although we have not the President's own words, his 
 biographers Hay and Nicolai refer to the incident as follows: 
 '■ Lincoln had a profound I'espect for every form of sincere reli- 
 gious belief. He steadily refused to show any favor to any par- 
 ticular denomination of Christians, and when General Grant 
 issued an unjust and injurious order against the Jews expelling 
 them from his department, the President ordered it to be revoked 
 the moment it was brought to his notice." 
 
 In his address at the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth 
 anniversary of the Settlement of the Jews in this country, ex- 
 President Grover Cleveland used these words: "It is time for 
 the unreserved acknowledgment that the toleration and equal 
 opportunity accorded to the Jews of the United States have been 
 abundantly repaid to us. And in making up the accounts, let 
 
54 
 
 us not omit to put to their credit the occasion presented to us 
 through our concession to them of toleration and equality, for 
 strengthening, by wholesome exercise, the spirit of broadminded 
 justice and consideration, which, as long as we are true to our- 
 selves, we must inflexibly preserve as the distinguishing and sav- 
 ing traits of our nationality." 
 
 " I know that human prejudice — especially that growing out 
 of race and religion — is cruelly inveterate and lasting. But 
 wherever in the world prejudice against the Jews still exists, there 
 can be no place for it among the people of the United States un- 
 less they are heedless of good faith, recreant to the underlying 
 principles of their free government, and insensible to every pledge 
 involved in our boasted equality of citizenship." 
 
 President Roosevelt, in a letter addressed to the presiding officer 
 of this same celebration, wrote: 
 
 " The celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary 
 of the settlement of the Jews in the United States properly em- 
 phasizes a series of historical facts of more than merely national 
 significance. Even in our colonial period the Jews participated 
 in the upbuilding of this country, acquired citizenship, and took 
 an active part in the development of foreign and domestic com- 
 merce. During the Revolutionary period they aided the cause 
 of liberty by serving in the Continental army, and by substantial 
 contributions to the empty treasury of the infant Republic. Dur- 
 ing the Civil War, thousands served in the armies and mingled 
 their blood with the soil for which they fought." 
 
 I would refer the reader who desires further information on 
 the subject to the fifteenth volume of the Publications of the 
 American Jewish Historical Society, entitled, " Jews in the 
 Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States," compiled by 
 the President of the Society, Dr. Cyrus Adler, and to the article, 
 " The American Passport in Russia," also by Dr. Adler, in the 
 Year Book of the Jewish Publication Society of America for 
 
 1904-5- 
 
 Some miscellaneous items. The first statue to belong to the 
 United States was a bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson by the 
 French sculptor, David d'Angers. This was presented to the 
 
55 
 
 United States by the Jewish naval officer, Lieutenant (later 
 Commodore) Uriah P. Levy, who at the time of his death, in 
 1862, vras the highest ranking officer in the U. S. Navy, and 
 formally accepted by Congress, on motion of Charles Sumner. 
 
 Judah Touro, the famous Jewish philanthropist, contributed 
 ten thousand dollars towards the Bunker Hill monument fund. 
 
 The Order of B'nai Brith erected in Fairmount Park, Phila- 
 delphia, the group Religious Liberty, by the sculptor Moses 
 Ezekiel, in 1876, in celebration of the centennial of the signing 
 of the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 Jews of New York in 171 1 contributed five pounds, twelve 
 shillings, towards building the steeple of Trinity Church; the 
 name of Abraham de Lucena occurs in the list of donors. 
 
 One of the original band of settlers of Georgia was Dr. Samuel 
 Nunez Ribiero, who placed his medical knowledge at the service 
 of the colonists. Governor Oglethorpie called the attention of the 
 trustees of the Colony to the voluntary services of the physician, 
 whereupon the trustees requested the Governor to offer him a 
 gratuity for these services. 
 
 The organization of the Union Society, famous in the annals of 
 the Colony of Georgia, and later of the State, dates from the year 
 1750, when five of the colonists, all of different religious denomi- 
 nations, joined in organizing a society for charitable purposes. 
 They called it the " Union Society " to designate that though the 
 founders differed in their special religious beliefs they could yet 
 join on the broad platform of humanity. The names of three of 
 the founders have been preserved: Benjamin Sheftall, a Jew; Peter 
 Toudee, a Catholic, and Richard Milledge, an Episcopalian. 
 This society is still in existence and continues along the lines 
 marked out by its founders. 
 
 Abraham Kohn, of Chicago, sent to Abraham Lincoln, before 
 his departure for Washington to assume the office of the Presi- 
 dency of the United States, a silk American flag of his own manu- 
 facture, whose folds were inscribed in Hebrew lettering with the 
 third to the ninth verses of the first chapter of the Biblical Book 
 of Joshua, which closed with the enheartening words so appro- 
 priate to the task before Lincoln : " Have I not commanded 
 
56 
 
 thee? Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be 
 thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever 
 thou goest." 
 
 The attempt has been made herein to give some salient facts con- 
 cerning the good citizenship of the Jew in America. The writer 
 has been compelled to sift a great mass of material and select 
 such facts and incidents as seemed to him most significant. Had 
 he had the space he should have written in detail concerning the 
 settlement, history, and services of Jews in all the States of the 
 Union. In the Cabinet, in the National Senate and House of 
 Representatives, in the diplomatic service, in State Legislatures, 
 on the Bench, in Federal, State, and Municipal offices hundreds 
 of Jews have served and are serving the Federal Government, 
 their States, and municipalities. 
 
 The story of the internal development of Jewish religious, 
 educational, and philanthropic life as recorded in the widely 
 ramified activities of synagogues and religious schools, theological 
 seminaries and rabbinical conferences, orphan asylums and indus- 
 trial schools, homes for the aged and the child, hospitals and 
 homes for incurables, settlements and educational institutes, pub- 
 lication and historical societies, colonization and agricultural aid 
 associations, it is not the purpose of this paper to rehearse. The 
 same may be said of the religious currents and cross-currents, re- 
 form and orthodoxy. 
 
 Surely the retrospect over the life of the Jews in America dur- 
 ing the past two hundred and fifty-five years justified the tribute 
 of Theodore Roosevelt, who once expressed himself to the fol- 
 lowing effect: 
 
 " I am glad to be able to say that while the Jews of the United 
 States, who now number more than a million, have remained loyal 
 to their faith and their race traditions, they have become indis- 
 solubly incorporated in the great army of American citizenship, 
 prepared to make all sacrifices for the country, either in war or 
 peace, and striving for the perpetuation of good government and 
 for the maintenance of the principles embodied in our Constitu- 
 tion. They are honorably distinguished by their industry, their 
 obedience to law, and their devotion to the national welfare." 
 
57 
 
 THE ROMAN CATHOLIC AND GOOD 
 CITIZENSHIP 
 
 CHARLES J. BONAPARTE, OF BALTIMORE, MD. 
 
 A favorite device for one seeking to hide the truth from his 
 own conscience, when he would do or say or think what he knows 
 to be wrong, is to repeat to himself and otheirs what, in 
 one sense, is true, but wholly irrelevant, and reason from it in 
 another sense wherein it may be relevant, but is wholly untrue. 
 For example, one hears often in my native State and those to the 
 southward: "Ours is a white man's country." In a sense, so 
 it is; for not only are the great majority of Americans to-day 
 white men, but America is what it is because white men have 
 made our laws, created our customs, fixed our standards of taste 
 and morals, — in short, given form and breadth to our national 
 life. Beyond any reasonable doubt, America would have been 
 a vastly different country had it been founded and ruled by 
 black men or red men, yellow men or brbwn men. But to argue 
 from this fact that white Americans may, with a clear con- 
 science, rob black Americans of their votes or red Americans of 
 their lands, or treat men of any race or color, whether Ameri- 
 cans or not, with barbarity and oppression, all this is the basest 
 sophistry. Justice and fair dealing towards all men, loyalty to 
 our Constitution, and respect for rights made sacred by our 
 laws, such should be the proofs that this is a white man's coun- 
 try, that men dwell in it and rule it who are white in something 
 beyond the color of their skins. 
 
 So it is often said, " Ours is a Christian country ; " and in a 
 sense this is said with truth. America; is what it is very largely 
 because our laws and government, our morals and manners, our 
 beliefs as to what we live for and how we should live have all 
 been the work of Christians. Again, it surely would have been 
 another country altogether had these been fashioned by Brah- 
 mins or Buddhists, disciples of Confucius or followers of Mo- 
 hammed. But, when Americans in name and Christians in name 
 would abridge the rights and invade the civil and religious liberty 
 of other Americans because these are not Christians this proves 
 
58 
 
 only that they are themselves neither Americans nor Christians 
 in more than name. What must one think of Christians who do 
 unto others what they would hold a grievous wrong if done by 
 others unto them. 
 
 In like manner certain of our fellow-citizens frequently re- 
 peat with an emphasis, which was once complacent, but now 
 grows daily more uneasy and querulous, " Ours is a Protestant 
 country." This statement is by no means so obviously true as 
 either of the two preceding; or, at all events, the sense in which 
 it is true is more restricted and far less material. No one can 
 reasonably doubt that the United States would have had a widely 
 different history and would be now a widely different nation 
 had all, or even a majority, of the thirteen colonies been peopled 
 by Mongols or Malays, Mussulmans or agnostics; but, if a ma- 
 jority, or even all, of the thirteen colonies had been peopled 
 by English Catholics, such as Lord Baltimore sent to Maryland, 
 professing his principles and ruled by his laws, it is a matter of 
 pure conjecture how far, if at all, we should have had a mate- 
 rially different history or be to-day a materially different people. 
 Nevertheless, I think the most of those who say what I have 
 just quoted mean more than that a majority of the American 
 people to-day profess in some form to belong to somei denomi- 
 nation of Protestant Christians. They give a belated utterance to 
 an opinion widely prevalent, indeed well-nigh universal, among 
 Protestants, and, in truth, shared by not a few Catholics, fifty 
 years ago or even later. " Undoubtedly," said the New York 
 Nation in its issue of Jan. 30, 1868, " political equality, free 
 public education under Protestant auspices, and a national rule 
 which compels sectarian toleration, are forces which must in 
 time either destroy Catholicism in this country or essentially 
 change its nature." There was nothing strange or unusual then 
 in these views: that the United States was and would remain 
 a Protestant country seemed, to some within, no less than prac- 
 tically all those without the Catholic church, almost a matter of 
 course even forty years ago. It was assumed, complacently or 
 regretfully, as the case might be, but practically assumed by 
 many, if not by all. True, Nous avons change tout cela, or, 
 rather, all has been changed, not by us, or, consciously and of 
 
59 
 
 set purpose, by any one, but through the silent workings of time 
 and human experience. The mustard seed planted when Arch- 
 bishop Carroll received his episcopal consecration fell on no un- 
 grateful, no alien soil. Men have slowly, often reluctantly, 
 learned this as they saw a stately tree with deep roots and spread- 
 ing branches grow from that seed and overshadow them. As to 
 this, we Catholics had no right to complain of public opinion : our 
 fellow-citizens of other faiths thought of us much as we thought 
 of ourselves. If to some few of them, even now, an American 
 Catholic seems in some sort a contradiction in terms, a few, if 
 but a few, of both our own clergy and of our own laity are 
 still rubbing their eyes to be sure that such a person is not in 
 some sort an impostor, that he is truly a Catholic while no less 
 truly an American. 
 
 There is doubtless some measure of justification for this frame 
 of mind in both cases. In the immense mass of foreign matter 
 absorbed by the American body politic certain Catholic elements 
 have been, perhaps, the least rapidly digested in the gastric juice 
 of our free institutions, and are responsible for the most acute 
 symptoms of our political dyspepsia. To discuss all the reasons 
 for this seeming fact would tempt me into too wide a digression, 
 but I may glance at one of the most obvious and most potent; 
 namely, the great disproportion in numbers between the Cath- 
 olic population of the emancipated colonies and the multitudes of 
 Catholic immigrants to be fashioned on its model. No Prot- 
 estant communion native to the United States has had to trans- 
 form from aliens into citizens so vast a number of its members, 
 and I doubt if any, even the humblest, among these communions 
 undertook the task so weak and so poor and so widely dispersed. 
 
 The foundation laid, fourteen years after the Pilgrim Fathers 
 landed at Plymouth, when a handful of exiles raised the cross 
 at St. Mary's, has had to bear a gigantic superstructure beneath 
 whose weight it might well have crumbled had it been built by 
 hands. When he reflects how vast has been the work of assimi- 
 lation and inspiration imposed on the little body of American 
 Catholics who greeted their first bishop in 1789, and then rec- 
 ognizes how thoroughly and how rapidly, on the whole, and 
 bearing in mind all the circumstances, that work has been and 
 
6o 
 
 is done, far from marvelling at its present incompleteness, any 
 fair-minded man will find his faith revived and strengthened in 
 the boundless poten<jy for good stored in our orderly freedom, 
 any man believing as I do will see a further and greater cause 
 for thankfulness and hope. He will feel assured for the future, 
 as he has known in the past, the proven and abiding guidance of 
 Almighty God. 
 
 If the notion that the Catholic Church is a stranger and a 
 sojourner in our land has not been wholly outgrown even by 
 quite all of her own children this is because even now some 
 Catholics have but half learned, although they are every day 
 learning more thoroughly and more and more rapidly, that they 
 are Americans, and not Irishmen or Germans, Frenchmen, Ital- 
 ians, or Poles; notj understand me well, Americans first and 
 some sort of foreigners afterwards, but Americans first, last, and 
 all the time, and nothing else at all, at least in a sense which 
 would make them any the less Americans. No man can really 
 have two countries any more than he Can faithfully serve two 
 masters. A hybrid type of citizenship will be always and every- 
 where ephemeral and sterile: a great Nation like ours can toler- 
 ate no divided allegiance; those who would be hers at all must 
 be hers altogether. Where a man was born she has, indeed, 
 never been over-curious to ask. Alexander Hamilton and Albert 
 Gallatin are no more her stepchildren than great (to the nth 
 power) grand-children of the Mayflower's passengers; but no one 
 is or can be an American citizen, in the full and true sense of the 
 word, who feels himself an Irishman or a German or anything 
 else, except as George Washington or John Adams might have 
 felt himself an Englishman or (to compare a very small person 
 to great ones) I might feel myself a Corsican. 
 
 I say this, of course, subject to all reasonable qualifications. 
 No civilized man, certainly no Christian can be indifferent to 
 the good or ^1 fortune of any branch of the human family, and 
 the land where one's kindred dwell, where one's parents are 
 buried where one's childhood was spent, must be, to a man of 
 ordinary sentiments, something more than a red or blue patch 
 on the map. I have no quarrel with those who, on the shores 
 of New England, in the shadow of the Alleghanies, by the 
 
6i 
 
 Mississipppi or the Great Lakes or the far Pacific, remember 
 to honor Saint Patrick or Saint George or Saint Andrew or 
 Saint Boniface or Saint Wenceslaus, if the last is the saint I 
 mean, and if I have his name aright; I would put no prohibitory 
 tariff on foreign sanctity, the production of the domestic article 
 will not be checked by its importation, nor will the supply ex- 
 ceed the demand. As our country makes her own one band of 
 immigrants after another, she takes with them their traditions 
 and their ideals, their memories and their hopes, to blend these 
 in the moral and intellectual heritage of all her children. But 
 whilst I think only the better of a fellow-citizen because his birth- 
 place or that of his fathers yet claims his sjfmpathies and shares 
 his affections I hold him as yet unworthy to be held an American 
 if he has still to learn that here and here only are all his inter- 
 ests and all his duties. 
 
 But, although men may perhaps be found who even yet think, 
 as some sensible men thought twenty-five and many more fifty 
 years ago, that the atmosphere of American liberty is malarial 
 to the Church of Rome, who believe that in it she lives but to 
 languish, and who still strain their eyes hoping to see her cease 
 to be what she has ever been or else cease to be at all in their 
 sight, a fair-minded and well-informed American, whatever his 
 creed, must now realize that the Catholic Church in the United 
 States becomes every day more thoroughly acclimated and at 
 home, that she is no carpet-bagger, that her cross is planted to 
 stand. 
 
 On Nov. 6, 1789 a bull of Pope Pius VI. founded the Ameri- 
 can hierarchy. At that date the Catholic population of the 
 United States was estimated, probably too liberally, at forty 
 thousand, or about the one hundredth part of our entire people. 
 There were in all some thirty priests, hardly so many chapels, no 
 edifice which could, with any propriety of language be called a 
 church, not one asylum or hospital or other benevolent institution, 
 and but a single school or seat of learning of any class, — George- 
 town College, then just founded. There are now several times 
 as many bishops as there were then priests, more priests than 
 there were then adult male laymen, more churches than there 
 were Catholic families in the thirteen States in 1789, convents 
 
62 
 
 and monasteries, schools and colleges, asylums and hospitals, of 
 which the combined means of the entire Catholic population of 
 those days could not have built a tenth. It is true that within 
 the past century and a quarter the growth of this country has 
 been marvellous, but the growth of the Catholic Church in this 
 country has been far more marvellous: while the number of 
 American citizens has increased some twenty or twenty-five fold, 
 the number of American Catholics has increased nearly or quite 
 four hundred fold. If an amazing progress in numbers and 
 wealth were sufficient, the Catholic Church's vitality in America 
 would need no further proof. But for some this may not be 
 enough, for there might be in this very prodigious outward devel- 
 opment the germ of a deep inward decay. Doubtless to feel as 
 well assured as I feel that the Catholic Church is here to stay and 
 to prosper, one must perhaps believe as I believe; but surely any 
 man able to see things at all as they are, and having any knowl- 
 edge of the facts, will recognize that nowhere in the Christian 
 world is there greater zeal or greater harmony in the Catholic 
 Church than here ; nowhere are the relations of the hierarchy with 
 the See of Rome, of the clergy with the hierarchy, of the laity 
 with the clergy, more nearly what devout Catholics could rea- 
 sonably wish them to be, and those of the Church with the civil 
 power and of her members with citizens of other faiths, marked 
 by less bitterness and less friction. Blind m.en may argue 
 whether the Catholic Church can live in the United States; but, 
 for those who have eyes and can and will open them to the 
 truth, that question is a question no longer. If they see any- 
 thing, they see that she can live because she has lived and lives 
 to-day, — lives, too, not as a sickly exotic. She grows and flour- 
 ishes and waxes strong with a sound and healthy growth, gaining, 
 not in mere size, but in vigor, daily; in short, she is and feels 
 herself to be at home. If we apply to the sum of American 
 institutions the vague and much abused term " liberty," a cen- 
 tury's history proves that liberty is good for the Catholic Church ; 
 and, if it has " essentially changed the nature of Catholicism," 
 the change has been but to make the Church more enterprising 
 and aggressive, more than ever full of the missionary, proselytising 
 spirit which marks a truly living faith. And, to my mind at 
 
63 
 
 least, nothing can be more certain than that the Church has 
 greatly prospered in America precisely because America greatly 
 needed and still needs the Catholic Church. She is a Church of 
 the plain people: recruiting her hierarchy from every rank and 
 class of men, living much less vi^ith or for the rich and learned 
 than with and for that great mass of humanity whose passions, 
 untamed by letters, are daily goaded by physical wants, her influ- 
 ence is most salutary where Ardor civium prava jubentium con- 
 stitutes an ever present danger. The working of American de- 
 mocracy has no doubt shown many a priori objections to popular 
 government to be exaggerated or groundless, but it has also 
 shown no less clearly that demos, like other sovereigns, is often 
 selfish, short-sighted, lazy, and misled by bad advice. 
 
 At the first " Conference for Good City Government," which 
 was held fifteen years ago in this city, I listened to an unusually 
 thoughtful and outspoken paper by a Dr. Ecob, then the pastor 
 of a Protestant congregation in Albany, on " The Relation of the 
 Church to Municipal Reform." The reverend writer spoke 
 with an indignation, unfortunately but too well founded, of the 
 inertness and seeming indifference of organized Christianity in 
 all forms when face to face with the scandals and abuses of our 
 politics, and more especially of our municipal politics; and I was 
 much interested to note why in his judgment " the Church," as 
 he used the term, had incurred this severe censure. He said : 
 
 " The Church, like Keats's Saturn, has sat as ' quiet as a 
 stone ' under the influence of certain traditions. One of these 
 most sedative and relaxing traditions is that the Church is the 
 ' Kingdom of God on Earth.' Another is that everything outside 
 of the Church is ' secular.' These two are but the obverse and 
 the reverse of the same coin. . . . We have narrowed the 
 life and work of the Church down to a sort of wreckage system. 
 The world is a great, noisy, heedless, sensuous, vulgar pleasure 
 excursion. The huge boat has struck and is wrecked on the 
 rock of sin. The hundreds of wretched victims are struggling 
 in the water, clinging to the rigging, hugging the rocks, starv- 
 ing, freezing, perishing. The world is shipwrecked. The 
 Church is safe and sound on the everlasting shore. When it is 
 not too busy with its psalmody and Greek sermons and theologi- 
 
64 
 
 cal debates, it does a little business in the line of getting a few 
 of the wrecked worldlings ashore. But it is so particular as to 
 its life-saving methods, so fastidious as to the kind of people it 
 deigns to save, so tired most of the time with the whole wreckage 
 business, that the percentage of salvation is lamentably small." 
 
 That Catholics, and the clergy no less than the laity, have their 
 full share of responsibility for misgovemment of every kind in 
 the United States, and particularly for the misgovemment of our 
 great cities, I would be the last to deny; but, whatever may be 
 the shortcomings in this respect of individual Catholics of any 
 class or rank, ecclesiastical or civil, these shortcomings are nfft 
 excused for them by the theory which Dr. Ecob condemned. 
 The ideas that in this world the sheep and goats should be parted 
 off from each other and fed in separate pastures, that the just 
 can be fashioned into a very select little corporation of their ov(ti 
 with interests, sympathies, moral standards, in which the unjust 
 have no part or lot; that there may be fields of human thought 
 and action wherewith the Church has no concern; and even that 
 the Church consists, in some sort, of the good and pious only, 
 and that others belong to the " World," — these ideas are doubt- 
 less familiar enough, but for a Catholic they are the outcrop of 
 a rank heresy, which has taken definite shape more than once and 
 always to be emphatically condemned by the Church. These peo- 
 ple whom ' we generally call " Albigenses " call themselves 
 " Catharists," because among them " the Pure," — that is to say 
 in more modern phraseology, " church members in good stand- 
 ing," — those who " have experienced a change of heart," were 
 expected to fulfil the law of righteousness, which for "the Im- 
 pure " existed only to be admired and broken. 
 
 It may be worth a moment's delay to correct here an error 
 in nomenclature, which, if apparently slight in itself, may yet 
 be mischievous, as the source, no less than the fruit, of some con- 
 fusion of thought. I was asked to speak of " The Roman Catho- 
 lic and Good Citizenship." The term " Roman Catholic " is 
 justified in our country, by convenience, by usage, and by law; 
 but it must be remembered that for those thus designated there 
 is no such thing as a "Roman Catholic Church:" the Church 
 of which they are members is " Catholic and Roman," " Roman," 
 
65 
 
 because in fellowship with the See of Rome and obedient to the 
 Roman pontiff, " Catholic " because, according to its own creed, 
 it ought to extend to every land and ought to include every 
 human being. For the Catholic Church does not mean the 
 Catholic hierarchy nor the Catholic clergy nor devout Catholics 
 nor " practical " Catholics nor professed Catholics. Every bap- 
 tized man is a member of it: every unbaptlzed man is a candidate 
 for membership. The former may be the bitterest enemy of 
 Catholicism or Christianity, of religion in any form, but this 
 does not change the fact of his membership any more than the 
 bullocks' blood washed from Julian's head the waters of bap- 
 tism: he can no more refuse to be a Christian and elect to be 
 something else than he can refuse to be a man and elect to be 
 a gorilla or an elephant. The second may have never heard 
 of the Church or her faith or her Founder, or he may know 
 much or little about these only to despise and revile thetn, yet 
 he is none the less the Church's divinely appointed ward and 
 pupil. And, as no man, however perverse in doctrine, however 
 degraded in nature, however odious in sentiments or conduct, can 
 rightfully escape her authority or cease to awaken her interest, 
 so nothing that he can do or say or think or feel is beyond or 
 beneath or aside from her ken. For every idle word he shall 
 answer and in aught wherefor he shall answer is the Universal 
 Church without concern. 
 
 Apply, then, this fundamental Catholic doctrine to the duties 
 and responsibilities of American citizenship. Will I be told by 
 Catholics that the Church can stand mute and unmoved whilst 
 her children, actively or passively, assist to make any spot of the 
 nation's soil a Sodom, or the exercise of power the nation has 
 given, the neglect of duties the nation has imposed, a source of 
 damnation for soul and body? In our country do we Catholics 
 render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's if we raise no 
 finger while our sovereign, the American people, is robbed, dis- 
 graced, misled or debauched? And, if we render not to Caesar 
 his due, if we are not recreant to our trust as citizens, can we 
 claim that it avails us to justification if we fast according to the 
 law and give tithes of all we possess? Believe me, fellow-citizens, 
 there is no room for Catholics to so think or to so act with a 
 
66 
 
 clear conscience. A well-known English statesman was called 
 "a good Protestant, but a bad Christian." I leave others to 
 criticise this description, but no one can be at once a good Catho- 
 lic and a bad father or son, husband or citizen: if he fail in any 
 one of the duties of life, he fails in his duty to his Church. 
 
 I am here to point out why American Catholics are bound 
 by their own doctrines to be good citizens, why the growth and 
 vigor of the Catholic Church in America, if rightly understood, 
 is a source of strength and a cause of thankfulness to those who 
 would make all Americans better citizens. I am unwilling to 
 show the respect of an answer for mere calumnies or mere revil- 
 ings, whether of any Church or of her children. There is, how- 
 ever, one argument against the Catholic Church, or, at least, 
 one outcry doing duty as an argument, which merits a passing 
 word, if for no other reason, because of Its antiquity. Pilate was 
 told that his prisoner would make himself King of the Jews: 
 we are sometimes told to-day that the Church aspires to tem- 
 poral dominion. He asked for and heard the truth and declared 
 the charge groundless, yet he feared the cry, " If thou release this 
 man, thou art no friend to Caesar." There have been some men 
 in public life among us as consciously unjust when they cowered 
 before the like clamor. On this subject let us ask but two ques- 
 tions: were those men who thus drove Pilate to shed innocent 
 blood, were they, in truth, " friends to Caesar? " Is any one 
 who, in our day and country, would proscribe men for their 
 faith and stir anew the dying embers of sectarian hatred, is such 
 a man in truth a friend to American Liberty? 
 
 THE PROTESTANT AND GOOD CITIZENSHIP 
 
 W. H, P. FAUNCE, 
 PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY 
 
 It has often been suspected, and sometimes afBrmed, that reli- 
 gious faith is hostile to the undivided loyalty of true citizenship. 
 This was the constant charge brought against the early Christians. 
 They refused to sacrifice to the gods of their fathers. The 
 best of the Roman emperors could see in the early Christian cour- 
 
67 
 
 age only the obstinacy of the fanatic and the revolutionist. This 
 was the charge brought against the founder of my State, Roger 
 Williams. Indeed, the greatest perplexities of monarchs and 
 legislatures and courts of law have been in dealing with those 
 who affirm that religious duty is superior to legal obligation. 
 
 Protestantism, by its assertion of the right of private judgment, 
 might, at first glance, seem peculiarly open to the charge of being 
 a dangerous form of faith. The consistent Protestant affirms 
 that there is no power on earth, ecclesiastical or civil, that can 
 coerce his judgment as to religious truth or force him to act 
 against his conviction of religious duty. He affirms, with Francis 
 Lieber, that " conscience is beyond the reach of government." Is 
 not such a man more dangerous to the State than even those 
 who have yielded their judgment to ecclesiastical authority? Is 
 not, — so many political rulers have asked, — is not Protestantism 
 the religious phase of social disunion and political anarchy? 
 
 But those who cherish such fears have little knowledge of his- 
 tory and no understanding of the Protestant position. All his- 
 tory shows us that there have been no more loyal, compact, and 
 coherent nations in the world than those professing the Protestant 
 faith. Cromwell's Ironsides, Wellington's regiments, Washing- 
 ton's hungry but devoted troops, found in the Protestant religion 
 a power which welded them into invincible armies. There are, 
 to-day, no more united, loyal, patriotic races on earth than those 
 which are dominated and energized by Protestant Christianity. 
 
 For the essential principle of Protestantism is not the right 
 of private judgment: that is merely a corollary of our funda- 
 mental principle. That fundamental principle of Protestantism 
 is the direct access of every human soul to God, unimpeded, un- 
 hampered by the necessary intervention of any priest, ritual, 
 ceremony, or formula. But, if all souls have direct access to 
 their Creator, then all are in some real sense equal, and democracy 
 becomes the ideal in government, in society, and in the church. 
 And this democracy is not the rule of the mob: it is at heart a 
 theocracy, a social order in which all men are near to one an- 
 other because all are near to God. When men are confessing 
 their allegiance to God, are listening for his voice, and ofFering 
 themselves for his service, then we have the closest unity that 
 
68 
 
 the world can know, then we have stability in government and 
 patriotism in the people, and in the full realization of the divine 
 Fatherhood we find the surest possible guarantee of human broth- 
 erhood. It is the creeds imposed by force, the rituals prescribed 
 by authority, that have divided the world and plunged it into 
 darkness. It is direct access of every human being to God that 
 alone can bring unity out of diversity and establish a social order 
 which shall be identical with the kingdom of God. 
 
 But, if Protestants accept and proclaim this principle, they are 
 bound, more deeply than any others in the modern world, to 
 translate the will of God into the laws, the attitudes, and institu- 
 tions of modern society. They cannot throw their responsi- 
 bility on any sacred order. They cannot claim, as laymen, that 
 it is the business of ecclesiastics to save the world. They cannot 
 rest in the security of an infallible organization. They know 
 full well that, unless they can incarnate the divine will in the 
 life of the citizen, unless they translate the law of God into the 
 codes of men, unless they Christianize the institutions of the mod- 
 ern world, the divine kingdom cannot come on earth, but will 
 be only the dream of a dreamer who dreams that he has been 
 dreaming. One of the first truths of Protestantism is that no 
 man can be a good Christian unless he is a good citizen. 
 
 Such citizenship is needed in the political life of our time. 
 We can not farm out our political duties. Thousands of men 
 fail to realize how clearly civic obligation flows from religious 
 faith. We cannot pray "Thy kingdom come " unless we are 
 making it come in the caucus and the voting booth. The farmer 
 who refuses to leave his farm on election day, the scholar who is 
 so absorbed in his book or his laboratory that he cares not who 
 is chosen as governor or president, the gilded youths who sit idly 
 in arm-chairs gazing out of club windows on election morning, 
 while newly arrived immigrants vote " in blocks of five," — all 
 these men are guilty of a species of atheism. They either do not 
 believe in any God whatever, or they believe in a God who does 
 not care, a power which is absent or impotent. 
 
 The primitive Christians who believe that in a few years the 
 heavens shall roll together as a scroll and all human governments 
 vanish, might be pardoned if they felt no interest in the govern- 
 
69 
 
 ment. We can forgive them if they were not enthusiastic over 
 allegiance to Herod or Nero. But we who believe that America 
 is chosen as the future leader in the world's civilization, and 
 who believe also in God, have a duty that is written on the sky 
 and that calls aloud in every soul. We need to supplement the 
 individualism of the New Testament by the magnificent social 
 zeal and corporate consciousness of the Old Testament. We 
 need to see Moses standing at the court of Pharaoh, or ascending 
 the mountain, to cry in audacious devotion, " If thou wilt not 
 forgive the people, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book! " We 
 need to see Elijah defying Ahab, and Nehemiah building the 
 walls of the city, and all the Old Testament prophets aflame with 
 zeal for civic righteousness and ready to die that Israel might live. 
 We need to remember that the atomistic virtue of the eighteenth 
 century is as far from the Bible as from the spirit of the twentieth 
 century. The good man of the thirteenth century was Simeon 
 Stylites, isolated on his pillar. The good man of the fifteenth 
 century was Thomas a Kempis, whose " Imitation of Christ " 
 has no faintest allusion to any wrongs in this world to be righted. 
 The good man of Bunyan's dream was one who thrust his fingers 
 into his ears to stop the cry of wife and children while he started 
 on his long flight through the world to the celestial gate. But 
 the good man of our time is the one who turns back into the 
 city Destruction, and resolves never to leave it until he has 
 transformed some portion of it, at least, into the enduring City 
 of God. 
 
 Indeed, it is in the modern city that Christian patriotism 
 finds its chief challenge and its finest opportunity. In America 
 we have succeeded in our States fairly well, but we have steadily 
 failed In our cities. The government of Massachusetts is better 
 than that of Boston. Illinois is far nearer our ideals than is 
 Chicago. Our States or colonies were developed before our cities 
 grew up. In Europe precisely the opposite is the case. Paris is 
 older than France, and London vastly older than Great Britain. 
 Hence, In the Old World, there is a fine loyalty to the city which 
 we, in America, are only beginning to acquire. Not until we do 
 acquire shall we understand the enthusiasm of Saint Paul for 
 his Roman citizenship, which could lead him to describe himself 
 
70 
 
 as both " a servant of Christ " and " a citizen of no mean city." 
 
 But this duty of the citizen is more than political, it is indus- 
 trial as well. The chief problems of our time are not political, 
 they are economic. How can the ever-expanding industrial and 
 commercial activity of our time be shot with Christian aim and 
 Christian principles? How can modern business be made Chris- 
 tian? The question is not how can we Christianize the results 
 of business. We also believe that the money which men make 
 out of business should be devoted to Christian ends, that some 
 of it should be given to the poor, to the sick, to education, to 
 religion, — we all believe that. But the question is not how to 
 Christianize the results of business, but the process itself, so that, 
 whether money is made or lost, the daily toil of all the millions 
 who work in factory and shop and mill and office shall be Chris- 
 tian toil. We need to be Christian citizens not after business 
 hours are over, but while the business is being done. Many a 
 citizen who would willingly die for his country in time of war 
 is quite willing to work against his country, to circumvent its 
 laws, elude its officials, and prey upon its citizens in time of peace. 
 The chief stealing of our time is not done by the footpad or the 
 burglar, it is done by every man who profits by adulteration in 
 manufacture or deception in trade, or by accepting wages for 
 which he has not rendered full equivalent. Dishonest labor, 
 whether it go into shoes or cotton cloth, into the making of life 
 preservers or impure food, into the building of a capitol at Albany 
 or Harrisburg or Philadelphia, is not only individual falsity, but 
 social treachery and a subtle form of attack upon the State. All 
 false and deceitful craftsmanship is to be classed with the work 
 of the brigand and the pirate, and all true, genuine work is part 
 of the coming of the kingdom of God. 
 
 All legitimate business is a form of social service. " My busi- 
 ness," says the owner proudly, as he looks about his mill or his 
 store. But in the closely woven network of modern industrial 
 life what possible enterprise is there of which a man can truly 
 say "mine"? In the days when one man made a whole pair 
 of shoes, the possessive pronoun had some significance. But, 
 when thousands of pairs are daily turned out of one factory, no 
 living man can, in the sight of God, look upon the thousands 
 
71 
 
 and say " mine." " When ye pray," said Jesus, " say our." 
 Not only when we pray, but when we organize and administer 
 and produce, the modern world is slowly learning to say " our." 
 
 We talk of some enterprises as " public utilities." But such 
 distinctions are rapidly becoming shadowy and unreal. The 
 smallest private undertaking, as it expands, becomes either a pub- 
 lic utility or a public damage and impediment. None of us 
 manufacture to himself. If the plumber shall say, I am not re- 
 sponsible for society, is he therefore not responsible? If the 
 switch-tender shall say, I am not of the' social body, is he there- 
 fore not of the body? If the vendor of milk shall say, I am not 
 of the State, is he therefore free from the State? "Every man," 
 says a recent writer in the London Spectator, " whether he is 
 tilling the soil, heaving coal, laying bricks, writing books, organiz- 
 ing business, or planning some industrial work great or small, must 
 accustom himself to feel that he is doing it not for himself or 
 his family alone, but partly for his country. In every form of 
 activity, the motherland must be the silent partner who calls 
 upon him for an extra margin of effort, energy, and self-sacri- 
 fice." 
 
 The idea of doing business purely for pecuniary gain is one 
 that we no longer tolerate in certain forms of social effort. If 
 we suspect that to be the chief motive of the physician, we do not 
 ask him to enter our homes. If we find it in the clergyman, we 
 pay no heed to his message. The common soldier is supposed 
 to have risen far above it. The fireman who has been two weeks 
 on the force of fire fighters is supposed to have a far higher aim 
 in view. The trained nurse and the college professor are surely 
 not living chiefly for financial reward. But why do we tolerate 
 and expect in industrial pursuits a sordidness which we repudiate 
 in other callings? Why do we expect the fireman who rescues 
 the goods in the store to labor from any higher motive than the 
 man who sells the goods behind the counter? Why do we ex- 
 pect the man who teaches in a school-house to live by a different 
 code from the contractor who builds the school-house? All such 
 distinctions are conventional and unreal. All men must live 
 for the State or against it. The aim of the baker must be to feed 
 the hungry, the aim of the clothier to clothe the naked. If they 
 
72 
 
 do this efficiently, they will be financially rewarded; but they 
 aim, if they be true citizens, not at the reward, but at the public 
 service. Private business, in the strict meaning of the words, is 
 as inconceivable as private fighting in the army. The maxims 
 of Poor Richard, coldly calculating, shrewdly egotistic, are a poor 
 foundation for social co-operation. No man becomes lawfully 
 rich unless he enriches society in the very process of enriching 
 himself. If he rises, he must rise as the mountain rises, lifting 
 forests and homes and villages on its broad shoulders into new 
 light and air. The saving of the individual becomes meaning- 
 less except as it involves in some measure the salvation of society. 
 
 What vast changes would come over the modem world if 
 these truths should come home to our men and women of leisure. 
 What vast access of moral energy would ensue if these things 
 were believed by the men who, after their business hours, give 
 all their tinie to sport, and the women who devote their woman- 
 hood to the lust of the eye and the pride of life. Would that 
 the men who now look on the world as a mere orange to be 
 squeezed for their own delectation could see it as a sphere for 
 the noblest service. Would that the women who in England are 
 defying the laws of the State and the laws of their own being 
 in the violent demand for political power could see the world as 
 a post of duty rather than a place for frenzied self-assertion. 
 
 Would that the men and women of leisure and property could 
 ponder the meaning of the appalling incident in the ancient para- 
 ble', " A certain beggar was brought whom they laid daily at 
 a rich man's gate." Not in the rich man's hospital, where no 
 feeblest cry could reach the man's ear, but at his gate, where 
 he could not step over that strange object or walk around it, but 
 must come face to face with his new problem and his inevitable 
 duty. Civilization to-day is placing poverty at the very gate of 
 wealth, weakness at the gate of strength, and ignorance at the 
 gate of the university. 
 
73 
 THE NEGRO AND GOOD CITIZENSHIP 
 
 NOTES OF AN ADDRESS BY DR. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 
 
 Mr. Washington spoke with his usual force and fervor on his 
 favorite topic. It is to be regretted that few notes were at the 
 time taken of his address. At the very beginning of it he dis- 
 claimed to represent any particular denomination among his peo- 
 ple, saying humorously that he was content to let the men of 
 the white race thresh out these religious questions by themselves, 
 the negro having impartially selected his faith from them all. 
 Mr. Washington's chief aim in his address was to prove th^ grow- 
 ing fitness of his race for good-citizenship. In part he said : " Our 
 race has accumulated more than $350,000,000 of property. We 
 have at least 500 local negro business leagues scattered throughout 
 the country. When we began there were a few drug stores owned 
 and controlled by black people. Now we have nearly two hun- 
 dred. A few years ago there were only about a half-dozen negro 
 banks in the country; now there are forty-seven. Dry goods 
 stores, grocery stores and industrial enterprises to the number of 
 over 10,000 have sprung up in all parts of the country. A little 
 more than forty years ago, when the negro was made free, he had 
 almost no acres of land. Now he has an acreage nearly as large 
 as New England. Then he had almost no homes; now he has 
 400,000 homes. Then he had few farms; now he has 200,000 
 farms. Then he had no insurance companies; now he has eighty- 
 five. When the American negro was made free about 3 per cent 
 could read and write; now 57 per cent can both read and write. 
 Then he had few churches; now he has 26,000 churches, with 
 $28,000,000 worth of church property. 
 
 " The greater part of this progress has taken place in our 
 Southern States, right in the midst of the people who once owned 
 our bodies. Here, let me add, this growth could not have taken 
 place unless we had in each one of the Southern communities not 
 a few white men who have believed in us and stood by us and 
 stimulated and encouraged us. A few days ago in conversation 
 with a gentleman who has traveled widely in Africa and in other 
 parts of the world, including the United States, he remarked to 
 
74 
 
 me that the negro in America was at least one hundred years 
 ahead of the negro anywhere else in the world. I have traveled 
 recently through the States of Mississippi, South Carolina, and 
 portions of Virginia and West Virginia for the purpose of see- 
 ing for myself the actual condition of our race. Everywhere I 
 noted progress — marvelous progress in many cases. 
 
 " Before we became a free people there were those who freely 
 predicted that the negro race would disappear because, it was 
 said, in a state of freedom, the race could neither shelter, clothe, 
 nor feed itself. To-day we number more than ten millions. For 
 more than forty years we have been free, and except in the case 
 of local or special calamities, we have never yet called upon the 
 nation for a dollar with which to either shelter, clothe or feed 
 us. To have achieved this result is glory within itself. 
 
 " In his haste and ambition to grow in material and commer- 
 cial directions, the negro has not overlooked some of the more 
 fundamental things in life. No matter how many dollars an in- 
 dividual or organization may accumulate, no matter how many 
 business enterprises he may be responsible for, failure and not 
 success will be the result in each case unless he takes along with 
 material prosperity the underlying principles of high moral, right- 
 eous living, both as individuals and as organizations." 
 
 In these respects also Mr. Washington found a great and 
 growing improvement among those he lovingly called " his peo- 
 ple." In a burst of impassioned eloquence he declared : " If I 
 could go back and Providence should ask me what color I wanted 
 my skin to be, I would say: ' Class me as an American negro! 
 The colored man, he maintained, was more like the Americans 
 than any other class of people who flocked to our shores ; they for- 
 got their old customs and language and adopted the American 
 customs and language quicker than any other race. " Deep down 
 in his heart the negro has the same love, the same respect, the 
 same reverence for your political institutions as any one of you, 
 and he stands just as ready to give and to lay down his life at 
 his country's call." 
 
75 
 
 Second Topic of the Congress, 
 
 "THE NATURE AND MISSION OF RELIGIOUS 
 LIBERALISM." 
 
 OPENING REMARKS OF HENRY W. WILBUR, PRESIDENT OF THE 
 
 CONGRESS : 
 
 All races of men have in their own time, and in their own way 
 tapped the same sources of truth and wisdom, and old time and 
 new have each voiced their apprehensions of truth in a common 
 language, under the impulse and inspiration of the same spirit. 
 
 Clement of Alexandria, schooled in the poetry and philosophy 
 of Greece, anticipated the plain postulate of George Fox, the 
 shoemaker of Drayton, when he declared that " God hath filled 
 His Universe with the seed of salvation." 
 
 Buddha could not have been far from the same spirit that was 
 in Jesus, when he said : " A man who foolishly does me wrong 
 (or regards me as being or doing wrong) I will return to him 
 the protection of my ungrudging love; the more evil goes from 
 him, the more good shall go from me." 
 
 The ancient prophet who declared that " the work of right- 
 eousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness 
 and assurance forever," defined the basis of spiritual kinship for 
 all time. 
 
 If the purpose of this Congress is to have any practical meaning, 
 it lies in emphasising this kinship, and in uniting those who possess 
 a common interest in behalf of a common betterment. 
 
 The vital problems of our time have to do with those processes 
 which will make the new earth, in which righteousness shall be 
 based on justice. 
 
 The world at home and in foreign lands needs service, for the 
 repairing of bruised bodies and the healing of broken spirits. 
 Beneath all skies the divinest call comes to serve with the distinct 
 desire to serve. 
 
 Wherever men need help, no man need ask the helper whether 
 
76 
 
 he wears the label of Calvin or Channing, any more than we 
 should inquire under what phase of the moon he was born. The 
 broadest commission, and the best possible equipment should be 
 given the missionary, with no questions as to his creed, or his 
 theological antecedents. 
 
 Wherever there is a covert or an open assault upon religious 
 or civic liberty, the call to do battle with the uncarnal weapons 
 of the spirit will come to the Federation of Religious Liberals. 
 
 Our conflict must be in behalf of those ideals, as yet only 
 partially realized, which have made modern progress possible, and 
 without which the hope of our children and our children's chil- 
 dren for wider opportunity and better living will be an idle dream. 
 
 As we stand on the threshold of three days of communion in 
 the unity of the spirit, the prayer of him who now addresses 
 you is, that our deliberations may bear fruit in definite and con- 
 tinuous effort against every wrong that needs resistance; in behalf 
 of every cause that needs assistance, and for growing good to men 
 beneath the all-beholding sun. 
 
 WHAT IS RELIGIOUS LIBERALISM? 
 
 REV. WILLIAM C. GANNETT, D. D. 
 
 I like not that ism in our subject. The implications of an 
 ism are not generous. The term may slip in as I speak, but 
 let us word our question more simply, — What is it to be a Liberal 
 in religion? 
 
 To answer the question, shall I try to define, to describe, or 
 to illustrate? 
 
 If to define, — the Liberal is he who emphasizes four things in 
 religion; Freedom, Fellowship, Character, Service. Those four 
 words indicate more of his characteristics than any others I know. 
 It is the emphasis on these four things that distinguishes him: 
 the Liberal makes them the supreme things in religion. 
 
 If I try to describe, the description but enlarges upon this 
 definition. 
 
 First, the Freedom. Freedom rather than what? Rather than 
 authority of any kind asserting itself as master of souls. Liberal- 
 
77 
 
 ism is not a position in thought but a posture of the one thinking; 
 the attitude of a mind that may greatly value tradition, and greatly 
 the wisdom of teachers, and greatly the consensus of more com- 
 petent judges than itself, but that holds, — In religion I must be 
 judge for myself of all this wisdom of others; whatever the source 
 of my knowledge in things scientific, and whatever my deference 
 there, in things ethical and spiritual truth can be " truth " to 
 me only as I see for myself it is truth. So the Liberal in re- 
 ligion seeks to be open-minded and reverent to facts wherever 
 he meets them in old or in new; expectant of truth in gleams 
 and glimmers of old, expectant of clearing and widening truth 
 as the yesterdays grow towards to-day, expectant in morrows 
 of truth brighter and surer and larger than that seen to-day. 
 The Liberal believes in the Soul of man — his reason, his con- 
 science, his spiritual apprehension — as the organ of all truth- 
 seeking and finding; and an organ whose powers grow in the 
 individual and in the race. Whose powers grow; therefore he 
 ever more and more trusts in the Soul itself as seeker and finder. 
 Whose powers grow; therefore he can never trust his own find- 
 ings as final. The findings are " truth " in the sense that they 
 are truth on the way to be truer. That is one of his tests: is 
 his " truth " truer to-day than it was yesterday? In other words, 
 he knows that his truth is an error, and he even wants it to be. 
 But he also knows that his errors, and all mankind's errors, are 
 fore-shadows and symbols of truth. And with this kind of truth 
 he is more than content, — he is inspired ! The foundation on 
 which everything rests is the nature of the Soul. He believes 
 in the Soul, — he is a Soul, — he believes in himself. 
 
 The Liberal has his fears. He is not afraid of his doubts, but 
 he is afraid of his prejudices; and more afraid of his own than 
 of anyone's else. He does not love, but he is not afraid of, the 
 hard names in religion. As commonly used, he recognizes them 
 as titles of honor: "agnostic," as naming a noble modesty and 
 honesty of mind; "infidelity" as consisting not in believing, nor 
 in disbelieving, but as Thomas Paine said, in professing to be- 
 lieve what one does not believe ; " heresy," as to-day's name 
 for to-morrow's probable orthodoxy; non-Christian, as often the 
 name of one who believes with Christ in the things which he 
 
78 
 
 emphasized, though not in the theories about Christ which rever- 
 ent men have devised ; " atheist," as usually meaning one who be- 
 lieves more in God than those who fling the word as a stone. He 
 is not afraid of these hard names, then ; but he has seen so many 
 " liberal " bigots, and has caught himself in so many bigotries, 
 that he is much afraid of his own self-satisfactions in religion, 
 his own sense of orthodoxy, of intellectual Tightness and superiority 
 to others. When comparing opinions and faiths with another, 
 he is on his guard therefore ; he seeks to put himself in the other's 
 place, to look at the other's reverence from the inside, to allow 
 for the personal equation both in himself and the other, to hail 
 the well-put objection to views that he cherishes, and, as Emer- 
 son counseled, to welcome his own overthrow in an argument; in 
 a word, to avoid dogmatism and arrogance; and this for his own 
 sake as much as in justice to others, — for his own sake, lest he 
 fail to recognize angels of thought in unlovely forms. 
 
 Such self-reliance and such self-distrust, such range in the truth- 
 quest and such cautions as these in the quest, may serve to indi- 
 cate the Freedom of the Liberal in religion. 
 
 Next, what is the Fellowship that he emphasizes? Fellow- 
 ship, rather than what? Fellowship in place of the spirit of sect. 
 From freedom as the attitude of the mind in relation to truth, 
 almost of necessity the spirit of fellowship follows as the atti- 
 tude of the heart towards all other seekers and lovers of truth. 
 For as we realize that the best of us has not attained, and that 
 we are all on the road together, this fact of togetherness becomes 
 more important than our own particular place in the procession. 
 Even if we think, as so many of us do, that our place is at the 
 head of the procession, " difference from us is no longer measure 
 of absurdity " — Emerson's phrase again, — and we cannot help 
 knowing that these comrades training behind us are where we 
 were but yesterday ; and that those others hidden still farther back 
 in the dust are where we, or our fathers, were the day before yes- 
 terday; and also that on roads all out of sight are many other 
 travellers hasting along with heads as high and faces as joyous, 
 perhaps, or as puzzled, as ours, — and, being out of sight over the 
 mountains and over the seas — say in Buddha land, — who really 
 
79 
 
 knows but that some of them may be well in advance of us on 
 their parallel roads? 
 
 Then, too, as the spirit of fellowship grows and we are better 
 acquainted with our fellow-travellers, the kinship in ideas, in 
 ideals, in reverences, in aims, becomes so apparent that it begins 
 to seem folly to insist on camping so carefully apart as men of 
 a different blood in religion. We recognize the fact that, in 
 spite of our differing names and ancestries, we are more like than 
 unlike in religion; and that the things which unite us are far 
 more important to religion than the things which divide us; that 
 " religions are many, but religion is one." And at last we real- 
 ize two other humbling, and therefore exalting, facts: (i) that, 
 whatever our fancied vantage in truth of ideas, not a few of 
 these comrades of ours are our sure superiors in the reality of re- 
 ligion, — some of them by a truer thought, some by a deeper ex- 
 perience of soul-life, some by closer loyalty to their vision ; and 
 (2) that almost every band of them, that is, every "sect," has 
 something of truth, some rightful emphasis, that we lack, and 
 that we had better try to assimilate, if we would be perfect. As 
 we realize this, that dream about being the head of the proces- 
 sion fades out, and we wake to move on humble and grateful, and 
 therefore faster than ever. 
 
 Something like this is the experience of the individual Lib- 
 eral, as he goes on his thought-road; and the experience of the 
 race as it moves on the thought-roads of history is but this written 
 large. " Toleration in religion, the best fruit of the last four 
 centuries," President Eliot wrote as inscription for one of the 
 Water-Gate tablets at the Columbian Exposition. But during 
 these centuries, in the nations that best deserve the adjective 
 " civilized," that fruit has itself greatly bettered. " Toleration" 
 a cause which had its own martyrs in the Reformation time, has 
 become a word of zratolerance to-day. There are horrors still 
 of anti-Semitic persecution in Russia, and horrors of anti-Chris- 
 tian persecution going on at this very moment ir Asia Minor; 
 but who in England, or who in America, to-day asks to be " tol- 
 erated," and who claims the right to "tolerate?" Toleration 
 has given way to equality, and equality is now giving way to 
 
8o 
 
 sympathy. Actual sympathy with ideas that our minds have to 
 reject, — reverence for reverences that we cannot share, — this is 
 to-day the ripening fruit of the centuries in the Liberal circles 
 of our happier lands. It implies a closer brotherhood than even 
 the noble old motto, " In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, 
 in all things charity; " for that left unsettled the perilous ques- 
 tion. What are " essentials " ? and in non-essentials it prescribes, 
 at most, charity; but this new sjMrit of Fellowship is passing 
 beyond charity into actual sympathy. It means that men are ac- 
 quiring power to see the soul of truth in what they deem error, 
 and to value the unities as more really vital than the differences 
 of faith, and to think of the varying Churches not as " sects " 
 but as " branches " growing out of one stock of religion. Speed 
 the day when millions shall see these things and be glad! But 
 meanwhile this is only the Liberal's spirit of Fellowship in reli- 
 gion. 
 
 To illustrate this point, may I venture to tell a dream that I 
 had not long ago about Phillips Brooks? A mere dream, not a 
 story; but even a dream may have parable-power. I had been 
 working on hymns overnight, and woke in the morning to find 
 myself wishing that I had Phillips Brooks' permission to change 
 just one word in the last line of his beautiful Christmas hymn, 
 " O little town of Bethlehem," — the hymn that ends, " O, come 
 to us, abide with us. Our Lord Emmanuel." I wanted permis- 
 sion to print it " our Heart's Emmanuel," to make it still more 
 poetical, but mainly to make it more honest for personal use. 
 After wishing my wish, I must have fallen asleep again; fear 
 the next thing I knew I was in the presence of Phillips Brooks 
 up in heaven, the request; on my lips. " May I alter the one 
 word ? " I pleaded, and explained my Puritan motive. " O yes, 
 if you wish to," he heartily answered, and beamed a great smile. 
 So encouraged, I ventured further and said, " You all sing the 
 same words up here, I suppose?" " O, never!" he answered 
 quickly, " O, never! We never sing the same words up here. 
 But we all mean the same things by what we sing. It's the mean- 
 ings that make the song here." A little abashed, like Abou ben 
 Adhem, I spoke more low, but cheerly still, — " Down there we 
 have to think of the words to get them honest to the meanings." 
 
8i 
 
 " Yes, dodvn there! " he replied, and beamed another great smile, 
 as if by and by I, too, would know better. Then I awoke. My 
 dream was like that, — we cannot vouch for the words of a 
 dream; and fax be it from me to claim that I have quoted the 
 good Bishop aright! Yet I believe that what I seemed to hear 
 is what he would say up there in his light, — that it's the meaning 
 that makes the song, and the heart's meaning at that; that these 
 meanings are necessarily rendered in varying vs^ords by varying 
 minds; and that while the rule for " down here" is, " Let each 
 mind be true to itself in its utterance," the best of our heart's 
 truth is actually missed by us if we fancy that our own form 
 of words or of thought is essential to the utterance. 
 
 Time does not allow me to describe at this length the other 
 two emphases of the Liberal, — his emphasis on Character and 
 on Service as supreme elements in religion. Character is his test. 
 Service is his mm, in religion. Not so has it been in the past. 
 Has character been the test of religion? Speaking through the 
 fifth-century Greek, Christianity's answer was, " My test is Creed 
 
 — it is what you believe about the persons of God and the natures 
 of Christ." Speaking through the great Roman Church, for a 
 thousand years her answer was, " My test is Ritual, — the prayer, 
 the confession, the penance, the baptism, the attendance at Mass." 
 Speaking through Protestants, until very lately, and still speak- 
 ing through many, her word has again been, " My test is a Creed, 
 
 — it is what you believe about the salvation through Christ." 
 And these men have often slurred goodness as " mere morality," 
 and called righteousness " filthy rags," and character set to God's 
 will " deadly doing." The stress, and the actual test as applied, 
 have been thus; yet theory has always included goodness as a 
 needful part of religion, and there have always been thousands 
 of humble souls, Jew, Greek, Roman, Puritan, living their will- 
 life in God. 
 
 But Religion, speaking from age to age through those most 
 truly religious in many a faith, and now strenuously and steadily 
 speaking through the Liberal, says, " Character is my test. I 
 give men thoughts, the largest they think; I give men faiths, the 
 deepest they trust; I give feelings, the strongest that move; but 
 I measure by none of these. It is not what you believe, nor 
 
82 
 
 feel, nor do with your hand, nor what you see to be right, — it is 
 how much you will of the right that you see and do that I care 
 for. The actual intent and endeavor — in great or in little, and 
 whether success comes or failure — are all that I look at. So 
 far as a man's will is set on the right as he sees the right, it allies 
 him to God : so far as it is set on the wrong as he sees the wrong, 
 it parts him from God. This, nothing less, and no more, is my 
 test." And in the new Christianity, the new Judaism, the new 
 religions of all names flowering to-day, the old tests of religion 
 are being transformed into this nobler test established by prophet 
 and poet and saint. 
 
 So, too, the aim in religion is transfiguring itself under the 
 liberalizing trend of the age. Not for self-expression, as some 
 say; not for self-culture, as others say; not for self-salvation, as 
 it has been so long said in the past, are we here in the world, 
 says the Liberal; but for the expression, the culture, the salva- 
 tion of others; for the self-culture only as means to the greater 
 service of others than self. We are here to grow, but to grow 
 to the end that we may make grow; and as means to that end, 
 the self-growth also is hallowed. We are learning to apply the 
 secret of Jesus: He that would save his life loseth it, but whoso 
 loseth his life for others is saving it. The soul that in trying 
 to save others forgets that it needs to be saved, does not need to 
 be, — it is saved already, the Liberal holds. Many with Whit- 
 tier see it to-day, — 
 
 " That to be saved is only this, — 
 Salvation from our selfishness." 
 
 Our Quaker poet, with his stress all against creed and ritual, 
 and all for character and love, is more and more accepted as the 
 psalmist of our day. 
 
 Moreover, as the others can only be saved by us here, the 
 scene of salvation is shifting from heaven to earth. Look out, 
 and not in; look neither forward nor back, but around, — is the 
 new pointing. The two " great commandments " are growing 
 " liker " than ever, and virtually one. Within the old Christ 
 a new Christ is emerging, the human within the divine, — Christ 
 the All-Manly, Christ the All-Brotherly. " All-Manly " means 
 
83 
 
 Character ; " All-brotherly " Service. And more than ever his 
 true worship is felt to be imitation. "Be a Christ! Everything 
 is summed up in that." The ideal which Christendom worships, 
 and the aim which Christendom seeks, are ceasing to contradict 
 one another. 
 
 And what is the " Church " of men who are trying to be Christs 
 and finish his work? Mr. Stead answers: " It is the Union of 
 All who Love in the Service of All who Suffer." To serve in this 
 Church the young ministers of to-day are grappling wath social 
 science — a new study for theological students. To serve in 
 this Church the Salvation Army, the King's Daughters, the Chris- 
 tian Endeavorers, the College and Social Settlements, the Rescue 
 Missions, and other life-saving bands, are mustering and multiply- 
 ing. It is an efflorescence of Service ! The " social conscience," 
 the " social consciousness," — these are the great new watchwords 
 to-day. And the new song is — 
 
 " Love for every unloved creature, 
 Lonely, poor or small." 
 
 In the creed sung in that song, in that creed lived out by fortu- 
 nate folk homing among the less fortunate, and sharing culture, 
 brightness, beauty, happiness with them, and in the expanding 
 ideals of social justice that break out from the love-dreams in 
 which they first come, the Liberal in religion believes the final 
 solution of social problems lies. 
 
 I have so far been speaking of Principles, of Ideals. What 
 are likely to be the characteristic Ideas of this coming Liberal re- 
 ligion? Do the signs begin to tell that? 
 
 I am sure it is a religion that will hold the Ideals above the 
 Ideas; value spirit, attitude, method in religion above doctrines; 
 experience of religion above the best creed or the most cogently 
 beautiful ritual; freedom and fellowship and character and serv- 
 ice above even the great and dear thoughts of God and Immor- 
 tality. But will this coming religion have a theology at all? 
 Indeed it will. Men are not yet done wondering what is behind 
 the visible universe, what is the nature of the Power in which 
 and by which the universe lives, what we are in essence ourselves, 
 whence we have come, why we are here, and whither we go, and 
 
84 
 
 the wherefore of all the hardness and the glory of the journey 
 of life; and our answers to our own wonders about these things 
 constitute '' theology." As long as man lasts, theology lasts. But 
 I think there will be less emphasis on all these questions in the 
 coming religion ; at least, less need felt of certain and definite and 
 elaborate answers. There will be a humbler sense of mystery 
 in the coming theology, just because the growing recognition is 
 Unity. Is the Trinity mystery? Unity — One in All and All 
 in One — is a greater mystery than One-in-Three and Three-in- 
 One. There is no mystery like Unity. There will be more con- 
 tent with the Unknown, though less of that presumption of 
 knowledge that calls anything Unknowable. There will be no 
 conflict between Science and Faith, but Faith will look to Science 
 for enlargements without, while Science will look to Faith for 
 deepenings within. There will be more of Faith, — not less of 
 Faith, but more of Faith, in the coming religion than in the 
 most faithful Churches to-day; that is, a more simple, happy, all- 
 day, every-day trust in the Universe and in Goodness at the heart 
 of the Universe. 
 
 But can we be more specific than this about the Liberal's the- 
 ology? Yes, there are heralds even of its specific tenets, I think. 
 
 The Soul will be its first tenet, — the Soul of Man as the seat 
 of Religion. Everything in religion will base on the Soul. The- 
 ology will be frankly confessed to be Psychology read into the 
 heavens, — the Soul of Man spelling the Soul of Nature in large. 
 
 God will be conceived as the Immanent Power, the Imma- 
 nent Reason, the Immanent Goodness in all things. His name 
 Law, — Law physical. Law psychical. His name, Reason in self- 
 revelation. His name. Righteousness in tendency. His name. 
 Love, — Love in the courses of the stars, Love in the courses of 
 history. Love in the courses of each little human and sub-human 
 life. The one Living Reality and Presence and Power and Help: 
 joining itself to all that does the will of the Right, and conduct- 
 ing each life, to that will obedient, into beatitude; frustrating, 
 overcoming, and so joining itself also to, all that does not do 
 the will of the Right. Personal God, in the sense in which 
 " Person " sums up and names all such forces of Reason and 
 Righteousness as these; impersonal, for any who can call such 
 
85 
 
 forces as these impersonal; God, the Infinite Mystery of Exist- 
 ence, — God, the Best Known of all Existence in the intimacies 
 of Self. 
 
 Jesus, however we rank him among those whom he himself 
 called his " brethren " because they with him do that will of the 
 Right, will be correlated among his brother-prophets, those other 
 spokesmen for God, — even as Jews on the one hand. Evangel- 
 icals on the other, are correlating him to-day. 
 
 The Bible, however we rank it among national scriptures, will 
 be correlated among the other scriptures of man, — records, all, 
 of man's search for the better and best. It will be honored and 
 loved, as it is being recognized, honored and loved to-day, as the 
 spiritual autobiography of a people gifted with the apprehension of 
 righteousness and unity, — the thousand years' record of that peo- 
 ple's mind-growth, conscience-growth, heart-growth, as it rose 
 from its savagery toward heights, not of to-day's, but of ancient 
 civilization. 
 
 Salvation, though that word may not be used, will be recog- 
 nized as synonymous with just such growths as these, — growths 
 in the individual, growths in the race. 
 
 I cannot go on : this will suffice as a hint of the coming Liberal 
 theology. 
 
 But one closing question ought to be noted from its interest 
 as well as its importance: What will be the relation of this com- 
 ing theology to the theology of the past? 
 
 Its mission, I think, will be less to refute than to interpret the 
 faiths of the past. True interpretation is at once justification and 
 refutation. True interpretation explains how the old dogmas 
 rose in the minds and hearts and consciences of men, — that they 
 were, for the time, the best translations men could make of the 
 universe in terms of ideas and ideals, — that they were germinal 
 statements of truth, germs that must needs grow and expand as 
 the human mind grew. So the story of a faith is in itself its jus- 
 tification, and in itself its refutation at last. Especially will the 
 coming Liberal theology, if I mistake not, be glad to maintain 
 that the old dogmas of Christianity, now in their decay, are each 
 and all forecasts of great truths which the religion of to-day is 
 recognizing with awe and delight; that those dogmas of Drtho- 
 
86 
 
 doxy, framed in the fourth and fifth centuries, and elaborated 
 in the sixteenth by Protestantism, are early, concrete, dramatic, 
 kindergarten forms of the very truths that you and I are trying 
 to shape in vastly enlarged forms before our own minds to-day. 
 ''■ Incarnation," for example, conceived then as a single expres- 
 sion in history, conceived now^ as a Universe Lawr, — " Evolution 
 simply meaning Incarnation Progressive. " Vicarious Atone- 
 ment," conceived then as a wholly unique and divine illustration 
 of sacrifice, conceived now as another Universe Law, — the law 
 which affirms that no one lives and no one dies to himself, and that 
 by this solidarity of life all crosses and sufferings and tragedies, 
 even and sins, all joys, successes, beatitudes also, work together 
 for the uplift of all. " Inspiration," then conceived as a whis- 
 pered " Thus saith the Lord " to a prophet, now conceived as a 
 Universe Law of communion and influx between Soul and all 
 souls. And so of the other Orthodox dogmas, — each one the 
 germ of what you and I are rejoicing over in blossom. 
 
 And now to sum up. What makes a Liberal in religion? To 
 hold Freedom, Fellowship, Character, Service supreme in religion. 
 Whoever holds these supreme, whether he call himself Jew, 
 Roman Catholic or Episcopalian, or Presbyterian or Baptist or 
 Methodist, or Universalist or Unitarian or Friend — or anything 
 else, — he is a " Liberal " in religion. Whoever holds these ideals 
 supreme, he and we are of one religious fellowship. Whoever 
 loves and lives these ideals better than we is our teacher, whatever 
 Church or age he belongs to. Doctrines must needs differ, re- 
 flecting the difference in minds — and better they should, since 
 all minds see more than one mind, though that one be best. 
 Names must need differ, therefore. But no doctrine, however 
 true and important, ranks with these supreme things. In these, 
 and only in these things, lies the hope of religious unity; and only 
 in this sense is such unity desirable. On these four principles, 
 Freedom, Fellowship, Character, and Service in Religion, as on 
 corner-stones slowly uprises the One Catholic Church of Man. 
 
87 
 
 WHAT LIBERAL RELIGION CAN DO FOR MAN'S 
 HIGHER WELLFARE AND HAPPINESS 
 
 PRESIDENT FREDERICK W. HAMILTON, D. D., OF TUFT's COLLEGE, 
 MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 The direct answer to the question implied in my topic can be 
 given in a very few words. Liberal Religion can do everything 
 for man's higher wellfare and happiness that any form of religion 
 can and can do it in the' best possible way. If you would know 
 what Judaism has done for man's higher wellfare and happiness 
 you have only to read the thirty centuries and more of the His- 
 tory of Judaism. At every page you will see that the liberal 
 type has produced the finest results and done the most to ad- 
 vance the cause. If you would learn what Catholicism can do 
 for man's higher wellfare and happiness turn to the History of 
 the Catholic Church since the days of the Apostles, and again 
 you may see that the liberal spirit in it and the liberal type of it 
 have accomplished the finest results. If again you would know 
 what Protestantism can do for man's higher wellfare and happi- 
 ness you have only to consider what Protestantism has accom- 
 plished since the days of Luther and Calvin. Again you will 
 see at every point that the vitalizing element which has produced 
 the finest results and the largest accomplishment has been the 
 liberal spirit in the Churches. Wherever religion is at work it 
 secures the higher wellfare and happiness of mankind, and wher- 
 ever this result has been secured in the largest measure, the mo- 
 tive power has been the liberal and progressive spirit at work in 
 the various religious organizations. 
 
 I trust I am making it clear that to my mind the term " lib- 
 eral religion " has no reference at all to any religious body, any 
 form of Theology, or any set of institutions. It is not what 
 a man believes, it is rather the way in which he believes it. Lib- 
 eral religion may be found in any ecclesiastical body, under any 
 denominational label, and within any ecclesiastical institutions, 
 but not necessarily connected with any of these things. If I sup- 
 posed it to be necessarily so connected I should have much less 
 confidence in its future than I now have. It is because I believe 
 
it capable of working in all institutions and through all forms 
 of creeds that I have supreme confidence in it for the future. It 
 is the large and progressive and tolerant temper of the man who 
 sees that the truth, simple, central, and vital, is important, and 
 who realizes that statement of it is necessarily provisional and 
 never vital. It is the spirit in religion which deals with things 
 and not names, with ideas and not words, with substance and not 
 with shadows. 
 
 Being all of this it is the adjusting element which keeps perma- 
 nent religious truths in contact with ever changing human life. 
 Truth, if it were unfortunately identified with its statement, 
 would be as provisional and as temporary as they must neces- 
 sarily be. Religion, if it were unfortunately identified with the 
 religions, could never be a permanent force in human life. The 
 records of human history are full of religions which have died. 
 They came and served their turn in aiding human progress. The 
 time came when they were no longer capable of rendering their 
 service, they lost their touch with human life, they ceased to be 
 adjustable, and they ceased to be helpful. Their functions ceas- 
 ing they ceased to exist and only the scholar knows their story. 
 Religion, however, is eternal. 
 
 Only as recently as in my own boyhood we were told by trav- 
 elers and ethnologists that there were here and there very primitive 
 savage races which had no religion. No intelligent traveler 
 or competent ethnologist would now make that statement. It is 
 true that not a few of these tribes have very simple religious be- 
 liefs. They appear to lack most of the intellectual convictions 
 which to many persons make up the necessary substance of reli- 
 gion. Not infrequently they have concealed their religious be- 
 liefs and practices from the prying eyes of the traveler and the 
 inquisitive investigations of the ethnologist. It is not unnatural 
 that the difficulty in ascertaining their real beliefs, or the impossi- 
 bility of making their beliefs fill out the content of religion as un- 
 derstood by Christians two generations ago should have led to the 
 conclusion that religion was absent in these cases. Now we know 
 that religion, although it may be reduced to its lowest terms, is 
 never absent. 
 
 Religion, as we know it, is a complicated thing. Reduced 
 
89 
 
 to its lowest terms it is simply the recognition of intelligent ex- 
 istence behind and above all the complicated forms of existence 
 with which we are in contact. This recognition is inevitably 
 associated with the desire to put one's self into right relations with 
 the being so recognized. The conviction that one has succeeded 
 in doing this produces feelings of satisfaction and exaltation 
 amounting in some cases to ecstasy. Thus considered, the intel- 
 lectual content of religion is very slight. It is for the most part 
 a sentiment. The mere recognition of deity is not intellectual, 
 it is rather emotional. It may exist, and may powerfully mould 
 the life of the individual before it rises to definition. It is the 
 inevitable reaction of the untutored mind upon its environment. 
 Atheism, even serious doubt is the product of civilization rather 
 than a survival from savagery. 
 
 Students of religion from the Christian point of view are 
 sometimes surprised at the close resemblance between the reli- 
 gious emotions and aspirations as they are exhibited in the Eth- 
 inic religions and the religious emotions and aspirations of the 
 Christian. Really there is no occasion for surprise, for the rea- 
 son that these emotions and aspirations are not characteristic of 
 the religions, but belong to religion itself. Religion as a senti- 
 ment and an emotion is the fundamental constant belonging to 
 all forms of religion. It is essentially the same everywhere. 
 You find it in the savage Arab of ancient time, devouring the 
 raw flesh of the camel at his sacrificial feast, or the Indian medi- 
 cine man communing with the Great Spirit, or the Jewish 
 prophet uttering his solemn " thus saith Jehovah," or the Roman 
 ecclesiastic in his gorgeous vestments ofEering the sacrifice of the 
 mass in some splendid cathedral, or the Salvation Army lassie 
 with her blue bonnet and her tambourine, or the Protestant 
 evangelist making his stirring appeal to his audience, or the 
 Friend speaking as the spirit moves and feeling the guidance of 
 the inner light. In speech, in dress, in ceremony, in thought, 
 these are as far apart as the poles, but emotionally they are one; 
 together they recognize the life in which we live and move and 
 have our being, together they strive to enter into communica- 
 tion with it, together they feel the thrill of ecstasy when their 
 effort has been real and they feel that it has been successful. 
 
90 
 
 This sentiment undergoes two processes. On the one hand 
 it expresses itself in intellectual forms, and on the other it mani- 
 fests itself in institutions. The savage feels the presence of 
 deity. He wants to tell what he feels. In order to do that he 
 must think about him, he must define him, he must describe him. 
 He can only do this by the use of the materials for thought and 
 speech which his experience furnishes. He must evolve his God 
 out of his experience. We do not realize fully, unless we stop 
 to think about it, within what limits our thinking is confined. 
 We know that we speak the language into which we are born or 
 which is the common medium of expression among those about 
 us. We who are here to-day do not speak English because it 
 is the most scientifically constructed, the most expressive, or the 
 most perfect language spoken by man. It may be or may not 
 be these things. We speak it because we were bom or have 
 made our homes in an English speaking land. But the mind 
 has its language as well as the tongue. We use the thought 
 forms which are current. We do not realize quite as clearly 
 as we do in the case of language that this is the fact, but that 
 it is a fact is undeniable. 
 
 In one respect at least the thought forms of the more civilized 
 nations have undergone a great change within half a century. 
 Previous to that time the prevailing thought may be described 
 as static. Permanence was considered not only a normal but 
 an ideal condition. Everybody supposed that forms of religion, 
 forms of government, forms of social organizations, and the like, 
 could be and ought to be permanent. All changes were supposed 
 to be in the direction of the establishment of a permanent form 
 and only necessitated by the imperfection of the form in use. 
 That such a permanent form was desirable, possible, and even 
 probable, nobody seriously questioned, however much he might 
 be dissatisfied with present conditions or statements. We car- 
 ried this idea over into the hereafter, and looked forward to a 
 permanent condition of unchanging bliss or unchanging torment 
 into which we should pass at death. By and by Charles Darwin 
 wrote " The Origin of Species." As a scientific text book that vol- 
 ume is long since out of date, but as a product of human thought 
 it marks one of the great epochs in the history of the thinking of 
 
91 
 
 mankind. Darwin points out what others have seen, though with 
 less clearness, that the whole creation is in a state of flux, and 
 is constantly becoming, and that changeless things are dead 
 things. Since that book was written this conception has pene- 
 trated the entire thinking of mankind. We no longer think in 
 terms of statics, we think in terms of dynamics. We no longer 
 think of permanence of form or condition as either possible or 
 desirable. We realize that human institutions as well as organic 
 species are constantly changing, dissolving, melting into each 
 other. We are all evolutionists whether we know it or not, 
 whether we want to be or not, for the civilized world thinks now 
 in terms of evolution. 
 
 We realize now that the savage does not think of religion as 
 we do, because he cannot. No more can we think as he does. 
 The age thinks as it must, within large limits. Ages yet to come 
 will find it as impossible to think as we do, as we find it im- 
 possible to fit our intellectual operations to those of ages long 
 past. Thus the gods are developed out of the sentiment of the 
 divine interpreted in terms of the age. In the savage days when 
 the occupations of primitive men were war and the chase his God 
 was a god of battles, a mighty leader of the heavenly hosts wor- 
 shiped with bloody sacrifice. In the agricultural age when men 
 occupied themselves with the peaceful cultivation of the ground 
 and supported life mainly on its fruits, their god was the god 
 of fertility, the giver of the harvest, the spirit of the corn. When 
 states were consolidated under mighty emperors their gods were 
 irresponsible despots ruling solely by power and by will un- 
 trammeled by justice or moralitj'. When legal considerations 
 prevailed God was the supreme judge and his dealings with his 
 creatures took legal forms. In a higher and finer state of so- 
 ciety than either of these God is worshiped as the Father or lov- 
 ing parent, whose nature can be dimly comprehended through 
 the medium of what is best in his children. All of these con- 
 ceptions of the divine grow inevitably out of the prevailing con- 
 ditions of human life. 
 
 Concurrently with this intellectual development comes the 
 development of appropriate institutions. The forms of worship, 
 the organization of the worshipers, the temples, altars and sac- 
 
92 
 
 rifices, the rituals, ornaments and vestments, priestly hierarchies, 
 and ministerial orders, all these institutions are the machinery 
 through which men are bound together for the expression and 
 enforcement of their religious convictions. The same is true of 
 codes of conduct imposed by the different religions upon their 
 followers. The conventional morality of any age is largely the 
 product of the time. Real morality drives its roots deep into 
 the permanent elements of life and of religion, but every period 
 and every time has its conventional code which is the result of 
 history, tradition, and environment. 
 
 From the point of view which we have taken it is easy to see 
 why some religions persist through many centuries and others 
 do not. The life or death of a religion depends upon its capacity 
 to separate its fundamental truths from their expression, to en- 
 large Its definitions, to adopt new statements, to fill out the chang- 
 ing outline of social forms. The religion of Israel is among the 
 oldest of the great religions. All the contemporary religions with 
 which it came into contact during the first half and more of its 
 existence are dead while it survives with apparently unimpaired 
 vitality. A study of the history of Israel will show that its truth 
 had not been permanently tied to Its statements. It has always 
 had Its orthodox and liberal parties, and in the end the liberal 
 party has always prevailed. Israel's conception of God as set 
 forth in the earlier records of the Old Testament was little if 
 any superior to the religious notions of the surrounding peoples. 
 As the centuries passed that Idea was developed until It could 
 satisfy the lofty soul of Jesus of Nazareth, who regarded him- 
 self not as the founder of a new religion, but as the fulfiller of 
 an old one. We must not forget that the Christian Church did 
 not leave the synagogue until it was compelled to do so. This 
 power of expansion, redefinition, and adjustment has kept Israel 
 alive. The lack of it caused the religions of Egypt, Assyria, 
 Greece, and Rome to die after they had survived their useful- 
 ness. 
 
 This lesson of the past ought not to be wasted on the present. 
 There is no occasion for fear for the future of Christianity as a 
 whole. Christianity is Itself a liberal movement. " The sim- 
 plicity that is in Christ Jesus " Is guarantee of a power of adjust- 
 
93 
 
 ment which is not likely ever to fail. Christianity, however, is 
 a thing expressed in many forms. Each one of these forms shows 
 the tendency, common to all religions, to harden; that is to say, 
 each denomination shows a tendency to regard itself as Christian 
 and others as pseudo-Christian, and to consider its own forms 
 and statements as the final expression of religious belief. 
 Against this narrowness struggles the liberal spirit in all the 
 denominations, the spirit which holds fast to the great central 
 ideas, but welcomes the continual changes in statement necessary 
 to keep these ideas in vital touch with human life. The contin- 
 ued efFort of every Christian denomination depends upon the vic- 
 tory of the liberal element within its body. If the liberal ele- 
 ment conquers there will be no sacrifice of truth, but the truth 
 will remain a living thing, always in helpful relations with hu- 
 man life, and the denomination w^ill live because men need it. 
 If the conservative element conquers, truth will be identified with 
 dogma, faith will lose its touch on life, the denomination will 
 cease to be helpful and will die — as it should. 
 
 WHAT LIBERAL RELIGION HAS DONE FOR 
 AMERICA 
 
 ABSTRACT OF ADDRESS BY EDWIN D. MEAD, PRESIDENT OF THE 
 FREE RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA 
 
 At the very beginning of our history three liberal principles 
 of the greatest moment had remarkable emphasis. The little 
 Pilgrim congregation which settled Plymouth were the most 
 conspicuous representatives in their time of the principles of com- 
 plete democracy in church government; Roger Williams was the 
 first founder of a state upon the principle of religious toleration; 
 and William Penn in Pennsylvania stood for the doctrine of 
 the inner light as superior to all forms of external revelation 
 or authority. It was inevitable that a nation which had such 
 principles as these among its foundation stones should become 
 the greatest temple of religious liberty which history has seen. 
 The principles had to encounter all sorts of opposition and re- 
 action; but they have steadily gone on developing and winning 
 supremacy. The speaker gave impressive illustrations of coura- 
 
94 
 
 geous liberal sentiment all through the early period of New 
 England history in particular. Harvard College, which chose 
 the word " Veritas " for its seal, was almost from the beginning 
 a cradle of liberal movements in religion, as the English Cam- 
 bridge had been before it. Protestantism, Puritanism and In- 
 dependency were all successively cradled in the English Cam- 
 bridge; and Harvard came into the apostolic succession as con- 
 cerned religious progress. A century after its foundation. East- 
 ern Massachusetts was full of ministers who represented the most 
 liberal sentiments both in religion and politics, — for the two 
 went hand in hand in those old days. Many of the leading min- 
 isters who shaped popular thought for the American Revolution 
 were men essentially Unitarian in their belief. John Adams 
 himself has left us a memorable list of such whom he knew. 
 The speaker dwelt especially upon the noteworthy political and 
 religious influence of Jonathan Mayhew, and spoke of his fa- 
 miliarity with the writings of Milton and other advanced Eng- 
 lish thinkers. Franklin, Jefferson, and many of the illustrious 
 leaders of the Revolution were men as radical in religious as 
 in political thought. " I trust," said Jefferson, " there is not 
 a young man now living who will not die a Unitarian." It was 
 just as the Revolution began that John Murray began to preach 
 Universalism in America, and just as it ended that Chauncy 
 published his books in behalf of that doctrine. The speaker paid 
 special tribute to the early American Baptist congregations as 
 sources of many liberal movements. From among them came 
 large numbers of the early Universalists ; they were always the 
 staunch champions of toleration ; and they were the most resolute 
 workers for the separation of church and state — which separa- 
 tion did not come in Massachusetts until two centuries after the 
 founding of Rhode Island. 
 
 Channing opened a new era in American religious thought; 
 and the speaker showed how the central principles for which 
 Channing stood, and Emerson and Theodore Parker after him, 
 have gradually come to pervade all thoughtful religious circles. 
 When Dean Stanley visited America he said that he found 
 Emerson preaching in every important pulpit. The speaker him- 
 self had recently been present at the celebration of Dr. Gordon's 
 
95 
 
 twenty-five years' ministry over the Old South Church in Bos- 
 ton; and a Yale professor had there surveyed the changes in the 
 theology in the Congregational Churches during the quarter cen- 
 tury. They have brought about, he said, a wholly new view of 
 the supernatural, of the Bible, of Jesus, of human nature and 
 of human society. All of these changes have really consisted in 
 the coming up of the great multitudes of thoughtful men to the 
 prophetic views of Channing, Emerson, and Parker; although 
 of course their influence has been coincident with influences from 
 Germany and elsevi'here. 
 
 There are few better indications of the vitality of a religious 
 movement than its power to sing; and the hymns which have 
 sprung from American liberal religion have been among the 
 noblest of modern times. The great American poets altogether 
 have belonged to the household of liberal religion, and all the 
 great historians as well. In the field of education and philan- 
 thropy liberal religion has conspicuously proved its faith by its 
 works. It is doubtful whether any religious bodies so small ever 
 contributed so large a proportion of leaders in philanthropy and 
 reform. The speaker touched upon the work of Tuckerman, 
 Dorothea Dix, Samuel C. Howe, and Henry Bergh, and espe- 
 cially upon the organization of the peace movement in America, 
 From the tissue of Worcester, Channing, and Sumner, to the 
 present, the championship of international justice by liberal re- 
 ligious leaders has nobly attested the virtue of their conception 
 of the true dignity and vocation of the children of God. 
 
 LIBERAL RELIGION A POSITIVE FAITH 
 
 CURTIS GOULD, JR., OF BOSTON 
 
 By " liberal religion," I do not understand the acceptance of 
 any crystallized theological dogma, nor by those who profess to 
 be liberal religionists do I understand the members of any one 
 particular sect. In short the term " liberal religion," as used 
 by this association seems to me to be in a way misleading. What 
 we are really seeking is not so much a liberal religion but rather 
 liberality in religion. 
 
 The spread of education and toleration is carrying with it 
 
96 
 
 the spirit of liberalism into all bodies of devout worshippers 
 whether Catholic or Protestant or Jew or Buddhist or Moham- 
 medan. The liberal religionist, not in one sect, but universally 
 everywhere is seeking and finding conviction as well as blind 
 faith, and through simplicity rather than through mystery. Mere 
 blind acceptance of a creed may be satisfied with passivity, but 
 profound and joyous conviction is to be won only by a religion 
 of assertion. 
 
 Goethe, seeking to define the spirit of evil, puts into the mouth 
 of Mephistopheles the words " Ich bin der Geist der stets ver- 
 neint" (I am the spirit that eternally denies). In that sub- 
 lime chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew which opens 
 with the Beatitudes, Jesus of Nazareth says of his mission on 
 earth, the very antithesis of negation, " Think not that I am 
 come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to de- 
 stroy but to fulfil." 
 
 Buddha, five centuries before the first Christmas, had pro- 
 claimed, as a rule of life, " Do not do unto others what you 
 would not have them do unto you." For this passive behest to 
 abstain from evil-doing the Founder of Christianity substituted 
 the Golden Rule, inculcating activity in well doing: "All things 
 whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so 
 to them, for this is the law and the prophets," an amplification 
 of the Mosaic command in Leviticus, " Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself." 
 
 In the sixth book of the Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus 
 Aurelius Antoninus, it is set down : " The best way of avenging 
 thyself is not to become like the wrong doer." This was the 
 sober but negative conclusion of the soldier emperor, the leader 
 of the " Thundering Legion." It was at least a protest against 
 the old philosophy of revenge, " Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, 
 hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for 
 wound, stripe for stripe." The pagan reasoning of the Roman 
 emperor, like that of the Indian philosopher, fell far short of 
 the immortal injunction to action, " Love your enemies, bless 
 them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray 
 for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." 
 
 I have ventured to make these comparisons as illustrations 
 
97 
 
 of the superiority of the active, not merely to the negative, but 
 to the passive, in religion as in all other human experiences. 
 The force of evil resists, the philosophy of paganism neither resists 
 nor promotes, but the religion that stands for uplift, hope and 
 progress must be neither negative nor merely passive but posi- 
 tively active for good. 
 
 It has always seemed to me unfortunate that those wbo in 
 one place or another have sought to fight the universal enemies, 
 agnosticism or atheism, by adding conviction to blind iaith 
 have emphasized so strongly their denial of the creeds of others. 
 Truth advances not by denial, but by assertion. Mere oppo- 
 sition vi^ithout suggestion, in religious life as in political life, be- 
 comes first an object of anger and then of ridicule. The gentle- 
 men who protest against a national inheritance tax with only 
 more vigor than they protest against duties on tea and coffee, 
 without suggesting any means of revenue by which the ex- 
 penses of government may be paid, are no more ridiculous than 
 those who declaim against ancient mystery, creed and tradition, 
 but offer no positive conviction in its place. 
 
 The man of liberal thought is often more genuinely devout 
 than the conservative, for his religion, not merely accepted but 
 sought and acquired, differs as the thing that is given , differs 
 from the thing that is earned. Socrates suffered martyrdom for 
 the liberality of his religious faith, yet his last word was an 
 appeal for an act of devotion. He denounced the loose stories 
 2U;tributed by Greek mythology to the gods of Olympus as nec- 
 essarily the inventions of poets, declaring that beings superior 
 to humanity could not bave committed acts recognized even by 
 humanity as sinful. Yet, because he applied the touchstone of 
 intelligence to the mere trappings and settings of religion, he 
 did not feel himself thereby divorced from religion itself. -On 
 the contrary, he felt himself the more forced to proclaim a 
 Supreme Divine authority, whose spirit he felt in his own being. 
 You will remember his last hours were devoted to an argumient 
 that death was not destruction but development. You remem- 
 ber also that he left behind him as a last legacy to his friends 
 his perfect conviction that the passage from this life to another 
 was no loss but a gain. 
 
98 
 
 Judged by exact definition there is no more inaccurate term 
 in the world than the appellation Protestant. If the Protestant 
 had done nothing more than to protest against another creed, 
 Protestantism, so-called, would never have survived. The re- 
 bellious monk, nailing to the church door at Wittenberg the 
 theses on which he was prepared to defy existing dogma, was a 
 splendid instance of courage, if you will, but that act of protest 
 alone was merely destructive. 
 
 The Luther who founded the Lutheran Church was not 
 merely an objector. Mere objection creates no permanent fol- 
 lowing. The Luther that was followed was rather (disregard- 
 ing for the moment whether he was right or wrong) the pro- 
 claimer of a positive faith who, chalking on the desk before him, 
 at Marburg, in his great debate with the Swiss theologian, 
 Zwingli, the declaration, " Hoc est meum corpus," in which 
 he literally did believe, refused to budge or compromise even to 
 secure a larger leadership. It was not in denial of another's 
 creed, but in defence of his own, that he stood up before the 
 imperial Diet at Worms and in the face of death itself declared 
 " Here stand I. I can no otherwise. God help me. Amen." 
 
 Liberality in religion implies so absolutely the free toleration 
 of all honest convictions, however differing, that in the procla- 
 mation of liberality the assertion of the more important half of 
 the phrase, religion, is apt to be forgotten. The recognition of 
 the sincerity and the worth of another man's creed is one of the 
 most blessed developments of modern civilization, provided tol- 
 eration does not relapse into indifference. We have passed the 
 period when the advocate of freedom of thought needs to em- 
 phasize what he does not believe. We have almost passed the 
 period when, like Lord Baltimore or Roger Williams, we need 
 particularly to iterate and reiterate a disavowal of personal or 
 political antagonism to those differing from us in religious con- 
 victions. If liberal religion is to be no mere misty and intangible 
 phantom of an attenuated philosophy, but a strong, red-blooded, 
 manly faith, its professors must more frequently proclaim not 
 what they do not believe, but what they do believe. 
 
 Science is not the destroyer, but the revealer of religion. The 
 savage worships blindly, and to avert personal misfortune sacri- 
 
99 
 
 fices to idols, rocks, trees, serpents, ancestors, natural or super- 
 natural forces, to anything that is or seems stronger than himself, 
 from the sheer desire to avert personal misfortune from himself. 
 It is not merely a human but an animal instinct to fear what is 
 not readily understood. Education strips the mjfstery from re- 
 ligion as the sculptor cuts stone from the statue, but religion 
 itself is as eternal as the angel that was alwa^-s hidden in the 
 heart of the marble. 
 
 The savage makes gifts to a Mumbo Jumbo, that personal pain 
 may be averted, that personal pleasure may be obtained. The 
 civilized man seeks divine guidance rather than divine help, he 
 prays not for ease but for strength, and accepts temporal misfor- 
 tune or temporal failure with equanimity in the assured con- 
 viction that a Divine Power ever converts individual evil to 
 general good, and that not merely the general good but true hap- 
 piness of the soul comes not from self seeking but self sacrifice. 
 
 Geology, astronomy, biology-, histor\' have done something 
 more than to prove to us that dragons once really did fly through 
 the air, that there really are other living worlds above the skies, 
 that animals like the leviathan did once swim the seas, that Ur 
 of the C3ialdees really was once a great metropolis alive with 
 warehouses and arsenals and race tracks and homes and temples. 
 They have set by the side of revelation proof and illustration 
 that this is not a universe of chance and accident: that there is 
 somew'here, somehow a great First Cause; that the strivings of 
 the complaining millions of men do somehow^ work together for 
 good ; that, viewed through the perspective glass of the centu- 
 ries, t3rrants, demagogues, thieves and murderers have been help- 
 less to prevent the onward and upward progress of the race; 
 that the selfish life is not the happy life; that life itself does not 
 end w-ith the dropping of the leaf nor the disintegration of the 
 body; that it is given to no man to prevent the onward progress 
 of the universe, but that a choice is given to every man between 
 shunning and seeking cooperation with the Divine purpose that 
 is eternal. 
 
 To such certainties of general religious conviction the liberal 
 Christian, of course, would add his acceptance of Christ as the 
 Master and the Bible as a guide. 
 
ICX) 
 
 On those who rebel against the restrictions of the Talmud, 
 but who cling to the teachings of the Pentateuch; on those who 
 may not accept the proclaimed location of the cofBn of Mar 
 hornet or the literal interpretation of the sword-blade path to 
 Paradise, but who embrace and practice the teachings of tem- 
 perance and piety in the Koran; on those who shrink from the 
 authority in matters temporal of the successor of St. Peter, but 
 who turn with no whit less of reverence and devotion to the 
 inspiration of the New Testament; on all of these is doubly im- 
 posed the duty of public confession of reverence and religion, of 
 insistence that if we who call ourselves liberal in faith render 
 to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, we are even readier to 
 render to God the things that are God's. 
 
 The dangers that threaten a free popular government come 
 not from this religion, not that religion, nor from any religion, 
 but from irreligion. Atheism and Anarchy are sisters. Strip 
 from man the sense of his responsibility to God and you dissolve 
 by the same act his sense of responsibility to man. 
 
 No republic of Atheists ever has endured. When the play- 
 wrights of Athens made their characters swear " By Zeus, if there 
 is such a person," Athens was ready to pass beneath the yoke of 
 Sparta, of Macedonia, of Rome. When the Roman augurs 
 chuckled and winked at each other as they passed on the way 
 to ceremonies once sacred, the Republic of Cato was dead and 
 the domination of the Caesars was at hand. The abandonment 
 of Divine worship for the adoration of actresses representing a 
 Goddess of Reason was coincident with the Red Terror that 
 wrecked the first French Republic. The coincidence was no 
 accident. Even a blasphemous Buonaparte found that the re- 
 establishment of law and order was impossible under a govern- 
 ment that repudiated the practices of religion. 
 
 To the doubter of authority of revelation, historical research 
 offers not further weakness, but a buttress of strength. Never 
 was there a more awful blasphemy than the hideous proverb of 
 a century ago: "God is on the side of the strongest battalions." 
 That the whole! course of history show^ the contrary when the 
 victory of the weak means a victory for human betterment is 
 
lOI 
 
 the most convincing testimony that the guidance of the universe 
 is not in human hands. 
 
 The Persians were the conquerors of the ancient world, the 
 first fighting nation of their day. The general whom Greece 
 sent against them with her handful was but a student of Per- 
 sian strategy. The Phoenicians, who supplied the Persian fleet 
 were the first navigators of the time, more daring and more 
 skilful than any who sailed the seas till the raven banner flew 
 over the long ships of the Norsemen. The commander of the 
 disorganized and mutinous Greek fleet was not even a sailor. 
 Yet Marathon and Salamis were to settle whether the future 
 ideals of Europe were to be based upon culture and democracy 
 or luxury and empire, and at Marathon and Salamis the stronger 
 battalions went down before the little force whose success meant 
 the uplift of humanity. 
 
 Hannibal was probably the ablest military commander who 
 ever lived. His army was of professional veterans, flushed with 
 years of victory in Sicily, in Spain, in Gaul, in Italy. He was 
 opposed in the long struggle for Rome by an amateur in war 
 with an army of what we should call militia. Upon the issue 
 hung the future of free government. Carthage was the incar- 
 nation of materialism and aristocracy. Rome stood for a free 
 government by free men. It was not the strongest battalions 
 nor the greater general who won the ultimate victory. Hanni- 
 bal fled to Africa. 
 
 Attila, the Scourge of God, as he called himself, purged the 
 rotting remains of the Roman empire as with fire, but his was 
 a purely destructive force. Something better than his yellow 
 tribesmen were needed for the basis of a regenerated Europe. 
 The army that faced the world conqueror from Asia, not on the 
 confines of Europe, but with its back to the Seine, was a ridicu- 
 lous patchwork of broken forces, part Roman, part Gallic, part 
 Frank, united only by a common danger. " One hundred and 
 sixty-five thousand corpses," says the Gothic historian, " were 
 strewed upon the field of battle," but there, too, victory was not 
 with the strongest battalions. Attila fled. 
 
 Mahomet rose upon the wreck of degenerate pagan and de- 
 
102 
 
 generate Christian peoples. The Saracen armies swept a puri- 
 fying path through Arabia, Egypt, all Northern Africa. They 
 crossed into Spain and transformed one of the pillars of Her- 
 cules, Gibraltar (Gebel Tarik, the rock of Tarik) into an 
 eternal monument to their commander. The degenerate Gothic 
 kingdom of Spain fell, and Roderick, its last chief, vanished. 
 
 The country we now call France did not exist. There was 
 instead merely a battleground where Teutonic tribes, warring 
 among themselves, alike ruthlessly massacred the peace-loving 
 sons of the once ferocious Gaul and of the warrior Roman. 
 The victorious Saracen wave swept nearly to the walls of 
 Tours. It was faced by Charles Martel, of the little kingdom 
 of Austrasia and his Frankish followers. Yet the mighty flood 
 of invasion halted, scattered into spray and ebbed slowly back 
 beyond the Mediterranean. 
 
 The Christian home, not the Moslem harem, was to be the 
 basis of civilization in the West. The strongest battalions had 
 been the strongest when faced with idolatry and degeneracy. 
 They collapsed at the touch of a Northern power, weak in or- 
 ganization but more potential for human uplift than the fanati- 
 cism of Islam. 
 
 The little fleet of Drake and the Invincible Armada; the 
 ragged Continentals from thirteen squabbling provinces, and the 
 disciplined veterans of England and Germany; the barefooted, 
 starving soldiers of republican France, fighting single-handed 
 against the allied kings and emperors of Europe — it is not 
 necessary to multiply instances of defeat of the stronger by the 
 weaker battalions, to show the illuminating evidence of the ex- 
 istence of God shining from the history of man. 
 
 This is an age of toleration, an age when men are seeking 
 not unessentials of dogma that they may differ, but essentials of 
 faith that they may agree. Like all strong nations we are of 
 various races. Like all wise nations we are learning to bear 
 with one another's opinions. Unless, however, we would go to 
 the wall with the weaklings we must have some opinions. That 
 we are free to think does not imply that we are freed from 
 thinking. 
 
 We are likely to see in our time neither a universal language 
 
I03 
 
 nor a universal religion, but world congress after world congress 
 for the promotion of the world's industry, the world's comfort, 
 the world's health, the world's peace. These are bringing in their 
 train at least the quickening sense that in reverent and universal 
 acquiescence in the fatherhood of God is included the ever in- 
 creasing recognition of the brotherhood of man. Honest and 
 sincere communicants of all forms of faith can at least join in 
 the moral code of human action set down by our venerable St. 
 Paul of New England, Edward Everett Hale: 
 
 " Look forward, not back ; look out, not in ; look up, not 
 down, and lend a hand." 
 
 THE OBLIGATIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF RE- 
 LIGIOUS LIBERALISM IN AMERICA TO-DAY 
 
 REV. FREDERIC W. PERKINS, D.D., OF LYNN, MASS. 
 
 Religious liberalism is nothing more nor less than religion 
 trusting itself to the free spirit for validation and usefulness. 
 It is a supreme faith in God voiced in the self-reliant conviction 
 that the highest and best in one's nature will lead him to God; 
 a faith in man expressed in the conviction that in man's dis- 
 ciplined reason and instructed conscience God's voice has 
 spoken; a faith in the primacy of the spiritual instincts as the 
 witnesses, in the world of the seen and temporal, of the perpet- 
 ual encompassing presence of the world of the unseen and eter- 
 nal. We are to understand that in this address, as in this en- 
 tire conference, we are thinking about a certain type of Religion 
 incidentally denominated liberal, rather than about a certain type 
 of Liberalism incidentally denominated religious. 
 
 It is not at all surprising that the most obvious exhibitions of 
 the spirit of liberal religion have been given by its struggles 
 against spiritual or ecclesiastical bondage. We are never so 
 conscious of the power of a stream as when we try to obstruct 
 it. The medicinal and re-creative forces of the human body 
 are never so apparent as in the event of disease. We are never 
 so conscious of our birthright as free-born children of the Hea- 
 venly Father's household as when some one treats us as bonds- 
 men. But this is rather the pathology of liberal religion, and 
 
I04 
 
 pathological studies, valuable incidentally, may easily lead to a 
 distorted view of the primary purpose of the living fact studied. 
 Disease may become more interesting than health. A surgeon, 
 one sometimes suspects, is quite as much interested in a man's 
 vitality when it is knitting together a broken leg as when it is 
 enabling the man to walk easily and tirelessly down the road'. 
 Whatever our interest in the dramatic struggle of religion to 
 gain freedom, a struggle by no means finished, our primary and 
 overmastering interest is in the larger service religion may ren- 
 der in the wider freedom it has achieved. 
 
 The program of this conference provides for very complete 
 consideration of the practical expressions of religious liberalism 
 in our varied personal and associated life. In its bearing on sci- 
 ence and theology, on the church, the Bible, and the Christ, on 
 social service and political reform, its obligations and opportuni- 
 ties will be specifically set forth. The. purpose of this address, 
 therefore, may properly be more comprehensive and theoretical. 
 Broadly considered, the obligation and opportunity of liberal re- 
 ligion in America to-day is to exemplify the union that ought 
 to exist between spiritual breadth and catholicity, on the one 
 hand, and depth and tenacity of religious conviction on the other. 
 
 It is perfectly obvious that sharply defined, contentiously ar- 
 gued, aggressively championed convictions do not play so large 
 a part in religious life to-day as they did formerly. One of the 
 first results of the spread of the liberal spirit has been to lower 
 their long-time commanding prestige. Even in churches not re- 
 garded as liberal the distinctively theological interest no longer 
 predominates. It is not so much that doctrines are denied or 
 but waveringly affirmed ; they are not regarded as of sufficient 
 interest to be even considered. The ruling interest in religion 
 to-day is not theological but biological. If people think of re- 
 ligious doctrine at all it is as a principle incidentally involved 
 in righteous living. God is a postulate of the good life, not a 
 theological proposition. Unquestionably He ought to be that 
 primarily; it is a question, however, whether religion will not 
 suffer if He is only that, if He never receives the assent of the 
 constructive intellect as well as the consent of the obedient will. 
 But preferences aside, the disparagement of religious conviction 
 
105 
 
 is a pervasive fact. Many people wfould accept as the distinc- 
 tive shibboleth of liberal religion the declaration, " Religion is 
 life ; if you live right, it makes no difference what you believe." 
 
 If that is true, it may be said in passing, religion is a marked 
 exception to every other region of human activity; everjrwhere 
 else it makes a quite decided difFerence what one believes and 
 whether he believes it with all his heart. A few months back, the 
 United States was a vast forum in which many ardent and . in- 
 dustrious men were endeavoring to persuade their fellow citi- 
 zens that Mr. Taft or Mr. Bryan was the better man for Presi- 
 dent. Those political workers entertained a shrewd suspicion 
 that a man's belief on that question would have something to do 
 with the way he would vote. Yet we all instinctively respond 
 to the sentiment behind the familiar statement as to religion, and 
 if we are to suggest any amendment of it we must first appre- 
 ciate the mood it voices. 
 
 For one thing, it voices a legitimate protest against the dog- 
 matic intolerance which has traditionally accompanied intensity 
 of religious conviction. The dogmatic temper has come to be 
 synonymous with the intolerant temper. It has been divisive, 
 whereas the best people to-day are seeking agreements. It has 
 been intellectually arrogant, whereas the best minds are intel- 
 lectually modest and teachable. 
 
 " For much of the agnosticism of the age the gnosticism of 
 iJie theologians is responsible." The bewildering increase of 
 knowledge has made men cautious and reserved in statements 
 of belief. The man of strong convictions is apt to lack a sense 
 of spiritual proportion and to hold essentials and non-essentials 
 with like uncompromising intensity. The liberal is repelled by 
 this disposition to link together confident trust in great spiritual 
 fundamentals with dogmatic aiBrmation in regions of thought 
 where dogmatism is especially improper and absurd. He is apt 
 to regard this tendency to mere partisanship and bigotry as an 
 incurable disease of the strongly believing temper, and therefore, 
 in order to insure freedom and breadth, he is averse to the self- 
 committal and the thrill of allegiance which the ardent believer 
 knows and craves. He will not let himself go lest he find it 
 hard to get himself back! 
 
io6 
 
 For another thing, the popular dictum that religion is life 
 and it makes no difference what you believe states a basal truth 
 so important that one may pardon the fallacious inference drawn 
 from it. Religion is life. It is only secondarily a formulated 
 set of ideas. The only religious value of any belief is its life- 
 value. 
 
 If a belief has no life-value, if it does not spontaneously trans- 
 mute itself into conduct, it is no essential element of religion. 
 Even life-giving beliefs may be held in a lifeless way, as a creed 
 rather than a faith. Your creed is what you assent to with 
 your head ; your faith is what you give allegiance to with your 
 heart and will. One may believe the Fatherhood of God, the 
 brotherhood of man, the spiritual primacy of Jesus, the final 
 victory of good over evil, as articles of a creed, yet have precious 
 little faith in them as principles of life. And when a man of 
 faith appears, we are influenced more by the contagion of his 
 life than by the logic of his beliefs. So was it with Jesus. The 
 pages of the gospels have no suggestion of the traditional theo- 
 logical treatise. It is an almost complete change of spiritual 
 climate which one experiences in passing from the one to the other. 
 Jesus was indeed a mighty believer in God and man and invin- 
 cible goodness, but all his talk is of life, and you are aware of 
 the heart-throbs of his mighty beliefs only as you are aware of 
 the throbbing dynamo in the light that floods the room. The 
 popular verdict of religious liberalism is sound that religion is 
 life; and so completely does vital religion absorb its involved 
 beliefs into the very structure of its being that the beliefs may 
 easily seem to be unimportant and negligible factors in the re- 
 sult. 
 
 We recognize, then, this disposition to minimize the impor- 
 tance of clearly formulated convictions as one of the marked 
 tendencies in religious liberalism. The purpose is on all sides 
 apparent to find a basis which may simply ignore intellectual 
 conditions of fellowship. For example, there is John Hunter's 
 great church in Glasgow, which would fellowship, according to 
 to its covenant, " all who are sincerely seeking and striving to 
 do the will of God, and have faith in Jesus Christ sufficient to 
 be disciples in his school, followers in his footsteps, and sharers 
 
I07 
 
 in his work." From Glasgow also comes this declaration of 
 Prof. James Denny as a sufficient basis for Christian union : " I 
 believe in God through Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord 
 and Saviour." To be sure, the inclusive temper of this state- 
 ment appears less obvious after reading a semi-official interpre- 
 tation of the phraseology, which, we are assured, will exclude 
 the; heretic as effectively as it will include the believer; but the 
 change of emphasis from the letter to the spirit is evident. The 
 covenant of the Church of Christ in D^tmouth College reads: 
 " I determine to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and to do the 
 will of God as revealed through him." Even more untheolog- 
 ical in temper is the recent declaration of Dr. Vernon before 
 the council called to advise Harvard Congregational Church in 
 Brookline concerning his settlement : " I believe in the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. That, either by expression or implication, contains 
 everything I regard as vital to the highest conceivable manhood." 
 He furthermore refused to accept, as a classifying label, the name 
 of either Trinitarian or Unitarian, apparently on the ground that 
 the implied theological distinction has become obsolete. 
 
 We are not called upon to discuss or approve these statements; 
 their significance, however, is unmistakable. Their ruling in- 
 terest is practical, not theoretical; life, not creed. They would 
 unite men in a common service and fuse them by a common spir- 
 itual loyalty. They all breathe the spirit of the teacher and 
 leader of Christians, who would accept no adoring ascription 
 of Lord, Lord, from those who lack purpose to do the will of 
 the Father in heaven; and in that challenge to his followers 
 Jesus but enforces anew Israel's standard of religion, " What 
 doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and love mercy, 
 and walk humbly before God ? " 
 
 Broad and catholic as such a non-theological fellowship is, how- 
 ever, liberal religion is confronted with a deeper obligation and 
 a larger opportunity. So far as these inclusive declarations of 
 spiritual loyalty and moral purpose express a unity of spirit and 
 a bond of peace comprehending wide varieties of thought, that 
 far they mark a permanent gain in true liberality. So far, 
 however, as they imply that men can preserve unity and keep 
 the religious peace only by ceasing to think and to affirm can- 
 
io8 
 
 didly the divergent results of their thinking, that far they do not 
 mark any permanent advance. That the present-day disparage- 
 ment of theology In the supposed interests of catholicity 
 does often mean that, no man can deny. Referring to a certain 
 conference of students from several theological schools, a pene- 
 trating observer of modern religious conditions recently said: 
 " The program vi^as rich in suggestions, both for the conduct 
 of the devout life and for the direction of practical service, but 
 throughout the session not one word was spoken either by old 
 or young which concerned the minister as a thinker, or the du- 
 ties of theological students as students of theology. Feeling and 
 action had crowded out of the foreground of interest the 
 function of thought. Piety and efficiency seemed sufficient sub- 
 stitutes for intellectual power. The passion for service had 
 supplanted the passion for truth." And Dr. Peabody goes on 
 to assert: "Not less of religious fervor and not less of practical 
 activity are demanded of the representatives of religion, but a 
 new accession of intellectual power, the capacity to translate 
 the message of the Timeless into the dialect of the present age. 
 . . . The future of organized religion will depend, not alone 
 on new expressions of piety and new enlistments for service, but 
 — in -an unprecedented degree — on a revival, among those who 
 represent religion, of intellectual authority and leadership." 
 
 Fox bei it remembered that if men think at all they will think 
 about religion, and the more profoundly the spiritual deeps are 
 stirred the more compelling will be the intellectual interest in 
 the eternal facts with which religion deals. Men wearied by 
 unspiritual intellectualism or theological controversy may be 
 content for a time with the repose of unaggressive piety or the 
 healing bath of social service. But sooner or later their re- 
 freshed intellects will respond to the mental challenge of re- 
 ligion and they will form intellectual convictions. What is the 
 nature and purpose of God? Men will seek to answer that 
 question, to " think God's thoughts after Him," even though 
 the answer is as elusive as the question is persistent; and the abid- 
 ing conviction will powerfully affect the way in which they will 
 serve Him and serve their fellow-men. What is the place of 
 Jesus in the religious leadership of the world? No man's an- 
 
109 
 
 swer to that question can be wholly without influence on the 
 power of command which one or another of Jesus' teachings 
 or phases of his life will take on. Why are sin and sickness and 
 sorrow cursing human existence? All about us are thousands of 
 people who witness to the soul's response to any answer which 
 will dispel the fear and lift the burden. And no thoughtful man 
 who shares our mortal life with its broken purposes and frus- 
 trated hopes, its ideals of perfection mocked by frail and fee- 
 ble accomplishment, its subtle and persistent intimations of an 
 eternal world encompassing the things of time. Can fail to ask, 
 Whither? and to ponder the question of destiny. In the power 
 of convictions, partly his own, partly of his fathers, partly of the 
 community in which he dwells, man will live his religious life. 
 Doubtless the roots of one's religion are in the instincts of his 
 sentiments and the impulses of his will, but their final sanction 
 and direction are in the reasoned convictions of his intellect; 
 and if his religion is to be regal and commanding in his life, it 
 must formulate itself into positive intellectual convictions that 
 grip his soul with tenacity and power. 
 
 But how, now, are we to prevent such positive convictions, 
 with their inevitable divergences, from breaking the spiritual 
 peace, as they have generally succeeded in doing? Simply by 
 refusing to make them tests of spiritual fellowship. Dogmatism 
 is an excellent quality when it prescribes a channel of loyal serv- 
 ice for one's self; it is a harmful quality when it erects a stand- 
 ard of fellowship and confidence towards one's neighbor. The 
 creedal difEerences of the past degenerated into unspiritual intel- 
 lectualism and dogmatic intolerance not because men believed' 
 strongly, but because they forgot that the final justification of 
 their beliefs was to be found in their power to inspire and direct 
 the common task of serving God as loyal sons and serving men 
 as loving brothers. Participation in that common task is the test 
 of fellowship, and the convictions of an individual or a church 
 are to be held not as the articles of a standard creed but as the 
 working principles of a righteous life. Within thd" fraternal cir- 
 cle of the fellowship of spirit and moral purpose such convictions, 
 openly declared and varying as they may, are to have free sway, 
 to survive, as they severally meet the tests of truth and serviceable- 
 
no 
 
 ness. They may divide men into churches or into groups within 
 churches; but they will not divide the larger brotherhood of those 
 who seek to do the will of God. 
 
 Who, for example, is the liberal Christian? He may be one 
 to whom Jesus appeals by his power to embody God and to make 
 Him more effectually a present influence in his world. To such 
 a one the pre-eminent fact about Christ is that he has, as a matter 
 of spiritual experience, brought God out from his remote, inac- 
 cessible abode, translated Him into terms of human excellence 
 and fellowship, and made Him a resident of this world of human 
 struggle. Jesus is to him the supreme revelation of the Human- 
 ity of God. To another Jesus especially appeals as the unique 
 revelation of the Divinity of man. He is the ideal of humanity 
 made real, the dream of humanity come true. He is the man 
 that one ought to be speaking to the man that one actually is. 
 To yet another, Jesus appeals as the teacher of spiritual truth. 
 Such a one is but feebly interested in the implications of Jesus' 
 life, Godward or manhood, but he is strongly interested in what 
 he taught. Which is the liberal Christian? None of them, if 
 their primary interests are in these various aspects of Christ's life. 
 All of them, if their primary interest in the work which Christ 
 came to do — to set up the kingdom, to enthrone love, to establish 
 righteousness, to make co-operation and service the settled habit 
 of men. Those who magnify the fellowship of that common 
 task will not disparage the mighty convictions which have up- 
 lifted the hearts and fortified the purposes of their fellow-workers. 
 They will not empty spiritual fellowship of the enrichment of 
 a varied intellectual expression and thin it down to the few con- 
 victions which may obtain universal acceptance. Rather will they 
 find in varying convictions, because of the very strength and seri- 
 ousness with which men hold them, not walls of exclusion but 
 avenues of approach. Taught by the broad fellowship of a com- 
 mon service, each shall hear in his neighbor's conviction a dialect 
 of a common speech; Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, each shall 
 hear the other speaking in his own tongue the wonderful works 
 of God. 
 
 And the same principle reaches more widely. Does the Jew 
 find in the teachings of the prophets, which Jesus appropriated 
 
Ill 
 
 with such spiritual masterfulness, a sufBcient leadership? We to 
 whom Jesus stands in spiritual primacy are false to him if we 
 refuse fellowship to those who are loyal to his God and service- 
 able in his cause, but who do not find it helpful to bear his 
 name. Our discipleship shall profit us nothing if it fail to edu- 
 cate us into fellowship with whoever strives to do the wall of 
 God in moral obedience and brotherly love. 
 
 This, then, is the comprehensive obligation resting on liberal 
 religion to-day — to exemplify the union that ought to exist be- 
 tween spiritual breadth and catholicity, on the one hand, and 
 depth and tenacity of even divergent convictions on the other. 
 And as that primary obligation is gladly fulfilled, a greater and 
 more permanent result will follow, viz., the deepening of loyalty 
 to the few simple, fundamental spiritual faiths that underlie 
 moral health and social progress. It is in its power to deepen 
 that loyalty that liberal religion finds its permanent justification. 
 Spiritual freedom, precious as it is, well worth all the heroic 
 struggle it has cost, is yet only a means to an end. The end is 
 loyalty to the truth which freedom may disclose. And the fact 
 which makes freedom so precious is that it is the indispensable 
 condition of attaining to the largest measure of truth and of 
 arousing the most enduring and militant loyalty. Failing to 
 issue in that it is but moral luxuriousness and spiritual sterility. 
 In the realm of religion one's primary concern with truth is its 
 capacity for being transmuted into power. Given that construc- 
 tive interest in the truth as primary, given spiritual freedom as the 
 best condition of its finest expression, then one's temper will be 
 neither that of the dogmatist, with his exclusive finalities, nor 
 that of the timid experimentalist, fearful lest loyalty to the past 
 and the present will dull his vision of the future. It will be 
 that of one who realizes that his devoutly formulated convictions 
 are but his efforts to testify to the reality of the world of spiritual 
 forces which express God at work. In fellowship with these 
 forces he would abide. In loyalty to their eternal purposes he 
 would live. No man can formulate them adequately to himself. 
 No man may assume to formulate them authoritatively for his 
 neighbor. But, however they may be formulated, they will be 
 represented by the power of a few simple convictions that will 
 
112 
 
 determine one's attitude to life. That attitude assumes that we 
 are ever encompassed by the deathless love of thei Living God, 
 who neither slumbers nor sleeps; that not only God is Love, but 
 Love is God. It assumes that in our individual lives are unutil- 
 ized reservoirs of spiritual power which, if unsealed, will bring 
 God in as a healing flood. It assumes that we are part of an 
 unbreakable human brotherhood, that success means to serve it 
 and failure means to betray it. In this social order the only infi- 
 delity to God is infidelity to man, the only heresy is exploiting 
 the public good for private gain. This attitude assumes that 
 God and his righteousness are invincible, that good can win over 
 evil, and that the gospel of the kingdom of justice and service is 
 the justice of a winning cause, not of a forlorn hope. 
 
 It is that vital, underlying faith, the finest product of the spirit 
 •^i liberal religion, which is so superbly voiced in Emerson's lines: 
 
 " Stainless soldier on the walls, 
 
 Knowing this, and knows no more, 
 Whoever fights, whoever falls, 
 
 Justice conquers evermore — 
 
 Justice after as before. 
 And he who battles on her side, 
 
 God, though he were ten times slain, 
 Crowns him victor, glorified, 
 
 Victor over death and pain.'' 
 
 THE RELATION OF LIBERAL RELIGION TO FOR- 
 EIGN MISSIONS 
 
 ALBERT BOWENj PHILADELPHIA 
 
 I have been asked to present the problem which the appeal of 
 foreign missions brings before the student with liberal religious 
 views. I think I am justified in saying that foreign missionary 
 work does appeal to a liberal student. If a student stof« to 
 think out religious problems he becomes more or less of a free 
 thinker. He arrives at the conclusion that a man is a man no 
 matter what he happens to think about certain doctrines. Service 
 is seen to be the great purpose of life. This fact is demonstrated 
 in the college Christian Associations, where men of all denomi- 
 nations join in the settlement and other practical work, because 
 
113 
 
 the Y. M. C. A., narrow as its basis is, presents to the student 
 an opportunity for religious service. 
 
 From every side comes the call to service. It is the secret of 
 philosophy and the duty demonstrated by ethics. Professors and 
 ministers constantly preach it; and most effective of all men, the 
 finest type of college men, are every day going forth to live the 
 life of service. It is in the college atmosphere in spite of this age 
 of commercial attractions. 
 
 Tv\?enty years ago certain students who were preparing them- 
 selves for foreign missionary service in some of the Eastern col- 
 leges came together and organized the Student Volunteer Move- 
 ment for Foreign Missions. The purpose of this movement is to 
 awaken and maintain among students an intelligent and active in- 
 terest in foreign missions; to enroll properly qualified student 
 volunteers to meet the demands of the mission boards; to help 
 prepare such students for their life work ; and to use at home vol- 
 unteers who are not able to go to the front. Student volunteers 
 are drawn from the institutions of higher learning in the United 
 States and Canada. Each volunteer signs the declaration of the 
 movement, which is as follows: " It is my purpose, if God per- 
 mit, to become a foreign missionary." Three thousand eight 
 hundred and sixty-one volunteers have been sent out to foreign 
 fields of service. 
 
 True to its purpose this movement carries on an active educa- 
 tional campaign in almost i,cx)0 institutions and is awakening an 
 ever widening interest. Twenty-five thousand students are learn- 
 ing of the conditions and needs of their less fortunate brethren in 
 foreign lands through the literature and speakers of the Student 
 Volunteer Movement and are contributing liberally to the work 
 which is being carried on. 
 
 Through this student agency it often happens that other stu- 
 dents decide to make active social service their life work, and upon 
 investfgation decide that in foreign missionary work lies the great- 
 est need and widest opportunity for life investment. 
 
 The methods of interesting students are varied but are edu- 
 cational rather than an appeal to proselyte. Knowledge of con- 
 ditions assures interest. Comparisons are drawn between condi- 
 tions in China and in America. (I speak of China because it is 
 
114 
 
 the centre of missionary activity.) The ignorance that prevails, 
 the brightness and desire to learn on the part of the people, and 
 the paucity of teachers appeal to men. The great humanitarian 
 service, the charm and gratitude of the people, the heroic lives of 
 men working there, together vrith the results brought about, stir 
 the! hearts of all who study conditions in China. The joy of 
 service and of being loved, of doing what otherwise would not be 
 done, the possibility of restoring sight and health to thousands 
 who must spend their days in darkness and die for want of what 
 any doctor can give, these and many other attractions appeal more 
 than the glitter of wealth at home. 
 
 Consider for a moment the work which the Christian Asso- 
 ciation of the University of Pennsylvania is undertaking in Can- 
 ton. It is its purpose to establish in China a medical school sim- 
 ilar to the great school which a medical missionary from Edin- 
 borough founded in this city in 1765 with the prophecy that " this 
 institution may, by sending its graduates abroad, give birth to 
 other institutions of a similar nature." The possibilities for good 
 from such a school among the Chinese are unlimited. To train 
 native doctors, of whom there are at present none, who will 
 carry civilization and Christianity to all parts of China on their 
 ministry of healing is a work worthy of the Master. Yale, 
 Princeton, and other colleges are doing a similar work in China, 
 There seems to be literally a missionary uprising among students. 
 
 The appeal of universal brotherhood which faith in the father- 
 hood of God implies, and which is everywhere being sounded, 
 reaches many besides those brought up in Evangelical Churches. 
 It is the practical Christianity of missions, in behalf of a people 
 whose needs are beyond words, that makes the appeal for foreign 
 workers so attractive to college men irrespective of creed. The 
 same spirit and appeal are sending men and women into settle- 
 ments and social service work among the foreigners in our cities. 
 If we believe in universal brotherhood why let a few days' jour- 
 ney hold us back from a need many times as great? 
 
 Then again to have a part, even though slight, in shaping the 
 future of a great waking land like China appeals to the patriot- 
 ism of the student who stops to consider what he may thus do 
 for another land and so for his own and for the world. Is it not 
 
115 
 
 our duty to assist if possible in the great revolution which is 
 silently going on and give to China, as she stretches out her arms 
 to secure the best which the West has, all that has been so freely 
 given to us? It is just as essentially a duty for us to give to the 
 Chinese people the highest thoughts of life which we have evolved 
 as that we take to them our best in medical science. Sanitation 
 and a live religion are needs of pressing importance in China to- 
 day. 
 
 In America are many Chinese students seeking the secrets of 
 our civilization. We must give them, not only the best commer- 
 cial, diplomatic, and technical science that we have, but the most 
 advanced knowledge of religion and the higher life as well, in 
 order that they may return to the new China leaders in every 
 phase of activity and thought. There are 4,000 more Chinese 
 students coming to our schools each year. Have not the liberal 
 churches an opportunity and a duty to these ambitious youths? 
 
 With this brief glimpse of the foreign mission situation as it 
 appears to the colleges, let us look at the problem which confronts 
 the liberal student when he considers making such a service his 
 life work. In presenting the fact that there seems to be no 
 means by which a liberal student can go to the foreign field, may 
 I give the experience of a fellow student? 
 
 While in college he attended the Northfield Student Confer- 
 ence, where he heard presented for the first time the needs and op- 
 portunities of the foreign mission field. The pitiful condition 
 of the people, the great need for men, and the joy of a life of 
 service appealed to him and brought him face to face with the 
 question of his life work. The appeal for men while based on 
 Christian motives was made largely on the ground of brother- 
 hood, of the need abroad and the ability and duty of students in 
 America to seize the opportunity. 
 
 The seed there sown germinated and after overcoming many 
 obstacles it became the great desire of this man to go to China as 
 a medical missionary and he entered a medical school. 
 
 Conscious that his liberal theology might cause his rejection 
 by the mission boards, yet believing that he was called by a higher 
 authority than they, he began to consider more specifically how 
 he would go out. He offered his services to several organizations 
 
ii6 
 
 with results somewhat of this nature: Whether he could heal the 
 sick was little questioned and the suffering millions were for the 
 moment forgotten, but did he believe in the infallibility of the 
 Bible, the deity of Jesus and his bodily resurrection? Did he 
 believe that God had eternally damned the heathen for their ig- 
 norance of the fact that Jesus Christ was crucified to wipe out 
 their sins? I may not have the exact questions but it was inqui- 
 ries like these that floored my liberal friend. 
 
 The appeal for men is made along philanthropic and humani- 
 tarian lines; the test for fitness is doctrinal. In this I believe 
 the recruiting agencies are at fault. Why not come out and say, 
 " We want men to teach to the Chinese the Nicene Creed and the 
 traditions of the Christian Church." This is not what they want 
 done. It is not the spirit of present day missions. The policy 
 of modern missions is far broader than the professions which 
 most of the leaders cling to and demand of their missionaries. 
 The emphasis is elsewhere and the work accomplished is more 
 far-reaching than the gospel preached. 
 
 To show that missions are bigger than their professions let us 
 consider some of the effective instruments of field work and in 
 what their success lies. The school, the hospital, the loving 
 service of men and women imbued with the spirit of Jesus, these 
 are the unanswerable arguments which inspire among any people 
 a faith in the things which have brought the missionary among 
 them. Whether they acquiesce in the creed of their leader is 
 fmmaterial, for it is their faith in him, and from him to the spirit 
 which works in him, which makes of them new men and women. 
 
 The far-reaching influence of missions is not in teaching to 
 a people a theology and traditions foreign to them, but In animat- 
 ing those people with the spirit of love which is eternal, in teach- 
 ing them to overcome the environment which is holding them 
 down, and in instructing them in the arts and sciences which will 
 enable them to use the resources which lie about them. There 
 must be a readjustment of theories to the facts. Many mission- 
 aries in the field realize this and are encouraging the natives to 
 develop a Christianity and an organization of their own, inspired 
 by and in touch with, the same spirit which dwelt in Jesus, but 
 fitted to the thought and customs of the people. 
 
117 
 
 The humanitarian service of missions speaks louder than any 
 theological appeal and many men and women subscribe to the 
 doctrinal tests as a matter of course and with little thought, for 
 it is work they want to do. Every once in a while however a 
 man comes along, inspired by the same purpose to serve, who can 
 not conscientiously accept the doctrinal requirements. What is 
 he to do? He may stand patiently by awaiting a more liberal 
 standard in the boards, or perhaps he gives up in disgust his 
 cherished ideal and turns pessimistically to get what he can out 
 of the scramble for wealth. 
 
 Many things indicate that there is a distinct place) for liberal 
 religion in the East. Far-sighted missionaries agree that the 
 spirit of Christianity must develop its own church and that there 
 is little place for the traditions of the Western Churches. It 
 is attested by many that a rational attitude toward Christianity 
 is the only one acceptable to the educated Eastern mind. The 
 old methods reached only the uneducated lower classes. There 
 is a place and need for a mission to the more intelligent. 
 
 There can be no doubt of the failure of the Eastern religions 
 in practice. Such statements come not only from the mission 
 field but Chinese and Japanese students in America acknowledge 
 the failure of their ethics, which lack the spiritual dynamic that 
 vitalizes Christianity. The leaders in Japan are realizing this 
 need in their civilization, and many Chinese thinkers are coming 
 to the same conclusion. 
 
 We are here preaching the brotherhood of man. That means 
 all men if it means anything. What are the boundaries of a 
 continent in these days of rapid travel? We believe that we 
 have found, in our broad and liberal faith a way of life, the best 
 we know. If this faith is a reality to us we cannot be satisfied 
 to keep it to ourselves, we are bound by this very faith to become 
 evangelists. Propagation is a natural law of the spiritual life. 
 Missions are the quickening stimulus of the church. 
 
 We are on trial. Is the liberal movement mainly an intel- 
 lectual revolt, or is it a great spiritual purpose as large and 
 dynamic as the orthodoxy it is seeking to displace? If we are to 
 be mere critics of the Christian movement we must be content 
 to see its great achievements performed by others. On the other 
 
ii8 
 
 hand if " Liberality " means to us something comprehensive and 
 earnest we shall see that we can only make it attractive to the 
 world at large by filling liberalism with a sense of responsibility as 
 large as the world. What better field could we find on which to 
 fight the battle of freedom than that on which it was fought by 
 Paul? Let the liberal churches demand of the mission boards 
 a wider policy or else let them organize a missionary movement 
 themselves. In facing this situation Liberal Christianity is on 
 trial. Is it to be made a theological propaganda or a religious 
 awakening? 
 
 The problem of the liberal student of which a solution is asked 
 of this Conference is this: What is the proper outlet for the 
 enthusiasm for foreign religious and humanitarian service which 
 is aroused among those whose theology does not conform to the 
 requirements of the mission boards? Great as is the need at 
 home it does not satisfy the student who has pointed his life 
 toward the foreign field, and who realizes that if he does not 
 do this work it will not be done. Yonder lies a field where he 
 can serve to the utmost of his strength, where he is sorely needed, 
 and where duty bids him go. How is such a man to go? The 
 mission boards do not want him because he cannot subscribe to 
 dogmas which have ceased to carry meaning. Shall he agree to 
 doctrinal tests with mental reservations, believing that the end 
 justifies the means, or must he turn away and forego what to him 
 has become a firm purpose and a life ambition ? 
 
 RELATION OF RELIGIOUS LIBERALS TO FOREIGN 
 
 MISSIONS 
 
 REV. CLAY MAC CAULEY, OF TOKIO, JAPAN 
 
 In beginning his remarks, Mr. MacCauley spoke of having an 
 especial interest in the theme, because he is not only a religious 
 liberal but also a foreign missionary. For eleven years he had 
 been in Japan, representing there the American Unitarian As- 
 sociation. The Unitarian mission to Japan was exceptional 
 among missionary enterprises, in that it was established in re- 
 sponse to an invitation given by some representative Japanese, who 
 were desirous of having the rational side of the religion of 
 
119 
 
 Western civilization presented to their people, by an acknowl- 
 edged Western liberal. The Japanese are eminently a ration- 
 alizing people, and liberalism in religion is peculiarly congenial 
 to them. 
 
 " But," continued the speaker, " apart from my Japanese ex- 
 perience, this theme interests me greatly. The time has fully 
 come, I believe, when religious liberals are called upon to take a 
 sympathetic interest in mission work generally; a practical sym- 
 pathy, that shall be, in fact, not less inclusive than the whole 
 habitation of mankind. If any group of kindred men and women 
 is summoned to go into all the world to preach their gospel to 
 every creature, it is, I am confident, the religious liberals. This 
 is a bold assertion, I know, but I do not make it without good 
 reason. Of course, I do not believe that all mankind are to be 
 eternally ruined unless they are saved through our gospel. That 
 belief may be the motive impulse that distinguishes the foreign 
 missions of many of the Christian churches. Necessarily, it is 
 not mine. Nor do I believe that it is our duty to assume that 
 we possess the only revelation of God's will to man, and that, 
 therefore, we should attempt to substitute our knowledge for the 
 false faiths that other peoples hold. There are many foreign 
 missions that are established and supported because of this con- 
 viction. Needless to say, that the reason for the claim I make 
 does not lie here. 
 
 But, I do believe that as religious liberals we have received, 
 and are actuated by, certain inestimable principles and faiths, 
 which we are in duty bound to make known, and to seek 
 to make vitally inspiring, not only among ourselves, but 
 among our immediate associates; and not only throughout 
 our near environment, but to the measure of our ability 
 and opportunity among our fellow countrymen ; and yet 
 more, even among our fellowmen everywhere, however re- 
 mote from us, or different from us, in nationality or race. This 
 duty would be more or less imperative at any time to those 
 who should come to think as we think, to feel as we feel, and to 
 be inspired with the faiths that have been aroused in our minds 
 and hearts. But, in the present age, this duty commands with 
 peculiar urgency. Within the near past, becoming a fact of 
 
120 
 
 world wide inclusiveness now, it has happened that all the chil- 
 dren of man have been brought into an intimacy of association, 
 into a vital interdependence and thereby into a community of 
 prosperity and adversity, such as have never been known before 
 since the dispersing migrations of primeval mankind. Explicitly, 
 just what I mean is this. For the first time in known human 
 history, an era of universal internationalism has been opened, and 
 is now fast gaining full dominion throughout humanity. Inter- 
 nationalism — it is not too much to say, — has become the most 
 potent force in man's collective) life. Under a craving for con- 
 quest and wider mastery, impelled by avarice, stimulated by de- 
 sire for knowledge, peoples vAio were fortunate in possessing su- 
 perior power and prowess have for ages built up and broken 
 down barriers between lands and nations. But, in these later 
 days, by means of miraculous mechanical discoveries and inven- 
 tions, all the continents and islands of the planet have been 
 brought within easy and quick intercommunication, and forced 
 into increasing interrelationships. Navigation by steam, swift 
 railways, the printing press, books and newspapers, the telegraph 
 and the telephone, are fast making the world one expanse of 
 open ports, of public highways, of daily published records of 
 events and opinion. And more than this, in many lands hosts 
 of the denizens of the world, from places near and farthest away, 
 are coming and going, interchanging homes and labor. 
 
 But, note what specific forces liave been dominant in the prog- 
 ress of the marvellous new age that now is. The forces which 
 have animated and guided the civilization which is our own 
 birthright and heritage have been its chief source, and have hith- 
 erto impelled it. The internationalism that is now beginning 
 to actuate all nations, was started from Europe and America. 
 Beginning with maritime adventure and discovery accompanied 
 by war and spoliation, more peaceful commercial ventures were 
 made, leading alien peoples at length into voluntary trade, then 
 into friendly treaties and at last into the give and take of mutual 
 helpfulness and good fellowship. Gradually from Europe and 
 America the less favored peoples began to receive the influences 
 and instrumentalities of a superior civilization and to use them 
 for their own larger and higher development. Some peoples have 
 
121 
 
 SOTight US, of the West, that they might appropriate, and we 
 have gone to them oi the far away parts of the earth that we 
 might give, our mechanical inventions, our industrial methods, our 
 scientific discoveries, our literary treasures, and even our political 
 aims and forms of civic organization. In many foreign lands, 
 in recent years, European and American merchants, manufactur- 
 ers and scholars, and numerous teachers of the sciences, arts, let- 
 ters, economics and politics have found homes, and have given 
 freely of their abundance, thereby helping the backward races to 
 move forward speedily to positions approximating our own in 
 power, wealth and knowledge. 
 
 Of course, in matters of religious faith and practice the peo- 
 ples of Christendom have not been indifferent or idle during the 
 development of the new internationalism. Should Christianity 
 ever cease to be a missionary faith, it would cease to be at all, 
 as a living thing; But as Christianity is yet very much alive, one 
 of the most aggressive and powerful accompaniments of the 
 world's growing internationalism has been the abounding mis- 
 sionary activity of the churches of Christendom. The Catholic 
 churches — both Greek and Roman — the Protestant denomina- 
 tions, orthodox and evangelical, without exception, so far as I 
 know, have followed hard upon whatever commercial or other 
 aigencies have opened ways for them, into whatever lands or peo- 
 ples, to preach the gospel of Christ as they believe it, obeying the 
 supreme injunction of their Lord, hoping thus to bring upon the 
 whole earth the Kingdom of Heaven of which Jesus was prophet. 
 
 Now, I would not decry in any way this universal outward 
 and onward movement of the churches of Christ; their zeal in 
 utilizing the maturing internationalism of humanity in favor of 
 their cherished faiths. Far from it. Rather would I emphasize 
 the claim that it is the duty of religious liberals to do likewise 
 for their own faith, and to do this to the full measure of their 
 ability. 
 
 Since, therefore, it is the avowed conviction of liberals in reli- 
 gion, that reason is far better than superstitition ; that mental 
 freedom is far more ennobling than slavery of mind; that gener- 
 osity of judgment is more conducive to human happiness than 
 bigotry; that character is a worthier exponent of the worth of 
 
122 
 
 a life than a formal creed or the practice of an ordained sacra- 
 ment, and that love, service and peace are the crowning gains 
 possible for social humanity, it is inevitable that we, as religious 
 liberals, should not allow any of mankind to be alien to us or re- 
 main beyond our sympathetic touch. If, indeed, religious liberals 
 do not make earnest efforts towards world-wide missionary work, 
 their only justifiable excuse is want of power, not want of will, 
 to engage in such work. It is my conviction that for religious 
 liberalism the range of its sympathy should be bounded by no 
 less a domain than that of mankind, and the extent of its mis- 
 sionary work should be limited only by the means it has at com- 
 mand. 
 
 The relation of Religious Liberals to Foreign Missions is, then, 
 I hold, one of cordial sympathy, and of as wide a cooperation 
 in supporting them as there are means to use. Distance of land 
 or race should not embarrass this duty. There is as much reason 
 for liberals to proclaim and to live their faiths among the peoples 
 of Asia and Africa, as among the peoples of Europe and America. 
 So then, I dare to hopei that the day is sure to come, when this 
 National Federation of Religious Liberals, now holding its first 
 congress, is to be only one of many like leagues, gathered in 
 many lands, all which shall be affiliated with one mighty Inter- 
 national Council, through which pure religion shall be increased 
 the world around, and mankind be led forward into a perfected 
 unity of the spirit, in the bonds of peace. Then, will the true 
 Kingom of God at last be near: — all of diverse mankind will 
 have begun to realize a divine brotherhood ; a fellowship of good 
 will, of mutual helpfulness and peace." 
 
123 
 
 Third Topic of the Congress, 
 
 " RELIGIOUS AND MODERN LIFE." 
 
 THE RELIGION OF DEMOCRACY AS EXEMPLIFIED 
 BY THE CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 REV. JENKIN LLOYD JONES, MINISTER ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 CENTRE, CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
 " We'se got him now ; he surely belongs to us to-day ! " sobbed 
 the colored woman as she leaned against the iron grating looking 
 towards the White House wherein the body of the great Eman- 
 cipator lay, she herself too much broken to join the sad procession 
 that was seeking a last look at the benignant face. At that very 
 moment the kings and queens of monarchical Europe, the poets 
 and philosophers of many nations, were sending their floral 
 wreaths to lay upon his bier. 
 
 " He belongs to the ages now ! " were the first words that broke 
 the silence when the labored breath ceased in the death chamber. 
 And those oracular words were spoken by the Secretary of War; 
 one who long before there was thou-ght of presidential chair, cabi- 
 nets or war problems in connection with Mr. Lincoln, had rudely 
 dismissed with undisguised contempt the awkward lawyer from 
 Illinois; he who had offered perhaps the most humiliating indig- 
 nity ever experienced by the humble backwoodsman and hard- 
 working lawyer of the prairies. The Illinois Central Railway 
 Company had learned to trust the judgment and ability of the 
 Springfield attorney; and had sent him to take part in an im- 
 portant suit at Cincinnati. But the smart, accomplished, elegant, 
 popular advocate, E. M. Stanton, disdained such help. Lin- 
 coln pocketed his humiliation, profited by his experience, and re- 
 turned, saying: " I have come back home to study law harder 
 than ever." 
 
 When the great trial came and the President wanted a man he 
 could trust, a man who would be alert, a will that was irresist- 
 ible for Secretary of War, he selected this same Stanton who, 
 
124 
 
 during the earlier years of his incumbency, at least, distrusted 
 thei judgment of his chief, was tried by his patience, resented his 
 leniency, and oftentimes protested against his mercy. And still, 
 this was the man who broke the awful desolation of the death 
 chamber with the prophetic words: 
 
 " Now he belongs to the ages ! " 
 
 Greatness always confuses the classification of the psychologist, 
 escapes the definitions of the philosopher, and refuses to wear 
 the labels of the dogmatist and the sectarian and the partisan. 
 The character of Abraham Lincoln baffles analysis. He was in- 
 dependent of convention, indifferent to the proprieties; he re- 
 sented the safeguards that seem to belong to power, but ever 
 found his way into the S3Tnpathies, then into the confidence, at last 
 into the admiration and reverence of rich and poor, black and 
 white, high and low. At his death friends and foes alike were 
 in tears; the nations mourned. Jefferson Davis, the humiliated 
 president of the lost cause, he who had gathered and directed 
 armies for the destruction of that nation to the preservation of 
 which Lincoln gave his last drop of blood, exclaimed: 
 
 " Next to the day when its armies surrendered, the day of Lincoln's 
 death was the blackest ever known by the people of the South ! " 
 
 Lincoln's democracy has been traced to his sincerity, sympathy, 
 ambition, lowly birth, love of humor, the absence of the sophisti- 
 cation of the formal training and the complications of polite so- 
 ciety, — and all of these are true; each of these claims can be justi- 
 fied by ample illustrations. His personality is so pervasive; it 
 sticks out everywhere. It is impossible to deal to any extent in 
 argument concerning Lincoln, because illustrations are so perti- 
 nent. One cannot discuss his character abstractly ; the fullness 
 of his life intrudes; your logical processes, like his, are cut short 
 with the irrepressible, — " That reminds me." 
 
 No one to-day will deny that Lincoln is the best beloved man 
 of the century; that he is rapidly becoming one of the best beloved 
 men of the race; that he is clearly one of the few profoundly 
 true, fundamental democrats afforded by history. 
 
 I would like to spend the few moments allotted me in trying 
 
125 
 
 to emphasize the fact that this democracy was rooted in the essen- 
 tial fundamentals of religion. Or, to put it another way, — that 
 his democracy sprang out of the profound religiousness of his 
 nature, his piety and patience, the smiles and the tears that 
 justified Walt Whitman's claim that " He is the grandest figure 
 on all the crowded canvas of the nineteenth century," it sprang 
 out of his sublime sense of justice, his undying faith in righteous- 
 ness, his entire consecration to the decisions of the Eternal scales 
 which without fear and without favor measure to each his just 
 dues. 
 
 Dr. Cuyler's recent word in the Homiletic Review calls Lincoln 
 " the most religious ruler since Cromwell," and then hastens, very 
 fittingly as I think, to remove this exception. The early stories 
 that tell of his closing the store and walking three miles to return 
 the few coppers that would right the wrong change in the pur- 
 chase of a pound of tea ; the long kept little bag of coin which was 
 the balance due the post office department, waiting for the offi- 
 cial to come and claim it; the exact way in which he divided the 
 fees that came into the law partnership, putting the partner's half 
 into an envelope before daring to use his own ; the heroic vnc^ in 
 which he faced the ominous debt imposed upon him by an un- 
 scrupulous partner, from which the law and public sentiment 
 would easily have released him, a debt so ominous that it seemed 
 to mortgage his whole life, a veritable " national debt," as he 
 called it, from which he did not shrink until the last farthing was 
 paid, and from which he did not escape until his congressional fees 
 in Washington helped him out, — all point to the fundamentals of 
 religion which demand as well as inspire a democracy such as 
 Lincoln exemplified. 
 
 But this honesty is inadequately represented by the cash book. 
 When asked how he came to be called " Honest Abe," he replied: 
 " I do not know, unless it is that I was never worth a cent in a 
 case the righteousness of which I doubted, but when I believed 
 I was in the right I was mighty hard to shake off." 
 
 "Make no promises; I will abide by none," was his message 
 to the friends of the Chicago convention of i860 who wanted to 
 make his nomination doubly sure by a little skillful trading. To 
 the second convention at Baltimore, in answer to a long confi- 
 
126 
 
 dential letter from his secretary, Nicolay, asking instructions con- 
 cerning vice-presidents and platforms, he returned the document 
 with a four-line endorsement: 
 
 " Wish not to interfere about vice-presidents ; cannot interfere about 
 platforms; convention must judge for itself." 
 
 " If anyone must do this I will do it," was his response to the 
 patronizing Secretary of State who kindly assumed, in the early 
 weeks of the administration, that he must piece out the Presi- 
 dent's indecision and inefficiency. Lincoln could be as harsh as 
 truth, and consequently he was gentle as love and tender as 
 mercy. He sent the noisy Vallandigham beyond the line, but 
 pardoned the deserting boy, whose courage and loyalty were weak- 
 ened by the pathos of the Ohio agitator. Of the young soldier 
 under sentence of death for desertion, whose record showed pre- 
 vious bravery, he said, trying to break the rigid rules of war with- 
 out ofFending the captains thereof: 
 
 " Did you say he was once badly wounded? " 
 
 " He was." 
 
 " Then, as the scripture says, ' In the shedding of blood is the remis- 
 sion of sins,' we will have to let him off." 
 
 Says Holland, in the most just and penetrating of the early 
 lives of Lincoln: 
 
 " He had always been a reconciler of difficulties between men.'' 
 
 And again: 
 
 " There never lived a man more considerate of human weakness 
 than Abraham Lincoln. . . . Charity, pity, mercy, sjrmpathy, were 
 virtues that reigned in the White House during Mr. Lincoln's occu- 
 pation of it." 
 
 Next to his sense of justice we find at the root of his character, 
 at the heart of his being, a marvelous patience. He rested in the 
 thought of the Eternal. What a thorn in the flesh he was to the 
 abolitionists. For many months their impatience with his hesi- 
 tancy led them to doubt his sincerity. They knew not the rock 
 upon which his character rested. " li anything is wrong, slavery 
 is wrong," was the clue not only to his hatred of it but the root 
 of his triumph over it. This gave him the power to discriminate 
 
127 
 
 between things primary and things secondary. He could " wait 
 on the Lord," when human vision and human power failed. He 
 could change his mind and say so. He could disagree with an- 
 other and still cleave to him, be just to him, love him. This 
 often made him a trial to his friends and an enigma to his ene- 
 mies. 
 
 After the battle of Gettysburg he wrote a sharp letter to Gen- 
 eral Meade, expressing his bitter disappointment of his action or 
 lack of action after the victory : " Your golden opportunity is 
 gone; I am distressed immeasurably because of it." But the let- 
 ter was never sent. Seven days later he wrote: 
 
 " I am now profoundly grateful for what has been done, without 
 criticism for what was not done. General Meade has my confidence 
 as a brave and scholarly officer and as a true man." 
 
 A similar confession of mistakes came promptly to Grant after 
 the Vicksburg triumph, and to Sherman after the march to the 
 sea. 
 
 This ability to endure the deliberation of the stars, to abide 
 the patience of the Eternal, is strikingly illustrated in his many 
 amnesty proclamations, of which not less than eight, probably 
 more, were issued. Over and over again he held out the olive 
 branch to all kinds of wrong-doers whose sins might be traced to 
 weakness, ignorance, the unconscious bias of heredity or environ- 
 ment. He was the " Prince of Pardoners," but never to the con- 
 fusion of main issues. The petition of " a large number of re- 
 spectable citizens " carried less weight with him than did the 
 tears of a little girl from Pennsylvania, who had come to plead 
 for her brother's life. He said to her: 
 
 " Poor child ! here are no governors, senators or army officers to 
 plead your case for you, and you wear no hoops. I'll be bound, I'll 
 pardon your brother ! " 
 
 His appeal was ever to the " better angel of our natures." 
 
 " Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate jus- 
 tice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? 
 In our present conditions, is either party without faith of being in 
 the right? If the Almighty Ruler of nations with His eternal truth 
 and justice be on your side, of the North, or on yours of the South, 
 
128 
 
 that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this 
 great tribunal of the American people." 
 
 One phase of Lincoln's administration has never been ade- 
 quately told. His unmeasured devotion to the idea of compen- 
 sated emancipation has never been appreciated. From considera- 
 tions of justice and right as well as policy and economy, how per- 
 sistently he labored to find a just way out of the entanglements 
 of slavery, realizing that it was a national and not a local sin, and 
 that we were all responsible for the belated barbarism of our 
 civilization. 
 
 These fundamental religious qualities in Lincoln are also the 
 fundamental elements of democracy. Lincoln dared to com- 
 pose his cabinet of his rivals and his opponents, — those who dis- 
 trusted him and sometimes worse than distrusted. His entire 
 career gives high denial to the specious fallacy that is working 
 such mischief in current politics, viz., that this is a government 
 by party, while in truth this government makes and unmakes par- 
 ties. Parties are tolerable only so far as they stand for real 
 issues and the conflict that springs out of honest difEerences of 
 opinion concerning fundamental principles. 
 
 This made of him a civic prophet, a political evangelist. In 
 the nineteenth century A. D., like him in the eighth century B. C, 
 he proved also to be a religious prophet. The man of the state 
 was the holy man of the church ; his was the power to make weak 
 men strong, halting men bold. While Lincoln wrought con- 
 sciously for the United States, unconsciously he wrought for the 
 progress of the world. How his insight gave to him foresight! 
 How he anticipated the problems of to-day! Away back as a 
 young man, in his first political career, when but twenty-four 
 years old, he declared for woman's right to the ballot. In an 
 early address to the Sons of Temperance he said : 
 
 " The reasonable men of the world have long since agreed that 
 intemperance is one of the greatest if not the very greatest of all evils 
 among mankind." 
 
 How he anticipated that thing which in these days we call 
 " Commercialism," — the passion to speculate, even in front of the 
 battle! In his first annual message he raised a warning voice, 
 anticipating the labor problem: 
 
lag 
 
 "Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the 
 fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first 
 existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher 
 consideration.'' 
 
 How? he hated the office-seeker! He was "glad when he had 
 the varioloid, because he now had something to give which the 
 office-seekers would not want." " I might do something to save 
 the country if I could only be released from the clamoring horde 
 of office-seekers who demand my attention at one end of the 
 house while the home is on fire at the other end." The office- 
 seeker he compared to the little boy who wanted the captain to 
 stop the steamboat in the midst of the rapids that he might re- 
 cover his apple which had fallen overboard. 
 
 Away back in 1837 In his address to a young men's lyceum at 
 Springfield, when but twenty-eight years of age, he uttered thesBL 
 remarkable words, which in the light of subsequent history glow 
 wfth the imperishable glory of divine illumination: 
 
 " Let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on 
 the blood of his. father, and to tear the charter of his own and his 
 children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every 
 American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it 
 be taught in schools, in seminaries and in colleges; let it be written 
 in primers, spelling-books and in almanacs; let it be preached from the 
 pulpit, procTaimed; in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice^ 
 And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and 
 let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the- 
 gay, of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions, sacrifice un- 
 ceasingly upon its altars." 
 
 In thus trying to discover the fundamental elements of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, I do not know whether I have been reaching for 
 the foundations of democracy or of religion. The words grow 
 interchangeable in the last analysis. Aristocracy in its very na- 
 ture is impious. Sectarianism in religion is a menace to devotion, 
 an indignity .to reverence, as partisanship is a menace to patriotism, 
 and an indignity to the state. Lincoln is the great democrat and 
 consequently the: great prophet of religion, not chiefly by virtue 
 oi anything he said, deathless as were his sayings; not primarily 
 for anything he did, sublime as were his achievements, but by 
 what he was. All great men belong to humanity; in their pres- 
 
I30 
 
 ence sectionalism, castes, creeds, partisanship, slink out of sight. 
 Nobility blurs all labels, shames our sectarian conceits and our 
 racial arrogance. 
 Says Carlyle: 
 
 " Great men are the inspired texts of that divine book of revelation 
 whereof a chapter is completed from epoch to epoch, and by some 
 named 'history.'" 
 
 Call the roll of earth's noblest and we find the names that no 
 one dare write into the muster rolls of parties, denominations, 
 families or nationalities; they are too large for such a scroll. A 
 great man is the keystone of the arch that unites what otherwise 
 would be the unrelated masonry of the human family. A great 
 soul, like the splendid bridge at Niagara, unites with links of steel 
 the nations otherwise separated by turbid tides. The heart of 
 Lincoln was an Atlantic cable whose electric veins transmitted 
 sjonpathies, hopes and aspirations, which quickened bosoms sep- 
 arated by the billows that bathe the distant shores of continents. 
 With what conceit did the small Athenians and Spartans look 
 over their little walls into the country of the Barbarians. But 
 Socrates and Plato looked over into Egypt, Jerusalem, and far-off 
 Persia. From the high peaks of humanity, Zoroaster, Buddha, 
 Confucius, Moses, Pythagoras, Dante, Luther, Lincoln, in the 
 signal corps of God, flash fraternal greetings from kingdom to 
 kingdom, from creed to creed, from sect to sect. Brotherhood 
 is flashed from land to land, from age to age, by the great souls 
 of humanity, of which Lincoln was a type. 
 
 German provincialism died when Lessing and Schiller were 
 born; the despised Island lost its insular quality when Shake- 
 speare wrote; the demand of the thirteen emaciated colonies was 
 a feeble one, provoking contempt, but such a demand ceased to be 
 despicable when their claims were urged by Franklin, Paine, Jef- 
 ferson and Washington. 
 
 So democracy becomes noble; the backwoodsman grows regal 
 and the log cabin classic when Lincoln appears. Brotherhood 
 is the gift of the great; fraternity is enforced of the noble. The 
 " Heathen Chinee " ceases to be the butt of ridicule when one 
 remembers that the blood of Confucius flows in his veins, — the 
 man who said: 
 
131 
 
 "The man who in the view of gain thinks of righteousness; who 
 in the view of danger is prepared to give up his life; who does not 
 forget an old agreement, however far back it extends, — such a man 
 may be reckoned a complete man." 
 
 The Irishman is no longer the despised " Paddy " on the rail- 
 road when we remember that Emmett, O'Connor, Goldsmith 
 and More were Irishmen. The most volatile Frenchman is 
 prompt to claim fellowship with the most phlegmatic German 
 through Goethe and Von Humboldt. Those only write the word 
 " negro " with two " g's " who have never felt the inspiration 
 that goes in the story of Toussaint L'Ouverture, Sojourner Truth, 
 Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington. Party lines 
 and sectional differences vanish when we mention the names of 
 Victor Hugo, John Bright and Garibaldi; even the bloody chasm 
 between North and South is filled or forgotten in the presence 
 of Charles Sumner, Alexander Stephens, Robert E. Lee and 
 General Grant. 
 
 So Lincoln stands a conspicuous landmark in the history of the 
 race, a prophet of the living God, not through any favorable com- 
 bination of circumstances or peculiarity of character, but by rea- 
 son of the fundamental bulk of his spirit. 
 
 In his presence the small and mean limitations of life are meas- 
 ured in their fitting proportions. Great men teach us humility; 
 they drive us out of our egotism. As Emerson says : " They are 
 lenses through which we read our own minds." Again he says: 
 " The true artist has a planet for his pedestal ; an adventurer 
 nothing broader than his own shoes." Lincoln broadens our sym- 
 pathies, widens our fellowship, lifts our ideals beyond the power 
 of his words or even the achievements of his pen. This is the 
 truth in Emerson's saying, " All institutions are but the lengthened 
 shadows of some great soul." Whitman asks us to estimate Lin- 
 coln by trying to imagine what the United States would now be 
 without him. 
 
 To-day with equal force we can ask : " What would the reli- 
 gious life of America be without Lincoln?" Last February all 
 creeds and confessions united in honoring as a prophet of religion, 
 a confessor of souls, the man who belonged to no church, and to 
 lay claim upon whom, by any sect or creed, is obvious insolence, 
 
132 
 
 unwarranted by facts. His universality was the universality of 
 the Golden Rule, the inclusiveness of the Beatitudes, the conn- 
 prehensiveness of the Ten Comniandments. 
 
 But great men have their dangers as well as their uses. When- 
 ever we dig a chasm between us and the most brilliant we rob 
 ourselves of their helpfulness. Genius is no miracle. " Great 
 men " is a misnomer ; " Greater men " is the truer term ; aye, 
 " Man " without an adjective ought to stand for them. We, 
 the pigmies, the small and the mean men, ought to carry adjec- 
 tives. The manliest Spirit of the race by way of emphasis chose 
 the term " Son of Man." Not the bigot, the tyrant, but the 
 hero and the martyr are the measures of a man. Great souls 
 dleal not in second-hand virtues; their excellencies are stamped, 
 like railroad tickets, " Not transferable " and " Good for this 
 trip only." 
 
 Would we be helped by Lincoln we must, like him, look for- 
 ward and not back; we must, like him, lend the hand, dare the 
 deed, be the fraternity he teaches and advance the cooperation and 
 brotherhood he so magnificently exemplified. 
 
 The old contention was " the church or the state." Now in 
 America our effort is in the main to maintain the church and 
 the state, but in the confession of Abraham Lincoln, — the Church 
 of Democracy — it will be " the church for the state," which 
 may be something very like what Jesus meant by " the kingdom 
 of God that is at hand." 
 
 EVOLUTION AND RELIGION: RELIGION'S DEBT 
 TO CHARLES DARWIN (1809-1909) 
 
 REV. CHARLES E. ST. JOHN 
 
 Under the name of Charles Darwin we give honor to the 
 strongest influence that has touched the religious world in mod- 
 ern times. Evolutionary thought existed centuries before Darwin 
 lived ; and the theory of evolution, as formulated by Darwin, has 
 received not a little modification at the hands of scientific men 
 since he died. Nevertheless, Darwin's work was so thorough and 
 conclusive that we commonly associate with his name the influence 
 
133 
 
 which the theory of evolution has exerted upon scientific and re- 
 ligious thought in our age. 
 
 In so far as this merit may justly be attributed to Charles Dar- 
 win, we must recognize in him the originator of the most revolu- 
 tionary thought that the Christian world has known. Evolution 
 has taken its stand as the indisputable interpreter of creation and 
 development, and of the relations that exist between Qod and 
 man. Science, philosophy, and religion fall into order at its touch, 
 while each reinforces its arguments by specific study. Geology, 
 astronomy, biology, history, and — last of all — the higher criti- 
 cism of the Bible, work hand in hand in establishing the truth 
 that creation has been a long-continued and natural process. 
 
 When Darwin forced upon humanity the consideration of the 
 theory of evolution, he was for a long time stoutly opposed by a 
 large part of the Christian world. Naturally this theory was 
 resisted by those who held that the Bible contains the first and 
 final utterance of God; that the Old Testament is full of pre- 
 dictions of the coming of Jesus Christ; and that the stories of 
 creation, the fall of man, and the existence of a personal devil are 
 to be accepted as divine revelations. These views and all creeds 
 founded upon them are shattered beyond repair by Darwin's work ; 
 for evolution takes up the Bible and Jesus, who is the heart of 
 the Bible, into a grander, all-inclusive revelation. 
 
 Let us examine, for a moment, the changed aspect of the uni- 
 verse that evolution has set forth. Behold the expanse of the uni- 
 verse ! A ray of light, which travels one hundred and eighty-six 
 thousand miles in a second, requires fifty years to travel from the 
 North Star to our eartli: it requires four million years to reach 
 our earth from the farthest known star. In the universe, as now 
 known to astronomers, there are not less than twenty million suns, 
 each the centre of a planetary system at least as important as our 
 own. Statistics now reveal to us at least one hundred and sixty 
 million stars, and at least one thousand nebulae, each one like 
 imto the magnificent Milky Way, which spans our earthly skies. 
 The four jnillion years during which the light now impinging 
 upon earth has been flying straight onward irresistibly implies an 
 lunimaginable period of millions of years preceding. 
 
134 
 
 Behold, again, the conception of time as revealed in our earth 
 to the modern mind! The science of evolution has fully estab- 
 lished the fact that man has existed upon the earth not less than 
 fifty thousand years. For that period he has existed in a physical 
 form practically as good as that he possesses to-day. We can 
 merely imagine the vast period preceding, during which his phys- 
 ical ancestors were making good their stand upon earth. Evolu- 
 tion has established the fact that at least three hundred and fifty 
 million years have been required for the development of the earth 
 into conditions which would support life. 
 
 Consider, finally, the new conception of law that evolution be- 
 stows! Thei modern mind is convinced that there Is a natural 
 cause back of every fact or condition, and that the processes of 
 Nature have always been uniform in character and free from any 
 unnatural change that could be termed a miracle. Evolution not 
 merely leaves no place for miracles but magnificently sets forth 
 uniformity and the orderly process of cause and effect as the grand- 
 est conceivable method of creation and development. 
 
 What, now, is the application of this conception of evolution 
 to religion ? Is there any place left for God ? Let me say frankly 
 that, if there were no place left for God, I, for one, should be con- 
 vinced that evolution is all a mistake. So long as any person 
 feels that the acceptance of this brilliant modern doctrine threatens 
 his faitli in God and his love, let that person persistently reject 
 the new idea. It is more important to believe in God, It is living 
 nearer to the truth to believe In God, than to follow any line 
 of thought, howsoever enticing, which makes it impossible for one 
 to believe in God. I am happy in making this statement, be- 
 cause personally I have found the doctrine of evolution to be 
 the greatest help that I have ever received in the strengthening 
 of my faith in God. Evolution comes as a distinct reinforcement 
 of religion, not as a thought destined to supplant faith. I cannot 
 undertake to speak for all evolutionists or for all believers in God. 
 Let me content myself with setting forth before you my own way 
 of combining the knowledge of God and the use of evolutionary 
 thought. 
 
 Let us start, then, with God, a spiritual being existing apart 
 
135 
 
 from all form and consisting of perfect love, wisdom, and right- 
 eousness. God, the Eternal Spirit, who has forever existed, and 
 to whom time is nothing, cannot conceivably have an opponent. 
 There can be no power that is able to defy him or interfere with 
 his thought and work. There is no standing ground for Satan. 
 Conceive of such a God as this existing alone. His very nature 
 demands companionship, appreciation. He must needs express 
 himself: unexpressed intelligence is futile. God must act: he 
 must create. To such a being creation is self-expression, and that 
 self-expression must go on until it produces minds that are com- 
 petent to receive and understand the expressions of the Almighty. 
 Thus in the very being of God the need existed for a " world of 
 men," — some creatures, at any rate, to whom God could speak, 
 and who should be his loving companions forever. 
 
 Furthermore, there has always existed, in my imagination, the 
 eternal possibility of God's expressing himself, and the teachings 
 of modern science provide this eternal possibility. If I under- 
 stand the scientific thought of the time, it is reasonable to believe 
 that, underlying all forms of matter, there is a mysterious sub- 
 stance called ether, which is eternal in its existence and limitless 
 in its extent; which, further, is in itself motionless and without 
 friction. This conception of the physical universe holds that 
 every smallest particle of matter Consists of variously arranged 
 vortex rings of ether. I am compelled to believe, therefore, that 
 the beginning of the universe was at the instant when there first 
 appeared in the limitless and motionless expanse of ether motion, 
 which consisted of whirling vortex rings, infinitesimally minute. 
 
 What should start that first motion? Nothing less than the 
 thought of God. Ether was God's opportunity; and creation, 
 from the beginning until now, has been the process whereby God 
 has used his opportunity for self-expression and the putting forth 
 of power. God, the Eternal Mind, thought motion; and the 
 thought produced motion. 
 
 So divine self-expression went on through unimaginable periods 
 of time, building up atoms from vortex rings, and physical ele- 
 ments out of atoms; producing gases and heat and light, and, 
 finally, enormous masses of flaming gas. 
 
 I cannot take time to describe the processes so wonderfully set 
 
136 
 
 forth in astronomical and geological works, whereby, .through 
 cooling and centrifugal force, mass after mass was thrown off 
 from central whirling bodies, each to produce, in the process oi 
 development, systems, suns, stars, and worlds. I cannot follow 
 the cooling of each globe, until it became a solid body giving forth 
 light and heat. I can but remind you that out .of this wonderful 
 process our little earth at last came into existence, and in the 
 course of the three hundred and fifty million years of its modern 
 development, found itself prepared for the support of life. 
 
 And how came life to start upon the earth ? No man knows. 
 As a man of religion, I believe that it came, as the whole creative 
 process before had come, out of the orderly and inevitable course 
 of the thinking of God. At some critical moment God was able 
 to think life, as an inevitable result of the conditions of creation 
 that had led up to that instant. From that time on, this life has 
 proceeded with an orderly development like that which has ruled 
 in the material universe. Forms of life have followed one 
 another, each one the natural result orf the preceding one, and each 
 •one a perfect expression of a new thought of God. 
 
 Through form .after form God has sent forth his thought, until 
 .at last he brought forth man. Human life, in all its aspects, is 
 ipart of the natural order of things. In his physical form man is 
 .a product of some lower creature. Let me say, incidentally, that 
 it is not thought by evolutionists that mankind has descended from 
 tthe apes and monkeys. On the contrary, the physical ancestors of 
 mankind are wholly unknovna. Evolution simply teaches that 
 both man and the apes have sprung from some common ancestor, 
 the exact nature of which is unknown. All that we can at present 
 say of our origin is that at some remote time, more than -fifty 
 thousand years ago, there appeared, in the process of physical de- 
 velopment, a creature, or a little group of creatures, possessed of 
 exceptional qualities, — qualities that enabled them to stand erect 
 and to begin to articulate speech. Man was in sight when these 
 ancestors of his felt within them a power of orderly thought, which 
 could make them masters over all other creatures. Man was born 
 when this power of thought became great enough to express itself. 
 In short, man was created when he became a living soul. 
 
 With man evolution became a moral and spiritual process. It 
 
137 
 
 became a process which is intelligible to itself, as well as to God. 
 God now has reached the culmination of his creation, having pro- 
 duced beings who can read his thoughts and appreciate them. 
 God^ who has hitherto simply expressed himself, henceforth ex- 
 presses himself to intelligences that respond and, in their turn, 
 express themselves to God. Man becomes the discoverer of truth. 
 Man takes control of his own life, builds up a social order, estab- 
 lishes civilizations, and develops systems of thought and religion. 
 
 Everything that concerns human life comes to pass and finds its 
 development under the same magnificent uniform process which 
 we call evolution. Take our Bible, for instance. It can no longer 
 be looked upon as a law from above, written miraculously by the 
 finger of God, as upon tables of stone, and set forth, to an ig- 
 norant age, as a divine law whereby man shall live. On the con- 
 trary, we can now see that the Bible is one of many human at- 
 tempts at self-expression. Mankind has produced the Bible as 
 God prodjuced the universe, by a natural process of setting forth 
 experience and thought. There came a time in the development 
 of mankind when one group of men in Eastern lands grew nearer 
 to God in their thoughts than men had done before, found by ex- 
 perience certain laws of conduct, certain helpful methods of reli- 
 gious expression, certain visions of the relation that should exist 
 between man and God. In that group of devout men, one after 
 another appeared competent to put into words the experience 
 anid aspirations of the Hebrew nation;, and so they wrote 
 our Bible, out of the natural experience of mankind and the intelli- 
 gent thought of the times. 
 
 This removes from the Bible all supernatural power and causes 
 it to stand among men upon its own merits. Studying the Bible 
 thus, we discover it to possess the defects of the age which pro- 
 duced it, as well as the merits. Studied thus, the Bible still holds 
 its' groumxl as the most helpful compilation of religious literature 
 which human experience has thus far set forth. 
 
 I hardly need add that, to the evolutionist, Jesus came by the 
 same process that has produced the Bible. He, too, is of purely 
 human origin and nature, and an expression of human experience; 
 There came a time, in the steady advance of things human, when: 
 the grandest voice of the ages could speak, setting forth the fun- 
 
138 
 
 damental ideas of religion. Jesus was that voice, and he must re- 
 main for all time the foundation of the moral and religious life; 
 for in him, at last, mankind expressed perfectly the relation be- 
 tween man and God. He understood God, and his life inspires 
 us to understand God. He is the world's greatest leader. 
 
 What, then, to the evolutionist, becomes of evil and sin? If 
 there be no devil, and if the entire creation has been the inevitable 
 result of orderly processes of an Infinite Mind, then all conditions 
 that exist must be a part of that process, however terrible and 
 desolating they may be. Yts, that is precisely the evolutionary 
 point of view. What we, in our impatience, our desire for the 
 perfect life, call evils and calamities are inevitable in a growdng 
 world. The universe is merely in a stage of development. It is 
 as good as it could be made up to this moment. It must pass 
 through every stage, in order to win to the end. If we are to 
 have a world capable of producing life, it has to be made just as 
 this world has been made, by processes of law, which involve tem- 
 porary harshness in the working out of ultimate good. The earth 
 must shrink and throw off its heat, to maintain the conditions 
 that support life. This process cannot take place without those 
 readjustments of the surface of the earth which we call earth- 
 quakes even though earthquakes involve occasional calamity for 
 man and his works. Man is better served by this earth than he 
 could be by any other. 
 
 Look for a moment, also, at the moral development of man- 
 kind. Development is better than stationary goodness. Char- 
 acter, to be of any value, has to be won. The child that has never 
 been tempted is a child of wholly unknown capacity: we cannot 
 call it good. We become good only when we have, one by one, 
 chosen good things as against evil. Character is always a matter 
 of personal decision. It rests upon choice, — the right choice. 
 This means that there must always be the possibility of doing 
 wrong. Without that there could be no meaning in goodness; 
 certainly, no progress in righteousness. Sin is still in our midst 
 because we so often make wrong decisions, not because God put 
 it here for the discipline of our souls. He gives us the power of 
 choice. Our growth in character springs from our choice. Sin 
 
139 
 
 stays here so long as we continue to choose unwisely or selfishly 
 amid the possibilities of life. 
 
 Finally, let me, as a religious man, claim that I find in evolution 
 the best argument for immortality that has ever come to me. Who 
 is not oppressed by the imperfections of the present time? Rest- 
 ing upon all human life are limitations, troubles, and sorrows, al- 
 most too great to be endured. We do not fully understand the 
 slowness of God's creative work. We are oppressed by the heavi- 
 ness of the burdens that come to many of his children; and we 
 are all of us, sooner or later, brought to the mood, almost of 
 despair, which led Tennyson to say: — 
 
 " O, yet we trust that somehow good 
 Will be the final goal of ill, 
 To pangs of nature, sins of will, 
 Defects of doubt and taints of blood; 
 
 " That nothing walks with aimless feet ; 
 That not one life shall be destroyed, 
 Or cast as rubbish to the void. 
 When God hath made the pile complete. 
 
 " So runs my dream ; but what am I ? 
 
 An infant crying in the night: 
 
 An infant crying for the light: 
 
 And with no language but a cry." 
 
 No language but a cry! Ah, but the power that there is in a 
 human cry! The power that there is in a baby's cry, when it 
 reaches the mother's tender heart, the power there is in mankind's 
 cry for justice! 
 
 Hear my cry, O God. I am a prehistoric barbarian. I have 
 been born under limited and cruel conditions. I have never 
 grasped the thought of a loving and only God. I live amid 
 bloodshed and cruel selfishness. Ages are yet to pass upon earth 
 before Jesus and holy men like him reveal, to men the real nature 
 of the heavenly Father. Am I to die and pass out of existence, 
 ignorant of all that future years of earth shall reveal? 
 
 Hear my cry, O God. I am a negro. I am doomed on earth 
 to a restricted sphere. Many scorn me because of my color and 
 
140 
 
 my ignorance. I am shut out from the larger and finer possibili- 
 ties of human life. I am not considered worthy to stand with 
 other men. But, O God, shall I never have equality? Can life 
 bring to me nothing but servitude? 
 
 Hear my cry, O God! I am a little girl, an unhappy child, 
 only ten years of age, living in a crowded tenement in the ugliest 
 part of a great city. I cannot see the sky from my window. I 
 have never seen a blade of grass growing. Foul odors and vicious 
 associations have been around me from my birth. My father is 
 a drunkard, and did my mother to death by his cruelty. I am 
 worn to a skeleton, taking care of my little brothers and sisters, 
 and enduring myself my father's brutality. I cringe whenever I 
 hear my father's step, and I know that he will cause my death 
 some time. O God, is that all there is to life for me ? 
 
 Hear my cry, O God! I am a cripple. My phjrsical strength 
 was taken from me by an accident in a great mill, where I was a 
 laborer. I had to work there, to gain my living. I did not Cause 
 the accident, but all the remainder of my physical life I must 
 suffer from it. I can no longer earn my living. In time I shall 
 die, having had nothing but torture and suffering while I lived 
 upon earth. O God, is that all there is to life for me? 
 
 Hear my cry, O God! I am a sinner. From my boyhood I 
 have been wilful and selfish. Those that would have helped me 
 I have scorned ; but, on the whole, the conditions of my life have 
 not been helpful. They have tended, or have seemed to tend, to 
 make me headstrong and vicious. Justly or unjustly, up to this 
 time I have done wrong and have been a foe to human society. 
 I shall die, it is likely, a violent death some day. Is that all there 
 is to life for me? 
 
 I, barbarian, negro, unhappy child, cripple, sinner, human being 
 limited by conditions that I did not wholly cause, claim justice 
 from existence. I claim justice from God. I protest against any 
 closed doors : I protest against the cessation of opportunity. I, who 
 have had so little thus far, protest against the bare idea of a hell 
 that could close upon me the doors of opportunity. I, the human 
 race, lift up an eager and indignant voice against any final judg- 
 ment that shall check the development of the moral possibilities 
 that lie within me, within every soul born into this world. Every 
 
141 
 
 «oul is conscious of power, of capacity, — has some vision, how- 
 ever dim, of better things ; and all souls, singly and together, call 
 out to God for life, for opportunity, for freedom, for growth. 
 
 And what is God's answer to this universal prayer? Simply 
 this: " My child, look about you. See what I have done. Con- 
 sider the evolution that has gone on through ages too great to be 
 understood by you, until, through these tremendous processes, you 
 have been brought into being, — you, the being after my own na- 
 ■ture; the being who at last can hear my voice, understand ray 
 thinking and be my companion. Think how I have wrought to 
 bring you forth, through the unimaginable ages! And shall I, 
 the Lord God Almighty, fail at last, on the very threshold of the 
 lieaven that I have been so long creating? " Such is God's illu- 
 minating answer to the cry of the human soul. Let it be further 
 ■enunciated, as is done by John Burroughs in his essay entitled 
 " The Long Road," in the words, " When suddenly, in the day 
 before yesterday in the geological year, a new and strange an- 
 imal appears, with new and strange powers; separated from the 
 lothers by what appears an impassable gulf; less specialized in his 
 bodily powers than the others, but vastly more spwcialized in his 
 brain and mental powers; instituting a new order of things upon 
 the earth, the face of which he in time changes, through his new 
 gift of reason; inventing tools and weapons and language; har- 
 nessing the physical forces to his own ends ; and putting all things 
 -under bis feet, — man, the wonder-worker, the beholder of the 
 'Stars, the critic and spectator of creation itself, the thinker of the 
 'thoughts of God, the worshipper, the devotee, the hero, spreading 
 •rapidly over the earth, and developing with prodigious stride, 
 when once fairly launched upon his career." 
 
 Ah, yes ! Man is no new species, to be cut off in the develop- 
 ment of a growing universe. Here, at last, are souls, something 
 ■more enduring than bodies, -with all their beauty, their foreeful- 
 ness. If we but prepare the way for a lovelier race to have its 
 day and die, the cost in pain and tears is too great. Pave the 
 way of progress, if you like, with dead corals and overthrown 
 trees, lost paleozoic monsters, and other creatures to be found 
 now only in the fossils of the rocks; pave the way of progress 
 with shifting seas, changing continents, and falling stars, — and 
 
142 
 
 the results justify the sacrifice and the change. Pave the way of 
 progress, still, with my personal strength, my happiness, my early 
 death, if necessary. Let human conditions be improved by my 
 suffering throughout my life; but do not, I charge you, pave the 
 way of progress with my dead soul. That would be too great a 
 sacrifice, for it would mean the cutting ofE of limitless possibilities 
 that lie within me. 
 
 No; the individual soul is the object unto which all these ages 
 of God's work have tended. A soul cut ofE absolutely is an ir- 
 reparable loss to God, and his creation. Dying, whether in crime 
 or in heroism, in defeat or in victory, in disease, in calamity, or 
 in old age, I must yet go on, I will go on. My cry is not for 
 earth and its green fields and ease, not for a place of golden streets 
 and lovely mansions, — nothing of the kind. My cry is, and shall 
 always be, for justice, for light, for knowledge, for opportunity, 
 for righteousness; and evolution convinces me that this cry goes 
 not unheeded, — is, indeed, but an expression of the wonderful 
 power that God has produced in us by the process of evolution. 
 And so evolution proclaims the immortality of the soul with a 
 power that has never before been put into the proclamation. 
 
 The modern thought of evolution has, in short, increased our 
 knowledge of God and his work, deepened our conception of the 
 possibilities of our own lives, enlarged our patience and our hope. 
 It has given us the open mind, and filled that mind with vision. 
 It has broadened our faith, making that faith reasonable. It has 
 given us the spirit of tolerance, whereby we comprehend the truth 
 that is expressed in all religions, all being the product of human 
 experience and inevitable conditions. Evolution has become the 
 modern method of religion, whether that religion be Christian, 
 Jewish, or any other. God's endless work has begun; it is going 
 on ; it will go on forever. And since man has entered into it man 
 has been co-operating with God, — will co-operate with God for- 
 ever. 
 
143 
 
 THE BIBLE IN MODERN LIFE 
 
 RABBI DAVID PHILIPSON, D.D., OF CINCINNATI, PRESIDENT CEN- 
 TRAL CONFERENCE OF AMERICAN RABBIS 
 
 The past century has witnessed the birth of a new heaven and 
 a new earth. Scientific discovery and invention have changed 
 the front of the universe. A veritable revelation has taken place 
 in all the departments of life and thought, political, educational, 
 social, industrial, economic, religious. Values have been changed, 
 standards have been readjusted, view-points have shifted. Many 
 things that the fathers considered of supreme importance are re- 
 garded now almost a negligible quantity and matters whereon 
 the fathers laid little stress loom large on the horizon of contem- 
 poraneous society. To all intents and purposes there is a greater 
 interval between this year and its sister of one hundred years ago 
 than there was between that year 1809 and its sister of one thou- 
 sand years earlier. 
 
 Mankind has travelled an enormous distance during this cen- 
 tury in all things that pertain to man as man and to humanity's 
 life as humanity's life. And perhaps in no province of human 
 thought has there been so vital a change as in the modern man's 
 attitude towards the tremendous issues that are subsumed under 
 the name of religion, namely, God and the universe, life and 
 death, the soul and its future, duty and destiny. 
 
 These teachings are drawn primarily, as far as we of this west- 
 ern world are concerned, from that great collection of books, the 
 productions of the religious genius of the Jews, that pass current 
 under the title. The Bible, The Book. Whatever be the reli- 
 gious opinions of men to-day, they hark back to or are colored by 
 some interpretation of Biblical teaching. And in the revolution 
 that has taken place in men's religious thinking, the attitude 
 towards the Bible has been involved chiefly. Nor is our modern 
 age peculiar in this. Whenever there has been a great change in 
 religious opinion among the peoples living under the Jewish and 
 Christian dispensations, the Bible has been in some manner or 
 
144 
 
 other intimately and closely connected therewith. When Chris- 
 tianity finally broke away from Judaism, and those unique teach- 
 ings whereby it was differentiated especially from the mother re- 
 ligion became dominant, viz.: the divinity of Jesus, his miracu- 
 lous incarnation, his messiahship, his resurrection, an interpretation 
 of Biblical passages was resorted to altogether different from the 
 original meaning. Notably were passages in the prophetical writ- 
 ings invested with a significance as foretelling the life and experi- 
 ences of Jesus which could impossibly have been in the thought 
 of the original writers. By a forced exegesis, words of Isaiah) 
 Jeremiah, Hosea, Zachariah, the psalmists were so applied as 
 to supply the needed authoritative basis whereon to build the 
 theology of the new religion. The differences among the many 
 sects in early Christianity are in great part due to differences in 
 the interpretation of some Biblical passage or other. When the 
 great crisis in the history of Christianity came that resulted in 
 ■the rise of Protestantism it was again the attitude towards the 
 Bible that was largely involved. The church tradition as it had 
 grown up in Catholicism was vigorously opposed by the Protest- 
 ant leaders, Luther, Calvin and the others who advanced the 
 ihesls of the right of individual interpretation of the Bible word. 
 Again upon the ,basis of varied individual interpretations, the dii- 
 ierent Protestant sects have been founded. Always and all the 
 iime it has been the interpretation of the Biblical teachings that has 
 •been the deciding factor in days of great religious unrest and 
 trevolution. Hence, when we ask what of the place of the Bible 
 in these latter days of religious change and upheaval which are as 
 significant as any in past times, if not more so, we are amply 
 justified in our question for the attitude towards the Bible is the 
 telling measure of the religious temper of the age. 
 
 There are millions to-day who look upon the Bible in the same 
 light as past generations have done. Such believe in the doctrine 
 of plenary inspiration, viz.: that every word was spoken by God 
 <and taken down by the writer, who was the agent through whom 
 the divine word was imparted to human kind. For them every 
 word in the Bible is of equal weight with every other. There is 
 no distinction between greater or less. Such are untroubled by 
 the peculiar problem which we have in mind when we think oif 
 
145 
 
 the relation of modern thought to the Bible. They either recon- 
 cile to their satisfaction the apparent contradictions between Bib- 
 lical statements and the modern outlook, as did Gladstone, and 
 speak as did he of the impregnable rock of Holy Scripture, or 
 they place the Bible in a category by itself and do not permit 
 themselves to question any of its words whatsoever. 
 
 These constitute the great mass of communicants of the ortho- 
 dox churches. But there is a great multitude of thinking men 
 and women who accept without reservation the whole outlook 
 upon life and the universe that is meant by the term modernity. 
 This outlook given by modern science is altogether different from 
 that of the Biblical writers. A great struggle or conflict is seem- 
 ingly involved here. And it was the differences between Biblical 
 teaching and the results of scientific research that first made acute 
 the question of the attitude of modern man towards the Bible. 
 When Galileo procilaimed his theory of the earth's motion around 
 the sun, a theory incompatible with the Biblical view, the strong 
 arm of the Church forced his recantation. But those days are 
 happily past when brute force of any kind, be it lay or clerical, 
 can put its mailed fist on the truth seeker and compel his silence. 
 Hence when in the heyday of early scientific discovery in the 
 opening decades of the modern age, the results of geological re- 
 search as to the age of the world came into sharp conflict with 
 the teachings of the first chapter of Genesis, and astronomy's irre- 
 futable prroofs of the earth's place in the solar system discredited 
 the geocentric view of the Biblical writers, and anthropology 
 taught the doctrine of the rise of man as against the New Testa- 
 ment teaching of his fall, and the whole body of modern scientific 
 truth declaimed against the possibility of the interruption of the 
 reign of natural law as necessitated by the miracles of the Old 
 Testament and the New, there was little wonder that the idea 
 grew up that there was an irreconcilable conflict between the 
 Bible and modern thought and life. The famous catchword was 
 coined " the conflict between science and religion," which really 
 meant the conflict between the Biblical view of the origin of all 
 things and the modern scientific view. Hosts ranged themselves 
 on either side and the contest waged fierce and bitter. Church- 
 men felt that religion itself was at stake, and scientists were 
 
146 
 
 dubbed atheists, because they denied the traditional views founded 
 on Biblical teaching. The smoke of the battle has cleared and 
 we are in a better position to-day than were those in the thick of 
 the fight to judge of the merits of the question. The catchword 
 " the conflict between science and religion " was of brilliant mint- 
 age, but like so many popular phrases it expressed what lay merely 
 on the surface and did not penetrate into the realities of the 
 issue. There has never been a more unfortunate mistake than 
 this. I use the word " mistake " advisedly, for the whole notion 
 pf such a conflict rests upon a misconception. Both religion and 
 science present different forms of the search after truth. Each 
 has its own domain, and instead of clashing with one another they 
 can be and should be mutually helpful. There has never been 
 a clearer statement on this subject than that made by John Fiske, 
 when he said : " When we look beneath the surface of things, we 
 see that in reality there has never been any conflict between reli- 
 gion and science nor is any reconciliation called for where har- 
 mony has always existed. The real historical conflict, which has 
 thus been curiously misnamed, has been the conflict between the 
 more crude opinions of the science of an earlier age and the less 
 crude opinions belonging to the science of a later age. In the 
 course of this conflict the more crude opinions have been usually 
 defended in the name of religion, and the less crude opinions have 
 invariably won the victory; but religion itself, which is not con- 
 cerned with opinion but with the aspiration which leads us to strive 
 after a purer and holier life, has seldom or never been attacked." 
 Accepting this statement as fair and true, as I believe all religious 
 liberals will, we come to the question of the relation of the Bible, 
 which contains the classical expressions of religious aspiration, to 
 modern scientific thought. 
 
 The Bible is the text book of religion, not of science. The 
 Biblical writers stood on the level of their age as far as natural 
 knowledge went. It was not their purpose nor their mission to 
 teach scientific but religious truth. The meaningfulness of the 
 first chapter of Genesis lies not in the teaching of a creation in 
 six days, not quite six thousand years ago, but in the high pro- 
 nouncement that One God is the creator of all things and that 
 man stands at the summit of the sublunar creation. And so in all 
 
147 
 
 else. We have grown very clear in this matter. We have learned 
 to distinguish between the eternal and the transitory elements in 
 the Bible. The prophets were men of their time, as well as 
 geniuses who pierced to the heart of eternal truths. In the 
 great consecration chapter of Isaiah, we find all the imagery 
 of a crude angelology, in the acceptance of which this soaring 
 genius was at one with his contemporaries; but this was merely 
 the setting for the enunciation of the overpowering pronounce- 
 ments of the holiness of God and the consecration of man to a 
 great mission, and of the further everlasting truths that spiritual 
 obtuseness leads a people to destruction, but that there will al- 
 ways be the saving remnant of the righteous that survives the 
 catastrophe. 
 
 In modern life as shaped by modern thought then the Bible 
 retains the place it has always held as the storehouse of those com- 
 pelling religious truths that have been and still are expressive of 
 the highest reaches of the soul. No men have looked with clearer 
 vision into the heart of life's mysteries and into the chambers of 
 eternity than did the prophets and seers of Israel. The psalm- 
 ists uttered the exquisite words of trustful faith that have brought 
 comfort to untold millions, the prophets gave voice to those ideals 
 of righteousness, justice and peace towards which men are still 
 striving. Herein lies the worth and value of the Bible for mod- 
 ern man as it has lain for all the generations past. The value 
 of the Bible does not rise and fall with the changing beliefs of 
 different ages which we subsume under the general term " natural 
 science " ; its worth lies in the eternal messages proclaiming the 
 spirit of God in man and the universe. The highest words on 
 this supreme theme are found in the Bible; these are of everlasting 
 significance and are affected neither by the exigencies of time nor 
 place, nor by the changing character of human knowledge. 
 Whatever heights of discovery and invention man's mind may 
 scale, whatever new vistas of knowledge future investigations 
 may disclose, these will affect only the temporary teachings of the 
 Biblical books but not the eternally significant doctrines contained 
 in such brilliant flashes of spiritual insight as the golden text of the 
 Old Testament: " He has told thee, O Man, what is good, and 
 that the Lord requires of thee nothing but to do justly, to love 
 
148 
 
 mercy and to walk humbly with thy God," or the golden text 
 of the New Testament: "Do unto others as you would have 
 them do unto you." 
 
 From what has been said it will have become evident that in 
 the modern view of the Bible held by religious liberals of all creeds 
 some parts of the volume are of far greater spiritual potency 
 than others. The researches of Biblical students, known scien- 
 tifically as Biblical criticism, have proven beyond the peradventure 
 of a doubt, that the Biblical books represent a growth in religious 
 experience. The people of Israel passed through various stages 
 of religious development; these are reflected in the pages of the 
 Bible. This accepted finding of the newer knowledge could not 
 but affect the attitude towards the Bible. The fantastic theories 
 of some erratic critics who represent the extravagances of the 
 extreme left of Biblical students, may amuse us, but they cannot 
 undermine the sound basis of the study. Hence, it may be said 
 that for those who have an open mind it has become abundantly 
 clear that the Biblical books have been written by men of varied 
 powers and represent widely varying degrees of spiritual insight. 
 There is an almost impassible gulf, for example, between the 
 writer of the book of Esther and the writer of the fifty-first 
 psalm; the spirit pervading the Book of Deuteronomy is altogether 
 different from that of the book of Leviticus ; the book of Jeremiah 
 is of infinitely greater spiritual significance than is the hook of 
 Joshua. This recognition of differing degrees of spirituality, re- 
 ligiosity, or call it what you will, among the Biblical writers, has 
 as a matter of course produced far-reaching results. It makes 
 impossible the Bibliolatry of past days. It has displaced the 
 fetishistic attitude towards the Bible. It has substituted the doc- 
 trine of a natural growth along human lines for the supernatural 
 character of the Biblical books. It has, it is true, divested the 
 Bible of that place in popular regard which has amounted to idol- 
 atry, but it has given us, in place thereof, that better possession, 
 a Bible of humanity, a Bible which we recognize as our very own, 
 a Bible to which we go, not as to a magician in the attitude of 
 superstitious awe, expecting to receive an instantaneous solution 
 to each and any problem thait is harassing us, but a Bible in which 
 we seek the experience of divinely inspired men in situations like 
 
149 
 
 unto those in which we often find ourselves, and draw joy and 
 comfort from their words, veritable wells of salvation. 
 
 The Bible, in a word, is a collection of documents, written by 
 men for men, during a period of many centuries. These men 
 were of widely differing powers; they run the gamut from the 
 prosaic chronicler to the prophet of divine inspiration. In the 
 older supernatural view of the Bible, the genealogical tables were 
 of as great potency as the command " thou shalt love thy neighbor 
 as thy self," for one as the other was the word of God and in the 
 word of God there can be no great and no small; but in our 
 newer view we are confronted with no such diflSculty ; " thou shalt 
 love thy neighbor as thyself " is the utterance of an inspired soul 
 and is of eternal significance; the genealogical tables are a simple 
 historical record of a painstaking chronicler of past events, but has 
 no especial spiritual significance. The newer view of the Bible is 
 that of the man who can distinguish between the transitory and the 
 eternal, the inspired and the commonplace, the man who has 
 come into his divine heritage and uses his God-given powers in 
 searching out the significance of this heritage; the older view of 
 the Bible is that of the child that has not tasted of the fruit of the 
 tree of knowledge; the unquestioning acceptance by the child of 
 the wonderful and the miraculous gives way naturally to the 
 sober estimate of manhood with its larger knowledge and outlook ; 
 such is the change which the modern knowledge of the production 
 of the Biblical books has wrought, being like unto the change which 
 modern scientific investigation caused in the matter of the accep- 
 tance or rejection of the Biblical view of the universe and its gov- 
 ernment by law or miraculous intervention. The older child-like 
 view may seem and doubtless is, to thousands the more comforting 
 and the by far less troublesome, but the newer man-like stand is 
 the grander, finer; it is the prerogative of our freedom, the free- 
 dom of this latter age, which knows that although there are and 
 will always be many things in heaven and on earth that are not 
 dreamt of in our philosophy, yet feels that it is our highest privi- 
 lege to test all things, even the most hallowed traditions, by the 
 touchstone of our God-given reason and our divinely implanted 
 knowledge. What remains to us after such test is our very own ; 
 we have secured, as a result of our latter day investigations into 
 
150 
 
 the canonical books, a Bible as sacred to us as was their Bible to 
 our fathers even though we view it through different eyes; our 
 Bible is to us the the most precious document of the possibilities 
 of the human spirit; it shows us the growth from the crudest con- 
 ception of God to the highest, from a God delighting in the sweet 
 savor of Noah's sacrifice to the Omnipresent Deity of the one 
 hundred and thirty-ninth psalm ; it shows us all the vicissitudes 
 of the soul in all the relations of life; it depicts the ethical devel- 
 opment through all the stages of growth from the selfishness of 
 Jacob bargaining at Bethel to the sublime reach of Amos with his 
 great preachment that privilege implies responsibility. So then, 
 though our fathers' positive acceptance of each and every word 
 of the Bible as the inspired word of God, and therefore immutably 
 and unchangeably fixed, is no longer ours, still have we as a com- 
 pensation, and to my way of thinking, this latter gain far out- 
 weighs the former loss, we have as a compensation the substan- 
 tiation in the books of the Bible of this high doctrine of the 
 growth of man from lower to higher; of his rise from a crude 
 beginning to prophetic insight and of the development of the spir- 
 itual faculties, from finding pleasure in animal delights to the 
 height of the vision of universal peace when swords will be 
 beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks, and men 
 will learn war no more. 
 
 This acceptance of the doctrine of development in reference 
 to the Bible, and its corollary of the greater validity of some por- 
 tions than of others, involves the all important issue of the author- 
 ity of the Bible. Past generations, both Jewish and Christian, 
 accepted without question the doctrine of the literal authority of 
 the Bible. It was the final tribunal for religious and moral issues. 
 If a doctrine received Biblical substantiation it was acceptable. 
 True this often brought forth startling results. Advocates and 
 opponents of the same religious dogma, or moral issue sought and 
 found Biblical support for their teaching. We have the assur- 
 ance of the greatest of the poets that even his Satanic Majesty can 
 quote Scripture if necessary to the furtherance of his work. There 
 was in truth no teaching so extreme and no doctrine so strange 
 that a Biblical text was not made to do service in its cause. This 
 was the result of the dogma accepted universally of the supreme 
 
151 
 
 authority of the Bible. The Bible has spoken — that ended the 
 matter. This meant also that every word of the Bible was of 
 equal weight with every other. It developed also that unfortunate 
 view of the Bible that made it a book of texts ; verses were torn out 
 of their context and given an interpretation which could be read 
 into them only by violence. But that made no difference. It 
 satisfied the conscience of the adherent of the doctrine who re- 
 quired Biblical authority. An extreme instance of the lengths 
 to \'vhich this was carried was furnished in the slavery struggle 
 in this country; the advocates of slavery declared it a divine insti- 
 tution and rested their claim on Biblical texts; the opponents did 
 the same and explained away the assertions of the Southern sym- 
 pathizers as best they could. No religious sect too bizarre but 
 that it found warrant to its own satisfaction in the teaching of 
 Scripture. In all these cases the troubled inquirer might well 
 ask, \vhom shall my soul believe? It all resolved itself into a ques- 
 tion of interpretation. But with all this what stood out in strong 
 relief was the acceptance of the authority of the Bible. The uni- 
 versal acquiescence in this doctrine gave rise to all the extrav- 
 agancies to which reference has been made. There can be no 
 doubt for example that slavery or at any rate, a modified slavery 
 is permitted in the Bible ; so also can the Mormon rest his practice 
 of polygamy on Biblical warrant; so were witches burnt because 
 this had Biblical authority; so did Christian sects wage bitter 
 contests not always bloodless because of different readings of Bib- 
 lical texts. All such phenomena were possible from the old view 
 of the Bible as an absolute representation in its every utterance 
 of the teaching of God. But they are not possible according to 
 our modern view as I have attempted to set it forth. 
 
 If the Biblical books represent a development from lower to 
 higher, then can not every verse of the Bible be cited as abso- 
 lute authority. The authority of the Bible in this sense has 
 passed away from us forever. We do not go to the Bible as an 
 oracle, as did our fathers, to decide each and every perplexity 
 that may beset us. You may remember the older custom of 
 opening the Bible at random and finding in the page that was 
 disclosed the answer to the perplexity and acting upon it. This 
 was but a variant of the ancient heathen practice of consulting 
 
152 
 
 an oracle. It was a superstitious reverence of the authority of the 
 Bible. In so far it degraded rather than elevated the religious 
 sense and made of the Bible and its authority a fetich. If we 
 have ceased to regard the Bible in this light, and we who are here 
 assembled in this convention have ceased to so regard it, we 
 have substituted for it something much more worthy. We feel 
 as strongly as any generation behind us^ has felt that the Bible 
 contains the loftiest teachings revealing God to man and the high- 
 est words on the duties of man in society. We recognize the au- 
 thority of the Bible not in the artificial guise of a text book forced 
 to db service at each and every turn, but in the lofty sense of the 
 intrinsic value of those of its portions which transcend time and 
 partake of eternity. We know for example, to revert to an in- 
 stance already mentioned, that the Mosaic law countenances slav- 
 ery, but this was an accommodation to the outlook and need of 
 an early stage of civilization. We can explain satisfactorily per- 
 haps the reason why this was permitted at that time and place, 
 but this does not do away with the fact that it was permitted. 
 We, therefore, do not hesitate to say that the Bible here is not 
 of authority for us with our newer and better view of the rights 
 of. all men to live their own life. This is one of the temporary 
 institutions, one of the transient features of Biblical teachings. 
 Not so, however, with a word like " Ye shall be holy, for I, 
 the Lord your God, am holy " ; this is of eternal significance and 
 has eternal authority, the authority of God, the authority of truth. 
 And so with the many other of the commands that are contained 
 in- the Bible. Here again we distinguish between the passing and 
 the permanent, between the local commands and institutions given 
 for a special land and a special time, and the everlasting words 
 of the great prophets and teachers, who spoke with the authority 
 of the inspiration of God, and who will therefore have authority 
 for all time. For us liberals of to-day, too, the Bible is a unique 
 treasure-trove of inspired religious truth; we study it and con it 
 as did our fathers ; but we view it from a different angle of vision ; 
 we revere it none the less as God's word, even though we give 
 this term a different connotation. We recognize that the essen- 
 tiial features of Biblical teaching, viz: the informing of human 
 society with the spirit of God and the insistence that man lives 
 
153 
 
 3iot by bread alone but by that which proceed eth from that spirit 
 still represents and always will represent the highest outlook. 
 The Biblical spirit is the protagonist of the ideal ; whenever and 
 wherever crass materialism has threatened to sap the best energies 
 of society, and the worship of mammon and luxury has weakened 
 :the character of a people, the Bible's eternal message that not by 
 might and not by strength but by the spirit does man prevail, has 
 (been thundered forth by the idealists who have drawn their in- 
 spiration from the Biblical source. Herein lies the undying au- 
 thority of the Bible; the authority of the spirit, the authority of 
 -righteousness. The " thou shalts " and the " thou shalt nots " 
 ■of the commandments sound as powerfully and as authoritatively 
 to-day as ever. They are the everlasting foundations on which 
 we build ; when men and nations have disregarded them, disaster 
 has ensued. You may recall Lowell's striking lines: 
 
 " In vain we call old notions fudge 
 And bend our conscience to our dealing, 
 The Ten Commandments will not budge, 
 And stealing will continue stealing." 
 
 And here it is, I believe, that in our modern life the influence 
 of the Bible and the Biblical spirit is strongest. Knowingly or 
 unknowingly the thousands who everywhere throughout the world 
 to-day are consumed with the passion for righting the wrongs of 
 society and are crying and working for justice between man and 
 man, between class and class, are filled with the spirit of the Bible. 
 What are all the splendid aspirations of the hosts of men and 
 women who are toiling for the uplift and betterment of their kind 
 to-day in philanthropic and educational movements of all sorts 
 but efforts to make real the prophet's bidding to let justice flow as 
 water and righteousness as a perennial stream; what are; all the 
 efforts so prominent and pronounced to-day at arbitration be- 
 tween the conflicting claims of capital and labor, of Corporations 
 and the people, of trusts and the individual but a carrying out 
 of that command which like a red thread runs through the Bible, 
 and is expressed there in a hundred ways, all variations of the 
 striking utterance of the Deuteronomist " justice, justice shalt 
 thou pursue " ; when has the consciousness of the truth of the 
 
154 
 
 Psalmist's declaration that " righteousness exalteth a people but 
 sinfulness is a nation's shame " but stronger than in our modem 
 life where in the pulpit and out of it, in books and magazines, 
 on the rostrum and in legislative halls, it is being declared and 
 expounded. In our modern life the feudal doctrine " might 
 makes right " has given way to the Biblical teaching " right makes 
 might." And although the feudal spirit is still abroad in many- 
 places, although the robber barons still ply their occupations in 
 many a line, although the gospel of force still has its myriads of 
 followers, although the nations of Europe are still armed camps 
 and even in our land militarism had its advocates, yet has the true 
 Biblical teaching of the supremacy of righteousness as the human 
 embodiment of God's spirit never been more fervently accepted 
 by a greater number of practical idealists than at present. These 
 are striving to establish the Kingdom of God on earth and I for 
 one believe that despite all the untoward signs which are still 
 with us, men today are doing more towards the establishment of 
 that Kingdom than ever before, for a larger number than ever be- 
 fore are permeated with the Biblical spirit of righteousness, a larger 
 number than ever before are recognizing their obligations and are 
 feeling the point of the great questions of the Biblical prophet, 
 "Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?" 
 
 THE CHURCH IN MODERN LIFE 
 
 REV. FRANK OLIVER HALL, D. D. 
 
 The church is undoubtedly passing through a difficult and 
 hazardous period of her history. Many think that she is passing 
 out of history altogether. There are those who tell us that at 
 best the church is a transitory institution, that it has no permanent 
 place in society, and is doomed ultimately to disappear from our 
 social life. We often hear it stated that religion is something 
 which belongs to the childhood age of the human race; that as 
 people grow more intelligent they think and talk and read less 
 about religion; that this will continue until ultimately religion 
 will have taken its place with the childish belief in fairies and 
 hobgoblins as a thing outgrown. Those who believe in religion 
 and the church fear that this may be true; those who do not be- 
 
155 
 
 lieve in religion and the church hope that it may be true; the 
 conviction seems to be widespread among all classes and conditions 
 of men that, at any rate, organized religion is losing its grip on 
 the life of the community. 
 
 Now, I do not believe that there is any more danger that 
 the church, in some form or other, will disappear, or that re- 
 ligion will be outgrown than that the home will be outgrown and 
 disappear. The home will endure because it lays its foundations 
 in the deep necessities of the human life. The home has grown 
 out of the human heart, and as long as the heart beats; as long 
 as a man looks into the eyes of a woman to find inspiration for his 
 own highest purposes and noblest resolutions; as long as the laugh 
 of a little child is sweetest of all music to a mother's ears, so 
 long the home will endure. It may change its aspects to meet 
 the varying conditions of life, but the home, in some form, in spite 
 of trial marriages and easy divorce, will measure its duration 
 only by the life of humanity. 
 
 So with religion and the institutions of religion. Religion also 
 has blossomed out of the deep necessities of the human soul. It 
 has come to us not out of the heavens, not out of the sea, not 
 out of the earth, but out of the hopes and fears, the joys and sor- 
 rows, the most generous impulses and the holiest aspirations of 
 humanity's sacred life. As long as man, looking up at night, gaz- 
 ing into the depths of the over-arching sky, and to the glittering 
 worlds rolling majestically there, propounds the question 
 " Whence ? " as long as men stand beside the open grave to say a 
 last farewell to some tried comrade called to go apart alone, and 
 ask the question, " Whither? " as long as any human soul stands 
 perplexed within the dark and devious roads of life, where path- 
 ways cross and all of happiness depends upon his choice, and asks 
 the question, "Which?" as long as hideous remorse lays her 
 lash upon the back of him who sets his heel upon the moral law 
 until he cries aloud for mercy and, seeking to escap>e, looks here 
 and there and asks the question, " How?" so long will religion 
 hold a place in the lives of men. 
 
 " If we traverse the world over," said Plutarch, " it is possible 
 to find cities without walls, without letters, without kings, with- 
 out wealth, without coin, without schools and theatres; but a 
 
iS6 
 
 city without a temple or that practiseth not worship, prayers 
 and the like, no one ever saw." No one has seen such a city 
 since Plutarch's time and we have explored much of the world 
 since he wrote that sentence. No one will ever discover such a 
 cit\' until men cease to be men. 
 
 But \A-hile religion itself is a permanent factor of human na- 
 ture the institutions of religion change to meet the varied condi- 
 tions of human life. The church is not the same in any two 
 ages. The church of to-day is not the church of yesterday, and 
 the church of to-morrow will not be the church of to-day. The 
 church of yesterday was theological, its business was other-worldly, 
 its function was to save people from dire calamity in some other 
 sjAere of existence. The church of to-day is transitional. There 
 is no general agreement as to what its function is. We are grop- 
 ing about trying to find a function. The church of to-morrow wiE 
 probably differ as much from the church of yesterday as the mod- 
 ern university settlement does from the monasterj^ of the middle 
 ages, once useful, now outgrowTi. 
 
 It does not seem at all strange to me that such large numbers of 
 the people should have fallen away from the church. The old 
 motives for attending church no longer move and men do not 
 as yet feel the force of other motives. 
 
 I heard Dr. Lorimer tell this story on himself. When he 
 was a young minister in a small community he was one Sunday 
 preaching a sermon on everlasting punishment and describing as 
 vividly as possible the pains and penalties that await the unre- 
 deemed in the next world. In the midst of the discourse there 
 was an alarm of fire and several of his congregation who be- 
 longed to the local fire department quietly left the church. The 
 preacher went on with his discourse. Ten minutes later, just 
 as he had reached the climax of a vivid description of the awful 
 catastrophe that awaits the unredeemed sinner, the truant mem- 
 bers began to return and one of the number wishing to allay the 
 fears of the congregation with reference to their homes, put his 
 hand to his mouth and hoarsely whispered, " False alarm ! False 
 alarm ! " 
 
 Now frankly that is the way the large majority of the; people 
 have come to feel about the message of the church with which 
 
157 
 
 they are most familiar. When Moody represented the world as 
 a wreck and the church as a life-boat, and the business of the 
 clergymen and the revivalist " to get as many passengers off as 
 possible before- the old hulk went down," the church had a very 
 plain and practical function to perform. But if the world is 
 not a wreck, but a staunch and seaworthy craft sailing on its pre- 
 destined way, what is the necessity of launching the life-boat? 
 One of the stock illustrations of the old-time preacher was to 
 describe a burning dwelling with some one imprisoned by the 
 flames on the housetop in imminent danger of destruction, and 
 the hook and ladder company coming with a rush down the 
 street, the ladder being thrust up into the smoke and flame, the 
 brave fireman dashing up the rounds and rescuing the victim. 
 But if the building is not on fire, if the person on the roof is in 
 no danger of being burned, if all this is a false alarm, what is the' 
 function of the hook and ladder company and what has become 
 of the occupation of the fireman ? 
 
 Octavius B. Frothingham graphically illustrated what many be- 
 lieve to be the present condition of the church by a curious land- 
 mark in the vicinity of Boston. " A gentleman had running 
 through his grounds the Middlesex Canal. It divided his gar- 
 den from a very beautiful grove of trees, which was a favorable 
 retreat in the summer time. Being a man of wealth, he spanned 
 the canal with a stone bridge elegant to behold. After a time 
 the railroad superseded the canal. The waters were drawn oS. 
 The bed was filled in, planted over, covered with corn-fields; but 
 the bridge still stands where it did. It serves no purpose as a 
 bridge; it is easier to walk over the even ground than it is to 
 climb its steep arch; it occupies good soil for planting; it with- 
 draws from use a quantity of granite; it is by no means orna- 
 mental; and its incongruity raises a smile, not always inaudible, 
 in the passers-by. So, to the apprehension of many, stands the 
 church, a needless relic of a past dispensation, doing nothing that 
 literature, the book, the magazine, the newspaper, do not accom- 
 pli^ a great deal better; and, by its standing where it does, 
 causing a tacit reproach, and being an actual hindrance to these." 
 
 Whether this is a fair illustration or not it remains a fact that 
 the majority of people in our time who attend church do so simply 
 
158 
 
 as a matter of habit. Their parents believed in the efficacy of 
 religion and took their children to church with them in order 
 that they might be " saved " from the terrible penalties that would 
 befall those who did not profess religion. These people have 
 largely outgrown their parents' ideas, but the habit persists. 
 There are still some who attend a church from the old motives. 
 The idea may be vague in their minds, but they still feel that 
 somehow there is magic efficacy in church-going. If there is any 
 good to be distributed after death they want their share and they 
 know of no other distributing center except the church, so they 
 go there. There is another set of people who have entered upon 
 a larger and saner idea of what a church ought to be. They at- 
 tend church because they believe in the institution, are helped by 
 the services and want to have a part in the work. But all these 
 together are a minority of the whole population. The larger ma- 
 jority of the i)eople are unchurched and this holds good not only 
 in the city but the country and the world over. 
 
 " The fact cannot be questioned," says a recent writer, whose 
 statements I abridge, " that organized Christianity has lost its 
 hold on the masses of the people." In England it is admitted 
 that about seventy-five per cent of the jropulation never enter a 
 church door. In Germany the proportion is still greater. An 
 ecclesiastical authority assures us that in France there are hun- 
 dreds of thousands who have never read a page of the Gospels. 
 Mr. Campbell, of the City Temple in London, has recently de- 
 clared that the vast mass of European people are alienated from 
 Christianity as represented by the churches. As for our ovsti 
 country the statistics just published make a poor showing. The 
 only denomination that appears to have made any appreciable 
 gains is the Christian Science. Only a small portion of our city 
 populations ever attend church services. That these are not the 
 pessimistic views of anticlerical mindS is shovni by the attitude of 
 the church itself. From all sides comes the cry that the number 
 of candidates for the ministry is falling off. Scotland is a land 
 given over to theological pursuits. Yet even her divinity halls 
 are almost empty and she cannot find men to fill her pulpits. The 
 Presbyterian Church of America reports that there are one-third 
 fewer men studying for the ministry of this church than there 
 
159 
 
 were ten years ago. All the seminaries of the Episcopal Church 
 mourn the diminution of the supply of students. Time was when 
 the most brilliant and the most highly gifted young men felt it 
 an honor to consecrate their powers to the work of the ministry. 
 Law, medicine and business claim to-day the best of our youth. 
 Whatever the reason, the fact remains that the church as a vo- 
 cation has lost its attraction for our young men. 
 
 Now, what is the conclusion? Is religion dying out? Is '- 
 taking its place with the belief in fairies and hobgoblins, and is 
 it to be left behind? I do not think so. There was never so 
 much honest, earnest and sincere religion in the lives of men as 
 at the present moment. Religion is simply finding a different 
 and a more diverse expression than it formerly did. The church 
 is not an end in itself, but only a means to an end. The church 
 is not synonymous with religion. The church did not make reli- 
 gion. Religion made the church. Going to church is not reli- 
 gion. Singing h)mrins, chanting psalms, uttering prayers are not 
 religion. They are only an expression of religion. 
 
 There was a time when people did not go to church, because 
 there was no church to go to. The church as it exists to-day is 
 a comparatively modern institution. Religion existed before the 
 church, it would continue to exist if every church were to be 
 turned into an automobile garage. I am perfectly willing to con- 
 fess that I find many people outside the churches, pieople who 
 never go to church, quite as religious, quite as honest and pure 
 and truthful, quite as good citizens and neighbors and cherishing 
 quite as much faith as many of the people inside. 
 
 Let us not make the mistake of confounding religious exercises 
 with religion itself. We are very apt to do that just as we con- 
 stantly confound education with certain means to education. We 
 put as a fundamental test of the crudest education the ability to 
 read and write. But there was a time when no one knew how 
 to write or read. Were all men in those days uneducated? 
 And even later some of the world's greatest were illiterate. 
 Abraham did not know how to read. Some have thought that 
 Jesus did not. And as there was a day before writing was known, 
 so there may come a day when it will be unnecessary. The per- 
 fected phonograph may supersede entirely the written or printed 
 
i6o 
 
 page and our great-grandchildren be spared the drudging neces- 
 sity of learning through the eye what nature obviously intended 
 should be obtained through the ear. Literature may be pre- 
 served for future generations not on sheets of paper manufactured 
 from wood pulp and rags, but on more durable cylinders of 
 guttahpercha. Will education cease when reading and writing 
 cease? Will religion necessarily cease because certain methods 
 by which we now express the religious sentiments are superseded 
 by others more in accord with the custom of the times? 
 
 It may be that the day will come when it will be unnecessary 
 diat people should " assemble themselves together." It may be 
 that the people of the future will read their sermons or the equiv- 
 alent instead of going to hear the preacher, as they have come 
 to read their political speeches instead of going to hear the stump 
 speaker. It may be, as Bellamy dreamed, that " frozen " reli- 
 gious music will be carried into each home, by the phonograph or 
 over the telephone, instead of people assembling in some house set 
 apart and equipped with an organ. It may be that the theater 
 is to take the place of the pulpit as an ethical instructor. In 
 truth the best sermons that I have heard this winter have been 
 acted and not preached. It may be that the preacher will wake 
 up some morning to find his occupation gone. When that day 
 comes I shall look for a job on the press or try to be a good door- 
 keeper in a worthy theater, if that proves to be the house of the 
 Lord. I do not know what is going to happen. The only thing 
 of which I feel sure is that something is going to happen. The 
 religious nature of man will find expression through some instru- 
 mentality. 
 
 The world is not going backward. This is a better world 
 than it used to be when the church was strongest. It is going 
 to continue to improve. To that end I propose to make my 
 contribution through the church until I discover that I can make 
 it better in some other way. I am going to try to make the church 
 over which I preside as interesting as the theater, as influential 
 as the press and as helpful as the Associated Charities. I am 
 going to try to hammer the idea into the minds of men that the 
 church of to-day is the freest platform that the world affords, that 
 it is the custodian of the highest and most essential truths and is 
 
i6i 
 
 not afraid to utter them, that the church service Can be inspiring 
 and instructive and in every way helpful and necessary. If in 
 rfie end the people vote otherwise by deserting the church and 
 going elsewhere, then I will go with them and try to find some 
 other way of doing the work that I am trying to do now. 
 
 As I am not surprised that so many people have fallen away 
 from the church, so I am not surprised that the Christian ministry 
 is less attractive to young men than it used to be. What is the 
 ministry for? ^ Time was when the church was the throne from 
 which a man of power reigned over the entire life of the com- 
 munity. The church was then a political power and the preacher 
 preached politics as a matter of course and no one found fault 
 with him because he did. They would have found fault with 
 him if he did not. He was the guide and people expected the 
 leader to lead. Now politics and religion have been divorced. 
 The consensus of opinion is that the preacher must not use his 
 pulpit as a political rostrum to advocate his pet theory of social re- 
 form. 
 
 Time was when the church was the center of social life of the 
 community. To-day, except in provincial localities, this is not 
 the case. The minister, of course, if he discovers that the social 
 life of the community in which he is placed is barren and unprofit- 
 able, that the public good demands a diilerent and higher order of 
 amusement, will as a good citizen do what he can to meet the 
 demand. But running a restaurant or a show or a fair is not the 
 business of the ministry. 
 
 Time was when the church and the school were closely identi- 
 fied. They were almost one and the same thing. To-day they 
 are separate. There may be a call for the minister and his church 
 to work along this line even to-day. The first evening school in 
 this country was established in the basement of the old Hollis 
 Street Church in Boston. They ran the school for several years, 
 until they demonstrated to the city that such a school was needed, 
 and when the city took charge of the matter, and established free 
 evening schools, the church closed its vestry and attended to some- 
 thing else. It is not the minister's business to run a school in 
 opposition to the public school system. 
 
 * See an admirable article by Rev. F. W. Perkins, D.D., on " The 
 Liberal Church of To-day: Its Ministry." 
 
1 62 
 
 Time was when the church was the center and source of all 
 the charity work of the community. More and more we are dele- 
 gating this work to the charity organization societies with their 
 corps of efficient workers. The churches are still and may al- 
 ways be called upon to supply the means whereby these otlier in- 
 stitutions shall do their work. Even the administration of chari- 
 ties is not the business of the minister except where there are no 
 charity organizations or where they are inefficient. 
 
 Time; was when the minister was also a healer, a physician, a 
 " medicine man." To-day the world is supplied with a splendid 
 corps of specially trained men and women who have taken this 
 field for their life-work. It may be necessary if these men, by 
 too much delving in things material, lose sight of the truth that 
 man is a soul and lives in a body, and that the soul is king and 
 the body a servant, that the church shall again demonstrate the 
 power of thought and emotion, faith and hope and love over 
 physical functions. But the healing of disease Is not primarily 
 the business of the church or its ministers. 
 
 Well, what is left? One line of work after another has been 
 specialized and taken away from the church and its minister. Is 
 there anything left for the church to do that is really worth doing? 
 Yes. With all the changes that have taken place it remains true 
 to-day, and is likely to remain true, that the church is the one 
 institution in our modern world that stands primarily and all the 
 time for ethical and spiritual ideals. It is the peculiar function 
 of the church to call men to high and holy living, to hold con- 
 stantly before the minds of men a noble conception of what a 
 man ought to be, to preach the ideal, sing the ideal, pray the 
 ideal, and induce men and women to organize around some ideal 
 and cooperate earnestly to the end that the ideal may become a 
 reality. Perhaps the time may come when this function will also 
 be fulfilled by some other institution. That time has not yet ar- 
 rived. Without the church or its environment in the world of 
 to-day life would certainly degenerate. Without the influence 
 of the church politics becomes corrupted by graft; business is poi- 
 soned by materialism and soulless greed ; education becomes merely 
 a means for selfish enjoyment; even charity becomes mechanical 
 and heartless; the home loses its sanctity and marriage is only 
 
1 63 
 
 another name for legalized lust. " Ye are salt," said Jesus to 
 the first ordained Christian ministers. Without the salt of the 
 ministry, a constant appeal by word and life to what is high and 
 holy, the constant stimulating of the minds and hearts of men to 
 still nobler endeavor in all departments of life, our social order 
 would become tainted and stricken with disease. 
 
 So religion will endure. The gates of hell will not prevail 
 against it because it is a fundamental part of the deepest instincts 
 of human nature. And if religion endures it will find expression 
 in some kind of an institution. And this institution must have 
 officers and leaders. Perhaps it will be necessary to change the 
 name of this institution, as it was once changed from " syna- 
 gogue," " place where people are led together," to " church," 
 " place where people are called together." Who cares for the 
 name? Spell it with six letters as we do, or with nine letters as 
 the Hebrews do; call it a "Fellowship" if you want to; name 
 it " Brotherhood " if you will; designate it " League of Service " 
 if you prefer that title ; or write over the door the words, " A 
 Union of all who Love in the Service of all who SufEer." We 
 may find it expedient to take the steeples ofE our churches and 
 make them resemble Lloyd Jones' " Center " in Chicago, substi- 
 tute some other instrument for the organ, as the organ super- 
 seded the viol and the cymbals, tear up the creed, burn up the 
 rituals. That would be no great loss. The minister may come 
 to button his Collar in front instead of behind and wear brown or 
 blue instead of black; he may be called " helper," " worker," " so- 
 cial settler " instead of priest, clergyman or minister. Many 
 things may happen In the tremendous reorganization of society in 
 the midst of which we are. But religion will stand, under some 
 name the church will stand, and with some title and garb the 
 ministry will stand. The men of the future, like the men of the 
 past, will continue to see visions and dream dreams. They will 
 join hands for the purpose of expressing their ideals and making 
 their dreams a reality. They will have officers and leaders and 
 teachers. And this institution of the future, with its service and 
 its ministry, the child of the church, the grandchild of the syna- 
 gogue, will be freer and more helpful and more powerful than 
 anything the past has produced. 
 
164 
 
 THE PLACE OF JESUS IN THE RELIGION OF THE 
 MODERN MAN 
 
 PROF. GEORGE B. FOSTER, PH.D., OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 CHICAGO 
 
 I. Scientific theology, together with the spirit and thought of 
 our new age in general, has succeeded in undermining the ecclesi- 
 astical dogma of the trinity and of the deity of Christ. Still the 
 watchword arose, " Christianity is Christ." This watchword can 
 be understood only in the light of its history. In Reformation 
 days the doctrines of the Protestants deviated, of course, in many 
 points, from those of the Catholics. Both held that their doc- 
 trines were " Christian." Hence controversy arose as to which 
 of the two confessions had the better claim to this designation. 
 Appeal was of necessity made to history, whereupon it was evi- 
 dent that the Catholics had an undeniable advantage. Their in- 
 terpretation of history did not need to leap over many centuries: 
 they could return step by step, year by year, to the primitive 
 period of Christianity, and indicate that every new formation and 
 construction signified only a special unfolding and development of 
 what had gone before. 
 
 But Protestants could not do this. If they appealed to history, 
 they had to make a selection of the history to which they should 
 appeal. They touched a sore spot; but they had to do it. They 
 had to drive a stake fixing the point from which genuine and true 
 Christianity was no longer to be found in the stream of historical 
 life. Then arose that great, grievous embarrassment of Protest- 
 ant theology : the question as to where the stake was to be driven ! 
 Where was the line to be drawn, according to which genuine 
 Christianity was to be distinguished from false? According to 
 the Augsburg Confession, the ecclesiastical doctrines of the first 
 three centuries down to the Nicene Council were the unassailable 
 foundation of genuine Christian faith. A little later, under the 
 influence of George Calixtus, and in order to soften the harsh- 
 ness of the opposition to Catholicism, the date was changed to the 
 fifth century. But the plan did not work very well. Soon the 
 lines began to be drawn closer and closer. Protestants made up 
 
i65 
 
 their minds that genuine Christianity had not lasted five cen- 
 turies, nor yet three ; but by straining a point they held on to the 
 first century — the apostolic age, so-called primitive Christianity. 
 Then, at last, matters grew more serious still. It was seen that 
 this stretch of time was still too much. Protestantism split in 
 two. One party declared that the entire New Testament medi- 
 ated original Christianity to them, and therefore furnished the 
 criterion of genuine and true Christianity. They called this 
 " biblical " Christianity. And this they preache'd ; on this they 
 would build their church, and the gates of hell should not pre- 
 vail against her. The other party discovered that the germs of 
 all the things which a good Protestant was under obligation to 
 consider as Roman Catholic, therefore as false Christianity, were 
 contained in a series of biblical writings, especially in the: Pauline 
 epistles. Back they go again! Genuine Christianity is to be 
 found in all its purity, not in the epistles, but only in the gospels. 
 Then John was suspected of Catholic leanings. The Fourth 
 Gospel was excluded from the documents of " pure " Christianity, 
 and retreat was beaten to the first three, the so-called Synoptics. 
 But even these were too much, because these three gospels con- 
 tained much which was afterward developed into the Catholic 
 Church. What was to be done? Back of the gospyels, to the 
 gospel underlying them, was the cry. The really " true," the 
 "original" Christianity, is to be sought behind these gospels, it 
 was said. To be sure, this Christianity no theologian's eye has 
 ever seen and no theologian's ear has ever heard ; nevertheless it 
 was said to contain the pure, unfalsified gospel, precisely the gos- 
 pel which we to-day still need, on which we to-day ought, as a 
 duty of conscience, still to build our religious and moral life. 
 For this gospel comes from Jesus — from Jesus, of whom the 
 scholars only really know that he was not what he was said to 
 have been by the writers of the Bible, that he did not say and do 
 what the gospels narrate that he said and did; from Jesus, of 
 whom we honestly know very little, almost nothing with indu- 
 bitable certainty; from Jesus, who, as a child of his people and 
 of his time, thought and believed and said much which we to-day 
 cannot truthfully think and believe and say; from Jesus, who, 
 however, has a hidden point somewhere in his heart (it is the 
 
i66 
 
 old problem of the seat of the soul over again) where true Chris- 
 tianity has its seat. But this point is problematically known 
 only to the scholar, and the people are shut up to a new Catholi- 
 cism in which the scholar is the pope, — a Catholicism less religious 
 to the heart, and more uncertain to the intellect, than the papacy 
 itself. 
 
 But is all this tragedy or comedy? I shall treat it as a process 
 of human history which it is my business to understand and in- 
 terpret. I shall assume that an historical development which has 
 been going on for four hundred years is some expression of the 
 divine purpose and has some good in it. Still, we are in the 
 midst of a crisis greater than any which the church has experienced 
 before. Men's feet are slipping, and we may ask, What shall 
 we do? 
 
 In the first place, since we know so little about Jesus, let us 
 assume that we know nothing with indubitable certainty. For 
 the sake of the argument, let us assume that Jesus never lived 
 at all. I think that he did live. I agree with a distinguished 
 colleague of mine (who has a far better right to a scientific judg- 
 ment upon the point than I have) that the denial that Jesus ever 
 lived amounts almost to historical insanity. Still, since we may 
 not violently reject the outcome of the historical development as 
 sketched above, we may as well consider what our fate would be 
 should science yet go on to doubt the historical existence of Jesus. 
 I do not mean to deny that during the last decade doubt as to 
 the reliability of our sources has reached an extreme at which 
 the once sporadic opinion that Jesus was an imaginary person 
 may boast an ever-increasing number of advocates.* There has 
 been a succession of writers in Germany, Holland, England, and 
 America, who have thus denied all historicity to Jesus. Recently 
 even Titius has written as follows: 
 
 " I blame no one if he is not able to share this judgment con- 
 cerning the religious uniqueness of Jesus, but sees therein merely 
 a survival of the old miracle faith. I am not at all surprised that 
 this enthusiastic [italics mine] judgment is not every man's af- 
 fair. On the' contrary, often as I think about this matter, as I 
 often indeed do, I am filled with astonishment that there are still 
 
 * See Prctcstantische Monatsheftc, lo. Jahrgang, Heft 7, pp. 279 ff. 
 
1 67 
 
 thoughtful and critically endowed men who have the courage 
 [italics mine] to hold fast to this enthusiasm . . . and that 
 I find myself under the necessity of showing the same faith." t 
 
 Here is a point for those who are betrayed into the attempt 
 to found religion on historical criticism. When appeal is made 
 to the judgment of historical science and not to the judgment of 
 religious enthusiasm, Jesus loses his place in the religion of the 
 Christian. He is sacrificed to skepticism. In this conclusion 
 Titius is without doubt right. Only recently such men as Jo- 
 hannes Miiller and Rade have made the same admission. Men 
 who have thought long and deeply upon this subject now see that 
 it is at once unreligious and disastrous to found our faith upon 
 the conclusions of historical science concerning Jesus. Therefore, 
 I feel the need all the more to see how the case shall stand with 
 reference to my world of values from the point of view that to 
 science the non-existence of Jesus is a possibility. 
 
 Will an appeal to Christian experience convict me of error 
 when I say that the historical-science proof of the historicity 
 of Jesus supplies little certainty, nourishment, or enthusiasm to 
 the religious life of Christians? Why is this? It is not simply 
 that the argument lacks cogency, though this is true for a certain 
 tjfpe of mind, as well as for those whose habits of thought lead 
 them to exact a kind of evidence which historical science is not 
 competent to adduce. The all-important reason is, first, that 
 the side of the human consciousness which aggregates historical 
 data and enacts the historical judgment is not the basic bearer of 
 the religious content at all ; and, secondly, that the object to which 
 the religious yearning of man is directed, and by it is satisfied as 
 its everlasting portion, is not the historic fact that a man by 
 the name of Jesus once lived upon the earth, but a system of val- 
 ues. While these values have emerged in the historical order, 
 yet that they emerged at this date or at that, in this person or in 
 that, is a consideration — interesting enough to a genetic science, 
 indeed — with which religion as such has nothing whatever to 
 do. No fact of history which is known to us only through tradi- 
 tion Is the basis of saving faith. The reason of this is, first, that 
 we cannot be sure that such fact, no matter what it is, may not be 
 
 t See Der Bremer Radicalismus^ Tubingen, 1908. 
 
1 68 
 
 corroded by critical doubt some time in the great future; and, 
 especially, that the correlate of faith is value and not fact. To 
 say this is but to repeat my fundamental contention that, whatever 
 it may or may not be, the historical is not the ultimate basis of 
 religion. Strictly speaking, it is not the historical as such, it is 
 the eternal in the historical, and nothing but the eternal, that the 
 religious nature of man craves. Furthermore, the pathway into 
 the eternal is moral obedience and not historical criticism, is do- 
 ing the will of God, and is not testing the credibility of tradition 
 from out a hoary past. To determine whether a man by the 
 name of Jesus lived for a few^ years and taught for a few months 
 in Palestine many centuries ago, one must travel the scientific 
 path: It is a long and difficult journey, for which few have the 
 time and fewer still the ability. The indispensable equipment for 
 this journey is not a pure heart, but a knowledge of Latin and of 
 Greek, of textual and historical criticism, of the nature and laws 
 of evidence, and the like. " We must call in the most strenuous 
 science we can command," says Neumann. Yes, yes; and once 
 again, in our new time, we shall witness the fallacy and anach- 
 ronism of salvation by knowledge, by learning, common to or- 
 thodoxy, to the historical-science school of theology and to Bud- 
 dhism. Or must we substitute a new blind faith in science by the 
 Protestant layman for the old blind faith in the church on the 
 part of the Catholic layman? "What do you believe?" asked 
 Luther of the charcoal man. " I believe what the Church be^ 
 lieves," answered the man. " And what does the Church be- 
 lieve?" continued Luther. "I don't know, sir," was the reply. 
 Is the layman of to-day to be like the charcoal man, only that 
 " historical science " is substituted for " the Church " ? Or must 
 one be a " successful " historian in order to be a first-hand Chris- 
 tian ? This is the " gospel of success " with a vengeance — none 
 the less so because the success in question is scientific. Why not 
 say that one must achieve artistic success, and hew a statue or 
 paint a picture, or inventive success, and contrive a machine, or 
 commercial success, and get rich in dollars, instead of in " facts " ? * 
 
 * To get rich in dollars might be easier. There is a deadly infraction of the 
 ethics of the intellect in the easy and slovenly way in which some apologists speak 
 of many items of tradition as fact. A fact to you is that which you cannot deny. 
 
1 69 
 
 You might as well say that as to say that one must compass 
 a certain scientific task in order to be a child of the God of the 
 Gospels. No, the difficulty which blocks our way in accepting 
 the gospel is not our scientific inability: it is our moral inability, 
 it is our inner moral antipathy to the message. And this is so 
 because the world of religion is not one of scientific facts and 
 knowledge, but of activities, values and appreciations. The 
 Christianizing of a man consists in gathering his life up and 
 organizing it into the Christian system of activities and values 
 and ends, and not in delving into the debatable depths of the 
 historicity of Jesus. 
 
 While as historians, therefore, we raise the question, Did Jesus 
 ever live? as apologists we face a very different question. The 
 apologetic question runs as follows: What difference does it now 
 make whether Jesus ever lived or not? Historical science is not 
 apologetics, much as at times it arrogates to itself apologetic pre- 
 rogatives, thereby corrupting its own self and confusing and 
 jeopardizing the serious issues which are at stake. Historical 
 science is concerned with fact, apologetics with truth, the former 
 with description and explanation, the latter with valuation and 
 propagandism. The difference between the two is the difference 
 between psychology, on the one hand, and ethics, or aesthetics, 
 or logic, on the other. Psychology is not concerned with values 
 as such, be they the true or the beautiful or the good, while those 
 other sciences are concerned with nothing but values. So is it 
 with historical science and apologetics. 
 
 Still, in the point at issue historical science has rendered a 
 service to apologetics. Since it has converted Jesus into problem, 
 to be and to remain problem, apologetics must take strategic ad- 
 vantage of the situation, and distinguish more sharply than ever 
 before between the essentials and the accidents of our religion. 
 If, in the nature of the case, historical science cannot cut the 
 nerve of religious certitude, then the historic belief that Jesus 
 existed is not a necessary article of our religion. Supposing that 
 Jesus lived, and was what the gospels portray, did he think that 
 it was necessary? Did Paul think that it was?* Would the 
 
 * That he did not consistently think so may be inferred from his use of 
 Abraham's faith in Galatians. 
 
I70 
 
 reader let go his hold upon the grace of God, the worth of life, the 
 love for neighbor and enemy, if science were to rob him of the 
 Jesus of history? If one knows that the pure in heart shall 
 see God, only because Jesus said so, does one really know it at 
 all ? May not one affirm that Jesus lived, and yet oneself not be 
 well-pleasing to God, and may not one deny that Jesus lived, and 
 yet be well-pleasing to God? Then the essential thing is neither 
 the affirmation nor the denial, but something else. Are those 
 scholars, Swiss, German, Dutch, English, who, try hard as they 
 may, cannot make out a clear case for the historicity of Jesus, 
 excluded from participation in the values of the gospel? No; 
 God is good, and salvation is by grace. To hold that belief in 
 the existence of Jesus is an inalienable constituent of our religion 
 is to adopt a position which, from the standpoints of Jesus and of 
 Paul themselves, is in principle subversive of religious faith. In- 
 deed, whether one sees or not that his innermost religious posses- 
 sion would suffer no vital injury were historic science to force 
 one to the position that Jesus never lived may very well be a 
 touchstone of the maturity of one's religious conviction. Of 
 course I grant that essential values were brought into the world 
 by Jesus, yet, once here, those values are self-evidential and self- 
 propagating, and may be possessed by him who does not possess 
 the certainty of the existence of Jesus, even as one may have his 
 thirst quenched by water without knowing from what fountain 
 the cup is borne. 
 
 The piety which has long been a man's possession may not be 
 lost again because he no longer consciously derives it from Jesus, 
 much as he might feel, with Schmiedel, that it was a most painful 
 privation not to be able to look back and to look up to him as a 
 real man. But water will quench thirst even if it be gathered 
 from the common drops which rain down from dull skies, as 
 well as if it bubbled from some mysterious fountain in the won- 
 derland of the world. I myself believe that " historical progress 
 cannot be explained by forces originating in a collective way, but 
 by eminent leaders, or heroes " ; * but others seek to derive all 
 from the milieu, the environing circumstances; and I have to ad- 
 
 * See Finality of the Christian Religion, Vol. I, p. 270. 
 
171 
 
 mit that even the man who calls into being a new spirit of the age 
 — Zeitgeist — is himself, in a sense, the child of his age. What 
 I should like to urge is that the school of the milieu, which opposes 
 me, is not of necessity irreligious, since my own position requires 
 me joyfully to believe that the milieu, made up as it is of history 
 and of nature, in the largest sense of these words, is not empty of 
 that God who is no respecter of persons. I may not deny creative 
 revelation to milieu any more than I may deny the properties of 
 water to raindrops in my preference for fountains, for in all 
 things there is the secret echo of the reality of God; nor do I 
 see that the milieu school is compelled to deny that that which 
 constitutes the secret of personality is the greatest, the ultimately 
 decisive thing. And as to the case in hand the main thing is the 
 possession of this secret rather than historic certainty as to the 
 biographical facts concerning Jesus. 
 
 But it is not simply the exigencies of science and the nature of 
 the case, it is the possibilities of the great future of the race itself, 
 that point us to this stronghold of an impregnable apologetics. 
 A billion years hence the spiritual condition of the race may be 
 conceivably as far above ours as ours is above the status of the 
 savages that roamed the primeval forests. The civilizations of 
 Greece and Rome and Palestine may have become quite as prehis- 
 toric as the long human story which lies behind Egypt and Baby- 
 lon. The Sea of Galilee may have become table-land and Mount 
 Zion ocean bed. The familiar stars, even, which burn in the 
 beauty of the blue above us, may have crumbled back into cosmic 
 dust, and others may be shining in their place. As to the heroes 
 and geniuses who have made the epochs of our past, they may 
 have been swallowed up in oblivion or be guessed about from 
 names and dates on weather-worn monuments and manuscripts. 
 And Jesus of Nazareth? Is it inconceivable that a billion years 
 or so hence the human beings then alive will know as little about 
 him and our specific form of religion as we know about the reli- 
 gion of the dwellers in Atlantis, or any other submerged land? 
 Is it inconceivable that the very name of Christianity shall have 
 passed away? And yet may not the world be more Christian 
 then than now, have more faith, hope, and love, be more sure of 
 
172 
 
 the fatherly God, of a brotherly man, of an eternal life, of a pur- 
 poseful world? May not the stream of spiritual influence con- 
 tinue to deepen and widen, even though the springs of Judah be 
 forgotten? And as, according to John, it was once necessary 
 that Jesus should go away individually that the Spirit might come, 
 is it inconceivable that it might be necessary for him to pass away 
 historically, to that same end? I do not say that it will be so: 
 the future is hidden from our eyes. I only say that it may be 
 so. I only wish to be able to face the possibility unafraid — and 
 possibility it surely is, since even now we may not see in Jesus 
 an :absolutely perfect model without jeopardizing the freedom 
 and the progress of humanity. One should know, as Schmiedel 
 has said, that: Jesus was a man, and that if the unknown future 
 shall bring us fuller life, this too will be the gift of the grace of 
 God. In short, whatever be the fate of the individual Jesus from 
 the science of the present, or from the life of the future, no man 
 is justified on that account in making shipwreck of his faith in 
 the preciousness and permanence of our values: faith in a Father 
 in heaven and in the filial and fraternal disposition here upon 
 the earth. 
 
 In sum: We experience what Paul experienced. At the mo- 
 ment when we draw nearer to the historical Jesus than ever be- 
 fore and stretch out our hands to him to draw him into our own 
 time, we must give up the effort and be resigned to the para- 
 doxical word : Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, 
 yet now we know him so no more. Still further we must under- 
 stand that the historical knowledge of the essence and life of 
 Jesus will not be a help but perhaps be a hindrance to religioiv. 
 Not the Jesus historically knov«i, but only the Jesus spiritually 
 risen in men, can be a potent help to our time. Not the historical 
 Jesus but the spirit which issues from him and struggles for new 
 results and new dominion in human spirits is that which over- 
 cometh the world. It is not given to history to release the per- 
 manent and eternal in Jesus from the historical forms in which 
 it has eternalized itself and to domesticate it as something dy- 
 namic and vital in our world. The eternal and the permanent 
 in Jesus is totally independent of historical knowledge, and can 
 be apprehended only upon the basis of the spirit at present opera- 
 
173 
 
 tive in the world: so much spirit of Jesus, so much true knowl- 
 edge of Jesus.* 
 
 2. Let us now look wider for a moment. Broadly speaking, 
 religions are of two kinds: those with their faces turned toward 
 the past, and those that face toward the future.t One says, It 
 was; the other. It shall be. The religious primitive myth of 
 Brahmanism lives on plusquam perfectum, the religious primi- 
 tive myth of Parsism lives on plusquam futurum. For the reli- 
 gious pessimism of the Buddhists, the ideal of perfection is to be 
 found at the beginning of the world-process. This original per- 
 fection was lost, whether through fall, or guilt and atonement, 
 with Anaximander, or through impulse and impetus, through 
 resistance, with Fichte, or contradiction, with Hegel, is a ques- 
 tion of myth and allegory rather than of principle. All religious 
 pessimists agree that the pilgrimage of the universe is downward. 
 The ideal of perfection is in the irrevocable past, along with the 
 innocence of paradise. The world is a steady descent from pure 
 fire or fine ether to gross earth, from reality to appearance, from 
 eternal ideas to pale copies, from Deity's pure thought to the 
 transitory process of nature. The mythological parallel to this 
 metaphysical pessimism is the widespread legend of the Golden 
 Age, upon which the silver and the brass ensue. The church 
 doctrine of the fall corresponds to this view. Civilization as 
 descent, fall, symptom of the dissolution of nature — this is noth- 
 ing but a special instance of the ecclesiastical doctrine of the fall. 
 
 As kn offset to this pessimistic evaluation of the world and of 
 life, of which Buddhism and neo-Platonism are illustrations, we 
 have the Iranian-Persian religion of light, which projects the 
 ideal of perfection, not backward into a distant past, but forward 
 into the remotest future. The process of the world is reversed, 
 and goes from the imperfect toward the perfect. The religious 
 fantasy is turned forward and not backward. It does not delight 
 in picturing what has been, what is irrevocably lost, but in the 
 promise of what is to come in the apocalyptic glorification of the 
 perfect " at the end of the day." The prophetic, the Bacchic, 
 
 * So, to, Schweitzer in Vom Reimarus su IVrcde (Tubingen, 1906). 
 t Here I have availed myself of much help from Dr. Ludwig Stein, 
 PhilosQfhisclu Siriimungcn der Gtgcnwart, 1908. 
 
174 
 
 the Orphic, the Sibylline books and chiliastic dreamers proclaim 
 in hundredfold echo the millennial kingdom, the coming of joy. 
 And such facing the future is characteristic of modern thought 
 and work everywhere. 
 
 So, then, world-religion divides itself into a pessimistic and 
 an optimistic method. Both strive for the purification, the re- 
 demption, the moral elevation of man. Nirvana religion and 
 prophet religion seek the same goal : the moral perfection of the hu- 
 man race. Only the regressive forms of religion, the romanticists 
 among the religious philosophers, the advocates of the doctrines of 
 the fall and of a lost paradise, follow the pedagogic method of 
 making man more docile, more manageable, more resigned to the 
 destiny of the world, as well as to his own personal fate, by 
 establishing the course of the world as an inclined plane from 
 eternity to eternity. The will of the individual is " broken " 
 that the will of the universe may be supreme and mandatory and 
 compulsive. This is true of the doctrine of Buddha, the fore- 
 knowledge of the Greeks, the fate of the Romans, the predestina- 
 tion to sin on the part of the mediaeval church, the kismet of the 
 Mohammedans, the rigid doctrine of providence of Calvin, of 
 Spinozism and materialism, and so on. 
 
 Such is the insight of the philosophic historian of religion, and 
 I have allowed Stein, in the book above mentioned, to interpret 
 it for me. 
 
 Now which has the better stood the pragmatic test at the judg- 
 ment-seat of history: the pessimistic or the optimistic religious 
 hypothesis; Mohammedan fatalism or the Kanteian doctrine of 
 freedom? Which faith "works better," faith in a "lost para- 
 dise," or faith in the "kingdom of God on earth?" Buddhism 
 or Messianism? the yearning elegiac "backwardness" of the 
 romanticist, with its paralyzing " It was," or the brave, upright 
 hosanna of the religion of progress, with its Messianic psalmodic 
 " It shall be " and its counsel, " Serve the Lord in joy? " 
 
 You see why I have laid the foundation broad and deep. It 
 is to urge that we line up on the side of a religion of the future 
 rather than of the past, that we turn our faces to the rising 
 rather than to the setting sun. 
 
 To be sure, a bad as well as a good use may be made of this. 
 
175 
 
 You know that every church has maintained that the future was 
 with it, and therefore has claimed the right to rule the future. 
 To the Protestant it has been self-evident that the world was 
 sure to become Protestant, and to the Catholic it has been 
 equally self-evident that the whole world would bow the knee 
 to its sole saving faith. The modern man takes no interest in 
 this controversy. It smacks of ecclesiastical selfishness and vain- 
 glory. However, ours is not this old controversy, but the ques- 
 tion as to the future of religion and the religion of the future. 
 As to the former, in my opinion, all the age-long contempt for 
 religion is at bottom contempt not for religion at all, but for 
 the wrappings of religion which can be made to appear in such 
 a ridiculous light. Religion must be evaluated as a creative ac- 
 tivity of the human spirit — which reveals the eternity in a 
 human heart and which shall be a pillar of fire for the pilgrimage 
 of our race as long as man is man and nothing human is foreign 
 to him. But of course this is personal; faith, not sight, convic- 
 tion, not experience. There is always the possibility that some- 
 thing unforeseen, something incalculable, may happen. This pos- 
 sibility can vanish only by a clear insight into the religion of the 
 future. 
 
 But is not the future hidden in impenetrable gloom? Would 
 it not be more important and more rational to live in the present? 
 So we have ever been told. But a life so lived is weak and im- 
 potent. Such a life in the present alone is consumed by the 
 past. The beauty of the past is celebrated, the truth of the 
 past is preached, and the good of the past is worshiped and imi- 
 tated. Do you know how redemption from this cult of death 
 came, how a new day dawned that believed in its own self? It 
 was by making the future the program, the goal, the power of the 
 present : the power of the age to come, says the old Epistle to the 
 Hebrews. It was not by walking back through the world to 
 pluck flowers which had grown out of graves. It was by the 
 birth of the purpose that the church should be not so much a 
 hospital as a true " labor union," that faith should be used not 
 so much as crutch and medicine for our weakness as a power to 
 lift us above our weakness — not simply reconciling us to our 
 pain, but transforming pain into higher life and health. 
 
176 
 
 Is not God the living God? Are we to think that God 
 granted his power only to a few select souls and only once, for a 
 few decades or a century at most? If the Synoptists' Jesus were 
 living to-day, would he not still speak of the Father as still send- 
 ing the rain and clothing the lilies and caring for the sparrows 
 and numbering the hairs of our heads? If John's Jesus were 
 living to-day, would he not once again cry. My Father worketh 
 even until nowf Would not sin be forgiven with a fresh for- 
 giveness, and peace be whispered with a living voice? Is not 
 every living being a sign of the eternal creative power and om- 
 nipotent fullness of God? Then do not all participate in the 
 omnipotent and creative divine energy? Then let us turn again 
 from the demonstration of the letter and of the history to the 
 demonstration of the spirit and of power. Every man who 
 awakens to new life and strength desires to create something 
 new, something unheard of, something that has never been before, 
 something which shall witness to the eternal and unwithering life 
 of the human soul. We have to-day still the blind that would 
 see, the deaf that would hear, the lame that would walk, the leper 
 that would be made whole. And if we are not able to give them 
 that for which they yearn, that is, a light of their own, a life of 
 their own, a power of their own, then is our faith a vain and 
 dead thing which can never make the dead alive. Take some 
 poor man who is blind and knows it not, and open his eyes that 
 he may see in the deep of his own soul those invincible forces of 
 life that would press up into the light — that would be a true 
 miracle! Snap the fetters which bind you to dead customs and 
 slaveries, have the courage of your own convictions, and you 
 have set a captive free! Hearken not to public opinion so much 
 as to the quiet, unexpressed voice of your own heart and con- 
 science — remembering that truth is more powerful than public 
 opinion — and you have made the deaf to hear, an outcast clean, 
 the dead alive! This is the religion of power. Streams of living 
 water flow from our souls. Liberation and illumination stream 
 from our words and works. Enthusiasm which purifies us from 
 hopelessness and ennui flames forth from the spirit. A holy fire 
 melts the ice of the heart. These would be the signs and miracles 
 of a new age. They would witness to the worth and the future 
 
177 
 
 of man. Faith again would grow certain of itself, would see 
 a supernatural in everything natural, a superhuman in all that 
 is human. There would be, along with the living God, a living 
 man, a life of the spirit, a springtime life of a coming humanity. 
 
 Then there would be no regrettable question as to which is the 
 better faith, the " old " or the " new." There would be no old 
 faith and there would be no new faith. There would be only 
 weak faith and strong faith. There would be only the faith 
 which speaks about past miracles and bases itself on past miracles 
 and apologizes for past miracles about which it has heard, and 
 the faith which does miracles now every day, every hour, enjoying 
 perennial self-rejuvenation in heart and life. Wherever there 
 has been a faith born of God it has been a power and not a 
 weakness, courage and not cowardice. Therefore every kind of 
 weakness and cowardice is unfaith, no matter how ecclesiastical 
 and pious it may be. Wherever men substitute custom for truth, 
 wherever the antiquity of an ecclesiastical past, the geographical 
 extent of a faith and the number of its adherents, pass as proof 
 for the inner right and the inner vitality of a faith, there is also 
 the abandonment of the demonstration of the spirit and of power. 
 Every faith whose persistence depends upon its profession, " Once 
 I was," is corroded with anxiety and weakness that makes it im- 
 potent to regenerate the human heart and to liberate the human 
 spirit. The faith of power has the other watchword, " I shall 
 be! " And its power is that it feels the future alive in it. 
 
 This prophet religion of the future, and not the Nirvana re- 
 ligion of the past, was Jesus' religion. He faced forward. 
 Would he not do so now? Men ask what Jesus thought, what 
 he did. They mean that to think as he thought and to do as he 
 did would be enough for them. They may do and think as 
 Jesus did, but if Jesus were here to-day in our modern world, 
 would he do and think as he did? In many ways not. He would 
 cease to think some things and begin to think others; cease to do 
 some things, and do others. The crystalline clearness of his 
 mind and flawless truthfulness of his conscience would freely 
 impel him to this. Were he alive to-day he would not copy the 
 Jesus of that time and place. To copy even him is to kill the 
 soul. He who said then, Let the dead bury their dead, go thou 
 
178 
 
 and seek the kingdom of God ; I am come to set a man at variance 
 with his father; put not new wine into old bottles nor new patch 
 on old garment; I am come to kindle a fire upon the earth, and 
 how am it straitened till it be accomplished — he who said 
 these things and such things as these (and if he did not say these 
 things we do not know what he did say), and who condemned 
 bitterly the custodians of the past who were not creators of a 
 future, were he to walk up and down our earth to-day, would 
 turn away from dead dogma, injurious survivals, meaningless cus- 
 toms, moribund churches, and make a new future, re-create life, 
 release the spirit, and trust a God who lives and loves to-day. 
 This, not to repeat a dead past, is what he would have us to do. 
 The new world, inner and outer, could not be ours as a gift, even 
 from him. In the nature of the case, we must make it ourselves. 
 And we are not in a position to deny that we could do this, should 
 science conclude that he never lived at all. Indeed it is not im- 
 possible that, if science came to this conclusion, a sense of release 
 and freedom would come to many a soul whose true spontaneity 
 and free development are abridged by the dogma of the authority 
 of Jesus. 
 
 But if he lived, as I hold that he did, what is his function in 
 the religion of a modern man? Not to fasten us to himself as 
 a " letter " that would enslave and kill, whereas he stood for free- 
 dom and life. Not to have the effect of classicism in art, whicli 
 sometimes buoys up a whole subsequent age, so that there is only 
 imitation and not creation, monotony and not diversity, servility 
 and not freedom. Not to donate ideals from afar. That is ex- 
 cluded by the nature of ideals and the mode by which we ac- 
 quire them. And not to convert our religion into a religion of 
 the past instead of a religion of the future. He said nothing 
 of a lost paradise or of a fallen Adam or of a golden age in the 
 past, nothing of the glory of a sun that was set. He never said, 
 "It was!" He only said: "It shall be!" But the shall f>e 
 could be made to be only by putting the hand to the plow and 
 not looking back. What then is the place of Jesus in the reli- 
 gion of a modern man ? Any one of you can answer now. Once 
 again I shall let Bousset answer for all of us : 
 
 " But what now is the historical Jesus for us? Is it not for 
 
179 
 
 us indifferent, whether or not, behind this whole stream of life, 
 behind the mighty phenomenon of Christianity, there stand a 
 unified, personally living force? Faith ever points and presses 
 forward into the future; it will create, mold, recruit; it is a 
 forceful, strenuous [geschdfti^], powerful, active thing. Is not 
 this continuous looking backward, living in memorj', binding one's 
 self to a remote, strange past, obstructive and dangerous for one's 
 own life [Wesen] ? 
 
 " We shall try now, only very briefly, to meet this objection. A 
 parallel from domain other than that of religion may be of assist- 
 ance here. We might also ask: Do not the great creations of 
 past art have a crippling and inhibiting effect upon the joy in 
 creative work and the independence of the present generation? 
 They have actually had such an effect on many periods of artistic 
 life : I mean all periods of one-sided classicism. And yet it would 
 be the height of folly for us to seek to free ourselves as far as 
 possible from the great works and masters of the art of the past. 
 
 " The case is exactly the same for the religious life. Neither 
 art nor religion lives as do, for example, science and technology, 
 from thoughts constituting an independent and closed system. 
 Both art and religion are in a very different way dependent upon 
 the past; they live upon the life of the great personalities of the 
 past and their creations. Art in its original force is just in the 
 works and persons of the great masters, at which ever anew new 
 life is enkindled. So also religion is primarily present in the 
 great dominating personalities of religious history, in the law- 
 givers, prophets, founders of religions, and reformers. The his- 
 tory of religion has here spoken too clearly. The religions which 
 stand at the summit of development are those behind which — at 
 their beginnings or in the course of them — stand great, effective 
 personalities. And if we wished to explain (as is, however, im- 
 possible) all those personalities as myths and imaginary figures, 
 still this instinct of personification, which shows itself ever anew 
 at the highest points of religion, would remain inexplicable, and 
 bear witness to the power of personality in the religious life. 
 And this attachment of all religious life to great pyersonalities ap- 
 pears more and more clearly in the course of history. The pro- 
 ductive, independent, life-generating force of religion has fallen 
 
i8o 
 
 off. Since the appearance of Christianity, only one religion has 
 arisen — Islam. And all the great personalities who have really 
 furthered the course of Christianity have been convinced that 
 they derived their life from the life of Jesus of Nazareth, whom, 
 to be sure, in many cases, they only saw covered with thick and 
 often very strange veils. Religion lives only in and from great 
 personalities. We must ever anew kindle our little fire at their 
 great fire. But the center and the highest point of all these lead- 
 ers bearing the life of religion is the person of Jesus. 
 
 " But if this is the case, those personalities, and this one sur- 
 passing them all, are not dead historical past, which would be 
 a fetter on the life of the present. They live and are present; 
 the life of the present is kindled by them. It is our fault if there 
 remains mere authority — faith and a dependence on the past. 
 From the figure of Jesus of Nazareth, sweeps on a stream of 
 fresh life ; but we throw ourselves into this stream and let it bear 
 us." 
 
 Now that I have made this long quotation, I am not entirely 
 satisfied with it. I once was, and urged the same point as power- 
 fully as I could in my former book. It is not that I mean to 
 recede from emphasis upon the epoch-making importance of out- 
 standing personalities. It is, however, that I have come to won- 
 der whether, for one thing, the emphasis be not a bit overdone, 
 and, for another, whether the significance of the Great Man in 
 the past shall be kept up in the future. You may think a moment 
 of the genesis of our religion, to illustrate the first of my two 
 scruples. Did Jesus entirely originate that primitive messianic 
 cult with which our religion is continuous? On the contrary, 
 the contribution which the historical Jesus made thereto is most 
 difficult to determine. It is probable that his self-consciousness 
 powerfully influenced the development of the new community, 
 that it was through his own messianic certainty that his person be- 
 came the center of the " gospel " — his person, now of more value 
 to the circle of the faithful than his cause. It was not the ethics 
 — religious message which Jesus proclaimed, it was salvation 
 through the Messiah, that was the central thing in this original 
 faith of primitive Christianity. It was not a Jesus-cult; it was 
 
i8i 
 
 a messiah cult. Sharply enough has Professor Otto Pfleiderer 
 combated present-day historical error on this subject: 
 
 " We will guard carefully against committing the error so wide- 
 spread to-day of reading into the biblical documents something 
 they do not contain, and of putting aside everything which they 
 do contain that is not entirely agreeable to our modern manner 
 of thinking. It is in such fashion that the well-known Jesus ro- 
 mances originate, shooting up like mushrooms from the ground; 
 we may well grant those poets the privilege of doing such work, 
 but they ought not to lay claim to the credit of telling actual 
 history. Just that which to the modern consciousness is odd, 
 which in fact seems to offend it, just that usually reveals that 
 which is historically most characteristic — the thing upon which 
 the thoroughgoing success of the Christian faith rested." * 
 
 In other words, it was precisely those " supernatural " and 
 catastrophic parts of the movement which history itself has shown 
 to be an error of the period ; it was miracle and mystery and sac- 
 rament and charisms, which are now interesting problems of 
 psychology and not content of religious metaphysics — it was pre- 
 cisely these things that were most effective in that primitive situ- 
 ation. And yet not these alone. A number of observations 
 should be made here. Not a single factor, but only a plurality of 
 factors, is cause of an event. 
 
 No one person makes a religion, any more than -one person 
 makes a language. 
 
 " What can be more complicated, more logical, more mar- 
 velous than a language? Yet whence can this admirably organ- 
 ized production have arisen, except it be the outcome of the un- 
 conscious genius of crowds ? The most learned scholars, the most 
 esteemed grammarians, can do no more than note down the laws 
 that govern language. They would be utterly incapable of cre- 
 ating them. Even with respect to the ideas of great men, are we 
 certain that they are exclusively the offspring of their brains? 
 No doubt such ideas are always created by solitary minds, but is 
 it not the genius of crowds that has furnished the thousands of 
 grains of dust forming the soil in which they have sprung up? " f 
 
 * Religion and Historic Faith, pp. 232 ff. 
 t Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd, p. 9. 
 
l82 
 
 Similarly, Jesus by himself alone could never have led to the 
 organization of a new cult. To begin with, such a community 
 could not have arisen had the Roman officials ruling in Judea 
 made it a matter of policy not to interfere with the inner religious 
 affairs of the people, unless political necessity required them to 
 do so. Then, again, Judaism at that time was acquainted with 
 very various sectarian formations: Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes. 
 There were also separate rabbinical schools. These new messian- 
 ists, by no means disengaged from the common Israelitish stock, 
 could easily pass as another school, or order, or sect, in the eyes 
 of the Roman authorities. But for another thing especially, the 
 new cult could never have arisen had it not been for the inveterate 
 messianic hope and the traditional messianic dogmatics which so 
 apprehended and assimilated Jesus, which so messianized him, 
 that his own central message is obscured here. Would not Jesus 
 have said to these messianic worshipers. It is written. Thou shalt 
 worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve? Most 
 of all must we think of the immemorial historical creations of 
 whole peoples, stones carved from so many quarries at cost of 
 so much sweat and blood, for the building of this new temple! 
 God, Spirit, Messiah, resurrection, judgment-day, kingdom of 
 heaven — consider the age-long historic experience which developed 
 these concepts in the function of a higher life. Was not a 
 greater contribution made to their formation and skill of func- 
 tioning by the long racial experimentation and achievement than 
 was made by Jesus himself, even? Besides, we have just begun 
 to trace the relations of our ecclesiastical beginnings, inchoate, 
 even then, to the hidden, far-off primitive sagas of other folk-tra- 
 vail, and also to Israelitish popular lore. Multitudinous toil 
 from numberless individuals and nations earned the heritage of 
 messianism into which the primitive community now entered — 
 other men and peoples labored, and it entered into their labors. 
 And if Jesus, with joy and gratitude, would have his disciples rec- 
 ognize this principle as they reaped the Samaritan harvest, he 
 would have been the first to pay tribute to the sowers and reap- 
 ers from out the gray historic life of that messianic harvest which 
 his disciples were now to garner. To be sure, his own contribu- 
 tion was epoch-making, but, as I have said, there is a real sense in 
 
i83 
 
 which epoch-makers are themselves made. It is difficult to state 
 this matter briefly without seeming to contradict the underivable 
 originality of Jesus, but the contradiction is only apparent, and 
 I hold to both, as I do to both individualism and collectivism in 
 social philosophy. 
 
 But my second critical remark upon Bousset's position — which, 
 nevertheless, is, as I say, for substance still my own — is as to 
 whether the Great Man shall be as controlling in the future as 
 in the past. Aristocracies of the old kind are passing away: feudal 
 aristocracies, aristocracies of birth, capitalistic aristocracies. A 
 new aristocracy is arising, the aristocracy of democracy, knights 
 of labor. The emphasis is to be upon the people. The Creator 
 seems to have thought that one Niagara was enough for a continent, 
 but he has made thousands of little streams to flow by our homes 
 and through our fields, and the glory and the greatness of our 
 country is due not so much to Niagara as to these little streams 
 which gladden and refresh the earth. Not denying the kindling 
 power of the Great Man of the past, are we not showing wisdom 
 in finding inspiration and rebuke in the cheerful godliness, the 
 fidelity to duty, the heroic and uncomplaining self-sacrifice, the 
 unselfish love and service manifested by plain men and women in 
 the common lot all around us to-day — by the washerwoman 
 supporting her family of little children, the unfortunate mer- 
 chant who sacrifices every comfort and pleasure that he may qui- 
 etly pay his honest debts, the young man who gives up college 
 that he may earn the money for his sister's education, the old 
 people toiling in the dark at the mountain's foot to keep the boy 
 at school so that, as they say, he may have a better chance in life 
 than they have had. Ah, my friends, human nature's soil did 
 not exhaust itself in growing one bright consummate flower; the 
 earth is bursting with new bloom every day. " But the beautiful 
 life which is lived by the ' common herd ' to-day, has not that life 
 come from the life of Jesus?" you ask. That is just the point. 
 Has it? What is the fact? Is human goodness aristocratic, nay 
 monarchic, or is it democratic? All prejudices and fears aside, 
 it is evident that human nature's creative power in the world 
 of goodness is not limited to the Great Man and the Great Man's 
 influence, but, though graded, is immanent and constant in the 
 
1 84 
 
 race; it is evident, therefore, that the democratic goodness about 
 us is not so much a donation from Jesus as a creation of modern 
 men who are as certainly children of God as Jesus was himself — 
 if so be, as Paul said, God is One. The contrary position is a 
 survival of the ecclesiastical doctrine of original sin, of the non 
 posse non peccari, of the total moral inability of man on account 
 of the fall, a position which, though not meant to be such, is 
 really blasphemy against God and man. Think of our human 
 patriotism, often with its self-immolating heroism; of our love 
 of family and home, often with its chaste grace and beauty; of 
 our social life, not without its neighborliness ; of our business 
 world, with its energy and survey and foresight, not without its 
 fine philanthropies; of our land dotted with schools, where ideals 
 sprout and bloom: think of these things, and you cannot escape 
 the conviction that they are traceable to the elemental and in- 
 alienable impulses and processes of human nature itself even more 
 than to the Man of Galilee, who indeed does not seem to have 
 made much of any of them. And even if you think of the achieve- 
 ment of an autonomous good will for which Jesus seems to have 
 centrally stood, we know that it belongs to the idea and plan 
 of the human itself to press forward to the mark of the prize 
 of this high calling. This was the great message of Kant, but 
 can we honestly contend that Kant either derived the message 
 from Jesus or depended chiefly upon Jesus for its fulfillment? 
 
 But I must not pursue the subject farther at this time. I trust 
 I have hurt no one's feelings. In my opinion, what I have said 
 would meet with the approval of that Jesus who thought of him- 
 self as like the good shepherd that laid down his life for the 
 sheep, like the father of the prodigal, whose loving and wounded 
 heart forgave all, like the poor widow, who gave her all, all her 
 living; like the good Samaritan, rather than like the aristocratic 
 priest and Levite. And it was because he was like this homely 
 democratic goodness, which he did not make, but found already 
 there, that he was greater than the monarchic David or Solomon. 
 
i85 
 
 Fourth Topic of the Congress, 
 
 " RELIGION AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION." 
 
 THE SOCIAL CONSCIENCE AND THE RELIGIOUS 
 
 LIFE 
 
 PROF. FRANCIS G. PEABODY, D.D., OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 
 CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 
 
 The most remarkable discovery of the present generation — 
 more characteristic of the present age than the telephone! or the 
 automobile or aerial navigation — is the discovery of the Social 
 Conscience; the unprecedented activity of social responsibility 
 and social service, the new definition of duty in terms of social 
 obligation and social redemption. Never in human history were 
 so many people, learned and ignorant, employers and employed, 
 rich and poor, wise and otherwise, so seriously concerned with 
 the question of social justice, the answering of social problems 
 and the realizing of social dreams. A European philosopher has 
 lately said that as the fifteenth century is remembered for its 
 renaissance of art, and the sixteenth century for the revival of 
 religion, and the seventeenth century as an epoch in philosophy, 
 and the eighteenth century as the era of democracy, and the nine- 
 teenth century as the period of applied science, so the twentieth 
 century will be recalled by succeeding generations as the Age 
 of the Social Question. The studies which interpret society cre- 
 ate a new education; the legislation which adjusts society gives 
 a new function to government; the practical devotion of multi- 
 tudes to social amelioration opens the way to a new expansion 
 of morality. 
 
 Nowhere is this call of the social conscience more clearly 
 heard than in the organizations dedicated to religion. No church 
 can justify its existence in the Age of the Social Question with- 
 out adding to its equipment for worship a further equipment for 
 work. Behind the house of prayer rises the parish house, with 
 
1 86 
 
 its clubs and classes, its deaconesses and visitors, its gymnasiums 
 and kindergartens, its social settlement and personal relief. 
 What then, one asks himself, is to be the effect on the reli- 
 gious life of this age of social conscience? Is a social program 
 to be substituted for a religious faith? Is the church as the 
 shrine to be supplanted by the church as a workshop? Is 
 communion with God to be crowded out by service to man, so- 
 ciology to be more important than theology and a change In the 
 economic order more desired than a change in the human heart? 
 
 To these questions it must be first of all replied that a genuine 
 sense of difficulty has begun to manifest itself at this point both 
 among those who represent the religious life and among those 
 who represent the social conscience. On the one hand there are 
 many devout persons who view vv^ith scepticism, if not with 
 alarm, this movement of social service. They have been taught 
 to regard religion as a personal redemption from sin or a spirit- 
 ual allegiance to Christ, and to identify religion with boys' clubs 
 and recreation classes seem to them to confuse two distinct 
 spheres of life. The London Spectator lately suggested that the 
 Christian religion might be defined as " philanthropy touched and 
 warmed by the spirit of Jesus Christ;" but to many Christian 
 disciples this would seem not only a blankly unhistorical but a 
 grotesquely inadequate definition, and they would be apprehensive 
 lest under such a definition the warmth of the philanthropy might 
 supplant the reverence for Jesus Christ. A Christian minister, 
 standing in a Woman's Settlement House, said : " This is very 
 beautiful, but I wish there were more oi Christ in it." The 
 very beauty of this perfect flower of philanthropy excited in him 
 a pang of regret because the flower had no tag bearing his Mas- 
 ter's name. 
 
 On the other hand, this apprehension of religious people is 
 met by many representatives of the social conscience with undis- 
 guised indifference, if not with contempt. A great proportion 
 of modern social service has become, consciously or unconsciously, 
 quite dissociated from the religious life and regards the teachings 
 of religion as either superfluous or unreal. " Society," an Eng- 
 lish scholar has said, " has absorbed into its tissue a large measure 
 of that moral idealism for which the church once seemed the soli- 
 
i87 
 
 tary representative. The church has stood aloof from the world 
 and now the world takes daily revenge by standing aloof from 
 the church. Organized charity has found the differences of Chris- 
 tian creeds so obstructive of a common task that it has in large 
 degree practically secularized itself and even prohibits its agents 
 from religious service. The same indifference marks the conduct 
 of labor organizations in all countries. At the same hour when 
 religious people are meeting for worship these unions of wage- 
 earners meet to deliberate on industrial problems, and they do not 
 hesitate to claim that these topics are quite as instructive and ele- 
 vating as many sermons. Religion appears to them to be occu- 
 pied with matters too remote from daily life to have any genuine 
 interest, and the contemplation of eternity is regarded as a luxury 
 reserved for capitalists. " My associates," the President of the 
 American Federation of Labor has stated, " have come to look 
 upon the Church and the Ministry as the apologists and defend- 
 ers of the wrong committed against the interests of the people ! " 
 Finally, when one passes from the organization of labor to the 
 party of revolution he meets a temper of mind which is not only 
 neutral but often openly hostile. In the formal problems of 
 revolutionary socialism religion is, it is true, announced to be a 
 matter of private concern, and Marx himself was indisposed 
 to any frontal attack upon religion, believing that the law of 
 economic determinism would, in its inevitable fulfillment, sweep 
 away this illusion with the other products of capitalism. " For 
 a society," he said, " whose economic methods consist in dealing 
 with products as commodities and values, Christianity is the most 
 appropriate form of religion. This religious reflection of the 
 real world will finally vanish when the conditions of practical 
 life establish rational relations with men and with nature." " Re- 
 ligion," wrote Bebel, " will not be abolished or God dethroned. 
 Without attack by force Religion will naturally perish. It is 
 a transcendent reflection of the existing social order." Thus 
 the social revolutionists join hands with the theological reaction- 
 ists in their distrust of any intimacy between the social conscience 
 and the religious life. On the one hand social service appears 
 an inadequate substitute for religion, on the other hand it appears 
 to be a new religion. " Socialism," Liebknecht said, " is at once 
 
a science and a religion. In its appeal to the feelings it has the 
 entire force of Christianity, in its appeal to the mind it has all 
 the strength of science." 
 
 If then the gulf between these two teachings seems so wide 
 and deep, and hesitancy on the one side is confronted by con- 
 tempt on the other, shall we conclude that the Age of the Social 
 Conscience is to be a time when the religious life is likely to lose 
 its momentum and power? Is the Christian church occupied 
 with a survival rather than vAth a revival, a dead issue rather 
 than a living faith? On the contrary, such a conclusion fails 
 to recognize both the nature of the social conscience and the na- 
 ture of the religious life. If religion were primarily concerned 
 with ecclesiastical machinery and dogmatic definitions, and if the 
 social conscience were concerned with nothing but an economic 
 problem or a party organization, then it would seem unlikely 
 that the two undertakings should combine. There is little in 
 common between debates on the orders of clergy or the condition 
 of sinners after death and discussions on the eight-hour day or 
 the rent on land. But if, on the other hand, both religion and 
 the social conscience are interpretations of life; if both are pri- 
 marily concerned with conduct, duty, desire, hope; then it is not 
 only needless but impossible to hold them asunder. The religion 
 which is fit for the present age must be a social religion and the 
 conscience fit for the present age must be a social conscience; and 
 the most pressing problem of the moment is to determine the 
 points of coincidence between these two spiritual forces and the 
 direction of their co-operation. What is it in the religious life 
 which justifies its social service and what is it in the social con- 
 science which reaffirms the religious life? 
 
 To answer these questions one must ask another. What is re- 
 ligion, and what organ of expression does it naturally use? 
 Here we meet the various philosophies of religion with their dif- 
 ferent interpretations of the religious life. Is religious experi- 
 ence, they inquire, primarily a form of thought or a movement of 
 emotion or a decision of the will? Are we in religion primarily 
 rationalists or mystics or moral idealists? Is religion a doctrine 
 or a feeling or a pledge? The history of the philosophy of reli- 
 gion has almost exclusively emphasized the first two of these con- 
 
i89 
 
 ceptions. Either, as with Hegel, the reason has seemed the me- 
 dium of the Eternal, or, with Schleiermacher, the feelings have 
 opened a channel of communion deeper than the reason could 
 provide. This issue between the rationalists and the mystics has 
 usually been regarded as the crux of the philosophy of religion, 
 as though between these two alternatives the religious life must 
 choose. Is there not, however, a third way of communion be- 
 tween the soul and the Eternal, a path which leads from morality 
 to faith, a religious experience whose beginning is in the will, a 
 road accessible to those whose religion begins in little more than 
 a simple desire to do their duty? This is the path to the reli- 
 gious life which was first explored by Kant and has now been 
 made familiar by Fichte and by Martineau. It begins in decision 
 and leads to insight. Its first step is duty and its last reward is 
 vision. " Obedience," said Robertson, in one of his greatest ser- 
 mons, " is the organ of spiritual knowledge. In every depart- 
 ment of knowledge there is an appropriate organ or instrument 
 for the discovery of truth. Obedience is the sole organ by which 
 we gain a knowledge of that which cannot be seen or felt. By 
 doing God's will we recognize what He is." 
 
 When one turns with these teachings of philosophy to the Gos- 
 pel of Jesus Christ he finds them strikingly anticipated and con- 
 firmed. Great disclosures of truth were made by him to the rea- 
 son, and high emotions invited his followers to imitation, but when 
 we trace the way in which Jesus habitually drew men to him- 
 self, nothing is more obvious than the fact that he appealed, first 
 of all, not to their intellects or their feelings, but to their wills. 
 What he first asks is, not theological accuracy or mystic ecstasy, 
 but practical obedience and moral decision. " Follow me," He 
 says, " Take up thy cross and follow. He that willeth to 
 do the will shall know the doctrine." The dedication of the 
 will is the first step toward the religious life; it is not the 
 whole of religion, it is perhaps not the best of it, but it is the 
 beginning of it. Disclosures of truth lie beyond this decision 
 of the will and high moods of rapture or peace; but the way to 
 these heights lies up the steep path which obedience has to climb. 
 And here is where numbers of persons make their great mistake. 
 They have thought they could be Christians with their minds 
 
I go 
 
 or with their hearts, without enlisting their wills. They have 
 kept their religious life in one compartment of experience where 
 it satisfies their reason or their emotions but does not seriously 
 affect their conduct. " Things have come to a pretty pass," Lord 
 Melbourne is reported to have said after hearing an evangelical 
 sermon, " when religion is allowed to invade the sphere of pri- 
 vate life." The teaching of Jesus demands precisely this invasion 
 of private life. It tolerates no schism between the mind and the 
 will, no double standard of living, no theological bimetallism. 
 The silver of duty-doing and the gold of religious faith are in- 
 terchangeable mediums of spiritual exchange. Service is the cur- 
 rent coin of the unit of value, and as it accrues it becomes religion. 
 The way of conscience and the vision of faith, ethics and reli- 
 gion, idealism and theism, are in the teachings of Jesus one 
 continuous process which has its beginning in the appeal to the will. 
 
 " Our wills are ours we know not how, 
 Our wills are ours to make them thine.'' 
 
 If, then, among the m.any ways to the religious life there is 
 one which leads from obedience to knowledge, from the willing 
 of the will to the knowing of the doctrine, then this truth has 
 profound significance for the Age of the Social Conscience. For 
 what is this wonderful renaissance of special responsibility but the 
 dedication of the will on an unprecedented scale to the service 
 of the modern world; and is not this, according to the teaching 
 of modern philosophy and the teaching of Jesus, the first step 
 toward practical religion? Very far removed from religion much 
 of the social agitation of the time may appear to be, and some of 
 those who are concerned with it may even protest against the in- 
 sinuation of a religious aim ; yet this unconsciousness of coopera- 
 tion with God or even the denial of it, does not affect the fact of 
 that cooperation. Many a plowman bending over his furrow 
 lifts his eyes but seldom to the sun which none the less ptersuades 
 his crop ; many a sailor takes little heed of the laws which govern 
 the winds; and with the same unconsciousness, many a servant of 
 social needs stumbles along with downcast eyes as though his work 
 were but routine and drudgery, while in fact as he trudges along 
 his furrow he is cooperating with the Sun of Righteousness or as 
 
igi 
 
 he navigates the troubled sea of modern life he is running down 
 the trade wind of universal law. Never were so many people 
 repelled by the technicalities of religion, yet never were there 
 so many people of whom the great words could be spoken: " Not 
 every one that said unto me, Lord, Lord, but he that doeth the 
 will of my father ; " never were there so many who might ask 
 in surprise : " When saw we thee hungry and fed thee, or a 
 stranger and took thee in? " are fit to receive the answer: " In- 
 asmuch as ye did it unto one of these least, ye did it unto me." 
 In a word, if either the teaching of Jesus or the teaching of 
 modern philosophy may be trusted, this awakening of the so- 
 cial conscience represents, not an abandonment of the religious 
 life nor yet a substitute for it, but a way — not yet clearly 
 marked indeed, but traceable, — along which the modern mind 
 may reach a religion appropriate to its needs. The theologians 
 have found in the condition of the world which opened the way 
 for the extension of Christianity, a Divine preparation for the 
 new faith — a " Preparatio Evangelica " of the Christian dis- 
 pensation. May not the Social Conscience of the present age 
 open the way to another revival of religion and be the " Prepar- 
 atio Evangelica" of the twentieth century? It is perhaps not 
 the straightest path to faith; it is certainly not the only path; but 
 for many persons under the conditions of the present age it is the 
 path most immediately open and it is not so important what path 
 one takes as it is that he shall start from the point where he happens 
 to be and not stop until the end is reached. A young man enters 
 my office, and asks with evident emotion : " Do you know of any 
 Boys' Club, where I could work?" "What Is the matter, my 
 boy?" I ask. " Nothing is the matter," he answers, " I am not 
 in trouble; but my Ideals are losing their hold on my life, and 
 I thought I had better do something for somebody else." What 
 was, in reality, happening to that young soul? Whatever it was, 
 it had to utter Itself In the language of the present age, which is 
 the Age of the Social Question. A spiritual desire took the form 
 of a social service. But was it not the touch of the Holy Spirit 
 which had moved this life from lethargy and self-interest; the 
 same touch which In other ages has brought thousands to con- 
 fession of sin or conversion of heart? And must not teachers 
 
igt 
 
 of religion be alert to recognize the new ways in which the life 
 of God may lead the life of man, and welcome the doing of the 
 Will as a first step to a- knowing of the Doctrine? 
 
 And if it be true that the social conscience and the religious 
 life are thus to be regarded, neither as competitors nor as alter- 
 natives, but as successive experiences and logical steps in the edu- 
 cation of the human race, then there follow from this truth two 
 practical consequences of the utmost importance. The first may 
 be described as the spiritualization of the social movement and 
 the second may be described as the socialization of the religious 
 life. What, on the one hand, is the most immediate peril which 
 threatens the Social movement? It is the peril of a practical 
 materialism, the interpretation of a great human movement in 
 terms of machinery, the expectation that a change in economic 
 methods will of itself produce a change of heart. And what, 
 to state the case from the other side, is the chief source of hope 
 and courage in the movement of social service? It is the dis- 
 covery, which many minds at many points of this great adventure 
 are now making, that beneath the forms of economic change there 
 is proceeding a spiritual enterprise which the present age is called 
 to serve. A woman, for example, concerns herself with the ad- 
 ministration of charity, and the problems which confront her, 
 of wages, housing, idleness, food and drink, may seem to be 
 wholly affairs of economic conditions and material wants. This 
 external aspect of her task may almost extinguish its spiritual 
 significance, as a flame flickers and dies where the atmosphere 
 is foul. What room is there, she may ask, for religious idealism 
 in so unspiritual a task ? " Give me the luxuries of life," Mr. 
 Motley once humorously said, " and I can dispense with the 
 necessities ; " and it may well seem to this servant of the poor 
 that the high doctrines of religion are offering her the luxuries 
 of philosophy, while the necessities of existence still remain un- 
 supplied. Must she not, then, abandon her spiritual ideals, and 
 apply herself to the terrible concrete facts of her immediate work? 
 On the contrary, the spiritualization of charity is essential both 
 to efficiency and courage. Nothing redeems the work of relief 
 from dullness and despondency except the capacity for spiritual 
 vision. Let the agent of relief forget her idealism, and she be- 
 
193 
 
 comes a social mechanic, an official, or a statistician, and is on 
 the high road to discouragement, perfunctoriness and despair. 
 The mechanism of her task can be endured only as she discerns the 
 meaning of her task. Her faith is not a luxury but a necessity. 
 She is patient with the real because she beholds the ideal. The 
 unresponsive life before her is a symbol of her hope, and becomes 
 transfigured into interest, picturesqueness and sanctity. Sir 
 Launfal, seeking for the Holy Grail, left unnoticed the leper at 
 his door; but as he returned from that distant quest, the ideal 
 he had sought was revealed to him in the duty he had ignored, 
 and: 
 
 "The leper no longer crouched by his side, 
 But stood before him, glorified, 
 Shining, and tall, and fair, and straight. 
 As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate." 
 
 The same story may be told in the language of the industrial 
 world of many an employer, who is converting economic life into 
 an instrument of justice ; and of many an employee who is offering 
 to business life a fidelity and efficiency for which no wage-sys- 
 tem can pay. These men may fancy themselves far removed 
 from the influence of the spiritual life. They may listen but lan- 
 guidly to the preachers of other worldliness. They may conceive 
 of the Christian ministry as a useless caste, and of the Christian 
 church as of a capitalist-club. They are too busy to be pious 
 and too conscious of temptation to be saints. And yet, if the 
 Christian life is to have any place in the modem world, it must 
 be precisefly where these men are set, in the heat of the world's 
 work and the noise of the world's care and the worst of disasters, 
 alike for religion and for business, is to separate the one from 
 the other. When Jesus looked about him for the habit of life 
 which he desired to commend, he found it most conspicuously 
 in those people who were doing, as it should be done, the com- 
 mon work of the business world. The investor of his talents; 
 the porter at the gate ; the farmer in the field ; the merchant with 
 his pearls; the woman at her house work; — how common and 
 worldly ; — how far from the religion of the Scribes and the 
 Pharisees, were these types of holiness! Yet of these common- 
 place people, who had thus spiritualized their Social Question so 
 
194 
 
 that their daily business could meet the test of Christ, he said: 
 " Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." It is the same to-day. 
 Lawrence Oliphant once said that the greatest need of modern 
 England was a " spiritually-minded man of the world," — a man, 
 that is to say, who could be in the world, yet not subdued to that 
 he worked in, and who found it not impossible to do the world's 
 work with a spiritual mind. He is like a potter, molding his 
 clay; he does not wash his hands of it because it soils them, or 
 dabble in it like a little boy for the sake of getting dirty; but he 
 uses it just as it is and shapes it into the forms of use or beauty 
 which are possible under the limits of the clay. Precisely such 
 material is offered by the modern business world, and the spiritu- 
 ally-minded man of the world does not dabble in its dirt, or run 
 away from it because it is unclean, but shapes it into the use and 
 beauty to which, just as it is, it may be applied. No harder test 
 was ever offered to the spiritual life than this demand that it 
 shall adapt itself to the material conditions of an industrial de- 
 mocracy. The new spirituality must be shaped out of the com- 
 mon clay of commercial conditions, and hardened in the fire of 
 industrial temptation, and those who can meet this test have spir- 
 itualized their social question and found in it the instrument of 
 a consistent religious faith. 
 
 And if religion is thus called to spiritualize the Social Ques- 
 tion, so — on the other hand — the Social Question is called to 
 socialize the religious life. The religion of individualism which 
 has dominated Christian thought for many generations has be- 
 come as impotent to interpret the modern world as the economics 
 or the politics of individualism. Through the modern miracles 
 of invention, discovery, exploration, and intercommunication, the 
 world has become, as never before in its history, a unit instead of 
 a series of disconnected interests and aims. The problems of the 
 time are world-problems, and the power of each part is its world- 
 power. What the Apostle Paul wrote of the Christian church 
 has become realized of the whole social order. We are members 
 of one body, and the strength or weakness of each member is the 
 health or sickness of the whole. And if it is thus true that the 
 civilization of the twentieth century is to be in an unprecedented 
 degree socialized, then the religion of the twentieth century, if it 
 
195 
 
 would continue to be a factor in its civilization, must socialize 
 its ideals and must save people, not singly but together, as pros- 
 perous and poor, as employers and employed, as white and black, 
 as Oriental and Occidental. The socialization of religion calls 
 for a new spirit in missions, a new expansion of the church, a 
 new definition of the ministry, and a new realization of the pur- 
 pose of Jesus when he " came into Galilee preaching the Gospel 
 of the Kingdom of God." It is often said that the profession 
 of the ministry has lost its hold on the modern world, and that 
 the future of the Christian Church is imperiled by lack of men 
 to serve her. The socialization of religion points to quite an- 
 other conclusion. What is really happening is not so much a de- 
 cline of the Christian ministry, as an expansion of it, into ways 
 of service which have not yet become recognized as legitimate 
 branches of the profession, but which would certainly have com- 
 mended themselves to Jesus Christ as appropriate for his disci- 
 pleship. Must the Christian ministry be defined as exclusively 
 a talking profession; or may it count among its members that 
 great body of self-effacing servants of the common good who 
 are going up and down the modern world, not to be ministered 
 unto but to minister, and to give their lives a ransom for many? 
 Did not Jesus himself, when he opened the Book to read of his 
 own "mission, find the place where it was written: "The Spirit 
 of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach 
 good tidings to the poor, and the opening of the eyes to the blind, 
 and the setting at liberty them that are bruised ;" and are not 
 they who serve the poor and blind and bruised of this present 
 age, converting the Age of the Social Question into an accepta- 
 ble year of the Lord ? Students for the ministry and pastors of 
 Christian churches may well take heart again as they observe this 
 expansion of their calling, which gives them new allies and new 
 hope. The ecclesiasticism of the Middle ^ges may have in- 
 volved many mistaken conceptions of the Church and the min- 
 istry, but on this point at least it has much to teach the modern 
 world. It assumed that the whole of life lay within the prov- 
 ince of the church. Not preachers and monks alone, but schol- 
 ars and artists, lay-brothers and nursing sisters, had their legiti- 
 mate offices within the sphere of Christian work, and the hum- 
 
196 
 
 blest servant ploughing the fields of the monastery or washing 
 the utensils of the scullery, was conscious of doing a sacred task 
 for whose success he might fitly ask his Master's help. Vastly 
 more generous and inclusive is the new conception of the Chris- 
 tian ministry which offers itself to the present age. It includes 
 not merely priests and preachers, with their still indispensable 
 functions of religious leadership, and not alone the technical and 
 conscious offices of the organized church, but the great company 
 of sincere and faithful servants of the world's great needs, the 
 prophets of the better social order and the instruments of indus- 
 trial justice and peace. Never was the Christian ministry, as thus 
 largely conceived, more adequately manned or more loyally 
 served; and never did the ministers of religion have more right 
 to confidence and courage than in this sense of large alliance 
 with the social conscience of the modern world. 
 
 Here, then, is an approach to an answer of the question with 
 which we began. The Social Conscience and the Religious Life 
 are not two ways of living, but one continuous path, along 
 which the duty of the present time is led toward the Eternal. Up 
 the way of the Social Conscience toil the servants of the modern 
 world; and on that steep path they meet the Master of the Re- 
 ligious Life, saying, " Follow me," " Take up your cross and fol- 
 low.'' The farther they go, and the higher ground they gain, the 
 clearer becomes their vision of the world at their feet. The do- 
 ing of their duty has brought them where they see things in true 
 perspective and proportion. They have — as Robert Louis Ste- 
 venson said of Jesus Christ — not so much views of things, as a 
 view. The limited horizon of their Ethics enlarges into the 
 infinite horizon of their Religion. And finally they discover 
 that they have not climbed alone, but have been all along the way 
 guided and led. Through the silences of duty they hear the 
 summons of the Eternal; and the call of the Social Conscience 
 becomes not only a call to man, but not less clearly a call from 
 God. 
 
197 
 RELIGION AND POLITICS 
 
 HON. F. J. SWAYZE, JUSTICE SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY 
 
 The subject at first assigned to me — The duty of Religious 
 people towards Honest Politics — left no room for discussion. 
 The duty to support and encourage honest politics is plain, and the 
 duty of religious people is neither less nor greater than that of 
 all good citizens. The title contained a suggestion that there 
 might be politics of another kind, and there has recently been 
 a good deal in magazines and newspapers to indicate a widespread 
 belief that politics is necessarily dishonest and corrupt. If such 
 were the fact, our outlook for the future would be a hopeless 
 one, since almost every step in advance, and almost every reform 
 must necessarily require political action. Fortunately the sub- 
 ject you chose contained also a clear intimation that politics 
 might be honest. It is a hopeful sign that the tendency is so de- 
 cidedly away from the rule of corruption and dishonesty toward 
 the rule of real political leaders, dealing not merely with the 
 traffic in public offices and the sale of legislative! favors, but with 
 live public questions upon great considerations of public policy. 
 With politics of this higher kind religion has close relations. 
 
 There was a time when the pKjlitical conduct of man was de- 
 termined by their religious views. At the time of the Protestant 
 Reformation, the great public questions were so involved with 
 men's theological opinions, and their theological views were so 
 interwoven with their political conduct, that a man's politics 
 and his religion were synonymous, and the political parties were 
 either Catholic or Protestant. Only great rulers, like Henry IV 
 of France or Elizabeth of England, could rise superior to mere 
 theological differences and realize that a man might be a patriotic 
 Englishman although a Catholic, or a patriotic Frenchman al- 
 though a Protestant. We in our time can hardly appreciate, 
 and certainly cannot share, the feeling that looked on the Pope 
 as a pwssible final arbiter of controversies, or the intense oppo- 
 sition which this feeling encountered. The growth of the spirit 
 of religious freedom and the rise of modern nationalities claim- 
 ing the affection and allegiance once claimed by the church have 
 
1 98 
 
 produced a tremendous change, and to-day, the old theological 
 opinions have little or nothing to do with the political conduct 
 of reasonable men. When the old spirit crops out, it is almost 
 confined to men of narrow minds and to regions remote from 
 the great intellectual centers. Recent events have shown forcibly 
 how weak and unimportant this mediaeval spirit has become in 
 the Twentieth century. Fortunately for us in the United States, 
 the spirit which prevailed when our governments were formed 
 was the spirit of Roger Williams and William Penn and Lord 
 Baltimore, a spirit which found expression in my own State of 
 New Jersey in the concessions of Berkeley and Carteret in 1664, 
 and 1665, immediately after the conquest of the Dutch Colony 
 of New Netherlands by the English, and a few months after the 
 land had been conveyed to them by the Duke of York. Those 
 concessions provided that no persons should be at any time in any 
 way molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question for any 
 difference of opinion or practice in matters of religious concern- 
 ments, who did not actually disturb the civil i>eace of the prov- 
 ince, and that all persons should freely and fully have and enjoy 
 his and their judgments and consciences in matters of religion, 
 they behaving themselves peaceably and quietly, and not using 
 this liberty to licentiousness, or to the civil injury or outward dis- 
 turbance of others. The concessions most significantly add : 
 " Any law, statute, usage or custom of the realm of England to 
 the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding." The spirit 
 of religious catholicity which breathes in those concessions marks 
 the difference between the fundamental conceptions on which 
 our American governments were founded and the conception 
 which then prevailed in England, when people were made frantic 
 by the Popish plot, or in France where a few years later the 
 bigotry of Louis XIV brought about the revocation of the 
 edict of Nantes. We in this country are fortunate in a liberal 
 beginning, in the development and spread of the spirit which di- 
 vorces theological convictions from political action, and requires 
 our governments to allow the utmost liberality of religious opin- 
 ion, or even want of religious opinion. We are fortunate also 
 because the spirit of the early days is with us still. This inti- 
 mate union between religion and politics resulted not only in 
 
199 
 
 this spirit of religious freedom, but that went hand in hand 
 with the spirit of political liberty, which, as Burke said, was fos- 
 tered by the fact that the prevailing religious views of the colo- 
 nies were not the views of a government but of a variety of de- 
 nominations agreeing in nothing but in the communion of the 
 spirit of liberty. How much this spirit of political liberty was 
 helped by the prevalence of Calvinistic theology which recognized 
 God alone as the supreme Ruler, we cannot tell, but religious 
 liberals must recognize our own indebtedness to the Calvinistic 
 churches from which many of us have sprung, as well as the lib- 
 erality of practice of those with which we are in daily contact. 
 It was no light service that religion rendered to politics in estab- 
 lishing by the very conflict of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries, the principles of civil and religious liberty which are 
 set forth in our bills of rights. And it was no accident that the 
 first general assembly of the' Presbyterian church was so nearly 
 contemporaneous with the meeting of the Federal Convention of 
 
 1787. 
 
 The union between religion and politics has long since ceased, 
 but it does not follow that the influence of one upon the other is, 
 or even ought to be, at an end. " Religion," says Matthew Ar- 
 nold, " is that which binds and holds us to the practice of right- 
 eousness." If we limit our definition of religion as Arnold lim- 
 its it, the relation between religion and politics ought to be 
 intimate. Religion would then deal with the theoretical ethical 
 basis of public conduct, and politics with the practical achieve- 
 ment of what is right. Such a consummation, is, of necessity, 
 only a dream. Most men vrould regard Arnold's conception of 
 religion as too hazy and nebulous, and the time is far distant, if 
 indeed it ever comes, when religion vidll be so identified with 
 ethics by the majority, and the time is still more remote when 
 politics is to become the practice of righteousness. It is remote 
 because in political conduct we must always deal with the hopes 
 and passions and the fears of men, who, by temperament, education 
 and environment, honestly take different views of public ques- 
 tions even when they are not self-deluded by their self-interest 
 so that they translate their individual advantage or their inherited 
 prejudices into maxims of conduct which they sincerely regard 
 
200 
 
 as ethical. The practical man of affairs is compelled, if he de- 
 sires to accomplish anything, to ask himself often, not whether 
 a particular line of conduct is right, but whether it is expedient; 
 and even those who go most directly to the proper goal are com- 
 pelled to be, to some extent at least, opportunists. Religion in 
 its broadest sense asks of a line of conduct, " Is it right ? " Poli- 
 tics asks, " Is it expedient or opportune ? " A statesman cannot 
 steer his course directly to the harbor and plunge through wave 
 and storm like a great steamer driven by tremendous power 
 within ; he must rather tack and trim his sails to catch the breeze ; 
 and all that we can fairly ask is that in the long run he shall 
 prove to have steered a true course. It is because men in public 
 life must compromise and yield in order to secure their main ob- 
 ject, that the question whether a man is a mere politician or 
 really a statesman is so often left in doubt until after he is dead. 
 
 The difference in the point of view does not prevent the in- 
 teraction of religion and politics one upon the other. Such 
 interaction is inevitable with two subjects of such vast consequence 
 as the theoretical ethical basis of public conduct and the attempt 
 to secure its actual realization. 
 
 One of the great dangers in public life is that the great gen- 
 eral principles which have actuated the past and become the ax- 
 ioms of conduct may, by their very success, become mere com- 
 monplaces, and be lost sight of or disregarded in the strenuous 
 effort to accomplish practical results of apparent immediate im- 
 portance. Our political principles may become atrophied for 
 want of question and discussion. The great principles of relig- 
 ious freedom and political liberty which occupied the attention 
 of the seventeenth and eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, are 
 in danger of being forgotten for want of the debate which at- 
 tended their establishment. They arose out of the fierce heat 
 of political conflict; they may perish because it is no longer nec- 
 essary to struggle in their behalf. 
 
 " Our hearts grow cold, 
 We lightly hold 
 
 A right which brave men died to gain; 
 The stake, the cord, 
 The axe, the sword. 
 Grim nurses at its birth of pain." 
 
201 
 
 Citizens of foreign birth often seem to have a better knowl- 
 edge and a greater appreciation of the fundamental principles of 
 our government than many native born Americans who take 
 their inheritance as a matter of course without stopping to con- 
 sider its value. Our constitutional guarantees themselves have 
 weakened the individual sense of responsibility on the part of 
 the legislator and the private citizen. It is assumed that if an act 
 of legislation is wrong, the courts will find a way to declare it 
 unconstitutional. The courts cannot often do so; their power 
 is not and ought not to be unlimited ; they do not, and they ought 
 not to, act as a third house of the legislature. What is needed 
 is a quickening of the individual conscience to a sense of indi- 
 vidual responsibility in public conduct, and this is a very proper 
 work for religion. It is especially proper at a time like the pres- 
 ent when the old theological conceptions have largely spent their 
 force, and men are coming to hold their political convictions and 
 their economic views with the same fervor with which they once 
 held to their theological convictions. 
 
 The founders of our government were familiar with the doc- 
 trines of political liberty advocated by Locke as the necessary 
 ethical foundation of the " glorious revolution " of 1689, and 
 taught by Montesquieu and Rousseau. Locke and Montesquieu 
 and Rousseau are no longer read by men of affairs. The 
 great questions at issue no longer concern the liberty of the indi- 
 vidual ; they are questions of economics, which have arisen with 
 the tremendous creation of power through the! utilization of 
 steam and electricity in the latter part of the nineteenth century. 
 The churches are to-day giving their attention to efforts to se- 
 cure the material well-being of the people, and the study of 
 sociology is said to be supplanting the study of Hebrew in the 
 theological seminaries. No doubt this is proper, but if in the 
 effort to secure the material comforts of the present we reject 
 the fundamental principles which make material comfort possible 
 for larger numbers than enjoyed it centuries ago, and adopt new 
 notions which discard the experience of the past, we may find 
 that we have made a sad exchange of old lamps for new. 
 " We have a religion," cries a character in a popular play, " and 
 it is socialism." Now socialism rests fundamentally upon the 
 
202 
 
 idea that each man will work for the benefit of all as well as 
 he will for his own individual interest. I am by nature and by 
 training a conservative, but I am not so conservative as to think 
 there is no room for improvement. I am convinced that the 
 era of freedom of contract is better for the human race than the 
 era of the feudal system, but it may be that as the great world 
 spins forever down the ringing grooves of change, human nature 
 may become so perfect that our old-fashioned maxims will be- 
 come out of date. I fear that the time is still in the far distant 
 future. The experience of our municipal governments is not 
 reassuring. Meantime we are forced into a discussion of the 
 most fundamental conceptions of society, involving even the in- 
 stitution of marriage and the right of private property, and the 
 limitations to be imposed upon the right of inheritance. If men 
 are coming to hold their economic notions wath the force of reli- 
 gious convictions, religion has a tremendous task before it in the 
 political sphere. In comparison with this task, the struggle 
 against bribery, and corruption, and graft, whether in their more 
 gross or their more subtle forms, becomes quite insignificant. 
 These are but symptoms. The disease lies deeper. Changes in 
 human society are bound to come and we can look forward to 
 them courageously if they are to come in the future as they have 
 come into English and American institutions in the past by a 
 process of evolution and not by a process of revolution. Freedom 
 has broadened slowly down from precedent to precedent, and so- 
 cial progress will be faster if we go straight forward slowly, step 
 by step, than if we find a more rapid advance checked by " back- 
 ward swinging curves." I distrust the a priori speculations of 
 the closet philosopher, and believe that the success of a social sys- 
 tem depends upon the general average of public intelligence and 
 public virtue more than upon any governmental system or upon 
 legislation. To raise the average of public virtue and public in- 
 telligence is the great work for religion. This is peculiarly the 
 case in a popular government. Such a government naturally is 
 inclined to devote itself to securing the material well-being of 
 the citizen, and to lead men to a consideration of their rights 
 rather than of their duties. Our very prosperity and the in- 
 crease of wealth which has followed our greater mastery over the 
 
203 
 
 forces of nature, bring added dangers in their train. The thirst 
 for pleasure, avarice, the gambling spirit, the spirit of municipal 
 pride and intrigue to which Ferrero traces the downfall of the 
 Roman Republic; and the moral vices of luxury, frivolity, moral 
 degradation, corruption of justice, the mixture of civic arrogance 
 and civic indifference, the spirit of chicanery, the domination of 
 a little minority of rich men, and the servility of the numerous 
 poor, to which he attributes the poverty of Greece, are sure to 
 arise when men think only of their own rights and their own 
 comfort, and not of the rights of others. These vices are with 
 us now as they were with the Greeks of the age of Pericles, the 
 Romans of the later Republic, and the Italians of the renaissance. 
 The parallel between the political situation and the economic 
 conditions and the social wants of those times and of the" present 
 sometimes seems complete. 
 
 The story of the establishment of the power of the Medici in 
 Florence, the Sforzas and Viscontis at Milan, the Caesars at 
 Rome, is not so very different from the story of the rise of Tam- 
 many in New Y'ork, and of the numerous rings and factions 
 which control our municipalities. Thoughtful men often won- 
 der whether a like downfall of our social system will follow. It 
 is in wealthy and prosperous societies under the forms of popular 
 government that the religious spirit is most needed. The great 
 work to be done is to enforce upon men a consideration of their 
 duties as well as their rights, so that they may not think it suffi- 
 cient to say, with the Epicurean, " Let us eat, drink and be 
 merry, for to-morrow we die," or with the Frenchman, " After 
 us the deluge," but may consider others as well as themselves, 
 the future as well as the present. Politics naturally deals with 
 men's rights; religion naturally and properly deals with their 
 duties, and the one ought to serve as a check upon the other. It 
 is not enough to devise new legislation, new primary laws, new 
 registration laws, new ballot laws. These may indeed prevent 
 some of the more open and grosser forms of fraud, but legislative 
 machinery alone will not bring about good government, unless 
 the majority of the voters demand it; and if the majority really 
 demand it, the lack of proper machinery may delay but cannot 
 in the long run prevent the accomplishment of their wishes. Poli- 
 
204 
 
 tidans are not so much' leaders as led, and we see often enough 
 how anxious they are to catch the popular breeze. Keeping your 
 ear to the ground is a feat not unknown in our political history. 
 It is far more important that the heart of the people should be 
 right and under the control of a sensible head than that the ma- 
 chinery for the expression of the popular will should be perfect. 
 Indeed the very perfection of political machinery involves the 
 dangerous necessity of having skilled machinists to run it. A 
 man ignorant of mechanics cannot be trusted with a modem 
 locomotive or the great engines of the Mauretania. Perhaps I 
 am treading on the hot ashes of political conflict, but is it too 
 much to remind you that the direct primary although intended 
 to facilitate the rule of the majority, depends for the successful 
 accomplishment of that result upon the assumption that every citi- 
 zen will take enough interest to vote and that his choice will be 
 narrowed to one of two. If, however, every citizen does not 
 choose to vote but only those vote who have a personal interest 
 to serve, and if the choice is, as generally happens, a choice of 
 several, is there not danger that the plurality will be on the 
 side of the more thoroughly organized and better disciplined 
 body of voters, who have a personal interest in the result and 
 make a trade of politics. If the weapon is a good one, it helps 
 only those who avail themselves of its aid. 
 
 Or take, if you please, the other popular suggestion of the day, — 
 the recall. No doubt it is a great weapon in the hands of the 
 public against an unfaithful servant. It is equally potent, how- 
 ever, to destroy the independence of a faithful official who is 
 manfully withstanding in the interest of justice and right the 
 popular clamor of the moment; and it is a weapon which may 
 prove of great value also to powerful political organizations 
 against a too independent and conscientious representative. Im- 
 agine Burke voting against the prevailing sentiment of Bristol or 
 Senator Lamar defying the mandate of the Mississippi legislature, 
 if the electors or the legislators had had the right of recall. 
 
 No doubt there are two sides to these questions. I can only 
 guess in advance on which side the balance of advantage will lie. 
 But I am quite sure that the success of any scheme in securing 
 better government will depend upon the courage, virtue and patri- 
 
205 
 
 otism of individual citizens. All the political machinery in the 
 world will not supply the place of conscientious and intelligent 
 conviction. Religion can supply not only the instruction but the 
 stimulus. The idea is an old one. Let me quote from a recent 
 book: "Savonarola taught his congregation that every vote en- 
 tailed a solemn responsibility; a single bean wrongly given mi^t 
 prove the ruin of the state. The elector must have in view the 
 glory of God, the welfare of the community, the honor of the 
 state; he ought not to nominate a candidate from private mo- 
 tives, nor reject one who may have wronged him; a candidate 
 should be both good and wise, but if the choice lie between a 
 wise man and one who is good but foolish, the interest of the 
 state requires the former; no man should be elected to an office 
 by way of charity; his poverty must not be relieved to the detri- 
 ment of the public service." 
 
 These are the thoughts of a contemporary of Columbus. They 
 are applicable to the United States in the Twentieth Century. 
 
 The result of the earlier movements of which I have spoken, 
 which found their happy culmination at the time our American 
 governments were established, was to place in the Bills of Rights 
 of our various States and the first ten amendments to the Federal 
 Constitution the great principles of religious freedom, political 
 freedom, freedom of contract and the right of private property. 
 To-day the great questions are the limitations to be imposed upon 
 the rights of personal liberty, of freedom of contract, and of pri- 
 vate property. No one questions that some limitations are 
 proper. Many have already been sustained by the courts. The 
 great danger is that in the struggle between the state and the indi- 
 vidual we may forget the lessons of individual liberty, dearly 
 bought as they were, and may yield too much to the strength of 
 combinations, whether of labor or of capital, or may allow the 
 seeming good of the state to crush the individual; the danger is 
 especially great in a democratic form of government, where the 
 majority rule and possess the tremendous influence of numbers. 
 If the people are to rule righteously, the majority must possess 
 the qualities of great rulers, courage, fortitude, self-sacrifice, loy- 
 alty, patience, persistence, devotion to a great cause, and recogni- 
 tion of the rights of all. " We must educate our rulers," said 
 
206 
 
 Lord Sherbrooke, and we have undertaken the task on a tremend- 
 ous scale. But education in itself may prove a bane rather than 
 a blessing if it increases our wants without increasing our sense 
 of obligation to do right. The great work to be done by reli- 
 gious people is to establish and insist upon the fundamental ethical 
 basis of society, and to work out a proper idea of justice and lib- 
 erty for all, so that the rich may be protected in the enjoyment 
 of their property from envy and from spoliation, and the laborer 
 may be protected from oppression whether of his employer or his 
 fellows, and given as far as possible an opportunity to contract 
 on terms of equality, without infringing the rights of other labor- 
 ers. The difficulties are immense. The task is to determine what 
 is fundamentally right not only for the advantage of the present 
 generation but for human society in the long run, and having de- 
 termined that to persuade men to act with the sense of responsi- 
 bility properly expected from sovereign rulers, and not with a 
 mere view to the material well being of the present moment. 
 
 Disheartened as we must sometimes be at the slow progress 
 which is made, and at the corruption which undoubtedly exists, 
 we need not lose hope. The really great causes have more than 
 once been advanced even in ages of the greatest corruption, and 
 by men whose personal characters were bad. Most of us would 
 agree with Dr. Johnson's hostility to John Wilkes, and yet none 
 of us would be inclined to deny that his services to the cause of 
 political liberty were worthy of being commemorated in the name 
 of a prosperous city of this commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The 
 age which in England preceded the American Revolution was an 
 age of the greatest corruption, having its source in the King him- 
 self, and yet it was an age of great progress for the English peo- 
 ple, not only in the spread of English power but in the rise of a 
 more wholesome public spirit. None of us can forget the more 
 recent example of Mr. Gladstone, who began his public career 
 with the defense of the corruption at the LiverpwDol election, and 
 was enabled through a long life to accomplish more for good 
 government, certainly than any other Englishman of his time. 
 It is unnecessary for me to cite similar instances in our own his- 
 tory. Even during the Civil War, when men were actuated by 
 high ideals to the risk and sacrifice of life, which brought about 
 
207 
 
 the abolition of slavery and the establishment of the Union, cor- 
 ruption was rife; but the spirit of the people was sound. But a 
 few men of high character, devoted to a noble purpose, cannot of 
 themselves bring about or preserve a wholesome state of society. 
 That can only be secured where the general average sense of 
 public duty is high. This is the task which religion has set be- 
 fore it; it is here that it finds its best connection with politics, 
 and it is in the possibility of the prevalence of a proper ethical 
 spirit that the hope of a noble political future must finally rest. 
 We need not, of course, despair in view of the past, but the task 
 is the task of each individual, and if success is to be secured, it 
 must be because each individual realizes that the well-being of his 
 children's children depends not merely upon his own individual 
 good, but the general good of all. 
 
 RELIGION AND SOCIAL SERVICE 
 
 SUMMARY OF ADDRESS BY ALEXANDER JOHNSON, OF FORT WAYNE, 
 INDIANA, GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE 
 OF CHARITIES AND CORRECTION 
 
 You have heard two or more definitions of the word Religion 
 to-day. While we are of one mind on many points, yet I sup- 
 pose it would be impossible to frame an adequate and satisfactory 
 definition of Religion that we could, every one, honestly accept. 
 At the least, however, religion is a force restraining and propul- 
 sive. It ties us back from evil; it impels us to action for good. 
 And in an increasing degree, increasing almost everywhere and 
 in some places with great rapidity, it brings us to the tasks of So- 
 cial Service as the main, if not the only means of satisfying its in- 
 sistent call to action. 
 
 The propulsive force of religion leads to acts of justice and 
 mercy. Micah tells us so in his definition of what the Lord re- 
 quires; James, the Apostle, defines pure religion in similar terms. 
 But may we also claim that as religion demands social service for 
 its satisfaction, so, social service needs religion for its sanction 
 and impelling force? It seems so to me. I know of no worthy 
 social service but has back of it the impelling power of a great, 
 spiritual conviction, and though in some cases the workers ex- 
 
2o8 
 
 pressly disclaim religion and say they labor purely for the love 
 of men, or purely to gratify an inherent desire for social better- 
 ment, yet I find these, like Abou Ben Adhem, among the most 
 religious. The farmer's wife who said " The world's a pretty 
 rough place for lots of folk; it's not going to be rougher because 
 of me," had the instinct of that social service which religion in- 
 spires. 
 
 With the advancing desire for service has come advancing so- 
 cializing. Think for an instant of that most common form of 
 service, the friendly help of the unfortunate. How easy this 
 was to do well in the old simple, village days, how impossible to 
 do it as individuals in our crowded cities. When every one knew 
 every one else and all their affairs, when the need came every 
 hand was open; when the need ceased, the hands closed. Here, 
 in the city, we hardly know the names of neighbors in our own 
 street; we have never seen the dwellers in the back streets and 
 alleys. To help them we must socialize our efforts and create 
 an organized force, or we shall surely do much more harm than 
 good. 
 
 Still more necessary is socialized effort as we go further back 
 than present suffering. We are weary of perpetually giving re- 
 lief which has only a temporary effect, and creates the very de- 
 mand which it satisfies. We ask ourselves what are the causes 
 of these things; how can we remove them, and we find the 
 causes that at first seemed chiefly individual are really further 
 and further back, that they are largely social causes and can only 
 be removed by social efforts. How little can you and I do to 
 remove the horrors of the exploitation of childhood by greed of 
 gain or selfishness of parents. I may resolve that my child shall 
 not labor until he is strong enough. I may inquire as to which 
 goods have been made under such evil conditions and refuse to 
 buy them. But such scattering efforts would have an infinitesi- 
 mal effect. We must join together, inspired by a common re- 
 solve and a burning enthusiasm for humanity, to redress the 
 wrongs of little children. Similarly with the fight against pre- 
 ventable disease, that greatest of all causes of poverty. With 
 the contest against the slums, the infinite source of woe and deg- 
 
209 
 
 radation, the cause of more vice, misery, desertion, inefficiency 
 than any other, if not all the others, what can you and I, as indi- 
 viduals, do? We have no tenements to rent at ao per cent, 
 profit, if left as they are, or 5 per cent, profit if made as they 
 should be. We are not dodging our taxes, which if honestly paid 
 and honestly used would abate the slums and give the poorest 
 clean streets, good sewerage, pure and abundant water supply. 
 For all these and many other social causes we must have united 
 Social Service. 
 
 I have said Social Service requires a sanction and an impera- 
 tive that can only come from a great spiritual conviction, some- 
 thing worthy of the high name of religion. Can we find such 
 3 principle of action which we may all apply to ourselves ? Rather 
 does such a principle find and compel us. I think there is such 
 a one and that it unites within itself the highest truth of science 
 and the highest verity of religion. I find it in the modern theory 
 of the Social Organism, a theory which is growing in importance 
 and in acceptance, which is proclaimed alike in church and 'class 
 room, which at least one school of sociologists claim as one of 
 the fundamental laws of their science. 
 
 What is this Body Politic of which each of us is a part? Is it 
 merely an aggregation of units, gathered together by the hope of 
 making a living, or a fortune, or by the accident of birth? 
 Or is it merely an organization, composed of multitudes of 
 parts that are not necessarily related to each other, although they 
 act and react on one another ? Neither conception seems adequate. 
 Society, this great whole, is an Organism, one living being, com- 
 posed of multitudinous self-conscious cells, yet every one related 
 to every other by ties that cannot be sundered without pain and 
 loss. St. Paul gave us the theory and although some bodies of 
 religious people interpret his doctrine " Ye are all members of one 
 body " in a narrow way, making it apply to the professed mem- 
 bers of some little communion, yet that is not the true interpre- 
 tation. We are all members of one body. The heart or the 
 head or the hand cannot be sick of itself; the whole body is dis- 
 eased. The fever from a wounded limb spreads to every part. 
 So no cell in the great social organism' can be distressed alone, no 
 
2IO 
 
 poor lost creature can be sick or sorry, wronged or wretched, 
 sinful or abused, but you and I to some extent are sick or sorry, 
 wronged or wretched, sinful or abused. 
 
 Our loved and lamented leader in philanthropy in the Middle 
 West, Oscar McCullough, used to say: "When any little child 
 suffers or is in danger, my little child is not safe." I want to 
 go a step further ; I want us all to feel that " when any little 
 child suffers or is wronged, my child suffers and is wronged. 
 Every little child is my child, to help, to protect, to love." 
 
 It is this thought, this passionate claim of oneship with the 
 social being that makes us think of the little boy picking slate 
 on the breakers, or sitting in the dark mine, opening and shut- 
 ting the air trap, of the little girl in the cotton mill, weary and 
 sad, of the poor man dying of tuberculosis in the crowded tene- 
 ment, of the underpaid, overworked laborer, of " the motherless 
 girl whose fingers thin push from her faintly want and sin," of 
 the mother with her baby tugging at her empty breast as she sits 
 at the machine in the sweat shop. 
 
 Friends, these are all ours, a part of us. It is because we re- 
 alize this truth that we are no longer content to live on our beau- 
 tiful, well-paved avenues and leave the slums to rot. We don't 
 so much want fine pictures and libraries in our homes as we want 
 public art galleries and libraries for every boy and girl. We 
 take our summer holiday, but we want the sick babies taken by 
 our fresh air fund, and given pure milk by our milk commission. 
 
 Is this not a Religious Conviction, this theory of the Social 
 Organism? Does it not prove itself religious by calling to us, 
 to us the strong, the happy, the fortunate, to spend and be spent 
 in the service of the less fortunate, our brothers and sisters ? Is it 
 not a corollary, rather a restatement, of the belief in the Brother- 
 hood of man, which eventually leads us to the Fatherhood of God. 
 
 Friends, let us look at this heavenly vision and having once 
 seen it, be like St. Paul, never more unmindful of it. Is the con- 
 ception I have presented to you not worthy to be called the Heav- 
 enly Vision? Gaze upon it until its strength and beauty fill 
 your souls with good will to men. Then shall there be peace 
 on earth to men of good will. 
 
211 
 
 This is my plea for Religion and Social Service and this is how 
 I would define each in terms of the other. 
 
 RELIGION AND MODERN INDUSTRIALISM 
 
 JOHN MITCHELL, LATE PRESIDENT UNITED MINE WORKERS 
 OF AMERICA 
 
 The subject of religion and modern industrialism suggests a 
 discussion covering a wide range of economic, ethical, and moral 
 thought. I take it for granted, however, that I am expected 
 to review the subject from the standpoint of the organized work- 
 men and to develop the theory that there is a common interest be- 
 tween religion and the ethics of the trade union movement. Act- 
 ing on this hypothesis, I wish, at the outset, to lay down as fun- 
 damental the claim that a high religious and moral standard is 
 not consistent with a low industrial ideal. The man who comes 
 mentally and physically exhausted from ten or twelve hours of 
 labor, who has worked in a badly ventilated mine or factory, or 
 whose home is bare and cheerless because his low wages will not 
 permit improvement, is much more apt than his fellow who has 
 worked eight hours amidst healthful surroundings, to seek that 
 stimulus and relaxation which is detrimental to his health and 
 his morals. And in so far as the labor movement contributes to 
 the physical, intellectual and moral development of the workman, 
 it is going hand in hand with the church, which directs its ener- 
 gies toward the moral and spiritual uplift of the people. There 
 can be no fundamental antagonism between religion and trade 
 unionism. As a matter of fact, the great moral lessons taught 
 by the founder of the Christian church find tangible expression in 
 the principles and practices of the wisely governed modern labor 
 organization. 
 
 It is, therefore, a regrettable fact that large numbers of work- 
 ingmen have disconnected themselves from the churches. This ac- 
 tion, however, regrettable as it may be, is not a protest against 
 religion itself but is attributable to an impression that there is, 
 on the part of many of our churches, an absence of sympathy with 
 the ideals of the working people and with the movement through 
 
212 
 
 which they are striving to ameliorate the conditions under which 
 men live and work. 
 
 It is not my purpose to criticise the church because some of its 
 representatives deride and denounce the ideals of the working- 
 men, just as the labor unions should not be criticised and de- 
 nounced because of the occasional intemperate utterances or un- 
 wise actions of some of their leaders and adherents. My own 
 observation and experience have satisfied me that an overwhelm- 
 ing majority of the representatives of all denominations are thor- 
 oughly in sympathy with the struggles of the workmen to secure 
 higher and better standards of life and labor. But I am going 
 to take the liberty of suggesting that in carrying forward the 
 command of the Saviour — " Go ye into all the world and preach 
 the gospel to every creature," it would be of immeasurable ad- 
 vantage both to the church and to the industrial forces if the 
 workingmen themselves and the philosophy, the purpose, and the 
 ideals of their movement were better understood. 
 
 The wage earners are not the irrational, irreligious, and de- 
 structive factors in our social life that their critics and opponents 
 represent them to be. It is the failure to appreciate their real 
 character and the philosophy of their movement that has given 
 wide circulation to erroneous impressions concerning them. 
 
 To understand this philosophy, the ideals and the purpose of 
 the trade union movement, it is necessary that we keep in mind 
 the history of industrial development; that we have a clear com- 
 prehension of the complex problems that characterise modem in- 
 dustrial life ; that we realize the fact that the purpose of the trade 
 imion movement is not so much to secure the advancement of the 
 exceptional workman as it is to bring about the general and grad- 
 ual uplift of the great mass of the wage earners ; and to understand 
 the actions of the organized workmen it is necessary to consider 
 the evils which the trade unions, by such actions, seek to eradi- 
 cate. 
 
 In ancient and mediaeval times the struggle for existence cen- 
 tered in the problem of production; the question of distribution 
 was not a great factor in determining the health or wealth or 
 happiness of the human race. It was not until the invention of 
 machinery and the advent of the factory system, it was not until 
 
213 
 
 society was organized, as it is to-day, on the basis of a minute and 
 complicated division of labor and an extended change and inter- 
 change of commodities, that the question of distribution became the 
 problem the solution of which has taxed the ingenuity of the 
 world's economists and statesmen. 
 
 No one can understand the true nature of trade unionism unless 
 he understands the industrial revolution and what it accomplished. 
 The history of mankind has been more vitally affected by changes 
 in its machines and in its methods of doing business than by any 
 action or council of statesmen or philosophers. What we call 
 tJie modern world, with its huge populations, its giant cities, its 
 political democracy, its growing intensity of life, its contrasts of 
 wealth and poverty — this great, whirling, restless civilization 
 with all its vexing problems — is the offspring largely of changed 
 conditions of producing wealth. 
 
 Trade unionism starts from a recognition of the fact that under 
 present industrial conditions the individual, unorganized work- 
 man cannot bargain advantageously with the employer for the 
 sale of his labor. Since the workingman has no money in reserve 
 and must sell his labor immediately; since he has no knowledge 
 of the market and no skill in bargaining; because he has only his 
 own labor to sell while! the employer engages hundreds or thous- 
 ands of men and can easily do without the services of any particu- 
 lar individual, the workingman, if bargaining on his own account 
 and for himself alone, is at a very great disadvantage. In the 
 individual contract between a powerful employer and a single 
 workman the laborer will secure the worst of it; such a contract 
 usually means that the condition of the poorest and lowest man in 
 the industry will be that which the average man must accept. It 
 was to find a substitute for the individual bargain, which mili- 
 tates against the welfare and happiness of the whole working 
 people, that trade unions were formed. 
 
 It is frequently charged against the union that in policy and 
 practice it reduces to a dead level all the men employed in a 
 given trade ; that the most efficient and the most ambitious are re- 
 duced to the level of the incompetent and the sluggard. This 
 charge is a libel and a pretense. The trade union fixes a mini- 
 mum, not a maximum wage, and the employer is at perfect liberty 
 
214 
 
 to reward the esp>ecially efficient or ambitious workman by paying 
 him higher wages than are fixed by the union. The union does 
 object, however, to one workman being rewarded by an employer 
 when the reward is extracted from the pay envelope of another 
 workman. As a matter of fact, the employers usually fix a maxi- 
 mum wage at the same point at which the union fixes the mini- 
 mum wage; and what is true of wages is also true of hours of 
 labor and other conditions of employment. 
 
 In the course of an address delivered before the National Civic 
 Federation, Mr. Taft, then President-elect, stated : " Time was 
 when everybody who employed labor was opposed to the labor 
 union ; when it was regarded as a menace. That time, I am glad 
 to say, has largely passed away, and the man to-day who objects 
 to the organization of labor should be relegated to the last cen- 
 tury. It has done marvels for labor and will doubtless do more: 
 it will, I doubt not, avoid the reduction to a dead level of all 
 workingmen." 
 
 Trade unionism does not stand for paternalism but for a broad, 
 all-inclusive fraternalism ; it does not stand for the " loyalty " of 
 the workman to his employer but for a fair, reciprocal contract 
 between these two parties. It does not stand for the recognition 
 of a difference in species between employer and workman but it 
 insists upon the substantial equality of all men and for the right 
 of the workers to secure all they can consistent with trade condi- 
 tions. Finally, it does not accept the doctrine of the employer 
 who in giving work to a man assumes that he is conferring a bene- 
 fit upon him, any more than it stands for the opposite doctrine 
 that the acceptance of work confers a favor upon the employer. 
 The ideal of trade unionism is that of two separate, strong, self- 
 respecting and mutually respecting parties freely contracting with 
 each other, with no limitation upon the right of perfect and ab- 
 solute freedom of contract save that which a community, in its 
 wisdom, may determine to be necessary for its own protection. 
 
 Through his trade union the workingman is striving to secure: 
 
 First: A minimum wage which will enable men and women 
 to live in a manner conformable to American standards, to edu- 
 cate their children, and to make adequate provision against sick- 
 ness and old age; 
 
215 
 
 Second: The eight hour workday, which will give him oppor- 
 tunity for the cultivation of home life, the enjoyment of books, 
 music, and wisely employed leisure; 
 
 Third: Legislation making it unlawful for children of tender 
 years and frail physique to be employed in gainful pursuits ; 
 
 Fourth: Laws providing for the safe-guarding of the lives and 
 limbs of workers engaged in dangerous occupations and for com- 
 pensation for loss sustained through injuries suffered in the course 
 of employment; 
 
 Fifth: The progressive improvement of the sanitary, working, 
 and housing conditions of the wage earners; and 
 
 Sixth: The preservation of the constitutional guarantee of free 
 speech, a free press, and trial by jury. 
 
 I shall not consume your time by a lengthy discussion of the ma- 
 terial advancement of the workingman which has been secured 
 through the activities of the trade union, although this very ma- 
 terial gain has been a contributing factor in his physical, intel- 
 lectual, and moral development. 
 
 Those who look only at the surface of things and judge trade 
 unionism by an occasional glimpse are likely to fail to appreciate 
 the uplifting influence of this institution upon the character of the 
 wage earner. Many who admit that trade unions have been suc- 
 cessful in raising wages, shortening hours, and improving the ma- 
 terial conditions of the worker's life, still believe that their effect 
 upon his intellectual and moral tone has been either bad or en- 
 tirely negative. To all, however, who do not view these matters 
 superficially, it must be evident that trade unionism has had ex- 
 actly the opposite effect. Workmen who formerly went from 
 their twelve hours of labor to the nearest saloon now spend their 
 time with their families, improving their minds or enjoying a sen- 
 sible and sane recreation. In most instances increased wages and 
 shorter hours have meant the education and gratification of the 
 intellectual and artistic sense of the workers; have meant books 
 and pictures; have meant a few additional rooms in the house 
 and more decent surroundings generally; have meant a few years' 
 extra schooling for the children; have meant, finally, a general 
 uplifting of the whole working class. Trade unionism has bene- 
 fitted the worker by the emphasis which it has laid upon the wel- 
 
2l6 
 
 fare of the workmgman. Too often the employer has been in- 
 terested chiefly in the amount of production ; he has forgotten the 
 producer in the goods produced. Trade unionists, on the other 
 handi have thrown the emphasis not on the goods but on the 
 man by whom they are produced. It is no longer the machine 
 but the man at the machine that is taking " the center of the 
 stage " in economic thought. 
 
 The trade union distinctly raises the moral tone of the workers 
 by infusing into them a sense of the dignity of labor. There is 
 much lip service paid to the ennobling efEect of labor and to the 
 dignity which it confers upwn the workman, but it is the trade 
 union and the trade union alone which translates these mere pro- 
 fessions into actual deeds. The unionists feel that it is not the 
 work itself but the spirit in which the work is accepted and per- 
 ffarmed that ennobles the worker. The unionist does not believe 
 that man was put upon this earth for no better purpose than cease- 
 lessly to push a piece of wire through a little hole or endlessly to 
 repeat the same simple, uniform operation. He believes, on the 
 contrary, that man should be relieved as far as possible from work 
 partaking of the character of drudgery, but that necessary work 
 should be performed unhesitatingly, uncomplainingly, and consci- 
 entiously. 
 
 If trade unionism has rendered no other service to humanity, 
 it would have justified its existence by its efforts in behalf of 
 working women and children. Unfortunately, society does not 
 seem to feel itself capable of conducting its industries without the 
 aid of its weaker members. With each advance in production, 
 with each increase in wealth and the capacity of producing wealth, 
 women and children in ever larger numbers, are drawn into the 
 industrial vortex. The home, the natural and moral sphere of 
 the woman, has been shattered by the invasion of the machine and 
 the factory system. Through constant association with it we 
 have become hardened to the degrading and humiliating truth 
 that in our society, as at present constituted, hundreds of thou- 
 sands if not millions of women and girls, depending entirely upon 
 their own resources, are compelled to work unduly long hours and 
 for beggarly wages. The trade union seeks to protect the woman 
 morally, physically, and industrially. It demands that she shall 
 
217 
 
 not be employed amidst surroundings that are destructive of her 
 moral and physical health; it demands that she shall not be em- 
 ployed at night work or for excessively long hours; it demands 
 and insists that women shall receive equal pay with men for equal 
 work. In demanding equal pay and healthful surroundings for 
 women, the union not only protects the woman and the home but 
 it protects, also, the standard of living of all wage earners. 
 
 Even more important than the benefits conferred by trade un- 
 ionism upon women workers have been its efforts in behalf of the 
 toiling children. It is hard to reconcile the humanity and 
 vaunted intelligence of this era with the wholesale employment 
 of children in industry. Childhood should be a period of growth 
 and education ; it should be the stage in which the man is trained 
 for future effort and future work. With each advance in civili- 
 zation, with each improvement of mankind, the period of child- 
 hood should be extended, in order that the men and women of 
 the next generation may be mature and developed. In the fac- 
 tory the spring of the child's life snaps and its spirit is com- 
 pletely broken. The outlook upon life of a child emerging illit- 
 erate and listless from five or six years of work at deadening and 
 monotonous labor is not at all encouraging, and it is not to be 
 wondered at that many children from such a task develop into 
 tramps and criminals. 
 
 Apart from the particular and sp)ecial evils of the system as it 
 exists to-day, the policy of extracting work from children and 
 exploiting their slow-growing strength is vicious and self-destruc- 
 tive. A state of society might be conceived in which poverty 
 was so general that even the little children would needs be 
 drafted into the industrial army in order to produce enough to 
 enable society to eke out its existence, but in a nation which has 
 Its millionaires — almost its billionaires — in a society in which 
 production is so far in excess of consumption that thousands of 
 strong men can find no work to do and in which we are building 
 up a permanent army of unemployed, it but emphasizes the evil of 
 a system which permits the exploitation and degradation of chil- 
 dren. 
 
 It seems almost an absurdity, a reflection upon our intelligence, 
 that women and children are compelled to work while strong men 
 
2l8 
 
 chafe in idleness. Thousands and thousands of men who tramp 
 about the country and live off society instead of living for it arc 
 products of a system of unregulated child labor. 
 
 In their efforts to protect the w^oman and the child the trade 
 unions have been assisted by the best men and women from every 
 walk of life, and in these efforts they are entitled to expect and 
 to receive the active support of the church; for surely there can 
 be no more holy and righteous duty than to protect and preserve 
 the womanhood and the childhood of the nation. 
 
 A further evil of modern industrialism which cries aloud for 
 correction is the insecurity of the worker's hold upon existence. 
 It is a strange commentary upon our boasted American civiliza- 
 tion that more men are killed and injured in Industry in the 
 United States than in any other country in the world. It is not 
 my purpose to decry the institutions of my own country, because 
 I believe that with all our failings, with all our sins of omission 
 and commission, we have by far the best and greatest government 
 ever instituted among men ; but I cannot blind myself to the fact 
 that in the matter of providing protection for the life and the safety 
 of the workman and compensating him for the injuries sustained 
 in the course of his employment, we are lagging far behind the 
 nations of the Old World. 
 
 In a letter to the Exposition of Safety Devices and Industrial 
 Hygiene held under the auspices of the American Institute of 
 Social Service, Mr. Roosevelt, then President, expressed thus his 
 views upon this subject : 
 
 " As modern civilization is constantly creating artificial dan- 
 gers of life, limb, and health, it is imperative upon us to provide 
 new safeguards against the new perils. In legislation and in our 
 use of safety devices for the protection of workmen we are far 
 behind European peoples, and in consequence, in the United 
 States, the casualties attendant ujron peaceful industries exceed 
 those which would happen under great perpetual war. Many, 
 even most, of these casualties are preventable, and it is not sup- 
 portable that we should continue a policy under which life and 
 limb are sacrificed because it is supposed to be cheaper to maim 
 and kill men than to protect them." 
 
 In the matter of the health and safety of the workman society 
 
219 
 
 has not yet learned its full lesson. There was a time when the 
 criminal law was a matter of private settlement and a man could 
 relieve himself of responsibility for the murder of his neighbor 
 by making a " blood payment " of so much money to the kinsmen 
 of the murdered man. Our attitude toward preventable accidents 
 is still much the same. If the employer pays a ludicrously in- 
 adequate sum to his injured employee or to the widow of a work- 
 man who has been killed, society assumes that he has performed 
 his full duty and that his concern in the incident has ceased. As 
 a matter of fact, many large employers relieve themselves of finan- 
 cial responsibility for the death or injury of their workmen by 
 a system of insurance in employers' liability companies. In con- 
 sideration of the payment of a small fee for each person em- 
 ployed, these companies guarantee to defend in the courts all 
 suits instituted for damages and to pay to the plaintiffs in such 
 suits any judgment which may be rendered against the employer. 
 Because of this protection it is frequently less expensive to kill 
 or maim a workman than to provide adequate safeguards against 
 his injury. 
 
 If the elimination of the evils that have grown up under mod- 
 ern industrialism, and the consummation of the purposes and ideals 
 to which I have referred would make for the physical, intellectual, 
 and moral uplift of the workingman, and the improvement of 
 society, then the legitimate means by which they are achieved 
 would be a contributing factor in his advancement; and the 
 church, in its effort to broaden and enrich the moral and spiritual 
 life of the people should lend its voice and its support in bring- 
 ing to full fruition these high purposes and lofty ideals. 
 
 I have no hesitancy in saying that the literal application of the 
 Golden Rule would do more to establish righteous industrial and 
 social relations than would the application of any other principle 
 or precept that could be conceived by the human mind. 
 
 It is gratifying to note instances which indicate a growing in- 
 terest in the labor movement on the part of the representatives 
 of the church. Within recent years some of the great religious 
 organizations have established departments and appointed com- 
 missioners to study the needs of the workingmen, and in many 
 of our large cities the local churches have selected ministers who 
 
220 
 
 sit as fraternal delegates in the Central Labor Unions and in 
 that capacity are permitted and invited to discuss the problems 
 of labor. By such action a closer and more sympathetic rela- 
 tionship is being established between the church and the organi- 
 zations of labor. This development argues well for the future. 
 It is, according to some authorities, a return to the attitude of 
 reciprocal interest between the church and the labor movement 
 which existed at the beginning of the Christian era, when, it is 
 claimed, the apostles were actively identified with the ancient 
 guilds — the precursors, in some measure, of the modern trade 
 union. 
 
 In the pursuit of its ideals trade unionism has justified its ex- 
 istence by good works and high purposes. At one time viewed 
 with suspicion by workman and employer alike, it has gained 
 the afEection of one and the enlightened esteem of the other. 
 Slowly and gradually it has progressed toward the fulfillment 
 of its ideals. It has elevated the standard of living of the Ameri- 
 can workman and secured for him higher wages and more leisure; 
 it has increased efficiency, diminished accidents, averted disease, 
 kept the children at school, raised the moral tone of the factory, 
 and improved the relations between employer and employed. In 
 doing so it has stood upon the broad ground of justice and hu- 
 manity. It has defended the weak against the strong, the ex- 
 ploited against the exploiter; has stood for efficiency rather than 
 cheapness, for the producer rather than production; for the man 
 rather than the dollar. It has voiced the claims of the unborn 
 as of the living, and has stayed the hand of that ruthless, near- 
 sighted profit-seeking which would destroy future generations 
 as men wantonly cut down forests. It has aided and educated 
 the newly arrived immigrant, protected the toil of women and 
 children, and fought the battles of the poor in attic, mine, and 
 sweatshop. It has stood for self-respect, for decency, and for 
 dignity; it has stood for education, for religion, and for morality. 
 It has broken down the religious bigotries and racial antagonisms 
 which in former times arrayed man against man, group against 
 group, and nation against nation, and has united in a common 
 bond of fellowship the men and women from every quarter of 
 the earth. It has conferred benefits, made sacrifices, and, un- 
 
221 
 
 fortunately, committed errors. I do not conceal from myself that 
 trade unionism has made its mistakes. No institution fully at- 
 tains its ideal, and men stumble and fall in their upward striving. 
 
 Said that great, humane philosopher, Thomas Carlyle: "This 
 that they call the organization of labour is the universal vital 
 problem of the world." 
 
 I feel that it is entirely within the range of possibility that in 
 the not distant future the church will become so thoroughly in 
 sympathy with the ideals and the philosophy of trade unionism 
 that its ministers will be proud to defend and advocate the cause 
 and the principles of the labor union. 
 
222 
 
 Fifth Topic of the Congress,. 
 
 " RELIGION AND CURRENT REFORMS." 
 
 THE DUTY OF RELIGIOUS LIBERALS TOWARDS 
 THE PEACE MOVEMENT 
 
 DR. WILLIAM I. HULL, OF SWARTHMORE COLLEGE, PENN. 
 
 In the olden days of chivalry, a noble family took for its device 
 the simple words. Noblesse oblige. In our English tongue we 
 interpret this to mean that noble birth or rank compels to noble 
 deeds. So full of high incentive was this pithy motto, that it 
 became the watch-word of noble men and women in every land. 
 I would fain apply it to-day to this Federation of Religious Lil>- 
 erals, in regard to the Peace Movement of our time. 
 
 For if Religion be " the doing of the Word, and not the hearing 
 of it only," and if the Liberal be " he who looketh into the perfect 
 law, the law of liberty, and so continueth," then are Religious 
 Liberals doubly dedicated to the service of the Peace Movement 
 which has arisen so gloriously with the advent of this Twentieth 
 Century. 
 
 During centuries of human history, inhuman and incessant 
 warfare laid its devastating hand upon human lives and upon the 
 fruits of human toil, playing that role in the history of the world 
 which appalling earthquakes play in the history of the earth. 
 But wars have become less frequent in our later centuries, and 
 those w^hich have occurred may be likened to the recurring but 
 subsiding tremors of some great natural convulsion. Fortu- 
 nately for mankind, wars are unlike earthquakes in that they 
 may be prevented. It seems inevitable that men must look for- 
 ward with what equanimity they may to the destruction of San 
 Franciscos or Messinas in the future; but, thank God, the human 
 earthquake of warfare can and shall be prevented. And in this 
 holy warfare against war. Religious Liberals have a plain duty 
 to perform. 
 
 When the mediaeval Church placed itself at the head of the 
 
223 
 
 Crusades, a cry went up from Christendom, " To Jerusalem, to 
 Jerusalem! God wills it!" The enlightened consciences of 
 men in our day have recognized this old battlecry to have been 
 no whit less foolish and pernicious than all the others uttered in 
 the names of the various gods of battle. But with the passing 
 of this and of many another wild and wicked illusion, the faith 
 of men still remains strong that there is a genuine holy warfare 
 to be waged on earth in which they in their religious capacity — 
 their churches militant — must enlist. As standard-bearers on 
 such fields of battle, the world has a right to look to Religious 
 Liberals; and as standard-bearers in the great Peace Movement 
 of our day, these must perform a two-fold task. 
 
 I have compared the warfare of our time to the subsiding 
 tremors of the military earthquakes which harassed the mediaeval 
 world; they are, properly speaking, reversions to the savagery of 
 primitive man, or evidences of the social atavism which is not 
 yet stamped out. Religious Liberals must see to it, in the first 
 place, then, that this atavism is stamped out. 
 
 Again, men groping slowly through centuries of muddied and 
 sluggish thinking in regard to international relations have caught 
 a vision of the light of truth and have begun to devise and estab- 
 lish means for settling their difEerences in a rational and peaceful 
 way. Religious Liberals must see to it, then, in the second place, 
 that this light of truth shall shine ever more bright and brighter 
 and that it shall speedily prevail over the ignorance and sin 
 which have darkened international dealings in the past. 
 
 Let us examine a little more closely this two-fold task. In 
 their struggle against reversion to savagery. Religious Liberals 
 must insist that men shall deal honestly with their intellects and 
 consciences, and interpret the great Mosaic injunction. Thou shalt 
 not kill, to mean uncompromisingly and inevasively that men 
 must not take the lives of their fellow men under any pretext 
 whatsoever. Besides that natural instinct of the brutes which 
 forbids them to seek by organized means to kill their own kind, 
 there must be sounded in the hearts of men the solemn and in- 
 sistent command of reason and morality: Thou, individually or 
 collectively, shalt not kill thy kind. The torch which shone 
 from Sinai's mount so many centuries ago must be kept steadily 
 
224 
 
 burning and flashed from land to land and from soul to soul, if 
 civilization is to be kept from the abyss of savagery out of which 
 it has so painfully climbed. Be it the task of Religious Liberals 
 to prevent that torch from becoming dimmed by the sophistry 
 which denies that killing is murder provided it be done on a 
 large enough scale and by organized, state-sanctioned means. Be 
 it the task of Religious Liberals to prevent that torch from be- 
 coming quenched in the casuistry which pretends that the killing 
 of men is justifiable because of the end which is sought. Let 
 Religion reject the so-called justice which is pedestaled upon the 
 physical and moral victims of warfare. Let Liberals, convinced 
 that even " to further Heaven's ends they dare not break 
 Heaven's laws," deny the name of Liberty to that license which 
 destroys human lives and causes untold human misery, even 
 though material prosperity or even moral progress may follow 
 in its train. Let them say to governments whose function it is 
 to administer law, ye shall not divest yourselves of law beyond 
 the territorial limits of your states and resort for the accomplish- 
 ment of your purposes to violence and force. Let them say to 
 the nations who demand great armies. They that take the sword 
 shall perish by the sword. Let them say to the peoples who de- 
 mand great and ever growing navies, pleading that their warlike 
 preparations are inspired solely by a love of peace: Ye cannot 
 serve both the God of Warfare and the Prince of Peace; for 
 either you will hate the one and love the other, or else you will 
 hold to the one and despise the other. Let them say to the false 
 prophets who teach that if men desire peace they must prepare for 
 war: Ye cannot gather figs from thorns nor grapes from thistles; 
 and if ye sow the wind, ye shall reap the whirlwind. 
 
 Above all, in this path of their duty, Religious Liberals must 
 see to it that their churches are cleansed of the abominations of 
 the dogs of war. There must be no Christianized Woden or 
 Judaized Moloch in the sanctum sanctorum of church or tem- 
 ple. There must be no service of song or prayer or penance 
 designed to procure from the Father of All Mankind a victory 
 on the field of battle for some of His children and death and de- 
 feat for others of them. No minister of God who professes to 
 be about his Father's business, must bless the martial banners 
 
225 
 
 of opposing hosts, or send out Cains from God's holy altars to 
 slay their brother Abels. The missionaries whom they send to 
 foreign lands must be taught that it is not to their country's war- 
 ships cruising off the heathen's coast that they must look for their 
 strength and their protection. The heathen who are sought 
 to be converted to a better mode of life must not receive a Bible 
 from one hand and the menace of a sword from the other. To 
 Religious Liberals, if to any one on God's earth, should be con- 
 fidently entrusted the duty of putting an end forever to the last 
 vestiges of that old method of conversion illustrated by Charles 
 the Great when he drove the Saxon heathens by the thousands, at 
 the edge of the sword, into the baptismal waters. By Religious 
 Liberals, if by any one, must the missionary enterprise of the 
 future be inspired solely by the fearlessness of bodily death, by 
 the forgiveness of persecutors ("not knowing wliat they do"), 
 and by the entire rejection of any aid dependent upon the threat 
 or the reality of physical force. 
 
 There was a time, very recent in our country's history, when 
 sections of the church defended, condoned, or bewailed the ne- 
 cessity of, the institution of human slavery. To-day, there are 
 sections of the church which defend, condone, or bewail the ne- 
 cessity of, human warfare. The call has come clear and clearer 
 to Religious Liberals, in whatever section of the church they 
 may worship, to denounce uncompromisingly the institution of 
 human warfare; to brush aside the shams and sophistries which 
 seek to hide in flaunting or flimsy phrase the whole dark butchery 
 of war ; and to bid men divest their souls of fancied fears which 
 make them hug the iron chains of warlike preparations. It is 
 one high mission of Religion to lead men to face with confi- 
 dence serene that Valley of the Shadow of Death into whidi 
 every mortal must some time pass ; let it be the Religious Liberals' 
 task to bid the nations pursue their paths through life serene and 
 calm, refusing to be terrorized by fear of the subjunctive; refusing 
 to replace the rational and manly motto of Dread Nothing by 
 the hs^sterical one of Dreadnoughts, which means in reality Dread 
 Everything ; refusing to die a thousand deaths in fearing one ; re- 
 fusing to create an atmosphere of suspicion towards this or that 
 other nation; refusing to forge for themselves the chains of their 
 
226 
 
 own slavery; refusing to place a l>urden on their backs which 
 shall bow them to the earth and shut out from their vision not 
 only the truth of heaven but also the truth about their fellow 
 men. 
 
 Let it be the Religious Liberals' second duty as standard 
 bearers in the Cause of Peace, to lead men's minds away from 
 warlike, brutal and foolish means of settling international dis- 
 putes, and towards the discovery and adoption of peaceful, ra- 
 tional and Twentieth Century means. Throughout the gloom 
 of centuries of warfare, the advocates of peace have toiled faith- 
 fully but too often half-despairlngly onward towards some far 
 ofE imagined day when law should take the place of violence in 
 international affairs, and heroic souls have cheered each other 
 by the cry, "There must be refuge! What good gift have our 
 brothers, but it came through toil and strife and loving sacri- 
 fice? " To our eyes, in the dawn of this Twentieth Century, 
 has come the clear vision of that refuge. We have seen the 
 nations twice assembled in conference at The Hague; we have 
 seen them acknowledging in word and deed the fact that they are 
 one single family, each member possessing inalienable rights and 
 bounden duties; we have seen them adopting great codes of law 
 which shall throw the mantle of scientific aid and of human 
 charity over the brutalities of war, and shall restrict the devasta- 
 tions of warfare on land and sea to narrow channels, protecting 
 from its havoc, as far as may be, the great world of peaceful 
 industry and progress. We have seen the comer-stone laid at 
 The Hague of a beautiful Palace of Peace, which is to afford 
 a home to institutions for the peaceful settlement of international 
 disputes, which have already been put into beneficent activity; 
 for here will be housed the international commissions of inquiry, 
 the Permanent Court of Arbitration, with its arbitral tribunals. 
 Permanent Bureau' and Administrative Council, the Interna- 
 tional Prize Court and the Court of Arbitral Justice, — all of 
 which have been adopted or provided for by the two Hague Con- 
 ferences, and some of which have already been put into benefi- 
 cent activity. 
 
 Laying up all these things in our hearts, remembering them 
 faithfully and hopefully, and praying God to be with us still, 
 
227 
 
 lest we forget them, let it be our high privilege and bounden 
 duty as Religious Liberals to emphasize in the midst of war's 
 alarums the great fact that there are available and mandatory 
 these peaceful and honorable means both of settling quarrels and 
 of procuring justice; let us exalt these means above warfare or 
 preparations for warfare, as high as light is above darkness, as 
 heaven is above hell; let our voices in clarion tones ring out 
 above the fears and clamor of the thoughtless or the ambitious 
 the insistent cry, " To The Hague, To The Hague ! God wills 
 it ! " Let them suffer no sophistries as to righteousness and 
 honor being preferable to peace; but, backed by God's word and 
 human experience, let them proclaim that peace is righteousness, 
 that peace and honor are now and forever one and inseparable. 
 
 THE DUTY OF RELIGIOUS LIBERALS TOWARDS 
 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE 
 
 MRS. ANNA GARLIN SPENCER, OF NEW YORK 
 
 The title indicates that the approach of religious liberals to the 
 problems of marriage and divorce may be distinctive; in some 
 respects unlike the approach of religious persons not " liberal." 
 The term liberal is indefinitely suggestive of an attitude of mind 
 freed from bondage to tradition and open to acceptance of logical 
 inference from ascertained facts: and it is becoming associated 
 with a tendency toward that scientific inquiry and that fearless use 
 of the material of knowledge in the area of human experience, 
 which is called radical." Hence, altho all " liberals " may 
 not be radical in the strict sense of that, word, liberality of mind 
 and of temperament lead easily toward acceptance of the radical 
 method in the solutions of problems philosophical, social or per- 
 sonal. The term " religious " has but one root meaning that of 
 loyalty to the sanctities of life; of reverent regard for those inner 
 ties which bind the spirit of man to its ideals, however those ideals 
 may be defined. Therefore religious liberals may be assumed to 
 hold the spiritual interests of the family paramount to all merely 
 superficial considerations of personal wish or social convenience, 
 however they may emancipate themselves from the letter of an- 
 cient laws and custom. 
 
228 
 
 What then is the consistent ethical and helpful attitude of 
 religious liberals toward the problems of marriage and divorce ? 
 
 The serious student of " the social mechanism which constitutes 
 the social order " must approach problems of life and conduct in 
 the modern world in the spirit of scientific inquiry and with avoid- 
 ance of dogmatic theorizing, depending for solution of the most 
 difficult of those problems upon the testimony of human experience 
 as that is interpreted by trained intelligence and disciplined judg- 
 ment. It is in that spirit that the problems of marriage and 
 divorce are approached in this paper, and certain basic considera- 
 tions are summarized at the outset as follows : 
 
 First, Marriage is a social institution, with a natural history of 
 development, to be studied, therefore, as all other social institu- 
 tions should be studied, for actual testimony of human experience 
 concerning what may be decided upon as right, wise and socially 
 desirable under present conditions. " Marriage," says Wester- 
 marck : " is a product of social experience." It has assumed one 
 form or another as varying social needs have seemed to demand; 
 it has been changed from one form to another as other social 
 changes have seemed to require. 
 
 Second, it is generally conceded that the family is the most vital 
 and fundamental institution in society. It is, as Dr. Small well 
 says, " the agency by which the individual is socialized," the inner- 
 most social group by means of which individuals learn how to live 
 together in a social world. It is the focal center of those elements 
 of constancy and of progress in human experience the action and 
 interaction of which secure the spiritual evolution of the race. 
 
 Third, the family in some form is now accepted as the primitive 
 social group, the nursery and kindergarten of the race in its dis- 
 cipline toward cooperative action. We must remember in this 
 connection that, as Staarcke says: "Marriage is rooted in the 
 family, not the family in marriage." That is to say, the human 
 race did not first build up the union of the sexes upon an increas- 
 ingly higher plane, and then, as a secondary process, build up the 
 family group of parents, children, brothers, sisters, grandparents, 
 etc. ; on the contrary, humanity developed the family group as its 
 first attempt at social order, and then fixed its ideals, customs and 
 laws of marriage according to the varying requirements of family 
 life. 
 
229 
 
 Fourth, the union of the sexes and the initial family tendencies 
 have a biological as well as a sociological background, proving that 
 nature has ordained their strength by the depth of their founda- 
 tion in the life-processes. " Marriage," says Howard, " does not 
 belong exclusively to our species." We reach in beasts and in 
 birds conjugal aifection of a high order, and also, in some degree, 
 that perpetuation of the conjugal relation for the benefit of off- 
 spring which is the most substantial and enduring bond of the 
 human family. 
 
 Fifth, we now see that the development of the family has not 
 been in straigjit lines of evolutionary sequence, each culture-stage 
 exactly corresponding in its domestic relationships to an appro- 
 priate general social order. Varying pressure of economic, polit- 
 ical, religious and social influences have produced variations and 
 reactionary conditions in marriage, child-care and other domestic 
 concerns. This makes a special study of the institution of the 
 family, apart from, while connected with, all other social institu- 
 tions, necessary to a clear understanding of the historic back- 
 ground for modern analysis. In general however, we find " the 
 horde or mother-right " the chief if not the universal primitive 
 form of the family. As Lippert says: " The mother and child were 
 the simplest elements of the oldest organization of society." It is 
 to be noted, however, that what has been called the " Matri- 
 archate " is not the feminine parallel of the " Patriarchate." The 
 mother-right was not that of a personal despot like the Roman 
 father; the mother-right was social, a definite expression of tribal 
 unity through blood relationship, as expressed in the vast and 
 widely diffused system of the " totem." No doubt the simple, ob- 
 vious bond of blood first " set the mold " of family allegiance. 
 The more abstract conception of relationship which founded the 
 patriarchal family, that which, as iEschylus makes Apollo say, " es- 
 tablished the male as the generative source of offspring," led to the 
 headship of the chief father over the collective family group and 
 paved the way for an imperial state of masculine rule. The later 
 ideal conception of dual parenthood, with reciprocal rights and ob- 
 ligations between the married pair, and of both in respect to their 
 common children, has been long struggling, under different types 
 of the family order, for a more intelligent and complete recognition. 
 
230 
 
 Accepting these general outlines of past development, we see 
 clearly that we are to-day inheritors of all the ideals, customs and 
 laws which have outlined the experience of the race in respect to 
 family life. We find imbedded in our modern laws traces of the 
 most ancient sanctions and prohibitions concerning marriage, 
 divorce and the care of children. We find in the persisting stat- 
 utes defining " lines of consanguinity " and of " racial intermin- 
 gling " beyond which no man or woman can go in contracting 
 legal marriage, the residuum of the " totem " and other prescrip- 
 tions so early established by rigid custom. We find in the male 
 headship of the family (so strongly intrenched in law that in less 
 than twenty of the commonwealths of the United States is a 
 mother's equal control of the children even now assured) a clear 
 repetition of the patriarchal ideals of the family which for so long 
 placed not only the children but the wife under the absolute power 
 of the father. 
 
 Again, we have in connection with our marriage services, lay and 
 clerical, remnants of "wife sale," a custom nearly universal in 
 some culture-stages of the race. " Who giveth this woman to 
 wife " and " With all my wordly goods I thee endow " echo the 
 changes from the payment of money for the bride from the groom 
 to the father, to the payment by the groom to the bride of a 
 sum which, although he could use its income freely, he must pre- 
 serve in principal as a " dower " (a species of widow and old-age 
 insurance), and which, when divorce began to be allowed the 
 wife, might be ordered returned to her by the court as a protection 
 against poverty. In other portions of modern marriage services 
 we find traces of the opposite stage in marriage custom — that in 
 which the bridegroom was paid for marrying the woman instead 
 of paying for the privilege, the " marriage portions " settled upon 
 American girls who marry foreign noblemen being a picturesque 
 example of this survival. 
 
 In many forms of marriage service in our modern composite 
 society we have a clear and definite survival of the Roman patri- 
 cian ideal of marriage as a sacrament of religion, in which the sole 
 basis of descent of name and property and sole symbol of family 
 autonomy, is an indissoluble bond of wedded allegiance. Latin 
 Christianity, which preserved this patrician ideal of indissoluble 
 
231 
 
 marriage and reconsecrated it in the name of the Christian 
 church, now upholds it as the only true ideal for its obedient fol- 
 lowers. We have, on the other hand, many reminders at the pres- 
 ent day of that opposite type of marriage ideal and ceremony, that 
 which was "bred in the bone" of all peoples of Teutonic stock; 
 namely, the ideal of marriage as a " private contract," a purely 
 " family concern." This Germanic ideal expressed itself in two 
 rituals; the first, the legal contract which alone gave validity to 
 the union, the " Be-wedding," or betrothal, in which the father 
 or guardian or several kinsmen of the bride safeguarded her inter- 
 ests financially and otherwise, especially when the groom was to 
 take her " into another Thane's land " ; and the second, the 
 " Gifta," or nuptials, in which the ritual expressed the more 
 spiritual element of the union. When in Germanic civilization 
 the daughter acquired a veto power respecting her father's choice 
 of her husband, and later even a chance for self-choice, the senti- 
 ments of the " Gifta " expressed this change, and the ritual 
 could be led by either the father, a chosen guardian or an 
 " orator " selected for his ability to lead the responses with distinc- 
 tion ; but in any case the important words must be said by the man 
 and woman concerned most vitally in the transaction, and by both 
 in exactly the same formula. The responses of the English 
 church service, the simple formula of the Friends and many other 
 elements of modern marriage forms are reminders of the old 
 Teutonic " Be-wedding " and " Gifta '" now consolidated into one 
 ritual. 
 
 The childishly romantic " elopements " of the present day hark 
 back still further in primitive instinct to the ages of wife-capture 
 or to the " rescue of the fairy princess " of the days of chivalry, 
 and are evidences of an ever-recurring revolt against the ideal of 
 social obligation in marriage which, under every form of social 
 order, has appeared as the expression of an extreme individualism. 
 
 Rooted deeply in our religious inheritance is the noble Jewish 
 ideal of marriage as a holy estate, to be honored above all other 
 forms of human relationship. This ideal has survived the attacks 
 of the asceticism of early Christianity and emerged without a per- 
 manent smirch from the era in which, as one of the fathers of the 
 church said : " All those are urged to marry, and those alone, 
 
232 
 
 who are unable to bear the superior state of virginity and are not 
 restrained therefrom by solemn vows." 
 
 We have clear evidence of the antiquity of state control over 
 marriage in the requirement, almost universal in modern society, 
 to secure a " license to wed " and the issuance of a certificate 
 referring to the legal quality of the act of marriage. We have 
 not kept the clear, simple and positive affirmation of the sover- 
 eignty of the state in domestic concerns which was established by 
 early forms of Protestant Christian civilization; and we have not 
 yet achieved in a uniform marriage law anything so progressive 
 and socially unifying as that which the genius of Cromwell gave 
 to the brief reign of the English Commonwealth. The early 
 settlers of America, however, preserved clear traces of this states- 
 manlilce statute in the requirement that a magistrate of the state 
 should alone have power to legalize marriages, they being so 
 jealous of the prerogatives of the civil government in this partic- 
 ular that they would not allow a minister to " preach a sermon " 
 on the occasion of a " great marriage," lest he detract from the 
 civil dignity, although he might be " present and make a short ex- 
 hortation." We have not kept the exclusive magisterial function 
 in the marriage ceremony, but we do require that the minister shall 
 recognize his power to legalize the union of a man and a woman 
 as a deleg.ated one, and to say " by the power vested in me by the 
 State I pronounce you husband and wife." 
 
 In retaining the Germanic ideals of the private nature of mar- 
 riage and the sovereignty of personal choice in wedlock, we have 
 yet not lost sight of the primitive function of the family as the 
 seed-plot of civic institutions. Martin Luther said of marriage: 
 " It is the source of domestic and public government, the founda- 
 tion of human society, without which it would fall to pieces." 
 This view has been built into our own social ideals and customs; 
 but we have added a far more tender consideration for the needs 
 and wishes of each member of the family than has been shown in 
 any previous social order, and we are more jealous of the rights 
 of each individual as a unit of society than of the strict autonomy 
 of the family group. This consideration for the individual is 
 giving us greater freedom within the family, and greater ease of 
 separation from the family for those desiring social rearrangement. 
 
233 
 
 The physiology of the family is far more important, be it re- 
 membered, as an object of study than is the pathology of marriage. 
 Even in acute social disease the attention should not be concen- 
 trated upon symptoms of disorder, but constantly fixed upon stan- 
 dards of social health. We need give, therefore, but a few words 
 to the summing up the course of historic evolution in the matter 
 of separation and divorce of married couples. 
 
 In some forms of primitive society divorce was easy for the man, 
 impossible for the woman; in some, easy for both; in others, pos- 
 sible for neither. In the patriarchal family of legal headship 
 vested in the father, divorce could not terminate the religious mar- 
 riage, but there were ways by which the husband could be relieved 
 of conditions which proved intolerable to him. In most forms of 
 social order, domestic conditions, religious ideals and economic 
 restrictions have united to make it diiBcult, when not impossible, 
 for women to escape from matrimonial bonds found irksome; and 
 in most forms of social order arrangements have been made to 
 relieve men, either legally or by social permission, from the 
 efEects of a serious mistake in marriage. Of late we have grown 
 more tolerant of divorce. Women have gained power to manage 
 their own lives outside the marriage bond, which enables them 
 to seek divorce at will; and we are witnessing an increase 
 in domestic changes which to many seems socially dangerous. On 
 tlie other hand there is a growing feeling that the spirit rather 
 than the letter of the marriage vows should be conserved, and 
 although all do not agree with Milton that " divorce is equitable," 
 few are sure that legal dissolutions are always wrong. 
 
 From this tangled mass of tradition and custom, from many 
 periods of confusing inconsistency between ideals and practice, we 
 have come to our modern problems of marriage and divorce. We 
 are now imperatively called upon to evolve a definite, conscious, 
 ethical ideal of the family suited to our present conditions in 
 respect to all other social relations: an ideal which shall guide us 
 in making our laws in the United States more intelligible, more 
 consistent, more uniform, and which shall aid in making our family 
 life more effective for social ends. We have now, as a means 
 to this end, to study, in a freer state than has before been known, 
 the fruits of this mingled social inheritance in the family order; 
 
234 
 
 to preserve such elements of past laws and conditions as suit our 
 present needs, to reject all legal enactments and traditional cus- 
 toms which are outgrown or socially obstructive, and to adopt a 
 radically constructive attitude toward the most vital of all human 
 institutions. The standard which must guide us in this process of 
 utilizing past experience for the benefit of present and future life 
 is the same standard we have to apply to all social institutions; 
 namely, the standard of social serviceableness, in the high sense of 
 that which is conducive to the spiritual evolution of the race. In 
 applying that standard we must ask first, What are the objects of 
 the family? and second. How may those objects be obtained in 
 modern social conditions? 
 
 The first object of the family is the protection, nurture and de- 
 velopment of child life, the process which insures the continuance 
 and the improvement of the race. 
 
 The second object of the family is the external but necessary 
 arrangement by which matters of name, descent, the holding and 
 transfer of property, and the economic support of dependent per- 
 sons are held in the autonomy of a well-knit group, in the midst 
 of a larger social organization less concerned with the welfare of 
 the " solitary set in families." 
 
 The third object of the family is the moral discipline of its 
 members, by means of the closest and most affectional of ties, in 
 the direction of cooperative capacity as members of the state and of 
 society at large. 
 
 The fourth object of the family, and the most modern one, is 
 the development of a free, self-disciplined personality in its mem- 
 bers, as a needed preparation for the rapidly increasing democracy 
 of the modern social order. This last and most modern demand 
 upon the family places upon all ethical leaders of the present time 
 a peculiar task of attempted reincarnation of old sanctions for 
 conduct in new forms suited to the new educational, industrial 
 and political conditions. 
 
 How may we work toward these objects of the family if we 
 accept them as vital and to be sought after? 
 
 First, the primal object of the family, the well-being of off- 
 spring, can alone be secured in the present, and in any future in 
 sight, as it has been in the past, by a measurably stable family life. 
 
235 
 
 attained by a frank and obedient acceptance of marriage as having 
 more than personal significance, that is as being a matter of social 
 concern. Marriage is that central element of sex-union required 
 and developed by the family in accordance with commonly ac- 
 cepted beliefs concerning the objects of the family. Marriage 
 must therefore be looked upon as a subordinate element of the 
 family order, rather than as a purely individualistic contract. 
 Legal separation and divorce are the means by which pathological 
 conditions of family life are regulated in the interests of accepted 
 social organization and accepted claims of personal justice; and 
 therefore separation and divorce are elements of the family order 
 and not purely individualistic terminations of personal contract. 
 We cannot, therefore, accept as valid Milton's ideal of marriage 
 as an arrangement solely for the happiness of men and women. 
 Society in our modern world, more than in ancient times, has to 
 pay the penalty for the wrongdoing, the mistake, or the incom- 
 petency of the parents of children. Marriage is, indeed, the 
 highest means we have for securing the happiness of the majority 
 of human beings; but the happiness of each and all who are mar- 
 ried is not alone the end in an institution upon which we depend 
 as a channel for life's progressive currents. Therefore any form 
 of excessive individualism that ignores or evades social control of 
 marriage, any childish rebellion against the hardships of the legal 
 bond, any revolt of personal whim or selfishness that could not 
 safely become the rule for the majority of humanity, must not 
 be allowed to secure for individuals exemption from social obliga- 
 tion in the married life. Hence we must seek to secure in some 
 form consistent with our modern political and ethical ideals, a 
 form of social control of the family which shall be more efficient 
 than our present confused and hesitant direction. As a first step 
 in that tendency teachers of ethics and religion must place clearly 
 before all sorts and conditions of men and women the supreme 
 need and righteousness of some form of social control of the mod- 
 ern family. With the common acceptance of that ideal the 
 method of its application can be developed with comparative ease. 
 It should be more clearly understood that our own is the first 
 form of civilization that has tried in any large way the experiment 
 of placing the entire burden of the success of the family upon the 
 
236 
 
 characters and capacities of two persons. In primitive social 
 oarders, and in the older civilizations, each married pair and their 
 children were sustained, disciplined and controlled by the collect- 
 ive family order in which they lived. Now we trust two people 
 in early youth, undisciplined, undeveloped, perhaps deficient in 
 mental, moral, physical or economic power, to marry as they will; 
 bear children without let or hindrance; take care of them or not 
 as seems desirable or possible to them; separate with ease with or 
 without legal procedure, and the burden of all the failures in mar- 
 riage are placed directly upon society as a whole. The conse- 
 quences of this daring dependence upon individuals in the family 
 life has brought us to the point where we see clearly that what 
 society accepts in its consequences as its burden, it must control 
 as its right and duty. 
 
 What social institution do we now possess equal to the task of 
 social control of the modern family? But one — the state. 
 
 The old tyranny of tribal custom is gone; the later despotism 
 of the patriarchate is no more; the unquestioned rule of rabbi and 
 priest no longer exists; the family bond is already stretched to 
 cover so wide an area of personal choice that it cannot hold firm 
 against unsafe or unwise choices. The modern state has absorbed 
 within itself the " mother-right " and the " father-rule," the 
 church control and the educational standard. The modern state 
 is the final appeal in individual need and the ultimate authority 
 in social conduct. Of all modern social institutions the state alone 
 is now powerful enough, definite enough and ethical enough, to 
 accept for all mankind alike the responsibility of care, control and 
 development of the individual life. It is therefore the only insti- 
 tution powerful enough, definite enough and ethical enough, to 
 really control, in the interest of social progress, the family, which 
 is the first and most vital agency by which the individual is ren- 
 dered fit for society. 
 
 The most important thing, therefore, for the stability of the 
 family and for the better securing of its primal object of child- 
 care and nurture is insistence upon a uniform civil marriage serv- 
 ice. This should be conditioned upon previous application for 
 license, proper delay in securing evidence that there is no impedi- 
 ment to the marriage, and as careful preliminary inquiry in all 
 
237 
 
 essential matters as may be possible. This civil marriage should 
 be limited in form to such words as persons of all religious faiths 
 could conscientiously use; should be performed in such places as 
 would safeguard privacy and protect from all trivial and coarse 
 associations; should be performed only by special magistrates set 
 aside for this important function and capable of properly represent- 
 ing the dignity and power of the state. It was a backward step 
 in the United States when religious ministers and civil magistrates 
 were put upon the same plane of authority in respect to marriage, 
 even although a civil license was demanded as a preliminary to the 
 nuptial ceremony. We are too divided in ideal and practice in 
 the religious world to-day, we are too deficient in a common 
 standard of what a clergjTnan should be and do, we are too lack- 
 ing in ethical unity in church creeds for any church or all the 
 churches in Christendom combined to safely acquire a right equiv- 
 alent to that of an officer of the state in a matter that concerns the 
 whole of society in such vital fashion as does the organization of 
 family life. It is natural that churches which, like the Jewish, 
 have brought down through the ages the judicial and mandatory 
 powers of the religious ruler should hold on to the control of mar- 
 riage and divorce. It is natural that the Roman Catholic Church, 
 which absorbed the patriarchal forms from Roman civilization, 
 should still feel it a duty to declare what constitutes true mar- 
 riage. It is natural that a sect which, like the Friends, has made 
 the church a form of social organization covering property, educa- 
 tion and other concerns now generally absorbed by the state, 
 should have taken upon itself the control of marriage, along with 
 charity and reformatory work and all forms of social care for the 
 fruits of marriage. But there is great inconsistency in younger 
 sects, small bodies of ultra-protestants which base their union on 
 personal faith alone, asking to be invested with state powers in 
 regard to so important a social service. 
 
 In proportion as religion grows spiritual and individual, in that 
 proportion it grows less ecclesiastical, and therefore less fitted for 
 legal functions. The time has come when great divergence of 
 religious opinion and much weakening of religious discipline make 
 it necessary for social safety and progress that the state assume 
 over all classes of believers and non-believers its rightful suprema- 
 
238 
 
 cy in this matter. Any chosen form may " solemnize " a mar- 
 riage, and the more dear and intimate such ceremony the better. 
 But one form should " legalize " marriage, and that the one by 
 which society safeguards, defines and controls its most indispensable 
 function of family life. For this form, however, we cannot use 
 ill-bred magistrates of inferior courts who have perhaps gained 
 their positions by political trickery; nor can we leave the details 
 of such a ceremony to chance. The beautiful " Halls of Mar- 
 riage " of some European cities might well be reproduced in the 
 United! States, and justices who were no longer capable of the 
 hardest work of the courts, but who had proved themselves of most 
 honorable character, be set aside for this task as a distinction of 
 high social service. 
 
 If we could once thus establish the state in its rightful place 
 of social control of marriage we could begin to do definite things 
 now difficult, if not impossible, to attempt, in order to render the 
 family more stable than it is now. The most vital treatment of 
 pathological conditions in the modern family is not to tinker with 
 divorce but to take radical measures to prevent so many people 
 from marrying who should not marry, and whose parenthood is 
 a social danger and disgrace. The stability of the family depends 
 not solely or chiefly upon keeping people together who have mar- 
 ried, but in removing from the currents of family descent the 
 poisonous elements of physical and psychological degeneracy. Ex- 
 perience has proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the largest 
 producing cause of human misery and social retardation is the mar- 
 riage and breeding of their kind of the feeble-minded, the epileptic, 
 the victims of diseases induced by vicious lives and those of degen- 
 erative psychosis tending toward insanity or crime. We have 
 moie of these degenerates, comparatively speaking, than preceding 
 civilizations, because we keep them alive where under harsher con- 
 ditions nature would kill them off more quickly. We are there- 
 fore under bonds, if we would not have our growth in charity 
 hinder our progress in health and power, to see to it that these un- 
 fortunates do not " bring forth seed after their kind." The state 
 of Indiana has led the way by its statute declaring that " No 
 licence tc/ marry shall be issued where either of the parties is an 
 imbecile, epileptic, of insane mind ; or to any male person who has 
 
239 
 
 been within five years an inmate of any asylum or home for in- 
 digent persons, unless it satisfactorily appears that at the time of 
 application for the marriage license the applicant is able to sup- 
 port a family and likely to do so; nor shall any licence issue when 
 either of the contracting parties is afflicted with a transmissible 
 disease or at the time of making the application under the influ- 
 ence of intoxicating liquors or narcotic drugs." The other way 
 of approaching the end of protecting the family against degen- 
 erative influences is to place in permanent custodial care all those 
 proved unfit for life and therefore unfit for marriage. Unfor- 
 tunately we have only about one-tenth of those needing such 
 custodial care now protected in an adequate manner; but exam- 
 ple is setting in that direction. A tendency also is now started 
 toward the sterilizing of vicious and criminal persons who cannot 
 well be kept in permanent custodial care, but should not be al- 
 lowed to taint the social fabric with their degenerate lives. In 
 increasing measure we must use the power of the state to remove 
 from the problems of marriage and divorce those hopelessly 
 pathological elements known to be most inimical to the welfare 
 of ofEspring and the health of the social body. 
 
 Second : the family autonomy in relation to economic conditions 
 must be adjusted to quite new social demands. The granting of 
 property rights and contract powers to married women, inevitable 
 as a result of new conceptions of individual rights, has disar- 
 ranged the old and simple plan of placing both financial power and 
 economic responsibility in the hands of the male head of the family. 
 The whole question of financial responsibility of men and women 
 toward their " other halves," and of both parents toward their 
 common children, as well as the larger question of economic family 
 responsibility for the care of the aged and helpless members of 
 society, must come up for careful reconsideration now that women 
 have " bankbooks " and minors have " pay envelopes." " Non- 
 support " is often given as a reason for divorce; doubtless oftener 
 than is honest, as the charge often covers more serious offenses 
 against the marriage covenant. The laws under which divorce 
 is granted for this cause, and those by which " alimony " or " sep- 
 arate maintenance " are secured, have not been adjusted consistent- 
 ly to the new financial independence of women, and work injustice, 
 
240 
 
 sometimes to men and sometimes to women, and often to the chil- 
 dren involved. Again, the fact that -women, whether married or 
 single, when doing their work outside the home receive salary or 
 wages, to hold or expend in their ovm right, reacts upon the labor 
 of the housewife within the home in a way not always favorable. 
 Perhaps no one thing of such external nature would tend more to 
 the stability and happiness of average family life to-day than some 
 form of legal and Just appraising of the services of the house- 
 mother in the home. The large area of domestic labor which has 
 been absorbed by the new, machine-dominated industry offers 
 wages to women secured by law. The economic value of the 
 house-mother in those forms of service which have not, and perhaps 
 never can be rendered strictly " productive " in the usual sense of 
 that word, the economic values of intelligent saving, wise 
 spending, the conservation of mental and physical force through 
 family protection and increased happiness, this is not recognized 
 as having any market value. Tlie poet says of a woman : " The 
 charm of her presence was felt when she went." The economic 
 value of the house-mother's service is felt when she dies, or falls 
 ill and the price of her substitute or substitutes is reckoned ! The 
 married state has now to compete in attractiveness to women on its 
 economic side, and for the first time in any large way with inde- 
 pendent earning at some congenial specialized labor for which 
 opportunities of training are offered to girls on all sides. If the 
 persistent devotion of women to the more diffused, and yet seem- 
 ingly vital processes of intensive family service to husband, chil- 
 dren, the aged members of the family and the general home- 
 making, are to be retained, they must come at last to be reckoned 
 at some definite value which will give women a share in the cur- 
 rent family income as well as give her responsibility with man for 
 the common family needs. 
 
 The third object of the family, that of the moral discipline of 
 its members as preparation for larger social cooperation, is now 
 subject to many demands for readjustment, both of ideals and cus- 
 toms. Sociologists are now telling us that the home was never, 
 relatively to other social forces, so weak in power over the individ- 
 ual life. Certainly many elements of common environment assail 
 the integrity of parental control and the established standards of 
 
241 
 
 the home. In the first place ours is a fluid civilization. Those 
 older stays for wandering fancies and weak wills which inhered 
 in a fixed order of things have been taken away and one must 
 carry his conscience with him on his travels or lose it altogether. 
 Family affection no longer nestles about familiar places in the case 
 of the multitude. The " flat " on which the city family perches 
 for a year or less is not the aid to settled habits that the old home- 
 stead was. Again, in this more migratory family life of the pres- 
 ent day the parents are not left in seclusion to impress their own 
 ideals and standards upon their children. The adult world of 
 thought and action has access to children and youth as never be- 
 fore, through the newspaper, the varied entertainments, the public 
 library, the street sights and sounds, the very school itself; so that 
 the shielding of childhood and youth from prevailing world cur- 
 rents to which parents may object is more difiicult than ever be- 
 fore. Again the democratizing of the family, rightly insisted upon 
 as essential to our present political conditions, has its own dangers ; 
 and there must be earnest and intelligent effort to prevent the pay- 
 ment of a price of change more costly than is required. When 
 there was one family head, discipline was comparatively easy to 
 secure along accepted lines. Now that there are " two heads in 
 council," and that even the children are consulted in their own 
 upbringing (as befits potential citizens), it is far more difEcult 
 to decide what one should try to accomplish in parental control, 
 as well as far more difficult to accomplish that which the parents 
 really attempt. Moreover, without intending that particular re- 
 sult, the modern conscious effort toward social improvement is 
 forcibly lessening the trust and confidence of many children in the 
 wisdom and power of their parents and often prematurely depriv- 
 ing them of that ancient safeguard against evil. For example, all 
 enlightened communities are now engaged in a warfare against 
 bodily weakness and disease. In that warfare a certain standard 
 of cleanliness and decency of living is being enforced through the 
 activities of the boards of health. This requires certain radical 
 changes in the ways of living of many people, especially of newly 
 arrived immigrants. A significant illustration of the effect of 
 this activity in behalf of health is to be found in the story of little 
 Anita and her mother. In the fine new public schoolhouse which 
 
242 
 
 Anita attended there were baths and all manner of devices to 
 attract to cleanliness. But Anita refused them all. Whereupon 
 a note was sent to Anita's mother explaining that all the children 
 must take a bath at least once a week in the fine equipment of the 
 school. Whereupon Anita's mother sent the following note: 
 " shall I unsew my child out of the warm woolen clothes I have 
 sewed her into for the winter? No, I will not. Water on the 
 bare skin in winter is not well. She shall be warm and she shall 
 not be wet. I am a good mother. Besides, she goes to school to 
 learn books and not to be washed, and she can learn books if she 
 is dirty." We are all convinced that Anita should be washed, 
 and that very strong moral suasion must be brought to bear to 
 secure that result. But the conflict between the teacher's stan- 
 dards and those of the mother must weaken Anita's confidence 
 in her mother's judgment; and when she gets her "working 
 papers " and her own " pay envelope " at the early age of fourteen 
 she will very likely despise her mother's genuine wisdom of life 
 in ways she most needs to guide and protect her in the industrial 
 struggle. These dangerous chasms between the children and the 
 parents must be bridged so far as possible! by a finer technique of 
 social service than we have yet acquired, or we shall sacrifice too 
 many personal lives in the processes of social advance. 
 
 The fourth object of the family, the development of an efficient 
 personality in each of its members, is also subject to new social 
 demands in ways that give the thoughtful much anxiety. The 
 thoroughgoing and wholly consistent democratization of the family 
 in respect to its adult members is an essential in this process of 
 development of personality, and the democratic state cannot be 
 fully developed until a democratic family insures an interior 
 training for citizenship. In an aristocratic regime one command- 
 ing personality at the head of both the domestic organization and 
 the political body may be sufficient to serve as a model for sub- 
 servient imitation by the mass of people, within and without the 
 home. On the other hand, in a state which demands self-control, 
 self-direction, self-support and self-expression from every normal 
 adult person in its constituency, in order to secure its own ends 
 of progressive political association, the family must be organized 
 in such fashion as to develop these qualities in each of its mem- 
 
243 
 
 bers. The democratization of the family, therefore, is the spirit- 
 ual equivalent of political democracy. As such it is inevitable 
 and wholly desirable ; but its initiation Causes some " growing 
 pains." It is in this area of the development of personality that 
 tendencies develop toward increased divorce. Women are now 
 seeking divorce in larger numbers than men. Under almost every 
 form of marriage men have found a way to mitigate for themselves 
 the tragedy of an undesired domestic bond. Women until these 
 later days of democracy have never, except for short intervals and 
 under unusual conditions (such as those attending the decline of 
 Roman civilization), had freedom of personality either in or out 
 of marriage. As in the phrase of Dr. Johnson, so in law and 
 public opinion, there has been always " a boundless difference 
 between the infidelity of man and woman " which forced women 
 to endure in their husbands that which, manifested in themselves, 
 would have freed their husbands from all marital responsibility. 
 In like manner the self-assertion of rights which in man has been 
 one of the priceless assets in the growth of personality, in woman 
 has been considered a perversion of nature; because until freedom 
 for women was possible therei could be no wholesome avenue of 
 social expression of woman's individuality. 
 
 To-day the ancient object of the family, that of moral discipline 
 for social ends, and the modern object of the family, that of the 
 development of personality for the uses of a democratic social 
 order, are both concerned in lifting the standard of sexual moral- 
 ity, equally for men and for women, to a higher plane. In this 
 process women in their new freedom will not endure the unspeak- 
 able indignities and hopeless suffering they have been compelled 
 to endure in the past. That last outrage upon a chaste wife and 
 faithful mother, enforced physical union with a husband and father 
 whose touch is pollution and whose heritage to his children is 
 disease and death, will less and less be tolerated by individual 
 women or by an enlightened ethical standard. In so far as the in- 
 crease in divorces is a testimony to this movement of women to 
 refuse marital relations with unfit men it is a movement for the 
 benefit of the family and not for its injury. Hence it is as idle 
 as the blowing of the wind' for any solemn company, composed 
 wholly of men and chiefly of ecclesiastics, to pass resolutions call- 
 
244 
 
 ing for the reinstatement of an indissoluble marriage bond and for 
 the subjection of wives to their " conjugal duty " whatever their 
 feelings or condition may be. Permanent and legal separation 
 is now seen to be just and necessary in cases of moral delinquency. 
 Whether such separation shall include power of remarriage is still 
 much mooted in many quarters. It would seem wise to infer from 
 all that one knows of social changes that there must be many 
 methods of readjustment tried before we shall secure such a uni- 
 form law as will do justice both to the individual life and the 
 social claim ; and that hence dogmatism is out of place and careful 
 treatment of each case as it arises, on its own merits, is the safe 
 and helpful method. The tendency, however, in all fields of 
 thought and effort is away from " eternal punishment " here or 
 hereafter, and in the direction of belief in the power of self-recov- 
 ery and of trying even vital experiments of life over again in hope 
 of the better outcome. It is likely that marriage and divorce will 
 prove no exception to this hopeful tendency of moral endeavor. 
 Moreover, so far the testimony of actual life in the countries 
 where no remarriage is allowed shows a lower standard of marital 
 faithfulness, of child-care and of the conservation and culture of 
 the moral nature of the members of the family group, than is 
 shown in the countries that grant absolute divorce for serious 
 causes. The number of divorces and remarriages in our country, 
 although showing considerable marital unhappiness, is not large 
 enough to indicate any widespread social disease. And even if 
 such serious conditions were indicated the chief reliance for cure 
 must be upon the moral development of men and women rather 
 than upon the external pressure of laws. It is true, however, that 
 while proper self-assertion and regard for personal dignity and the 
 conservation of true personality may lead to proper changes in 
 marital relations, the self-assertion of the foolish and the selfish, 
 and the undeveloped may lead to marital changes which are unnec- 
 essary and harmful. The social need in respect to divorce to-day 
 is not to try to hold together by main strength of law and public 
 opinion those who cannot be either morally helpful to each other, 
 truly devoted to the children's welfare, or happy themselves in 
 their present relationship; the social need is rather to prevent sep- 
 arations of married couples on trivial grounds of pique, sudden 
 
245 
 
 temper, childish whim or the mere suggestive power of newspaper 
 scandals. The social need is not for the immediate working out 
 of all details of a uniform law, while yet rapidly changing social 
 and industrial conditions make variety of experimental treatment 
 of cultural value; the social need is rather for a legal provision 
 everywhere which will secure more deliberation before action, 
 more accessible counsel of the wise and good for the foolish and 
 confused, more patient waiting, more earnest trial to " patch it 
 up " and " go on " even when things look dark and threatening. 
 It is becoming more and more the custom to establish special courts 
 for particular classes and kinds of adjudications; such as the " chil- 
 dren's court," the " industrial arbitration court," etc. It has been 
 suggested, and wisely, that there should be a " court of domestic 
 differences," a special legal hearing for those seeking separation 
 or divorce. Into such a special court, founded upon some law 
 giving the state power to exact a deliberate and dignified method 
 of discussion before action, thus preventing haste and vulgar pub- 
 licity, the "probation system" might be introduced; separation 
 securing immediate relief when necessary, but divorce allowed only 
 after patient effort, under the direct control and aid of the court, 
 had failed to render the union successful. Passion and selfishness 
 have put asunder many a couple who could have won a lasting hap- 
 piness together through ethical discipline and wise help in their 
 time of need. 
 
 To many observers the modern increase of divorce is not only an 
 unmitigated evil but a sign of abnormal development in women, 
 and hence a symptom of extreme social disease. It is certainly 
 true that the present condition of women marks an unprecedented 
 social revolution. From the position of a minor they have as- 
 sumed more and more the place of a citizen; from a condition of 
 " status " they have passed to a condition of " contract." Equality 
 of opportunity in education; freedom of choice in employment; 
 economic independence and complete property rights; the mani- 
 fold diversions of a newly acquired social freedom; the emancipa- 
 tion of the home from the work-demands of the handicraft stage of 
 domestic labor, and the effect of machine-dominated industry to 
 give women's work a commercial value; the state appropriation 
 of " women's organic office of teaching " and the consequent em- 
 
246 
 
 ployment of thousands of women as public officials in the schools; 
 the new delight, often almost an intoxication, of free expression 
 of personality in artistic and intellectual fields heretofore closed 
 to all but an infinitesimal fraction of womankind; the splendid 
 enthusiasms for social uplift which the modern power of women 
 opens to their consciousness, with the new opportunity of pouring 
 into service for the public weal women's age-long accumulations 
 of social sympathy — all these things give women a new, and to 
 many a perilous, power of self-assertion. That the great mass of 
 women are still so humbly patient at the old tasks, that 
 they still unquestionably place the welfare of children and 
 even of husbands and the aged and sick of their families before 
 the full realization of their own personal wishes, is proof that the 
 nature of women is essentially social, and her bent unconquerably 
 toward the perfection of family life. It Could not be, however, 
 that so radical a change in the lives and conditions of all " human 
 beings of the mother sex,'' most intimately connected with the cen- 
 tral values of family life as they are, should be effected without 
 some disturbance of that part of the social order we call the family. 
 As in all forms of social disturbance incidental to increase in dem- 
 ocracy, however, the way out is the way on, not the way back. 
 
 The great demand to-day is for a reincarnation of the old sanc- 
 tities of life in new forms. The old ideal of marriage as a sacra- 
 ment of religion has still its place; not in the old form that ele- 
 vates one church ceremony above all other rituals and denies the 
 right of adult human beings to free themselves from intolerable 
 conditions after certain formulae have been pronounced; but in 
 the new form that makes marriage a spiritual bond and its end 
 the moral culture of the race. 
 
 Marriage is indeed, as many ancient peoples believed, a free and 
 private contract; but not one that concerns two people alone, to 
 be formed and dissolved without regard to any law but that of 
 personal happiness. It is private and free in that it has to do with 
 those mysterious yearnings of the inner life that point out from a 
 world of friends the one elect and solitary mate, and thus ordains 
 selective affection as the supreme guide to marriage. 
 
 Marriage is a social arrangement for the initiation of individ- 
 uals into the social order and the old social control of its vital 
 
247 
 
 relationship must persist in forms suited to modern conditions; 
 but the family witnesses more than an external order; it is the 
 tie that binds one generation to another in the spiritual unity of 
 the race. 
 
 Marriage is a school for the development of personal life; it 
 must hold within it more and more room for equal rights, mutual 
 concessions and justly balanced activities; but the family is more 
 than a school for even the finest individuation; it is the innermost 
 temple of sacrificial service of one loved one for another, and in 
 its companionship is wrought out that sacred alchemy of unselfish- 
 ness by means of which " they that lose their lives shall find them." 
 
 It is in the reincarnation of all those spiritual ideals of the race 
 that have embodied themselves in the nobler forms of family life 
 in the past that the composite social order of this modern era must 
 find its own true and consistent ethical laws of the family, of mar- 
 riage and of divorce. This is the vital task of enlightened and 
 consecrated leadership. 
 
 THE DUTY OF RELIGIOUS LIBERALS WITH RE- 
 SPECT TO THE CHILD 
 
 MRS. FREDERICK NATHAN^ OF NEW YORK 
 
 At the conventions of 1904 and 1907 held by the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church, resolutions were passed calling upon Christian 
 employers and parents to make the labor of children impossible 
 in this Christian country. It was pointed out that the employ- 
 ment of children in factories depresses wages, destroys homes and 
 depreciates the human stock. Whatever interferes with the 
 proper education and nurture of the child contradicts the best 
 interests of the nation. 
 
 To pass such a resolution was indeed an admirable thing, but 
 it is unfortunate that most resolutions of this kind stop with the 
 resolution. At all congresses and conventions we hear interesting 
 addresses — some of them — and have the privilege of participat- 
 ing in edifying discussions, but too often the conditions which 
 we deprecate continue for many long years, while we decry them, 
 and alas! we ourselves are often unconsciously the abettors of 
 the evil. 
 
 How many of us present to-day may be wearing or using ar- 
 
a48 
 
 tides, which at some stage of their manufacture, have involved 
 the labor of little children? Recent statistics tell us that in 
 Georgia and the two Carolinas, the centre of the cotton mill in- 
 dustry in the south, one cotton mill operative out of three has 
 been found to be from ten to fifteen years of age. For these 
 three States, nearly one thousand children under ten were re- 
 ported working in the mills. A recent investigation of over half 
 the cotton mills of Mississippi showed that according to a con- 
 servative estimate twenty-five per cent, of the operatives were 
 under fourteen. An investigation made a short time ago under 
 friendly auspices revealed the fact that in South Carolina mills, 
 there wtie fifteen "hundred children employed under twelve years 
 of age. Only last year, through the National Child Labor Com- 
 mittee, Mr. Lewis W. Hine (whose photographs are so well 
 known) visited many of the cotton mills in North and South 
 Carolina and took photographs of the many little ones he found 
 working there. 
 
 It is almost incredible that a progressive people should be so 
 blind as to continue maiming, crippling, stultifying those who are 
 to be the fathers and mothers of the next generation. Mr. Hine 
 found a very large number of children at work. Even one little 
 girl of seven had been working eighteen months. It was not a 
 violation of the South Carolina law for an orphan of five and a 
 half to work in a mill. In another mill, out of two hundred 
 and fifty employees in the spinning room, it was intimated that 
 eighty-five were under the age of sixteen. Upon examining the 
 children, it was found that five out of six were wholly illiterate 
 — could not read or write. 
 
 The number of working children, instead of decreasing as civ- 
 ilization advances, has increased ; it is claimed that in one specific 
 line of trade, the number of girls working has increased six times 
 in amount within the past twenty years. In some factories little 
 girls work all through the long night — twelve long weary 
 hours — amidst the roar and din of machinery, in poorly venti- 
 lated rooms, filled with the lint and dust from the looms, which 
 fill the lungs. The children are sometimes given a strong con- 
 coction of coffee to keep them awake; they are often so exhausted 
 when the night shift is over, that they are seen lying on benches 
 
249 
 
 or on the ground near the factories, too tired and sleepy to go 
 home to breakfast. Of the children between the ages of ten 
 and fourteen employed in cotton mills, 41.3 are illiterate. These 
 are white children born of American parents. 
 
 So it is very likely that those of us who wear cotton under- 
 garments may be innocently encouraging child labor. Then 
 again the cotton undergarment may have been made up in a 
 sweat-shop in New York City. There, wages are so low, sea- 
 sons so short, that every member of the family is utilized. The 
 common income is eked out even by the pennies the little children 
 earn in pulling out the bastings, sewing on buttons, or carrying, 
 on their heads or backs heavy loads to and from the contractors. 
 An agent of the Consumers' League found in an investigation 
 covering only a few blocks in New York City, seventy-six 
 children nine years of age at work, forty-five children eight years 
 of age, and ninety-two children not over seven years of age at 
 work, some of whom were only four, five and six years of age. 
 
 Dr. Annie Daniel, who for many jnears has been connected 
 with the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, testi- 
 fies that she has found babes of three years of age working con- 
 tinuously for one and a half to two hours at a time in their tene- 
 ment homes. She even found one boy of two and a half years 
 old helping his mother and four other children under twelve 
 years of age making artificial flowers. Her most extraordinary 
 experience v/as the discoveiry of a baby of one and a half years 
 old helping to make passementerie. Children over eight years 
 of age who attend school help with the work at home after 
 school hours, frequently working late at night, and on Saturdays 
 and Sundays. 
 
 As Dr. Daniel has well pointed out, children thus permitted 
 to work are deprived of the two great rights which parents and 
 the state are bound to give them : health and an education. The 
 children work in rooms where the atmosphere is foul, where the 
 light is so poor that their eyes suffer from the strain, the evil 
 effect enduring all their lives. Their brains are not sufficiently 
 developed to bear fixed attention and thus enforced concentration 
 to work does irreparable damage. A member of the Governing 
 Board of the Consumers' League, while making some investiga- 
 
250 
 
 tions encountered the tragic case of a little girl only seven years 
 old who, ever since the baby age of three, had been compelled 
 to sit day after day with little legs crossed, pulling out bastings 
 from garments in the course of manufacture. So contorted had 
 her limbs become from lack of use that she had lost control ove 
 them entirely, and it became necessary to send her to a hospital 
 to have an operation performed. The pathos of the situation 
 is increased by the excuse that parents offer for such incidents: 
 " Either the children must work to death, or they must starve to 
 death." In one parochial school of seven hundred children, 
 whose parents were chiefly Italian, it was found that one half 
 of them worked on clothing at home after school hours. Ex- 
 hausted from the lack of sleep, they often fell asleep and were 
 considered backward or stupid. A large proportion of children 
 who work at home are between the ages of five and ten. In an 
 investigation made, it was found that out of 67 children who did 
 not attend school, 40 were violating the compulsory education 
 law and 23 were too young to be protected by its provisions. 
 
 Or again, we may purchase our cotton garments in stores 
 where little children are employed. In many of the States, chil- 
 dren are not so well protected as they are at present in my State. 
 There, no boy or girl under 16 years can be employed after 7 
 p. m. or for more than nine hours a day or more than 54 hours a 
 week. Before this law went into effect, however, we used to 
 find little children working the week before Christmas until half 
 past ten and eleven o'clock at night, twelve and a half long 
 weary hours — which Dr. Jacobi, the medical authority, says is 
 too long a working day even for adult women. 
 
 There is only one practical way of stopping child labor — 
 there is only one practical way of overcoming any evil: reject its 
 product wholly. When our ancestors threw the tea overboard, 
 they rejected the product and the revolution was born ; when 
 the North would no longer countenance slavery in the South, it 
 refused to buy the cotton, sugar and rice produced by slave 
 labor. So if earnest men and women really desire to put a stop 
 to the inhuman practice of placing on the immature shoulders 
 of little children the burdens which rightfully belong to adults, 
 we must all refuse to purchase the product of their baby fingers. 
 
251 
 
 The supply of all articles is regulated by the demand. Let 
 the demand for garments made or finished by child labor cease. 
 This can be accomplished by the public insisting upon a guarantee 
 being furnished, such, for instance, as the National Consumers' 
 League provides in the form of its label, which is only given 
 to those manufacturers who agree in writing to have all their 
 goods made on their own premises, to employ no children under 
 sixteen years of age, to exact no night work, and to obey the State 
 factory laws. 
 
 Unfortunately our appeal to the conscience of the public has 
 not yet met a sufficiently wide response, to warrant the placing 
 of the label on any garments except women's white underwear. 
 Until we succeed in extending the scope of our movement to 
 men's garments as well, they can only prove their heroic devotion 
 to the cause by adopting women's wear! 
 
 Another way that conscientious men and women can do their 
 share in the broad struggle towards abolishing child labor in our 
 midst, is to buy stock in the various industries where children 
 are employed, and then as stock holders let them insist upon the 
 more humane policy of eliminating the child as a factor in in- 
 creasing dividends and decreasing payrolls. 
 
 If your bank accounts will not enable you to undertake 
 so extensive a measure, there is a smaller expenditure sug- 
 gested by the National Child Labor Committee by means 
 of which each of you, religious and liberal men and women 
 can aid in saving the children; we are often asked by prac- 
 tical folk : " What can be done when a child of twelve or 
 thirteen must work in order to increase the small family in- 
 come, — when, for instance, the father is dead or disabled ? " 
 Scholarships have been established by the Child Labor Com- 
 mittees for the purpose of assisting worthy families who are 
 deprived through legislation of the labor of their children. 
 When the case, after a thorough investigation, is found to be 
 worthy, a sum of money equal to the weekly earning capacity of 
 the child is given to the family, so that the child can be kept 
 at school. This method, as a matter of social economy, is wiser 
 than the former method of permitting the child to work and earn 
 
252 
 
 a pittance, and then contributing to the support of the family after 
 the child has broken down physically, mentally or morally. 
 
 It is not only because children are deprived of their natural 
 birthright — the right to grow, to study and to play, when put 
 at work at too early an age, it is also because they are apt to be 
 ruined physically as well as spiritually. 
 
 Children are employed in large numbers in our canneries. We 
 not only wear garments made by little children, but we eat food 
 prepared by them. It is considered most important that the per- 
 ishable goods should not spoil, but there seems to be no compunc- 
 tion about ruining the constitutions of frail children. Conscien- 
 tious investigators report that children of all ages — some mere 
 babies of four — go out from the cities in the vicinity of the can- 
 neries, during the canning season, and work from seven in the 
 morning until nine and ten at night, snatching only a few mo- 
 ments from their work, to eat. The mothers have no time to 
 prepare meals and the children must be contented with hunks 
 of bread; they are often shaken awake to work wearily on when 
 they have dozed over their evening tasks. Sometimes they are 
 compelled to stand all day at these tasks and often the neighbor- 
 ing machinery is unguarded. 
 
 The sheds are not considered technically as part of the factory, 
 and therefore, in my State child labor laws are violated (in the 
 spirit, if not the letter) with impunity. For instance: One 
 woman who worked from five a. m. until nine thirty p. m. had 
 her two little girls aged seven and nine with her and they 
 worked the same length of time, although they complained of 
 being tired and said their limbs ached. The New York Factory 
 Inspector reports that during an investigation made last August, 
 in 52 canneries 593 children under 14 years of age were found at 
 work in sheds, and 123 of them were less than 10 years old. 
 Even more startling is the danger that little ones will be crushed, 
 actually torn to pieces by the huge machinery around which they 
 work. In New York State alone, during the year 1907, there 
 were one hundred and eleven victims of industrial accidents to 
 children under sixteen. This may not seem an extraordinarily 
 large number from the statistician's point of view, but when we 
 consider that it means one hundred and eleven crippled and 
 
253 
 
 maimed human beings, their lives wrecked, their usefulness and 
 happiness at an end, their mothers' hearts wrung, then we realize 
 the enormity of the crime. 
 
 In Indiana there are seventy-five different industries employ- 
 ing child labor. Accidents are so common that in one town a 
 grocer remarked quite casually that there were a dozen small 
 boys in his vicinity who had been crippled in one way or another 
 in the mills. " Every little while," said he, " some one is hurt. 
 Last week a boy had a hand entirely taken off." 
 
 Among other accidents authoritatively reported may be men- 
 tioned : A boy twelve years old working in a coal breaker had his 
 arm torn from his shoulder by being caught in some machinery. 
 He received no monetary compensation and was merely dismissed. 
 A little girl of seven had three fingers torn from her hand by the 
 relentless machinery in a cotton mill. A young boy working in 
 a stock yard was put at work to saw bones at an unguarded ma- 
 chine where his father had just had his hand cut off. These are 
 typical cases found in our country which has become notorious 
 of late for the frequency of preventable accidents. 
 
 The Dangerous Trades Bill whidi has just passed the New 
 York Legislature and which now awaits the Governor's signa- 
 ture is the greatest gain in New York child Labor Legislation 
 (Stained in several years. It absolutely prohibits the employ- 
 ment of children under i6 years of age at dangerous machinery. 
 The new law will specify by name a long list of prohibited occu- 
 pations, which are dangerous on account of rapidly moving or 
 sharp edged machinery or on account of poisonous fumes.* 
 
 One of the worst features of child labor is to be found in the 
 breakers in connection with the coal mines. Official reports re- 
 cord 10,006 boys employed under 16 years of age in Pennsyl- 
 vania's mines and breakers. Not only do they grow up in dense 
 ignorance, but thrown as they are among coarse, hardened, vicious 
 men, in the midst of an environment that in more than one way, 
 is black and sooty, they in turn become hardened and vicious 
 early in life. 
 
 It is estimated that there are seven thousand children employed 
 in the manufacture of tobacco. Any one visiting a cigar factory 
 
 * Since this article was written, the Governor has signed the Bill and 
 the Law goes into effect in October, 1909. 
 
254 
 
 realizes how strong and pungent are the fumes, and how readily 
 the throat contracts and becomes dry and irritated. In winding 
 tobacco about cigars, most of the workers find it quicker to use 
 their teeth than to use the cutter on their tables, so that it is 
 not unusual to find immature children having their systems poi- 
 soned by nicotine. 
 
 In the glass industry it is estimated that there are sixty-four 
 hundred children at work, hundreds of them working all night 
 long. In Pennsylvania alone — according to the Factory In- 
 spector's report — there are 3,000, or 15 1-2 per cent, of all em- 
 ployees in the glass blowing factories, under sixteen years of age. 
 According to statistics of 1905, nearly 10 per cent, of all em- 
 ployees in Pennsylvania were under 16 years of age. (State Bu- 
 reau of Industrial Statistics.) In modern industries in our coun- 
 try, glass-making ranks third among the largest employers of chil- 
 dren, in proportion to the number of adult employees, spinning, 
 a process of silk manufacture, and the cotton industry alone su- 
 perseding it. If the labor demanded of the children were for 
 the daylight hours only, there might not be such serious objec- 
 tions, but the juggernaut of the trade demands night work. It 
 is estimated on the basis of the census report of 1905, there were 
 twelve hundred and seventy-one boys under sixteen years of age 
 doing night work in glass factories in the State of Pennsylvania. 
 There is additional menace to the physical health of the children 
 from the fact that some parts of the factories are heated by the 
 furnaces to an abnormal degree and boys run from such parts to 
 where the temperature is many degrees lower, or often they run 
 out of a cold night for a whiff of fresh air, and get pneumonia 
 in consequence. By alternating, — working one week by day and 
 one week by night — they acquire habits of irregularity which 
 lead to moral as well as physical deterioration. 
 
 While it is estimated that there are 20,000 children under 
 twelve years of age working in Southern mills, it is recorded in 
 the United States census of 1900 that there were then more chil- 
 dren under sixteen working in Pennsylvania mills than in all of 
 the combined Southern Sates. " If Pennsylvania's working chil- 
 dren were to stand shoulder to shoulder, with no space between 
 them, the line would extend twenty-two miles! " In many 
 
255 
 
 States there are no official records, no adequate facilities upon 
 which to base statistics, so that it is difficult to present accurate 
 figures. That is one reason why a National Children's Bureau 
 should be established in Washington, so that we may have some 
 means of ascertaining reliable data concerning the labor of chil- 
 dren in our country. 
 
 While we are striving to get better legislation in our various 
 States for the protection of our children in factories and stores, 
 there are many occupations in which very young children are em- 
 ployed to which the laws do not usually extend. Among these 
 may be included: messenger and telegraph boys (surrounded as 
 they are by special temptations), boys in bowling alleys, in slate 
 and stone quarries, in brick yards and slaughter houses, in black- 
 smith shops and barber shops, in business offices of various kinds, 
 on huckster wagons and at boot black stands. My attention has 
 been called in my city to one little boy of eleven, who gets u|> 
 at 3 a. m. to turn out the street lamps in an outlying district. 
 It is claimed that the law does not apply to him. Messenger 
 boys, instead of receiving a weekly wage, are paid by the piece, 
 and this is often the cause of their downfall. Receiving irregu- 
 lar amounts makes them spend irregularly, and they learn to de- 
 ceive .their parents as to the actual amount they earn, keeping 
 back small sums for illegitimate amusement, such as gambling, 
 or for low picture shows. They also learn to depend upon tips 
 and prefer to be sent to evil resorts because of their likelihood 
 of getting a larger fee. 
 
 In consideration of all these facts, I maintain that far better 
 than passing resolutions at conventions, would be the formation 
 of committees to urge necessary legislation in States where chil- 
 dren are not sufficiently protected, and to insist upon rigid en- 
 forcement of the laws when laws have already been passed re- 
 stricting child labor. 
 
 In my own State, where we have a competent and conscientious 
 Commissioner of Labor, there were found during 1908 three hun- 
 dred and five children under fourteen years of age illegally at 
 work. Nearly $4,500 in fines were collected from employers 
 prosecuted for illegally employing children during 1908. The 
 
256 
 
 Commissioner of Labor reports having found in New York State 
 1,633 children illegally employed, and these figures do not include 
 those found in stores. 
 
 Now it seems to me that a Congress like this should not only 
 set its seal of disapproval against the whole system of child labor, 
 but that each clergyman and each member should individually 
 discountenance such practice. It should be considered just as 
 much of a stigma in the business world to be caught illegally 
 employing little children as it would be to be caught selling short 
 weight to customers or returning them short change. 
 
 The clergymen, — the religious leaders of our country — can 
 do much to bring about such a strong public sentiment as will 
 revolutionize our present industrial system, which overworks 
 minors and leaves an army of adults unemployed. 
 
 The National Child Labor Committee has asked all clergymen 
 to set apart the last Sunday in January of each year as " Child 
 Lsjbor Sunday," when sermons on this text are to be preached. 
 Last year 2,000 clergymen (four times as many as the year be- 
 fore) responded to the appeal, writing for literature. If any 
 clergyman present will cooperate in this manner, the Child Labor 
 Committee will be happy to receive their names, and supply them 
 with information. 
 
 We boast as a nation, of our great commerce; we feel a sense 
 of pride when we consider that we manufacture two billion dol- 
 lars' worth of products a year. But when we realize that about 
 two million little children are permitted to be engaged in those 
 manufactures, we feel rather like bowing our heads with shame 
 and exclaiming with Emerson : " Give us worse cotton, but give 
 us better men." 
 
 THE DUTY OF RELIGIOUS LIBERALS TOWARD 
 THE TEMPERANCE REFORM 
 
 WILSON S. DOAN, OF INDIANAPOUS 
 
 There has been organized opposition to the liquor traffic in 
 America for more than a century. By the fourth generation the 
 subject necessarily is threadbare, unattractive, and sometimes re- 
 pulsive, " Save me from my friends " may well be the cry of 
 
257 
 
 tlie temperance force to-day. No reform ever so suffered at the 
 hands of its friends. On the one hand a wild fanaticism has 
 often characterized its adherents. Its cause has been often es- 
 poused by those who were misinformed as to facts, and illogical 
 as to conclusions; men and women who spend their time deal- 
 ing with abstract propositions rather than common-place condi- 
 tions. And at times this warfare has fallen into the hands of an 
 army of mercenary soldiers who are more interested in the stipends 
 of the warfare than in the cause of humanity; an army of men 
 and women who are enlisted in the battle for a livelihood because 
 of their inefficiency to find any other opening. This is one proxi- 
 mate cause of that great host that stands like a stone wall of in- 
 difference as to this question. Be no fanatic. We need our bet- 
 ter judgment. The fanatical soldier's aim is bad. Keep cool. 
 Shoot straight. 
 
 Do not be a mercenary reformer. Such a reformer alwajrs 
 needs to be reformed ; and to use the language of the street, " put 
 your hands upon your pocket-books," and not into them, when he 
 is near. 
 
 Neither stand like a statue unmoved and indifFerent in the very 
 midst of one of the greatest moral battles of the age. Between 
 the restless sea of fanaticism and the rocky clifEs of indifference 
 and opposition there is a plain path for every patriotic citizen. 
 The question is many-sided. It has a moral, a civic, an educa- 
 tional, an economic, a political, a judicial, a medical and an in- 
 dustrial side. Most of these must in this discussion be eliminated. 
 The question of sumptuary legislation, in so far as it affects the 
 citizen's inherent right to eat and drink what he pleases, must 
 also be eliminated. The question of personal liberty must not 
 be attempted to be moved from the Holy of Holies where the 
 Creator placed it. Leave that question between man and his 
 own conscience. But there is a question which is of paramount 
 importance in this discussion, and that is, what is the character 
 of the saloon as an institution, and what is its effect upon society, 
 and what is your duty toward it? In determining the question 
 of the character of the saloon let us be guided by those rules of 
 evidence which would guide us in determining any other im- 
 portant question. A witness to be most effective must be un- 
 
2S8 
 
 prejudiced. He must have no interest in the case one way or 
 the other, and the weight of his testimony is to be governed by 
 his opportunity to see and to know the things about which he is 
 testifying. With this well known rule in mind let us seek evi- 
 dence as to the character of the saloon and its effect upon society. 
 Let us have the best evidence. So on the ground of prejudice, 
 we will eliminate the professional temperance reformer, for he 
 may well bear the name of crank, keeping in mind the well 
 known definition that a crank is a man who sees one thing very 
 clearly but does not see it in its relation to other things. So, 
 however valuable his testimony may be as to the character of the 
 saloon, for the purpose of this discussion we shall set it aside. 
 
 Shall we take the testimony of the brewer, the saloon-keeper 
 and the bartender ? They do not come within the purview of the 
 best and most weighty evidence. They are parties to the case and 
 are certainly financially interested in the final outcome. So we 
 shall set them aside and seek more disinterested testimony. 
 
 Shall we take the business man? He is busy in the counting 
 room, the office and the store. He has never had an opportunity 
 to know much of the effects of this institution, of this business 
 and its character. Ask him do you know the saloon business, and 
 you will receive the answer at once, I know nothing of it. So for 
 want of knowledge and lack of opportunity to know and under- 
 stand the things about which he is testifying we shall set him 
 aside as a witness. 
 
 Shall we ask the professional politician and the ward-heeler? 
 The saloon is too often his ally, and the bar the marshalling 
 ground of his cohorts. Thus personally interested we will set 
 him aside. 
 
 Shall we ask the Clergy? With all due deference to the per- 
 sonnel of many of this audience I do not believe that the Clergy 
 know the saloon business, and until they do they are not compe- 
 tent to testify. I think they will admit that their testimony is for 
 the most part hear-say, and therefore objectionable. 
 
 But there is a witness whose opportunity of knowledge is un- 
 surpassed, intelligent and unprejudiced. A witness who has had 
 years of training to make his words speak the truth without fear 
 or failure. A witness who has had, as no other witness has, an 
 
259 
 
 opportunity to see and know the character of the saloon, its effect 
 upon human society, its influence, its power, not only upon the 
 individual, but upon the community and the State. This witness 
 is the Courts. Our Courts are not fanatics. They are not prej- 
 udiced. They are supposed to be disinterested. 
 
 They have had better opportunity to know than any one else, 
 in view of the great amount of litigation which the licensed sa- 
 loon has caused in every State in the Union. 
 
 Let the Supreme Court of the United States answer the ques-. 
 tion, " what is the character of the saloon and its effect upon soci- 
 ety?" A united bench, speaking through Justice Brewer, says: 
 " By the general concurrence of opinion of every civilized and 
 Christian Community there are few sources of crime and misery 
 to society equal to the dramshop where intoxicating liquors in 
 small quantities to be drank at the! time are sold indiscriminately 
 to all persons applying. The statistics of every State show a 
 greater amount of crime and misery attributable to the use of ar- 
 dent spirits obtained at these retail liquor saloons than to any 
 other source." 
 
 I submit that the Supreme Court and Justice Brewer are wit- 
 nesses whose testimony carries with it much weight. 
 
 Let the Supreme Court of Kansas answer the same question; 
 and that Court says: "Probably no greater source of crime and 
 sorrow has ever existed than the social drinking saloon. It has 
 caused more drunkenness and made more drunkards than all other 
 causes combined, and drunkenness is a pernicious source of all 
 kinds of crime and sorrow. It is a Pandora's box sending forth 
 innumerable ills and woes, shame and disgrace, indigence, poverty 
 and want — social happiness destroyed, domestic broils and bick- 
 erings engendered, social ties sundered, homes made desolate, fami- 
 lies scattered, sin, crime and untold sorrows; not even hope left, 
 but everything lost. An everlasting farewell to all true happi- 
 ness and to all the nobler aspirations rightfully belonging to every 
 true and virtuous human being." 
 
 Let the Supreme Court of Iowa answer the same question, and 
 that Court says : " There is no statistical or economical proposi- 
 tion better established, not one to which a more general assent 
 is given by the leading and intelligent minds than this, that the 
 
36o 
 
 use of intoxicating liquors as a drink is the cause of more want, 
 pauperism, suffering, crime and public expense than any other 
 cause; and perhaps it should be said than all other causes com- 
 bined. Every State applies the most stringent legal power to lot- 
 teries, gambling, keeping gambling houses and implements, and 
 to debauchery and obscenity, and no one questions the right and 
 justice of it; and yet how small the weight of woe produced 
 by these united when compared with that which is created by the 
 use of intoxicating drinks alone." 
 
 Says the Supreme Court of Missouri: "It is a business which 
 naturally breeds disorder." 
 
 Sa5rs the Supreme Court of Indiana: "That it produces four- 
 fifths to nine-tenths of all the crime committed is the united testi- 
 mony of those judges, prison keepers, sheriffs and others engaged 
 in the administration of the criminal law who have investigated 
 the subject." 
 
 Says the Supreme Court of Illinois : " Saloons demoralize the 
 community, foster vice, produce crime and beggary, want and 
 misery." 
 
 This is the estimate placed upon the saloon by the Courts of 
 final appeal in our land. As loyal American citizens we must 
 accept these decisions as a fair statement of the law of the case. 
 This then is a judicial finding as to the character of the saloon 
 as an institution. 
 
 By the side of this proposition of law let us consider a second 
 proposition. Has it not already occurred to you to ask the ques- 
 tion, " What is a public nuisance? " A public nuisance has been 
 defined to be any occupation that tampers with public morals, that 
 tends to idleness, that is destructive of public health, or that pro- 
 motes crime and disorder. And this definition of a public nui- 
 sance is given by the same Courts of final appeal from which we 
 have been quoting as to the character of the saloon. Every char- 
 acterization of the saloon by these Courts places it within the 
 definition of a public nuisance. These Courts are either wrong 
 in their characterization of the saloon, or for a century we have 
 erred in our definitions of a public nuisance. 
 
 Now let us re-state our question. In so far as it pertains to 
 
26 1 
 
 rile saloon, what is the duty of religious liberals toward a public 
 nuisance? A public nuisance is a public wrong. Is our attitude 
 toward wrong one of permission or one of prohibition ? Ten years 
 before the war William H. Se^vard said : " Slavery is wrong and 
 there is but one way to right it, and that is to abolish it." If the 
 saloon is what the Courts say it is, it is wrong and there is but 
 one way to right it, and that is to prohibit it. The primary func- 
 tion of the State is for the protection of society, and that State fails 
 to do Its duty in the protection of society that for a price permits a 
 wrong. Call this fanaticism if you must. If it be, it is a fanati- 
 cism that robs penitentiaries of their inmates, that robs divorce 
 courts of their defendants, that clears the dockets of Police Courts 
 as no other one can do — a fanaticism that saves the wages, the 
 health, the morals of the laboring man. But if the saloon is to be 
 driven out, how shall we do it. Opinions and theories are com- 
 mon-place things. This age demands results. Resolutions of 
 Churches, conventions and party platforms may be urging decla- 
 rations of war, but in the South and Middle West we are be- 
 yvind the declaratory stage. The war has already begun, and we 
 are fighting the battles now ,' and he who is simply talking of the 
 battles he proposes to fight belongs to the Rip Van Winkle age. 
 Thirty-five years of agitation in most of the States demonstrates 
 the fact that the immediate demands for State-wide prohibition 
 have not been productive of definite results in many common- 
 wealths. General Grant never would have fought his Appomat- 
 tox had it not been for Lookout Mountain, Vicksburg and Sher- 
 man's march to the sea. The last five years have demonstrated' 
 that the most effective warfare against the saloon is along the line 
 of Local Option. The idea of Local Option has been the road to 
 State-wide prohibition in the South, and it has closed the doors of 
 more saloons in America than all other methods combined. The 
 prohibition of such an institution as the saloon should know no ter- 
 ritorial limitations. Do not say the opposition shall be State-wide 
 or not at all; that it shall be as wide as the Nation or not at all. 
 No more illogical position could well be taken. But oppose the sa- 
 loon everywhere — the single saloon, the saloon in the neighbor- 
 hood, in the precinct, in the ward, in the township, in the Munici- 
 
262 
 
 pality, in the county, in the State, and in the Nation. Let us see 
 what weapons have been effective, measured by the standard of 
 results rather than the standard of theories. 
 
 Georgia. — In Georgia a Local Option law drove the saloons 
 out of one hundred and twenty-five counties in a total number 
 of one hundred and forty-six counties, and in 1907 led to a State- 
 wide prohibitory law. It was the campaign in 125 counties, and 
 the hard fought battles in many of them, that not only drove the 
 saloon from these respective counties, but ultimately gave Georgia 
 a prohibitory law. 
 
 Alabama. — Local option in Alabama prior to the enactment of 
 a prohibitory State law had driven out the saloons from 50 coun- 
 ties, out of 67. When they reached that point in the progress of 
 the warfare it was easy for 50 counties to say to 1 7, " we will 
 make the matter State-wide." 
 
 Arkansas. — In Arkansas prior to the prohibitory legislation of 
 1909, 59 out of 79 counties were dry, and there were left only 
 317 saloons in the whole State. 
 
 Mississippi. — In Mississippi prior to the State Prohibitory Law 
 in 1908, 69 counties out of 76 had banished the saloon. This was 
 the road that led Mississippi to prohibition. 
 
 Indiana. — Indiana has 92 counties, and since January, 1909, 48 
 counties have held Local Option elections and driven out the sa- 
 loon in 45 of them; making a total of 64 dry counties within 
 the State. 
 
 Ohio. — In Ohio the first county local option was held Septem- 
 ber 30, igoB. Ohio has 88 counties, and to-day, seven months 
 afterwards, the saloon has been driven out of 63 counties in the 
 State. 
 
 Tennessee. — Tennessee has 92 counties, and they have driven 
 the saloon out of all except 4 counties in the State. There are 
 only five cities in the State where intoxicating liquors as a bev- 
 erage can be obtained. 
 
 Michigan. — Within the last month 19 counties in Michigan, 
 out of 21, drove out the saloon. 
 
 These are the battles fought and victories won. In view of 
 these results local option elections at this time afford the most 
 effective warfare that can be waged against the saloon. The most 
 
263 
 
 ardent advocate of State-wide prohibition will find in this the 
 school-master to bring us to his ideal. 
 
 At the last general election the brewers in Indiana placed upon 
 almost every billboard in the State a placard headed with these 
 words "Local Option Means Prohibition;" and in the Hoosier 
 State we are seeing to it that the brewers' prophecy is being ful- 
 filled, but we are not alone. From the South and the West and 
 the North, and Ohio on the East, the morning paper tells of the 
 tide rising higher; and the storm will e're long strike the staid 
 old citadel of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Our fathers builded nobly in the past. Independence, toler- 
 ance and liberty they handed down to you and me as heirlooms. 
 They smote the rock of education in the desert of ignorance, and 
 the waters of knowledge flowed forth free to the humblest child. 
 They builded hospitals where the unfortunate received the high- 
 est skill and tenderest care; they broke the chains that bound a 
 race and set them free; they penetrated the forest of the Middle 
 West, and where a century ago the Indian wigwams stood, the 
 modern office building now pierces the sky. With prairie schooner 
 they pressed their way onto the western plains and made of them 
 the granaries of the world. They reached the foot of the West- 
 ern Mountains, and cried " open sesame " to them, and the doors 
 of the chambers of silver and gold swung open. But 
 
 " Our fathers to their graves have gone, 
 Their battles past and victories won, 
 But sterner trials wait the race 
 That rises in their honored place." 
 
 As lovers of the home, the cities, the States, the churches, the 
 colleges and the industries, they have given to us men of conscience 
 and men of heart. 
 
 The cry comes. 
 
 To arms, to arms, thi battle cry, 
 
 Save the Nation lest it die, 
 
 Drive from thy shore this curse and woe, 
 
 And write in thy Statutes saloons must go. 
 
264 
 
 TEMPERANCE AND PROHIBITION 
 
 DR. PEDRO ILGEN, PASTOR, OF THE GERMAN EVANGELICAL PROT- 
 ESTANT CHURCH OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, ST. LOUIS, MO. 
 
 From the standpoint of a Christian minister I intend to speak 
 to you on the issue now before the citizens of nearly every State, 
 and in an impassionate spirit, I wish to voice the sentiment of 
 all liberty-loving citizens of this country against the fanaticism 
 of prohibition of any kind, and give the password for common 
 sense, freedom, progression and mutual toleration. The latter 
 are, — does it need any proof ? — the foundation of peaceful civil 
 development and at the same time of a progressive state and na- 
 tion, while statutary prohibition, intolerance and fanaticism are 
 the stepping stones to slavery, revolution and ruin. History as 
 such is one continued proof, is a self-repeating verification of my 
 statement. 
 
 If ever an attempt has been made — I call it a criminal at- 
 tempt — to rob man of his God-given rights, rights acknowledged 
 and sanctified by all religions of a free race, rights guaranteed 
 by the constitutions of all free and progressive nations, it has been 
 made by the prohibition party without any difference of creeds, 
 who have not even grasped the first principle of the moral teach- 
 ings of the great master and friend of humanity: " Love is the ful- 
 fillment of the law ! " Just imagine, my friends, what would 
 happen to our civil and national, to our commercial life, should 
 our present fight end with the victory of followers of principles 
 that identify the Tzar of Russia and his famous methods to crush 
 individuality, freedom of conscience and freedom of speech, and 
 lay in chains the honest convictions of what we call a free Ameri- 
 can citizen? Would it not paralyze the entire organism of our 
 American republic, would it not destroy all that has been built 
 up on this very foundation that marks the American republican 
 principle " Man is free " as the " perpetuum mobile " of our prog- 
 ress? 
 
 Prohibition has carried the torch of a most bitter and passion- 
 ate fight not only into the centres of commerce and of interna- 
 tional exchange, no even the otherwise peaceful villages and cities 
 
265 
 
 of our country have been turned into regular battlefields. The 
 entire nation has become like a house divided in itself. Even the 
 churches, the places of worship dedicated to the cause of peace, 
 have been made — to use the Saviour's words, — " dens of mur- 
 der. ' No matter how harmoniously the church bells may ring 
 and how sweetly tones of the gospel hymns may float through the 
 silence of the Sabbath, — He, whose life was love and whose aim 
 was peace, has had to flee before the hatred and passionate ire of 
 his modern disciples. 
 
 There He stands before the church doors of the modern Phari- 
 sees and while covering his face with his hands. He asks: "Are 
 these the teachers of my gospel, the gospel of love and joy, the 
 gospel of self-directed morality and goodness? It is the teaching 
 of hypocrisy that you have expounded amongst my brethren and 
 the " sermon on the mount " you have shut up in the vaults of 
 your edifices. I gave you the gospel of Christian liberty, of the 
 noble deed, and you teach the gospel of a narrow, intolerant creed ? 
 In place of the freedom of the gospel and the beauty of the king- 
 dom of God in the human heart you have set rules and regula- 
 tions of a state prison, with all the consequences of secret drunken- 
 ness and secret crime. 
 
 / told you: " Man has not been made for the sake of the Sab- 
 bath, but the Sabbath has been made for man's sake ! " You con- 
 demn everybody, even the laborer, who after a week of strenu- 
 ous work and an hour spent in religious worship, seeks an after- 
 noon's recreation for himself and his family, and perhaps com- 
 mits the crime of enjoying a glass of beer. 
 
 / told you: Whatever enters the m.outh of man does not make 
 him impure, and I myself took part in the pleasures of happy 
 people. I ate and drank with them, so they called me a wine- 
 bibber, a debaucher. You want to prohibit your brethren, 
 and if you can all mankind, eating and drinking that, which you 
 don't eat or drink, O ye hypocrites, ye Pharisees! Is my teach- 
 ing in any of its parts compulsory; have I ever taught you the 
 use of brutal force? Have I ever prohibited the use of or con- 
 demned any gift of my Father?" So asks the brother of man- 
 kind, the founder of that universal religion which is so beautiful, 
 where the spirit of its master takes possession of the hearts of men 
 
266 
 
 instead of hatred and the antagonism of his misguided followers. 
 If He should come back to-day and see how the places dedicated 
 in his name for the worship of God are desecrated by the slurs and 
 slings of irrational saints, who in His name trample on the very 
 first principles of his religion and raise instead the banners of in- 
 tolerance, He again would take the whip and drive out the whole 
 brood. 
 
 The principal of ancient Christian churches, the Catholic, the 
 Lutheran, the Episcopal, the Evangelical, have at all times worked 
 for true temperance in all things, and have laid stress on self-re- 
 straint and education. To drunkenness and wilful desecration 
 of the Sabbath they were always opposed, but they have tried to 
 remedy those evils by means of Christian patience and helpful- 
 ness. T^bove all brotherly love and charity has always been their 
 motto and their aim. 
 
 From within, not without, comes true reform and come all the 
 forces aiding the elevation of our race which calls itself free and 
 independent. Let us work accordingly, my friends, citizens of 
 this country, to maintain the prestige of free citizenship that is 
 essential to American honor, American manhood and American 
 ideals. Beware, ye free men, when the day of this combat dawns 
 upon your State, beware of casting j'our vote for the revival and 
 resurrection of the well-known old blue-laws that prohibited 
 even the mother from kissing her darling baby on the Sabbath-day. 
 Rise and turn down the enemy facing you, and show that you can 
 be loyal and law-abiding citizens without being chained like a dog 
 to the prison walls of prohibition. And when you have succeeded 
 in preserving your liberty as free citizens of a free country, show 
 those others who tried to defame and disgrace you by their slanders 
 of intolerance, that you can enjoy your privileges with modera- 
 tion and rightly, that you know the difference between the use 
 and misuse of God's gifts, between the open, well-regulated sa- 
 loon and the dive, between the legitimate enjoyment of all that 
 is good and beautiful in this world of God, — and of unlimited 
 indulgence. In the fullest meaning of the word " Stand up for 
 the constitution of our country, common-sense, Christian princi- 
 ple, freedom and mutual toleration." 
 
267 
 
 Sixth and Closing Topic of the Congress, 
 
 " THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE SPIRIT." 
 
 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL 
 
 BY ISAAC H. CLOTHIER, OF PHILADELPHIA, CHAIRMAN 
 
 It is of course unnecessary for me to take the chair, except as a 
 possible measure of relief to my friend, the president of the asso- 
 ciation, who has borne the burden and heat of the week, and of 
 the previous weeks of preparation for these great gatherings. 
 
 To Henry W. Wilbur, president, to Rev. Charles W. Wendte, 
 secretary, to the two efficient working chairmen of committees, 
 Susan W. Janney and Rev. Charles E. St. John, the thanks of 
 this association are eminently due. 
 
 With the long and fruitful program before us, there would 
 seem to be no excuse for the chairman of the evening to consume 
 any portion of the precious time of this last session. 
 
 There is, however, one point I have had in mind in connection 
 with these noteworthy gatherings, which gatherings under the 
 broad intention outlined should do much good, and which I would 
 like to see yield an abundant harvest. But from the first, as an 
 earnest well-wisher to the cause as I understood it, I have had 
 some uneasiness concerning the situation. 
 
 As I am personally unknown to a considerable number of this 
 body, who are not ' members of the Society of Friends, in whose 
 place of worship we meet, I venture to preface my brief remarks 
 with the statement that In the limited circle in which I move I 
 have never been charged with undue conservatism, but rather with 
 a decided leaning towards liberalism, and without denial on my 
 part. 
 
 The uneasiness referred to has been based on the form of organi- 
 zation, which, it seems to me, tends largely to defeat the avowed 
 object of this great association, and without which, as I conceive, 
 it has no reason for existence in its present form. Of course di'- 
 
268 
 
 tinctively, as Liberals, as leaders of advanced religious and secu- 
 lar thought, you have a perfect right to be associated under any 
 title for religious or philanthropic work, but I have understood 
 that the object sought to be attained was the union on one platform 
 of all religious denominations, similar to the World's Congress 
 of Religions in Chicago in 1893, or the great meeting of last Oc- 
 tober in this house, when sixteen denominations, representing all 
 the historic churches, met in fraternal relations and discussed Wil- 
 liam Penn's Contribution to Religious Liberty. 
 
 I therefore understand the purpose of the organization to be 
 inclusive in its membership of all religious denominations, and ex- 
 clusive of none. If this is still the purpose as outlined in the 
 prospectus issued, which I do not understand as having been dis- 
 avowed, the title of the association is singularly inapt, because, 
 instead of including and inviting all religious sects to participa- 
 tion in the broad and beneficent work, it in effect excludes and 
 repels all who are not in sympathy with the liberal and advanced 
 thought of the day. The fact cannot be overlooked that a large 
 proportion of the Church is composed of conscientious and most 
 excellent people, though somewhat timid where theology is con- 
 cerned, and who look upon the term " liberal " as meaning " rad- 
 ical," and they are not always wrong. The very large body of 
 persons to which I refer are many of them serious minded and 
 deeply religious in their natures, and to my mind are those espe- 
 cially meant to be reached by this great movement, the very per- 
 sons who, more than any others, need to have the faith of the 
 broad church brought home to them, though not in any proselyt- 
 ing sense, and whose participation would be most significant and 
 useful to this great cause of the union of all the churches. I do 
 not hesitate frankly to say that I believe the full object of the as- 
 sociation as thus outlined is unattainable ; but if that be so I would 
 not have the responsibility rest on us, and it is an added reason 
 for care, for caution, for well considered action, so that we may 
 at least accomplish something and not utterly fail in the object 
 sought. 
 
 As regards the title. To my mind there is a distinct difference 
 between the term " Religious Liberals " and " Liberal Religion- 
 
269 
 
 ists," but as I object to the former, I object also to the latter, 
 though in less degree. The title I would select is 
 
 THE NATIONAL CONGRESS OF ALL RELIGIONS 
 
 I believe this title to be wholly unobjectionable from any point 
 of view, and I respectfully submit it for the deliberate Considera- 
 tion of the concerned and thoughtful members of this body. 
 
 I fully recognize the high aims of the sincere and consecrated 
 workers in the cause, and I mean to be the reverse of critical, as 
 my sole object is helpfulness. 
 
 Please bear in mind that I am with you; I am on the liberal 
 side; I train with that regiment. But holding sacredly my own 
 religious views, I as sacredly respect the rights of others, and if I 
 am to be a worker in this particular cause, it must not be under the 
 narrow and exclusive banner of Evangelism, nor the opposing 
 and also exclusive banner of Liberalism, nor under any other ex- 
 clusive banner, but on the broad platform which will welcome 
 all who believe in the " Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood 
 of man," and which extends open arms to the whole membership 
 of the Church Universal. 
 
 LIBERTY AND UNION IN RELIGION 
 
 REV. CHAS. G. AMES, D.D., OF BOSTON 
 
 Mr. Chairman, there may be justice in your criticism of the 
 Congress as lacking in comprehensiveness; but please consider 
 this gathering, not as a review of the Grand Army of Progress, but 
 as one drill of an awkward squad, which yet represents in its 
 miniature way the grandest aspirations of humanity, the desire 
 of nations — the awakened and wide-spread passion for a re- 
 ligious commonwealth. Men want men. They are hungry for 
 brotherhood. To sow the world with comradeship is a divine 
 industry. 
 
 But every army which fights for liberty fights also for union. 
 We would break every yoke of bondage that all men may be 
 free to join hands. The music of broken chains is a rough 
 prelude to the anthem of universal harmony. 
 
270 
 
 And so in the name of the Lord we set up our banners; for 
 this is primarily a spiritual movement. Our declared object is 
 " to promote the religious life." And to do this " by united 
 testimony for sincerity, freedom and progress in religion; by 
 social service; and by a fellowship beyond the lines of sect and 
 creed." 
 
 Liberty, union, religion ! — we would not use these three great 
 words; as they have been degraded by misuse and bad company. 
 We aspire to be " a brotherhood of seekers after the highest 
 truth and the highest life." We would feel after the founda- 
 tions of reality, like the wise man who digs deep and builds on 
 the rock. We give to religion the seat of honor, because under 
 that name clear-seeing and deep-hearted men have gathered the 
 most sacred and vital interests of mankind, which give value to 
 all else. 
 
 Thus religion, is not separate from life, but identical with it — 
 a pervading spirit, dominating all human affairs by divine au- 
 thority, ruling by an inWard law, guided by an inward light. 
 
 The constitution of man is the Maker's revelation, and is the 
 supreme law of our life, anything in the books and the customs 
 notwithstanding. For his own completeness, therefore, each 
 man must live under the law of liberty. He must be unhindered 
 by disturbance from within or pressure from without. But his 
 constitution provides for social relations as one condition of per- 
 sonal completeness and welfare. Self-acquaintance makes us 
 aware that we belong to a larger whole. Thus liberty and 
 union are " one and inseparable," in religion as in the ideal state. 
 The moral order makes room for every body and soul as heaven 
 makes room for all the stars, yes, and for systems of stars. The 
 free, normal life of each and the collective life of all will not 
 be difficult when there is no more crowding. 
 
 We shall get on better when it is once understood that behind 
 all differences reason and goodness mean the same thing to all 
 men. As Dean Stanley says : " All we need is to become wiser 
 and better." We need no other platform for liberty and union, 
 or for religion itself. For do not all men who think, at all, 
 believe in the Power which is everywhere at work " to make 
 the bad good and the good better ? " 
 
271 
 
 These higher interests, like the light and air, are our common 
 possession, about which there need be no quarrel, since there is 
 enough for each and for all. And the more you have the richer 
 I shall be. 
 
 This very simplicity lights our way through the perplexing 
 problems of modern life. No liberty is real which breaks or 
 ignores the social bond. No social order can satisfy which seeks 
 for union at the expense of liberty. No religion can meet our 
 real need or suit our nature which does not unite us in the 
 " sweet reasonableness " of truth and love. 
 
 LIBERTY AND UNITY 
 
 REV. GEORGE H. FERRIS, D.D., PASTOR FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Liberty and Unity are two values that are not easily adjusted. 
 The problem of the one and the many, which lies at the basis of 
 so much philosophical speculation, is manifest here also. In the 
 preface to his little book on " Human Immortality," Professor 
 James denies that his conception of a mental world behind the 
 veil teaches Pantheism, and adds : " There might be many minds 
 behind the scenes, as well as one." Someone has said that human 
 thinking has never found a place for both God and man in the 
 universe. I take it that we are just trying to find a place for both 
 God and man in the church. 
 
 The average Baptist loves independence. Let me say that 
 there is one Baptist who also loves unity. I saw two men once 
 on an ocean steamer, one from northern Poland and the other from 
 a little town in Sicily, sit down and hold a conversation in Latin. 
 I admired the marvelous unity of the great hierarchy that enabled 
 its priests to do that. For a moment the swarm of Protestant 
 sects seemed to me to be the picture of weakness and shame. Then 
 I began to hear something. I heard the thunder of Papal bulls 
 against progress. I heard the crack of the lash that in the last 
 century forced such broad-minded men as Lacordaire, Montalem- 
 bert, and Father Hyacinthe into humiliating retractions, or open 
 rupture. I heard the recent bulls against " Modernism," and 
 the denunciations hurled against Father Tyrrel, Abbe Loisy, and 
 
272 
 
 their like. Then, down across the ages, came the words of old 
 Tertullian : " Schoolboys are proud of their new shoes, but the old 
 Master beats their strutting vanity out of them." In the midst 
 of such meditations the longing for unity vanished. 
 
 I felt it again. I was in the great cathedral in Seville. It 
 was the hour of High Mass. The tones of the organ, as they 
 crept through nave and transept, enchanted the soul. The 
 breathless ascent of the mighty pillars, as they faded in Gothic 
 arches above, filled me with aspiration. Alas for our Protestant 
 sheds and shanties ! I was ready to cry with Lowell : 
 
 " Can our religion cope with deeds like this? " 
 
 Suddenly the host was elevated. The verger came and touched 
 me on the shoulder, commanding me to kneel. I almost did it. 
 I could have done it, if only I could have forgotten. It was not 
 possible to forget the gaunt creatures, who scratched the word 
 " Resist " on the stone floor of the Tour de Constance. It was 
 not possible to forget the wanderings through the valleys of Swit- 
 zerland of the followers of the " Poor Man of Lyons." So I 
 walked out. 
 
 Will someone please tell me what to do? No sooner do I feel 
 comfortable and happy than I feel that touch on my shoulder. I 
 love the orthodox churches. They are full of devotion, of loy- 
 alty, of earnestness, of missionary passion, of works of benevolence. 
 There are times, however, when they insist that truth is best seen 
 through an incense-cloud of dogma. They endeavor, often, to 
 surround a Book with an artificial atmosphere of unworldly adora- 
 tion, and send around their agents to tell us to get down, or get 
 out. The alternative is not pleasant. It is noisy outside. Lib- 
 eralism lacks repose. It jostles us, when we try to pray. 
 
 This is the problem of Liberty and Unity, as I see it. I do not 
 like the average liberal. He laughs at me when I tell him that 
 a church has no right to found itself on a dogma, whether of 
 Trinity or Unity. He does not understand, when I say that we 
 ought to have people in the church who believe in miracles, as 
 well as people who do not. He looks at me with amazement, 
 when I say that I love men, not spectacles; that I long for a 
 spiritual fellowship, not for a faith that is analyzed; that I feel 
 more at home with those who worship an ideal Christ, than with 
 
273 
 
 tkfflse who are able to explain the man Jesus. And yet these great 
 meetings have strengthened me in one conviction. When I take 
 the hand of my friend, Rabbi Krauskopf, and see in his eyes the 
 light of the same Spirit that I worship, I know that if we could 
 get at the heart of any religion we would find the Spirit of alii 
 religion. I am therefore profoundly convinced that the genu- 
 inely liberal man will be one who believes, not less, but more than 
 the orthodox. 
 
 REV. W. H. HAINER, IRVINGTON, N. J. 
 
 I deem it a great honor to be asked to be present to-night at 
 this meeting as one of the body of Christian people known simply 
 as Christians. 
 
 And I am indeed happy in the privilege of being present and 
 participating even in a most humble manner in this closing ses- 
 sion of your splendid Congress, which I sincerely trust will, 
 because of the genuineness of the good fellowship here indulged 
 go into history as one of the most inspiring and helpful sessions 
 of this assembly. 
 
 I bring to you the kindly cordial fellowship and God speed of 
 the Christian Church. While it is true, that as a church we do 
 not endorse all the primciples here represented by the various 
 bodies, it is true that we stand for the heartiest cooperation in 
 every movement that has for its aim the betterment of mankind, 
 and it is clearly perceptible that this is the animating spirit of 
 this Federation of Religious Liberals. 
 
 We delight in your fellowship as a company of man-loving and 
 God-serving people, who without regard to creed have joined 
 forces for the moral and social welfare of mankind. We believe 
 in the Lord Jesus Christ as the divine and only begotten Son of 
 God, and love and worship Him as the Head of the Church, and 
 seek to honor and obey all His teachings, and we honor the words 
 of Peter as in accord with the teachings of Jesus when he said in 
 the Acts of the Apostles 10:34, 35: "Of a truth I perceive that 
 God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth 
 and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him." 
 
 So we are constrained to regard with profoundest respect and 
 cooperation every ambition that tends toward the elevation and 
 
274 
 
 ennoblement of man, even though those ambitions do not con- 
 form in every detail vi'ith our prescribed methods. 
 
 We grant that individual interpretation of the Scriptures is 
 the right and duty of every man, and therefore strongly refrain 
 from every appearance of ecclesiastical domination. 
 
 As Dr. John Burns Weston, representing our body at the In- 
 ternational Congress of Liberals in Boston, said at a meeting in 
 King's Chapel : " Our body came into existence as a protest 
 against ecclesiastical domination and in assertion of liberty of 
 thought and speech." There is a sense in which I may feel as 
 much at ease in this Federation as any other man representing an 
 orthodox body, because of the broad, liberal fellowship which we 
 delight to manifest and extend to all God's people seeking to 
 promote the moral and religious welfare of the sons of earth. 
 
 With just what measure of the future Jane Borthwick's poetic 
 prophecy reckoned, we may not determine, but from the splendid 
 spirit of good will so manifest in this session we may venture to 
 believe that in the not far distant future we may realize in some 
 measure the fulfillment of the same. 
 
 Now is the time approaching. 
 
 By prophets long foretold, 
 When all shall meet together, 
 
 One Shepherd and one fold. 
 
 Now Jew and Gentile meeting 
 
 From many a distant shore. 
 Around one altar kneeling, 
 
 One common Lord adore. 
 
 Let all that now divides us, 
 
 Remove and pass away. 
 Like shadows in the morning 
 
 Before the blaze of day. 
 
 Let all that now unites us 
 
 More sweet and lasting prove, 
 A closer bond of union 
 
 In a blest bond of love. 
 
275 
 
 HENRY MOTTET, D.D., RECTOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY 
 COMMUNION, NEW YORK CITY 
 
 I esteem it an honor to attend this closing meeting, speaking for 
 and bearing greetings from the Church of the Holy Communion, 
 New York. Founded by the Saintly Muhlenberg more than sixty 
 years ago, he began then and there the realization of a dream 
 which finds much of its fulfillment in this National Federation 
 of Religious Liberals. In giving that church its unique name, 
 he emphasized the fact that the Church was to be the Father's 
 House for all of the Father's children, regardless of sect and color. 
 It was to be an absolutely free Church for the holy communion 
 or fellowship of all mankind. As God knows nothing of sect or 
 denomination, so this Church should ever do the same. The re- 
 sult is that this Church, always open, with its frequent services on 
 week days as well as on Sundays, is constantly in use ; while at its 
 Holy Table, prepared for the Master's guests never less than 
 three times each week, the disciples of the Lord meet with Him 
 and with one another, in total disregard of sect or denomination. 
 
 Let this Federation ever stand for and proclaim this kind of 
 catholicity, — the catholicity which so inspiringly characterizes this 
 present conference, — and a long step will have been taken, and 
 a large contribution will have been made toward the ushering in of 
 that yearned for day when there shall be " one flock and one 
 shepherd." 
 
 I congratulate all who have had any share in the planning of 
 this great Conference, and with them I praise God for this nota- 
 ble achievement. 
 
 PERCIVAL CHUBB, OF NEW YORK, LECTURER ETHICAL CULTURE 
 
 SOCIETY 
 
 On the basis of numbers, mine must be the smallest voice heard 
 here to-night — the voice of the extreme left in the parliament of 
 religion. Of us it cannot even be said, — to use the figure em- 
 ployed here to-night, — that we advance under the banner of the 
 Lord. Some of us own no Lord. The fact that anyone should 
 wish to bear aloft the banner that is inscribed with the simple de- 
 vice — Truth, Right and Love, — is enough for us. If there is 
 
276 
 
 anything we would have inscribed on the other side of that banner, 
 it might be that fine saying: "A Life is a Confession of Faith." 
 We admit no other kind of ultimate confession: We ask for no 
 other. 
 
 However, what I chiefly wish to say is how very gladly we, of 
 the Ethical Societies, grasp the hand of fellowship which is ex- 
 tended to us here. We would eagerly embrace every opportunity 
 that is offered — and it comes so seldom — to unite with others 
 in that fellowship of the spirit which is to us the supreme and, in- 
 deed, the only form of religious fellowship. 
 
 For us, it is the only fellowship, I say; for we differ from 
 most of you here as not having or desiring any fellowship in creed 
 among ourselves. Ours is a fellowship in the spirit of truth, but 
 not in any one system of truth; fellowship in love and duty, but 
 not in any one way of justifying, of rationalizing these fruits of 
 the spirit. For us they are self-authenticating, their own excuse 
 for being. It is in no temper of controversy, but to remove a pre- 
 vailing misunderstanding, that I venture to explain that this fun- 
 damental position Is not the result of any light opinion of creeds 
 and philosophies. On the contrary, we expect every one in our 
 religious communion to attempt to build an ever-expanding creed. 
 But because knowledge widens with the years and the centuries, 
 and wisdom grows with living, we regard creeds and philoso- 
 phies as developing continuously with the developing life of the 
 individual and the race. And so, because fixity or finality in 
 creed is impossible, or undesirable even, it is for us a form of 
 intellectual impiety to commit one's self to a philosophy or belief, 
 except in a provisional manner and with the full hope of out- 
 growing it. 
 
 In the spirit of such a fellowship, we would be united with 
 others above all distinctions of sect and race and creed in a great 
 brotherhood of the spirit; and would follow the leadership of 
 Socrates and Buddha and Confucius, no less than that of Jesus 
 and Paul and John ; Aurelius and Emerson, as well as St. Francis 
 and a Kempis; in short, of that great world-wide communion of 
 saints and heroes, who are the cloud of witnesses to the eternal 
 reality of truth and goodness. 
 
 In such spirit, we would unite with all those who would unite 
 
277 
 
 with us in battling for the things which will lift us and the men 
 of our generation above the crippling narrowness of their political 
 creeds, purging them of what is partisan and selfish, and above 
 the bitter sectarianism of our sociological creeds, our extremes of 
 socialism and anarchism. Let us be as sturdily as we will social- 
 ists or anarchists; but let our fellowship of the spirit lift us out 
 of the dark valley of sectarian zeal up to the hilltop of the widest 
 human vision and sympathy. 
 
 In short, in this fellowship of the spirit we would work to- 
 gether with all of you for those things which we have failed to 
 gain because we have not been magnanimous enough to work to- 
 gether. We would, for example, work for peace in these days of 
 menacing war. How shameful it is that the voices of all of us — 
 especially of those who are followers of the Prince of Peace — 
 should not ring out in thunderous protest against the impious mili- 
 tarism that is laying waste life and treasure and sowing the dragon 
 teeth of hate among the nations! We would work together with 
 all against the secular-mindedness and vulgar materialism of the 
 age ; — the lack of reverence and of modesty ; against the fanati- 
 cism of sport, — the epidemic of card-playing ; against the reckless 
 extravagance, the spirit of indulgence and of luxury which seems 
 to be getting more and more rampant in our great cities. Fi- 
 nally, we would be united with you all in promoting that prac- 
 tical faith in the power of the spirit itself, — the power of ideas 
 and the power of character, which, despite all our differences, 
 means very much the same thing to us all. 
 
 DR. JESSE H. HOLMES, SWARTHMORE COLLEGE, PENN. 
 
 I have felt this evening for the first time a slight regret that 
 the Society of Friends should have adopted the name which it 
 bears, because it seems to me that the name " Society of Friends " 
 would be so eminently appropriate for this federation. The tie 
 that should bind this company together is surely that of friend- 
 ship rather than any community of belief or any formal manner 
 of conducting religious worship. 
 
 With this fact in mind I am going to take it on myself, under 
 the system of anarchy which characterizes the government of the 
 Friends, to invite this whole company into immediate membership, 
 
278 
 
 and I shall from this time on count you all as members of a Soci- 
 ety of Friends. At the same time I do not doubt that others 
 represented here will gladly receive us all into their church rela- 
 tionship as well, and I do not question that we can equally well 
 accept their invitations. We can all be Baptists after the bap- 
 tism of the spirit felt in the address of the first speaker; we can 
 all be Christians; we can all be disciples; we alike recognize the 
 unity of God and of humanity, and of the universal hope for man 
 that there is in the universal fatherhood of God. Remembering 
 also A\-hat the sacred writings of the Hebrew people have been to 
 the Western world, remembering the burning words of their 
 prophets, and that the great prophet from whom we take the name 
 of Christian was himself a Jew, who is there among us who will 
 not gladly feel himself of the congregation of the Synagogue? 
 
 This federation has been advised by one of the great leaders of 
 liberal thought not to separate without actually having done some- 
 thing. There is a phrase of the Society of Friends which I have 
 not often used, and which has usually aroused in me feelings of 
 repugnance and opposition. I refer to the phrase " creaturely 
 activity." The request that this federation shall " do something " 
 has given that term a meaning which I am inclined to approve. I 
 shall be satisfied if it cannot be said of this federation that it is 
 responsible for " creaturely activity." The coming together of 
 this federation is in itself " doing something." The meetings 
 marked with harmony and sympathy are of themselves an accom- 
 plishment in the direction of the unity of mankind. They are a 
 protest against that false religion which sets men apart in mutu- 
 ally repellant groups, each asserting: "I am holier than thou." 
 The federation recognizes the possibility and the value of a di- 
 versity which eventuates in a more perfect oneness. While these 
 meetings have not been, and in my judgment should not be, ex- 
 ecutive sessions where external things should be accomplished, it 
 is to do something and to do much that a thousand and more shall 
 go from this place strengthened and uplifted in their life work. — 
 more truly dedicated to the service of man. The teacher will go 
 to his desk with a truer and deeper consecration ; the merchant will 
 serve his customer as one who clothes the naked; the farmer will 
 
279 
 
 labor to feed the hungry, and all will feel more deeply the soli- 
 darity of the human brotherhood. 
 
 There is only one barrier that stands between us and that Ideal 
 humanity toward which we strive, and it is not mountain ranges, 
 uncharted deserts, or trackless seas that divide us from that ideal. 
 Like the Kingdom of Heaven the barrier which separates us from 
 it is within us, and any gathering which tends to throw down that 
 barrier or to remove any part of it has done something, and some- 
 thing that will stand as a genuine contribution to the forward 
 movement of mankind. 
 
 REV. CARL A. VOSS, D.D., GERMAN EVANGELICAL PROTESTANT 
 CHURCH, PITTSBURG, PA. 
 
 The search for light and truth has ofttimes brought disunion and 
 distress upon untold numbers. That the rays of light have a com- 
 mon source but in their effulgence appear to men in varied hues, 
 and that of the one truth the human mind because of Its limita- 
 tions Can encompass no more than a few phases, has rarely been 
 fully appreciated. It remained for our enlightened day to wit- 
 ness conferences such as this, dedicated not to the glorification of 
 one ray of light nor to the exaltation of one phase of truth but to 
 a united, sympathetic, tolerant search for light and truth. 
 
 To you laboring for this sublime cause I bring the greetings 
 of those engaged In a similar activity. For almost a century the 
 German Evangelical Protestant, in the old Fatherland as well as 
 upon American soil, has sought to unite the spiritual energies of 
 those of Lutheran and Reformed persuasion in a common worship 
 of God, a common service of humanity and a united search for 
 more light and fuller truth. Protesting in the spirit of the re- 
 formers against all attempts at compulsion in matters of faith 
 and conscience, the true Evangelical Protestant granted unto oth- 
 ers the same liberty of thought that he demanded for himself. 
 Appreciating the full Import of your endeavors, he welcomes the 
 support and kindly good-will of those who either in the spirit of 
 their fathers have continued the work of liberating the hearts of 
 their fellowmen, or in the spirit of awakened freedom have cast 
 off the shackles and bonds of superstition and ignorance and joined 
 
28o 
 
 the ranks of those who know no higher law than in the spirit of 
 God to work for the true uplift of humanity. 
 
 We rejoice in the consummation of this federation. We ofEer 
 our good wishes, pledge our support and invoke God's blessing 
 upon your labors, for emblazoned upon your banner we read the 
 words, dear to us: " Virtue, Truth, Liberty." To those who have 
 preceded us on the upward march to the mount of glory we say: 
 " God speed ! " To those who accompany us we give a helping 
 hand. For those whose minds and hearts are still in bondage we 
 pray that the day may speedily come when light and truth will 
 become their portion, and thus make them conscious sharers in the 
 imperishable heritage of the children of God. 
 
 RABBI J. KRAUSKOPF, D.D., TEMPLE KENESETH ISRAEL, PHILA- 
 DELPHIA 
 
 The First Congress of Religious Liberals concludes to-night 
 But only its sessions. The spirit to which it has given rise will 
 continue active, will root deeper and spread wider that higher 
 conception of religion that sees harmony amidst diversity and creed 
 in deed, that sees in every man a brother, a child of the same God, 
 an heir of the same destiny. 
 
 One who has thoughtfully followed the views that have been 
 expressed, and noted the deep impression they have made, cannot 
 but believe that the day is fast approaching when the holding of 
 different theological opinions will no longer constitute a bar to fel- 
 lowship in religious and social work, when people professing reli- 
 gion will recognize that all creeds are but groping in the dark 
 toward the light, all theologies but speculations concerning the 
 unknowable, all modes of worship but yearnings of the human 
 soul for communion with the All-Soul, and all forms but rungs 
 on the ladder of faith, on which the soul seeks to mount. 
 
 We may have guesses at truth, we may have occasional 
 glimpses, even partial revelations, of it, but the full vision of it 
 we never have had, and probably never shall. The answer given 
 to Moses upon his asking to see the face of God : " No man living 
 shall see the face of God," is the answer respecting truth. Its 
 full vision would probably be as fatal to the human mind in its 
 present state of finiteness, as full vision of the sun is fatal to the 
 
28l 
 
 human eye. We have probably as much of the truth as we are 
 fit for, and as we need for walking aright the way of life. One 
 may have one fragment of it, another another fragment; one may 
 divine something of the whence; another something of the whither; 
 no one can say or dare say, that his creed solves the mystery of life 
 or the mystery of death, that it explains creation, or analyzes the 
 human soul. 
 
 Truth being, therefore, by reason of our finiteness, a part of all 
 our creeds, I can read over the entrance of every church, the in- 
 scription that graced an ancient Temple " Introite, nam et hie dii 
 sunt " " Enter, for here too, are the Gods," excepting that for 
 the word Gods I place the word Truth. 
 
 It is in our earnest search for the truth wherein may lie our de- 
 serving more of it. Ours therefore is the duty earnestly to search 
 for it, and freely to share with others whatever we find ; as to the 
 revelations of it, that is in the wisdom of God. " Were God to 
 oifer me the choice," said Lessing, " between the whole truth and 
 the love of the search for it, with the understanding that I shall 
 never find it, I would choose the latter, knowing that Truth is 
 for God alone." 
 
 Little though the truth may be which our search has brought to 
 light, it is enough to teach us that in all essential points of reli- 
 gion no difference obtains between us. All of us believe alike in 
 a Supreme Being, who is perfect, and who desires man to be per- 
 fect. Over all our creeds stand graven the opening words of Le- 
 viticus XIX : " Ye shall be holy, for holy am I, the Lord, your 
 God." All of us believe alike in the Moral Law. No liberal 
 doubts that in abiding by the Moral Law, we shall all alike be 
 acceptable unto God, whether Gentile or whether Jew, whether 
 Catholic or Protestant, whether Trinitarian or Unitarian. 
 
 If differing theologies do not permit us to worship together, 
 thanks be to God that the same Moral Law enables us to labor 
 together in the spread of Peace on Earth and Good Will among 
 men. Seething about us is a world of corruption. Might is 
 struggling with right. Capital and Labor stand arrayed against 
 each other. Shocking extravagance looks unpityingly upon ap- 
 palling want. Is there no work to do? Are our forces sa strong 
 that we can afford to say: " Because our conceptions of God or of 
 
282 
 
 the hereafter differ, therefore we cannot work in common for the 
 good of man? " 
 
 Church history tells us of an abbey in Brittany, composed of 
 two convents, one for nuns, the other for monks. The two sexes 
 were never permitted to see each other. Even when at common 
 service in the same chapel, a partition wall eight feet high sepa- 
 rated them. But, notwithstanding partition walls, when they sang 
 their hymns their voices blended beautifully together. Signifi- 
 cantly the Latin chronicler adds: " Murus Corpora non voces dis- 
 junct," " the wall separated their bodies but not their voices." 
 
 So, though our respective churches separate our bodies when 
 at service, outside the church our minds and hearts and hands 
 may blend beautifully together in the furtherance of God's work 
 on earth. 
 
 BY REV. LUTHER DEYOE^ D.D., LUTHERAN 
 
 I am glad to give my endorsement to the great movement 
 represented by the convention. A man who said, " Here I stand. 
 I cannot do otherwise; so help me God," had much to do with 
 the founding of the church to which it is my pleasure to belong. 
 
 Every man should have a sense of liberty in his religious life. 
 He should feel free to follow what he considers his honest, in- 
 telligent conclusions. The best condition will come when each 
 man knows that he will not be persecuted because of what he 
 feels he must believe religiously. 
 
 Such liberty may lead to many divisions. There is one thing 
 infinitely worse in this particular and that is oppression. Op- 
 pression because of religious convictions has brought some of the 
 most diabolical of experiences that the world has ever seen. 
 Liberty has finally brought love. Oppression has brought the 
 saddest of hatred, and God is not hatred. God never directed 
 one man to make another physically uncomfortable because the 
 two differed from each other spiritually. If from to-day there 
 would be no physical violence because of differences in religious 
 belief the world would have a most heavy burden lifted from 
 it. If Christian had no more distress to fear from Mohamme- 
 dan; if Protestant could be sure of no more persecution from 
 Romanist; if the long-suffering Jew could only know that from 
 
283 
 
 to-day he would be safe from the outrages of those who disobey 
 Jesus while they profess to love Him, what a happy world this 
 would be for thousands who stand in dread of almost any cruelty! 
 In religion at least, men should have every encouragement to be 
 honest. Any one has made an attainment worth while if he 
 is able to listen without a spirit of resentment to the representa- 
 tive of the other religious party. I heartily approve of this or- 
 ganization because that is the spirit it is set to promote. The 
 best religious work will be done when men will investigate 
 religious questions not for the purpose of establishing their side, 
 but for the purpose of finding more light. May this Federation 
 hasten the coming of that better day. 
 
 REV. H. K. HEEBNER, PASTOR FIRST SCHWENKFELDIAN CHURCH, 
 PHILADELPHIA, WROTE: 
 
 I am unavoidably prevented from attending the closing session 
 of the Congress to-morrow evening and from responding briefly 
 to my name as indicated upon the program. I attended the ses- 
 sions of to-day and was greatly profited and pleased by the ad- 
 dresses, prophecies of the civilization of Heaven in the earth. 
 
 Truly the dawn of the better day of liberty and fraternity is 
 already upon the hills and in due time the sun will be up. In the 
 deliberations of this auspicious Congress we have a beautiful com- 
 mentary of Tennyson's dictum : 
 
 " God fulfills Himself in many ways 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 
 
 and that other significantly appropriate paragraph from John Rus- 
 kin: 
 
 " Whenever we allow our minds to dwell upon the points (in religion 
 or otherwise) in which we differ from other people we are wrong 
 and in the devil's power. . . . This is the essence of the Pharisee's 
 thanksgiving, ' Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men.' At 
 every moment of our lives we should be trying to find out, not in what 
 we differ but in what we can agree with them, and whenever we can 
 agree as to anything that should be done kind or good, then do it ; push 
 at it together. But when the best of men stop pushing and begin 
 talking, they mistake pugnacity for piety and it's all over." 
 
284 
 
 REV. JOHN CLARENCE LEE, D.D., PASTOR OF THE UNIVERSALIST 
 CHURCH OF THE RESTORATION, PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
 
 Amid the great variety of opinions and methods of expression 
 that we! have heard during this Congress, one clearly dominant 
 note has appeared, namely, that religion should draw men together 
 and not drive them apart. Quite otherwise was it in the days of 
 enforced uniformity of belief, the days of inquisition and martyr- 
 dom. Quite otherwise is it even to-day, in parts of the Turkish 
 empire, where a sudden outburst of fanatical hatred has glutted 
 itself with the blood of thousands of Christian victims. When 
 such horrors can occur in the twentieth century, as the result of 
 the survival of the ancient idea that those who do not profess a 
 certain religion are hateful to God and should be destroyed by 
 men, it is indeed time- that those in more enlightened lands should 
 come together in the fellowship of the spirit and the bond of peace. 
 
 A Universalist has every reason to desire such fellowship. Our 
 fathers in the faith were generally excommunicated. When John 
 Murray first came to Philadelphia, his soul aflame with the vision 
 of a race entirely saved, every church door was shut and barred 
 against him. There was no " open pulpit " then. When Elha- 
 nan Winchester saw the light of a larger hope, and proclaimed it, 
 he had to go forth from the church of which he was the pastor, 
 and he went forth, not knowing whither he went. It is interest- 
 ing to recall that for him was opened the hall of the University 
 of Pennsylvania, which, by the wisdom and breadth of Benjamin 
 Franklin, had been reserved for preachers of every sect and creed. 
 
 In those days it was deemed heretical to say that God is Love, 
 that he is the universal Father, that every human being is the 
 child of God, that punishment is remedial and therefore can not 
 be endless, that moral discipline and spiritual progress will con- 
 tinue in the coming life, that good will triumph over evil and that 
 all souls will attain the full-orbed measure of the perfect man. 
 To say these things, as our fathers said them, was to invite social 
 ostracism and ecclesiastical condemnation. Those who were ex- 
 cluded from fellowship for such opinions had, however, the con- 
 solation of their faith, that, in the final harmony of all souls with 
 
a85 
 
 God, they should find a glorious fellowship, from which, at last, 
 no lover of truth should be debarred. 
 
 It is good, therefore, in these halcyon days, to experience here 
 this earthly image of the heavenly fellowship. 
 
 We are all of us, I take it, more or less in the position of the 
 man who waited after the service and thanked the preacher for 
 his beautiful sermon on the recognition of friends in heaven. 
 " And now," said he, " I wish you would preach a sermon on the 
 recognition of friends on earth; for I've been coming to this 
 church for the last three years, and no one has ever recognized me 
 yet." 
 
 The manifestation of friendliness, of sympathy, of brotherhood, 
 of mutual respect, is one of the most certain proofs of the genuine 
 experience of religion. "Beloved, let us love one another; for 
 love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God, and 
 knoweth God." 
 
 The Universalist has a definite mission, to which he should ren- 
 der the loyal service of a consecrated soul. He has staked his 
 claim, both in name and faith, to a large section. But he holds 
 his title, not as a monopolist or land-grabber, but as a pioneer, to 
 open up, to all the race, for gradual settlement, the unoccupied 
 lands of Paradise. 
 
 But what is the new spirit, that has brought us all together in 
 this Federation? Why is it that we are so ready and willing, at 
 last, to be liberal in religion ? We have been working and seeking, 
 each in his own way, and, somehow, we have found a common 
 truth. A great light has streamed into our minds. And, as it ap- 
 pears to me, the unifying principle that makes fellowship not only 
 a possibility but an encouragement and a joy, is the recognition 
 that religion is a living revelation of a living Gx)d in the living 
 soul of man. When we have come to feel, with Malachi, Paul, 
 Fox, Penn, Lucretia Mott, Martineau, Emerson, Fechner and 
 other seers, that God is not far from every one of us, that He has 
 never left himself without a witness, and that every soul, in the 
 degree of its openness and sincerity, may be the recipient of a 
 divinely given truth, why should we not hold converse together? 
 
 This old conviction, wide-spread in this new day, supplies a 
 
286 
 
 bond of mutual interest stronger than any creed. The minds of 
 men may, indeed, differ much in their interpretation of the mes- 
 sage, as their limitations and imperfections cloud the view. As 
 Shelley said : 
 
 " Life, like a dome of many-colored glass, 
 Stains the white radiance of eternity." 
 
 Yet all these diverse color-tones, these seemingly-various beams 
 of human understanding, when brought together and once more 
 blended, shall give to us the seven-fold, perfect light of the vision 
 of eternal truth. 
 
 REV. WILLIAM H. FISH, PASTOR UNITARIAN CHURCH, MEADVILLE, 
 
 PA. 
 
 It is a great pleasure and privilege — a peculiar pleasure and 
 privilege — to Unitarians to be present at these meetings. The 
 kind of fellowship which this Federation represents is what we have 
 been striving for for many years. Long ago when our central 
 organization was formed it took for its name " The National Con- 
 ference of Unitarian and Other Christian Churches." The hope 
 was then cherished that churches in general sympathy with our 
 aims, but not caring to be called Unitarian, would join us. Un- 
 fortunately that hope has not been realized in any large measure, 
 probably because our real purpose has not been clearly understood. 
 But if the mountain will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed 
 must go to the mountain. If other churches will not come to the 
 Unitarians, we Unitarians will go, if assured of a welcome, to 
 other churches; and not alone to churches and similar organiza- 
 tions which bear the Christian name. There is a vast difference 
 between names and the things which they are supposed to repre- 
 sent. The same thing may be given half a dozen different names 
 by as many different persons. We care for the thing rather than 
 the name. In the constitution of our National Conference we 
 declare that we accept the religion of Jesus, holding in accordance 
 with his teaching that practical religion is summed up in love to 
 God and love to man. To all who are animated by the spirit 
 implied in those words, by whatever name they may call them- 
 selves, we hold out our right hands not in toleration, but in cor- 
 
287 
 
 dial and fraternal fellowship. Therefore we are here; therefore 
 we rejoice in the founding of this Federation ; therefore we bid it 
 a hearty God-speed ! May it live long and prosper. 
 
 CLOSING REMARKS BY HENRY W. WILBUR, PRESIDENT OF THE 
 
 CONGRESS 
 
 Surely no man here can be more glad for this day than he who 
 now addresses you. Representing a religious body which has ta- 
 booed proselyting, he has seen to-night the representative of his 
 household of faith attempt to gather into the Society of Friends in 
 wholesale fashion this splendid company of men and women, in 
 number half as many as were converted on the apostolic day of 
 Pentecost. I shall surely not haul in the latch-string which my 
 friend has hung out. While I wish you might all accept his in- 
 vitation, I fear you will not. But be that as it may, fences are 
 neither so high nor so close as they were aforetime, and in spite of 
 fences we be brethren. 
 
 As we near the moment of parting, I wish to express my deep- 
 est gratitude for the privilege of presiding over the sessions of 
 this Congress. The days past, and their experiences, have greatly 
 inspired me, and imparted more hope and courage for the battle 
 of life that lies before us. 
 
 What is to be the outcome of these days of communion? 
 That will depend upon the way we apply the impulses received 
 here. Let me charge you to go into the world and become yeast, 
 centers of leaven, which will make the unmoved measures of meal 
 full of life, and freighted with the thirst for righteousness. Under 
 the impulse of the spirit which has come to us here, the prejudice 
 of ignorance should disappear, and race and sect hatred give way 
 to the sense of brotherhood, bearing fruit in a broader sympathy 
 and a wider helpfulness. 
 
s^U^-a^.