6~. Z5". 2.x iPrnm th? ICibrarg of lpqufatl|pJ» by l|tm to tt|f Sjtbrarg nf JPrtttrrton Slh^dlogtral ^rmtttary BX 6332 .M3 1898 MacArthur, Robert Stuart, 1841-1923. Current questions for thinlc-ina mpn CURRENT QUESTIONS c URRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKDMG MEN NK' k>A - ^ii By/ ROBERT STUART MAC ARTHUR Philadelphia Bmcrtcan ^Baptist ipublication Society MDCCCXCVm Copyright 1898 by the American Baptist Publication Society ffrom tbc Societie's own ipress Cbe StuDcnts before wbom mang of Cbese BDDresses were OelivereO Xrbis Booft ts Bffectionatels DeDlcateD NOTE The papers contained in this book were deliv- ered at different times and under different circum- stances, as will appear in detail in the footnotes accompanying them. The abiding importance of the themes discussed, as well as a desire very gen- erally expressed, has prompted the gathering of them together in this more permanent form. It is hoped that in this form whatever of good is in them may find a more potent voice, and win in the wider audience thus addressed, a friendly hearing. R. S. MacA. Calvary Study, January, 1898. CONTENTS PAGE I. The Scholar in the World 1 1 II. Characteristics of True Culture .... 38 III. Christianity and the Secular Spirit ... 67 IV. Reasons for Being a Baptist 89 V. Baptist Polity and Historic Creeds . . .114 VI. Historic Baptist Principles 136 VII. Partial Unification by Possible Elimina- tion 171 VIII. Greater Baptist Efficiency 189 IX. Pressing Needs of Foreign Fields . . . .214 X. Establishing Our Work ... ■ 245 XI. The Organization of a Church 271 XII. The Development of the Church . . . .291 XIII. The Selection of a Church 310 XIV. The Christian Year 325 XV. Separation Between Church and State . . 342 XVI. The Regeneration of a Race 365 XVII. The True Function of the Minister . . . 395 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN I THE SCHOLAR IN THE WORLD ^ THE subject to which attention is called this evening is, The Scholar in the World. Is the term scholar synonymous with the term college graduate ? This cannot be affirmed. There are scholars who are not college graduates ; and there are college graduates who are not scholars. Some graduates have not the habits, tastes, or instincts of scholars. It is not the business of a college to fur- nish brains. A college is a mill, and the character of the flour which comes from the sieve depends largely upon the quality of the grain which goes into the hopper. No college faculty can get some- thing out of nothing. You can highly polish maple or marble ; you cannot polish cheese or chalk. It has been often and conclusively demonstrated that money cannot purchase capacity. A fool brayed in the college mortar, even with the best presiden- tial pestle, is a fool still. Doubtless he will be profited by the braying ; somewhat of his foolish- ^ Delivered at the Commencement of the Columbian University, Washington, D. C, June 9, 1896. II 12 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN ness will have departed from him by the time of his graduation. The man who by the special grace of the faculty dangles along at the tail of his class gets some good in the dangling. In the college class- room he takes in as much of the literary atmosphere as his contracted intellectual lungs will admit. In association with those who are scholars he takes in by friction as much as his rhinocerial epidermis can absorb. If after the advantages of a college course there is so great stupidity, how enormous would that stupidity have been had there been no college course. The stupidity is not because of, but in spite of, the training received. On the other hand, those who are scholars but not college graduates are such in spite of their dis- advantages. Given the college training, and how much more complete, symmetrical, and polished their scholarship would be. All men who are made at all are self-made ; no college can make a man. Colleges simply help men to make themselves. A college sharpens nature's tools and teaches their right use. You may with one hand hold on the grindstone the chisel with which you are to carve out fame and fortune ; and you may turn the stone with the other hand. But if you could hold the chisel with both hands while the college faculty turned the stone, your chances for a fine edged tool would be wonderfully improved. Unfortunately scholar and graduate are not equivalent terms ; but for the purposes of this discussion, we shall regard them as synonymous. THE SCHOLAR IN THE WORLD 1 3 THE SCHOLAR IN BUSINESS. Consider then the scholar in business hfe. For business colleges it is difficult to have much re- spect. For colleges which mean business it is im- possible not to have great admiration. Scholar- ship is needed in business life to-day as never be- fore ; first, because the relations of business life are now so far-reaching. The world is both larger and smaller than ever before ; it is larger when we re- gard its necessary points of contact with our daily lives, and smaller when we regard the facility with which the contact is made. There are no hermit nations. Inspired by a unifying and sym- pathetic impulse the nations have risen above their former boundaries, and have mingled their liberated waters in one great ocean of inter- national life and Christian endeavor. Steamships and railways make distant continents near neigh- bors. Telegraphs and telephones have made the world a whispering gallery. They have changed the business, the diplomacy, the civilization of the century. They repeat on a gigantic scale the mar- vels of each man's own nervous system. With bowed head and uplifted heart all Christen- dom stood a few years ago by the bedside of Gen- eral Garfield while he was fighting his terrible bat- tle. In the capitals of the world his pulsebeats were counted ; princes and peasants listened with mingled hope and fear for his heart throbs. All the world was kin as it watched General Grant 14 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN fighting the only enemy whom he could not con- quer. Such kinship was impossible a generation ago ; such community of knowledge and interest will do much to unite the world in the bonds of per- petual brotherhood. Every morning the ends of the earth meet in the paper at our breakfast tables. In this day merchants deal with peoples of various climes, colors, languages, and religions. Soon the Congo Valley will be as familiar to our thought and speech as is the valley of the Mississippi. Already goods are shipped from our ports to the corners of the earth ; already are new branches of trade pre- paring to enter these new and vast fields of com- mercial enterprise. India is as near to-day as Liverpool was a generation ago. To-day a mer- chant or manufacturer ought to know the history, the products, the needs, the habits, and the tastes of at least half a dozen nations. The successful busi- ness man of a past generation, if he followed the old methods, would be a helpless dwarf amid the tremendous giants of to-day. Does a man tell me that a business man to-day does not need scholar- ship both vast and varied ? Then I ask where has he lived ? In what sunless hole has he burrowed ? Our most kingly merchant princes find an ever- widening sphere for the employment of all their faculties and abilities in the tremendous rush and roar of the world-embracing possibilities in the marts of trade and commerce of our day. But, again, scholarship is needed in business life because it is the open door to other spheres of THE SCHOLAR IN THE WORLD 1 5 intellectual activity. Business men now abound in the halls of State and national legislation. The wealth acquired in business gives influence, some- times legitimate and sometimes not, in nominating conventions and at polling booths. Not in name, but not the less in fact, does wealth buy seats in legislative halls. The same thing sometimes is true, it is more than hinted, in regard to selections for cabinets and appointments for foreign missions. For some years the tendency has been to push business men into these positions of prominence and power. The preparation and presentation of bills come into their hands. Clearness of thought and forcefulness of statement thus become an ab- solute necessity. There can be no clearness of speech except there be first clearness of thought ; inaccuracy of speaking is always preceded by looseness of thinking. "What you know you can tell," is a remark as truthful as it used to be familiar to students while under President Martin B. Ander- son's instruction. The training of the parliamentary orator as a great and clear thinker is the first step in his career. It is a matter of vast importance. No matter how great and varied the gifts of nature may be, they need to be supplemented by the broadest and most accurate training attainable. Genius, real or imagined, which denies the neces- sity of adequate preparation for hard work in any business career is a doubtful or dangerous posses- sion. Business men are in, and must continue to be in, political life. This is inevitable. Young men 1 6 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN in preparing for business life should prepare also for that to which it may lead. Their scholarship should be broad, accurate, and usable alike in their business life and in their political career. Again, scholarship in business life is necessary in order to enjoy a well-earned leisure. Success in a business life brings wealth ; wealth makes leisure possible ; and leisure to be a blessing, must be associated with some degree of intellectual culture. Wealth and ignorance make a sorry team. The more his wealth exalts an ignorant man the more sadly conspicuous does his ignorance become. Such a man can only "talk shop." He has no intellec- tual resources. He has no knowledge of and no enjoyment in books. He may buy them by the yard, because it is "the thing" to have a library; but to him they are, for the most part, in an un- known tongue. The man is in danger of drifting into a fast life, or of becoming the hopeless dupe of designing men, or of sinking into an idiotic ennuye. These are the men and the families who, so far as in them lies, make America ridiculous in all European resorts. These are the men who fur- nish material for the well-deserved satires on our circles of society in which " Mr. Newrich " is the conspicuous figure. They give the " Buntling Balls " of the hour. They are the travelers who from Euro- pean wanderings return : Across Atlantic's many-sounding deep, Borne safe between the stanch Cunarder's ribs, Wave-furrowing, tempest-baffling, huge of bulk. THE SCHOLAR IN THE WORLD 1 7 God pity Alonzo, Anastasia, and Jane Buntling ! The brainless and moneyless dudes who enjoy their hospitality and make fun of their stupidity as they sing : • • Old man, do not be nonsensical In your views about New York ; You are needlessly forensical For a potentate in pork, ' ' are more to be blamed but not more to be pitied than their ignorant and ambitious hosts. The man with learning will know how to enjoy leisure. The art of the world will find in him an admiration which his previous knowledge has prepared him to bestow. In poverty he has within himself resources of inestimable value. In wealth, even though it comes suddenly, he has self-poise ; he has taste, culture, enjoyment. It is simply a question of man- hood. Shall a man be broad-minded, many-sided, and symmetrical, or shall he sink to what, I sup- pose, the Concord philosophers would call a con- dition of "thingness." God help us all to under- stand the grandeur of being men and women, disciples of true culture, and heirs of eternal glory. THE SCHOLAR IN POLITICAL LIFE. Let us now look at the scholar in political life. The whole range of political life is much in need of elevation. We have grown weary of the tyran- nical reign of the corner groggery and ward pol- itician — both positions being often represented by B 1 8 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN one and the same man. We ought to insist that some classes of men should at least get rid of a little of their brogue before they attempt to lord it over native-born Americans. As I myself am not a native-born American I may make this remark. There is almost enough in American politics to justify a lugubrious and pessimistic allusion to the subject. But we and not our stars are to blame that we are underlings. Our best men must go into politics. The worse the condition of affairs the more are the best men needed. It is worse than useless to stand aloof, in white-robed idleness, and declaim against the "dirty pool" of politics. Of course it is dirty ; some men make their living by keeping it so. They will never purify it. They are perfectly willing to have you declaim against it, so long as you only declaim. Go yourself to the primaries, to the polls, to all centers of political power. Culture and religion which are too good to be used for the political welfare of the people are useless adornments, are worthless impedi- menta. Here is a sphere for the true scholar ; and it is a sphere worthy of his noblest ambitions. The politician needs scholarship that as a speaker he may be popular with the uneducated. It is often said that an educated man cannot so address an audience as to interest uneducated hearers. If a public speaker fails it is not because he is edu- cated, but because he is only half-educated. The aim of education is not to mystify but to simplify. The educated man is taller than the uneducated. THE SCHOLAR IN THE WORLD 1 9 It is his business to take down difficult truths and make them so plain that the uneducated mind can readily grasp and firmly hold them. It is his business to make an intelligent diagnosis of the mental capacity of his audience and then prescribe his truth in such doses as the facts may require and demand. It is his business in speaking to a popular audience to take the truth he wishes to impart out of its technical forms of phraseology and put it into plain, everyday speech. The man who cannot do that is uneducated, even although he may have the diplomas of many schools. He is unintelligible because he is unintelligent ; he is grandiloquent and obscure because he is stupid. He must know how — to use a word which Oliver Wendell Holmes uses in this sense — to "depolar- ize " his thought, taking it out of professional ter- minology and putting it into plain speech. The speaker or writer who uses the language of the shop, the trade, or the schools in addressing a popular audience shows not his wealth but his pov- erty of thought and speech. " How much learn- ing," Archbishop Leigh ton used to say, " it takes to be simple." In my early ministry, fresh from the theological seminary, I stupidly threw at the con- gregation these two words "supralapsarianism" and "sublapsarianism." Had I maliciously thrown at the people the pulpit Bible or hymn book, I could scarcely have produced a greater sensation. Fuller knowledge enables a man to take the meaning out of such words and give it to the public in 20 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN simple forms of speech. "Big words" when ad- dressing a popular and not a technical audience, are a sure sign of ignorance. The terminology of any science, art, or profession may be used, of course, when addressing the students of that sci- ence, art, or profession. The commonest mob does not relish the shirt -sleeved, grammar -breaking, word-slinging style of the sand-lots orator. The most ignorant assemblies know better than to enjoy an insult to their common sense. Few men could better address a New York mob than Horatio Seymour. The crowd understood him perfectly ; indeed, there are many who honestly thought that he was understood too well, when on a certain memorable occasion he addressed the rioters as "my friends." He never forgot his dignity, and his scholarship, nor his elegance in dress or ad- dress. He was sufficiently well educated to adapt his knowledge to the capacity of his average hearer. There are few speakers in the political field to-day who can more fully interest and inspire the usual political crowd than Chauncey M. Depew. At the same time men pf the highest culture are charmed by his logical reasoning, his accurate knowledge, and his polished oratory. The names of many more in political, legal, and other walks of life could be cited to illustrate this point. The same principles apply to pulpit oratory. From Chrysostom to Wesley and Spurgeon the great preachers were those whom the common peo- ple heard gladly ; they were at the same time men THE SCHOLAR IN THE WORLD 21 at whose feet culture could and did learn lessons of wisdom. Mr. Spurgeon was in many well-under- stood respects the greatest preacher since the days of the apostles. He was always simple and forceful ; he was sometimes witty and homely ; but never did he forget the glory of his message nor the character which becomes the messenger. Within his very much smaller circle Mr. Moody is educated ; and his success bears a close relation to his education. Regarding the subjects of which chiefly he speaks he is educated. His remarkable power is in spite of the fact that often he mispronounces words and violates grammatical rules. He who "spake as never man spake" was heard gladly by the com- mon people, and yet even as a boy the learned doctors were astonished at the questions he asked and the answers he gave. Scholarship is needed in political life rightly to apprehend and forcefully to discuss the questions now agitating public thought. Great questions are before us ; their discussion cannot much longer be postponed. Socialism, often passing over into an- archism, clamors for a hearing. Let it be heard. Talking will do its advocates great good. Discus- sion of subjects largely erroneous liberates their truths, which become the antidote to their errors. Discussion of all political heresies will manifest the element of truth which they contain ; and at the same time it will expose their falsity in statement and their fallacy in reasoning. The temperance question in its political aspects must be discussed. 22 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN The tariff question must be discussed ; so also must questions of restricted immigration, of protected suffrage, of civil service reform, of arbitration, and of annexation. These discussions must not be on the basis of narrow partisan politics. .Here there is a field for the exercise of the broadest scholar- ship, the profoundest reasoning, and the wisest statesmanship. Where are the statesmen compe- tent to deal with these and similar questions? The very name statesman has almost become a reproach. When the infamous Tweed was asked to name his occupation he replied, "statesman"; when asked his religion he said, "none." The latter answer was certainly correct. To-day he has his imitators. Ignorance and irreligion are marked features of the "practical statesman." From this sort of states- manship, scholarship and religion are virtually di- vorced. "Them literary fellows " have been held in great contempt by the average statesman. Well, the contempt is mutual. Some of the literary, political dilettanti are worthy of the contempt in which they are held by others than the " practical politician." But in politics there is a sphere for scholarship that is associated with a manliness which is worthy of all honor. The man of broad scholar- ship, of commanding eloquence, and of spotless character has to-day a boundless field, a sure tri- umph, and an enduring fame in American politics. We are weary of putting men up as candidates merely because they are "available"; and often available chiefly because they are unknowing and THE SCHOLAR IN THE WORLD 23 unknown. Both parties to-day need leaders — lead- ers of scholarship, statesmanship, eloquence, and character. Where are the men to be found ? Political life in our day is not so commonplace as many suppose ; the heroic days of the republic are not all in the past. We are in the midst of wars and rumors of wars. "Happy is the nation that has no history" has become a proverb. But the nation that has no history has not much of anything; it has no statesmen, no thinkers, no orators. The comparatively recent volume entitled "Representative American Orations" shows clearly that the causes which make history possible make statesmanship and oratory certain. Webster truly said, "True eloquence cannot be brought from afar ; it must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion." Our revolutionary days awoke and immortalized the voice of Patrick Henry. Discussions connected with the formulation of the Constitution called out the powers of Jefferson and Hamilton. The War of 1 8 1 2 gave us the speeches of John Randolph and Henry Clay. The expo- sition of the Constitution gave us the wily Calhoun and the gigantic Webster, The antislavery discus- sions gave us Garrison and Phillips, Seward and Sumner. In the city of Rochester, N. Y., Seward said : "I know and you know that a revolution has begun ; I know and all the world knows that revo- lution never goes backward." The war gave us Lincoln, Grant, and many more who are among the immortals. In many of these 24 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN men we have grand illustrations of how scholarship, patriotism, and character became the handmaids of martial, political, and patriotic power and glory. These men were giants. Who to-day is worthy to be the successors of leaders so illustrious? So we often ask; but the resources of the Republic are not exhausted. Should similar occasions arise, similar leaders will arise also. In every crisis of our national life God has given us wise, heroic, and patriotic leaders. He will not desert us in future national trials should they arise. When we look across the Atlantic, we see what a practical, general, and honored place scholarship has in political life. The list of names is so long and so brilliant that one does not know where to begin or to end its examination. Not to go too far back, we take the name of William Pitt, who was as famous for scholarship in his boyhood as for his imposing appearance, attractive oratory, and irreproachable character in his manhood. We have the names of Sir Robert Peel, who upon his graduation at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1808, took a double first-class. The Earl of Derby, gradu- ating in 1 8 19, gained the Latin verse prize, and soon became a debater of the very first rank. Tall in figure, commanding in gesture, with a voice which rang out with tremendous power, he was a man to be admired and feared. In the midst of a career of great activity he found time to cultivate his scholarly tastes, and his later years were devoted to translating Homer's "Iliad," two THE SCHOLAR IN THE WORLD 25 volumes of which were published in blank verse in 1864. We think of Lord Macaulay in connection with literature rather than in connection with statesman- ship ; but he would have been famous as a states- man had he not been so brilliant as a writer. At the age of eighteen, at Trinity College, Cambridge, he had acquired a great reputation both as a debater and a scholar. We know that twice he won the chancellor's medal; first, in 1819, for a poem on "Pompeii," and, a year later, for a poem on "Evening." While war secretary he composed his magnificent war ballads, "The Lays of Ancient Rome." His scholarship was brilliant, and his literary acquisitions were simply prodigious. He was an immense accession to the Whig party; indeed, his history has been called "a huge Whig pamphlet." His nephew, himself an illustration of the scholar in politics, has given us in his uncle's "Life and Letters" one of the most fascinating biographies of this generation. The Duke of Argyle adds to the glory of his an- cestral name by his books, which unite in beautiful harmony high scholarship with lowly Christian faith. Authorship and statesmanship almost equally di- vided the honors of the dashing leader of English Jingoism. What shall we say of Disraeli's great rival, the foremost man in the world to-day, the gigantic Gladstone. He closed his brilliant college career at Christ Church, Oxford, in 183 1, where he took a double first-class degree. The next year 26 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN he entered the House of Commons. Well might Macaulay, in 1838, speak of him as "a young man of unblemished character, the rising hope of those stern and unbending Tories." Behold him in 1858 publishing in three volumes his elaborate work on "Homer and the Homeric Age," and in 1875 his "Homeric Synchronism." But we cannot follow him along the line of great statesmanship and equally great scholarship. This grand man stirs us profoundly ; he arouses our utmost enthusiasm. In him we have the able statesman, the great scholar, and the humble Christian happily blended. He is peerless in the whole world to-day. He grows grander as the shadows of evening gather about him. His name will live long in the history of literature and statesmanship. He is the un- crowned king of Britain and of the world to-day. God give the "old man eloquent" his benediction in the closing years of his heroic life ! But again, we need scholarship in political life that our country may be rightly represented abroad. Appointments to foreign courts should be made on other grounds than the payment of political debts. Walpole long ago said that an ambassador is a man sent abroad to lie for his country. If all politicians who are adepts in that art were sent abroad, the number of applicants for offices at home would be greatly reduced. In these foreign positions certain lines of scholarship are absolutely necessary to the preservation of the dignity of the country. Here, at least, Civil Semce Reform should have its com- THE SCHOLAR IN THE WORLD 2'] plete illustration. We gratefully acknowledge the superb service and high character of some of our ambassadors to foreign courts. But we must also with equal honesty mourn over the incapacity of others. It is simply ridiculous to send to foreign countries men ignorant of their language, their his- tory, their laws, and their social customs. We need a school for the training of men for these positions. Let Columbian University be that school, and let us lift the whole range of political life, making for- eign appointments on the ground of fitness and not as a reward for party services. We have too few men in political life who can fill prominent places at European courts. We have been too often humili- ated alike by the ignorance and the character of men who misrepresented their country. Along the whole line of political life we must strive to raise the standard of political morality. Our motto should be : "Fewer elections and better." This nation is now too great to be disturbed by the excitements which quadrennial national elections inevitably produce. Its volume of business is too great to be thus imperiled. Its money interests are too sensitive to be thus agitated, and its time is too precious to be thus squandered. The returns in increased knowledge of political affairs and in oratorical skill thus developed are not an adequate compensation for the injuries which all forms of business receive. Let the presidential term be six or eight years, and let no president be eligible for re-election. Then the evils of so frequent elections 28 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN will be avoided, and presidents will attend to their proper duties instead of spending so much time in laying plans for re-election. We must also insist upon an improved civil serv- ice, both at home and abroad. Present efforts in that direction show marked progress and give high hopes for the future. We must have the best men in the community take an active interest in politics, beginning with the primaries ; we must insist upon scholarship on the part of the men who represent us in the halls of State and national legislation ; but most of all we must insist on the recognition of high moral principles in all departments of political life. We must insist on this great saying of a brilliant man, " Nothing can be politically right which is morally wrong." We must believe it. God rules. Right wins. Wrong shall yet go to the cross. Right shall yet reign on the throne. Righteousness exalteth a nation ; but sin is the reproach of any people. A brilliant senator sneered at the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments in politics. They were in this connection only an "iridescent dream " ; well, he has been permitted to remain at home and study the iridescence of his dream while other men are striv- ing to bring this ideal condition into actual experi- ence. The altar of Almighty God must stand be- side the throne of a nation's power. Remove that altar and the throne will tremble, totter, tumble. Finally, let me speak of the scholar in profes- sional life. It is common to speak of the professions of medi- THE SCHOLAR IN THE WORLD 29 cine, law, and theology as the learned professions ; but the first two are in danger of losing this honor. Look over the names of the graduates of almost any school of medicine or law, and you will see how small is the proportion of college graduates among them. It is sad that so many boys, fresh from the farm, are rushed through a brief course of study in some impecunious and ambitious medical college, and are then turned adrift to practise their igno- rance on an innocent and unsuspecting community. To a considerable degree this is true also of schools of law ; although in the case of both these schools some improvement has recently been made. Schools of theology have always had a higher standard, and lately it has been made higher still. At times it seemed that the ministry would be the only learned profession, in the technical sense in which the term has so long been used. You say, I magnify mine office. You are right. The Apostle Paul did so. I believe in this kind of apostolic succession. I plead for a higher grade of scholarship in all the professions — and this for good reasons. One reason is in the unscholarly tendency of necessary professional drudgery. There is an immense amount of this in all forms of professional work. The ideal and the actual in a man's profes- sion differ widely. There is danger that a profession may become simply a trade. In order that a man may make his actual professional life approach his ideal he must enter it with much general knowledge and special scholarship. We are, as a rule, in too 30 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN great haste to begin our work. We ought to re- member that a man has begun his work when he has begun in earnest to prepare for it Men want to be in the ministry ; they say that they want to be at work. Opportunities for the noblest in sanctified personal culture and in service for others are all about them. They neglect present opportunity in a dreamy hope of great things to come in some misty future. Never was there greater folly. Christ bided his time. He waited thirty years be- fore performing a miracle ; this delay was itself al- most a miracle. Whatever ripens fast decays soon. The element of time must enter into all true culture. Mental products must ripen. Soft, liquid, mellow notes can come only from old violins. Boy preachers are seldom men preachers. Undue development is a monstrosity. This haste is a symptom of the times. It is dangerous. It must be resisted. The man who thinks he is a genius and need not go through the ordinary process of preparation is much in need of going into the Solomonic mortar to be brayed. There is danger that he will soon be braying in some church pulpit, if he be not brayed beneath some college pestle. Perhaps this man points to Horace Greeley, to Spurgeon, to Moody. Is he quite sure that he is a Greeley, a Spur- geon, or a Moody ? Out of this bumptiousness comes the desire for " soft electives " in the college course. A tendency of our life is to get something for nothing, some- thing without paying the price in hard work. This THE SCHOLAR IN THE WORLD 3 1 tendency shows itself in "short cuts" to profes- sional titles and employments ; it advertises itself in wild-cat speculations in business ; it shouts itself hoarse for cheap, and so dishonest, money ; it runs mad in various forms of gambling. If you want pebbles, go out to the street and find them by the handful ; but if you want diamonds you must dig for them. Recently one of the most prominent preachers and scholars in America said in my hear- ing that " Harvard's course is in education what quackery is in the regular practice of medicine." Perhaps that remark was an exaggeration, but the tendency is in that direction. The trend is toward a wild empiricism. It will make charlatans but not scholars. It is a species of educational dilettante- ism. This method of education misunderstands the function of a college. The academy gives instruc- tion in the elements, the college in the principles, and the professional school in the applications of education to the practical uses of life. Let the col- lege lay the broad foundation ; on that foundation let the professional structure be erected. In that foundation the classics must have the honored place. Say what you will, the students of the arts course and the students of the scientific course in any col- lege are very different classes of men ; the differ- ence is largely in favor of the former. Explain it how you may, the fact remains. The tree of classical knowledge which has borne such glorious fruit all through the centuries is not now to be cut down by 32 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN any empirical axe. From that tree we may have to lop off a twig here and there, on that tree we may have to graft a branch here and there, as the wisdom and experience of our best educators may suggest, but, thank God, the tree will stand. Men talk of science. But why do they limit the word to natural science ? Is not the study of language a study of science ? Is not the study of history a study of science ? Is not the study of mental phi- losophy a study of science ? It is this unseemly haste to enter professional life which leads to this tampering with the college course. Wait, young men ; bide your time. You owe it to yourselves not to degrade your profession. Rather than make the course shorter, I would make it longer. The standard of admission ought to be higher; the course of preparation ought to be longer. It is better for a boy to enter college a year over eighteen than a year under that age, although I know the tendency now is to rush him through when young. There should be broad culture in history and in general literature before entering college. But, even then, is a boy of that age fit to choose his course of study? To ask the question is to answer it. In this whole subject there is a golden mean. Let the boy enter thus well prepared, let two years be given to the studies in the regular course and a certain standing be attained, then let there be an option — under wise advisers — not of studies but of courses of study. After graduation, let the professional studies be THE SCHOLAR IN THE WORLD 33 pursued. After this preparation, the drudgery of professional work will not entirely destroy scholarly tastes ; and still the true student will feel that he is only a child playing on the shore, while the great ocean of possibility stretches before him into infinity. Scholarship is necessary in professional life in order that a man may the sooner be master of all the truth which his profession has discovered. This is a worthy ambition. Any lower ambition is unworthy of a worthy man. The young painter may not expect to excel Raphael, nor the young sculptor Angelo, but their lofty attainments will stimulate him to nobler endeavors. "Young man," said Emerson, "hitch your wagon to a star." That is old, but it is pertinent. Master the last re- sults attained in your profession ; stand abreast of its latest discoveries. You owe this to yourself, to your clients, to your patients, to your parishioners. But if you are to have a fair fight with inevitable indolence, with unavoidable drudgery, and with am- bitious competitors, you must not go into the con- flict handicapped with ignorance. You must not be weighted in the race. You must run light if you would run fast. You will need all you know ; you could use ten times as much as you know. The man who ceases to grow begins to die. Not to ad- vance is to retrograde. Many men in various pro- fessions died long ago. They have not yet made the discovery, but their friends have. They are not buried, but they are certainly dead. As unburied corpses they walk about among the living. 34 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN A man must use his college tools or they will be- come rusty. To master a profession to-day one must enter it thoroughly equipped. Success to-day is no child's play. He who will win the wreath of victory must run a brave race, and he must feel the prick of many a thorn. A man may as well count the cost before he flatters himself with the hope of a certain speedy triumph in his professional career. Ten out of a hundred may win a respectable suc- cess ; perhaps five out of a hundred a great success. Is a young man quite sure that he will be one even of the ten ? Can he afford to neglect any securable aid? How many really great orators have there been in the world? About one in each five hun- dred years. Is a man sure that he is to be the one? To step into the front rank a man must have good natural abilities, he must have high acquired attain- ments, and he must have the only genius worth having — the ability and willingness to do tremen- dously hard work, I would not discourage any man. I simply say that no man can afford in this day to dispense with a single ounce of power. So prepared, go up, with God's blessing, and take the prizes which your profession offers. But again, scholarship is needed in professional life in order that men may pay the debt they owe to their profession. No man has a right to be a drone, a dunce, or even a dwarf in his profession. No man should submit to be borne along on the current of professional opinion. If the course flows in the wrong direction, he ought to stem it; THE SCHOLAR IN THE WORLD 35 if it flows in the right direction, he ought to swell it. What right has a man to tax the patience, excite the pity, or merit the contempt of his pro- fessional brethren? Some professions are carrying along dead-beats enough to fill an ordinary ceme- tery, if only they could be induced to go to their own place. What can be done with these men? The fault is not in their stars, but in themselves, that they are dunces. They would be as dead as they are if called by some other professional name. Lazy men must greatly tax the patience of God. He has no place — at least no good place — here or hereafter for thriftless, shiftless, hangers-on to the various professions. But it is not enough that a man should not lie down in helpless, hopeless supineness on his profession. He should lift it on his manly shoulders ; he should feel his indebted- ness to it so much that he would make its indebt- edness to him unspeakably great. Think how much Blackstone, Kent, Story, and Marshall, as commentators, did for the profession of law ! Webster and many others recognized their obligations and met them in other forms of service. Think what Harvey, Willard Parker, J. Marion Sims, Koch, and others did for medicine ! Some day some of your own alumni may be men- tioned in this category. The influence on theo- logical science of Augustine, Anselm, Calvin, Luther, and a hundred more, as commentators, preachers, and philanthropists, neither man nor angel can estimate. So of earnest workers in the 36 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN professions of music, painting, sculpture, architec- ture, and many other arts and sciences. Each has its heroes and martyrs, each its diademed victors, its glorified saints, and now its tireless toilers. But in order that a man may enlarge the boundary of the known in his profession, he must be able to come up to that boundary. You must know what has been discovered before you can discover new truths. You must stand on the limits of the dis- covered before you can reach into untraveled realms of thought and bring therefrom grand truths for other toilers. To do this work you must be equipped with scholarship ; you must know the known before you can discover the unknown. Scholarship, then, is necessary that you may pay the debt you owe your profession, yourself, your generation, and your Alma Mater. Gentlemen, I have thus placed a high standard before you. I believe it is as true as it is high. Who can attain unto it? Imperfection marks all earthly endeavor and attainment. But there is growth in the effort to grow. There may be power in our conscious need of power. We have our brief span of life in this nineteenth century or in the opening years of the twentieth. It is the noon- day of opportunity. Our fathers saw this day from afar, but they only touched the hem of oppor- tunity's flowing robe. The world never saw a more glorious era than ours. Forward, O men ; let us do our duty ; angels can do no more. Gentlemen, with all our getting may we get THE SCHOLAR IN THE WORLD 37 "understanding." With all our striving for knowl- edge may we "come to the knowledge of the truth." The school of Him who "spake as never man spake" is the noblest university. When we have been graduated from life's school, may we be matriculated into the higher learning of heaven's limitless knowledge and unspeakable glory ! II CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE CULTURE ^ MR. PRESIDENT and Christian Friends: I thank you for your cordial greeting. It is with many and conflicting emotions that I rise in this place and on this occasion, in response to the call of the chairman. Many and tender memories of honored instructors and beloved fellow-students who have finished their course and have entered upon their rest, crowd upon me to-day. Twenty- three years ago I left this place to embrace the opportunity for a broader culture than was possible here at that time. Coming back to you to-day thoughts of gratitude to God for his mercy, mingled with the memories of which I have spoken, cluster about this spot. I congratulate you all upon this beautiful day. With no part of the very kind in- troduction just given me by Dr. Rand do I so heartily agree as with the reference to the wisdom shown in the selection of the day for this memora- ble observance. It is surely right for us to regard this day as an expression of the kindness of our Father in Heaven. We are certainly warranted in seeing in the glorious sunshine which now floods ^ Delivered October 22, 1886 at Woodstock, Ontario, at the laying of the cornerstone of the New Hall, the gift of Senator and Mrs. McMaster, of the Woodstock College. 38 CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE CULTURE 39 the world with its splendor, the reflection of his uplifted countenance ; and in the balmy air which kisses our cheek, we recognize his paternal bene- diction. It is my profound conviction that this day marks an era in the history of our beloved de- nomination in Canada ; that the laying of this cor- nerstone is an epoch-making event in our educa- tional work. Senator and Mrs. McMaster, I am quite well assured, will be remembered in the years to come ; not so much because of his business suc- cess ; not so much because of the political honors which have been showered upon him ; not so much because of social distinction on the part of both, as because of the part which they have taken in the education of young men and women in our de- nomination in Canada. If there were no higher motives for generosity to literary institutions than the consideration of the worthy fame which they give their promoters, this might be one reason for the exercise of benevolence in this respect. The honor of founding and aiding the great col- leges and other institutions of learning in the Old World and the New, will endure after all political and social successes have passed away. These schools will outlive the glory of kings and queens. Firm as is the British throne to-day, it is not so firm as are the great institutions of learning which are the pride and glory of Britain. Amid political conflicts the British throne may totter and even fall, but these great colleges will stand, whether under a 40 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN monarchy or in a republic ; their foundation is sure and their immortahty is certain. The founders of such institutions of learning will live in honored memory while time lasts. Those who contribute to the establishment and to the endowment of in- stitutions of learning should have higher motives than these. As a rule they have higher motives ; as a rule the considerations named are only sec- ondary, if they are present at all. But they cer- tainly are not unworthy of mention on an occasion of this kind. All honor to the noble men who have given so largely of their wealth ; all honor to the scores and hundreds of men and women who have given out of their comparative poverty for the founding of this institution. Their names shall shine as the stars forever in the galaxy of noble, intelligent, and consecrated Canadian Baptists. Permit me on this occasion to call your atten- tion to the " Characteristics of True Culture," as the special topic for remark. FIRST CHARACTERISTIC. We may say at the outset, that true culture must be cojnprehensive. It is evident that true culture implies the development of all the faculties of our complex being. A very little consideration will make this truth perfectly clear. What is culture ? Look at the derivation of the word. It is tilling. To till you must plow or delve ; you must rake or harrow. You have culture in a field only as you have tilling. Parts of the field that have not been CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE CULTURE 4 1 tilled are not cultured. That cannot then be a cultured field in which large portions have been neglected. New World farmers are astonished when they see the fields of the Old World farmers. With the latter every spot is tilled, every mountain side is cultured. No man can claim that his is a well-tilled farm when much of it has never felt the plowshare or the spade. So no man can fairly claim the honors of culture, portions of whose nature lie fallow. What would you say of a man who would claim to be cultured simply because his muscles were well developed. You say, " Yes ; he has physical culture, let him limit his claim to that." But you rightly demand more. The intellect also must have culture. Now more of the territory has been gone over ; now more may be rightly claimed by the man. But why stop there ? The man is more than muscles and mind. You must go higher. All things below man look up to man as their center. Shall he have no upward look ? All faculties within look to the heart, the soul, the con- science. The word conscience suggests this upward look. It is a solemn word. It is knowing together with another. Who is that other? There stands God. The literal meaning of one Greek word for man is "The upward-looking one." A man who has no upward look is unworthy of the name ; he is denying his dignity ; he is stripping himself of his glory. Language itself witnesses for its author. 42 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Man is not a god unto himself. A true culture includes the entire field ; it sweeps across every faculty. It has its earthward, its manward, and its Godward relation. If lacking in any of these directions it is partial, defective, and unauthoritative culture. It is like Ephraim, who is likened to a cake not turned — a cake baked only on one side. Tried by this true standard many claimants for this honor will be found wanting. Sidney Smith thought it better not to read a book which he was to review — reading might prejudice his judgment. So do men of culture in some directions seem to act in regard to religion and the Bible. The religious side of their nature is neglected, other parts are cultivated. On science and art they would not make ignorance a claim to authority ; in regard to religion they act as if their ignorance especially fitted them for bold and authoritative statement. Such men would deserve our contempt did not our religion teach us to give them our pity. The apos- tles could say, "We speak that we do know" ; not so with these ill-cultured critics of divine things. Locke said, "It needs a sunny eye to see the sun." He is right. No man can see the ocean except he have oceans in his soul ; no man can truly enjoy the mountains unless he has mountains on his brain ; so no man knows divine love save as he has felt its constraining power. Flesh and blood cannot reveal the deep things of God to a man. The Lord's secret is with those who fear him. To know bread and meat you must eat them. CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE CULTURE 43 A hungry man who should coolly pronounce on the life-giving qualities of bread and meat as the result of a chemical analysis alone would proclaim himself a fool. You would say of him that much stamng had made him mad. So to be able to judge of re- ligion you must have religion ; you must have the bread of heaven. This is not on the part of the re- ligious teacher asking too much. If you are to demonstrate to me a problem in geometry you have a right to demand that I shall know enough of the science at least to follow you step by step. If I do not, how dare I dissent from your conclu- sion? Is my ignorance to give me authority? Geometrically I am, on this supposition, an utterly uncultured man. Surely a man ought to be diffident in pro- nouncing an opinion on a subject which he has never studied. Sir Isaac Newton was right when he said to Dr. Halley, a man of science but an un- believer in God's word : " I am glad to hear you speak about astronomy and mathematics, for you have studied and you understand them ; but you should not talk of Christianity, for you have never studied it." That is good sense. Dr. Halley was not a man of culture so far as Christianity was con- cerned ; that side of his nature was unbaked, un- cultured. In recent discussions on the life and work of Emerson, the name of Thoreau has often been mentioned. He is a type of one class of men of culture, so called. In 1837 he graduated from Harvard College. For three years he was a teacher ; 44 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN he then occupied himself with various kinds of me- chanical pursuits and with land surveying. He imbibed the spirit of Emerson's transcendentalism. In March, 1845, he built himself a shanty on the shore of Walden Pond. There he lived a sort of hermit life. One object was to see how simply and cheaply a man could live ; and he demonstrated that it was possible to do this on seventy dollars a year. Noble achievement ! Grand ambition ! True, he wrote a little. But what did he really accom- plish? How was he better than the miserable monastic hermits of an earlier day? Such culture is in its last analysis supreme selfishness, and sel- fishness is the essence of all sin. Emerson, in a measure, fell into the same snare. He was refined, solitary, personally pure, and noble. But whose sorrows did he share ? Whose burdens did he lift? Carlyle's culture was painfully one- sided. He was crusted on the one side, he was crude on the other. The harsh, the crabbed, the unloving elements were unduly developed ; the tender, gentle, and winning graces were neglected. He broke the heart of Jane Welsh, who devoted her great powers and sacrificed her lofty ambition to be his household slave. She might have been the wife of Edward Irving, and if he had had her for a wife he would have had fewer dreams and visions and would have accomplished more for God and man. Carlyle held this woman almost exclusively to the drudgery of menial duties. If he had given her the position which her worth demanded and had helped her in CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE CULTURE 45 her domestic burdens, he would have had less dys- pepsia in his body and less savagery in his books. If a few more lives of Carlyle are published we shall begin to wish that one life had never been lived ; the iconoclast of shams, there is danger that he himself shall be proved a sham. The men who bless and save the world in the largest sense, are not men of Carlyle's stamp. His very greatness makes his weakness the more conspicuous. It is also to be borne in mind that both Emerson and Carlyle seem to have come, in their later years, more fully into the light of Christ than in their middle life. Remarks made by Emerson plainly show that his pantheism gave way to theism, and that Christ became more and more an example and helper. Carlyle fully acknowledged, as he stood on the brink of eternity, that the old words learned in childhood came back with wondrous power — that the chief end of man was to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Culture? Yes, but let it be the culture of the whole man. Such was the culture of Howard, of Wilberforce, and of Lincoln. Those were men of broader sympathies, philanthropic im- pulses, and practical aims. All acknowledge the power of George Eliot as a thinker and writer. She was in some respects the most accomplished woman of her generation. A woman's pen stabbed to the heart the monster slavery in America, and George Eliot's pen was a mighty instrument for piercing many an evil in England and throughout the world. But she had a narrow outlook and 46 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN almost no uplook. This world bounded her range of vision. She was a preacher of despair and an apostle of pessimism. She robbed herself of her noblest crown as a child of God and an heir of glory. Better the rounded life, symmetrical culture, and practical labors of Florence Nightingale. Born in the same year as Queen Victoria, she also is a queen. Born in the beautiful city of Florence, she therefor received her beautiful name. Taking the name of Nightingale, because of family and property con- siderations, she has proved herself to be truly a nightingale, singing songs of hope and love in the loneliness of grief and in the darkness of the mid- night hour. She possessed even in her infancy that undefined and undefinable something which has been called "the nurse's touch." Beginning in the humblest way by carrying warm food, gruel, and tea to children of sick neighbors ; going with flannels and bandages to the hospitals to aid the distressed ; going later in life to Germany to per- fect herself for such a noble ministry in a famous school devoted to instruction in the healing art, she went from strength to strength, being faithful in that which was least, and ready to enter the door of a wider opportunity when, in the providence of God, it should be open. That opportunity soon came. The soldiers of Britain were found in the Crimean War marching in deep snow in boots without soles. They laid their weary bodies down at night in tents whose floors CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE CULTURE 47 were wet with melted snow, and whose sides were but poorly protected from the driving storm. Never did the soldiers of Britain fight under more disadvan- tageous circumstances. The letter of Dr. Russell to the "London Times," describing these horrible con- ditions, aroused all England ; every heart was stirred with pity and with righteous indignation, coupled with profound sorrow. All eyes were turned in the direction of some practical helper. Then up rose Florence Nightingale. She went. The world knows her history ; the world will never forget her deeds of heroism and of noble consecration. Thousands of soldiers soon called her blessed, and her name soon took the place among the noblest women of the noblest nations of the earth. When in the American Republic the fiercest civil war of the world was raging, the example of Flor- ence Nightingale aroused her American sisters all over the loyal North, and on scores of battle- fields and in scores of hospitals these loyal women ministered to the sick and soothed the pillows of the dying. The American Nightingales made the dark night of many a terrible scene musical with the song of hope, of love, and of patriotic devotion. There is more power in the sweet and blessed life of "Sister Dora," with her strong body, her clear head, and her consecrated heart, ministering to the sick, instructing the well, and caring for the dying, than in the lives of all the sentimental hermits, tran- scendental philosophers, and snarling critics. It is 48 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN a touching and beautiful fact that almost at this moment a monument is being unveiled to the mem- ory of Sister Dora, and Florence Nightingale is invited to participate in the ceremonies. The beautiful letter which she has written in reply to the invitation is now being read in the newspapers of two continents, and the memoirs of these two women will hereafter be united by the tenderest of sisterly ties. Give us this stalwart sister Dora ! Give us the fragile and fragrant Havergal, whose songs, inspired by genius and Christian consecra- tion, will be sung for many generations as samples of the culture which the world needs and which only the spirit of Christ and his cross can give ! True culture develops all the faculties of the soul. True culture must be comprehensive also, cover- ing a very broad field. Not only all the faculties of the soul are to be developed, but true scholar- ship must include a very wide range of subjects in our day. Every man who is made is, in a true sense, self-made. The term scholar, unfortunately, is not eynonymous with the term college graduate.^ There are scholars who are not college graduates ; there are college graduates who are not scholars. Some graduates have not the habits, tastes, and in- stincts of scholars. It is not the business of a college to furnish brains. A college is a mill, and the character of the flour depends upon the qual- ^ At this point a few of the thoughts expressed in the first paper are repeated. They are retained because of their importance in their present connection. — [Ed.] CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE CULTURE 49 ity of the grain which goes into the hopper. No college faculty can get something out of nothing. You can polish maple or marble ; you cannot polish cheese or chalk. It has been often and con- clusively demonstrated that money cannot pur- chase capacity. The fool brayed in the college mortar, with however good a presidential pestle, is a fool still. Doubtless he will profit by the bray- ing ; doubtless some of his foolishness will have departed from him by the time of his graduation. If after the advantages of the college course there is so great stupidity as we sometimes see, how great would that stupidity be had there been no college course? The stupidity is in spite of, not because of, the training received. On the other hand, those who are scholars but not college graduates, are such in spite of their disadvantages. Given a college training and how much more complete, symmetrical, and polished their scholarship would be. The colleges simply help men to make them- selves. The college training sharpens nature's tools and teaches their right use. You may with one hand hold on the grindstone a chisel with which you are to carve out fame and fortune ; you may turn the stone with the other hand, but if you could hold the chisel with both hands while the college faculty turned the stone, your chances for a fine-edged tool would be wonderfully improved. This broad scholarship is needed to-day, not alone in professional and political, but also in busi- ness life. The relations of business life are more D 50 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN far-reaching to-day than ever before in the world's history. The world is both larger and smaller than ever before — larger in regard to its points of con- tact with our daily lives — smaller in regard to the facility with which the contact is make. Mr. Joseph Cook has said that there are now no hermit nations. Inspired by a unifying and sympathetic impulse the nations have risen above their former boundaries, and have mingled the results of their labor in one great ocean of national life and Christian endeavor. Steamships and railways make distant continents near neighbors ; telegraphs and telephones have made the world a whispering gallery. They have changed the business and the civilization of the century. They represent on a gigantic scale the marvels of each man's own nervous system. With bowed head and palpitating heart, all Chris- tendom, a few years ago, virtually stood by the bed- side of General Garfield while he was fighting his terrible battle. In the capitals of the world his pulse- beats were counted ; princes and peasants listened with mingled hope and fear for his heart-throbs. Since that day all the world watched General Grant fighting the only enemy he could not conquer. Such kinship was impossible a generation ago ; such unity of knowledge and interest will do much to unite the world in the bonds of perpetual broth- erhood. Every morning the ends of the world meet in the paper at our breakfast table. In this day merchants deal with peoples of various names, colors, languages, and conditions. Soon the Congo CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE CULTURE 5 I Valley will be as familiar to our thought and speech as is the valley of the Mississippi to-day. Already goods are shipped from our ports to the corners of the earth ; already new branches of manufac- tures are preparing to enter these new and vast fields of commercial enterprise. India is as near us to-day as Liverpool was a generation ago. To- day the merchant and the manufacturer ought to know the history, the products, the needs, the habits and the conditions of at least half a dozen nations. To-day in the city of New York repre- sentatives of almost every nation under heaven may be met upon the street, and forty different lan- guages and dialects are heard in a morning's walk. The same thing is true of London. The successful man of the past generation, if he should still -follow the old methods, would be a helpless dwarf amid the tremendous giants of to-day. Do you tell me that the business man of to-day does not need scholarship both vast and varied? Then I ask you, "Where have you lived? In what sunless hole have you burrowed, that you cherish such an opinion?" Our most kingly merchants, not to speak of professional men, find an ever- widen- ing sphere for the employment of all their faculties in the tremendous rush and roar of the world-em- bracing possibilities of our time, in the march of trade, and in the general diffusion of knowledge in our day. Never was it more evident than at this hour that any scholarship, worthy of the name, must be comprehensive in the sense in which I am now 52 CURRENT QUESTJONS FOR THINKING MEN using that term. No man may rightly lay claim to the honors of culture who does not cover a very wide and varied field in the use of his intellectual plow and harrow. But scholarship must also be comprehensive in the sense of making a thorough examination of any particular topic. The time was when specialists were synonymous with quacks — when in the pro- fession of medicine to speak of an oculist or an aurist, or of a man devoted to any one branch of medical practice, was confessedly or tacitly to speak of him as a charlatan, an empiric, a quack. That day is now past. Specialists are recognized with peculiar regard, and their opinions received with marked authority in their various professions. The field of inquiry is too large to be thoroughly can- vassed by any one man, however vast and varied his erudition may be. However much we enlarge the boundaries of the known, we by so much, and by much more, enlarge the boundaries of the un- known. Every new discovery suggests a thousand truths not yet fully discovered ; every new acquire- ment impresses the student with the meagreness of his attainments, the paucity of his knowledge, and the blindness of his intellectual eyesight. No man can know everything about everything. It is often a confession, not of ignorance, but of right knowledge and good common sense when a man says, " I do not know ; on that subject I am igno- rant." The first step is taken in the direction of wide attainment when a man is distinctly conscious CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE CULTURE 53 of his own ignorance. To draw the hne then, be- tween broad knowledge and special attainment is no easy matter. The true rule, perhaps, is that a man should know something of everything and everything of something. The farmer should be a chemist as far as a knowledge of soils and seeds and climates is concerned. So ought every me- chanic and every professional man to be master of the special department of knowledge to which he devotes himself Let me urge you to be thorough ; to be able to speak with authority upon all the factors which enter into the problems with which your own life is specially concerned. In these three directions then, we earnestly urge that scholarship shall be comprehensive ; it must include all the faculties of the soul, it must cover a wide range of topics, and it must master all the facts of some one topic in order that it may claim the credit of comprehensiveness. SECOND CHARACTERISTIC. But let me remark, in the second place, that true culture must manifest itself in noble character. Culture is not an end in itself; it is the means to an end. That end is noble character. What is character? As the word implies, it is the man's distinctive mark. Reputation is what a man seems to be ; character is what a man is. Reputation is what men think we are ; character what God knows us to be. Reputation is seeming ; character is being. There are circumstances under which men 54 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN of good character may have a bad reputation ; there are cases also when men of good reputation may possess a bad character. Sometimes to be thought ill of by some people is the highest compliment ; you would be degraded if they thought well of you. But seeming and being cannot long contra- dict each other ; no man can long play the hypo- crite. The being will soon give color to the seem- ing. What a man is in the sight of God, he will soon appear to be even in the sight of man. What is in the man must come out. No man falls sud- denly. There is a sudden crash and the world is startled, but the man long leaned before he fell. The man's sin was long seen by God before the world discovered his character. To-day character of high order is in constant demand. Whatever will tend to its cultivation is worthy of our earnest thought and continued endeavor. We are startled by the number of defalcations w'hose accounts fill the newspapers. Defaulters are found in high places, as well as in low ; they are found in the church as well as in the world. Defaulters are multiplying so rapidly that men sometimes ask, " Can honesty be found any- where ? " But let us not give way to pessimism of this sort. The world is not growing worse. The church was never more intelligent, benevolent, and consecrated than it is to-day. For every man who is a defaulter there are scores and hundreds and thousands who stand firm as a rock amid the strongest temptations. Men by the thousand can CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE CULTURE 55 readily be found in banks, in offices, and in other positions of trust, who would rather die than betray any trust. You in Canada harbor some American merchants, aldermen, and others, who find it nec- essary for their convenience and comfort to live across the border ; but we have millions who do not come, except now and then you invite some of them ; and they go back whenever they choose without the company of a sheriff's officer. While you are thinking of one defaulter, do not forget the thousands of true and honest men who would rather be shot than defraud God or man. Perhaps we have made too much of the devil. We owe him nothing but disrespect, contempt, and dis- obedience. But there is enough in the dishonesty practised to suggest earnest inquiry and to lead to earnest effort to secure character of a high order. Such character is wanted to-day as never before. Every man in God's world will, in the course of time, get all that he is worth. We have no sympathy with men who complain that they are not appreciated. There is no corner in the universe sufficiently ob- scure to hide a man of power ; God wants such men ; the world wants such men. The world seeks them ; God sends for them. They find their level ; some far above the position of the average man. God has a hook, in a different sense from that in which he had it in the nose of Sennacherib, in the nose of every man. God reaches out his hand after such men and says, " Come up higher," and they go. Now, culture, education, scholarship 56 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN which does not develop character of the highest order, is not culture, education, scholarship of the highest order. We want the ripest products which all these influences can possibly produce. We must remember that character of the highest order is not formed amid the rush of the street. The whole trend of college and church effort to-day is apt to be too much in the direction of work. The cry at our religious and educational conventions is, Work, work, work. The song we constantly hear is, "Work, for the night is coming" ; the text we frequently quote is, "A workman that needeth not to be ashamed"; the command which we con- stantly utter is, "Son, go work in my vineyard." We love to represent our Christian life as a battle- field and the Christian as a soldier. There is truth in this representation ; there is in it a truth we must never forget ; a truth, on the contrary, which we must often and emphatically urge. Nevertheless this is not the whole truth. In the word of God we find constant reference to walking, growing, fruit-bearing. Amid the hurry and bustle of the present day we do not give sufficient time to the building of the noblest forms of character. Every life must have its time of secret communion with God, when it may receive in secret that which it shall bestow in public. Christ's life was spent partly in the closet and partly in the crowd ; partly in communion with God and partly in labor for man. He swept into the hemisphere of communion with God, receiving the Spirit without measure ; and he CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE CULTURE 57 then swept into the hemisphere of active work, bestowing upon man blessings without measure. In proportion as we Hve over again Christ's Hfe in this, as in all respects, we shall attain to the highest Christian possibilities, we shall develop the most symmetrical character. The physical life re- quires relaxation that it may enjoy wholesome exercise ; not less does the spiritual life require profound meditation and careful and consecrated Bible study. Like Martha many are cumbered with much serving ; we do not object to the much serving, but like Mary we must find time also to sit at the Master's feet. Sitting there we re- ceive strength to run in the way of Christ's com- mandments. Hearing his word, we learn best how to speak with wisdom to men. Christian char- acter is to be exalted by combining wholesome ac- tivity with reposeful contemplation. THE THIRD CHARACTERISTIC. The third characteristic of true culture which I shall name is that it is Christian. The highest form of character is not possible except it shall be re- lated to Jesus Christ. We are thus led from cul- ture to character and from character to Christ. True culture must be Christian. It ought to be known that in a true sense knowledge, not ignor- ance, is the mother of devotion. The infinitely great on the one hand and the infinitely small on the other invite us to their study and charm us by their mystery. Christianity welcomes investigation. 58 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Her spirit builds our free schools and endows our colleges and seminaries. Christian young men ought to surpass all others in the extent and char- acter of their attainments. They have Christ for their teacher, and the noblest men and purest women the world has ever known, for their fellow- pupils. Culture has ever adorned Christianity with its beauty, and Christianity in its turn has crowned culture with its unfading glories. Learning has often found its noblest employment in casting its treasures, like the wise men from the East, at the feet of Jesus. Christ must be placed in the very center of the intellectual life, if its highest possibil- ities are to be realized. All intellectual activity must go out from him as light rays from the sun. When he is so enthroned truths will adjust them- selves to one another in their proper relations. The pure white light of intellect is impossible except it kindles its torch at the cross of Christ. The highest glory of Greek and Latin literature was a re- flection from the divine splendor which rested on Hebrew altars. Nothing has in it the element of en- durance except it be religious. The Greek poems and dramas are no exceptions to this law. They were religious ; in some important respects they voiced the deepest religious feelings and the loftiest aspirations of the best men of their time. The oper- ettas of the day are only for the day. Enduring music is religious. The loftiest human aspirations are divine aspirations. The men who most trium- phantly walk the dizzy heights of intellectual great- CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE CULTURE ' 59 ness are those who most humbly walk with God. The most loyal disciple in Christ's school, other things being equal, should be the most successful disciple in all other schools. Christ is the truth ; in its vast realms he is King. All truth worships at his pierced feet. This thought gives dignity to intellectual pursuits. All angles and triangles, sines and cosines, thus become revelations of the thoughts of God. Geometry becomes voiceful with eternal truths, and astronomy declares the glory of God in the firmament which showeth his handiwork. All history is but an unfolding of his divine plan and eternal purpose. The undevout student is un- scientific. How can he master the great truths of science and history if he be disloyal to the King of Truth ? To know them aright he must first know him aright. As well might a man write a treatise on astronomy and leave out the sun as to attempt to write a history of this world and leave out Jesus Christ, the Sun of Righteousness. These truths are illustrated in history. It has dawned upon the thinkers of to-day that there is a philosophy, a science of history ; that there is his- toric continuity in the story of races and events ; that they are not unrelated facts ; that behind all things is the mind of God ; that controlling all things is the hand of God. Current events cannot be understood except as we see in them the stately steppings of the Lord's Christ. Gladstone knows this. In the government or out of it, he is the fore- most man in the world to-day ; and he is as humble 6o CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN a Christian as he is learned as a scholar or great as a statesman. The truly great scholars of the world to-day are pupils in Christ's school. Not Gibbon, not Hume, notMacaulay, not Greene, not McMaster, can write history and leave out Christ. The reverent student of history hears the echoes of his footbeats all down the corridors of the centuries. He sees all historic forces before the coming of Christ con- verging toward the cross ; he sees all after his com- ing diverging fiom it. The cross is the pivotal point of the world's history. It stood at the con- fluence of three streams of civilization : Hebrew, the language of religion ; Greek, the language of culture ; Latin, the language of law. To under- stand these forces in the world's life, you must sit beneath the cross of Calvary. Perhaps Hugh Mil- ler did not go too far when he claimed to have found the cross in the hoary rocks. It is certain that the true historical student sees the hand of Christ on the helm of the universe. All science, all history, all true intellectual effort receives from Christ its inspiration and lays at his feet its noblest achievements. The same truth is seen in literature. Many per- sons are ambitious to be considered great readers, and they too often neglect the Bible. It is im- possible to read all the books published by the prolific press of the day. It is as undesirable as it is impossible. As well might you submit to hav- ing every man you meet on the street to-morrow morning take you by the button-hole, as have every CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE CULTURE 6 1 book published arrest your attention. There are, however, certain classics that every well-informed man should read. Works of history, science, art, and some works of fiction there are which he should read, but not to the neglect of the word of God. In it are Hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowl- edge. Many illustrations emphasize these statements. When Sir Walter Scott lay dying, he was carried into his dining room that he might gaze on the beautiful Tweed, which he so much loved. He then asked his son-in-law, Mr. Lockhart, to read to him. "What book?" asked Mr. Lockhart. " What book ? "said Sir Walter ; " there is but one, the Bible, read that." He who had read so widely, and had contributed so many immortal pages to literature, gives this testimony to the value of the Bible. Mr. Dickens was in the habit of writing a letter to each of his sons as he left the paternal roof In one he urged his son, whatever other books be neglected, to read the Bible, as it con- tained the purest morality and the best known rules of life in the world. When Milton would become a " poet, soaring in the high reason of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him," he must go to the Bible for his high theme. The music of " Siloa's brook that flowed fast by the oracle of God," gives its charm to his lofty verse. The debt which music, painting, sculpture, and literature owe to the Bible cannot be fully estimated. It has been said by a competent authority that the 62 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Red Cross Knight, in Spenser's "Faerie Queene," is but Paul's armed Christian in the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians ; that Pope's " Mes- siah " is but a paraphrase of prophetic and seraphic passages in Isaiah ; that the noblest strains in Cowper's "Task" draw their inspiration and part of their imagery from the same rapt prophet ; that the " Thanatopsis " of Bryant is but the expansion of a passage in Job ; that Wordsworth's " Ode on Immortality" could never have been written but for Paul's fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians and the eighth chapter of Romans ; that Shakespeare's conception of woman, of a Desdemona and of an Ophelia, would have been impossible had not his mind been permeated by a Bible, a Christian ideal. That true culture must be Christian is illustrated in art as in literature. When Raphael, " the di- vine," would perpetuate his name to unborn genera- tions, he must ascend the "holy mount," stand in the supernal glory, and gaze on the transfigured Christ. As " The Transfiguration " was his greatest, so it was his last work. He died at Rome on April 6th, 1 5 20, the anniversary of his birthday, in early manhood, being but thirty-seven years old, with the "Transfiguration" on his heart and brain. That picture was carried before him to his grave. He was buried in the Pantheon. Over his sleeping dust some loving hands long continued to place a rose. This rose faded, but the " Rose of Sharon " still fills the world with its perfume. When Handel was discouraged by attempting to give opera in a CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE CULTURE 63 foreign language, he accepted an invitation from several notables in Ireland to visit Dublin, From a friend he received a text from the Bible, and on that text he composed his immortal work, known at first as the "Sacred Oratorio," now known as the " Messiah." Both in Dublin and in London this work gave him immediate fame, and since, throughout the world, it has crowned him with triumphant success and unfading glories. With undaunted heart we stand beside the Cross to-day. In this sign we shall conquer the world. An uplifted Christ is still the mightiest magnet to attract the hearts of men ; this cannot be denied. That Cross is still the power and the wisdom of God. Some men may affirm that the old gospel is losing its power; that "modern thought" demands a modern gospel. They have denied that the gospel is a finality ; they have invented other gospels. But what is new in them is not true ; and what is true is not new. They have tried spiritualism, and it has proved itself to be a vulgar cheat and contemptible fraud. They have tried materialism, and it has proved itself to be, what Carlyle called it, "a gospel of dirt." They have tried various shades of liberalism, but negatives are poor food for hungry souls. They have tried sci- ence. To a true science religion has no objections to urge. What God says in his works must agree with what he says in his word. Genesis and geol- ogy, when each is rightly interpreted, must har- monize. A true science will lay its crown at Jesus' 64 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN feet. Men have tried atheism. They would de- throne God, they would degrade men ; but God refuses to be pushed out of the world which he has made. One scarcely knows whether most to pity or despise these false teachers. They certainly ex- cite our pity ; they almost justify our contempt. They are moles and bats in the gleaming light of the nineteenth centurj'. Once Paine boasted, in the Broadway Hotel, in New York, that in five years there would not be a Bible in America. How we smile at his folly ! The day will come when the defiant predictions of another blatant and blas- phemous infidel will excite our corresponding pity and contempt. The pulpit losing its power ! The Bible becoming obsolete ! The pulpit was never so mighty a power as it is at this hour. The Bible is mightier than ever before, while the books of in- fidel opposers lie dust-covered in unused libraries. I tell you that as a Christian man I walk with my head among the stars. The highest point of human greatness men ever reach is when they bow at the feet of Jesus Christ, and take him for their Lord and God. Away with the devil's nostrums ! I respectfully decline to be orphaned in my Father's world. We want the old, old gospel, old as eter- nity, and new as the last sunbeam which has kissed your cheek. Nothing but the bread of heaven can feed the hungry soul. Nothing but the balm of Gilead can heal the heart's sorrow. Blessed be God, his gospel will never lose its power until Satan CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE CULTURE 65 is crushed' beneath our feet, and Christ is wor- shiped as Lord of all. On the banks of that river which Byron called "the wide and winding Rhine" stands the old city of Cologne. It is famous for many things, but especially for its cathedral. The old foundation of this was laid in 814; the foundations of the present structure in 1270. This cathedral is one of the noblest specimens of Gothic architecture in the world. It is five hundred and ten feet long and two hundred and thirty feet wide. For hun- dreds of years a great iron derrick hung from its unfinished towers. The architect died, leaving the cathedral but a dream of his brain. The pave- ments of this unfinished structure were dyed with blood of friend and foe, but the work was not to remain incomplete. Emperors laid hold of this unfinished structure ; money was poured out like water, and that which was once a dream in the architect's brain is now a poem in stone. Within the past few years the work has been completed, and the highest work of man beneath the stars at this present time is the lofty towers of the cathedral of Cologne. The plan of the architect is realized in every detail. He died, but his work lives. The dream of his brain is now a sermon, an inspiration, a poem. All these glorious truths are illustrated in the history of this institution. Perish the thought that it should live to discrown and dethrone the Lord Jesus Christ ! This day marks an era in its history £ 66 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN and in the history of Baptist education in the Do- minion of Canada. We have laid the corner-stone in the name and to the glory of the Triune God. An inspiring future awaits us. Every science and every art shall bring its crown and lay it here, at the pierced feet of Christ. We are rearing a nobler structure than one of wood and stone. We are building up characters that shall be more en- during than bronze or marble. We are building in individual lives a temple for the King of Kings. The workers will die ; the work will live. In it Dr. Fyfe and his companions in toil will live over again their consecrated lives. The foundation is laid in Christ's name, and amid the shouts of saints and the pseans of seraphs the capstone shall be laid ; and our song now and in that glorious future shall be, " Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy great name be the glory." Ill CHRISTIANITY AND THE SECULAR SPIRIT^ CHRISTIANITY is a more pervasive, domi- nant, and beneficent force than either its friends or its foes ordinarily appreciate. Like many other mighty forces it works largely in silence. It does not give out a loud report when it undermines some hoary error or establishes some benignant truth. God's great heavens and his vast laboratory in the earth give forth, for the most part, no sound in their gigantic movements. God's greatest works are performed in silent realms. Christianity is no exception to this law. Like its Founder it comes not with observation. Heathen thinkers and writers of the early centuries of Chris- tianity were strangely ignorant of its power, and apparently even of its presence. Their silence is surprising ; it is almost unaccountable. In the meantime Christianity was leavening literature, philosophy, art, government, and social life ; it was the force hidden in the very heart of society which was to Some degree to affect the whole Roman world. But even in our own day many men are ^ Delivered in connection with the commencement exercises of the Newton Theological Institution, Newton, Mass., May 24, 1892. 67 68 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN strangely thoughtless as to the place and power of Christianity among the roborant forces of modern life. Its predominance and beneficence, like the majesty and glory of the sun, are with many Chris- tians even matters of course. Some who are the foes of Christianity do not, because they will not, recognize its influence at its full value. It was prophesied of its divine Founder that " he should not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street" ; and also that "he shall bring forth judgment unto truth ; he shall not fail nor be dis- couraged, till he have set judgment in the earth ; and the isles shall wait for his law." Our Lord's life was a literal fulfillment of this ancient prophecy. The history of his church since his ascension is equally a fulfillment of the proph- ecy so far as it relates to the progress of Christian truth. Nothing is more certain than that Christ is to reign until all his enemies are put under his feet, and that the gates of hades shall not prevail against his church. It is readily admitted that greater prominence is given in our day to certain evils in .society than was formerly the case. But this is not because the evils are greater than ever before ; it is rather because the desire to remove them is greater than ever before. The shadows are deeper because the light is brighter. No quarter of a century in the world's history is so marked with great moral conflicts and conquests as is the third quarter of this century. We do not hesitate to say that it has no parallel in any period, before or since the Chris- CHRISTIANITY AND THE SECULAR SPIRIT 69 tian era. We have seen during this generation many milhons of serfs emancipated in Russia ; we have seen the temporal power of the pope de- stroyed and Victor Emanuel in triumph entering Rome as king of United Italy ; we have seen the greatest civil war of the world waged on our own soil, and ending in the triumph of liberty and the establishment of the republic on enduring founda- tions. What has been the influence of Christianity in bringing about these and other beneficent re- sults ? What is the relation of Christianity to the spirit of the times in which we live ? This is a proper question. To it a fair answer can be given. CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE. Let us, in the first place, look at the relation be- tA\'een Christianity and the scientific spirit of the time. Many timid Christians think there is a necessary opposition between Christianity and science. Many narrow-minded scientists take the same ground, with an air of triumph which is as ill founded in fact as it is unjustifiable in spirit. Between estab- lished science and Christianity there is not, there cannot be, contradiction. God is one ; truth is one. God cannot contradict himself; what he has written in his word, if rightly understood, must harmonize with what he has written in his world, if properly interpreted. Christianity welcomes all forms of right inquiry ; her spirit builds our acad- emies, our colleges, and our schools of professional 70 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN learning. We frankly admit that the church at times has acted ignorantly, bigotedly, and wickedly toward science and scientists. Unfortunately, science and scientists have acted with equal igno- rance, bigotry, and wickedness toward the church. The church for the most part has now been con- verted, and science has also to some degree ex- perienced a change of heart ; but it ought to be remembered that if the church in the Middle Ages was hostile to science, science at that time was so unscientific as to be worthy of but little respect. Perhaps the case of Galileo and his ecclesiastical opponents has already done sufficient service in il- lustrating the ignorance and bigotry of the church ; but there are some sides to the subject which are not often presented. The church of that day was no fair representative of the church of later days. Religion and science, both and equally, were in sad need of a reformation. To make the church of to- day responsible for the church of that day would be as unfair, as unscientific, as to make the science of to-day responsible for all the vagaries of the so- called science of that day. It is humiliating that not only did the Roman Catholic Church of the time oppose Galileo, but even Luther and Melanc- thon wrote against the Copernican system. They regarded it as opposed to the authority of the Bible. Galileo's teachings triumphed when clear evi- dence was adduced for their support. But it is to be remembered and constantly emphasized CHRISTIANITY AND THE SECULAR SPIRIT 7 1 that those who first excited persecution against Gahleo were not ecclesiastics but scientists. This was natural. His teachings corrected their igno- rance ; they must either confess it or attack him. It was natural that they should do the latter, and they did it with a will. These were the men — men of science — who obliged him to fly from Pisa and to seek the protection of Salviati. It was, of course, guilty presumption in him to contradict, " by experiments made from the top of the Lean- ing Tower, the theorem of Aristotle which declared that 'the velocity of the motion of falling bodies is in proportion to their weight' " Out of this op- position and flight came the professorship in the University of Padua. Some of his subsequent troubles came when he left the sphere of science and entered the domain of Scripture interpretation. He declared "that in Scripture there were prop- ositions which were false in the literal sense of the words . . . and that in all natural questions philo- sophical argument should have more weight than mere scriptural declaration." To this bold utter- ance the reply of Cardinal Baronius was as consider- ate as it was conclusive : " The Scriptures were given to teach men how to rise to heaven, not how the heavens were made." But the court of Rome and the inquisitors of the Sacred Congregation of the Index, before whom he was summoned, de- clared that the Copernican theory of the revolu- tion of the earth was not only false in itself but was contrary tp Scripture. These titled dignitaries, the 72 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN infallible pope and the erudite Congregation, antici- pated the conclusions to which John Jasper has come in our day by his own method of investiga- tion. Augustine affirmed that the idea of an An- tipodes was unscriptural, for how could those who lived there see the Lord when he should return to the earth ? Once many churchmen believed that the earth stood still, and the sun revolved around it ; and they thought a denial of that belief tended to disprove the Bible and to destroy Christianity. Luther condemned the Copernican system ; he thought that the " upstart astrologer " was a fool and was teaching contrary to Scripture. Calvin also believed that faith in Copernicus was infidelity to Scripture. The Roman, the Lutheran, and the Anglican churches all practically were the John Jaspers of an earlier day. The fact is that every science which has struggled into recognition has had to wage a fierce war with ignorant men of science as truly as with ignorant men of theology. It is also true that almost as soon as men of science have agreed among them- selves as to the recognition and place of the new science, theologians have been ready to give it its rightful recognition and place. It is not necessarily to the discredit of science and theology that they are slow to give honor to every new claimant for a niche in the temple of knowledge. It is an im- pertinence for men of science to expect men of theology to give credit to the undigested think- ing and the unverified theories of scientific men. CHRISTIANITY AND THE SECULAR SPIRIT 73 Christianity wants truth. She welcomes it from whatever quarter it comes and by whomsoever it is brought. She is so sure of her position that she rejoices in it more than in all riches. She is willing to buy it at any price ; she will sell it at no price. BIOLOGY AND CHRISTOLOGY. Newton's discoveries also had to fight their way to recognition against opposition on the part of some theologians and scientists. Some theologians considered that he was invading the domain of Deity, was usurping God's place and limiting his power, if not driving him out of the world. A friend, who was himself an expert in science and whose theological orthodoxy was not suspected, wrote an able treatise defending Newton and com- mending his discoveries. To-day no friend of Christianity fears the discoveries of astronomical science in all their broad and sublime ranges. The Christianity which feared these discoveries was re- ligiously as unchristian as the early astrology was astronomically unscientific. We now smile at the follies of both. Men like Chalmers and Mitchel have shown the harmony between God's truths in the heavens and on the page of inspiration. We now see that the heavens are the tapestry into which God has woven some of his most wondrous thoughts. But it is little more than a generation since Christians trembled for the ark of God, and unbelievers rejoiced that it was fully and finally in 74 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN the hands of the Phihstines, because both aHke thought that astronomy, and related sciences, were to destroy the Bible and to dethrone God. Geology has passed through a similar experience. At present biology is among the most speculative of sciences ; it is still in its nebulous state. Men are still searching for the origin of life. Evermore it has eluded their search. Perhaps it will be dis- covered ; if it be so, God will be its author. It seems to be settled, so far as anything in science can be settled, that all attempts to get life out of death have failed. Drummond says that "spon- taneous generation has had to be given up." Hux- ley affirms that the doctrine that life can come only from life is "victorious along the whole line of the present day." And, contrary to his own wish, Tyndall says : "I affirm that no shred of trustworthy experimental testimony exists to prove that life in our day has ever appeared independently of ante- cedent life." Beyond this we have not gone. Should we go further, we have no fears of the final result. Analogous statements may be made regarding the discussion of evolution. Herbert Spencer de- fines evolution as "consisting in a progress from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from gen- eral to special, from the simple to the complex." Some hints of this idea are found in the earliest times. The chaotic or mundane egg was an old Egyptian cosmological myth. Other nations also held to the idea of a development in creation ; CHRISTIANITY AND THE SECULAR SPIRIT 75 some philosophers believed that " an intelligent power, or ?ious, infinite and self-existent," presided over the atoms, giving them orderly arrangement ; others, as represented in the poem of Lucretius, " De Rcmni Natura" supposed that chance wrought from numberless atoms the existing order of things. Coming down at one step to our own day, Wallace and Darwin, in 1858, "separately proposed the hypothesis of the origin of species by spontaneous variation, and survival of the fittest through natural selection and the struggle for existence." Darwin's treatise on the "Origin of Species" appeared in 1859. Then came many supporters and opposers. Doubtless the great majority of the scientists of our day are on the side of some form of evolution. The idea has been applied by different writers to sociology, to history, to mind, and to theology. Al- most no one now doubts "that creation has had a history " ; that it is the result of a series of acts run- ning through millions of years. At the same time it is certain " that as it has been pursued in time, so also it has been pursued by method." "There is an observed order of facts in the history of crea- tion, both in the organic and in the inorganic world." As Hartshorne has shown. Prof Asa Gray, Doctor McCosh, Baden Powell, the Duke of Argyll, and others, all teach the view of orderly creation by law, under the immediate action of divine power working by natural causes or forces. This power, as he says, has been rightly described as a theory, not of supernatural or miraculous inter- ']6 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN ference, but rather of creative evolution. Mivart joins the Duke of Argyll in showing that there is no antagonism between creation and evolution. The question, as they suggest, is simply whether creative power was exerted only at the beginning of the process, or all along the line of development. There are unbridged gaps in the theory of evolu- tion ; but we are willing to admit that the facts establish evolution, at least, as a "working hypoth- esis." But does evolution eliminate the evidences for the existence of the Creator and the proofs of design in his creation ? Scientists, such as Carpen- ter, Dana, Agassiz, Henry, Asa Gray, and others of the highest class, deny the insufficiency of the proofs of design in nature. They positively refuse "to admit the elimination of special creative action, or direct modification of nature, from all periods since the first origination of the universe." As Leifchild, quoted by Hartshorne, says, " The asser- tion that ' no will has evolved will,' is as absurd as ^ex niJiilo aliqrdd.' " Evolution implies an evolver; nothing can be evolved which has not been in- volved. We do not take from God's power, wisdom, and glory because we place his primal creative act far back in the line of development ; we add to his glory by so doing. There is a de- velopment in the divine plan in the Old and New Testaments ; in the dispensations of patriarchs, prophets, and kings, until he came, who is Prophet of prophets and King of kings. " The law made CHRISTIANITY AND THE SECULAR SPIRIT 77 nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did" (Heb. 7 : 19). There is a Christian evolution ; God is the evolver, and truth in its highest forms is the result. With Professor Gray, in his address before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1872, as quoted by Hartshorne, we may well say : Let us hope that the religious faith which survived, with- out a shock, the notion of the fixity of the earth itself, may equally outlast the notion of the absolute fixity of the species which inhabit it ; that in the future, even more than in the past, faith in an order, which is the basis of science, will not (as it cannot reasonably) be dissevered from faith in an Ordainer, which is the basis of religion. Placing God farther back in the line of develop- ment certainly does not exclude him. If he has given the germ the power of development, his wisdom, skill, and forethought are as conspicuous as if the divine power were immediately exerted. A law of development has no power. Law is only the name which we give to a force observed to act in a special way. Back of law is the Lawgiver; back of the observed order of the development is the Ordainer. There stands God. CHRISTIANITY AND HEATHENISM. Another cause of premature alarm on the part of many Christians, and of premature rejoicing on the part of some enemies of Christianity, is found in the spirit of historic inquiry which marks our time. This inquiry covers a wide range. We may look 78 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN at it, first, in its relations to comparative religions. The opening of great areas of heathendom to the introduction of Christianity is at the same time the opening of Christendom to the possible introduction of some elements of heathenism. This Christianity must expect ; this Christianity should welcome. Here, as in other realms, the fittest must survive. The true ground of the worship of God is not his omnipotence, but his goodness. Mere almightiness might bend the knee, but it could not secure the reverent love of the heart. We worship God be- cause he is the infinitely best being in the universe. If there is a better being than God, that being must be our God. If Christianity cannot endure, when subjected to all forms of practical testing, the comparison with other religions, then Christianity must go, ought to go, and certainly will go. The world ought to have the best ; it will have the best. Does any Christian fear this test? All Christians must meet it. There are certain philosophers in our country who are practically heathen. Some are Buddhists, some Baalists, some Confucianists, some Parsees or Hindus, and some, practically, are Mohammedans. To some there is a fascination in conceiving of heathen religions as developing by some mysterious evolution into Christianity. By a similar process Christianity, according to this view, may some day develop into some other form of faith, and that in turn may give way to another and another until the perfect flower of faith and hope opens in consummate blossom. CHRISTIANITY AND THE SECULAR SPIRIT 79 All fair-minded men admit that in the sacred books of these non-Christian religions there is something of beauty, worth, and truth. Amid bushels of chaff some kernels of wheat are found ; amid much of rubbish there are diamond truths. It ought not to startle us that among heathen nations contemporary with the early years of biblical teaching, truths similar to those taught in the Bible are found. Much of this truth, doubtless, found its way among the heathen na- tions from the people of God ; much of the light of heathenism came from torches kindled on He- brew altars. All of it certainly came by some means from God. He alone is the Sun of the moral universe. "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." We have the Apostle Peter as our authority in the noble utterance that "in every nation he that feareth him (God), and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him." The writings of Mr. Edwin Arnold have done much, in opening up the wealth of that gorgeous East, to commend the religions of Buddha and Mohammed ; other influences have commended the teachings of Con- fucius and the rituals of the Parsees. A poetic glamour has been thrown over these ancient faiths, adding splendor to what in them is beautiful and concealing what is hideous. Many men who are strangely incredulous about everything Christian are hopelessly credulous about everything non- Christian. We have seen these faiths making con- verts of missionaries sent into their lands, and even 80 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN coming to our land to push their conquests among some devotees of a dreamy, mystical culture. The discussions now rife in England, and to some degree in America, regarding Dr. Blyden's admitted ten- dencies toward Islam, and Canon Taylor's con- cession regarding its influence in Africa, point in the same direction. Those who knew Dr. Blyden's history and character are not much surprised at his present attitude, and it is certain that Canon Tay- lor's opinions are largely influenced by one-sided authorities. Christians, however, have reason to hide their heads in shame when fiends in human form in Christian countries are furnishing these ignorant Africans with liquor which is making their degra- dation deeper and their future darker than before. Just at the point where the argument from com- parative religions was pressed against Christianity, two noted witnesses arose to give their testimony in favor of Christianity. They are Sir Monier Wil- liams, professor of Sanscrit in the University of Oxford, and Professor Max Miiller. Both of these men have spent years in the study of these ancient religions ; few men are so familiar with the teach- ings which some desire to put in competition with Christianity. Their tastes and tendencies might make them incline toward these non-Christian re- ligions. Indeed, Professor Muller showed a little time ago a decided bias in their favor. This writer distinctly remembers how unfavorably his own mind was once affected toward Christianity by Professor Miiller's elaborate work on "The Origin and Growth CHRISTIANITY AND THE SECULAR SPIRIT 8 1 of Religions." Sir Monier Williams is free to con- fess that when he began investigating Hinduism and Buddhism, he also was prejudiced in their favor. As a result of his earlier and incomplete studies, he began to be a believer in the evolution and growth of religious thought ; he considered these faiths to be steps in the development of re- ligious aspirations struggling toward Christianity. Now he affirms his mistake. He denounces the "flabby, jellyfish toleration" which refuses to see the difference between what is Christian and what is non-Christian. He ends his address at the late anniversary of the Church Missionary Society, in London, with these remarkable and eloquent words : Go forth then, ye missionaries, in your Master's name ; go forth into all the world, and after studying all its false religions and philosophies, go forth and fearlessly proclaim to suffering humanity the plain, the unchangeable, the eter- nal facts of the gospel — nay, I might almost say, the stub- born, the unyielding, the inexorable facts of the gospel. Dare to be downright with all the uncompromising courage of your own Bible, while with it your watchwords are love, joy, peace, reconciliation. Be fair, be charitable, be Christ- like ; but let there be no mistake. Let it be made abso- lutely clear that Christianity cannot, must not, be watered down to suit the palate of either Hindu, Parsee, Confucian- ist, Buddhist, or Mohammedan ; and whosoever wishes to pass from the false religion to the true can never hope to do so by the rickety planks of compromise, or by the help of faltering hands held out by half-hearted Christians. He must leap the gulf in faith, and the living Christ will spread his everlasting arms beneath and land him safe on the eternal Rock. F 82 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN In Max Miiller's address given before the British and Foreign Bible Society, equally strong language in favor of Christianity is used. After having named the Veda of the Brahmins, the Puranas of Siva and Vishnu, the Koran of the Mohammedans, the Zend-Avesta of the Parsees, and the Tripitaka of the Buddhists, he goes on to say : They all say that salvation must be purchased, must be bought with a price, and that the sole price, the sole pur- chase-money, must be our own works and deservings. Our own holy Bible, our sacred book of the East, is from begin- ning to end a protest against this doctrine. Good works are, indeed, enjoined upon us in that sacred book of the East, but they are only the outcome of a grateful heart ; they are only a thank offering, the fruits of our faith. They are never the ransom-money of the true disciples of Christ. Let us not shut our eyes to what is excellent and true and of good report in those sacred books, but let us teach Hin- dus, Buddhists, Mohammedans, that there is only one sacred book of the East that can be their mainstay in that awful hour when they shall pass alone into the unseen world. It is the sacred book which contains that faithful saying, worthy to be received of all men, women, and children, and not merely of us Christians, ' ' that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." These words are timely ; they thrill and rejoice our hearts. It is clear that the most advanced students in these wide fields bring back testimony to the exclusive claims of Christianity to be the faith of the race. The men who go deep into Christianity and its relations with other religions do not fail to give their testimony in its favor. It is CHRISTIANITY AND THE SECULAR SPIRIT 83 the men who have picked up a "httle learning" at second hand that are found to oppose the claims of Christianity when compared with other religions. Shallow scholars are ever noisy critics. Quite fre- quently those who know least assert the most. There is not the slightest doubt but that in the end good will come out of the discussion of the relative merits of Christianity and Islam in Africa to-day. The errors in Christianity, so far as it is held responsible for the liquor traffic and kindred evils, will be corrected, and its superiority will be discovered and declared. The Cross and not the crescent is destined to rule the world. All the historical and topographical inquiries now going on in Bible lands will, we fully believe, result in giving additional testimony to the truth of God's word and the value of Christianity. We welcome such investigations. From hoary rocks, from Egyptian sands, and from ivy-covered ruins God is raising up witnesses in support of our Chris- tian faith. It is equally certain that the fierce fires of historical criticism through which the Bible is now passing will not in the end shake the faith of true disciples. It is barely possible that Shakes- peare will live when Ignatius Donnelly is dead. Homer survives, although the names of the critics who denied that he ever lived are fast passing out of memory. Some of our interpretations of the Bible may have to be modified, some theories abandoned ; but God's eternal truth shall abide : "The word of our God shall stand forever." 84 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN CHRISTIANITY AND SOCIOLOGY. When we come to the relation between Christi- anity and the social problems of the time, we find cause for greater activity in disseminating the princi- ples of Christianity, but no cause for distrust in its divine claims, noble achievements, or practical possi- bilities. When socialism assumes the form of an- archy, there can be no relation between it and Christianity but one of "irrepressible conflict." Christianity favors liberty ; but liberty is not license. Liberty is obedience to just law ; the highest liberty is submission to God and conformity to his will as revealed in his word. Anarchy is un-American, unmanly, and ungodly. It is a plant of foreign production, a Satanic exotic which can never be- come fully rooted in American soil. When social- ism becomes anarchy, it is fit only for destruction. When men come to America with a red flag in one hand and a dynamite bomb in the other, they must be quarantined for their natural lives. An exami- nation of the lives of the anarchists recently hanged shows that they never had any Christian training. Had they been educated in its doctrines, they would never have made, certainly would never have hurled, the fatal bomb. They learned to think of Christi- anity as their enemy ; they, in turn, became its ene- mies. These facts are worthy of careful considera- tion by all Christians and all other citizens. We cannot afford to neglect the Christian training of CHRISTIANITY AND THE SECULAR SPIRIT 8$ any of our people ; we must do our part toward training all the nations of the earth, especially those whose representatives are likely to come to us. Atheism is anarchistic. Sow infidelity and you reap anarchism, impurity, death. Every atheist is at heart an anarchist. Anarchism is the flower and fruit of atheism. No consistent infidel is, or can be, a good citizen. True Christianity alone is the har- monizer of all the conflicting interests of society. It is the true anti-poverty and the true temperance society. It alone can elevate the "masses"; it alone can reclaim the fallen. Dr. Alexander McLeod, in his *' Chris tus Con- solator,'" says that "when Oersted first exhibited to Frederika Bremer the beautiful and now famil- iar experiment of sand-grains upon a glass plate arranging themselves, under the influence of a musical note, in symmetrical and harmonious figures, this reflection passed through the mind of the lady: 'A human hand made the stroke that produced the note. But when the stroke is made by the hand of the Almighty, will not the note then produced bring into exquisitely harmonious form those sand-grains which are hu- man beings, communities, nations? It will arrange the world in oeauty, and there shall be no discord and no lamentation any more.' " This woman is right. All that is true in communism is the off- spring of Christ's religion ; all that is evil in com- munism is opposed by his gospel. His religion is the cure for all the evils existing between employer 86 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN and employed. Put Christ fully into the hearts of both and injustice, oppression, and strikes will be impossible. Count Tolstoi is feeling after Christ. There is a Christian communism. It furnishes the only true, noble fellowship. Religion now, as in all the past, lifts nations and races out of barbarism into civilization, out of sin into holiness, from earth to heaven. So-called reformers and humanitarians who are infidel to Christ and his gospel are the enemies of the poor, the enemies of the republic, the enemies of the race. Those who would lift their hand against the Bible, against the Sabbath, against Christ, are the enemies of the best interests of all classes for time as well as for eternity. Religion would vastly reduce the number of the poor. It is the friend of industry and all kindred virtues ; it is the foe of intemperance and all kindred vices. The poor do not so much need bread as the character and the opportunity to earn bread. Religion in the heart to a large degree will give both. Much is said about carrying the loaf with the tract. The idea has in it truth, but it has been over worked. It is instructive to remember that only twice did Christ use divine power to give bread to the multitude, and in both cases the circumstances were peculiar. The poor need the religion of Christ more than earthly bread. There were as many evils, as Dr. McLeod suggests, in Christ's day as now. There were then the lapsed classes, the dwellers in lanes, the victims of sin and misery CHRISTIANITY AND THE SECULAR SPIRIT 8/ of every kind. What was Christ's cure ? Evangel- ize them. Did he blunder? Was he lacking in gentleness and love ? He was the true reformer, the divine humanitarian, the spiritual regenerator of the individual and the race. There was a pro- found philosophy in his method. His spirit teaches the poor and the rich alike to recognize the poor man's manhood. This is a recognition of tremen- dous power. It gives hope, light, life to the poor. It gives those who are up tenderness for those who are down ; and those who are down trustfulness toward those who are up. Christ's incarnation has lifted the world into the sunshine of hope and the promise of heaven. It has leveled society by lift- ing the downtrodden — leveled it up. Guizot says that Christianity has carried repentance even into the souls of nations. Pagan antiquity knew nothing of these awaken- ings of the public conscience. Tacitus could only deplore the decay of the ancient rites of Rome, and Marcus Aure- lius could only wrap himself sorrowfully up in the stoical isolation of the sage ; there is nothing to show that these superior minds so much as suspected the great crimes of their social state, even in its best days, or aspired to reform them. The world's hope in every relation in life is this old gospel. It must have its place in every heart ; it must throw its radiance over every home ; it must be in every workshop and counting-house. The spirit of the world divides society horizon- tally, each class selecting its corresponding layer. 88 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN The spirit of Christianity divides society vertically, cutting through all the layers. True religion says, whether a man be black or white, red or yellow, rich or poor, "A man's a man for a' that." Away with the sentimental but Christless philanthropist ! Away with the blatant and blasphemous infidel ! The true friend of the rich, the poor, the fallen, of all classes, is Jesus Christ, the perfect, the Divine Man. IV REASONS FOR BEING A BAPTIST^ THE question, " Why am I a Baptist ? " I should answer by saying that it is because I believe that Baptist doctrines are the doctrines of the New Testament, as interpreted alike by the highest scholarship and by the understanding of unlearned but devout readers ; and, furthermore, because these doctrines are in many respects in harmony with the views adopted by the best thought of to- day, whether in the churches or without. If one were asked to state the fundamental idea of the Baptists, he might give it as this : Personal faith in the Lord Jesus alone saves the soul ; or, stating the thought negatively in its relation to baptism, baptism will not make a man a Christian. He might also enlarge the thought by saying : Obedi- ence to the will of Christ as expressed in the in- spired Scriptures, including personal faith in Christ as the ground of salvation, baptism into the name of the Trinity as the profession of that faith, and loyalty to Christ in all other things which he has commanded. A Christian should, of course, be ^ Delivered in the Lexington Avenue Baptist Church, New York City, April l6, 1893, in an interdenominational series of Sunday evening addresses, and published in the "Treasury," April, 1897. 89 90 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN baptized, as a soldier should put on a uniform ; but as it is not putting on the uniform which makes a man a soldier, so it is not baptism that makes a man a Christian. The man puts on the uniform because he is already a soldier ; and so a man should be baptized when he has become a Chris- tian. A true church, therefore, consists of truly- regenerated persons, who have been baptized on the profession of their faith. Thus, Baptists refuse to give baptism to unconscious infants. They bap- tize only those whom they believe to have already become Christians, only those who show evidence of having met with an internal spiritual change. Till a recent date the idea that baptism will not make one a Christian was distinctively a Baptist doctrine ; in the Middle Ages all but Baptists held the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. If one had been baptized, it was assumed by most church- men that he had been made a Christian, and, with- out any demand for evidence that he was changed in character, he was admitted to all the rights of the church. This is true, for the most part, among the Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, and Lutherans of to-day, and to some degree even among those who claim to be more evangelical. All who were baptized in infancy are considered to be Christians, though they show no evidence whatever of an in- ternal spiritual change. The rapid growth of Bap- tist churches in modern times results from a more general discarding of the doctrine that baptism will make a man a Christian. Evangelical revivals, REASONS FOR BEING A BAPTIST 9 1 like those of the days of Edwards and Whitefield, or like those which follow Mr. Moody's preaching, add greatly to Baptists' numbers. When Mr. Moody says that baptism will not make a Christian, that no man is a Christian till he has truly repented and exercised personal faith in Jesus Christ, people ask, "Why then should infants be baptized?" They adopt the Baptist principle, that as no man puts on the military uniform till he has already en- listed as a soldier, so no one should be baptized till he has already repented and believed and become a Christian. THE NEW TESTAMENT PRINCIPLE. Now, the Baptist principle is the New Testa- ment principle. When certain Pharisees asked John the Baptist to baptize them, he told them they must bring forth fruits meet for repentance ; that baptizing them would not make them holy men ; that they must first give evidence of repent- ance, and then they could be baptized. First, be- lief, and then baptism, then the Lord's Supper ; this is the New Testament order, and this is the order of the Baptist churches still. This Baptist idea, that baptism will not make a man a Christian, that it is unreasonable to baptize him till he has already met with a change of heart, commands the approval of all sensible men outside of the church, and it is being rapidly adopted by all the more evangelical religious bodies. These churches must make more of infant baptism or less. 92 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN There is absolutely no place for infant baptism in an evangelical system of theology. Those who believe in baptismal regeneration are logical, though unscriptural ; those who do not so believe and who practise infant baptism are both illogical and un- scriptural. Many evangelical churches are begin- ning to realize their inconsistency. Not nearly so many infants are baptized among the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Methodists as among the Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, and Lutherans. Why is this ? It is because, while the last-named churches still adhere to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, the first, for the most part, have aban- doned it, and they are coming more and more to see that if baptism will not make a child a Chris- tian, there is no reason for baptizing the child. AUTHORITIES AGAINST INFANT BAPTISM. I unhesitatingly assert that there is not in the New Testament a single command for, or example of, infant baptism. If there were, it could easily be found, but no one yet has made this discovery. How can men who adopt the famous dictum of Chillingworth, " the Bible, and the Bible only, the religion of Protestants," practise infant baptism ? In so doing they at once depart from their funda- mental principle ; they cannot successfully antago- nize the " churchianity " and traditionalism of the Church of Rome. Secular common sense and the evangelical religious thought of to-day are in this respect in harmony with the New Testament. The REASONS FOR BEING A BAPTIST 93 scholarship of the world is in agreement with this view. Many more authorities might be cited, but the following are sufficient : Luther says : " It cannot be proved by the sacred Scriptures that infant baptism was instituted by Christ, or begun by the first Christians after the Apostles." ^ Neander says : " Baptism was administered at first only to adults, as men were accustomed to conceive of baptism and faitJi as strictly connected. We have all reason for not deriving infant baptism from apostolic institution." ^ Prof Lange says: "All attempts to make out infant baptism from the New Testament fail. It is totally opposed to the spirit of the apostolic age, and to the fundamental principles of the New Tes- tament." ^ Dr. Hanna says : " Scripture knows nothing of the baptism of infants." * Tertullian is the first who mentions the custom, and he opposes it. This was at the close of the second century, or about a. d. 200. His opposi- tion to it proves two things : First, that it was in occasional use, at least. Second, that it was of recent origin, since had it been long used some earlier record of it could be found.^ 1 " Vanity of Inf. Bap.," Part. II., p. 8. 2 "Ch. Hist.," Vol. I., p. 3H ; "Plant, and Train.," Vol. I., p. 222. ^ " Inf. Bapt.," p. loi. * "North Brit. Review," August, 1852. * Neander, "Ch. Hist.," Vol. I., p. 311. 94 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN " All students of ecclesiastical history know that at an early period corruptions perverted Christian faith and practice. Among these, one of the ear- liest was that of an undue efficacy attributed to baptism. Its sanctity was so exalted that it was believed to have power to wash away sins, and cleanse the soul for heaven. By it the sick were supposed to be prepared for death, and salvation made more certain by its efficacy. Anxious parents, therefore, desired their dying children to be thus prepared — 'washed in the laver of regeneration,' as it was termed — that they might be sure of salva- tion. And here came in that pernicious error of ' baptismal regeneration,' which gave rise to infant baptism, and which has through all these ages clung with more or less pertinacity to the clergy and laity of all churches which have practised it" ^ Prof Lange's words are weighty, and should be carefully pondered by Protestant defenders of this papal emanation. He says: "Would the Prot- estant church fulfill and attain to its final destiny, the baptism of new-born children must of necessity be abolished. It has sunk down to a mere formal- ity, without any meaning for the child." ^ BAPTISM NOT NECESSARY TO SALVATION. Another statement of the Baptist principle is this : Baptism is not necessary to salvation. The asser- tion sometimes made that Baptists hold that no 1 Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, "Baptist Standard Manual," p. 134. * "Hist, of Protestantism, " p. 34. REASONS FOR BEING A BAPTIST 95 man can be saved unless he is baptized, is the falsest and most absurd declaration in ecclesias- tical controversy. It is difficult to speak with courtesy of such ignorance or malice. The very reason why Baptists practise baptism, and not some substitute for it, such as pouring or sprin- kling, is the fact that they hold that baptism is in no way essential to salvation. The history of the matter is this : The baptism of the apos- tolic churches was immersion, if the tautology of the expression may be permitted. So say Luther, Calvin, and Wesley ; so say all standard church historians, as Dr. Philip Schaff] Dean Stanley, Neander, Hase, Guericke, and Kurtz. On this point there is absolutely no difference of opinion among specialists in church history. No writer worthy of being classed with the historians named would dissent from their position. There is no proof that sprinkling was ever practised be- fore the middle of the third century. Take the following among many other learned witnesses to the meaning of baptism : Grimm's "Lexicon of the New Testament," which in Europe and America stands confessedly at the head of Greek lexicography, as translated and edited by Prof Thayer, of Harvard University, thus defines baptizo : "(i) To dip repeatedly, to immerse, submerge. (2) To cleanse by dipping or submerging. (3) To overwhelm. In the New Testament it is used particularly of the rite of sacred ablution ; first instituted by John the Bap- 96 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN tist, afterward by Christ's command received by- Christians and adjusted to the contents and nature of their rehgion, viz., an unmcrsion in water, per- formed as a sign of the removal of sin, and admin- istered to those who, impelled by a desire for salva- tion, sought admission to the benefits of the Mes- siah's . kingdom. With eis to mark the element into which the immersion is made ; ai with the dative of the thing in which one is immersed." Prof Moses Stuart, one of the ablest scholars America has produced, declared : " Baptizo means to dip, plunge, or immerse into any liquid. All lex- icographers and critics of any note are agreed in this." ^ "The Greek language," as Dr. Hiscox has said, " is rich in terms for the expression of all positive ideas, and all varying shades of thought. Why then did our Lord in commanding, and his apostles in transmitting his command to posterity, use al- ways and only that one word baptizo, to describe the action, and that one word baptisma, to describe the ordinance to which he intended all his followers to submit? The word louo means to wash the body, and nipto to wash parts of the body ; but these words are not used, because washing is not what Christ meant. Rantizo means to sprinkle, and if sprinkling were baptism this would have been the word above all others ; but it was never so used. Keo means to pour ; but pouring is not 1 "Essay on Baptism," p. 51 ; "Biblical Repository," 1833, p. 298. REASONS FOR BEING A BAPTIST 9/ baptism, and so this word was never used to de- scribe the ordinance. Katharizo means to purify^ but is not used for the ordinance. The facts are clear and the reasoning conclusive." ^ John Calvin, the great theologian, scholar, and commentator, whom Scaliger pronounced the most learned man in Europe, says : " From the words of John (3 : 23) it may be inferred that baptism was administered by John and Christ, \>y plunging the whole body under water." ^ Luther, the great German Reformer, says : "The term baptism is Greek ; in Latin it may be trans- lated viersio ; since we immerse anything into water, that the whole may be covered with the water." ^ Melancthon, the most scholarly and able co- laborer with Luther, says : " Baptism is immersion into water, with this admirable benediction." ^ Adam Clark, the great Methodist commentator, says : " Alluding to the immersions practised in the case of adults, wherein the person appeared to be buried under the water as Christ was buried in the heart of the earth." ^ Frederick Meyer, one of the ablest and most accurate exegetes of the present age, says : ''Im- mersion, which the word in classic Greek and in the New Testament ever means." ® "The Standard Manual," p. 85. "•' Com. on John 3 : 23. ' "Works," Vol. I., p. 71, Wit. ed., 1582. * Melanct. "Catec. Wit.," 1580. 5 Com. on Col. 2 : 12. * Cora, on Mark 7 : 4. G 98 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Dean Alford says : "The baptism was adminis- tered by the immersion of the whole person." ^ Dr, Schafif, the well-known church historian, says : " Immersion, and not sprinkling, was unquestion- ably the original form. This is shown by the very meaning of the words baptizo, baptisma, and bap- tismos used to designate the rite."^ Dean Stanley, the distinguished scholar and his- torian of the Oriental church, says : "The practice of the Eastern church and the meaning of the word leave no sufficient ground for question that the original form of baptism was complete immer- sion in the deep baptismal waters." ^ Prof Fisher, of Yale College, the accomplished scholar and historian, says of the apostolic age : "The ordinary mode of baptism was by immer- sion.'" ^ John Wesley, the celebrated founder of Method- ism, says : " Buried with him, alluding to the ancient manner of baptizing hy immersion^ ^ Neander says : " In respect to the form of bap- tism, it was in conformity to the original institu- tion, and the original import of the symbol, per- formed by ijnmersion, as a sign of entire baptism into the Holy Spirit, of being Entirely penetrated with the same." * ^ Greek Testament, Matt. 3 : 6. 2 "Hist. Apos. Ch.," p. 488, 1851. ^ "Hist. Eastern Church," p. 34. * " Hist. Christ. Ch.," p. 41. ^ Note on Rom. 6 : 4. 6 "Ch. Hist.," Vol. I., p. 310; also "Plant, and Train.," Vol. I., p. 222. REASONS FOR BEING A BAFflST 99 Schaff says: "Finally, so far as it respects the mode and manner of outward baptizing, there can be no doubt that immersion, and not sprinkling, was the original normal form."^ Pressense says : " Baptism, which was the sign of admission into the church, was administered by immcrsio7i. The convert was plunged beneath the water, and as he rose from it he received the lay- ing-on of hands." ^ Kurtz says : " Baptism took place by a complete immersion^ ^ In regard to the teaching of the New Testament touching alike the subjects and the act of baptism, the scholars of the world are practically unanimous, The way that infant baptism and substitutes for baptism came to be practised is easily stated. The idea had erroneously arisen that no one could be saved without baptism, and when a man was con- verted on a dying bed when too sick to be bap- tized — that is, immersed — the question arose as to what should be done. The idea was advanced that in such a case of necessity it would suffice to pour water on him. Thus the use of pouring and sprinkling came in with the unscriptural, un- reasonable, and dangerous doctrine that baptism was essential to salvation. At first they were used only in cases of necessity. In the Greek Church immersion is still the standard of baptism. It 1 "Hist. Christ. Ch.," p. 488. * " Early Years of Christianity," p. 374. " "Ch Hist.," p. 41. lOO CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN continued such in the Roman CathoHc Church for over a thousand years. Immersion was the usage in the Church of Eng- land down to the time of the Reformation, and is still prescribed in the Prayer Book. But pouring and sprinkling, from their greater convenience, came to be used more and more, till they finally largely supplanted baptism. But their use would never have been thought of but for the superstitious and abominable idea that a man's soul would be lost if he died without baptism. Now the Baptist declares that baptism is not necessary to salvation. He thinks a Christian should be baptized ; he thinks a Christian who can obey Christ in this or- dinance and refuses to be obedient may imperil his salvation, but he does not think it is a thing indis- pensable in all circumstances. Therefore the Baptist says that if a Christian can be baptized according to apostolic usage and divine command, he should be ; but if a man is converted on a dying bed, when he cannot be baptized, let him die without baptism. If a man's physical condition makes it impossible to obey the com- mand, in his case it is not binding. The thief on the cross could not obey this command ; still Jesus promised him Paradise that very day. A Baptist does not consider that he is ever at liberty to use a human substitute, such as pouring or sprinkling, for the divine command of baptism. Not consid- ering baptism to be essential to salvation, he is not troubled at the idea of a convert dying without REASONS FOR BEING A BAPTIST lOI baptism when it is not possible for him to receive it. It has been said that Baptists make too much of baptism ; but, in fact, no rehgious body, except the Quakers, makes so Httle of it as they. And the reason why they do not practise pouring and sprin- kling as well as baptism (immersion) is because it does not trouble them in the least to let a convert who cannot yield obedience in baptism die unbap- tized. Their adherence to baptism, which in rare cases cannot be administered, shows that they are not in the least " ritualistic," but have very low ideas as to the necessity of baptism. They, however, re- gard Jesus Christ as the only King and Lawgiver in Zion, and his word as the sole authority in all mat- ters of faith and practice, and so they observe bap- tism as he commanded and as the apostles practised and taught. And now this Baptist doctrine, that baptism is not necessary to salvation, the idea that a man's soul will not be lost, even though he dies unbaptized, is a doctrine which not only is sup- ported by the Bible, but is one which commands the respect of men outside the church. The Bap- tists are not medisevalists, but they are the especial exponents of biblical and also of nineteeth century ideas. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. Another point in which Baptists are the expo- nents both of New Testament and modern ideas is their doctrine of religious freedom — the tenet that the civil magistrate has no authority over a man's 102 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN religious creed and usage. This was originally a distinctively Baptist idea. For this idea they have again and again shed their blood. It is not long since that if a man advanced the doctrine of re- ligious freedom it was known thereby immediately that he was a Baptist. Baptists have been much praised for having first preached this great doctrine, now held universally in our own country and in- creasingly in other lands ; but this doctrine is merely a logical deduction from the fundamental Baptist principle. In the Jewish nation, and for that matter in ancient Gentile nations, as for instance the Roman Empire, the Church and the State were one. The Jewish high priest was a civil officer, and the Roman emperor was Pontifex Maximus. The civil and the ecclesiastical governments were identical, or at least organically affiliated , and of course the magistrate had authority in matters of religion. And in the Middle Ages the prevalence of the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, and the conse- quent nearly universal baptism of infants, made every child not only a citizen, but also a member of the church. Thus Church and State became again identical, or at least conterminous, and the civil magistrate became the servant of the Church as well as the State. In the Middle Ages, when there was a full ad- herence to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, and of the spiritual efficacy of the mass and other ecclesiastical ceremonies, it was logical to believe REASONS FOR BEING A BAPTIST IO3 that the civil magistrate could make persons Chris- tians. If baptizing a child would change the child's spiritual state, if coming to mass would affect a man's spiritual nature, all that was necessary to make a nation a Christian nation was to enforce by law the baptism of children, attendance at mass, etc. If salvation came through outward ceremo- nies, the observance of which could be compelled by force, then it was possible to compel people to become Christians. They could not only be led to the water of life, but by thumbscrew and fagot could be made to drink. And such compulsion seemed a solemn duty to those who believed that the non-observance of baptism and other ceremo- nies left the soul to be lost. But the Baptist doc- trine that a man could be made a Christian only by the free action of his own spiritual nature left the civil magistrate nothing to do. This doctrine implied that it was unreasonable as well as unjust to strive to force men in religious matters. The logical development of Baptist principles led to the great doctrine of religious freedom. A moment's thought will show that there is no ground for saying that the only reason why Baptists did not persecute as did others, was because they did not have the power so to do. They often had oc- casion to speak on this subject. For instance, one Thomas Van Imwalt, a Baptist confessor in the Tyrol, when examined in prison was asked whether in case his people had the power they would not force their doctrine on all nations, answered : " No, 104 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN that it would be foolish for them to endeavor to bring any one to behef by force, for God will accept only a willing and unconstrained heart." They saw that while a man might by force be brought to baptism and the Lord's Supper, he could not by force be brought to believe. As they believed that it was not baptism and other ceremonies, but only unconstrained belief that made a man a Christian, they never attempted to make a Christian by force even when they had the power. But the Baptist doctrine that baptizing a person would not make him a Christian, the idea that one could become a Christian only through an intelli- gent personal faith and a spiritual change, suggests immediately a separation between citizens and church-members, between the civil community and the ecclesiastical body. The Baptist idea made the church consist not of citizens altogether, but only of a separated number. Thus the church became in this one particular like a Masonic lodge, a group of persons apart from the main body of citizens, and thus Church and State were separated. The divorce between Church and State was not merely a lucky thought of certain Baptist philosophers ; it was the logical outcome of distinctive Baptist principles. The Baptists preceded other Christians in declar- ing the true relation of the civil and ecclesiastical powers, not because they were superior to other Christians in their understanding of civil principles, but because they held an ecclesiastical tenet which was correct while other churches were in error. REASONS FOR BEING A BAPTIST IO5 Others might abstain from persecution because their pity was stronger than their creed, but Bap- tists refrained from attempting to force men to be- come Christians because their fundamental principle was that it was impossible to do this. They taught that force could be used to control men's outward actions and so keep them from injuring their fellow- men, but it could not control the working of their hearts so as to make them true Christians. So they taught that the civil magistrate should take no cog- nizance of the religious beliefs or purely religious practices of men, whether orthodox or heretic, Turk or heathen, but that these should be left to the judgment of God. This Baptist doctrine is not only New Testament doctrine but it commands the adherence of the best thought of modern times. Baptists of to-day are justly proud of their ances- tors. They were among the noblest men and women in the army of confessors and martyrs. They anticipated the ripest thought of to-day. They never persecuted, but were always and every- where the apostles of religious freedom and soul liberty. SALVATION OF INFANTS. There is a doctrine now held by all intelligent Christians which formerly was set forth by Baptists alone, namely, the doctrine of the salvation of all who die in infancy. It is only in very recent times that this doctrine has been generally held. It was not very long ago that if a man said the dying in- fant of a heathen or Turk was saved, all who heard I06 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN him knew at once that he was a Baptist. But this doctrine, denied by others, was adopted by Baptists as a logical outcome of their fundamental principle. The doctrine that baptism wrought sah^ation led to the so-called baptism of infants ; infant baptism would never have been thought of but for this doc- trine of baptismal regeneration. This doctrine is the root of which infant baptism is the fruit, and its story is one of the most fearful the student of his- tory anywhere finds. In Lecky's " History of Ra- tionalism " occur the following burning lines : According to the unanimous belief of the early church, all who were external to Christianity were doomed to eternal damnation, and therefore even the new-born in- fant was subject to the condemnation, unless baptism had united it to the church. At a period which is so early that it is impossible to define it, infant baptism was introduced into the church ; it was universally said to be for the remission of sins, and the whole body of the fathers, without exception or hesitation, pronounced that all infants who died unbaptized were excluded from heaven. All through the Middle Ages we trace the influence of this doc- trine in the innumerable superstitious rites which were de- vised as substitutes for regular baptism. Nothing, indeed, can be more curious, nothing can be more deeply pathetic, than the record of the many ways by which the terror- stricken mothers attempted to evade the awful sentence of their church. Sometimes the baptismal water was sprinkled upon the womb ; sometimes the still-born child was bap- tized in hopes that the Almighty would antedate the cere- mony. These and many similar practices continued all through the Middle Ages in spite of every effort to extirpate them, and the severest censures were unable to persuade the people that they were entirely effectual, for the doctrine REASONS FOR BEING A BAPTIST lO/ of the church had wrung the mother' s heart with an agony that was too poignant even for that submissive age to bear. Weak and superstitious women, who never dreamed of re- belling against the teaching of their clergy, could not acqui- esce in the perdition of their offspring, and they vainly attempted to escape from the dilemma by multiplying superstitious practices or by attributing to them a more than orthodox efficacy. To illustrate Mr. Lecky's remarks, we may quote from the decrees of a synod at Cologne in 1280 A. D. After prescribing immersion as the only reg- ular baptism (as it was in the Roman Catholic Church for more than a thousand years) it goes on to say : "But in case there is fear that an infant will die before it is born, if the head of the infant . . . some one shall pour water over the head saying, ' I baptize thee,' etc." It will not be denied that the Caesarean operation has often been performed in Roman Catholic countries, and occasionally in other countries, that the child may be saved by baptism even though the mother should die, her eternal safety being already secured. One does not like to refer to matters of this delicate nature ; but it is time that the superstitions and barbarities which are thus connected with infant baptism were re- buked with great plainness of speech as unworthy even of the most degraded heathen. Some have called infant baptism a beautiful ceremony. But, in fact, it is the efflorescence of a most gross super- stition, and viewed in the light of Church history it is only horrible and repulsive. As the little in- fant is borne in its gay robes down the aisle, the I08 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN language of the ceremonial is that except some drops of water be sprinkled on its forehead that beautiful little being would writhe in the flames of hell. Who dares, even in symbol, teach so horrible a doctrine ? How can a few drops of water, or an ocean, change the child's relations to God ? In any case, the child has no more penal sin than a rose or a snowflake. The doctrine that all dying in infancy are saved was first taught by the Baptists. They held that not only an adult believer would be saved, though he died without baptism, but that all dying in in- fancy were saved. This doctrine continually ap- pears in the charges against Baptists who were put to death for their faith. For instance, Henry Craut, Justus Mueller, and John Peiskerwere beheaded at Jena, in 1 536, not by Roman Catholics, but by their Protestant brethren, the, Lutherans. Among their announced views was the doctrine that "all infants, even those of Turks, Gentiles, and Hebrews, are saved without baptism." The first time this doc- trine appears in a non-Baptist creed it is mentioned only to be condemned. The Augsburg Confession of 1530 says : '' Damnaiit Anabaptistas, qui ivipro- bant baptismum pueroriim et affivuiant pucros sine baptismo salvos fieri." "They [the churches putting forth this creed] condemn the Anabaptists [a nick- name of the Baptists] who reject the baptism of children and declare that children are saved with- out baptism." Even in our own country similar opposition was REASONS FOR BEING A BAPTIST IO9 once manifested against the Baptist faith. When Clarke, Holmes, and Crandall were imprisoned and fined in Boston, Mr. Clarke, when standing stripped at the whipping-post, had his fine paid by a hu- mane man, who was greatly affected by the sight of a scholar, a gentleman, and a divine in such a situation. On asking, "What law of God or men had he (Clarke) broken?" Endicott replied to Clarke : "You have denied infant baptism, and de- serve death." Persecution of these who so deny is the natural result of the belief which led to the practice of infant baptism. We again affirm that it is a practice contrary to Scripture, even as inter- preted by non-Baptist scholars, and also to the sound reason of all intelligent men who are not prejudiced by early training and one-sided edu- cation. SUMMARY. To sum up, I would say that the fundamental principle of the Baptists, and one formerly held by them alone, is that a man's salvation depends solely on personal faith in Christ and the resultant change of inward character, and not on baptism and other church ordinances. As a result, they affirm that faith must be personal ; that no man can believe for another, no parent for a child ; and that, there- fore, the church is not made up of " believers and their children," except so far as the children are themselves believers. They hold that any other view of the church is without the authority of Scripture or common sense. They administer bap- no CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN tism only to those who profess faith in Christ and give evidence in daily life of having been converted. They administer immersion, the act of baptism in the apostolic church, and when this is impracticable they let the convert die without baptism. Holding that a man is not made a Christian by baptism and other outward acts, but only by a change in his spiritual nature, which cannot be brought out by force, they therefore insist that no outward force or form shall be used to make men Christians, and that the civil magistrate shall confine himself en- tirely to civil affairs, not interfering in purely religious matters. Holding that baptism is not nec- essary to salvation, they hold that not only believing adults, but also all who die in infancy, even heathen children, are saved. These ideas, which not very long ago were held by Baptists alone, are now held by the most en- lightened men outside the Baptist ranks, and I consider them also the teachings of the New Testament. This is another reason "why I am a Baptist." If I take the Bible only as my guide, I must be a Baptist ; if I discard it, and take the traditions of men, I could not consistently stop until I had reached Rome. But I am not likely to start on that downward grade. If I were not a Baptist, logically I should have to be a Roman Catholic. The Catholics are perfectly consistent, but unscrip- tural ; grant their premises, and logically you must adopt their conclusions. The Baptists are also REASONS FOR BEING A BAPTIST I I I consistent and at the same time scriptural ; grant the Baptist premise, and you must accept the Bap- tist conclusion. But the Congregationalists, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, and the Episcopa- lians are not consistent. Their position is half-Ro- manist, half-Baptist. They have no logical stand- ing-ground. There are but two consistent and logical positions, one of which is held by the Ro- manists and the other by the Baptists. Every consistent, logical, and unprejudiced thinker w'Al take one or the other. Here on the word of God, Baptists stand ; they are consistent Protestants ; they antedate existing denominational divisions ; they are truly apostolic. Baptism is the catholic and apostolic ordinance. Their position is impreg- nable. Historically, Baptists are not Protestants ; doctrinally, they are the most consistent Protes- tants. While the Bible stands they shall stand, and the "word of God shall stand forever." God has given them wonderful prosperity. They are in- creasing in the United States to-day much faster than the population of this the most rapidly popu- lating country in the world ; they are in sympathy with all progressive American ideas, and at the same time are loyal to the word of God. They love their brethren of all denominations ; they are ready to unite with them in all forms of Christian activity. They use constantly the Master's prayer for his disciples — " that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they may also be one in us." 112 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN If ever there is organic unity, it will begin at the baptistery. Every denomination in Protestant Christendom and in the entire Roman and Greek Churches can agree upon baptism, that is, immer- sion, as taught by our Lord and his apostles. The Greek Church, numbering quite ninety million ad- herents, has ever been a stout witness on behalf of baptism. The Roman Church joyfully accepts it, and all the Protestant churches join hands with these two great bodies. On no substitute for bap- tism can all the denominations agree. We are not now arguing a point ; we are simply stating an in- controvertible fact. Do men really want organic Christian union ? Are they in earnest when they proclaim this desire ? Are they willing to follow Christ into the waters of baptism ? Are they will- ing to join hands with their brethren in all centuries and in all climes ? Here is the opportunity ; here is the truly apostolic and catholic ordinance. As- suming for the moment that Christ and his apostles intended to teach the two-fold idea that believers are the true subjects and immersion is the act of baptism, could they have chosen language which would more fittingly express this two-fold idea than the words they employ? If their words do not teach these truths can the Greek tongue, the most exact of all languages, teach these truths ? Those are fair questions ; and to them candor compels us to reply that the language of Christ and his apostles is unmistakable in its meaning. That it could ever have been misunderstood is well-nigh incredible. REASONS FOR BEING A BAPTIST II3 If they will but follow apostolic injunction and example then all can say, " We are buried with him by baptism unto death." And then there may be, if it is desired, organic union without doing violence to the convictions of any, and in acknowl- edged harmony with the word of God and its rec- ognized interpretations. On but few points is the scholarship of the world so nearly a unit as it is in regard to the meaning of the word "baptism," and as to the practice of the apostles and the early church. It would be easy to fill pages with the names of learned authorities on all these points, and the simple-minded disciple of the Lord Jesus, with no guide but the New Testament, comes to the same conclusion. May the Holy Spirit lead all believers into all truth ! H V BAPTIST POLITY AND HISTORIC CREEDS ' THE polity of all the denominations has been severely tested within the past few years. The Presbyterian Church has been greatly agitated over the ecclesiastical trials of Professor Briggs and Professor Smith ; the Episcopal Church has passed through somewhat similar experiences, and has had to exclude some of its clergy from its fellow- ship. Occasionally Baptist brethren wish that our polity was more mechanical, formal, and authorita- tive. So soon as any ecclesiastical difficulty arises among us, these brethren express their sympathy with the polity of some other churches, and their dissatisfaction with that of our own denomination. But recent events have more than justified the practical wisdom and confirmed the scriptural authority of our prevailing polity. It is utterly impossible that trials like those of Professor Briggs and Professor Smith could arise in the Baptist de- nomination. There is no church to-day in which the law of moral affinity is so constantly and com- pletely manifested as in the Baptist churches of America. Men among us who are not of us go ^ Delivered before the Young Men's BajUist Social Union of Boston, March, 1896. 114 BAPTIST POLITY AND HISTORIC CREEDS I I 5 out from us, in harmony with the law of moral and spiritual gravitation. This fact is one of the inter- esting features of our denominational life. The bond which holds us together as members and as churches is often said to be as weak as a rope of sand ; but it is not a mere paradox to say that its acknowledged weakness is a marked element of its inherent strength. We have no creed in the technical sense of that term ; but we are more a unit to-day in faith and practice than any other religious body in the United States. We are held together by loyalty to the word of God as the rule of our faith and practice ; and as a matter of fact we find it easier to understand the divine teachings as recorded in the divine word, than to interpret the creeds which are supposed to set forth the divine teach- ing. The unwritten British constitution has proved to be as binding as any written document expres- sive of a nation's fealty to history, to law, and to authority. In like manner the unwritten creed of the Baptist churches is expressive, forceful, under- standable, and authoritative to a remarkable de- gree. Not long ago, in a company of pastors and other clerg}'men representing all the leading Prot- estant denominations, a clergyman of the Protest- ant Episcopal Church used these words : "In one sense Baptists have no creed ; but in another sense they have a stronger creed than that of any one of our churches ; he [the Baptist] then [in the bap- Il6 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN tistery] virtually announces his creed touching his personal faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, and his determination to follow him in obedience to the teachings of the gospel. He then submits to the act of baptism. This act is in itself the most expressive and beautiful of all creeds ; it sets forth a death to sin, a burial as thus dead, and a resurrection as thus made alive in Christ and promising to walk in newness of life." This gen- tleman then added with the utmost emphasis : "Would to God that the Anglican and Episco- pal Churches had never departed from the prim- itive and apostolic baptism, and if they are wise they will return to its observance at the earliest possible day." He gave me liberty to quote his words, else I should not so do in this address. The time is speedily coming when no denomi- nation making any pretense to be abreast of the thought of the day will fail to have a baptistery in all its churches. It is affirmed that Dr. Henry C. Potter, bishop of the Episcopal churches in New York City, has determined to put a baptistery' into the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, now in course of erection. It is not too much to say that in a quarter of a century a church without a baptistery will be an exception to the rule of churches in all denominations. Baptism is the great apostolic and catholic ordinance. No scholar of any reputation will oppose this statement. It is astonishing that churches of so many denominations have so long been governed by prejudice, tradition, and super- BAPTIST POLITY AND HISTORIC CREEDS 11/ stition, rather than by the simple, beautiful, and authoritative teaching and example of Christ and his apostles. No church can rightly claim to be Protestant while practising infant baptism. This rite has no authority in the New Testament ; and Protestant churches which practise this relic of Ro- manism have in so far ceased to be Protestant, and have gone over to the ground of the Romanist. CHURCH UNITY. Church unity, even if it were desirable, will never be secured by insistence on the authority of the historic creeds. The more we know of the manner in which these creeds were formulated, the less authority can we attach to their teaching. They often obscure the truth which they are supposed plainly to declare ; they are often far more difficult of comprehension than are the Scriptures on which the creeds are supposed to be based. THE apostles' CREED. The so-called Apostles' Creed is an early sum- mary of the Christian faith, with most of whose statements most of us are heartily agreed. We fully appreciate the high praise which Augustine gives it when he says regarding it, " Regula fidei brevis et grandis ; brevis numero verborian, grandis ponder e sententiarumr It is to be highly esteemed as a compendium of doctrine, for its intrinsic worth, and for the veneration in which it has been so long and so deservedly held by many bodies of Chris- Il8 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN tians. One can almost agree with Dr. Schaff when he says that though it is " not in form the produc- tion of the apostles, it is a faithful compend of their doctrines, and comprehends the leading arti- cles of the faith in the Triune God and his revela- tion, from the creation to the life everlasting, in sublime simplicity, in unsurpassable brevity, in the most beautiful order, and with liturgical solemnity ; and to this day it is the common bond of Greek, Roman, and evangelical Christendom." We object, however, to its title. It is not, in any natural sense of the word, the Apostles' Creed ; it never ought to have been called by this name. This title is an example of what has been called "a pious fraud." All investigators now heartily agree that the so-called Athanasian Creed was not the work of the famous Athanasius, although it bears his name. Dr. Swainson does not hesitate to ascribe the origin of this title to a deliberate purpose to practise an imposition. He classified this purpose with that which led to the " False Decretals," and the " Dona- tion of Constantine." So we may say of the name of this other creed. The apostles never saw the creed to which their name is attached ; they never heard of it, and perhaps would not be willing to en- dorse it in all its parts as we now have it. It may be said that the title is now used with the understand- ing that it is simply a truthful compend of apostolic doctrine ; that it sets forth apostolic principles of faith in God and in his revelation. But the title was intended to convey quite a dif- BAPTIST POLITY AND HISTORIC CREEDS II 9 ferent meaning; it was intended to convey the idea, which the Roman Church now clearly teaches, that its clauses were actually contributed by the apostles. This church, under the authority of a writer under the name of Augustine, undertakes to name the clauses given by the different apostles. To the his- torical compiler and traditionalist Rufinus, of the fourth century, we are indebted for the earliest ac- counts of the origin of this creed. He affirmed that the apostles, before separating to the different nations, agreed upon "a form of sound words," and that when met together they composed this com- pend under the special influence of the Holy Ghost. He gives his authority from some writer named Augustine. Some suppose him to be St. Augus- tine, and it is claimed that the legend is found in the appendix to his work ; but careful historic in- quiry shows that it is based on two discourses spu- riously attributed to him. He pretends to tell us what article was contributed by each apostle. He thus affirms, ^^ Pctrus dixit, Credo in Deuin Patrein oninipotentcni. JoJiamies dixit, Creatoreni cceli et terrcsy James, "and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord" ; Andrew, "who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary" ; and so to Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, and others, various parts of this creed are assigned. But no careful historic student attaches impor- tance to-day to this testimony of Rufinus. We know that neither the Evangelist Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, nor any ecclesiastical writer before the 120 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN fifth century makes mention of any assembly of the Apostles for the purpose of forming a creed of any sort. We know also that none of the Fathers of the first three centuries, although often engaged in disputes with various heretics, ever endeavored to support their doctrines by referring to the creed prepared and promulgated by the apostles. Not one of these Fathers ever pretended that the apos- tles composed this creed. We may be sure that if they so believed they would have so affirmed and this creed would have been taught in all the churches from the earliest ages. There were parts of creeds extant in the fourth century, but they differed considerably among themselves, and also from this so-called Apostles' Creed. We can read- ily understand that parts of creeds would grow up in an early age in the history of the church. When the Apostle Peter answered the question of Christ, "Whom do men say that I am?" with the words, "Thou art the Christ," he gave one article of a creed. The baptismal formula contains sug- gestions which could readily be expanded into creedal statements. We also have a suggestion of a definite summary of belief in 2 Tim. i : 3, where reference is made to a "form of sound words" ; also in the expression "faithful saying." But no attempt was made in the early centuries to prepare a complete compend of doctrine as an authoritative creed. We know also that the so-called Apostles' Creed was not admitted at an early age into the liturgy, BAPTIST POLITY AND HISTORIC CREEDS 121 although candidates for baptism may have been re- quired to subscribe to parts of it. It first ap- peared in public worship as instituted in the Greek Church at Antioch. It does not seem to have been introduced in the Roman Church until the eleventh century ; and from the Roman Church it passed into the Church of England at the time of the Ref- ormation. The Westminster divines added it, with the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments, to their catechism ; but distinctly explained in a note, that it was simply a brief summary of the Chris- tian faith agreeable to the word of God. The most that can be claimed for the title, Apostles' Creed, is that it fairly represents the facts of Chris- tian faith as taught by the apostles. We also know well that the clauses relating to the descent into hell and to the communion of saints are of later origin than are other portions of the creed. It may be affirmed that the so-called Apos- tles' Creed was substantially in existence from the end of the fourth century ; but in its completed form it cannot be traced to a period earlier than about the middle of the eighth century. If this state- ment is correct, then it is about four centuries later in its present form than the earlier forms of the Nicene Creed. The clause, " He descended into hell," is one whose origin is involved in great doubt, and whose teachings are not accepted by many devout believers and profound scholars. We know that an alternative form is suggested, and if that form were universally adopted, fewer criti- 122 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN cisms would be pronounced upon this ancient and confessedly beautiful compend of doctrine. But it would be much better to omit this objectionable clause. It adds nothing valuable to the thoughts expressed by the associated clauses. It is quite unnecessary to state — especially as the Scripture is doubtful on the point — where our Lord was be- tween his crucifixion and resurrection. Thus a few changes and omissions would greatly add to the value of this creed for popular use, and such changes have, in some publications, been made. Men to-day are quite as competent to make changes as were those who made other changes through several centuries. We can do our thinking to-day quite as well as other men who did theirs in their day. Each age must do its own thinking. The tendency is to give the truths taught by Christ precise dogmatic statements. Formulations of Christian doctrine are the ex- pression of the Christian consciousness and rea- son of different periods. This fact makes a judi- cious study of creeds peculiarly valuable. The early object of the creeds was to distinguish be- tween Christians on the one hand and Jews and Pagans on the other ; but no creed ought ever to be the rule of faith. That position and authority belong to the Bible alone. THE NICENE CREED. To the Nicene Creed more serious objection may be offered. The circumstances of its origin tend BAPTIST POLITY AND HISTORIC CREEDS 1 23 greatly to lessen the authority of its statements. We know that the controversies regarding the per- son and work of Christ, which began in the second century, were prolonged into the third and fourth centuries under various phases of belief and state- ment. Ebionitism affirmed that Christ was merely a Jewish teacher of ability and worth ; and Theo- dotus openly taught this doctrine in Rome near the close of the second century. Others so identified Christ with the Godhead as to destroy his person- ality. Paul of Samosata reduced Christ to the level of a mere man ; and Sabellius, recognizing the divinity of Christ, made him merely a manifestation of the Father. Arius grew up in the midst of these controversies. He became a presbyter of Alex- andria. He believed that Christ, although in some sense divine, was not truly God. Then Athanasius came forward as his opponent, and as the champion of orthodoxy. This creed thus sprang out of the heart of this long and troublous conflict ; it was literally a compromise, and it is to be received only as such. In the council held in 325 at Nicaea, sum- moned by Constantine, there were three distinct parties — the Athanasian, the Eusebian, and the Arian. The Arian, or heretical party, was com- paratively few in numbers, and Arius being only a presbyter had no seat in the conclave ; its direct influence was not great at any time in the council, but its indirect influence through the Eusebian or middle party was marked at every stage of the dis- 124 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN cussion. For a time this middle party was able to hold the orthodox, or Athanasian party, with a firm grasp. The chief purpose of Constantine in calling this council was to establish throughout his domin- ions unity in forms of faith and worship. There is no detailed report of its proceedings, although both Eusebius and Athanasius wrote accounts of it. Dean Stanley says, "We know not whether it lasted weeks or days." The Confession produced by Eusebius of Caesarea, as that of the church of Pales- tine, was favored by Constantine, and was acceptable to the Arians ; but this latter fact led the orthodox to oppose it. The expressions, Homooiisioji, the same nature or substance, and Homoiousion, of like na- ture or substance, became the battleground between the parties. The Arians violently condemned the first term. But the assent of the emperor was gained, and Hosius of Cordova announced the creed of the church as settled. We all admit that there was much that was grand and imposing in the Nicene Council. No church council so imposing had met previous to that time, and perhaps few of like character have met since. But we know also that at times this council conducted itself in a manner altogether unbecoming a solemn assembly of Christian men met for a high and holy purpose. Drafts of creeds were torn in pieces by the excited assembly, and the "lord of misrule" reigned occasionally with uninterrupted sway. The council was at times more like a ward caucus of average politicians than BAPTIST POLITY AND HISTORIC CREEDS 1 25 like a council of grave and reverent men. Even the presence of soldiers as police officers could not prevent shameful outbreaks. It is also true that the Nicene Creed does not now appear in its original form, and the history of many of its later clauses is involved in great obscu- rity. Whether they are to be attributed to the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Council is not generally known even by the most careful investigators. Some affirm that the enlarged creed appears in a work written before the meeting of this latter council. The exact facts probably never will be known. It must be admitted also that these creeds are not to any degree conservators of doctrine ; they are often divisive rather than unitive. The Nicene Creed did not stop the sway of Arianism even at the time ; it magnified, and in a certain sense dignified, Arian- ism, and led, for a time at least, to its more rapid spread. Creeds are not conservative of doctrine in England or in America to-day. The churches whose creeds are longest and strongest differ more among themselves as to their faith and practice than do churches in which there is no creed, in the tech- nical sense of that term. This is not the expression of an opinion ; it is not the formulation of an argu- ment ; it is simply the statement of a historic fact. The Nicene Creed, moreover, is in some of its parts too abstruse, too metaphysical and philo- sophical for general adoption. It is difificult for any man to give a clear interpretation of some of its expressions. There may be doubt as to whether 126 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN the forms in which it appears in EngHsh properly represent the thought of the original ; but the inter- pretation, after a true translation has been made, is much more difficult than the translation itself It would puzzle any teacher of religion to make an explanatory statement of some clauses in this creed which would be intelligible to the minds of immature thinkers and inexperienced believers, or even to those of maturity and experience. That creeds have their use we do not for a moment deny ; but that they should be thrust between the Christian and his Bible we do not for a moment believe. Whatever tends to dethrone or even to disparage the word of God, is so far to be rejected. We are unable to see the advantage of emphasizing the value of elaborate creeds. We cannot discover their practical use in Christian life and work, and we know that in many instances they have divided the church, when a simpler statement of God's word would have united God's people. It is often much more difficult, as already suggested, to inter- pret the creeds than to interpret the Scriptures on which their statements are supposed to be based. The Nicene Creed did not settle the contradictory opinions in the church at that time. Especially was the doctrine of the person of Christ immedi- ately disputed by the Arians, the semi-Arians, and Eusebians. There was also difference of opinion as to whether or not the Holy Spirit was created by the Father. Several synods met, but failed to agree upon any statement regarding these and other mat- BAPTIST POLITY AND HISTORIC CREEDS 12/ ters. The result was that certain additions to the Nicene Creed were adopted at the second Ecu- menical Council at Constantinople, a. d. 381. Not until the fifth century were the words, "and from the Son " {Filioqiic) added. The Filioque clause was adopted by the Western churches at the coun- cil of Toledo in the year 589 ; but this creed has remained without this clause as the ecumenical creed of the Eastern Church. The fact is, in pro- portion as creeds become inclusive they also become exclusive. They are, therefore, as was said before, divisive rather than unitive. THE ATHANASIAN CREED. The so-called Athanasian Creed, or the Syinbobim Quicunque, as it is often called, is known as one of the three great creeds of the church ; but no intel- ligent student now supposes that it was prepared by Athanasius, the famous Father of the fourth cen- tury, whose name it bears. He himself nowhere mentions it in any of the older MSS. of his works ; neither do any of his contemporaries, or writers im- mediately following him. A careful examination of its contents shows that it could not have been written by him, as it omits points which were vital in his time. He certainly would not have omitted the word " Homoousion," consubstantial, which in his day marked the distinction between the Atha- nasians and the Arians ; but this word nowhere ap- pears in the creed, an inexplicable omission in a creed composed by him. Furthermore, it is in 128 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Latin, as its original language, and Athanasius wrote in Greek. It is entirely unknown in the Greek Church until about the year looo. Late in the sixth or early in the seventh century this creed be- came the subject of general comment ; but not until still later did it acquire the title Athanasian. Its existence, even in the Latin Church, is doubtful before the end of the eighth or the beginning of the ninth century. This title probably was given it during the Arian controversies in Gaul, as this creed was supposed to express the views of Atha- nasius. We do not know who was its author ; probably its authorship will never be known. It has been attributed to many men in many countries, but no authoritative statement can be made. Prominent men of the Church of England, while adopting the creed as a whole, strongly disapprove of its damnatory clauses. These clauses are quite shock- ing in their severity and assumption ; indeed, they are little less than blasphemous. It is difficult to conceive how uninspired men dare so pronounce condemnation upon their fellow-men. Rather than be obliged to recite such a creed, many excellent Christian men would become open infidels ; indeed, the tendency of such creeds is to multiply unbe lievers. Although received in the Greek, Roman, and Anglican Churches, this creed is omitted from the service of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America. Its omission led to very sharp discus- sion, but its opponents prevailed. How can men BAPTIST POLITY AND HISTORIC CREEDS 129 without doing violence to all their reasoning powers, adopt creeds which attribute regenerating power to baptism, infant or adult, creeds which affirm the existence and purifying power of pur- gatory, and which teach as true the dogma of transubstantiation, or even consubstantiation ? The fact is, that several so-called Christian creeds con- tain no small amount of heathen superstition rather than the principles of a sound Christianity; and these principles are taught in Protestant as well as in Roman churches. A scriptural Christianity re- pudiates these errors in toto. Such doctrines are alike unscriptural and unreasonable. If such teach- ings were true Christianity, many true men would rather be intelligent unbelievers than the supersti- tious devotees which honest faith in such teachings necessitates. It is known that ministers of some Anglican churches ask their assistants to recite parts of the so-called Athanasian Creed. Such creeds are a temptation to intellectual inanity or moral dishonesty. Better fully believe few things than half believe many things. LATER CREEDS. After the so-called Athanasian Creed there are no general symbols of faith worthy of attention until the Reformation. At the Council of Trent, 1545 to 1 563, the Church of Rome found it necessary to give a more detailed statement of doctrine than could be found in any of its previous creeds ; this became a necessity because of the aggressions of I 130 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Protestantism. The council sat at intervals for eighteen years, sometimes at Bologna, but chiefly at Trent, hence the name of the council. The de- crees of Trent are the fixed and authoritative sym- bols of that church. Since the Reformation the most noted Confessions are the Lutheran, the Cal- vinistic, or Reformed, the Anglican, or Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, and the Puri- tan, or Westminster Confession. The first of the Lutheran Confessions is the Confessio Augiistana, or Confession of Augsburg. This was compiled by Melanchthon and presented to the Emperor Charles V., in 1530, in the name of the Evangelical States of Germany. The Thirty- nine Articles began with the ten of 1536, then at- tained the number of forty-two in 1552, and were finally settled as thirty-nine, 1 562-1 571, and are supposed to have been chiefly composed by Cran- mer. In 1571 they were revised by convocation and Parliament. The Calvinistic or Reformed churches gave us numerous Confessions. The principal are : (i) the Helvetic Confession; (2) the Tetrapolitan Confession, 1531 ; (3) the Gallic Con- fession, 1559; (4) the Palatine, or Heidelberg Con- fession, 1575 ; and (5) the Belgic Confession, 1559. The Westminster Confession was the result of the great Puritan excitements of the seventeenth century. The Long Parliament in 1640 set itself to consider the question of the reformation of religion. On November 23, 1641, "The Famous Remonstrance," suggesting the calling of a synod BAPTIST POLITY AND HISTORIC CREEDS I3I to settle the peace and good government of the church, was passed. Out of this proposal came the Westminster Assembly. The ordinance summoning it was issued June 12, 1643. Among the notable divines participating in these great deliberations were Rutherford, Gillespie, Henderson, Lightfoot, Coleman, and Selden. The stamp of Calvinistic Presbyterianism is on all the acts of the assembly. The sittings began in 1643, and continued until February 22, 1649 J ^'"^d during these five years and a half there were one thousand one hundred and sixty-three sessions. As this is the latest so it is the most elaborate of the creeds. The Confession is a comprehensive summary of theological doc- trines ; it is prepared with great logical skill and rhetorical beauty. It is a remarkable monument of learning and piety ; and it strongly expresses the dominant thought of a great spiritual movement which has colored the history of nations and the principles and practices of several denominations. All students of theology and of national reform ought to be familiar with this great Confession. In 1643 the assembly, through the influence of Dr. Lightfoot, voted by a majority of one against giving the choice as between immersion and sprinkling as baptism ; and in the year following Parliament sanc- tioned their decision and decreed that sprinkling should be the legal mode of baptism. It is inter- esting that it was a human Parliament and not the divine word, which was the ultimate authority re- garding baptism. 132 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN The Westminster Confession, as I have already remarked, is a document remarkable for its rhetori- cal skill, for its scholarly breadth, and for its Christian devotion. No one can speak lightly of so historic, learned, and devout a Confession. Were your speaker a Presbyterian, he should strongly oppose the revi- sion of this historic confession ; it ought rather to be left intact as a monument to the wisdom and theo- logical learning of its age. If the Presbyterian Church must have a Confession, let a new one be made rather than attempt to cut, trim, and remodel the Westminster Confession. But these great creeds do not conserve doctrines. The Westminster Con- fession does not secure unity now in the Presbyterian Church. Of what practical gain are these creeds to-day? The Baptist denomination has no creed, in the technical sense of the term ; and yet with its nearly four million members in America to-day, it is more nearly a unit in faith and practice than are the churches with their "long and strong creeds." This is a fact which no intelligent student of current church history will deny. Better far it is to go at once to the word of God as the rule of faith and practice than allow the creeds of very fallible men — creeds which were the result often of unscriptural compromises — to come between the conscience and its God. "THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE." The Lambeth Conference made much use of the term "Historic Episcopate," in discussing the ques- BAPTIST POLITY AND HISTORIC CREEDS 1 33 tion of church unity. It was proposed that the Historic Episcopate be "locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varied needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of his church." When one analyzes the re- marks made regarding the Historic Episcopate, he inevitably finds an implication of the so-called apostolic succession. So long as this implication is present, a great majority of Christians will refuse to endorse the Historic Episcopate. The apostles had no successors, and, in the very nature of the case, could not have successors. The Roman Church puts forward the claim of an unbroken succession in the most dogmatic terms. This church excom- municates all other branches of the church, calling them heretic and schismatic. Many in Europe who call themselves Protestants of various names, ape the Roman Church in this regard. The Pro- testant Episcopal Church in the United States, and some other churches of various names, pride them- selves on their apostolic succession. But we know that it was necessary that an apostle should have seen the Lord ; the office, therefore, was incapable of succession as soon as the original eye-witnesses had passed away. The claim of an uninterrupted clerical succession cannot be substantiated by satis- factory proof All churches that make this claim trace their line, to some degree at least, through the channels of the Roman pontifs ; but many of the records of these early popes are lost and can never be found. We do not know that the Apostle Peter 134 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN ever acted as bishop in Rome. The fact is that this boasted Hneage is a worthless myth. The claim made by some churches is offensive to other church- men ; it is promotive of bigotry and destructive of the spirit of unity. It tends constantly toward a dangerous exclusiveness ; it is also as unwise in policy as it is uncharitable in principle. Dr. G. A. Jacob, late head-master of Christ's Hospital, and the author of the "Ecclesiastical Polity of the New Testament," says: "The apos- tles had no successors in their office ; they stand alone as the divinely inspired teachers, legislators, and rulers in Christ's church and kingdom." With this statement unprejudiced church writers will gen- erally and heartily agree. In the very nature of the case the apostles could not have successors. It is not possible that the great majority of believers can accept the Historic Episcopate, as the term is ordinarily understood, as a basis of unity in the church of Jesus Christ. More and more do Baptists see the wisdom of making the word of God the only rule of faith and practice. It cannot share its divine author- ity with creeds made by men. It has an enlarg- ing, expanding, and self-adapting meaning which makes it the book of all centuries and countries. Human creeds are stiff, cold, formal, and mechan- ical ; but the word of God is living and life-giv- ing. Let us love it, obey it, and rejoice in it. To support its teachings our Baptist fathers lived and died. We belong to a noble army of Bap- BAPTIST POLITY AND HISTORIC CREEDS 1 35 tist confessors and martyrs. No church has given nobler testimony to the teaching of the Bible. The Baptist who is not joyful in and grateful for his ancient, heroic, and sainted ancestry must be hope- lessly ignorant of a brave history, or hopelessly indifferent to the chivalrous, loyal, and divine in human character and in Christian fealty. The Baptist who is ashamed of his principles is a Bap- tist of whom his principles might well be ashamed. Let us stand loyally and lovingly by our ancient faith, our historic position, and our Holy Bible. While it stands we shall stand, and "the word of our God shall stand forever. VI HISTORIC* BAPTIST PRINCIPLES^ THE Baptist denomination, in its present form, arose about three hundred years ago — that is, in the early Stuart period in England and in the early colonial period in this country. This, how- ever, is by no means the date of its origin ; for it stands closely related to preceding bodies of sub- stantially the same character. Its principles are those of Christ, and the apostles ; and these princi- ples have found embodiment in many ages and countries, by those who were often hidden from public gaze, often cruelly persecuted, and some of whom witnessed for their faith by giving their lives. To understand the historic relations of the Baptists to other Christians, we' must glance backward over the earlier centuries of the church. The fundamental principle of the Baptist is that salvation comes only through personal faith in the Lord Jesus ; that baptism and other ecclesiastical ceremonies are nothing but symbols of spiritual truths, and that they do not work salvation, nor are essential to salvation. This doctrine, now held by many other Christians, was in earlier centuries 1 Written for and printed in the " National Tribune," Washing- ton, D. C, 1891. 136 HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 1 3/ preached by the Baptists alone ; and it is the con- troversy over this principle which gave rise in many localities to Baptist churches as witnesses for the truth. The admonition of the apostles was, " Repent and be baptized." This was addressed to Jews who had been circumcised, and it reveals the difference between the grounds of baptism and circumcision. The Jew was circumcised because he was descended from Abraham ; but he could be baptized only when he repented of his sins and believed in Jesus Christ. He was circumcised on Abraham's faith ; but he could be baptized only on his own personal faith. Therefore, while circumcision in the Jewish church was given to all, baptism in the apostolic church was given only to believers, only to those who had personally accepted Christ as their Saviour, and had consecrated themselves to his service. Repentance and faith had to precede baptism. The baptism was not supposed to work any spiritual change in the subject ; it was given him only as a token that he had already experienced that spiritual change. As the uniform is put on a man not to make him a soldier, but because he has already become a soldier, so baptism was given not to make the man a Christian, but because it was be- lieved that he had already become a Christian. INFANT BAPTISM. It is a common error, however, to confound symbol with substance, the badge of a character 138 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN with the character itself. And thus in time men came to speak of baptism as being itself a regen- eration, and ere long the idea arose that baptism itself would make a man a Christian ; and further- more that no one could be saved without baptism. This led to the custom of giving baptism to infant children, especially to those who were sickly and who might die before becoming old enough to exercise faith for themselves. The doctrine of baptismal regeneration, the idea that baptism alone would work salvation and was also essential to sal- vation, it was this error and this alone which led to the practice of the baptism of unconscious infants. Finally, it was not merely baptism which was given to children too young to believe, for as early as the middle of the third century, we read in the works of Cyprian of the bringing of little babes to the Lord's Supper and the placing of the sacra- mental bread in their toothless mouths. This is still the usage of the Greek Church, and for centuries was the practice of the Church of Rome. It is, moreover, a strictly legal usage ; for if children may be given baptism without intelligent faith, why may they not be brought to the Lord's Supper also? Those who practise infant baptism to-day can give no logical reason for conferring it upon unconscious babes, and withholding from them the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. But it required some centuries for the usage of infant baptism to gain full currency. In the biog- raphies of many of the great leaders of the early HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 1 39 church we find that, though their parents were Christians, they were not baptized in infancy. Among these are Basil, Chrysostom, Gregory Nazi- anzen, Ambrose, Augustine, and Ephrem of Edessa. As Dean Stanley remarks, in the early ages adult baptism was the rule and infant baptism the excep- tion. This of itself would show that infant baptism was not of apostolic appointment, but of later origin. The practice gained, however, continually wider acceptance till in the Middle Ages, together with many other dangerous errors, it had become the dominant usage. But the doctrine of salvation by baptism, and the resultant custom of the baptism of infants, were condemned by different bodies of Christians in various ages of the church. Among these were the Paulicians of Eastern Europe, with the Petro- brusians and Henricians in the West. A long catalogue could be given of bodies of Christians of various names, who in different parts of Europe and in different centuries, preached the Baptist doctrine of salvation by faith alone. Some of these are said to have held certain errors; in some cases the charge may be true. But the errorist was at least an independent thinker, and the daring with which he dissented from some widely accepted truths showed itself also in his rejection of a dominant superstition. But it should be noted that we know little of these churches, except from the writings of their adversaries ; and it is well-nigh certain that many of the charges majle against them had no 140 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN basis except in the blind misrepresentations of bigoted opponents. If the records of church history were complete, it is not unlikely that it would appear that from the days of the apostles to the present time there has been a constant succession of churches, closely akin to the Baptists of the present day, congregations of godly men, strictly orthodox in belief, protesting against the doctrine of baptismal regeneration with its resultant error, the baptism of infants. New chapters of church history will soon be written. New fields, for the most part untrodden for ages, will soon be traversed. Already some gleanings have been secured ; and soon rich harvests will be gathered. Already much has been done to vindi- cate the so-called Anabaptists from one-sided charges growing out of ignorance and bigotry ; already something has been done to show that a succession of churches akin to Baptists, has existed since the days of Christ and his apostles. We do not, how- ever, rest our faith on any unbroken succession, but on the clear and authoritative commands of our Lord and his apostles in the New Testament THE REFORMATION PROTEST. On the outbreak of the Reformation, this Baptist protest was sounded forth throughout the length and breadth of Europe. When Luther and others began to teach that men were justified by faith alone, they were everywhere confronted by the question. Why, then, should infants be baptized? HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES I4I Congregations of the opposers of infant baptism arose by scores and by hundreds. Their rapid multipHcation has seemed to many historians an evidence that they were not entirely a new growth, but largely a part of an earlier ecclesiastical move- ment, hitherto concealed, but now under more favorable circumstances coming to the light. They were especially numerous in Switzerland, Bavaria, the Tyrol, Moravia, the Rhine country, and the Netherlands. Among their leaders were men not only of deep piety but also of great learning. They were nicknamed Anabaptists, or Rebaptizers, because they baptized on profession of faith those who had received so-called baptism in infancy. But they denied the charge of baptizing again, for they declared that infant baptism was no baptism at all. And the charge is false that they were responsible for the Mijnster insurrection and other great politi- cal disorders. They were men of civil virtue as well as spiritual purity. By scores and by hun- dreds they were put to death for their evangelical beliefs, so that no other Christian body of to-day has given so many martyrs to the faith of a pure gospel as did they. Their congregations are still found in Holland and Germany, where from Menno, one of their early leaders, they are often called Mennonites. Some of their congregations are found in Pennsylvania and in other parts of this country. They differ from the Baptists in cer- tain points, but historically are closely related to them. 142 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN RISE OF MODERN BAPTISTS. We now come to the rise of the modern Baptist denomination. It will be remembered that the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth went first from England to Holland. While there they came in contact with the Mennonites, who urged that as none but intelligent believers were admitted to the Lord's Supper, so none but intelligent believers should be baptized. Thomas Helwys, and certain others of the English company, felt compelled to adopt this view, and so were excluded from the ranks of their brethren. Helwys and his associates returned to England in 1611, and became what is generally deemed the first congregation of the modern Baptist denomination in Great Britain. Though Baptist doctrines were preached in England in earlier times, and there had been martyrs for them, it is not certain that regular congregations had been formed and maintained. A quarter of a century after Helwys' return, John Spilsbury and certain others of an Independent or Congregational church in London, discarded infant baptism, and they also formed a Baptist congregation. From these two, and perhaps other, sources, Baptist churches were formed in many parts of Great Britain. Among the early settlers in the American colo- nies were Baptists from England and Wales. All are familiar with the story of how Roger Williams, a Congregational minister in Salem, Mass., adopted HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 1 43 Baptist doctrines, was banished from his home, and founded a colony on Baptist principles. The First Baptist Church in Providence claims to have been organized in 1639, but some think that the First Baptist Church at Newport was formed a year earlier. The dates of these beginnings are uncer- tain. It is sufficient, however, to say that Baptist churches were planted here in the early colonial days, and now are found throughout the whole land, and increasing at the rate of nearly three each day in the year. The principles of the Baptists have been widely adopted outside of their own ranks. The giving of baptism to believers only involves a "converted church-membership," but infant baptism brings into the church those who are still unconverted, unless a spiritual change is always wrought in baptism. In the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Episco- palian churches it is not necessary to give evi- dence of conversion in order to admission to the Lord's Supper and full church-membership ; a cer- tificate of baptism is all that is essential. Less than a century ago persons baptized in infancy became full members in Presbyterian, Reformed, and Congregational churches also without any de- mand for evidence of a change of heart, and in Hodge's Theology, the great Princeton text-book, this is laid down as the correct procedure. But this left no difference between the church-member and the respectable outsider, except that the former had gone through the ceremony of baptism. All essen- 144 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN tial difference between the church and the world was obscured, and was even blotted out. A gentle- man brought up in one of the State Churches of Europe, on being asked whether he was a Christian, responded indignantly, "Do I look like a Jew or a Turk?" He had been baptized and confirmed, and this completed his idea of being a Christian. But in the "great awakening," under the preach- ing of Edwards and Whitefield, a hundred and fifty years ago, when it was proclaimed that a man, even though a baptized church-member, must be converted, immediately the question arose why persons should be baptized and brought into the church before they w^ere converted. The more earnest Christians, by thousands and thousands, adopted the Baptist idea of a converted church- membership, rejecting the baptism of infants ; and whole congregations, with their ministers, became Baptists. There was thus a marvelous increase in Baptist ranks as a result of this great movement, and preachers of to-day, like Mr. Moody, who strongly set forth the doctrine that salvation comes not through baptism and church-membership, but only through personal repentance and faith, are doing a vast deal to diffuse Baptist principles. Their converts practically become Baptists, even though they join other than Baptist churches. The idea that only converted persons should belong to the church was originally a distinctively Baptist tenet ; but now it has been adopted by nearly all evangelical Christians. Five Presbyterians out of HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES I45 six, if asked regarding one who had been sprinkled in infancy but had not yet made a profession of faith, whether he belonged to the church, would answer No ! Although still, as we have already seen, some Presbyterians insist that all who have received infant baptism in their ranks are members of their churches. THE SALVATION OF INFANTS. There is another doctrine which, though set forth at first by Baptists alone, is now held by nearly or quite all evangelical Christians — the doctrine that all who die in infancy are saved. The baptism of infants was an outgrowth of .the doctrine of bap- tismal regeneration, the idea that in baptism one is made a child of God, and that one cannot be saved without baptism. Infant baptism was based on the idea that all infants dying unbaptized would be lost. This dark and dreary superstition cast a gloom over the history of the church for centuries. There was mortal terror at the thought that an infant should die unbaptized. Sometimes in difficulty of birth the infant was sprinkled before birth, and sometimes, it will not be denied, the Caesarean operation was performed, that the babe might not die unbaptized. One dislikes to refer to matters of this sort, but history must be truthfully told. The fact is that the history of infant baptism is one of the most horrible chapters in the annals of the church. Abundant proofs could be given to justify that strong statement. Nor is this superstition wholly 146 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN extinct. The Lutherans, in their Augsburg Con- fession, "condemn the Anabaptists, who teach that infants may be saved without baptism." Not only- Roman CathoHc, but also Episcopalian parents, will feel uneasy till their babe has been "christened" — that is, made a Christian (in their belief) ; and often a Presbyterian, when his child has died, will comfort himself greatly with the thought that it had been sprinkled, as if the dear little one's salvation had been made any more certain by the application of a few drops or an ocean of water. Many are the cases in which the Presbyterian or Methodist min- ister, and occasionally a Baptist minister, is asked to perform this service, and has been summoned at midnight by agonized parents to hasten to bap- tize their dying child. Infant baptism is not a beautiful ceremony ; it is rather the historical embodiment of a gross and revolting superstition. As the little babe is borne down the aisle in its holiday garb, the whole mean- ing of the ceremony is that unless certain drops of water were sprinkled on its brow that beautiful little creature would go down to the darkness of eternal despair. This is a superstition akin to that of "extreme unction" — the one the rite of baptism to unconscious babes, the other that of extreme unc- tion to unconscious men and women. Such supersti- tions naturally drive thoughtful men into infidelity, But in Baptist circles it was taught not only that baptism was not necessary to salvation, but that all who died in infancy are saved through the blood of HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES I47 Christ. This doctrine was held long by Baptists only. Down to quite recent times, if a man said that the dying babe of a Jew or a Turk or a heathen was saved, it was known at once that he was a Bap- tist. But this, which was originally a distinctively Baptist tenet, now prevails to a greater or less de- gree in all evangelical circles. And corresponding to this difference of Baptist doctrine there has been an advance toward the Baptist usage of the bap- tism of believers only. If salvation is wrought in baptism, and without baptism there is no salvation, then it is reasonable that infants should be baptized, and without any outward evidence of conversion be admitted to full membership in the church. But renounce the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, and no ground is left for the baptism of infants. Should infants be baptized because they are natur- ally innocent? Then the missionary should bap- tize all the babes in a heathen tribe, for of such also is the kingdom of heaven, they being as inno- cent naturally as the offspring of Christians. Is infant baptism proper as a dedication of children to God ? But what is this dedication ? It is simply a vow on the part of the parents that they will strive to lead the child to dedicate himself to God. Now, when a missionary goes to a heathen tribe, he in this sense dedicates that tribe to God. He promises to do in the case of the tribe what the parents promise to do in the case of the child ; but shall he therefore baptize the whole tribe at the outset ? 148 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN The fact is that infant baptism, which had its historical origin in the doctrine of baptismal regen- eration, has no logical foundation but in that doc- trine. This is becoming more and more plain to all evangelical Christians, and the result is a grow- ing abandonment of the practice. Among the Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Episcopalians who still believe in baptismal regeneration, the bap- tism of infants is still observed with substantial uni- formity. But Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Methodists, who have abandoned this doctrine, show a progressive abandonment of the usage. In a recent discourse. Rev. O. C. Sargent, of New Hampshire, put it very concisely, as follows : " Look at the signs of the times. Forty years ago few of the churches would immerse. To-day we do not know of any save the Roman, which is not willing in special cases. Infant baptism is fast dying out. The recent agitations and the frequent vain appeals of some of the old fathers for this practice show how slowly, yet how surely, it is pass- ing away. In i860 two thousand more infants were sprinkled than adults in the M, E. Church, while in 1870 thirteen thousand six hundred more adults than infants received the rite." Those who desire fuller figures should read the pamphlet on this subject by Prof H. C. Vedder. Its statistics show that evangelical Christians incline more and more to give baptism only to believers, and that they are becoming Baptists in fact though not in name. HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 1 49 DOCTRINE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. There is another doctrine which, though origi- nally a Baptist tenet, is now held outside Baptist circles, namely, the doctrine of religious freedom — the doctrine that the civil magistrate has no right- ful authority in purely religious matters. In the Hebrew nation, and in ancient Gentile govern- ments also, the Church and the State were one. The Jewish high priest was a civil functionary and the Roman emperor was pontifex maximus. The civil and ecclesiastical governments were iden- tical, or at least affiliated, and the civil magis- trate concerned himself about religious matters. In the Middle Ages the prevalence of the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, and the consequent prac- tically universal baptism of infants, made every per- son a church-member as well as a citizen. Thus Church and State again became identical, or at least conterminous, and the civil magistrate con- cerned himself with religious as well as secular interests. But the Baptist doctrine that one be- came a true Christian and a rightful member of the church only when he personally made a profes- sion of faith, left a vast number, indeed a great majority, of citizens outside the church, and there was a division between the ecclesiastical body and the civil community. The church became what it was in the apostles' day, a private society, a group of persons apart from the main body of citizens, a body called out from others, professing certain ex- 150 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN perimental truths, and devoted to their mainte- nance and propagation, and thus Church and State were divorced and each was remanded to its own sphere. Again, in the days when there was a full ad- herence to the doctrine of baptismal regenera- tion and of direct spiritual efficacy of ecclesiastical ceremonies, it was logical for the civil power to at- tempt by physical force to make men Christians. If baptizing a person would change his spiritual nature and his relations to God, all that was neces- sary to make a nation a Christian nation was to compel its members to be baptized and to observe the other ecclesiastical rites. If salvation came through outward ceremonies, the observance of which could be compelled by force, it was possible for the civil power to compel men to become Chris- tians. It could not only lead them to the water of life, but by thumbscrew and fagot could make them drink. Thus Charlemagne and other Christian conquer- ors compelled vanquished barbarians to go down into the water by tens of thousands to be baptized. And such compulsion seemed a solemn duty to those who believe that the failure to be baptized left the soul to be lost. If baptism could make one a Christian, the colonel in our late war was right who gave orders for a detail of men to be baptized. But the Baptist doctrine, that a man could become a Christian only by the voluntary and free action of his own spiritual nature, made HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES I5I religion a matter which could be settled only be- tween the man and his God, thus leaving nothing to be done by the civil magistrate, who could con- trol only the man's outward actions but could not reach his heart. A moment's thought will show that there is no ground whatever for saying that the only reason why the Baptists did not strive to extend their doctrines by force, as did others, was that they had no power so to do. It was a part of their fundamental belief that external force was utterly ineffectual to make men Christians. Others might abstain from persecution because their pity was stronger than their religious zeal ; but Bap- tists were restrained from it by logical deductions, namely, because they held that becoming a Chris- tian was an act of the Spirit which outward force could not compel. So they always taught that the civil power should take no cognizance of religious beliefs or purely religious practices of men, whether orthodox or heretic, Turk or heathen, but that these should be left solely to the judgment of God. Some other Christians have been very candid in recognizing that it was the Baptists who first preached the great doctrine of religious freedom. But it has not always been perceived that this doctrine was a logical outgrowth of the fundamental Baptist prin- ciple of a converted church-membership, and that church ceremonies are to be used only when men have already become Christians. The divorce be- tween Church and State was not merely a lucky thought of astute Baptist philosophers ; nor was it 152 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN because they were in themselves better, kinder, and wiser than others ; but it was the logical out- come of distinctive Baptist principles. The Baptists preceded others in declaring the true relations of the civil and ecclesiastical bodies, not because they were superior to other Christians in their under- standing of civil principles, but because they held an ecclesiastical tenet which was correct where others were in error. The condemnation of the use of force in religion was originally a Baptist peculiar- ity. Down to a comparatively late date, if a man said that the civil magistrate should not interfere in strictly religious matters it was known thereby that he was a Baptist. But this doctrine has now extended to all churches in our own land, and it is rapidly becoming the doctrine of all Christian countries. Baptists have had in this respect a noble mission, and right nobly have they borne its bur- dens and discharged its obligations. THE DOCTRINE OF IMMERSION. Thus far nothing has been said of baptism or im- mersion. In a given society the question, What shall be the initiation ceremony ? is not so impor- tant as the question. Who shall be initiated ? And so the point insisted on by Baptists is not so much that immersion is the only baptism, as that only believers should be baptized. But the erroneous doctrine of baptismal regeneration which led to the baptism of infants gave rise to another super- stitious practice, namely, the substitution of pour- HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES I 53 ing and sprinkling for baptism. The controversy on this subject first appears in the letter of Cyprian to Magnus, about the year 250. There were cer- tain persons who had been converted in sickness when they could not be immersed, so water was poured upon them as they lay upon their beds. But there was a refusal to recognize this as valid baptism, and the question was referred to Cyprian, who was one of the leaders in the church. After discussing the matter, he gives it as his view that in a case of strict necessity pouring or sprinkling is sufficient ; but he freely admits that his mind is not clear on the subject. His words are : " So far as my poor ability comprehendeth the matter," and "So far as in me lies, I have shown what I think." That these expressions are not used in mock mod- esty is shown in the fact that he declares that he does not wish to influence the action of others in such cases, and he also suggests that should these converts recover they may be immersed, that is, baptized. Now this letter shows beyond dispute that the ordinary act of baptism in that early day was im- mersion. The question whether immersion could be dispensed with in extraordinary cases shows that in ordinary cases it was always used. In the whole discussion it is assumed that when a convert can be baptized, baptism is of course to be administered. No one in that day proposed to employ pouring or sprinkling except when baptism or immersion was impossible. And this letter proves, with equal 154 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN clearness, that immersion was the only act of bap- tism practised by the apostles. Had they ever used pouring or sprinkling, even in a single case, Cyprian, who lived so soon after them, would of course have known it, and of course would never have admitted that there was the least question as to the propriety of such a use. That he never cites the apostles in support of his position, that he gives it merely as his opinion that pouring or sprinkling may be used in extraordinary cases, shows not only that in his time neither was used in ordinary cases, but also that the apostles had never used them in any case. That the baptism of the apostolic church was immersion is the testimony of scholars of all de- nominations. Martin Luther declares immersion to have been the primitive act of baptism. John Calvin says: "It is certain that immersion was observed by the ancient church." John Wesley says that it was "the custom of the first church." To the same effect are the utterances of later scholars of all Christian bodies, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopalian, and Presbyterian. Says the late Dean Stanley: "There can be no question that the original form of baptism was complete immersion." Says the well-known historian, Dr. Philip Schaff : " Immersion and not sprinkling was unquestionably the original, normal form." Whole columns could be filled with similar quotations from the ablest scholars ; and be it noted that not a single writer of the rank of these named rejects these statements. To deny that immersion was the HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES I 55 primitive act of baptism is really the wildest ab- surdity. If scholarship can prove anything, it proves all that Baptists claim ; on no other point of church history or Scripture exegesis is the scholar- ship of the world so nearly united. But how then came pouring and sprinkling to be used? It is not difficult to answer this question. It was because there had arisen in the church this superstitious idea that water baptism was necessary to salvation. When, therefore, a man was con- verted on a dying bed or in prison, when baptism was out of the question, pouring or sprinkling was resorted to as the nearest possible approach to the normal act of baptism. These were not considered regular baptisms, but were by some considered allowable substitutes when the prescribed act was out of the question. Pouring and sprinkling were at first used only in cases of necessity. But their superior convenience led to their being employed more and more, till in the course of ages they in Western Europe supplanted baptism almost entirely. In the Greek Church, however, immersion is still the act of baptism. It continued the ordinary bap- tism of the Church of Rome for thirteen hundred years. It was the practice in England down to the reign of Elizabeth. The Anglican prayer-book still directs that the priest, naming the child, "shall dip it in the water discreetly and warily" ; adding, how- ever, that if the parents "shall certify that the child is weak, it shall suffice to pour water upon it." No "priest" of the Church of England has any right to 156 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN this day to sprinkle or pour water upon a babe, ex- cept the parents certify to its delicate health ; it would seem as if the great majority of children in that church are in very feeble physical condition. The rubric of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America directs that the minister "shall dip it in the water discreetly, or shall pour water upon it," not positively prescribing immersion, but giving it the preference of a prior mention. The late Dr. Ewer, of New York, always baptized the babes ; he would not practise pouring or sprinkling. The same is true of other clergymen of the Episcopal Church who are advocating a re- turn at least to the proper act of baptism. It is not too much to say that in a quarter of a century baptisteries in all Protestant churches will be by no means uncommon. These rules or permissions in churches which have abandoned the use of immer- sion, are historical reminiscences of the primitive practices. Those churches in Switzerland, Germany, and Holland which have been mentioned as coming out in condemnation of the baptism of infants generally continued the usage of pouring and sprinkling. But when Baptist churches were organized in Eng- land and America, they took the position that not only were believers the only proper subjects of baptism, but that a burial in water was its only true act. Therefore, the reason why Baptists practise nothing but immersion is this : they do not believe that water baptism is essential to salvation. Ac- HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES I 57 cepting the testimony of all scholarship that immer- sion was the baptism of the apostolic church, and prescribed by Christ, they administer this when it is possible ; but when, as in case of sickness, this is out of the question, they let the convert die without water baptism. So far from "making too much of baptism," as is often charged upon them, no Christians, except the Quakers, who reject all water baptism, make so little of it as they. So far from making baptism necessary to salvation, they make salvation necessary to baptism. The as- sertion that Baptists believe that baptism is nec- essary to salvation is a declaration as far as possible from the truth. It is a statement born either of unpardonable ignorance, or unchristian malice. It ought to be known that Baptists hold that if the providence of God makes it impossible, as in the case of the thief on the cross, or of many on sick-beds, to render obedience, the command is not binding in such a case. The case is just the opposite. The very reason why they never resort to sprinkling, which can always be administered, but practise only baptism, which is occasionally out of the question, is that they hold that baptism is not essential to salvation, and that a true convert's soul will not be imperiled if he is allowed to die without having received water baptism. Pouring and sprinkling would never have been thought of but for the idea that a man's soul was imperiled if he were suffered to die without some- thing in the shape of baptism. Baptists condemn 158 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN the use of pouring and sprinkling as having been based on the superstitious idea that something which at least somewhat resembled baptism was necessary to salvation. If they believed that water baptism would make one a Christian, they would baptize infants as well as believers. If they be- lieved that a dying man's soul would be lost unless he received something in the nature of baptism, they could use pouring and sprinkling as well as immersion. But, holding clearly and firmly that salvation depends only on intelligent faith and not on some baptismal ceremony, they claim that intel- ligent believers are the only proper subjects of baptism, and that the burial in water, the original ceremony, is its only proper act. And Baptists refuse to practise pouring and sprinkling for bap- tism, because they also hold that these are not a fulfillment of Christ's command. John Calvin says that "the very word baptize signifies to immerse." Martin Luther declares the same. The latest stand- ard Greek lexicons, those of Sophocles, Wilke, Cre- mer, and Liddell and Scott (later editions), define baptism as meaning immersion, and they recognize no other meaning. He who would go back of the lexicons and judge for himself, will find in Conant's " Meaning and Use of Baptism " a citation of every case in which the word is used by ancient writers, and he will see that in each case the idea of sub- mersion is involved. The Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament current in Jesus' day, says that Naaman, the Syrian, went down into HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES I 59 the Jordan and dipped, baptized (Gr. cbaptisatd) himself seven times. This means that he dipped or immersed himself; and when the New Testa- ment says that John was baptizing it means that he was immersing. TESTIMONY REGARDING BOTH ORDINANCES. The doctrine and practice of the Baptists with reference to the two Christian ordinances have been abundantly justified and upheld by the candid testimony of scholarly theologians of other de- nominations. From the great mass of these weighty admissions and endorsements the following are a few specimens, those relating to baptism coming first : To baptize signifies to plunge, as is granted by all the world. — Bossuet, Roman Catholic. It does not appear from Scripture that even one infant 'was ever baptized. — Keenan, " Docirmal Catechisfii," Ro- man Catholic. In the primitive church, baptism was a total immersion or burial as it were. — Bcchman, Lutheran. The Baptist position is incontrovertible from the Protes- tant standpoint, since they have the clear Bible text for baptism, and church tradition decides neither for nor against. — Dr. Ddllingcr, Old Catholic. Baptize undoubtedly signifies immersion. No proof can be found that it signifies anything else in the New Testa- ment, and in the most ancient Christian literature. — Prof. Harnack, Lutheran. All attempts to make out infant baptism from the Old Testament fail. It is totally opposed to the spirit of the apostolic age, and to the fundamental principles of the New Testament. — Prof. Lange, Ltitheran. l60 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN The change from immersion to sprinkling has set aside the larger part of the apostolic language regarding baptism, and has altered the very meaning of the word. — Dean Stanley, Episcopalian. This passage (Rom. 6 : 3, 4) cannot be understood un- less it is borne in mind that the primitive baptism was by immersion. — Conybeare and Howson, Episcopalians. Among all the persons that are recorded as baptized by the apostles, there is no express mention of any infants. — Dr. Wall, Episcopalian. "Buried with him," alluding to the ancient manner of baptizing by immersion. — John Wesley, Methodist. To be baptized into Christ is to receive the doctrine of Christ crucified, and to receive baptism as proof of the genuineness of that faith. — Adam Clarke, Methodist. The very word baptize, however, signifies to immerse, and it is certain that immersion was the practice of the an- cient church. — Calvin, Presbyterian. Respecting the form of baptism, therefore, . . . the im- partial historian is compelled by exegesis and history sub- stantially to yield the point to the Baptists, as is done, in fact, ... by most German scholars. — Philip Schaff, Pres- byterian. Scripture knows nothing of the baptism of infants. — Dr. Hanna, Presbyterian. Here follow a few out of many available strong Pedobaptist endorsements of the Baptist principle and practice of restricting the Lord's Supper to the actually baptized : Among all the absurdities that ever were held, none ever maintained that any person should partake of the commun- ion before he was baptized. — Dr. Wall, Episcopalian. If I believed with the Baptists that none are baptized but those who are immersed on profession of faith, then I HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES l6l should with them refuse to commune with any others. — Dr. John Hall, Presbyterian. It is evident that, according to our views of baptism, we can admit them to our communion ; but with their views of baptism, it is equally evident they can never reciprocate the courtesy. And the charge of close communion is no more applicable to the Baptists than to us. — Dr. Hibbard, Methodist. Open communion is an absurdity when it means commun- ion with the unbaptized. I would not for a moment con- sider a proposition to admit an unbaptized person to the communion, and can I ask a Baptist so to stultify himself and ignore his own doctrine as to ask me to commune with him while he believes I am unbaptized ? Let us have unity, indeed, but not at the expense of principle, and let us not ask the Baptist to ignore or be inconsistent with his own doctrine. Neither let us make an outcry at his close communion, which is but faithfulness to principle, until we are prepared to be open communists ourselves, from which stupidity may we be forever preserved. — American Presbyterian Quarterly. Did we believe that only believers who have been im- mersed are baptized, and that only baptized persons have a right to the Lord's table, we should believe and practise strict communion, and we should almost consider it an in- sult to be required to give it up without a change of views on the subject of baptism. . . We, as Pedobaptists, are close communionists, and we hope we shall never cease to be such. . . The only legitimate subjects of controversy be- tween us and the Baptists are the subjects and mode of baptism. — Congregational Journal. FIGURATIVE ALLUSIONS. Jesus' baptism of sorrow was not a mere sprin- kling ; it was a submersion in the tide of suffering. L l62 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN When some good man prays that all may be " bap- tized" with the Holy Ghost, it is not a mere sprin- kling that he desires, but an inundation of the blessed divine influence. When some one writing of the great war says that the land was "baptized in blood," he means not that it was merely sprinkled, but that it was submerged, as it were, beneath the tide of carnage. Though baptism is sometimes spoken of as coming through an outpouring, the idea of sub- mersion is still involved, as when one is buried by the caving in of a bank upon him or buried be- neath the falling snow. Baptism, then, always means immersion. Immersion is not merely a "mode" of baptism — it is baptism itself To speak of baptism by sprinkling is like talking of dipping by sprinkling. Pouring or sprinkling is not baptism at all ; it is merely something which has been substituted for baptism. Pouring or sprinkling cannot properly be called baptism, ex- cept on the principle by which the name of an ob- ject is sometimes given to that which is put in its place. Pouring or sprinkling is not baptism, and so is not a fulfillment of Christ's command. The command to be baptized is a command to be im- mersed, and this is another reason why Baptists do not practise pouring or sprinkling, but only immer- sion. In a revival in the winter of 1863-64, as stated by Rev. Dr. Norman Fox, in one of the regiments of the Sixth Corps, a young sergeant who had been converted was told by the chaplain that he HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 1 63 ought to be baptized. "Very well," said he, "if that is 'reg'lations.' " It was a soldier's answer. A soldier is trained to obey orders, and if Christ, his captain, commanded him to be immersed, the boy was ready to obey. And so Baptists adhere to the practice of immersion, for they believe that that is Scripture "reg'lations." It is objected by some that this is mere literalism ; that, granting that baptism is strictly immersion, and that immer- sion alone was practised in the earliest times, yet the idea of baptism is that of washing or purification, and as washing is attained by pouring or sprin- kling as well as by immersion, these are in substance a compliance with the command, and in spirit are a. fulfillment of the ordinance. But can baptism be regarded as merely a purification? Jesus' bap- tism of sorrow was not a purification, for the Holy One needed no such. Many of the Fathers re- ferred the baptism of fire to the destruction of the wicked, which they viewed, not as a purification, but a submersion in waves of fire. Should we grant that the original idea in baptism was a puri- fication, it still remains that the apostles in their mention of baptism into the death of Christ at- tribute to baptism the symbolism of death to sin and a rising again to a new life through faith in Jesus, who was buried and rose again. The apos- tolic immersion, then, was a symbol of burial and resurrection. Referring to this fact, Luther says : " On this account I could wish that such as are baptized should be immersed in the water. It 164 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN would be beautiful to have so full and perfect a sign of so perfect and full a thing ; as also without doubt it was instituted by Christ." Pouring and sprinkling cannot be regarded as meeting even the spirit and idea of the baptismal command, for they contain no symbol of the death and resurrection of our Lord, which idea is paramount in apostolic baptism. The act of washing contains nothing whatever of distinctively Christian symbolism, for it is found in the Jewish "Ritual," nay, in purely heathen ceremonies. Only a burial in water can be regarded as true Christian baptism, for it alone sets forth the death and resurrection of our Lord, which is the central fact of the Christian system. Not only the letter, then, but also the spirit of the baptismal command requires that there should be an immersion. It is urged that baptism is only a form. Yes, and so a flag is only a form, merely a piece of bunting, and yet men will die for it. The United States flag is a symbol of the Union, since it has a star for every State. When the great conflict arose in 1 861, it was seen in a moment that if disunion came the flag would have to be changed. The con- test therefore took the shape as to whether the old flag should be retained. And when the "Star Spangled Banner" was sung, when the Stars and Stripes were unfurled to the breeze, it meant that there was to be no change in that flag. That great four years' war was a war over a flag, for to save the flag meant to save the Union. If the HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 1 65 flag had been the French Tri-color, or the Swiss Cross, which could have been retained after the Nation was divided, it would have been different. But the fact that if disunion came the flag would have to be changed, made the soldier "fight for the flag" and "stand by the flag" with ten-fold earnestness. Perhaps it would not be too much to say that the flag saved the nation. Perhaps it would not have been possible to save the Union had it not been for the flag, which put the whole question before the minds of the people in so vivid and striking a way that they could not help seeing the meaning of the great struggle. The flag, though a "mere form," had a marvelous power, for it told the whole story of loyalty, of patriotism, and of heroic consecration. And so the baptismal burial in water, though a mere ceremony, sets forth so strikingly the great central truth of Christianity that eternal life comes through the death and resurrection of Christ, that Baptists in preserving that symbol are doing a rich service to the church and the world. There is another point to which reference has been made already and regarding which testimony has been offered, but to which perhaps an addi- tional word should be given, a matter on which the Baptists have been subjected to much ignorant and most unjust criticism, namely what is known as close communion. On this subject, let it first be noticed, as already taught by liberal quotations, that all Christians, Presbyterians and Methodists as 1 66 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN well as Baptists, agree that baptism is a prerequi- site to the communion ; that no person should be invited to the communion table until he has been baptized. When therefore the question arises, Who shall be invited to the communion table? it must first be determined, Who has been baptized? If a man has been baptized who has merely been sprinkled in unconscious infancy, then he may be invited to the communion. But Baptists find in Scripture no baptism except a burial in water on profession of faith. And so they can invite only immersed believers. Unable to see that infant sprinkling is baptism, they cannot invite to the communion those who have been baptized in in- fancy, or have received merely pouring or sprin- kling for baptism. Baptists differ from Presbyte- rians and Methodists not on the question, who shall be invited to the communion ? but simply as to, who have been baptized ? If Baptists are wrong in saying that infant sprinkling is not baptism, then they are wrong in not inviting Presbyterians and Methodists to the communion. But if they have a right to their opinion that Presbyterians and Meth- odists have not been baptized, they are right in not inviting them to the Lord's Supper. It is true that Spurgeon, under certain restric- tions, and English Baptists generally, so invite Presbyterians and others to the communion. But on what ground ? On a ground which Presbyte- rians and all others condemn, the ground that water baptism is not in any way a prerequisite to HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 1 6/ the communion ; on the ground that it is proper to invite a man who has never received any water baptism whatever, neither immersion nor pouring nor sprinkling. Now, when Presbyterians them- selves condemn this principle of the English Bap- tists, how^ absurd in them to censure American Baptists for not adopting it. For Presbyterians to say that none but baptized persons should be in- vited to the communion, and then to blame the Baptists for not inviting them, is to say that Bap- tists have no right to consider them unbaptized ; that Baptists have no right to the opinion that there is no baptism but immersion on profession of faith — in other words, that Baptists have no right to be Baptists. But the Baptists answer, "When you show us that baptism in infancy or a mere sprinkling is true baptism, then we will regard you as baptized, and will invite you to the communion ; but so long as we find in Scripture no baptism but immersion on profession of faith, which you have not received, we must regard you as unbaptized, and, on your own doctrine that baptism must pre- cede the Lord's Supper, we are unable to invite you." GROWTH OF BAPTISTS. As to the growth of the Baptist denomination, it may be remarked that in 1750, a century after its rise in this country, there were only some sixty churches, with not many more than five thousand members. Then came the great revival under Ed- l6S CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN wards and Whitefield, which, as has been re- marked, was preached strictly on Baptist Hnes, and in 1768, nearly eighteen years later, there were re- ported one hundred and thirty-seven churches, an increase of more than one hundred and twenty-five per cent. Twenty-two years after that, in 1790, there were reported eight hundred and seventy-two churches, with about sixty-five thousand members. Twenty-two years later, in 181 2, were reported two thousand six hundred and thirty-three churches, with two hundred and four thousand one hundred and eighty-five members. In 1848 the Baptists of the United States numbered about seven hundred and fifty thousand. They now number over three millions, while in Great Britain and on the conti- nent of Europe and in mission fields, are about three-quarters of a million more. A hundred years ago the ratio of members of Baptist churches to the entire population of the United States was one to sixty- three ; now the ra- tio is one to twenty-one — that is to say, the Bap- tists have increased faster than the population, and this too without the help of immigration. Nearly all immigrants from Europe have been Roman Catholics or Lutherans. The Episcopalians and Presbyterians in this country have been strength- ened by immigration from Great Britain, but not so the Baptists. The following important facts have been thus tersely stated by a writer already quoted: "From i860 to 1880 the increase in membership of four of our leading denominations HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 169 was this : Congregationalists, forty-two per cent ; Presbyterians, fifty-five per cent. ; Methodist Epis- copal, eighty-two per cent, while the Baptist de- nomination increased ninety-nine per cent" On this subject it may be further stated that in the United States Baptists numbered in 1800, one hundred thousand; in 1850, six hundred and eighty-six thousand eight hundred and seven ; in 1870, one million four hundred and ten thousand four hundred and ninety-three; 1880, two million two hundred and ninety-six thousand three hundred and twenty-seven; in 1891, three million one hun- dred and sixty-four thousand two hundred and twenty-seven.^ ^ From the " Baptist Year-Book " for 1891, the subjoined valua- ble and interesting statistics concerning the progress of the de- nomination during the past year have been compiled : "There are in the United States 1,382 Associations, which comprise 34,780 churches, with an aggregate membership of 3,164,227, an increase over last year of 29 Associations, 1,192 churches and 94,180 members. The total number of baptisms reported for the year was 140,058, and the deaths 27,277. The total amount reported as contributed for home expenses is ^7, 186,- 532 ; for missions, ^1,045,371 ; for education, $374,039 ; and for miscellaneous religious and benevolent objects, $2,609,637, mak- ing a total of $11,215,579. The total value of church property reported is $61,646,377. There are 22,703 ordained ministers, an increase of 1,528. There are 18,555 Sunday-schools, with 131,889 officers and teachers, and 1,280,663 scholars, an increase of 859 schools and 78,967 scholars." It is deeply interesting to put after the figures just given a par- tial summary of statistics for 1896 : Associations, 1,567 ; churches, 40,658; total membership, 3,824,038; value of church property, $84,039,959. Our numbers, doubtless, will be over four millions before the century shall close. I/O CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Baptists have had and still have a high and holy mission. God has greatly honored our imperfect services both in the home and foreign fields. He graciously condescends to work with us and to permit us to work with him, in wonderful ways. May we evermore be true to our high calling, loyal to our Lord, and beneficent to the whole world. VII PARTIAL UNIFICATION BY POSSIBLE ELIMINATION ON few subjects is there more reasonless writing than on that of church unity. It is often difficult to determine what those who write and speak freely on this subject really mean. But it is not at all difficult to know what is meant by Christian union. We are all quite ready to admit that it consists in a common spirit, a common aim, a common hope, and a common method. Anything that partakes of the spirit of bitterness, selfishness, and mere denominational success, is opposed to this admir- able aim. But church unity must in some way involve the idea of the merging of all churches into one church. When we analyze the speeches and articles of many of the advocates of church unity, we find as a rule that they mean to ask all other churches to join the particular church to which the writer or speaker belongs. They ask that each church should sur- render its distinctive views and unite in some common body, at the expense of cherished con- 1 Delivered March 24, 1890, at Lenox Lyceum, New York, at the first Interdenominational Social Union of the Congregational Club, and the Baptist, Methodist, and Presb3'teriaa Unions of New York. 171 1/2 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN victions and intelligent interpretations of the word of God. They ask that some churches should believe in so-called infant baptism, while these churches firmly believe that this rite has no warrant either in Holy Scripture or in common sense. They ask that certain other churches should adopt a Presbyterian or an Episcopal form of church government, when these churches believe only in the Congregational form of government ; or they ask those who believe in Presbyterial or Prelatical forms to adopt a Congregational form. Really, it seems difficult to give some of the advocates of church unity credit for both sincerity and intelli- gence. I certainly am not one of those who mourn over what some persons call "the scandal of a divided Christendom." In a real sense the church is not divided to-day. There are various divisions of Christians, but even in their organic divisions the essential unity of the faith is illustrated. Those who are most vigorously crying out for unity awaken often the suspicion that they are asking for that which they know they themselves conspicuously lack. There may be organic without essential union. There are churches in this city at this mo- ment, bearing the same denominational name, recit- ing the same denominational creeds, and are yet wider apart in spirit and method than churches which bear different denominational names. Churches which are under one denominational control are illustrating some of the characteristics of Romanism, PARTIAL UNIFICATION BY ELIMINATION 1 73 while others are manifesting marked features of rationahsm. There is more essential unity among us than we ourselves at all times appreciate. Let some crisis arise when Protestantism must utter its voice, and all our churches will stand together as one undivided church of Christ. What great gain would come to the cause of God as a whole if all churches were united into one great church? Would such a union give real unity in faith and work? No intelligent man can so affirm. Churches belonging to the same body soon form affiliations within themselves on the basis of creedal interpretations, or because of social affini- ties. There is comparatively little real unity to-day in the Roman Church. Protestant denominations have not in recent years been so bitter against one another as have different wings within the Roman Church. These differences have marked this church throughout its history ; it has occasionally persecu- ted even its own members. The burning jealousies and personal rivalries shut up within this church occasionally burst forth, to the scandal of the church catholic itself and of the Christian name. The dif- ferences between the Jesuits and the Jansenists are known to all readers of church history and general literature ; the same remark applies in part to other orders within this same church. The bitterness in the former case was almost entirely on the side of the Jesuits ; in those controversies they were true to their general character. The Jansenists were vari- ously and always cruelly persecuted. 1/4 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Our Protestant brethren sometimes glorify Ro- manism at the expense of Protestantism, because it is beheved that the former is united while the latter is divided. We claim, however, that there is as much essential unity in the Protestant denomi- nations as there is between the different wings in the Roman Church. These organizations are prac- tically different denominations acting in conjunction within the Roman Church. The jealousies and contentions which have at times marked the Fran- ciscans, Augustinians, and other societies, brother- hoods, and still other divisions in this church, have helped Protestantism, and in many other ways are among the historical causes of great religious move- ments. Let us in our desire for still greater union neither deny nor disparage the union which now exists, and for which we now in many ways lift up our hearts in thanksgiving to Jesus Christ, the great Head of the one glorious church. The differences in the Presbyterian Church in America at this mo- ment are known to all men ; they are more bitter than are any of the relations of the Presbyterian Church to any other Protestant body. The differ- ences between various wings of the Episcopal Church are also well known ; indeed, they caused, a few years ago, a schism in that body. Would such unity, as some desire, secure sound- ness of doctrines ? Who can intelligently so affirm ? The bodies possessing what are often called the "long and strong creeds," are the very bodies whose various parties differ most widely on points of doc- PARTIAL UNIFICATION BY ELIMINATION 1/5 trines. Thus, as we have seen, Rationalism and Romanism can be found side by side under the same ecclesiastical name, and repeating the same ecclesiastical creeds. Creeds are not conservative of sound doctrines; indeed, the historic creeds have often been divisive rather than unitive. The Nicene Creed did not secure purity of doctrine ; for a time Arianismwas stimulated by the excitements growing out of the council at Nicaea. It would be easy to enlarge upon the historical illustrations of this statement. The differences between denominations, so long as a kindly and Christian spirit is preserved, are no reproach to the church of Christ. Absolute unity of opinion can be found only among dead men ; living men must think for themselves. We cannot pin the faith of to-day to the creeds of fallible men who died hundreds of years ago. It is no reproach to Christian men that they differ kindly in interpretations of Scripture and in forms of worship. Would the church unity, for which some plead, give aggressiveness to missionary work? Surely he is a reckless man who would so affirm. The unity of Christ may be made the more perfect in our apparent divisions ; and it is certain that our dif- ferent missionary organizations have been able to accomplish far more in foreign mission work, labor- ing along their separate lines, than all could have accomplished as one organic body. During this century these organizations have put one hundred and forty-six foreign missionary societies into the 176 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN field. They have translated the Scriptures into two hundred and eighty languages or dialects ; they have reached nine-tenths of the entire race with the word of God ; they have divided their forces so that forty societies are working in India, thirty- three in China, and thirty-four in Africa. No reasonable man would claim that one-tenth of this force would now be at work in foreign lands if all these denominations were under the direction of one organic body. Why will men talk about a divided Christendom? Why will they shout them- selves hoarse over a formal and mechanical church unity? We have true union just in proportion as we have the spirit of Christ. Every man who has been washed in the precious blood of the Son of God is our blood relation ; it matters not whether he is black or white, red or yellow, rich or poor ; whether he is a member of this church or that, in a very real sense he is our brother. Would such church unity lead to increased loyalty to the word and to the Son of God? This is a most practical question. When the church was practically a unit over the whole world it was sunk in the greatest intellectual ignorance and moral corruption. The true life of Christ in those days was found outside the so-called church. Loyalty to Jesus Christ is to be maintained at all hazards. It is admitted that our present divisions sometimes cause a waste of money and effort in missionary operations ; that in many Western towns and vil- lages several churches are struggling to live where PARTIAL UNIFICATION BY ELIMINATION 1 7/ one could meet the religious wants of all the peo- ple. Evils of this character are readily admitted. But they are incidental to the weakness and ambi- tion of unsanctified human nature. It is possible to suggest some principles according to which union between such struggling bodies might be formed, and also to state some creedal basis for such union. In the meantime, let us put the name of Jesus Christ above all mere human names. The oneness for which our blessed Lord prayed is not neces- sarily realized in the church unity so often com- mended. His prayer referred to essential rather than to organic union. It was not a prayer for absolute unity of opinion in matters of faith and practice. It was not a prayer that men should be silent when error is taught ; but it was rather a prayer for a union in love, and its standard is the relations between the persons of the blessed Trinity. That relation suggests union in spirit with diversity of existences. This is as near as churches can ever come to the unity existing in the Godhead. It is unity in love, and such unity the churches of Jesus Christ now, to a great degree, manifest. Organic union among the various churches is certainly not feasible at present. The recent arti- cles in the "Independent" by bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church clearly show that these bishops are not prepared to recognize churches of other denominations as churches of Christ. Their letters are candid and courteous ; but as regards such recognition, they are narrow 1/8 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN and unfraternal. These writers insist upon the historic episcopate as an institution which must be recognized by the ministry of all other churches. They will not surrender their convictions regarding the alleged divine appointment of the historic episcopate. Other churches will not so dishonor themselves as to admit that they are not complete and competent churches of Jesus Christ, although they recognize the historic episcopate as historically untrue and doctrinally useless. Doctrinally, the Protestant Episcopal Church is broad and liberal ; but in matters of traditional order it is surprisingly narrow and illiberal. Its narrowness in the one case is quite as remarkable as is its broadness in the other. It is inexplicable that mere questions of polity should be so highly esteemed, while ques- tions of doctrine are practically so lightly regarded. But even though there may not be organic there may be essential union between churches of differ- ent denominations. On the whole subject of union several proposi- tions may be laid down, which, if accepted, would greatly help in the solution of perplexing practical problems in Christian work. PRACTICAL PROPOSITIONS. I. The famous dictum of Chillingworth is to be emphasized — the Bible, and the Bible only, the religion of Protestants. Recently I was asked to give my endorsement to the statement that the Bible is to be regarded as the ultimate authority in PARTIAL UNIFICATION BY ELIMINATION 1 79 all questions of faith and practice ; that statement is not satisfactory. The Bible ought to be consid- ered of greater authority in all questions of faith and practice than that statement implies. This truth is to be insisted upon first and last and always. Many, however, who are nominally Prot- estants, hesitate to accept the Bible except as a very vague authority in religious belief They give tradition and " churchianity " an authority which the word of God nowhere recognizes ; and an authority which, to some degree, displaces and quite disparages the word of God as the only standard of faith. When the Bible speaks we may not be silent ; when the Bible is silent we may not speak. Here and here alone is sufficient authority for our guidance in life, our hope in death, our joy in eternity. More and more must the word of God be exalted to the supreme place in the church of God, as the true guide alike in faith and practice. All recent discussions tend more and more to weaken the authority of creeds made by men, and more and more to exalt the simple and sublime authority of this divine book. By this book we are to live ; by it we are to triumph here, and by it we are to be judged hereafter. This proposition must be fundamental in any intelligent and enduring organic union of churches. 2. Another proposition is this : No denomination has a right to a separate existence unless it repre- sents and teaches some important doctrine or doc- trines of the word of God which other denomina- l80 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN tions either oppose, reject, or inadequately present. Surely that is a reasonable proposition. No de- nomination has a right to exist as such, if it has no distinctive truth to teach to the world ; it has no right to exist merely to gratify the personal vanity of its supporters, or to furnish a vocation for its preach- ers ; and no right to exist merely to maintain a tradition, however honorable and venerable. The question must be asked, What truth has this organ- ization to give us which other bodies of Christians do not teach ? That is a fair question ; and to it each denomination, with the word of God as its authority, ought to give an intelligent reply. In the British Government there are officers and offices which exist simply as souvenirs of an earlier time and of a different civilization. The necessity for these officers has entirely passed away ; but they still remain, as strange examples of a con- servatism which remembers everything old and which learns nothing new. It ought not to be so in the church of Christ. The church ought not to care especially whether any practice is old or new ; but whether, according to God's word, it is true and necessary. The true apostolic church is that church which best illustrates the spirit and teach- ings of the apostles, that church whose ordinances and worship most fully harmonize with the teach- ings and example of the apostles. True apostol- icity is not in an imaginary succession, but in actual possession. Why waste the Lord's money in maintaining a PARTIAL UNIFICATION BY ELIMINATION l8l separate organization for home and foreign mission work, unless the particular body has a truth to teach which other churches are not presenting to the world? It is fair to ask regarding some churches this question : What truth of God's word would perish from the earth if these churches should cease to exist as separate bodies ? In regard to some organizations it must be said that the echo of the questioner's voice will be the only answer to his question. Why then should separate organiza- tions be maintained? Why should not the advo- cates of organic Christian union give their atten- tion at once to this matter ? Why might not some of them who talk much of union immediately illus- trate their preaching by merging themselves and their churches into other Christian bodies which teach, in all essential respects, the doctrines which their own church teaches ? If we honestly apply this rule we shall certainly eliminate several de- nominations. It would not be difficult, but it might not be gracious, to name the bodies to which these principles might apply, and which would be thus eliminated. The question is. Are these principles sound, and if so, ought they not to be applied in the interest of true economy in the conduct of the Lord's work, and also in the inter- est of a wholesome Christian union ? 3. Akin to this last proposition is another : Organic union ought first to be effected among all the wings and branches of each denomination itself When that has been accomplished, that denomina- 1 82 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN tion can consistently and effectively urge organic union among the various bodies differing much more widely in name, in faith, and in forms of wor- ship. Let us begin with the Baptist denomination. There are Regular Baptists and many sorts of irregular Baptists. Irregular Baptists are divided into many different bodies of greater or less im- portance. Dr. Carroll, in his admirable volume, " The Religious Forces of the United States," gives us a very large number of subdivisions in the Bap- tist body. A more careful classification than Dr. Carroll makes would considerably reduce the number ; but admitting that fact, we know that the number is still needlessly large. Similar re- marks will apply to his classification of the Meth- odist and the Presbyterian churches and to still other bodies. But in their cases also the existing subdivisions are needlessly large, and should be promptly and greatly reduced. Regular Baptists feel that they ought, if possible, to secure union among some of these divisions and subdivisions, although in the case of some, such union is probably impossible. They ought to begin near home, and later they could consistently urge bodies differing more widely to come into a closer union. Regular Baptists express this desire more for the sake of those outside their special lines than for their own sake ; they increase every year more than the entire number of several of these divisions and subdivisions. Baptists feel that without doing violence to any one's convictions of PARTIAL UNIFICATION BY ELIMINATION 1 83 the teachings of God's word, it would be a great gain to have a Pan-Baptist union organization in which all Baptists could unite for more effective work in the conversion of the world at home and abroad. Similar remarks will apply to the Presbyterian Church. The distinctions between Old School and New School have, at least nominally, passed away. Traces, however, of former divisions still remain ; but there are still many branches of the one Pres- byterian Church. If one were to speak of the Re- formed (Dutch) Church in this connection the argu- ment would be greatly strengthened. It would seem as if all these bodies which are Presbyterian in government, and which differ so little in faith and practice, might be brought into one great Pan- Presbyterian Church. There are also various bodies of Christians bearing the name Methodist. We have Episcopal Methodists, Wesleyan Methodists, Calvinistic Methodists, and Protestant Methodists, and many other kinds of Methodists ; and some of these divisions are also subdivided again and again. Let us have a great Pan-Methodist organization, and then Methodism shall be able more effectively to make its appeal to other bodies not bearing its distinctive name. Congregationalists also have dif- ferent wings. The line of cleavage may not be clearly marked by a separate terminology, but it is marked by differences in faith and practice which cannot well be formulated into differences in nomenclature. These differences, however, are 184 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN real ; they are manifesting themselves in theological schools, in home missions, and especially in the Board for foreign mission work. When we come to speak of the Protestant Epis- copal Church we find many illustrations of the necessity which there is of such a denominational unity as is here advocated. There are in this body very wide differences in the essential spirit of differ- ent churches. There is the High Church, at times almost similar to the Roman, and there is the Low Church and the Broad Church, differing very widely. There are Reformed Episcopalians, and, in the opinion of these at least, Un-Reformed Episcopalians. There ought to be a Pan-Episcopal Church — which might, perhaps, include other bodies so far as the term Episcopal is concerned — before the most effective form of appeal can be made for organic unity to those outside the Protes- tant Episcopal fold. We trust the effort toward a more permanent unity will be begun along all these denominational lines. 4. Another proposition it may be permitted to suggest : No form of organic union is to be advo- cated which gives to any church the right to appro- priate for itself such ecclesiastical titles, or to em- ploy such historical assumptions, as practically to unchurch all other bodies of Christians. No titles should be used by any church except such as are clearly given in the word of God, and they are to be adopted in the sense in which they are used, according to the conclusions of the best scholar- PARTIAL UNIFICATION BY ELIMINATION 1 85 ship, in the word of God. The assumptions which are here condemned are great barriers to Christian union. They sometimes simply excite laughter ; they occasionally justify wholesome indignation. No officials in any church are justified in appro- priating to themselves titles implying appointment by authority over all Christians in a town, city, or State. In the United States there cannot be a bishop of New York, or of any other city. No man in this country can rightly use such a title. Several denominations use such titles with quali- fying terms ; but two bodies, the Roman Catholic and the Episcopalian, use them without any quali- fication. Such assumptions are as unfraternal as they are unscriptural. No man has a rigrht to use a title which has never been bestowed by those whose bestowment alone could justify him in its use. This matter is extremely important. This misuse of titles is a daily violation of a true Chris- tian courtesy. No union among denominations, which is simply absorption of one into another, except in the case of denominations which have no distinctive truth to teach, as we have already sug- gested, is to be commended. The question of legal and personal rights immediately obtrudes itself at these points. The lion said to the lamb, "Let us be one and lie down together." The union was speedily effected, but when the attitude of recumbency was secured, the relative positions of lion and lamb it is easy to understand. Such a relationship as applied to churches is not Chris- 1 86 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN tian union ; it is simply absorption of one body into another without real advantage to the cause of Christ as a whole. There must be fraternal consideration, there must be regard for the rights of all, in any attempt to unite the different denomi- nations into one great whole. The assumptions which we here condemn are a great barrier to Christian union, and are subversive of all true Christian fraternity. ESSENTIAL UNION POSSIBLE. This writer has not advocated organic union, but he rejoices in all forms of co-operation, and in some forms of federation. But it is quite certain that if there is to be any form of organic union, it must begin at the baptistery. Every denomination in Protestant Christendom, and in the entire range of the Roman and Greek Churches, can agree upon baptism, as taught by our Lord and his apostles. The Greek Church, numbering from eighty to ninety millions of adherents, has ever been a stout witness on behalf of baptism. The Roman Church joyfully accepts it, and all the Protestant churches join hands with these two great bodies. On no substitute for baptism, such as pouring or sprin- kling, can all the denominations agree. The writer is not now arguing a point ; he is simply stating an incontrovertible fact. Do men really want organic Christian union ? Are they in earnest when they proclaim this desire ? Are they willing to follow Christ into the waters of baptism ? Are they will- PARTIAL UNIFICATION BY ELIMINATION 1 87 ing to join hands with their brethren in all cen- turies and in all climes? Here is the opportunity; here is the truly apostolic and catholic ordinance. If they will but follow apostolic injunction and ex- ample, then all can say, "We are buried with him by baptism into death." And then there may be, if it is desired, organic union without doing vio- lence to the convictions of any and in acknowl- edged harmony with the word of God in its recog- nized interpretations. Organic union of all the denominations, as mat- ters now are, is perhaps not possible ; but it is easy thus to state the manner in which it is clearly possible. It would be easy to quote the most learned authorities of many faiths and countries and centuries in favor of this position. On but few points is the scholarship of the world so nearly a unit as it is in regard to the meaning of the word "baptism," and as to the practice of the apostles and the early church. It would be easy to fill pages with the names of learned authorities on all these points ; and the simple-minded disciple of the Lord Jesus, with no guide but the New Testament, comes to the same conclusion as that reached by the most learned scholars. For thir- teen hundred years immersion was the prevailing practice of the church of Christ. The names of Calvin, Luther, Melanchthon, Neander, Wesley, Geikie, Schaff, Dean Stanley, Canon Liddon, and a score more, can be given as authority for the statement that baptism is immersion, and that this 1 88 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN was the practice of the apostoHc church, and of the churches for centuries later. Why cannot we all go back to this primitive, apostolic, and catholic ordinance ? Why not ? Will any one give a good reason for the refusal to obey Christ and the apos- tles ? Is organic union desired ? Why not, then, begin where the apostles began ? But most of all, let us preserve the spirit of love, and we shall have essential union, which is far better than merely a cold, formal, organic union. It will be remembered that it is said that when Ptolemy built the Pharos he desired to make his own name immortal, but the architect deemed it unfair that the king's name should endure while his own should perish. He, therefore, cut the king's name in plaster, but deep in the imperishable gran- ite he carved his own name — Sostratus. The waves dashing against the Pharos washed off the plaster. The king's name disappeared, but the name of Sostratus was seen in imperishable letters. The name of Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Metho- dist, or Baptist, however much we love it, and how- ever loyal we are to it now, is one day to give place to that name which is above every name. Not our name, but the name of our Lord and Saviour, our Prophet, Priest, and King, will abide, and amid the light of earth and the increasing glory of eternity, one name shall alone be read — Jesus Christ. VIII GREATER BAPTIST EFFICIENCY^ WE meet to-day in circumstances of universal interest. The echoes of the great centen- nial celebration are still sounding in our ears, and the tender memories and glowing hopes which it suggested are still thrilling our hearts. We have seen America honored throughout the world ; we have seen her crowned and enthroned as queen in the Congress of Nations. With glad hearts we have entered the second century of our constitu- tional history as a nation ; and we soon shall pass as a part of Christendom into the twentieth century of the Christian era. Already we hear the bugle notes of faith and hope announcing its approach. We hail with gratitude and joy its advent ; it will be, we venture to prophesy, a century of simpler faith, of purer character, of warmer zeal, and of fuller consecration than the nineteenth, now going into the shadows of the past. ^ Delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston, before the American Baptist Home Mission Society, May 19, 1889. On the occasion of these anniversary meetings, the announcement of Mr. John D. Rockefeller's first gift to the University of Chicago was made. This gift made this now great university possible ; and it stimu- lated others to give to Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and other colleges, arousing their ambition and partly enabling them to become universities in the true meaning of the term. 189 I90 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN The world is not growing worse. The church was never so intelhgent, so benevolent, and so con- secrated as at this hour. Jesus Christ is King ; his pierced hand is on the helm of the church as he guides her through the storms of the centuries. Already the crimson and gold of a brighter day- color the eastern sky. Under Christ's safe leader- ship we are swinging forward into the certain trials, but also into the more certain triumphs of this opening century. We meet to-day under the influence of Rhode Island and Roger Williams, the true apostle of true soul-liberty. Amid the grand figures of the early days of our national life and liberty let this one — in some respects the grandest of them all — shine forth in symmetrical proportion's and in undimmed lustre. With all their acknowledged virtues, many of the founders of our great nation had no concep- tion of true religious liberty ; they fled from perse- cution to be guilty of persecution ; they opposed intolerance when they were its victims ; they favored intolerance when they could be the oppressors and Baptists were the victims. Amid the glories of these centennial memories let the wisdom, the manliness, the bravery, the justness, and the godli- ness of Roger Williams be fully recognized. In the foremost ranks of the true apostles of the highest soul-liberty were these brave Baptists, "shouting the battle cry of freedom " in its noblest sense. We meet in the State of Massachusetts, so rich GREATER BAPTIST EFFICIENCY I9I in memorials of the heroic struggles and sublime achievements of the founders of the Republic. With no capital but granite rocks and icebergs and faith in Almighty God, these men and women laid the foundations of this mighty nation. They have left their impress on America and on the world ; and with all their faults, their names will be held in everlasting remembrance. We meet also in the noble and historic city of Boston. Here the cradle of liberty was rocked by loving hands inspired to their task by praying hearts. From this cradle went forth heroes and heroines, saints and martyrs, whose names to-day are the nation's heritage and the world's inspiration. This city is sacred in Baptist history. In this city of Boston, John Clarke, Obadiah Holmes, and James Crandall were cast into prison for the sin of worship- ing God, preaching the gospel, and baptizing be- lievers. Here Clarke stood stripped at the whipping post, but some humane person, without his consent and contrary to his judgment, redeemed him with money from his bloody tormentors. Endicott said to him "you have denied infant baptism and de- serve death." Here Holmes, who would not consent to be released, saying that he "durst not accept of deliverance in such a way," was whipped with thirty stripes, September 6, 165 1. Bancroft affirms that Holmes was whipped "unmercifully"; and Governor Jenks says "that for many days, if not some weeks, he could take no rest but upon his knees and elbows, not being able to suffer any part of his body to 192 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN touch the bed whereon he lay." The blood of the martyrs is evermore the seed of the church. What do we see in Boston to-day ? Our Baptist brethren are in the front rank in numbers among all the denominations in this city. God be thanked for his marvelous kindness to his beloved people in this strong city ! We meet also in Tremont Temple. Tender associations gather about the name. From this place no uncertain sound has ever gone out regarding either the flag of our country or the cross of our Christ. Here patriotism and piety have sweetly blended ; here liberty and loyalty have been married ; here men have taught that whether a man was black or white, red or yellow, rich or poor, A man' s a man for a' that The object of this discourse is to ask and to seek to answer the question : How can we increase the efficiency, how develop the power of the Baptist denomination as a witness for truth, as a force for God and man in the world ? We recognize at the outset how great our growth has been, how wonderful our power now is, and how vast our future achievements will be. When Washington was inaugurated the population of the thirteen States which comprised the Union was three million seven hundred and fifty thousand. At that time the whole number of Baptists was fifty thousand ; of this number, then, as now, the larger part was in the South. To-day the number GREATER BAPTIST EFFICIENCY 1 93 of States has increased to forty-two, and the popu- lation is from sixty to sixty-five millions. What is the record regarding our churches ? The whole number is thirty-two thousand nine hundred ; of ministers the number is twenty-one thousand four hundred and twenty ; and of church-members almost three millions. A century ago we were but one in seventy-five ; now we are one in twenty-two of the population.^ Well may we thank God and take courage. We love the Baptist denomination. We gave her the fervor of youth ; we give her now the riper knowledge and the heartier conviction of mature years. She is radiant in her queenly beauty. Never did knight of heroic days show more of chivalry toward the queen of his heart, than do the knights of the Cross among us toward the body whose name we bear. To us the Baptist denomination is beau- tiful. Her martyr's crown becomes her lofty brow ; her prison-soiled, flame-charred, and blood-stained robes are lustrous and glorious. Her past is tri- umphant ; her future is resplendent. Here and now, as she is loyal to her Lord, we give her the love and loyalty of our true hearts. In answering the question proposed in this dis- cussion it would be easy to say that we need more of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, more ^ At the present date (1897) the number of States is 45, and the population is between 70 and 75,000,000. Our numbers are (1896) : churches, 40,658 ; ministers, 27,257 ; membership, 3,824,038 ; about I in every 19 of the population. N 194 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN loyalty to Christ and to his truth, more piety in heart and perseverance in work, more faith in God, and more faithfulness in duty. All these things, and many more of the same kind we certainly need. But so do all the denominations of Chris- tians equally with us ; we certainly are not willing to admit that they surpass us in any of these respects. We believe that we have stood with sin- gular loyalty to God's word all through the cen- turies. This discussion, therefore, rules out at the outset all those needs of ours which are common to all the other bodies of Christians. The question is, What do we as a denomination, with our dis- tinctive views of God's word and our unique ob- servances of the ordinances of God's house, need to our greater efficiency in the world ? If our views are worth holding, they are worth propagating ; if we are called to influence one man, we should strive to influence all men ; if we are chosen wit- nesses for Christ, as I believe we are, of truths either denied or but partially taught by others, we must utter our testimony in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and even unto the uttermost parts of the earth. HIGHER EDUCATIONAL STANDARD. That we may attain greater efficiency, we need a higher standard of education, both for the clergy and the laity. The cry for an educated ministry has gone out ; it has been heard to a considerable degree. No GREATER BAPTIST EFFICIENCY 1 95 man can surpass me in attaching importance to the divine element in the call and preparation of men for the ministry. Until this call is heard no man ought to enter upon the sacred duty. No human learning can be a substitute for the tuition of the Holy Ghost ; no college can ever fit men for this high vocation except they daily study in the school of Christ, which evermore must be the noblest university. But God uniformly gives special train- ing to the men and women for whom he has special work. No amount of piety will ever sanctify stu- pidity. We have an exalted appreciation of the work of many of our fathers and brethren who did not have the advantages of the schools ; but it should ever be borne in mind that their success was not because of, but in spite of, these disadvantages. Given the advantages, with their unique endow- ments, and what mighty men of valor they would have been ! It is sometimes said that men like Mr. Moody are mighty without the learning of the schools ; but Mr. Moody is learned along his spe- cial and narrow lines, and his power is in proportion to his learning. I say often to young men : " If you are quite sure that you have the natural gifts of Spurgeon or Moody or Horace Greeley, then go into ministerial and editorial work as did they ; but many of your friends doubt whether on that basis you would be justified in neglecting all possible preparation." There will be men who, from their years and their poverty, cannot take a full course of ministerial 196 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN training ; in their case a shorter course is justifiable. But if a man who has the opportunity to take the full course, and who from laziness or a low estimate of the dignity and difficulty of the Lord's work will not take it, then that man proves that he is not a fit candidate for the ministry of Jesus Christ. The men who did not have the advantages of learning — in the technical sense — and who have nevertheless done such good work, were men who would have availed themselves of these advantages if that had been possible. This is no time for "shortcuts" into the ministry ; never were the demands more numerous ; never was full preparation more neces- sary ; never w^ere kindergarten theological semi- naries for ministers at home or missionaries abroad so little needed as now. A year more than the fullest course in each case were better than an hour less. The cry for an educated ministry has been so largely heard that now in a great many cases we do not fear the result of a comparison in this re- spect with the ablest men of any of the various denominations. But still there is room for improve- ment. Too many enter the ministry who have never had a course of training in any theological seminary ; and quite too many are in our theological seminaries who have not pursued a college course, and unfortunately the number in some seminaries is not decreasing. We need more men who are scholars in the exact sense of that term ; men who are in a process of training to become professors. GREATER BAPTIST EFFICIENCY 1 97 commentators, and litterateurs. We have too few who are authors. Thank God, the number of au- thors is increasing. During the past year Baptists have produced volumes on theology and philosophy, and Bible commentaries which are an honor to the denomination, to the country, and to Christianity. We need greater numbers of thoroughly educa- ted laymen. Our membership is over three millions. This represents a population of nine to ten millions who are members or adherents of Baptist churches. This is about one-sixth of the total population. Are we furnishing one-sixth of the editors, of the lawyers, of the doctors, and of the ministers ? Are we furnishing one-sixth of the judges, of the sena- tors, and of the congressmen? Are we furnishing one-sixth of the teachers in public schools and colleges ? Are we sending one-sixth of the young ladies in schools and colleges for women from Bap- tist families? We owe it to the world and to Christ to furnish this proportion ; are we doing it? Is this proportion of the students in our academies Baptists or from Baptist families ? We cannot too highly commend the value of academic instruction. Many men cannot go through college. But such men may get in our best academies a scholarly trend which shall influence them all their life. Are we furnishing one-sixth of the great scholars of America ? We owe it to ourselves and to our country and to our Lord to give this proportion. We never can have great scholars unless we can devise some wise sys- tem of graduate instruction. 198 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN In connection with the great university of which some of us dream, this may be possible. This hope is in advance of all existing institutions. Strictly speaking, there is not to-day a university in America. Yale is not ; Harvard is not ; Prince- ton is not ; Johns Hopkins is not, though it comes nearer to the realization of this high ideal than any other American institution of to-day. There are great hopes in the hearts of a few large-minded and far-seeing Baptists, that the day will soon dawn when under our auspices will be the greatest uni- versity on the American continent. Baptists have a splendid opportunity; they may be the leaders in the higher education of this vast continent. Their history superbly qualifies them for such leadership. To-day the door of opportunity springs wide open to their leaders as they are marching forward under a high educational, patriotic, and religious impulse. It is earnestly hoped that soon munificent gifts will be made which will immor- talize their donor or donors, and which will lay the foundation of the first great university in our country. Baptists ought to be leaders in every great educational movement. They have scholars capable of planning and manning such an institu- tion. They have men of wealth who can lay its foundations broad and deep, and who will give their best wisdom to the erection of the contem- plated and superb structure. May God hasten the day for the realization of the hopes of some of his noblest and most consecrated sons and daughters ! GREATER BAPTIST EFFICIENCY 1 99 APPROPRIATE RITUAL. We need a more stately, ornate, reverent, and scriptural form of public worship. The devotional element ought to be more fully emphasized. It is easy to see that some religious bodies which hitherto have had elaborate forms of public service are tending toward greater simplicity. It is equally easy to see that those which have been characterized by extreme simplicity are tending toward greater fullness and richness in their services. Both ten- dencies are full of hope ; both tendencies ought to have full liberty. There are Baptist churches which are so ritualistic as to prefer their old, barren, and, to many, unattractive services. These churches are ritualistic. Ritualism is the strict observance of prescribed forms in religion. The forms may be traditional in origin ; and they may be plain, barren, and even uncouth in character. The rit- ualism is in the strict observance of the prescribed form, not in the character of the form itself No Roman or Anglican church is more rigid in its form of worship than are certain Baptist, Presbyterian, and other churches. Other Baptist churches have the right to resent this attempted lordship over their freedom in wor- shiping God. Who has a right to add to our Confession of Faith an article which insists on the infallibility and inspiration of certain Puritans in all matters of public worship? They rigidly excluded the use of the Lord's Prayer in their services. 200 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN They considered the chanting or the responsive reading of the Psalms as savoring of papacy or some other form of apostasy. We are surprised that any one should think that the honoring of God's word in public service should be considered as partaking of the abominations of the "Scarlet woman"! If anything is clear from the word of God itself, it is that its responsive reading, or an- tiphonal chanting, was the manner in which some of its inspired writers used it in the public worship of God. We who desire deeper reverence in our services are quite willing that those who so prefer should cling to their barren forms, even though we may regret their ritualistic spirit. But we object to their endeavors to restrict the liberty of those who are freer than they from ritualism, those who desire to give variety, warmth, color, and scripturalness to the public worship of God. Why should these be charged with being innovators and "apists" ? Why should their efforts after a fuller participation on the part of all the people in the public worship, their desire for greater spirituality and scriptural- ness, be sneered at as dilettanteism? Vigor of invective these critics mistake for strength of argument ; bitterness of criticism they mistake for loyalty to truth. They conspicuously illustrate the very sin which they uncharitably charge upon others. In the name of what they claim to be Baptistic they would force upon us what is neither Baptistic nor scriptural. Is it Baptistic to make the example of certain Puritans instead of the New GREATER BAPTIST EFFICIENXY 20I Testament the rule of our faith and practice ? What right have these men to place tradition be- fore Scripture ? In the authority of God's word Baptists believe with all their hearts ; but to the teaching of an often narrow and bigoted tradition they attach no importance whatever. To the law and the testimony — this is our appeal. The real question is, what do the Scriptures enjoin, forbid, or permit as to public worship ? To ask any other question, to attempt to decide the question on any other basis, is unworthy of a Baptist. But the moment the question is asked these self-constituted censors of their brethren are condemned, for the New Testament is nearly silent on the question, and permits the largest liberty to the people of God. In the little that it does say it is at variance with the censors. Our Lord himself says, "After this manner, therefore, pray ye," but the censors say, "After this manner, therefore, pray ye noty And when they had sung a hymn (/. e., chanted a psalm) they went out ; but the censors say that chanting a psalm, or even reading it antiphonally, is ritualism of the most objectionable type. We may celebrate the birth of Washington, but not the birth of our Lord ; we may observe the anniversary of our coun- try's independence, but not the anniversary of our Lord's resurrection ; we may decorate with flowers the graves of our nation's dead, but not the house of God ; we may fill our houses with rugs from Daghestan, and pottery from Japan, and works of 202 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN art and bric-a-brac from the four quarters of heaven, until they are ablaze with color and beauty, but we must worship God in barnlike structures devoid of beauty, and in a ceremony as funereal and austere as we can make it. Does anybody believe that we please God better by making his house and his worship repellent than by making both cheerful and attractive? We re- pudiate this censorship. We assert our liberty ; we despise this traditionalism and ritualism. The man who insists on these forms handed down to us from Puritanic times is under the bondage of a piti- ful formalism. A Baptist church should refuse to enter into or to accept such bondage even for an hour. Shall we, as severely orthodox Baptists once did, eschew singing of any kind ? Shall we, as some Presbyterians still do, vehemently protest against organs as inventions of the devil ? Are our children ritualists and " apists " when in Sunday- schools they read the Bible responsively and recite in concert the Lord's Prayer? Where would these censors have us stop ? Some of us will continue to take the example of David, of prophets, of apostles, and of the Lord himself, rather than the traditions of the Puritans, as our authority in public worship. The best of everything belongs to God. He is a God of beauty " in earth and sky and sea." The flowers are his beautiful thoughts ; the mountains are his majestic thoughts ; and the stars are his brilliant thoughts. The temple of old was not too GREATER BAPTIST EFFICIENCY 203 splendid to be his dwelling-place. And as God claims the best of everything in his worship, so Baptists have a right to the best of everything in rendering him that worship. It has been said that the chief difference between Roman Catholics and Protestant Episcopalians is that the former are "papists" and the latter are "apists." I neither accept nor contradict the remark, I simply quote it ; but I know that Baptists are neither the one nor the other. We are older than either. We talk not so much of the early church as of the earliest church ; we go back to the First Baptist Church in Jerusalem. All that is grand in the songs of Christendom is ours ; all that is penitential in the historic Confessions, and all that is binding in the noblest professions is ours. We repudiate the idea that any body of Christians — and certainly one of the smallest and most sectarian of the sects — has a monopoly of the historic creeds and Con- fessions. The sublime Gloria Patri, the lofty Glo- ria in Excelsis, the grand Te Dciim — these are ours. We have a noble share in the glorious heritage of the Christian centuries. Some of the grandest hymns are ours in the fullest sense ; and all the noblest songs of Christendom are ours to use and to enjoy. Let us claim our own ; let us take it wher- ever we find it. We repudiate the idea that Baptistic is in any sense synonymous with " booristic " — if I may coin a word. We must sadly confess that occasionally there seems to be such a suggestion ; and the 204 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN saddest part of it is that there are otherwise intel- ligent Baptists who seem to admit and even to ac- cept such a relationship. Are we willing to admit that it is more Baptistic in country places to gossip on Sunday around the horse-shed or block than to come reverently at once into the house of God ? Are we willing to admit that it is more Baptistic to gaze about the house of God on entering than to spend a few moments in silent prayer, either kneel- ing or with bowed head ? Are we willing to admit that irreverence in manner is more Baptistic than reverence ? If so, then the time to repudiate what is Baptistic has come ; but we insist that all these nobler qualities are inseparable from what is truly Baptistic. If these self-constituted censors want boorishness, unfortunately it is not wanting. There are men among whom and places in which it is common enough ; but we emphatically deny that it is either Baptistic or scriptural. In this connection we may be permitted to say that greater care in the administration of the ordi- nance of baptism ought to be taken. This ordi- nance is beautiful in itself; it is also profoundly significant in its religious symbolism, and it ought to be made as beautiful as possible in its admin- istration. Often, unfortunately, it is administered so as to be unimpressive and occasionally distaste- ful. This ordinance was honored at our Lord's baptism by the audible or visible presence of each Person of the blessed Trinity : God the Father by an audible voice from heaven, God the Son in GREATER BAPTIST EFFICIENCY 205 human form coming up out of the Jordan, and God the Spirit in the form of a dove. Who dares dis- honor what God hath so honored ? We dishonor the ordinance sometimes by making it the subject of frivolous remark, and oftener by its unimpressive observance. Do not call the effort to make it beautiful and reverent unworthy of our thought. Let the construction of the baptisteiy and all the accessories of the ordinance be tasteful, beautiful, and reverent. All that flowers, music, and rever- ent propriety can do in this respect ought to be done. Were the ordinance not divine in its origin and beautiful in its symbolism our frequent careless administration of it might have led to its general neglect. Other denominations are often forced to observe it, for the people will not be satisfied with human substitutes for this divinely appointed and inherently beautiful ordinance. Let us honor its divine appointment by its reverent observance. In line with these remarks is the importance of building beautiful houses of worship. Our beloved Home Mission Society has done much toward ele- vating and gratifying the taste of the people in this regard. Thank God, the day has gone by when one is almost sure that the worst-looking and most ill-located church in a town is a Baptist church. In many towns the reverse is now true, thanks to the plans sent out by this society, and to other similar influences. We bid farewell without a tear to the old drygoods box meeting-house. The best church in every town should be the Baptist church. 206 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN God is the friend of beauty. There is no piety in ughness. Without extra cost we may have houses which shall be models of architectural beauty and of church propriety. In the name of all that is beautiful, tasteful, aesthetic, and worshipful, let us have a general, radical, and universal reform in the old styles of Baptist ecclesiastical architecture. Indeed, this reform has already commenced. We give it glad welcome. Every church is the incar- nation of the religious thought of those who worship within its walls. Let our thought be simple, scrip- tural, divine ; and then let the structure in its ap- propriate architecture embody that thought to the glory of God and the advancement of his truth. FULLER CO-OPERATION, We need a greater degree of co-operation among Baptist churches in towns, cities. States, everywhere. We have often allowed independency to carry us to foolish extremes. We have been so fearful of compromising our independency that we have often compromised our common sense ; indeed, we have at times entirely dispensed with it. Not independence so much as interdependence is the need of our churches. We have the men now as part of our denominational force who could partly secure this co-operation. The secretaries of our State conventions, working with the district secre- taries, the missionary committees and the executive committees, could largely do this work. These secretaries ougrht to be familiar with the conditions GREATER BAPTIST EFFICIENCY 20/ of every part of the field under their direction. They might be in effect bishops in the modern though unscriptural sense of that word. We ought to exalt their office. They might do much toward getting churches for churchless pastors and pastors for pastorless churches ; they might do much toward reconciling differences in churches ; they might do much toward giving hope to despondent churches and in getting other fields of labor for men not competent to do the work in the field where they are located. The district secretaries and the missionaries of the Home Mission Society could do similar work in certain fields. We have not used as we might the forces at our command. It is pitiful that we have allowed so much power to be latent or to be operative only to hurt rather than to help. Here is a church in a large and growing town. For years it has been engaged in civil strife ; its members are tearing it to pieces. The work of years is going to decay ; some members go to no church ; others are drifting into churches of other denominations. One's heart aches to see how we lose ground in certain important fields. Our polity has in it ele- ments of the greatest strength ; it has been recently tested, and it has triumphed where it has had a fair opportunity, while churches with " long and strong creeds" and with highly organized machinery have been shaken to their foundations. But in order that our simple organization may be strong our people must be spiritual ; so long as we are loyal 208 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN to Christ and his word we are loyal to all church obligations. When the higher loyalty ceases the lower loyalty becomes an impossibility. When we draw near to Christ we approach one another in loving fellowship and in loyal service. We believe that our simple Baptist polity can adapt itself to the ever-changing conditions of our advancing civilization. It has in it the fresh, vig- orous, and variant elements of the word of God in its adaptation to the multiplying needs of our modern times. Creeds made by men can be changed by men. We are capable of doing our thinking to-day as were ever churchmen of an earlier day. We are not anchored to the ceme- teries of past generations, but we must ever keep near to the command and the person of our Lord Jesus as King in Zion. There really is but one Baptist church in any given town or community. That church may for the convenience of its mem- bers meet in different places and under several names, but all its interests are harmonious ; no one organization desires to be built up at the expense of other organizations ; the interests of each are the interests of all. There is no contradiction between the idea of true independency and this noble spirit of interdependency. When this large, this fraternal, this Christian spirit dominates each Baptist church then our churches as a whole will be clear as the sun, fair as the moon, and ter- rible in their opposition to evil as an army with banners. GREATER BAPTIST EFFICIENCY 209 GREATER COMPREHENSIVENESS. We need greater comprehensiveness in our faith in relation to members of our churches and in the relation of churches to each other. I am not ready to believe that this is a peculiarly skeptical age. It certainly is not in the coarse sense in which unbelief was understood in the time of Paine and Voltaire. We are always disposed to depreciate the present. But as we look to the twentieth century, we become radiant with hope ; the pendulum is swinging back. Many men who have no faith in God and religion wish their children to be trained in godliness. Many conservative business men see the dangers to which atheism, socialism, and kindred " isms " lead. But it is a time of inquiry, of questioning — perhaps of doubting. If only the doubt be honest we need not fear the result. Christianity challenges investi- gation. Each church must decide in each case according to the spirit and character of the man what course had better be pursued. Let the mantle of our church and denominational life be large enough to include those who differ from us at some points, if their spirit be Christlike and their ministry be fraternal. Here is a man who has adopted certain views which are said to be those of the so-called new school of theology. He is, therefore, open to fair criticism. But certain questions ought to be asked. Who is the brother? What is his spirit? What are the characteristics of his ministry ? These and 210 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN similar questions ought to be asked in deciding on our course of treatment. May he not have a mis- sion ? Perhaps he can reach men whom you and I could not touch. Perhaps he can save to Christ and to the denomination men and women who otherwise might drift from both. Here is a man who has views on faith healing or the second coming of Christ which many think un- scriptural. Let him hold them. We need to be represented in such circles. Such a man may gather about him those who otherwise would have no Baptist home. Our policy should be inclusive rather than exclusive. We already have lost too many good men who might still be with us had they been treated with greater consideration. Loy- alty to Christ does not require us to be unbrotherly toward brethren. Our denomination is large enough, strong enough, and free enough to include men who differ from the majority on comparatively unimportant side issues. We ought to have, and we must have, room within our ranks for men like noble brethren who could readily be named and who represent phases of Christian doctrine not held by our brethren generally. So far as they are loyal to Christ, useful in his service, and fraternal in their relations with their brethren, they can have, and they shall have, a warm welcome in our ranks. The narrow and exclusive policy ought to be sharply rebuked so often as its unwholesome spirit is mani- fested among us. Here is a man whose views on communion are GREATER BAPTIST EFFICIENCY 2 I I somewhat lax. Men will differ among us on the communion and other questions of church order. We have ever been the honest, consistent, enthu- siastic advocates of soul-liberty. For the assertion of this right we have suffered persecution even unto death in many lands. We must continue to mani- fest this spirit as truly toward brethren bearing the Baptist name as toward those outside of our ranks. The spirit of charity must have its constant illustra- tion and its due recognition in every rank both of the clergy and of the laity, PARTICIPATION IN GENERAL WORK. A larger participation in non-denominational re- ligious work and in general benevolence is an ele- ment in greater Baptist efficiency. We have often been too exclusive in our lines of work. We have sometimes said that we could not have a full recognition in non-denominational organizations. This has not been my experience. If we fail of recognition the fault is our own. Let us take our place and do our share of the work and the proper recognition will certainly come. We have too often waited to be recognized ; let us quietly take our position and give others their desei"ved recognition. We need not be afraid of our distinctive views ; they will often be best defended by our consistent and consecrated lives. The denomination that does the work will get the people. Our views may be stamped with the divine authority, but if they are not incarnated in great-hearted, Christ-loving, 212 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN and soul-seeking men and women they will make but little headway in the world. Religion is now intensely practical. Not the orthodoxy of the creed, but the activity of the life is the element by which our Christianity is oftenest judged. Not the depth of our well, but the number of thirsty people whom we refresh — this is, after all, the practical test. We must be able to say of our denomina- tional life, as Christ said of himself and his religion, "come and see." Christianity will bear the test ; our denominationalism must do the same. If it cannot, it will fail, and it ought to fail. We have done but little along these directly practical and humanitarian lines of Christian service. I know well that the gospel we preach reaches to the heart and life, and that Christ did not perform many miracles in feeding the hungry or in healing the sick. We are to preach Christ and him cruci- fied, but we must not forget that this is the broadest preaching conceivable ; it touches every interest of humanity. It has its relations to business, and to social and to political life as truly as to the distinc- tively religious life. We were at the first especially an evangelistic people. We had to be also to no small degree a militant people ; we had to fight our way ; we had to establish our right to be. These results we have now assuredly achieved. We shall not be a less evangelistic people than in former times ; but, still retaining the spirit of true evangel- ical fervor, we shall move on to all forms of whole- some educational and humanitarian work. GREATER BAPTIST EFFICIENCY 213 Rapid strides we shall soon make, without doubt, in educational work. Great as have been our at- tainments in this respect in the past, they will be vastly greater in the near future. It is to be hoped that we shall stand in the very front rank among the educational leaders of our glorious republic. But we must also move on to the founding of hos- pitals, sanitariums, orphanages, and similar forms of humanitarian service. We have erred greatly in not having done this work so vigorously as we might in our earlier and later history. God is loudly calling to us to take our place among the foremost workers in these practical directions. God has great duties for us to perform, great characters for us to possess, and great honors for us to wear. May we be worthy of our heroic, martyred, and sainted sires, worthy of our sublime opportunities, worthy of our high calling, and worthy of our divine Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ ! IX PRESSING NEEDS OF FOREIGN FIELDS^ IT is with diffidence that I rise to speak on any phase of foreign missions. My recent and hurried trip gave me an opportunity of studying mission work only in the Hawaiian Islands and in Japan. In the former country I saw the good fruit- age of the labors of our Congregational churches, and in Japan I had the honor of meeting represent- atives of many churches, and especially our prom- inent Baptist workers. On three occasions I ad- dressed goodly numbers of missionaries from dif- ferent parts of Japan, from Corea, Formosa, China, and other heathen countries, but I did not have the opportunity of visiting Burma, or Southern India. A visit to these two fields of missionary labor I hope to make in the course of a few years. I had opportunities of meeting many of the friends and some of the critics of foreign mission work, and I learned to appreciate the services which our mis- sionaries have rendered and the difficulties they now encounter, as never before. Some of the needs in foreign fields I may be permitted to name and to emphasize. ^ Delivered before the American Baptist Missionary Union, Asbury Park, May 22, 1896. 214 PRESSING NEEDS OF FOREIGN FIELDS 21 5 THE GOSPEL THE ONLY REMEDY. We need, in the first place, a profound, steadfast, and irresistible conviction that nothing but the gospel of Jesus Christ can save the heathen. This statement I believe to be true, whether we have in mind temporal or eternal salvation ; only the gospel can save the heathen to personal and family purity, to civic righteousness, and to true holiness. It is useless to deny that many persons are now doubt- ing the truthfulness of this statement. Doubt touching this point cuts all the sinews of missionary effort and greatly depletes missionary treasuries. If we inquire carefully as to the causes for decreased contributions we shall find them partly in the subtle skepticism of the time regarding the necessity of the gospel to the salvation of the heathen world. The recent visit of certain heathen men to the Par- liament of Religions in Chicago, has done some- thing to create and disseminate this skepticism. The faith of some has been shaken and the doubts of others have been multiplied. We have forgotten that whatever is noble in these gentlemen is largely the product of Christianity. They would never have heard of Chicago but for Christian teaching. They would never have had a desire to visit this coun- try but for the enlarging and ennobling influences of Christian education. How came they to burst the bonds of caste which would have restricted them to their own land ? The strong but gentle hand of Christianity broke these bonds which for centuries 2l6 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN have held Hindus and other heathen reHgionists within the land of their birth. But for Christianity they would not have had the facilities to travel from their own countiy to America ; but for Christianity there would have been no exposition at Chicago ; but for Christianity these men would not have had the culture which made their addresses and pres- ence desirable and attractive ; but for Christianity they would not have possessed the high ideals which they exhibited to the assembled multitudes who listened to their words. Strictly speaking these men were not the product of heathenism pure and simple ; they were rather the product of heathenism somewhat inspired and exalted by Christian instruction and ideals. In opposing Chris- tianity these men were like those who climb up a ladder into a tree, and when seated on a branch and partaking of the luscious fruit, kick away the ladder and deny its value. In opposing Christianity they are like men seated on the branch of a tree who saw off the branch between themselves and the tree. The fact is that the local, ethnic, and merely ethical religions cannot really exalt men socially, intellectually, and spiritually. These religions have been tested for thousands of years and are to be heartily rejected because of their failure to bear de- sirable fruit. Christianity is the only universal religion the world has ever known. When on the mountain's side in Galilee our Lord gave his Great Commission he uttered the newest and sublimest truth ever PRESSING NEEDS OF FOREIGN FIELDS 21/ heard by human ears. FamiHarity with this majes- tic command has blunted the edge of our wonder ; but if we transport ourselves to that time and place and listen to these words for the first time, we shall see that they are as comprehensive as they are novel, and as sublime as they are divine. Our Lord was apparently a Galilean peasant, without the courtiers of a king or the soldiers of a ruler, and yet he was sending his few followers forth to accomplish the greatest task that had ever been assigned to mortal man. They were to carry the glad tidings of salvation in his name to every crea- ture under heaven. Such a conception never en- tered the mind of the philosophers of Greece or Rome ; nor did it ever occur to the imagination of the dreamy thinkers of the Orient. Their religion was for a particular people in a particular country ; their faiths were local, or at most ethnic. Their gods were the gods of the grove, of the river, of the fountain, or of some other limited territory. Dr. Hanna has pointed out that among the Jews there were vague conceptions of a religion for the world as well as for Judaism ; but in the days of Christ, although the sacred books of the Jews gave these prophetic hints, the people had become the nar- rowest and most bigoted of the peoples of the earth. They gloried in their exclusiveness ; their faith and their patriotism were alike for their own people. Yet among this exclusive and bigoted race arose One who gave the world the conception of a univer- sal faith. The son of a Galilean tradesman is thus 2l8 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN placed in the front rank of the rehgionists of the world. He broached and projected so original, so sublime, and so unique a conception that I to-day put upon his brow the crown of honor as the fore- most thinker the world has ever produced. Had Christ done nothing more than give the world the conception of a universal faith and worship, he would by that one contribution have deserved the first place among the thinkers and benefactors of the world. The criticisms of certain incompetent critics have also tended to destroy faith in the necessity of the gospel to the salvation of the heathen. Large num- bers of Europeans who visit Oriental countries have no faith whatever either in the desirability or possibility of saving the heathen. I was frequently asked by European traders whether I believed there ever was a genuine Asiatic Christian convert. The average European regards himself as belonging to a superior race, and he considers the Asiatic to be so greatly inferior to himself as to be fit only to be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water. He regards the Asiatic as in his proper place when he is serving his European master. The coolies and others who do the work for shipmasters and other European traders are regarded as little above cattle. Heathenism has cheapened humanity. Heathen- ism has robbed its votaries of the dignity and glory inherent in men and women made in the image of God. Revealed religion exalts men into the like- ness of their Creator. It lifted Moses from being PRESSING NEEDS OF FOREIGN FIELDS 219 the child of a slave to the honors of the royal house of Egypt. It lifted David from the position of a shepherd to the throne of Israel. It took Elisha from the plow and made him a prophet of God. It exalted Gideon to be the conqueror of the Mid- ianites and the deliverer of Israel. It took Luther from the rank of a miner and made him a king among men. It exalted Carey from the shoe- maker's bench to a place among scholars and princes. It lifted Lincoln from splitting rails to the presidential chair, a seat as lofty as any throne among the nations. But heathenism separates men into castes and makes the lower the servant and slave of the higher. Even our missionaries must guard against the subtle temptation to regard the heathen peoples as be- longing to utterly inferior races. . Heathenism holds human life at almost no value ; it makes it little better than the life of a serpent, a mouse, or a bat. Even some Europeans regard heathen men simply as beasts of burden and women as their toy or slave ministering only to their ignoble desires. Many Europeans who visit heathen lands see almost noth- ing of missionary labors and successes. They see only the worst side of the lowest heathenism in sea- port towns ; and, it must be admitted, that the heathen in those towns often see only the worst side of their European visitors. These critics are utterly incompetent to speak with authority. They make their ignorance the ground of their affirma- tions against Christian work in heathen lands. 220 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Often, it is sorrowfully stated, their own lives are so immoral that the presence of missionaries is a con- stant rebuke, and the teaching of the missionaries excites their sharpest opposition. One blushes for some of his European brethren whom he sees in Asiatic cities. They often live without any restraint and they bring reproach upon both Europeanism and Christianity. It is impossible to speak with the exactness of detail which the facts warrant, when matters of this kind are under discussion. Many of our dilettante travelers take their cue from European military and naval officers and from European residents and so pronounce against mis- sionary work in heathen lands. Their judgment is absolutely worthless ; many of these travelers have not visited a mission and have not met a missionary. The more ignorant they are of both the more learn- edly do they talk against both. Men are apt to see in any country what they desire to see. Many men visit Ceylon and never see, far less shoot, an elephant ; they were not there to hunt elephants. Many other men visit the country and never see a missionary ; they were not there to visit missions and missionaries. The fact is that all that missions have done for Great Britain, they will do for Japan, China, Ceylon, India, and all the islands of the sea. I found it often helpful to remind Britons whom I met of the fact that Britain was once the home of as degraded a heathenism as is now seen in any heathen land. How did Britain become in so large a degree the mistress of the world ? PRESSING NEEDS OF FOREIGN FIELDS 221 Our forefathers once were worshipers of idols and once offered human sacrifices to false gods. Once they burned these sacrifices in large numbers to appease the wrath of their deities. While under the sway of Rome, Britain was somewhat Christian- ized, but when the Roman legions were withdrawn the Anglo-Saxons conquered much of the land and it lapsed again into paganism. Nearly a century after Hengist and Horsa landed, Augustine was sent, in 596, to bring some of the people back to their early faith, and others for the first time, to faith in Christianity. It is affirmed by Dr. Leonard that it was not until King Alfred's day, or nearly four hundred years after, that Britain could be con- sidered Christian. It ought not then to be con- sidered discouraging that the mighty peninsula of India is still largely heathen after a century of Christian service, and that Christians are compara- tively few in vast China, whose gates have been unbarred to Christian missionaries only about fifty years. What Britain was these heathen nations now largely are ; what Britain has become in litera- ture and in all forms of noble civilization, these na- tions may in considerable part become. No man with Anglo-Saxon blood in his veins ought to be found sneering at missions and missionaries to-day in Asiatic lands. These lawless Europeans bring the blush of shame to the cheek of European and American missionaries. The heathen people too often make no distinction between Christian and non-Christian Europeans ; they regard them all as 222 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Christians, only the more intelHgent make the dis- tinction which we are accustomed to observe at home. Too often these Europeans trample upon every law of purity, of humanity, and of God, in their relations with heathen peoples. Their tes- timony against missions is utterly invalid ; their testimony is often an attempt at justification of their own immorality. Nearly the whole Eurasian race is a witness against the lives of Europeans in Asiatic countries. In the providence of God the social sins of men may be overruled for the advancement of races and for the glory of God. Never was I so profoundly convinced of the necessity of the gospel to save the nations as I am at this moment. THESE PRINCIPLES AND THE JAPANESE. We sometimes hear it said that such a people as the Japanese, in many respects so refined, so cul- tured, so artistic, and so gentle, do not need the gospel of Christ. Those who so affirm are ignorant of the social life of the Japanese people. What has their Shintoism done for them ? It is at best but an embodiment of crude superstitions ; it is simply nature-worship, hero-worship, and ancestor- worship. It is a philosophical system rather than a religion ; it utterly lacks moral earnestness ; it is really a Pantheon of demi-gods. Even Buddhism has been more educational in its influence than Shintoism. Buddhism is an improvement on the childish system of nature worship ; Buddhism has given the people some realization of rewards and PRESSING NEEDS OF FOREIGN FIELDS 223 punishments. It has also presented a higher con- ception of humanity, and a somewhat nobler stand- ard of ethics ; it has also stimulated some degree of intellectual activity and of devotion to philosophy, poetry, and literature ; it has also, nominally at least, taught a greater degree of self-restraint than does Shintoism ; but it has not successfully con- trolled the evil tendencies of human nature. Recent statistics show that there is over one di- vorce to every three marriages in Japan. The common people have been instructed almost wholly in Buddhism, but love of truth and the practice of chastity, for their own sake, are certainly not na- tional virtues. Indeed, it has been frequently af- firmed by writers competent to judge, that lying and licentiousness are national vices. One cannot before a promiscuous audience speak of the long- established institutions regulated by law which are found in large cities and seaport towns. One mar- vels that parents virtually sell their daughters to vicious lives, and that often such lives are considered as in a sense meritorious because contributing to the support of parents. Before the introduction of Christianity, and for some time after, until its in- fluence was practically felt, the grossness of im- morality in Japan was so astounding as to be almost incredible in our day ; the most abominable shrines were found along the roads and in the provinces and were sold by thousands in the shops. The most indecent figures, it is authoritatively stated, were made of confectionery, of porcelain, and of 224 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN faience. These were carried at the temple festivals and at picnics, in the arms or on the shoulders in the public processions, and the performances ac- companying the display of these emblems were incredibly abominable. Much of the literature of the time could not be translated into English speech. Fortunately the symbols of which I have spoken were abolished by edict in 1872. I do not speak of the promiscuous intermingling of the sexes in public bathhouses, as conventionalities so often set up standards of propriety ; but the recognized forms of immorality, of idolatry, and of revolting superstition are yet as common as they are repre- hensible. My esteemed friend, Dr. Verbeck, whose acquaintance was most valuable to me, affirms that the immorality of Japan is probably a more for- midable foe to Christianity than is the idolatry of Japan. THE CONDITION IN INDIA. It is not otherwise in India. It is not too mucn to say that idolatry is organized impurity. There are temples in India on whose walls, carved in stone, are representations which do not admit of characterization before this audience. One has only to visit Benares, the capital of heathenism, to see the horrible vileness of heathen faiths. This is the most sacred of all the sacred cities of Hindu- ism. Hither come pilgrims from all parts of India to bathe in the Ganges. They are happy if they can die in the sacred waters. I never before saw PRESSING NEEDS OF FOREIGN FIELDS 225 how abominable a city could become. What Je- rusalem was to the Jew in the early day, and Rome to the Latin, Mecca to the Mohammedan, that and more Benares is now to the Hindu. When Rome was unknown and Athens was in its youth, Benares was a city already ancient and famous. Driving into the city one sees troops of pilgrims, footsore and weary, who have measured their length over the ground for a thousand miles to bathe in the holy river. There is a strange mingling of ages, races, and sexes on the banks and in the waters of the river. The pilgrims are here from the extreme north and extreme south of India ; they know no language in which they can make themselves under- stood by one another, but they are here for a com- mon purpose. Here in this sacred city is the temple in which a certain sort of worship is offered to monkeys. Here are sacred bulls ; here is the so-called well of knowledge ; here are the foulest sights and the most abominable odors ; sacred cattle obstruct the streets and render them unfit for foot-passage ; and here are the foul tanks which have frequently become hot-beds of pestilence. It is said that there are over two thousand temples and shrines in Benares, and they are all in every stage of filth, ruin, and vileness. I have only touched upon these horrid facts, and I have spoken far within the truth. We saw heathenism at the Parliament of Religions with some degree of Christian clothing, Christian culture, and Christian propriety ; but in Benares one sees it in its 226 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN natural and indescribable vileness. If one had any faith whatever in God and in eternal things, and any regard for man, he ought to send missionaries to heathenism because of Christianity's inculcation of sanitary laws and of humanitarian impulses, and because it gives medical help to suffering, sorrow- ing, dying men and women. No man with a spark of true humanity in his breast, not to speak of eternal things, can fail to be interested in the sub- ject of missions in heathen countries if he knows the facts regarding the degradation of men and the awful suffering of women, ABLEST MEN FOR FOREIGN FIELDS, We need, in the second place, our ablest men for work in foreign fields. There are men who are able in a very real sense because of their fuller consecration to the honor of Christ and the salva- tion of men. These workers may not be so able from a purely intellectual point of view as are other workers, but they can render noble service because of their superior devotion ; but we need men of the highest intellectual culture as well as the deepest spiritual consecration. The work to be performed is more difficult in many ways than the work in the home field. Difficult languages have to be mas- tered. It is possible to do some work in preaching through interpreters, but the interpreter is a barrier between the speaker and hearer. No man can pour out his soul with the fervor and power which are in him when the stream of thought has to pass PRESSING NEEDS OF FOREIGN FIELDS 22/ through the mind of another man. The acquisi- tion of a difficult language is with most men the labor of many years. Where a man knows the field to which he is going, he might do something before leaving home toward acquiring the language of the people to whom he is sent. It is inconceiv- able that a man who has never studied any of the modern languages, has not studied Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, and perhaps has not thoroughly mastered English, can after years of diligent labor get even a working knowledge of Japanese, Chinese, and the various tribal dialects of India. Probably it is true that but few missionaries have a reasonable mastery of the languages of the^ countries to which they have gone. It is said that an educated Chinese closing his eyes and listening to our own heroic and beloved Dr. Ashmore, could not tell but that he was listening to a learned mandarin. Dr. Ver- beck has made a similar mastery of the Japanese, and several of our noble Baptist missionaries in Japan are no mean scholars in the Japanese lan- guage and literature. We have, taking them as a whole, a most intelligent and consecrated body of Baptist men and women as our representatives in Japan. We must strive to put the standard still higher in all our mission fields. Where dictionaries and grammars and translations of the Bible have to be made, thorough scholars are an absolute necessity. They are necessary also in laying the foundations of great Christian enterprises in these foreign fields. 228 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Their work in this respect is far more difficult than the work at home. They need to be masters of church pohty, famihar with business methods, and with all the means by which men may be reached for Christ. In dealing with the representatives of various heathen faiths our missionaries ought to manifest a masterful knowledge of these faiths. Many otherwise ignorant heathen are thoroughly familiar with the traditions and philosophies of the ethnic religions. A tyro in these studies would be pitiably helpless in the hands of these experts. There are many heathen trained in Christian schools who do not become disciples of the Chris- tian faith. All their native, subtle, and philosophic tendencies and attainments are reinforced by their Christian education. These educated heathen are entirely familiar with the history of Great Britain and of America, with the literatures of both coun- tries, with the philosophical systems of many na- tions, and with the elements of weakness in the practical working of Christian faiths and govern- ments. They will discourse learnedly of municipal politics in America and of our many forms of social and other vices. The man who is to meet these experts must be no novice in histoiy, science, and comparative religions. They are often masterful men within their special spheres of thought and argument. INFLUENCING EUROPEANS. Our missionaries also need to be men of varied learning, men of refined social manners, and men PRESSING NEEDS OF FOREIGN FIELDS 229 of affairs, in order rightly to influence the Europeans whom they meet in heathen lands. Many of these Europeans are college men engaged in various forms of scientific and other pursuits in these foreign countries. They are in danger, because of their unfavorable environment, of throwing off all the re- straints of morality and religion. There is a wonder- ful field for missionary work among Europeans in the land called heathen. It may not be a very hopeful field ; indeed, sometimes it is well-nigh hopeless, but the servant of God cannot be indif- ferent to the needs of these Europeans. Their im- moral lives greatly retard the work of missions among the heathen. For their own sake, as well as because of the evil influence they often exert among the native people, we ought to strive to lead them to Christ ; our missionaries ought to be of such a character and to possess such training that they can freely mingle with and greatly influ- ence for truth and God these great classes of Eu- ropeans. Many of them are young men away from all restraints of family and church ; and their case makes a powerful and tender appeal to the hearts of men of God. Many of them are engaged in great business enterprises and have hundreds of natives under their control. If thoroughly con- verted they would be a marvelous power for God. In India, especially, there are the thousands of soldiers with their officers. I took great pains to learn much regarding the moral life of these young men. The facts saddened my heart The religious 230 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN influences about them are too often formal, per- functory, and so largely powerless. I was greatly moved on their behalf They are nominally Chris- tian ; many of them, I regret to say, are practically heathen. Some of them, I fear, bring curses and not blessings to the heathen populations. It would be worth much for God and humanity if the mis- sionaries from America could reach large numbers of these soldiers. Some of our missionaries do reach them to some degree ; some of our mission- aries also reach, in considerable numbers, the Eu- rasian people, but it seems as if new movements should be made on all these lines. I was pro- foundly impressed with the idea that the Salvation Army has accomplished but little in India. There is here a great field for earnest and fruitful labor for the honor of Christ and the salvation of men nominally Christian. Similar remarks would apply to the large numbers of seamen visiting the seaports of heathen countries. In their case, as in the case of soldiers, there are vast opportunities for good. SUCCESS AND ABILITY. Men of the highest character and of the fullest culture are needed even more in foreign fields than at home. In one sense there are now no foreign fields. The world is one ; there are now no hermit nations. India is as near New York now as Lon- don was a little more than a generation ago. The newspapers in India contain graphic reports of boat-races and some other public matters, in Amer- PRESSING NEEDS OF FOREIGN FIELDS 23 I ica. There are, of course, outlying regions in all these foreign countries which are away from cen- ters of international knowledge and interest, but strictly speaking the world is one as never before in its histoiy. This fact may rob missions of some of the romantic charms which once surrounded la- bor in foreign lands ; but it has more than com- pensating advantages. Telegraphs and telephones now girdle the world ; the remotest mission station is in close touch with Boston. It is now no great deprivation to live in Japan or Indian cities, or even in country districts. Whatever of culture is necessaiy at home is emphatically necessary abroad. It has always been true that men of power make themselves felt wherever their lot is cast. Some missionaries in Japan are in close touch with civil and military officers of the highest character. The Roman Church in French Canada never could have secured its influence but for the great and learned men who were its first missionaries. The patient Lalemont and the heroic Brebeuf, whose history is so vividly told by Mr. Francis Parkman in connec- tion with the history of Jesuit missions in Canada, were men of apostolic zeal and of corresponding in- tellectual power. They have left the impress of their personality in the Roman Church in Canada to this hour. They were men of high social stand- ing in France ; they were men of learning and men of consecration. On May 6, 1542, the illustrious Francis Xavier landed in Goa, India. He belonged to the high 232 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN nobility of Spain ; he was distinguished for learning and for eloquence. To the time of his death he never ceased to use all his powers for the pros- perity' of the order and the church to which he be- longed. The influence of Carey and Marshman, of Judson and Boardman, of MacKay, of Livingstone, and of other learned and consecrated men in vari- ous countries, will be as enduring as the churches which they founded. These men never could have had the power which they exercised for God but for their broad scholarship and their deep con- secration. Consecration is good. Consecration is indispensable, but no amount of pietj' will sanctify stupidit}'. The Apostle Paul did more work than all the other apostles put together. His broad scholarship was matched by his fiery zeal and by his whole-hearted devotion. Whatever makes men of this stamp necessary at home makes them vastly more necessar}' abroad. We ought earnestly to pray for men of this high order as candidates for foreign fields. Missionar}' Boards cannot send men who do not apply to be sent. The responsibilitx', therefore, rests largely with the churches ; it rests largely with the pastors. Missionary' Boards will do well often to say no, with emphasis, when me- diocre men apply for appointments. The best in- vestment the churches can make is in men of the right stamp ; the poorest investment they can make is in men of the opposite character. Appointment to a foreign field should be the highest honor in the gift of the Baptist denomina- PRESSING NEEDS OF FOREIGN FIELDS 233 tion. Candidates for this high honor should be thoroughly tested and proved before their appoint- ment is made. To pass the requisite examination should be the holy ambition of our best men in colleges and seminaries ; to prepare men to pass this examination should be the endeavor of college and theological professors. It may be said that men of the great ability of those named are not often found for fields either at home or abroad. Doubtless the statement is correct ; but they would be oftener found if they were sought out, encour- aged, and made the subject of special prayer by our churches. The highest angel before God's throne would be honored in being sent in Christian service to the lowest peoples. The conversion of the world will be seen when men of great natural ability, and vast learning, and of the deepest consecration, are sent to foreign fields. We want no kindergarten theological seminaries to train foreign missionaries. Such institutions may train men who can render service as business men or in other forms of work as laymen in foreign lands ; but men so trained are not capable of mastering the enormous diffi- culties encountered in foreign mission work. May God stir up our churches to pray earnestly for additional and thoroughly equipped laborers in the Master's great vineyard at home and abroad ! THE CONVERSION OF LEARNED NATIVES. We need also, in the next place, earnestly to pray and faithfully to labor for the conversion of great 234 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN men who are natives in foreign lands. It is true, still, as it was in the days of the apostles, " That not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called." It is still true that, " God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise ; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty ; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are ; that no flesh should glory in his presence." We thoroughly believe that the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men ; nevertheless God has often chosen men trained to oppose his gospel, to be- come its heroic defenders. The conversion of learned Brahmins and others in high rank would be a wonderful achievement for the gospel ; it would illustrate the gospel's power and would greatly advance the kingdom of Jesus Christ ; it would bring confusion and dismay to the supporters of heathenism and joy and triumph to the preachers of Christ. The kingdom of God can never make the most rapid strides in heathen lands until con- verted heathen are its preachers. Dr. Alexander Duff has well remarked, that as a rule the great European reformers were natives of the kingdoms which under God they reformed. Luther never could, as he reminds us, have done the work in any other country which he did in Germany. He PRESSING NEEDS OF FOREIGN FIELDS 235 was trained to support the Roman Church, and being thus familiar with her elements of strength and weakness, -he did mighty service in opposing her errors. In Germany, Luther and Melanchthon were well-nigh irresistible ; they knew the German character ; they were masters of all the idioms of the German tongue. Luther, as Dr. Duff rightly suggests, would have been comparatively powerless in Scotland. He would have been in Scotland an eagle encaged. He could not acquire the minute knowledge of the idioms of Scottish speech and he would always have been comparatively ignorant of Scottish traits. He never could have been a great reformer in Scotland. Beza and Calvin were mighty in Switzerland, but they could not have been one tithe as powerful in an English-speaking country. Knox was the thunderbolt of God in Scotland, but he would have been comparatively weak in Germany or Switzerland. Latimer and Ridley exercised vast power in England, but if transplanted to some country on the continent, they would have been shorn of much influence and would never have left enduring monuments of their consecrated zeal. God never wastes power ; he never unnecessarily multiplies miracles ; he qualifies men by giving them minute familiarity with the domestic, social, civil, and religious characteristics of a people. These qualities cannot really be communicated to a stranger ; one must grow up in the atmosphere and absorb the distinctive characteristics of a na- tion, that he may greatly move it in religious work. 236 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN No foreigner can fully strike the secret chords of a nation's heart. God always wisely adapts and care- fully qualifies his great servants for their great work. The real reformers of India must be In- dians ; of Japan, Japanese ; of China, Chinese ; and so of all the other countries of the globe. We ought most earnestly to pray that God may make bare his arm in the conversion of the leaders of Hinduism, of Shintoism, of Buddhism, of Brahmin- ism, and every other "ism " opposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. When such men are brought into the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Satan will tremble. Great national awakenings must come, on their human side, from great national leaders. For this reason, as for other reasons, we need our strongest men in foreign fields to grapple with Satan in his strongholds. God has given us some such men in every country in which we are now laboring. May he give them power to confront every form of heathen faith with the gospel of Jesus Christ ; may they be able, as did the Apostle Paul, to confound the reasoning of heathen philosophers and the superstitions of heathen mythologists ! Perhaps we have not taken this special phase of mission work to heart as we ought. Is not the time ripe now for laboring and praying as never before, for the conversion of the leaders of heathen thought in every land ? Shall we not hold up Japan, that is now turning its face toward the light of civilization and the Sun of Righteousness, in the arms of our faith to God that he may convert her PRESSING NEEDS OF FOREIGN FIELDS 237 great men, bringing them into sweet subjection to Jesus Christ? During the recent war with China, Christianity was on trial as fully as was Japan's skill and brav- ery. Wonderful was the favor which men in authority gave to the word of God as distributed among the soldiers of Japan ; great were the honors given to Christian soldiers. Many of our Baptist Christians were as heroic for Christ on the battlefield as they were for the honor of their nation. The war was a victory for Christian civilization and for Chris- tian confession as truly as for Japanese loyalty and bravery. God used it to honor his ministers and to glorify his Son. Vast China cannot long resist the power of the newer civilization which she must ex- perience before the twentieth century shall be long upon us. Already India feels the throb of the Christian activity of the past one hundred years. Great and good men have been laboring long under ground, and the first quarter in the twentieth cen- tury will probably see greater results for Christian- ity than the entire nineteenth century produced. Foundations have been laid ; the structure will now be erected. Much time was necessarily spent in learning languages, making grammars, diction- aries, and translations ; this work has now been done. These great countries will soon be a net- work of railways ; China cannot forever resist the tendencies of progress. The trans-Siberian railway will be a spinal column connecting far separated countries and nations lone removed from one an- 238 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN other. Marvelous are the blessed results which will soon be seen among all the nations under heaven. God will turn and overturn until his Son shall reign. Civil and religious liberty will be had by nations long in bondage, and the fuller freedom which only Christ can give will be the blessed possession of all the nations of the earth. God hasten the day ! REVIVAL OF MISSIONARY ZEAL. We need, in the last place, a great revival of missionary zeal and consecration at home and abroad. There must be coldness at the extremities if there is coldness at the heart. Anti-mission churches are anti-Christian churches. Men are un- worthy the Christian name who do not desire that all others should share the blessings of Christianity. Those who selfishly hoard their blessings inevitably lose their blessings. Only those who are willing to lose their lives for Christ's sake, and their brethren's sake, do truly find their lives for time and for eter- nity. Only those who appreciate for the heathen the salvation which the Son of God came to bring to the earth, can rightly appreciate that salvation for themselves. We must rise to a proper concep- tion of our high calling as the ambassadors of Jesus Christ. We must send the gospel for the sake of the heathen who will perish without it, and also for our own sake lest we perish from neglect of our duty. The church of Christ is largely asleep re- garding its privileges and obligations to give the gospel to the world. We need consecrated enter- PRESSING NEEDS OF FOREIGN FIELDS 239 prise ; we need more men who will give their ripest thought to planning for the spread of the kingdom of God ; we need more men who shall feel that the greatest honor beneath God's heavens is to labor for the salvation of men at home and abroad. We need a baptism of spiritual power and consecrated grace ; we need more men who shall be as a flame of fire in their zeal for God and the heathen. Already with the close of the century men are planning for new methods of work in heathen lands. "A New Programme of Missions" is the title of a booklet by Luther D. Wishard ; in this little volume he suggests several solutions of the problem as to how best to enlist all our forces for the world's evangelization. The students' Christian movements in our own country is one of the meth- ods which has in it signs of hope. He also finds encouragement in the Christian work among stu- dents in the far East, and especially in the distinc- tively Christian colleges of mission lands. But after all we have not reached the true solu- tion of the problem ; it must find its solution in a deeper consecration of ourselves to Christ's work in every land. When that spirit of consecration comes, the money power of the world will be con- secrated to Christ. When that consecration comes, we shall feel that missionary work is our highest honor on earth and will bring the richest reward in heaven. Would to God that the consecrating touch of the hand pierced upon the cross might now be put upon all the churches of America ! 240 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN What are we waiting for? All the doors into heathenism are wide open. When we rise to an appreciation of our privileges the morning of the new day will dawn in heathen lands ; then the morning stars will sing together, and all the sons of God will shout for joy. Let us revive the mis- sionary concert in all our churches. Let us pray as never before that the Lord may send forth la- borers into his harvest. Let us be willing to go, and to have our sons and daughters be thoroughly prepared to go, should God honor them with a call ; and let us bring all the tithes into the store- house of the Lord. Then a new day of creation will begin, then tidal waves of power from God will flow over the world as the tides now sweep over the bosom of the sea ; then the crimson and gold of millennial day will color the eastern sky ; then earth and heaven will join hands and the whole world will be radiant with the glory of the Lord. The propaganda of religious faith among heathen nations of the Rev. Dr. John Henry Barrows, late President of "The World's Parliament of Relig- ions," may have m it elements of hope for the world's redemption. I have read with much in- terest the farewell address delivered by Dr. Bar- rows in New York before he went on his mission to the educated Hindus. He will attempt to argue the coming triumph of Christianity because it pre- sents to men, in the Bible, the only volume worthy to become the sacred text-book of the race. In this address he proves in glowing language the PRESSING NEEDS OF FOREIGN FIELDS 24 1 superiority of the Bible to all the other sacred books of humanity. He shows that it has lifted the mind and transformed the life and given to human dark- ness the light of the celestial world ; that this book is the fountain of the educational systems of the new world, giving us our public schools, our Chris- tian colleges, and our republican institutions ; that it was an echo of the Scriptures that sounded through the best lines of the Declaration of Inde- pendence ; that from it sprang the reformations which destroyed the barbarism of slavery and made it possible for Abraham Lincoln to issue the Eman- cipation Proclamation ; that the English language and all the nations speaking the Teutonic tongues are now rapidly increasing ; that forty-two million square miles of land surface are to-day under the control of Christian powers ; that the African con- tinent will soon be occupied by a nation speaking the English tongue, and Dr. Barrows quotes John Fiske as saying, " that the day is at hand when four-fifths of the human race will trace their pedi- gree to English forefathers." Dr. Barrows further shows that the fundamental law of Christianity is the law of life, and he quotes one as saying that, " Buddhism brought face to face with the problem of the world's evil and possi- ble improvement evades it, begs the whole question at the outset ; prays, ' Deliver us from existence ! Save us from life and give us as little of it as pos- sible ! ' Christianity faces the problem and flinches not ; orders advance all along the line of endeavor, 242 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN and prays, * Deliver us from evil ' ; and is ever of good cheer because its Captain and Leader says, ' I have overcome the world, go win it for me ! I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.' " We hope for the best from the institutes which Dr. Barrows may found. The time is soon coming when our ablest thinkers in America and Great Britain will go to India and Japan to discuss the great problems of life and immortality ; the time is coming when the American people and the govern- ment at Washington will appreciate the value of American missions and missionaries. They are most humiliatingly delinquent in this regard to- day. Every kind of business our government seems ready to protect in foreign lands except the missionary business. A banker, a brewer, or a shopkeeper of any sort, would have his property protected by the ships of the United States, but both the government and the people seem strangely indifferent to the millions of property invested in missions and to the lives of consecrated missionaries in Armenia, China, and other lands. Christianity has had a grand opportunity of showing its worth by contrast with Mohammedanism and other forms of semi-heathenism in Armenia. God will use these terrible recent experiences to arouse Christian na- tions to a realization of the value of missions and to rebuke the silly fad of the hour which endeavors to depreciate Christianity and to glorify the cruel religions of the Orient. PRESSING NEEDS OF FOREIGN FIELDS 243 I hope and pray that the great God may turn and overturn, shaking the tottering throne of the tyrannical sultan even though both throne and sultan should fall into the Bosphorus. The day is coming when Christian Britain and America will feel that the noblest use for warships, as well as ships of merchandise, is to contribute to the advance- ment of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. The day is coming when our missionaries will receive their guerdon as the pioneers of civilization, as the har- bingers of international amity, and as the founders of enduring temporal prosperity, as truly as the heralds of the glorious gospel. England and America, literature and science, civilization and humanity, owe more than any words can adequately describe to the preachers of the gospel in lands that long lay in the darkness of ignorance and sin. The day was when Great Britain sneered with Sid- ney Smith at William Carey as " the consecrated cobbler," in going to convert the heathen. Many so-called Christians, as well as men of the world, believed that he was going on a fool's errand. The years passed, and Carey is dying at the age of seventy-three ; to his bedside comes the Bishop of India, the representative of the Church of England in that great peninsula, the representative of the church to which Sidney Smith and his sneering as- sociates belonged ; this bishop bows his head at the deathbed of Carey and invokes the blessing of this dying and now sainted and immortal mission- ary. The time had been when the British author- 244 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN ities denied Carey a landing place when he strove to reach Bengal ; now, after years of consecrated toil, he is laying aside his cross for his crown, and the government in India drops all its flags at half- mast ; the officials learn to do honor to a man who has done more for India than all the British states- men and generals from the day that Britain first put foot on Indian soil to this hour. The day is coming when the whole world will acknowledge its indebtedness to Jesus Christ as King in Zion, and to his lowly missionaries as heralds of all that is noblest in civilization, all that is sublimest in hu- manity, and all that is divinest in Christianity. God hasten the day when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and Sav- iour Jesus Christ ! X ESTABLISHING OUR WORK^ THE establishment of all forms of missionary work is the very heart of Christianity. It opens a broad field for effort and prayer. The church of Christ is nothing if it is not a great mis- sionary organization. An anti-mission church is an anti-Christian church. Such a church must die, and the sooner it dies the better ; but beside the dead body an honest minister could not say, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." For such a church God has no use, the world no respect, and the devil no dread. I hope the time will never come when the Calvary Church shall cease to be interested in all the great movements of all the churches for the conversion of the world to Jesus Christ. The gospel is the harmonizer of all the conflict- ing experiences of human society ; it is the divine specific for sin. It comes to the world at its lowest and darkest point with help and hope. Christ was a workingman ; his apostles were workingmen ; all that is true in communism is the offspring of Christ's ^ Parts of the discourse delivered in Calvary Church, New York City, May 12, 1895, in connection with the services commemorat- ing the twenty-fifth anniversary of the author's pastorate of that church. 24s 246 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN religion ; and all that is evil is opposed by that gospel. Christ's religion means to conquer the world. This is its lofty ambition ; this is its divine destiny. It stands unique among the religions of the world, because it knows nothing of the narrow- ness and bigotry of Judaic faith or of classic cul- ture. No philosopher of Greece or Rome, or of the imaginative East, ever dreamed of a universal religion. Jesus Christ gave that idea to the world, and away over the hills of Judea and Samaria went his apostles preaching a gospel needed by, intended for, and adapted to, all men. This gospel revolu- tionized literature, architecture, religion, and the world. Jean Paul Richter was right when he said : "With his pierced hand Christ has lifted empires off their hinges, turned the stream of centuries out of its channel, and he still governs the ages." God has greatly blessed the Calvary Church in its local, city, home, and foreign mission work. God has greatly blessed the Baptist denomination in its mission work in every land. God has given us the honor of conducting the most successful forms of mission work among the heathen ever known in the church of Christ. We have seen in fields under our direction days of more than pentecostal power ; we have seen the heathen flocking to the feet of Christ, to the waters of baptism, and to the table of communion. The last twenty-five years have been a time of constant advancement in our great socie- ties at home and abroad. We have markedly changed the methods of work in progress twenty- ESTABLISHING OUR WORK 247 five years ago ; we have correspondingly enlarged our horizons of hope, faith, and effort. A quarter of a century ago the problem was to find mission- aries and to secure open doors into mission fields ; to-day the problem is to find money to support consecrated men and women who are ready to enter the doors providentially opened. During the past few years our Home Mission Society has supported a larger number of laborers than ever before in its remarkably successful history. In 1883 the Livingstone Inland Mission came into our hands. In these great foreign fields we are maintaining schools, translating the Scriptures, and distributing many forms of religious literature. We have at this moment in our foreign field about three thousand laborers, including native preachers and Bible readers. We reported last year over thir- teen thousand baptisms and a church-membership of more than one hundred and seventy thousand. During the period covered by this pastorate, women have come into great prominence as missionary workers in raising money at home and in laboring abroad. In 1871 two foreign missionary societies, with headquarters in Boston and Chicago, were or- ganized by our noble Baptist women. They now have their missionaries in Burma, India, China, and Japan, and a few also in Europe and some in Africa. During the past year they have supported more than one hundred missionaries, many Bible women, several hundred schools, and all at an ex- pense of about two hundred thousand dollars. 248 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN In 1877 two Home Mission Societies were or- ganized by our Baptist women. They have in Chicago their excellent training school for mission- ary workers. In 1888 the Women's Missionary Union was formed, auxiliar}- to the Southern Bap- tist Convention. There is almost no limit to the possibilities open before our churches in mission fields abroad as well as at home. The great chapter of modern missionary work is the history of the Ongole mission field. On the east coast of the great Indian Peninsula is the field of the Telugus. For nearly fifty years the work in this field was well-nigh hopeless ; at one time it seemed certain that the mission would be abandoned. In 1876 there were four thousand Christians in the mission ; then came the wondrous grace and mighty power of God. and more than nine thousand were bap- tized within sixty days. On the third of July, 1 878, two thousand two hundred and twenty-tAvo were baptized, being the largest number baptized in a single day since Pentecost When the Calvary Church was on Twenty-third street, on a certain Sunday night the ordinance of baptism was observed. There turned into the church that evening, apparently by accident, but doubtless by divine direction, a young Cuban exile named Alberto J. Diaz. Mr. Diaz was born in Havana in 1852, was graduated from the university in Havana, and then studied for the medical pro- fession. Soon after completing his course in med- icine he joined a movement in opposition to the ESTABLISHING OUR WORK 249 government, and in order to escape capture by- government officials he, with some friends, ventured out into the sea upon planks ; and while his friends were lost, he was found by a vessel, taken aboard, and brought to New York. This patriotic exile was stricken while in Brooklyn by what seemed to be a mortal disease. While lying ill in a boarding house he was converted to God by the faithfulness of a young Christian woman who lived in the same house and who daily read to him the Bible. He was raised up to health and his heart was on fire with missionary zeal. His great desire was that Cuba should know Jesus Christ, and he entered the Union Theological Semi- nary in this city to prepare himself for the Christian ministry. Soon after he was baptized in Brook- lyn by the late Rev. R. B. Montgomery. His soul still glowed with zeal for the salvation of his coun- trymen, and in 1883 he landed in Havana with nothing but a box of Bibles and his faith in God. He immediately began to preach the glorious gos- pel, but the Roman Church, true to all its history of sectarian bigotry and inquisitorial persecution, cast him into prison ; but in prison he preached the gos- pel. Our government finally interfered and Diaz was released. He continued to preach in Havana, and men and women were converted in large num- bers. He had no book to guide him in the form of church government which should be adopted but the New Testament, and the New Testament made him and the other believers Baptists. For 250 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN six months his mother refused to speak to him because of his heresy ; but she herself found Christ as a personal Saviour, and was the first convert whom he baptized. At her baptism, he failed to repeat the usual formula, and said with great emo- tion, "O Lord Jesus, this is my mother." Six years pass ; it is now 1889, and there were reported twenty missionaries, twenty -seven churches and stations, and a total membership of nearly one thousand five hundred. Twelve years pass ; Brother Diaz returns for occasional visits to New York, re- ceives a welcome in the Calvary Church and in e\'ery church, and is able to report to the glory of God a membership of two thousand five hundred, besides twenty-six Sunday-schools with two thou- sand two hundred and twenty-eight teachers and scholars. This Cuban work is one of the marvels of modern Christendom, and gives promise of con- stant enlargement under this noble man of God. One of the greatest events during the last twenty- five years in the history of Baptist foreign missions was the raising in 1 892, the Centennial year of the modern missionary movement, of one million dol- lars for that work. This enormous undertaking was wisely planned, vigorously pushed, and triumph- antly concluded. May God help the Calvary Church, the Baptist denomination, and all churches of Jesus Christ, to press forward in their mission work at home and abroad, until every creature shall hear the gospel, and all the world shall lie in sweet submis- sion at the pierced feet of Jesus Christ ! ESTABLISHING OUR WORK 2$ I EDUCATIONAL WORK. We pray, also, that God may establish our edu- cational work. This church has striven to do its full duty in general and denominational educational work. There has never been a time when we have not had a large number of students in high schools, academies, colleges, theological seminaries, and other professional schools. We have, at this time, a goodly number who are engaged in preparing themselves for the gospel ministry at home and for mission work abroad. Among these students are representatives of several nationalities, as in the church itself there are as many nationalities as were present on the day of Pentecost. Our interest in, and contributions for, educational work have marked the entire pastorate. During the last twenty-five years as a denomination we have entered upon a new era in educational work in America. No movement has been more marked in our denomina- tional ranks, and perhaps none in the history of the country, than recent educational work in the Bap- tist denomination. There were among our Baptist fathers those who did not attach due importance to education as a preparation for the gospel min- istry ; but new men and new movements came to the front a century ago, and still more markedly during the last quarter of a century. The formation of the American Baptist Educa- tion Society, in 1888, was an epoch-making event in our educational life. When this pastorate be- 252 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN gan, the total amount of property and endowment belonging to our colleges and theological seminaries was not more than three milhon five hundred thou- sand dollars ; to-day it is not less than thirty-six million five hundred thousand dollars. The Uni- versity of Chicago, promises to be one of the great- est, if not the greatest, educational institution in America. It is under Baptist control, one of its fundamental laws being that two-thirds of its Board of Trustees must always be members of Baptist churches. It is at the same time the broadest, most liberal, and most catholic institution of learn- ing on this continent The result has vindicated the wisdom of those who founded our Education Society ; its work is one of the noblest achieve- ments in our histor)'. It aids worthy schools of learning, establishes new schools where they are needed, awakens the desire for the highest possible education, and places constantly before our young men, and especially our ministers, the highest standards of attainment. Baptists ought to be leaders in every noble edu- cational movement. We are not hampered by effete creeds ; we are not anchored to mediaeval sentiments ; we are not enslaved to hoary tradi- tionalism. We believe that the nineteenth century is as able to do its own thinking as any century in the history of the Christian church. We are dis- ciples of truth from whatever quarter it comes and by whatsoever messenger it is brought. We fear no scientific discoveries, if only they bring us ad- ESTABLISHING OUR WORK 253 ditional truth. We regard many of the creeds of the churches as unsightly scaffolds standing around the temple of truth. We believe that when these creeds fall, the symmetry, splendor, and glory of the temple will be the more conspicuous. We have ever been the advocates of soul-liberty in its largest and divinest privileges and applica- tions. In this spirit we have moved forward in the founding of schools and colleges. Brown Univer- sity was our earliest institution of higher learning, being founded in 1764. In the ten years from 1874 to 1884, we founded twenty-nine institutions ; from 1889 to 1894, sixty-two. Our educational work is thus gathering force and moving on with vigor from year to year. The founding of the University of Chicago is certainly one of the three greatest events in our history as a people. The story reads like a fairy tale. The dream of 1890 has become the tran- scendent reality of 1895. Here is a university but four years old, but with one hundred members on its faculty selected from the most famous colleges in Europe and America, and with more than one thousand students on its rolls.^ Its doors are never closed ; its work goes on in summer as in winter. It stands in close affiliation with other colleges and professional schools. It has already lifted the 1 In 1897, according to the "Baptist Year-Book," this institu- tion had 180 instructors ; 2,315 students in all departments ; amount of property, including endowments, ^8,625,000; and 215,000 volumes in the library [Ed.]. 2 54 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN cause of higher education in evety other institution of learning in the land. It has raised the salaries of professors literally all over the world ; it has done more than any other one institution in the world to give appropriate pecuniary recognition to the profession of teaching. It is located in a city which is the commercial capital of a vast empire. It has already given an enormously powerful im- pulse to higher education, and what its future will be neither man nor angel can fully foresee. Its honored founder has made his name immortal Great institutions of learning are the most per- manent creations of man in the world. They are more enduring than anything this side of the eter- nal throne. It is conceivable that in some great political cataclysm the British throne may fall ; but it is not conceivable that any human disaster can overthrow Oxford and Cambridge. They will stand in all the years to come, reflecting in a common ray the mingled lights of high learning and holy religion. Other Baptist laymen might well learn lessons from the generosity of the founder of the Univer- sity of Chicago. One recently died leaving at least ten millions to his family, and leaving but ten thou- sand to all causes of God and man. Another re- cently died leaving eight millions and absolutely nothing to any cause of God or man. Such men have made great failures in their acquisition of wealth. Such men are not prepared to die. We are learning that millionaires have a great mission ESTABLISHING OUR WORK 255 in life. The problem of the railHonaire has practi- cally arisen during the period of this present pas- torate. The old French motto, noblesse oblige, must have its application to the possession of wealth. God will hold men responsible for their disposition of their great possessions. A wise disposition of money requires more talent, and vastly more re- ligion, than its rapid acquisition. God multiply millionaires among us, if only he shall give them the spirit of consecration to the cause of God and man. Such consecration takes away all cause of criticism from anarchists and socialists ; but the hoarding of vast wealth gives some reason for the criticisms of anarchism which are muttered in dif- ferent parts of our country. May Baptists and all other American patriotic Christians move forward with large-hearted liberality and with true Christian generosity for the support of all institutions founded in the interest of higher education, American patri- otism, and a true Christianity. ESTABLISHMENT IN ALL DEPARTMENTS. We to-day pray that God may establish our de- nominational work in all its departments. We offer this prayer in no narrow or sectarian spirit. We believe that we stand for certain truths of Scripture either entirely neglected, or inadequately taught, by other denominations of Christians. We hold that no distinct denomination has a right to exist except it teach distinctive truths. No church ought to be maintained simply out of re- 256 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN spect to a tradition^ however honorable or vener- able. Many denominations, were this principle practically applied, would at once merge into other denominations ; but we stand for great principles and distinctive truths. In all the ages of church history we have stood for the supremacy of the word of God as the authoritative rule of faith and practice ; we have stood for a regenerate church- membership ; we have stood for soul-liberty in the interpretation of the word of God and in the rela- tion of men to the State ; that is to say, we have stood for the entire separation of Church and State ; and we have stood also for the integrity of the or- dinances as given by Christ and his apostles. Our Baptist fathers witnessed to these truths on the rack and at the stake. We have given many of our noblest souls as martyrs to the cause of civil and religious liberty. We have stained the snows on Alpine peaks, and we have enriched the soil in Alpine valleys with Baptist blood. Our martyrs have given their testimonies by giving their lives in Old England and by many forms of suffering in New England. They have been imprisoned in Virginia and in other States, and evermore the blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the church. It was not uncommon in Virginia that when Bap- tists were observing the ordinance of baptism, ef- forts were made not only to throw ridicule on the divine ordinance, but to attempt to drown those who were thus obedient to Christ. We do not for- get the brave Ireland and the Culpeper jail. His ESTABLISHING OUR WORK 25/ preaching through the bars of that jail resulted in the conversion of many souls ; and when the jail was torn down a Baptist church was erected on its ruins. About one hundred and fifty years ago, fourteen persons were arrested in Saybrook, Conn., simply for holding a Baptist meeting ; they were tried, fined, and hurried on foot to New London, twenty- five miles away. There they were cast into prison and suffered many other indignities. About the same time Elisha Paine was arrested, tried, and im- prisoned for preaching Baptist doctrine in the little village of Canterbury, Conn. But he preached behind prison bars so that his captives were glad to release him. Two young men, members of the Baptist church in Canterbury, were students in Yale College. While at home on their vacation they naturally attended their own church. For this offense they were summoned before the college authorities on returning, and were reminded that the business of Yale College was not to educate persons whose principles and practices were sub- versive of the visible church of Christ. The of- ficers and tutors of the college, according to the records, November 19, 1734, adjudged that these young men, Ebenezer and John Cleaveland, had acted contrary to the rules of the gospel and the laws of the colony and the college, in attending services in the Baptist church, and that they shall be publicly admonished for their fault, and if they should refuse to make acknowledgment they shall 258 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN be expelled from the college. They refused to make acknowledgment and were expelled. We do not forget the persecutions endured by John Clark, Obadiah Holmes, and James Crandall because of their advocacy of the doctrine of relig- ious libert}' and their persistent denial of infant baptism as scriptural. When Clark stood at the whipping-post, having refused to pay his fine of twent)- pounds, we are told that some kind-hearted person interfered and bought his release with a sum of money ; also the fine of five pounds was paid for James Crandall, and he was set free ; but Obadiah Holmes, a man of broad learning and in- vincible will, upon refusal to pay his fine of thirty' pounds, was so cruelly whipped that for weeks he was unable to have rest in his bed except upon his knees and elbows. So our fathers suffered for the sake of the truth as it is in Jesus. The growth of the Calvar>'- Church has been marked during the period of the present pastorate. The number of members t\vent}--five years ago to day was t\vo hundred and fort}--three ; the number to-day is two thousand and fort\--nine. During that period three thousand two hundred and sev- ent}'-four have been received into the fellowship of the church. The population of New York twenty-five years ago was nearly one million. The number of members in our Baptist churches in this cit}', at that date, was eleven thousand five hundred and eight\'-nine ; the population to-day is, accord- ing to the latest census, about one million eight ESTABLISHING OUR WORK 259 hundred thousand ; the number of members in Baptist churches in the city now, is eighteen thou- sand six hundred and eight. It will thus be seen that, notwithstanding the fact that we have almost no growth from immigration, as do Romanists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, and notwithstanding the very large emigration from the city to Brooklyn and other places in the vicinity, we have about kept pace with the growth of our rapidly growing city. When this pastorate was begun twenty-five years ago the population of the United States was about thirty-eight millions ; the number of Baptists at that time was about one million five hundred thousand. The population of the country to-day (1895) is perhaps sixty-seven millions ; but the total membership in Baptist churches to-day, not including seven or eight bodies that are Baptists, but not in full fellowship with us, is three million six hundred thirty-seven thousand four hundred and twenty-one. The popu- lation of the United States will not double probably for ten years more, but the number of Baptists has increased more than two and a half times dur- ing this period. It is thus seen that we are growing more rapidly than is the population of the country, notwith- standing the tidal waves of immigration that have rolled into it during these last twenty-five years. During the last twenty years — not to go so far back as twenty-five — the number of Regular Baptist churches has increased from twenty thousand four 26o CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN hundred and fifty-eight to thirty-seven thousand nine hundred and ten. The number of baptisms reported in the last "Year-Book" (1895) is tvvo hundred and five thousand eight hundred and fifty- seven as against one hundred and sevent}'-six thou- sand and seventy-seven for the previous year. This is the largest number of baptisms, by an enormous margin, ever reported by us in a single year ; the number of ministers has increased from t\velve thousand five hundred and thirty to twent}-'-seven thousand and ninet\--one. We have thus more than doubled the number of ministers during the last twenty years. If we were to add the statistics of other Baptist bodies not affiliated with us, the gains would be still larger. If we go back for a century or more we shall find that in 1784 there was one Baptist to ninety-four of the population ; in 1812, one to fort>'-two ; in 1840, one to thirt}- ; in i860, one to thirty-one; in 1880, one to twent}'-three ; and in 1890, one to twenty-one. Some of these facts may be summed up so as to give a better picture for the actual condition of our churches and of their relative growth. We have a larger Baptist membership in the United States by one million twent)'-two thousand two hundred and seven than we had ten years ago. There has thus been a net gain of more than one hundred and two thousand each year for the last ten years ; we also have ten thousand two hundred and nine more churches than we had ten years ago ; this is a gain of more than one thousand churches each year. ESTABLISHING OUR WORK 26 1 We have eight thousand and twenty-seven more ordained ministers than we had ten years ago ; this is an increase of over eight hundred a year. Now and then a pastor of a Baptist church leaves our denomination for some other body ; but we have averaged an addition of more than two to our min- isterial force every day during the last ten years. If we except the Romanists it will be found that one-fifth of all the church-members in the United States are Baptists. More than one-sixth of all the Sunday-schools are under our denominational care, and more than one-seventh of all the Sunday- school scholars in the United States are in Baptist Sunday-schools. God has wonderfully blessed our work in all these respects during the last twenty- five years, and especially during the last ten years. We are, in all our interpretations of Scripture and in all our creedal relations, in the most perfect sympathy with the advanced thought of the hour. We may safely predict an increase of ten thousand Baptist ministers during the next ten years, and also of at least ten thousand new churches. In no spirit of boastfulness, but with profound gratitude to God for his manifold blessings in all these re- spects, are these wonderful facts given. There are some financial facts to which attention ought to be called and which are equally encouraging. The value of our church property is now eighty million two hundred and thirty-five thousand and thirty- four dollars. In 1891, we organized the B. Y. P. U. of America. This movement has already attained 262 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN vast proportions. It holds annual conventions of great size and of corresponding enthusiasm. But the Christian Endeavor Societies in Baptist churches still continue their organizations. There is no opposition between the two bodies. The Baptist Congress was formed in 1 892. It has been commended for the vigor and candor of its discus- sions. The trials for heresy in the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches show the value of our Baptist polity. The nature of our organization makes it impossible that we should have a great and dis- tracting trial for heresy as in some of the other denominations. We are held together apparently by the loosest of bonds, but as a matter of fact we are bound together more securely and have vastly more unity in opinion and practice than any other denomination in America. God is with us in wonderful ways, leading us forward in all lines of evangelical work and rewarding us with hopeful growth because of loyalty to his will as revealed in his word. There are marked and hopeful drifts among us. Nothing is more certain than that we have a larger, deeper, higher, and wider view of our relations to God and to one another than we had twenty-five years ago. We hold with no less tenacity to the Scripture as the only authoritative rule of faith and practice. We stand loyal to Jesus Christ as the only King in Zion. We recognize no bishop but the pastor of the local church ; no priest but Jesus Christ our great High-Priest, and the priesthood of ESTABLISHING OUR WORK 263 all true Christians. We shall continue to demand civil and religious liberty ; we do not wish to waste time in controversy with brethren of other names. We are determined to hold the truth in love and to manifest it with charity. Our preaching to-day is not so theological as it was a generation ago, but is more simple, more practical, and more Christly. We are more disposed to declare the love than to magnify the wrath of God. There are fewer revivals among us than there were in former days ; but many churches are never without the spirit of revival, and all our churches have larger yearly additions than they had, taken year by year, during the prevalence of great and sensational revivals. We believe in a larger liberty than we did a gen- eration ago in the form of services in our churches. The desire on the part of many is for a richer, more ornate, more worshipful, and more scriptural serv- ice. The people have a right to participate in the public worship of God's house. We are leading as never before in the higher education of the country, having given during the past few years more money to this object than any other denomination in America. The standard of learning in our theological seminaries is vastly higher than it was a quarter of a century ago. God is leading us as a people to the high places of honor, by leading us into lowly forms of service. We are at peace among ourselves as a local church and as a great denomination. It is not too much to say that more than one-sixth of the entire popu- 264 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN lation of these United States are members or ad- herents of Baptist churches. Both the Methodist and the Baptist churches of America to-day stand associated with a larger proportion of the total population than does the Roman Church. Our religious press and publication houses have made remarkable progress during the last twenty-five years. And yet as a people, we have only begun to appreciate our great possibilities. The following table gives in a summary way many of the facts already detailed, and some additional facts which will be of interest. According to the "Baptist Year-Book" (1895), just published, the statistics of denominational progress in the United States as indicated by figures are as follows, the tables for the years 1894 and 1895 being contrasted :^ Associations 1.530 1,498 Ordained ministers . . . • 27,091 25,354 Churches 37,910 38,122 Baptisms 205,857 176,077 Total membership .... 3,637,421 3,496,988 Sunday-schools 22,016 20,838 Pupils in Sunday-schools . 1,500,834 1-430-933 Value of church property . $80,285,034 $78,605,769 Contributions to missions . $1,138,059 $1,467,293 Total contributions and expenses $1 1,672, 691 $12,560,713 1 The figures for 1897, according to the "Year- Book," are as fol- lows : Associations, 1,551 ; ordained ministers, 27,774 ; churches, 40,064; baptisms, 176,058; total membership, 3,720,235; Sun- day-schools, 23,302; pupils in Sunday-schools, 1,779,886; value of church property, $81,648,246; contributions to missions, $1,- 172,909.42; total contributions and expenses, $11,755,118.58. ESTABLISHING OUR WORK 265 The facts already stated have an interesting re- lation to the growth of American Protestantism as a whole. The period since 1850 has been one of severe strain upon our evangelical churches, because of the great activity of rationalism, materialism, and spiritism, and especially because of our large and often undesirable immigration. The statistics quoted by Dr. Daniel Dorchester, in the last edition of his "Religious Progress," show that the evangelical churches have more than kept pace with the growth of the population, even during this period. In the thirty years under consideration, the whole popula- tion increased one hundred and seventy per cent., but the communicants of these churches increased two hundred and ninety per cent, or a half faster than the population. And during the severe strain from 1870 to 1890, while the popu- lation increased sixty-two per cent, the communicants in- creased one hundred and seven per cent The total increase of communicants from 1850 to 1880 was six million five hun- dred and thirty-five thousand nine hundred and eighty-five, or more than twice as large as the increase in the fifty years from 1800 to 1850. It has usually been estimated that at the close of the third century the number of Christians in the world was five millions. In the United States the in- crease in thirty years was greater than the total increase in the first three centuries of the Christian era, and the figures appear to show that the growth of evangelical Christianity in this country in ninety years exceeded the growth of Chris- tianity in the first eight centuries after Christ by an excess of more than eighteen millions. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SPIRITUAL WORK. We pray God to establish our distinctively spir- itual work in our own church, our denomination, 266 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN and our beloved country. No church is truly prosperous except God be using it in the conver- sion of individuals and in the edification of saints. Its pews may be filled with people and its treasury with money, but it is not really a prosperous church of Christ unless it is the means in God's hands of winning men to Christ. This church has never been the church of the rich exclusively ; nor of the poor exclusively ; it has aimed to be the church of the rich and poor. It has never been a revival church in the technical sense of that term ; but it has ever striven to be a "vival" church. It has constantly striven for the conversion and edification of men and women, the two processes going on side by side. Nothing is more certain than that a great change has come over the spirit of the world within the last twenty years in its relation to relig- ious truth. A quarter of a century ago it seemed as if materialism, what Carlyle roughly called "a gospel of dirt," was to dominate every department of scientific thought. That day, however, has passed away, and it is not likely to return. There is now a markedly changed attitude on the part of scientific men toward Christianity. They are mani- festing a spirit of reverence toward religious truth entirely unknown a generation ago. They may not have adopted the old dogmatic statements of Christian experience and Bible doctrine ; but they certainly have a deeper perception of the relations of men to God and to one another than was for- merly the case. ESTABLISHING OUR WORK 26/ Two books have recently been published which illustrate the tendency of which we are speaking ; the first is that by Benjamin Kidd. This striking book is widely read and earnestly discussed ; it shows the changed attitude which many scientific men now maintain toward religious questions. Doubtless there are still scientific men who mani- fest a spirit of arrogant agnosticism, but the num- ber is very much smaller than it was three decades ago. The other book is by the Right Hon. Arthur J. Balfour, and is entitled "The Foundations of Belief" This is in many respects a remarkable book. It is true that Professor Fairbairn has se- verely criticised some of its features, but neverthe- less it is a book which is destined to exercise a profound influence on the most cultivated minds of our generation. There is, it is not too much to say, a religious revival among literary men and scientists. There is now no occasion for Christian people even to seem to be panic-stricken, as many were a gener- ation ago. Agnosticism is not now to have every- thing its own way. When this pastorate was be- gun there was really a period of religious depres- sion ; it was a time when the intolerance of science was a thousand-fold greater than were ever the in- tolerance and bigotry of religion. It was then al- most believed that no man of practical intelligence could be an evangelical Christian. The air was filled by the manufactured thunder of scientific drums. It was a time when many forms of science were skeptical so far as the deepest experiences of 268 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN the heart and the highest possibiHties of the im- mortal life were concerned. Now, however, as has already been suggested, the tendency of the best modern thought is toward Christian theism. Mr. Balfour's great intellectual power places him in the first rank of British states- men. In his interest in religious discussions he is the true successor of Gladstone. Doubtless he is himself destined for the premiership. These are stirring words of his which he writes from a purely philosophical point of view : What is needed is such a living faith in God's relation- ship to man as shall leave no place for that helpless resent- ment against the appointed order so apt to rise within us at the sight of undeserved pain. And this faith is possessed by those who vividly realize the Christian form of theism. . . . Among the needs ministered to by Christianity are some which increase rather than diminish with the growth of knowledge and the progress of science ; this religion is therefore no mere reform, appropriate only to a vanished epoch in the history of culture and civilization, but a devel- opment of theism now more necessary to us than ever. He frankly asserts his belief that there is better evidence for the existence of God than there is for the material world in which we are placed. The whole book is a longing and loving search for the living God who controls the affairs of men. He affirms that there is no ground for quarrel between theology and science, but that science itself presup- poses the existence of God, and that without this in- dispensable hypothesis we can understand nothing of ESTABLISHING OUR WORK 269 science. It is. a most hopeful sign when a man of his political position, intellectual ability, and brilliant social and political prospects writes such a volume as this. If he lives, he is likely to be as conspicu- ous a figure in English histoiy as the great Glad- stone. He is beyond question the ablest parlia- mentary leader in the House of Commons. In one political party he is idolized, and in the other he is respected alike for character and ability. This brilliant debater, able politician, and successful ad- ministrator now appears as a thoughtful essayist and a religious teacher. In this volume he unites judicial serenity with dashing humor, and earnest faith with equally earnest inquiry. He illumines the dreary wilderness of metaphysics with the sun- shine of genius and the calm light of faith. The pendulum has begun to swing back to the Bible, to faith, to Christ. Already the music of the open- ing century falls upon our ears ; it is sweet music. Atheism, materialism, agnosticism, and other de- structive forms of error of an earlier day, have proved utterly weak and worthless. Once more Christ has ascended his throne, and truth is comin^ down from its cross. The music of the comingr years is tender with love, bright with hope, and divine with trustful faith. No words of mine can express the tenderness I feel toward the noble men and women who have gone from this church militant to the church tri- umphant. Their memory is a precious legacy to this church of Christ. Their names will live in our 270 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN hearts so long as these hearts continue to beat. Neither can any words of mine adequately describe the tender regard cherished for many still among the living. We have worked together amid joy and sorrow. Our prayers, our tears, and our songs have been united in common experiences of trial and triumph. We have striven to honor Jesus Christ in our work as members of the Calvary Church. We have sought to bring men into lov- ing obedience to him as Prophet, Priest, and King. We have nothing whereof to boast ; we have every- thing for which to be grateful to the loving kind- ness and tender mercy of our Father in heaven. We now look thankfully to the past, and hopefully to the future. God alone knows what is before us in our personal, family, and church life. We know that he will never leave nor forsake us, and that whether our years be many or few, we shall con- tinue to enjoy his presence and blessing, and when life shall cease we shall cast our crowns at his feet, and rejoice in his completed salvation throughout eternity. Our best work may never be fully estab- lished here. God grant that it may be such work that we shall be willing to meet it at the judgment- seat of Christ. May each one of us hear him say at the last : " Well done, thou good and faithful serv- ant, thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." XI THE ORGANIZATION OF A CHURCH^ THE ability to organize a church for effective work is as rare as it is important. Like all Christian graces, however, this ability may be ac- quired to a greater or less degree. It is vastly im- portant for the young pastor fully to appreciate its worth and earnestly to strive for its possession. The success of many pastors is largely due to their ability to organize and to inspire their people for vigorously aggressive and wisely conservative work. The work of a great church is, in an important sense, a gigantic business enterprise ; sanctified business methods are absolutely necessary. The great need to-day in political and mercantile organizations, as well as in the church of God, is inspiring leaders. Thousands are ready to follow wherever a wise and courageous man may lead the way. Much of the power of organization necessaiy ^ The substance of this and the two following papers has been given in familiar addresses in several Baptist theological seminaries. Many references then made in the comparative privacy of the class- room are now necessarily omitted. To address ministerial students on the general topic considered was felt to be a delicate and diffi- cult task ; the same feeling exists, and in a greater degree, in at- tempting to put the oral suggestions into printed form. The aim will still be especially to address the students in the theological seminaries and the younger brethren in the pastorate. 271 2/2 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN to a man who is at the head of a great mercantile house, or to a successful leader of men in political life, or to the president of a great railroad, is neces- sary to effective leadership in the church of God. The men who can thus lead are men of genius. God's greatest work is not carried on by simple- tons. Paul, Augustine, and Calvin would have been men of great mark in any walk of life. Lu- ther, Wesley, and Whitfield were kings even among the kingly men of the earth. Listening senates and admiring thousands would have been held by the spell of their entrancing eloquence and led by their rare sagacity had they given themselves up to political leadership. We have elsewhere empha- sized the thought that Mr. Spurgeon might be Prime Minister of England, in another sense than that in which he is "the prime minister" to-day, had he given his attention to political life. Men who are wise in winning souls are men who would bring things to pass mightily in any department of life's endeavor. In religious as in secular work, a chief element of any man's success is his ability wisely to organize the forces at his command. I. In emphasizing the importance of wisely or- ganizing a church, it is to be remarked that every young pastor should see that his Board of Trustees is legally elected. Gentlemen of legal attainments, who have given some attention to the subject, in- form the writer that there are scores of churches in the State of New York, not to speak of other States, whose trustees have never been elected ac- THE ORGANIZATION OF A CHURCH 2/3 cording to the forms of law. Such trustees, strictly speaking, are not able either to buy, hold, or sell church property. Every piece of property under their control is liable to be lost to the church and to the denomination. This is certainly a very seri- ous state of affairs ; and it is certainly worthy of the most careful examination. Too much property bought by denominational money has been already squandered. It may be said that it is not the pastor's business to look after the secular affairs of the church. But it will be admitted that in some churches there is no one else qualified to look after these interests. When there are men so qualified the wise pastor will neither wish nor need to care for secular mat- ters. The true pastor cannot be indifferent to any interests of the church over which God has placed him. He dare not run the risk of seeing his people's money diverted from the purpose for which it was contributed ; such neglect upon his part would be little less than criminal. What shall he do in order to serve these interests ? Let him ascertain under what law his church is organized, and especially what are the requirements of that law as relating to the election of trustees. If there is a competent lawyer in the church or congrega- tion, his services ought to be secured. Often the work which a lawyer may do in this way will prove to be a blessing to his soul, if he is a Chris- tian ; and if he is not a Christian it may be one of the means of awakening him to his duty toward 274 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Christ. The result of such an examination will show that in some States there are several laws ac- cording to any one of which the church, in its legal relations, has been organized. To discover that point is the chief end of the inquiry. The legal relations which the church sustains cannot be over- looked ; for while a church is a spiritual body, still, so far as its relations to property are concerned, it has its legal aspects. According to most of the laws under which churches are organized, trustees are entrusted with much power. Their control over the property is well-nigh supreme. They can buy and sell, and they can make great changes in the church build- ing with almost absolute authority. It is easy for pastors and religious officers in a church to come into conflict with trustees, and such a conflict is as hurtful when it is brought about as it is easy to bring it about. Here the utmost wisdom must control. Where the spirit of Christ prevails in the church, and where men possessed of that spirit are on the Board of Trustees, that body may not insist on the full exercise of the powers which the law confers. Under some laws the church is not able to appoint extra meetings, to light fires, or to con- sume gas in the church edifice without the consent of the trustees, should they insist on the full exer- cise of their authority. It would be a remarkable Board that would insist on its rights to such a de- gree as this ; but there are remarkable Boards. Shall any but members of a church worshiping THE ORGANIZATION OF A CHURCH 2/5 in a given place be elected as trustees ? That question has often been asked. According to the laws under which some churches are organized, the body electing trustees is not the church, strictly speaking, but those known as corporators ; this designation includes all persons of full age who have been contributors for at least one year to the support of the gospel in that church. This lan- guage is sufficiently vague to admit of misunder- standing. How much must a man contribute, or rather how little may he contribute, and still be qualified to vote? Other churches are so organized that none but their own members can be trustees. We do not here insist on making this a universal law. There are often excellent men in a congre- gation who are not members of the church, but who could be useful to an unusual degree as trus- tees. Electing them to this office often deepens their interest in the work of the church, and in many instances has led them to accept Christ and to join the church. In determining this matter much must depend upon the character of the men who may be available as trustees ; no rule can be laid down which is of universal application. What we insist upon is that the law under which the church is organized should be known to the pastor at least, and that in the election of trustees it should be rigidly observed. Its rigid observance will apply to reading from the pulpit the proper number of times and at the right dates the notice of a call for the election of trustees, and the clear statement of 2/6 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN the qualification of voters. It will also include the methods of voting, so far as announcing the open- ing and closing of the polls, and all matters per- taining thereto, are concerned. In regard to every detail the law should be observed to the very letter. Such observance will protect the property, and may prevent serious church quarrels. We have known several sad church difficulties and painful litigations grow out of irregularity in the election of trustees. Pastors must give attention to this matter. Many are sadly ignorant of their duty in this fespect. Many have not appreciated its importance. Our theological seminaries have failed to call the atten- tion of their students to matters of this sort, and young men are left to stumble along as best they can during the earlier years of their ministry'. Many questions touching this subject are often put to pastors of experience, thus showing that their younger brethren need and desire information on this subject. Some thoroughly well-informed law- yer could do great service to pastors and churches by giving a paper in the public prints, in simple language, free from unnecessary legal technicalities and verbosity, containing a full statement of the rights of trustees, the laws governing their election, and other matters pertaining to the subject. Per- haps this paper may be the channel through which such information may be given to many of our stu- dents and younger pastors. A portion of this book could not be put to better use. THE ORGANIZATION OF A CHURCH 2/7 2. The election of deacons next claims our at- tention in discussing the organization of a church. In the organization of a new church, their election would naturally be considered before the election of trustees ; but where young men are called to churches already existing they will, of course, find deacons already in office. We have therefore placed their election second on this list. The suc- cess of a church must necessarily depend largely on the character of its deacons ; they should be the pastor's most affectionate friends and efficient helpers. We ought not to make less but more of this office. It is common, in some quarters, to speak slightingly of deacons, but the practice is as objectionable as it is common. The familiar say- ing, still attributed to Mr. Spurgeon, although he has taken pains to deny that he ever uttered it, is grossly unjust to the average deacon. There are unfortunately bad deacons ; and there are unfor- tunately bad pastors. But the average deacon will, we are sure, compare favorably in his office with the average pastor in his office. The office of dea- con is to be honored. If we exalt our conception of the office we shall do something to ennoble the men who fill it. With the history of the election of the first dea- cons, as given in the New Testament, we are all somewhat familiar. "The seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom," were selected to perform service in earthly things for the needy members of the church. They were 2y^ CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN not, strictly speaking, religious officers ; no doubt many of their duties, in the early history of the church, included some of those now performed by trustees. They were elected to give the apostles greater freedom from care regarding temporal things, that they might "give themselves continu- ally to prayer and the ministry of the word." The deacons were not an order in the ministry, although some of their number were successful preachers. Their special duty was to distribute the alms of the church. It does not seem necessary, in this paper, to dis- cuss the duties to be performed and the character to be possessed by deacons. It is fair to assume that the majority of readers are sufficiently familiar with this branch of the general subject, the infor- mation being fully given in the New Testament itself Practical questions, however, often arise and press themselves upon the attention of young pas- tors. How many deacons ought a church to have? At its organization it would naturally have two at least ; for every additional hundred members, it would seem fitting that there should be an addi- tional deacon elected. There is nothing in the New Testament which would limit the number to seven, although as is well known that was. a sacred number among the Hebrews; but this number was not commanded at the time of the election of the first deacons. This number was sufficiently large to secure the faithful discharge of the special duty for which they were appointed. There is no THE ORGANIZATION OF A CHURCH 279 intimation that they were expected to preach ; they were not an "order of the clergy." In the Jewish synagogue, men were set apart to care for the poor, and that office in the synagogue probably suggested the diaconate in the church. Shall they be elected for life ? This is a fair ques- tion. We should answer it in the affirmative, as a rule. There may, however, be good reasons fof electing deacons for a limited period. Where a church is situated in a new community with a small membership, and with no one thoroughly fitted for the office, and every prospect of soon having new men who would be fitted for that office, it would seem to be the part of wisdom to elect deacons for a brief period, say for three years. Trustees are so elected ; superintendents are elected for a limited time, and sometimes, unfortunately, pastors are so elected. Under the circumstances named, there can be no valid reasons against electing deacons for a limited period. In some churches, great changes in intellectual culture, in social standing, and in general efficiency, take place in a few years by the introduction of new members. The men elected to the office of deacon may thus become manifestly unfit for the position. It is eminently fitting that this change of circumstances should be recognized and the worth of the new men be utilized. If the deacons have been elected under a time limit, changes can be made without giving offense, and greatly to the advantage of all the interests of the church. 280 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN The duty of electing young men to this honor- able office is earnestly emphasized. The idea that none but men of advanced age and antiquated ideas should be deacons is an utter mistake. It is not a question of age, but of character, efficiency, and consecration. There were in John's days young men who were strong ; young men in whom the word of God was abiding ; young men who had overcome the wicked one. This was a peerless tri- umph ; this is a matchless eulogy. Put by the side of this the proudest honors of earth and they fade into utter insignificance. Thank God, there are still, in the church of Christ, }'oung men who are strong ; young men in whom God's word abides ; young men who have overcome the wicked one ! Though they are in the world, they are not of the world. They are girded with strength, armed with the shield of faith, the girdle of truth, and the breast- plate of righteousness ; they are panoplied with the whole armor of God. There are, in many churches, young men with unsullied names and with marked business ability — men who walk with their heads among the stars. Such young men should be rec- ognized ; their influence over other young men in the church and out of it is simply immeasurable. We need the young men, and we need the old men ; neither class should be opposed to the other. The church has room for the enthusiasm, hopeful- ness, and enterprise of the young, as well as for the ripened wisdom, the matured experience, and mel- lowed beauty of the old. THE ORGANIZATION OF A CHURCH 28 1 Shall deacons be ordained ? An examination of the methods employed in apostolic churches leads to the conclusion that deacons ought to be ordained. It was customary once in some of our Baptist churches to submit all who were received into the church to a form of ordination. When members were welcomed at the communion table, it was usual for some pastors to lay hands on the head of each person. We know that it was common in this way to set apart those who were appointed to the office of deacon. This act was not supposed to impart any special power, but simply to indicate that those thus set apart had received from God the necessary qualifications for their office. The seven deacons who were elected first to this office, though chosen by the church, yet had the hands of the apostles solemnly laid upon them. The idea is to make more of this office, and not less. It has been honored of God ; it should be honored of men. It is true that in many of our city churches dea- cons are not able to render much help to the pastor. Where they live at long distances from their places of business it is impossible for them to give much time to their work as deacons. Those who are earnestly engaged in engrossing forms of business cannot give much time and thought to the work of the church. Those who have a little more lei- sure are burdened with social claims, and with vari- ous forms of religious work upon committees in connection with our denominational societies. It thus comes to pass that in the hurried life of our 282 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN great cities but little direct personal work can be done even by the most devoted deacons. But even under these circumstances there is still for them a wide sphere of usefulness in meetings for prayer, for inquiry, and for counsel. Many of our most experienced pastors give it as their deliberate conviction that they have never had warmer friends nor more willing helpers than they have found among their deacons. The office honored by apostolic ordination, honored by the gratitude of thousands of pastors, and honored by the benedic- tion of God, is not to be lightly esteemed by any pastor or any member of the church. 3. In the next place, the importance of or- ganizing a committee, to be called " the advisory committee," is to be emphasized. In some churches this committee is called " the prudential committee." But this name is not suf- ficiently specific ; and, furthermore, it suggests the necessity of a certain sort of espionage, as if some one were determined upon doing something veiy imprudent. There can be no better name than that of advisory committee. This name exactly indicates its character. It possesses no legislative power ; it is simply the instrument of the church acting along lines already indicated by the church, or suggesting lines along which the church may act. This committee may well be composed of the dea- cons and the clerk ex officio, and of a number of brethren who are in course of training to become deacons. It oueht also to have in its number some THE ORGANIZATION OF A CHURCH 283 members of the Board of Trustees. They will be able correctly to report to that body the recom- mendations of this committee, so far as they relate to questions affecting the secular affairs of the church ; friction will thus be avoided, and harmony of action secured. In this committee there ought to be representatives of all classes in the church. This method of selection would give every division of the church, as to social position, intellectual cul- ture, and spiritual efficiency, its proper representa- tion. This is sometimes a necessity, in order to prevent jealousy and to avoid friction. It has been found well to elect members for a period of three years, the office of a certain number expiring at the end of each year, and others then being elected to take the places thus made vacant. In this way there is always an opportunity to give recognition to new and efficient members who come, in the meantime, into the church. This, indeed, is one of the uses of this committee. It gives recognition and appreciation to men who may be fitted to occupy positions between the office of trustee and deacon. This committee is the pastor's cabinet, his body- guard, his confidential counselors. The pastor, if a wise man, will apparently do nothing of himself; he will work entirely through this committee. All new business which is brought before the church ought to come through this channel. The pastor will then be relieved of much responsibility and saved from an equal amount of criticism. If he 284 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN has less praise he will have still less blame. He apparently is nothing anywhere, while virtually he may be, in a sense, almost everything everywhere. If he has from ten to twenty of his bravest, most intelligent, and most consecrated brethren stand about him, no arrow of criticism can reach him until it has passed through them. There will be times in the history of any church when this con- sideration will be vastly important to any pastor. While this body is purely advisory its advice will have great moral weight. If the committee is carefully selected, no average church will be likely earnestly to oppose its unanimous recommenda- tions ; and the committee ought never to make a recommendation in which it was not unanimous. These recommendations, therefore, should be especially deliberate, considerate, and Christian. The sense of responsibility in making recommenda- tions necessarily produces conservatism in coming to conclusions. All matters of new business, the hearing of experiences, the receiving and granting of letters, and especially all matters of discipline, must first come before this committee, and through this channel be introduced into the church. There are many cases of discipline in which matters of great delicacy require prolonged, patient, and con- fidential consideration. There are times when such subjects ought not for a moment to be discussed in all their details before any mixed assembly. Times there are when such discussion is absolutely out of place before boys and girls, who form a con- THE ORGANIZATION OF A CHURCH 285 siderable part of the membership of many of our churches. Many matters of discipHne can be wisely settled without bringing them before the church for general discussion. Scores of cases are known where adjustments have been made and painful alienations reconciled through the inter- vention of this committee, while all publicity was avoided. The introduction of these subjects in open church meetings might have alienated families, brought great reproach upon churches and, through the newspapers, scandal upon the cause of Christ. One's heart is sickened at the thought of the need- lessness as well as the wickedness of the average church quarrel. All matters of ordinary business should be ma- tured in this committee, so that wise recommenda- tions could be made to the church at its regular meeting. Often business meetings of the church destroy the sweetness and spirituality of many of our best prayer meetings. When subjects are brought into the ehurch without previously matured deliberation, general discussions arise, and often ac- rimonious debates ensue. Sharp words are spoken regarding matters of very little importance ; matters so trivial that in themselves they are unworthy of serious discussion may yet occasion warm words between brethren, and, perhaps, cause painful alienations and even disruptions in our churches. There are men who, for the most part, are pos- sessed of a dumb spirit in meetings for prayer and conference, who yet can speak earnestly and fer- 286 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN vently for a quarter of an hour or more on some unimportant topic in the church meetings. Numer- ous church meetings are snares of the enemy ; they are entirely unnecessary. To give a whole even- ing, as is often done in some churches, to the or- dinary routine business of the average church, is to waste much valuable time and to incur serious, positive danger. Were matters thoroughly matured in the advisory committee meeting, the business meeting of the church could be disposed of in a few minutes. Churches receiving scores of mem- bers, contributing thousands of dollars, and engaged in various benevolent enterprises, requiring much thought and involving large outlay, are knov\^n to limit their monthly business meetings to ten or fifteen minutes at the close of an ordinary prayer meeting. We earnestly affirm that the loose, dis- jointed, immatured methods so often seen in the business meetings of some churches are a reproach to our common sense and are a challenge to the worst elements of our poor, human nature. On this subject we could speak with warmth, almost amounting to vehemence, of the folly of the methods so often pursued. Freedom of discussion is the right of every member, but liberty is not license. To turn a church meeting into an arena for acrimonious debate is the height of folly, if not of crime. What pitiful instances every reader has known ! God forgive our stupidity ! But, is such a committee " Baptistic " ? Is it not an introduction of an unduly Presbyterial ele THE ORGANIZATION OF A CHURCH 28/ ment into our churches ? We have a right to what is good, even though other denominations adopt somewhat similar methods. It is surely al- ways the privilege of a Baptist church, by its own free vote, to delegate a part of its work to a com- mittee of its choice. Surely it is " Baptistic " to desire and to receive good advice. Whatever, In a matter of mere expediency, bears the unmistak- able stamp of sanctified common sense, and is not contraiy to New Testament teaching, ought to be observed by us. That this committee bears that stamp, the testimony of hundreds of Baptists and the history of many churches emphatically affirm. Is there any authority in the word of God for such a committee as this ? That is the true question for Baptists to ask and answer. There is at least a suggestion found in Gal. 2 : 2 which clearly bears upon this point. Here we see that the Apostle Paul privately, or as the word might be rendered, severally, took counsel of brethren " which were of reputation." Doubtless there were good reasons why the apostle sought for this private interview with representative men in Jerusalem. It is certain that the interview was not before a promiscuous assembly ; it does not seem even to have been be- fore all the apostles, but simply in a private man- ner with a few of the recognized leaders. He wished them to understand clearly the state of the case before the matter became the subject of public discussion. It was greatly important to decide whether the rites of the Jews were to be imposed 288 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN on converts from the Gentiles. This was the chief point on which advice was sought, and not whether the gospel should be preached to the Gentiles ; on that point full revelation had been given previously to the Apostle Peter. The Jews were warmly attached to their ancient customs ; and the attach- ment continued even after they had embraced the Christian faith. It was a delicate matter, there- fore, even to suggest that it was now no longer necessary to observe these customs. If a matter so delicate were discussed before a promiscuous assembly, great excitement would necessarily have resulted. In this private conference the Apostle Paul could much more readily explain his motives and emphasize his reasons. It was also most important that a few of the representative men should be made to understand clearly Paul's position, that their influence might be used to prevent misunderstanding, and probably alienations. He therefore arranged for this private interview. These brethren were his cabinet, his advisers, virtually his advisory committee. Exam- ining the history, we see clearly that the course pursued contributed to. a happy solution of this vexed problem. All ground for discussion, it must be admitted, was not removed, for when the matter came to be submitted to the apostles and leaders, as we see by Acts 15:7, there were some of the sect of the Pharisees who still maintained that the Gentiles must keep the law of Moses ; and but for the wise precaution of the apostle in calling about THE ORGANIZATION OF A CHURCH 289 him that advisory committee, no one can predict what the issue of a more public discussion might have been. In this interview " with them which were of reputation," Peter and James had all their difficulties removed and their convictions clarified. When the public assembly was held, they were able to submit views which brought the whole controversy to a speedy termination. The meeting of the advisory committee was one of the most marked illustrations of the prudence which -we so often find in the life of Paul. It is always a dan- gerous thing to discuss differences of a delicate nature when the passions and prejudices of a mixed audience are aroused. The truth of this statement many of our churches know to their great sorrow and to the dishonor of their Master, We have not made a separate classification of the election of a clerk. This matter may seem to many too trivial to be mentioned in this paper. We are, however, convinced to the contrary. It is of great importance that a man of good common sense and some familiarity with methods of busi- ness and forms of records should be elected for this office. The ability to record the proceedings of a church meeting in words properly spelled and which clearly express the exact truth is very im- portant. If the clerk is absent, the very first busi- ness will be to appoint another. Many churches neglect to guard against this apparently unimpor- tant omission, and the result is incorrect records and serious difficulties of various kinds. Church T 290 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN councils often give painful revelations as to the care- less methods of doing business in some churches. The multiplication of church meetings for the granting of letters and the receiving of members is often a great evil ; it is rare, indeed, when it is necessary to have more than the regular meeting each month. The exercise of sound judgment, and the refusal to gratify mere personal whims, will gen- erally obviate the necessity of multiplying meetings. We are convinced that nearly all the sad aliena- tions which too often occur in our churches might be avoided, and that all the business of the church would be greatly facilitated by the appointment of such an advisory committee as is here recom- mended. No language is too strong to express the deep conviction cherished in favor of this com- mittee, and the danger which will arise where busi- ness of all kinds and in all stages of immaturity is thrown into a church meeting for general dis- cussion. This paper is not given with the thought that it presents an exhaustive statement of the organiza- tion of a church with wide-reaching relations. Other committees will be considered later. The bodies named, however, are deemed to be neces- sary to a church whose organization is vigorous, symmetrical, harmonious, and permanent. XII THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH THE development of a church of Christ is an object of sufficient difficulty to tax the abil- ity, and of sufficient importance to stimulate the energy of the most consecrated pastor. A vast amount of talent is latent in every church. This fact causes perplexity, anxiety, and sorrow to every thoughtful pastor. How shall this talent be dis- covered, developed, and consecrated ? This is a question to which the most careful thought and earnest action should be given. The answer to it is to be found partly in the complete organization of the church, as was suggested in the previous paper. Some specific reply, however, should be given, and some suggestions made which may lead to the discovery and development of the dormant powers in the members of our churches. To this task this paper is devoted. I. Attention is directed, in the first place, to the development of the social life of the church. The first suggestion made under this head is the im- portance of creating and diffusing a welcoming at- mosphere in the public services of God's house. It is difficult to define, although very easy to feel, the presence or absence of this atmosphere. It is 291 292 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN worth much when men and women are made to feel that in the church of Christ they are treated according to what they are, and not according to what they have ; that it is not the size of a man's bank account, or the character o!" his clothes, or the style of his living, but the uprightness of his char- acter and the consecration of his life which deter- mine the esteem in which he shall be held. The church is not a club, meeting in the winter time in the city and in the summer by the seashore or among the mountains. Its members are not to be selected by the rules which govern secular organ- izations ; its spirit is born of the love of Christ and the desire to serve him. The world divides society horizontally, selecting each layer most in harmony with its spirit and purpose ; a true church like the gospel of Christ, divides society vertically, cutting through all the layers and permeating all with the meek and lowly mind of Christ and inspiring all with his constraining love. When this spirit has been generated and widely diffused it will do much toward correcting false ideas regarding social dis- tinctions among the members of any church. It is not claimed that the social distinctions can be ob- literated in some of the relations of life ; but it is affirmed that in the house of God there should be neither rich nor poor ; both should kneel together before God in worship, and should stand together before God in work, remembering that he is the maker of all. In the application of this spirit some points THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH 293 should be noted. Much will depend upon the manner and spirit of the ushers in any church. Strangers coming to a church judge the spirit of pastor and people by the man whom they meet in the vestibule or the aisle. This is inevitable ; this is fitting. Great care, therefore, should be taken in selecting and training the men who are to be the interpreters to strangers of the spirit and life of the congregation. They ought to be men who have learned the spirit of true etiquette in its no- blest school, the school of Christ The Great Teacher laid down a universal law which underlies all genuine courtesy. The golden rule is the high- est law of etiquette. The man who does not pos- sess its spirit should not occupy this position. The position is in every respect a trying one. In churches where pews are rented they must be re- served for their regular occupants until the expira- tion of the recognized time. But some pews are likely never to be fully occupied by those who rent them. All these things the usher must bear in mind so that strangers may be seated at the ear- liest possible moment. He must accommodate the feeble and timid who do not wish to walk far up the aisle ; he must also have regard for the com- paratively blind and deaf who wish to see and hear the minister ; he must consult the wishes of those into whose pews strangers are put. He must also be ready to take messages from strangers to the pastor, and be ready also to introduce them to him at the close of the service. Indeed, for many 294 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN reasons there is no position in connection with public worship — save that of the preacher himself, or possibly the sexton, who is in some respects of more consequence than any other officer — more important than that occupied by the usher. Many persons have turned away from places of worship because of thoughtless treatment or intentional dis- courtesy on the part of the ushers ; while, on the other hand, many have enjoyed the entire service and determined to return because of the opposite treatment on the part of this important personage. The usher should be recognized as under the di- rection not primarily of the trustees but rather of the pastor and deacons and other religious officers of the church. The work of ushers should be per- formed by them not in a commercial but in a thor- oughly Christian spirit. The solemn directions of James regarding the man with goodly apparel, the gold ring, and the poor man in vile raiment must be scrupulously observed ; to do this an usher needs to be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove, because of the rights and sometimes the prejudices of pewholders. There should be a head-usher who shall have entire charge of the work. Gentle- men of good social, business, and religious stand- ing, gentlemen with good address, courteous man- ners, and kindly faces should be appointed to this service. It is difficult to overestimate its impor- tance. The idea must be emphasized that this is religious work and must be performed in a thor- oughly religious spirit. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH 295 Another consideration is the importance of a cor- dial greeting to strangers by pewholders. Cour- teous and Christian service may be rendered by pewholders as they mingle in the vestibule with one another and with strangers. Instead of per- mitting strangers to wait until the arrival of the hour when all pews are free to the ushers, pew- holders ought to give strangers the hand of cordial welcome and the word of hearty greeting, and, so far as there is room, a fraternal invitation to pass in at once to seats in their pews. This invitation at the beginning of the sei-vice can be emphasized by courtesy during the service and by an invitation at the close to return whenever the stranger may be so disposed. Much missionary work may thus be done while going down the aisles or lingering about the doors of the house of God. We lose many opportunities for sowing the good seed of the kingdom by neglect at this point. The same spirit should be manifested to persons sitting in adjoining pews. Why should a formal introduc- tion be necessary among regular attendants at the house of God ? Why should men stand aloof when they are known to one another perhaps as mem- bers of the same church, certainly as attendants on the same ministry? This formalism is as ridiculous as it is unchristian. It is difficult for a pastor to speak with becoming calmness when contemplating such unbecoming stupidity. Old church-members often err at this point toward new members coming into the fellow- 296 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN ship of the church ; but the new members, in turn, err in precisely the same way toward newer mem- bers. New members wait for the older members to speak to them ; in the meantime scores, pos sibly hundreds, of others, who are greater strangers than they have come into the congregation to whom they ought to be the first to speak. An il- lustration will make the thought clearer. A few years ago a charming old gentleman took a pew in a city church. He had come from the South, and had made his home in the North. He said to the pastor after he had been six months in attendance : " I wish the gentleman behind me would speak to me." The reply to his great surprise was: "The gentleman behind you has already expressed a sim- ilar desire in regard to you. You have been in the congregation three months longer than he, and he has wondered why you have not extended to him a cordial greeting." He had never dreamed that he was neglecting his duty in this way ; he had thought of himself as the stranger to whom all others ought to speak. Thousands more in our churches are doing the same thing ; they are wait- ing to be spoken to when they ought themselves to speak to those who are greater strangers than they. We need here, as everywhere in Christian work, sanctified common sense. It is difficult to have patience with those who are all the time wait- ing for a chance to be offended. Men with griev- ances are a grievous trial to any minister ; it must be admitted that in most cases they themselves are THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH 297 at fault. Why should they go about watching for slights ? On the other hand, why should others be afraid to extend a cordial welcome ? Men who are afraid their social position would be compro- mised by welcoming strangers in the house of God, even though those strangers may be of a different social grade from themselves, must have a social position which is very unstable. Those whose po- sition is established and recognized, so that it is beyond dispute, never hesitate to reach out the hand to welcome a man whatever his position may be. When men have a sincere love for Christ all social distinctions vanish, at least in the public worship of God. Still another point of great value is the manner and spirit of the pastor himself He can do much to create and diffuse this welcoming atmosphere. The tone of his voice, and, indeed, his whole man- ner in conducting the service, will help or hurt in this direction. As tending toward an expression of the pastor's kindly feeling in this regard, it is well to put cards into the pews, giving a statement of the hours when he can see those who desire to meet him on any matter of importance, and es- pecially those who wish to talk with him regarding their personal salvation. Even though the blanks on these cards for names and addresses may not be filled up by persons in the pews, the presence of the card greatly helps to foster the spirit of which we speak. It has also been found to be conducive to this spirit to invite strangers to meet 298 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN him at the close of the service. In this way he gets the names and addresses of those who come within the boundary of his natural pastoral field ; on these strangers he may very shortly make pas- toral calls. He may have in this way an oppor- tunity to speak a personal word to those who are without Christ, and also a word of cheer to Chris- tians from distant parts of our country or from other lands. Words spoken in this way have often brought the tear of sympathy to the eye of a stran- ger and ' have often elicited from him expressions of hearty appreciation. Seed sown by the wayside in this manner may bring forth a rich harvest whose full fruitage may not be seen on this side of the great white throne. The second general thought in connection with the social life of the church is the value of church sociables. These should be held, when accom- modations will permit, in connection with the church home itself Many persons will attend when gath- erings are thus held who would not go to private homes. There may be advantages in having the sociables at the home of some of the members ; but if the church embraces in its membership persons of widely different social conditions it is better, so long and so far as these foolish ideas prevail, to have the sociable in the church home. There ought to be some form of literary or musical exer- cises ; those are generally most conducive to the social idea and purpose which are conducted by the members of the church itself The whole at- THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH 299 mosphere of the sociable should be strictly relig- ious ; every part of every form of work in connec- tion with the house of God should be religious. Whatever in the music or in the social life of the church fails to deepen the religious spirit fails to accomplish its highest end. The question has sometimes been asked if the church sociable does not interfere with a revival. If it does the revival must be a very weak one or the sociable a very bad one. No sociable is worthy of the name except it be one which will help a revival. Its spirit may be thoroughly joyous, and yet so relig- ious that there would be no incongruity in stopping its exercises at almost any moment for prayer and religious conversation. Sociables of this character prove to be vastly helpful in deepening religious experience and in leading to a public profession of Christ. There is no reason why sociables should degenerate into worldliness, or into any form of exercise that shall be inimical to religious emotion and endeavor. The three-fold purpose of develop- ing the social, intellectual, and religious life of the church may be secured by a well-conducted church sociable. There ought to be no place in any part of church work for flippancy, frivolity, and mere secularity. The whole spirit must be religious. A third point in connection with the social life of a church is the value of intervisitation. Some- times committees on strangers can be induced to visit them in their homes so soon as their names and addresses are secured. Sometimes the deacons 300 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN of churches can perform this work ; but in many- churches it is difficult for deacons to render this service. In our larger cities many of them Hve far from their places of business. They leave their homes early in the morning and return to them late in the evening. They have little time, there- fore, for work of this sort. Deacons who are not so closely tied down to business often spend much time for the Master in connection with various benevolent organizations, meeting with committees, and engaging in other forms of work. At the same time those who move in certain circles of society are obliged to give much time to the social demands of their position. This is especially true of many ladies. Those who have less of this world's goods have important domestic duties to perform. How then shall a system of intervisitation be carried on ? Committees can do something ; they might do much. It is important that those who live in a given section of a city or vnllage, and who journey to church together, should know one another. It has been found to be a good plan for the pastor, and others who make visits in the congregation in the more formal or regular way, to give those on whom they call the names of a few others in the imme- diate neighborhood, with the urgent request that they be called upon at the earliest possible moment. Perhaps the pastor's next call will be upon one of the persons whom he wished the others to call upon. Let this process be repeated ; and before he shall have completed his visitation of the neighborhood THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH 3OI he will have organized a regular system of inter- visiting. The members of the church will be amazed at one another for the next few weeks be- cause of the sudden desire which is manifested for one to call upon others in the neighborhood. Persons meeting one another in the vestibule, in the street car, and on the streets, will find that they know one another as never before, and thus they will be drawn together in Christian sympathy and endeavor. All this means work. But the result is worth the effort. 2. The development of the church in its intel- lectual life now claims our attention. The sermons of the pastor will greatly tend toward and will in some degree, secure this result. A good sermon stirs every element of the soul. To put a man into contact with the great thoughts of God is to stim- ulate all his noblest powers. No man can do his best intellectual work until he is brought into sympathy with the purposes of God. He must place Jesus Christ at the center of his intellectual system, so that all truths may range themselves in their proper relations to him who is the truth. He who sits most humbly at the feet of Jesus can walk most securely upon the dizzy heights of intellectual greatness. Other things being equal, the best scholar in the school of Christ will be the best scholar in all other schools' The influence of the pastor in developing the intellectual forces of his congregation in this direction is simply incalculable. As a result of the stimulus which the pastor thus 302 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN gives there will grow up literary circles in the church itself. When these spring up naturally, and are wisely directed, they exercise an excellent influence upon the young men and women. Lit- erary circles may be of both sexes, meeting in the homes of the members. A few conservative men and women in one such circle will help to hold it to the purpose for which it was organized, and will make its intellectual attainments contribute to growth in grace and service in the church. Circles may be of one sex alone and, under the direction of persons of good judgment, may meet in some part of the church home. Much that young men receive in connection with Young Men's Christian Associations they ought to receive in connection with their own church. With the workings of such literary societies some pastors are quite familiar, and they are led to bear their emphatic testimony to their value. Here, as everywhere, conservative wisdom and Christian consecration are absolutely necessary. Out of this spirit and along the line of this endeavor there might come courses of lectures to be given in connection with other forms of church work, or simply for their own sake. It is easy to secure lectures from the professional men of any city or country village. These lectures might take a comparatively wide range ; some of the lecturers might be' physicians who should dis- cuss matters of health and related topics ; any number of pastors would assist Lecturers on history, science, art, and various literary subjects THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH 3O3 might be readily secured and would be heartily welcomed. In addition to these indirect methods the wise pastor in his leadership of his church will use direct efforts to induce young men and women to pursue courses of liberal study. He must be constantly watchful to secure men and women who are likely to be faithful students, that he may encourage them to enter upon the work of securing an education. The exercise of wise discrimination in selecting the persons, and then a few cheering words spoken to them, would lead scores and hundreds to enter our Baptist academies next fall. We do not urge that all these young men should go into the ministry in the technical sense ; but we do urge that it is the duty of all to make the most of themselves for God and humanity. No man has a right to be an intel- lectual dwarf when he might be comparatively an intellectual giant. Every man should, as far as lieth in him, walk with his head among the stars. A few words spoken by a Presbyterian pastor in the central part of the State of New York led Na- than Bishop to pursue a college course. During that college course he developed many of those sterling qualities which made him for more than a quarter of a century a great power in his denom- ination and to Christianity as a whole. The cul- ture received in college led to his position as a tutor at Brown University ; it led to the position of Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of Massachusetts ; it did much to lay the founda- 304 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN tion of his great and good influence during his public career. The space occupied by this entire article might be given to this one, feature of the subject discussed. We cannot too earnestly urge upon our brethren that they shall do their full duty at this point. The cry for an educated ministry has been heard ; the cry must go out now for a more generally educated laity. Laym.en are com- ing now into positions of prominence and power as never before ; in business life, political life, social life, and religious life, they are coming to the front. Laymen are becoming the leaders of great reforms in all departments of religious endeavor. We need such men for Sunday-school superintendents, Bible- class teachers, and for other forms of work in con- nection with the church of God. Let the cry go out ; let the ministry do their full duty, and acad- emies and colleges will be crowded with our noble young men and women who shall be fitted by cul- ture and by Christianity for the highest positions in the State and in the Church. 3. The third main thought of this article is the development of the missionary life of the church. The church is to be benevolent ; but it must be also beneficent. Benevolence is well-wishing ; be- neficence is well-doing. The first comes into the sphere of the heart ; the second into the sphere of the hand as well as the heart. Benevolence without beneficence is dead, being alone. The church must possess both of these characteristics. The church must be a missionary organization in all the length THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH 305 and breadth of that great word. It is the instinct of the new Hfe in the soul to give of that hfe. We are redeemed that we may aid in the redemption of others ; we are Christianized that we may Chris- tianize. A man who can keep his rehgion to him- self has a religion not worth keeping. Christ can- not be hidden within the soul where he abides. His presence will reveal itself in the glance of the eye, the grasp of the hand, and the tones of the voice. This missionary spirit must be present also in obedience to the command of Christ. Tele- graph and telephone, steamship and railway, are the messengers of the Cross. They are girdling the world for truth and God. The church which fails to possess and manifest the missionary spirit ceases to be a church of Christ. It is robbed of its high honor and its great glory. It consents to degrade itself and to dishonor its Lord. The church ought also to possess this spirit for the sake of its own spiritual life and growth. Nothing is more certain than the great diamond truth of our Lord that " it is more blessed to give than to receive." Giving for Christ is not simply a duty, it is a privilege. It is not simply a priv- ilege, it is a glory. It develops manhood ; it de- velops Christhood. It lifts a man from his own selfish nature to the lofty mountain top where he may breathe the pure atmosphere, and may bask in the sunshine of noble achievement. It enables him to sing a Tc Dcum inspired by generous be- stowment, while others sing a Miserere born of u 3o6 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN selfish withholding. God is the eternal Giver ; he would cease to be God if he ceased to give. Chris- tians who cease to give, cease to be godlike ; they cease to be Christians. The Dead Sea is dead be- cause it always receives and never bestows. Geog- raphers tell us that it has no outlet, and that from the nature of the case it cannot have one, visible or in- visible. The Christian who never bestows, dies. Each one of these three reasons for the culture of the missionary spirit in the church might be dis- cussed at length. But we address ourselves to the practical questions involved. How shall these principles be brought to bear in actual church life ? A few suggestions only can be made at this point. The pastor must begin with those who are young in years and in the Christian life. He must insist upon willingness to give for Christ's cause as an evidence of conversion when persons are received by baptism into the church. When we are con- verted we profess to give all to Christ in joyous self- surrender. If Christians are not trained to this duty in the beginning of their Christian life, nothing short of dynamite or an earthquake will move them when they have grown old in miserliness. Covet- ousness is idolatry. Of this idolatry many of the members of our churches are guilty. It would be an excellent thing to make the charge, furnish the proof, and exclude the guilty. Such an example might be blessed to their own spiritual good, and it certainly would have a wholesome influence over others who are guilty of the same sin. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ChCRCH 307 The pastor must also urge men to give when they are relatively poor. If they do not give then they will not give when they are absolutely rich. The accumulation of wealth often closes and hardens the heart ; its loss sometimes opens both heart and hand. Sometimes the more God lavishes upon men the narrower and meaner they become. Every man, woman, and child should be taught to give. Further, the pastor must insist upon giving from the highest motives. It is blessed to give because of the good which others receive. It is blessed to give because of the reflex influence upon the giver's own soul. But giving must be inspired by even higher motives. It must be for Christ's special honor. It is often as much a pastv)r's duty to take up a collection as to administer baptism or the Lord's Supper. Some of the ter^derest and most glowing utterances of the Great Apostle were in- spired by taking up a collection. A revival which taking a collection for Christ's cause will hurt is a revival not worth hurting or helping. All giving which ministers to a worldly spirit is utterly beneath the dignity and glory of Christian service. All gold, every gift of every sort, finds its true place when laid at the Master's feet. The pastor himself as a rule ought to present all cases of benevolence to his people. The cause which is worthy of their benefactions is worthy of his careful preparation and earnest presentation. We need the large gifts of the wealthy, but we need also the smaller gifts of the poor. Our great denomination is achieving 308 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN glorious results, but it has not yet reached its highest possibilities. Our treasuries are groaning and our work is languishing because God's people have not laid more on his altar. The cry for retrenchment has been heard, even when God's providence was saying in a thousand voices, "Go forward." We rejoice in what has been achieved but we must go on to greater endeavors and to grander results. Let the church vote on the objects which are to be presented during the year ; the date of presentation ought also to be decided by vote. At the prayer meeting preceding the date when the object is to be presented by the pastor, that object should be the subject of most earnest and united prayer. Let the missionary concert be regularly observed ; let the pastor give full and accurate information. Let him after due preparation present the objects of benevo- lence, and let the duty of a liberal contribution be pressed upon the people with all the tenderness and authority which he can command, and a re- sponse will not be lacking. God help pastors in the performance of this duty. Glorious possibilities beckon us forward to greater sacrifices and assure us of grander achievements. 4. The development of the church along the line of its distinctly religious life is the fourth topic of remark ; but the points already made ought to insure this form of development. In our busy life much is said about work ; too little is said about religious thought, profound meditation, and secret communion. It is work, work, work. We are THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH 309 carried forward by the hurry, bustle, and excite- ment of the spirit of the time in which we hve. Our Sundays are days of incessant activity. Per- haps if we have encouraged the Martha spirit, it has been at the expense of the Mary spirit ; the spirit of active service at the expense of quiet and prolonged meditation. We need both. Christ's life is the model for ours ; and Christ's life was devoted to quiet communion with God and active service for men. Before and after his miracles this quiet communion was sought. No life ever reaches its highest possibility on the public street. Secret communion with God is necessary for wise service with men. We would not advocate the dreamy, mystic, pietistic spirit which has appeared in many different countries and centuries ; but it must be admitted that that spirit in Germany, France, and England has wrought wonders in the formation of character, and, when accompanied by wise activity, in carrying forward the work of God. The danger to-day, except in sporadic cases, does not lie in that direction. It lies rather in the direction of noisy and shallow parade. Books like Dr. Gordon's "In Christ," and the "Two-fold Life," are as nec- essary in our modern life' as they are rare in the Christian literature of to-day. To be mighty with men we must have power with God. Sitting at his feet is the best preparation for running in the way of his commandments. When our " hfe is hid with Christ in God " it will be a daily benediction among men. XIII THE SELECTION OF A CHURCH IT is almost impossible to over-estimate the im- portance to a young minister of making a wise selection in the case of his first church. The spirit and character of his entire ministry may depend upon the wisdom or unwisdom of that choice. A blunder at this point may create memories which which shall be barbed arrows in his soul ; a wise choice at this point will make the recollection of his earlier ministry an inspiration and benediction during all his later years. The special topic of this article, therefore, ought to be earnestly considered by all ministerial students and younger pastors. Whatever may throw light upon duty at this crisis is to be welcomed. The first suggestion is. Do not coquet with churches. Coquetry is bad in every relation in life : it is especially bad when either the churches or ministers of Christ are its victims. Ministerial students in their relations to churches are often ex- posed to this subtle temptation. There is a vast deal of human nature in young theologians ; candor compels the admission that it is not fully eradicated even in the case of experienced pastors. The petty jealousies and foolish rivalries of both students and 310 THE SELECTION OF A CHURCH 3II pastors are not pleasant subjects of contemplation. A call from a large and strong church enables a man to lay a " flattering unction " to his own soul, and it gives him an opportunity to rejoice over his less fortunate brother. Such a call gives fuel to the fires of his own ambition, and permits him to see his brother in the shadow caused by his own bright light. It may be that his actual or contem- plated marriage relations may stimulate his zeal to secure a flattering call. Such ambitions are neither manly nor Christly ; but neither are they unnatural nor ^uncommon. Ministerial coquetry, with its va- ried and numerous blandishments, often victimizes innocent churches. It must be admitted that the coquetry' is sometimes ecclesiastical rather than min- isterial, innocent ministers being the victims of the "caresses and wheedles" of coquetting churches. The process by which churches may be victimized is an open professional secret. A fairly good call is received ; it is too good to be declined unless a better may be reasonably expected. It is there- fore held for a time under "advisement." An ap- pearance of interest is manifested in the church ; but various arts are employed to secure a more desirable call. It comes ; the first is declined with plausible reasons, and the pastorate is entered upon with the consciousness of having skillfully managed a difficult matter. But the man who begins his work as a minister of Christ in this spirit and by the use of these means, has much yet to learn of the first "principles of the doctrine of Christ," 312 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN But even after some men have been long in the pastorate they are still in danger of practising co- quetry. It is a matter both of amazement and amusement that some pastors get so many calls. We are all becoming familiar with the character of the announcements which are a part of the general proceeding. It is mysteriously reported that a well- known and brilliantly successful pastor is to receive a call from a large and wealthy church. In due time the call is given. A few weeks of painful suspense follow ; an expectant world awaits with intense anxiety the great man's momentous reply. The newspapers, having announced the call, indulge in various conjectures as to the probable answer. Two churches are on the torture-wheel of suspense. At length the reply comes ; the matter has been carefully and prayerfully considered, and the call is declined. Letters to both the churches are pub- lished ; the importance of both in their respective cities, to the denomination generally and to the cause of Christ at large, is duly emphasized. This is a part of the plan ; this adds honor to the dis- tinguished man who has received the call and who writes the letters. It is adroitly implied that should the call be accepted the interests of the church giving it would be amazingly and speedily advanced ; but in that event the very life of the other church would be seriously imperiled. What could the great man do in such a case but decline ? Who can blame him? This is the usual order of events. One church settles down to its former condition of THE SELECTION OF A CHURCH 313 possession ; the other to its former condition of in- quiry, and both with a little less faith in human nature in general, and a great deal less faith in ministerial nature in particular. How came the church to extend the call ? The answer to that question must not even be remotely suggested. But in a little time this entire history will be repeated in the case of other churches. Still, there is no cause for serious alarm regarding the interests of the church now favored with the minis- trations of the highly gifted brother. He never meant to go ; he was only coquetting with both churches ; it was simply a case of ministerial flirta- tion. It takes some time and much experience to acquire this noble art in its full perfection ; but here as elsewhere patience and perseverance are sure to result in success. Perhaps the affection of the home church has been stimulated, possibly it has been chilled ; but at least an extensive denominational advertisement has been secured. There is sometimes a practical and mercantile element in these cases of cajolery and flirtation. A bit of history will illustrate this point. Pastor A wished Pastor B to write a letter recommending him as a candidate for a vacant pastorate. A is a considerate man ; he suggested the kind of letter which he wished to have written. After recounting his brilliantly successful history in several pastor- ates, the letter was to state that A was of all men the man for the place ; as a preacher he could draw, and as a pastor he could hold those whom 314 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN his eloquence had drawn. It was certain that with his going several family friends would at once unite with the church, and in the event of building a new church home certain other family connections would make the raising of money outside of the church a comparatively easy matter. Thus the desired letter was considerately, if not modestly, outlined. B was not a little surprised that A, with his successful his- tory as outlined for the proposed letter, should de- sire this call. The church was not an inviting one ; it had but a small congregation, it needed a church edifice, and it could pay but a small salary. Sus- picion finally was aroused, and the question was bluntly asked, " Do you really wish for this call ? Would you accept it if it were given?" The blunt- ness was startling. The reply came hesitantly, "No, I really would not ; the fact is, my people have a debt which they are making no efforts to raise, and they are behind with my salary, and if I could get this call it would at least strengthen me at home, and would possibly stir up the people to do some- thing." The letter asked for was not written. The brother's frankness is rare ; it is hoped and be- lieved that his unfairness, not to use a harsher word, is also rare among Christian ministers. He was selfishly coquetting with two churches; he was trifling with sacred interests ; he was degrading himself and dishonoring his Lord. No man can afford to lose his self-respect. To take this crown from one's brow is a painful humiliation in the THE SELECTION OF A CHURCH 315 sight of men, angels, and God. To a true minister the interests of a church are sacred. No genuine man will trifle with the affection, faith, or honor of a church of Christ. The church is Christ's noblest work, his sublime masterpiece among men. Next to his birth, death, and resurrection, and the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, its organiza- tion was the greatest event in the history of that wonderful time. It manifests even to angels the many-sided wisdom of God. The man who injures the church wounds her Lord. What are the am- bitions, failures, or successes of any man compared with the prosperity of the church and the honor of the Lord ! A second suggestion is. Do not be afraid of a hard field. Every field has in it some elements of hardness. In one field it may be the history and standing of the church in that community ; in an- other it may be some headstrong deacon ; in an- other a rule-or-ruin faction ; in another it may be a heavy debt ; in another there may be, for special reasons, an unusual degree of denominational op- position ; and in still another the church may be in a fearfully cold and dead spiritual condition. Every field is hard. Always and everywhere this has been true ; always and everywhere this will be true. When a man begins his work, empty galleries perhaps rebuke, mock, and jeer him. They sadden, they madden him. Small, cold prayer meetings chill his soul. His field is hard. Few fields, he thinks, are so hard. But in a few 3l6 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN years he may see the galleries filled with earnest hearers ; the prayer meetings large and warm ; con- tributions liberal and religious ; and the work of his hand in all directions prospered. Is his field easy now? It never was half so hard before. Other elements of hardness have come into his life and work. Calls for all sorts of work multiply, and weighty responsibilities increase. To beat one's own record often taxes one's utmost strength. It is well to remember that God gives no good things in this life except as the reward of toil. Work and worth are ever close neighbors. We may not expect to escape the operation of this universal law. All God's servants have worked in line with this invariable principle. Moses had a tolerably hard field when God said to him, "Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the chil- dren of Israel out of Egypt." The history of the execution of this command is not suggestive of an easy task. The call which came out of the midst of the burning bush, contemplated a hard field. Moses had an easy field, comparatively, during his forty years of obscurity in the land of Midian. He had, in one sense, an easy field during his forty years of court life in the Egyptian metropolis. But the forty years of wilderness life made him an un- speakable blessing to the world, and gave him un- dying fame ; but for those years we might never have heard his name. Elijah did not have an easy task when with the THE SELECTION OF A CHURCH 317 suddenness of the lightning's flash he stood before Ahab and made his dire declaration. One can scarcely call Cherith, Zarephath, Carmel, or Horeb easy fields. It does not seem to have been the purpose of God or the desire of Elijah to find such a field. From this hard toil he went up in triumph to glory and to God. From the hard field there was a way leading to the mount of Transfiguration and the companionship of Moses and Christ. Isaiah, whom the apostle designates as "very bold," and whom Dean Stanley con- siders "one of the grandest figures on the page of history," did not escape the difficulties of a hard field. The critics seem determined to do now with his book what, according to the tradition, his ene- mies did to his body. Jeremiah had a hard field. No wonder that for a time he held aloof from the work to which the Divine voice called him ; no wonder that it was difficult for him to lay aside all natural fear and trembling. His was a marvelous life ; it is but inadequately appreciated even by many intelligent Bible readers. He was hated of all men for his Lord's sake. The priest Pashur smote him and "put him into the stocks." Men hated him as a "prophet of evil"; "every one cursed him." But he still reproved king, nobles, and people. In the far-off future he had the glori- ous vision of " a righteous branch " of the house of David ; he saw the people united under " the Lord our Righteousness." " He endured, as see- ing him who is invisible;" this is a possible and 3l8 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN a glorious sight. Perhaps the tradition is true which makes the long tragedy of his life end in glorious mart^Tdom. The word of the Lord was in him as a "burning fire." It is certain that Paul did not have an easy field in Philippi, at Thessa- lonica, at Corinth, at Rome. Think of Paul seek- ing an easy field ! But time would fail me to tell of Xavier, Brain- erd, Carey, Judson, and a thousand more, repre- senting various centuries, countries, and creeds, " Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, . . . waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." To endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ is one element in our divine call, culture, and consecra- tion. This spirit makes and reveals noble charac- ter ; it develops the grandest elements of manhood ; it may also bring to light the weakness which theo- logical seminaries and ordaining councils failed to discover. The furnace is a good school for- God's prophets ; its fierce heat is not an unmixed evil. Storms are good for oaks. The " tribulum " sepa- rates the grain from the chaff! A man had better not enter the ministry, or having entered it he had better leave it, if he is not willing to endure hard- ness whereof all noble workers are partakers. Difficulties vanish before the presence of a man whose soul is constrained by the love of Christ. Toil to such a man is joy. Work is a divine bless- ing;. Christ's true soldiers welcome the fierce THE SELECTION OF A CHURCH 319 battle. Such a contest glorifies his Lord. In this spirit the true workman enters the hard field, and soon the thorn shall be supplanted by the fir tree, and the brier by the myrtle tree ; " and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." A third suggestion is, Do not hesitate to go where God manifestly leads. The Christian, and especially the Christian minister, is a man dead to himself and to the world, but alive unto Christ. He has no self life ; his life is hid with Christ in God. When he became a Christian self was ut- terly and forever dethroned, and Christ was com- pletely and forever enthroned. He is crucified to the world and its vain ambitions. This is implied in his reception of Christ ; this is emphasized in the beautiful and significant ordinance of baptism. What Loyola was to his obedient followers that and more Christ is to be to all his people. What the followers of St. Francis were to him as their absolutely authoritative leader, that and more are all Christ's followers to be to him. His word is their supreme law ; the whispers of his will are more authoritative to them than the thunders of merely human speech. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die. To no man would we render unquestioning obe- dience ; such assumption of authority on his part 320 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN we would utterly and scornfully repudiate. To Christ, on the contrary, we should render nothing else ; such assumption on his part is not assump- tion. It is his right to command ; it is our glor^^ to obey. Absolute surrender to Jesus Christ is the sublimity of manhood. We need more of it. A man is never so lofty as when he is thus lowly at Jesus' feet. Even comparatively impure faiths have had their heroes and martyrs. The spirit of devo- tion to the Church of Rome gives us a haloed his- tory of the establishment of that church in North America. That church has in this historic connec- tion a long -line of heroes, saints, and martyrs. The founding of the city of Montreal by Maison- neuve, in May, 1642, is romantic as a dream and heroic as any battlefield. This Christian knight declared that it was alike his duty and his honor to found a colony in Montreal, and that he would go if every tree were an Iroquois. In some of these brave missionaries highest culture and deepest con- secration sweetly blended. No country, no faith has witnessed more consecrated and untiring zeal. Men of noble blood and refined culture were will- ing to live in the blinding smoke, the bitter cold, the dense ignorance, and the abominable cruelties of the Indian wigwams, in order to teach these savages the truths of Christianity. Near a spot which the writer knows well, one of these conse- crated men kept life within his emaciated body in his tent by hugging a dog during the nights of a terrible Canadian winter. No history tells of THE SELECTION OF A CHURCH 321 greater sacrifices. The story as told by Parkman, in. "The Jesuits of North America," thrills the heart to-day. The blood of these princely men dyed that Canadian soil ; that blood was the seed of their church No story of missionary zeal, ex- cept it be that of Xavier, can surpass that of the brave Breboeuf and the heroic Lalemant, who were sent to the Huron Mission and were captured and tortured by Iroquois Indians in the most horrible manner, too horrible to be fully described, till death came to their relief In all the world to-day the pope has no such obedient children as these French Canadians ; they show a love and loyalty worthy of a purer faith and more Christly church. It must be admitted that the standards of the Church of Rome were planted in that inhospitable soil by as brave and consecrated men as ever went out to evangelize the world. The shores of Lake Michigan were trodden by men of like spirit. Those shores are still voice- ful with the echoes of Father Marquette's words and deeds. He still lives, not only in material monuments, but also in the Christian profession of many a red son of the forest. The church which is blessed with such sons shall win the victories of missionary zeal in every land. If these men did this for Mary, what ought we to do for Mary's Son and Lord ? With a purer faith we ought to have a more fervent zeal. The errors of these teachers were numerous and deadly ; the fruits of these er- rors are still sadly seen in many ways in Eastern 322 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Canada ; but their devotion to duty, as they under- stood it, was simply sublime. They hesitated not to go where they believed God manifestly led them ; no danger deterred them, no suffering lessened the fervor of their flaming zeal. Men with such zeal in their lives and with the pure gospel of Christ on their lips, the world needs to-day ; many such would soon bring the world to its Lord's feet. To send out such the churches and schools should constantly labor and pray. If a man is sure that he is led by the Spirit of God to a particular field, he can endure anything in that field. If he is there by manipulations and artifices of his own, he is stripped of all power. He is a soldier in battle without helmet, sword, or shield. Why should a man wish to go where God does not lead ? He can have no joy, no peace, no success. Going where God leads he will have all which God sees best to give. He will have at least self-respect ; he will have also God. Anywhere with God is success, is heaven. The arts some- times practised to secure calls are as unwise from a worldly point of view, as they are unchristian from a religious point of view. No greater unkindness can be done to a man than to push him by the in- fluence of friends and the tricks of the politician into a place for which he is manifestly unfit. The higher he is lifted the more conspicuous does his unfitness become. The men who during our war were pushed into high places in army and navy by political and social influences, soon went down al- THE SELECTION OF A CHURCH 323 most out of sight. The men who went up because they had abiHty to go, are still up in honorable office or in immortal history. Can a man know that in the selection of his church he is led by the Spirit of God ? Only as he is thus led can he know that he is a child of God. God will never leave long in the dark an honest inquirer for light and duty. A man must first carefully question his motives. If the response from the bottom of his soul is that he desires simply to know God's will, that knowledge will soon come. God may not wish any church to call him. God may desire him to go out and call a church ; for this procedure he will have abundant apostolic precedent. What would the apostles have accom- plished had they waited to be called ? What would missionaries do to-day if they waited for a call from a church? Then, again, there must be a careful study, in the light of sanctified common sense, of all the providential leadings. God often answers the prayer for wisdom by shutting up all doors but one ; that open door is his voice, saying, "This is the way, walk ye in it." There may be, still again, impressions of duty in certain directions, whose origin we cannot trace, but whose promptings we should obey. If our motives are pure, if God's guidance has been earnestly sought, and if God's providences have been unselfishly studied, then we may be sure that these promptings are from God. The man will never go astray whose life is guided 324 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN by this universal and eternal law, formulated and exemplified by Jesus Christ, a law which every Christian minister should take as the rule of his life: "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." XIV THE CHRISTIAN YEAR^ IN this discussion of the Christian year it is ad- mitted, at the outset, that neither in the New Testament, nor in the earHest Christian hterature, are there commands for or intimations of the ob- servance of such a division of time as we now understand by the Christian or Church year. There is clear evidence that in the second century there was a general observance of Easter and Pentecost ; but not until after the fourth century did the Chris- tian year, with its cycle of annual festivals, come before us in its chief outlines ; and not until a much later period do we find it in its present form. During this earlier period there are no suggestions of a departure from the methods of reckoning time which were observed by all the subjects of the Roman Empire. Throughout this paper this ad- mission will be made, and no effort to found the obsen^ance upon the clear teachings of the Scrip- ture will be attempted. This paper endorses the observance of a modified form of the Christian year. Several reasons lead to this endorsement, and your attention is now invited to their consideration. I The first reason is found in a consideration of 1 Delivered at the tenth Baptist Congress, held in Philadelphia, May 25, 1892. 325 326 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN what the Christian year is. Its chief pecuharity is, as Dr. Schaff has well said, "that it centers in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and is intended to minister to his glory." The first impulse toward the Church year was given by the observance of the anniversaries of the great events in his life. The earliest facts in that life to be commemorated were naturally his death and resurrection. Then followed, at a considerable distance, the observance of the supposed anniversary of his birth ; then, in their order, that of his ascension and the outpour- ing of the Holy Spirit. Later each of these great feasts came to be regarded as the center of a cycle ; and, in due time, these cycles were so extended as to commemorate almost everything of great im- portance in the life of the Lord. The true idea of the Christian year is that which regards it as a yearly representation of the most memorable in- cidents in the life of the Lord. It is thus seen to be an annual Confession of Faith, each part of the year witnessing to some great article in that Confession. It kept, and is designed always to keep, before the minds alike of devout believers and of worldly observers, the chief facts in the his- tory of redemption. It is an illustrated edition of the gospel history. There surely can be no objec- tion to the emphasis thus given to the leading chapters in that divine-human life. Many men will not learn this story even after all the attempts made to teach it, alike by those who observe and those who discard the Christian year. Ten men read the THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 32/ story of Christianity as it is exhibited in the Hves of professed Christians for every one who reads it as it is recorded in the inspired Gospels. Every Christian should incarnate in his own character the teachings and example of the Lord. Every church should, in like manner, by special observance em- phasize the teaching and example of Christ as they are set forth in the New Testament, and ten men will learn the significance of these events as they are emphasized by church observances for every one who would learn them if he were limited to the gospel story. If then, we keep in mind the real meaning of the Christian year we shall find in that itself a strong argument in favor of its observance. 2. A second argument is found in the natural- ness, and even inevitableness, of the growth of the Christian year. This growth has a three-fold origin, (i) It is due partly to the influence of the Jewish ecclesiastical year upon the minds of the early Christians. It was impossible that the Jewish sacred year should not have produced a profound influence in the development of the Christian cultus. The whole Jewish year was symbolical and typical ; if we forget that fact we lose much of its significance. The Sabbath was commemorative and prophetic ; it looked back to creation, it looked forward to re- demption. The Passover, with its lamb and all its appointments, foretold the coming of the Lamb of God, and found its full fruitage in his resurrection. The Passover was the root and stalk of the truth of which Easter is the flower and the fruit. The Jew- 328 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN ish feast of Harvest ripened into the Christian Pen- tecost. The Christian feasts give us the true meaning of those Jewish festivals. (2) Heathen festivals had their influence also in the development of these Chris- tian feasts. This is frankly admitted. No doubt they are right who say that Christmas is but the transformation of a heathen festival. The Christians, with a worldly wisdom which all will not endorse, strove to transform and exalt the heathen festivals with which they were unavoidably brought into contact in business and social life. But it must be borne in mind that even these festivals had a deeper meaning than perhaps either heathen or Christians fully knew. They are founded upon the sublime truths which God is constantly teaching us in his great book of nature. The heathen festival which Christmas transformed, suggests Christ as the Sun of .Righteousness for the illumination of the world. These heathen festivals, as has been often pointed out, were unconscious prophecies of Christian truths. The psalmist long ago sang, " Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge." The whole earth is voiceful with truths regarding God, if men will but listen ; the panorama of the seasons is resplendent with the glory of the Sun of Righteousness, if men will but look. Many writers have dwelt upon the fact that there is thus a mysterious correspondence between the seasons and the observance of the Church year. Christmas emphasizes the coming of Christ into a THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 329 lost ^vorld, in winter time when nature appears to be lifeless. Easter reminds us of the resurrection of all nature to life and power ; and Pentecost is illustrative of the summer when nature is in bloom. It is admitted, indeed, that this correspondence possesses its chief significance in northern climes ; nevertheless there are here suggestions worthy of our constant consideration. Similar tendencies are seen in our own day. Converted Chinese are anxious to introduce Christian ideas into Chinese observ- ances. How shall they observe the Chinese New Year? In several instances they have transformed that festival into an occasion for the declaration of Christian truth. They have kept the heathen date, but have baptized the heathen observance into an atmosphere of Christian truth. He would be a bold man who would rebuke the early Christians for doing in their day what we endorse converted heathen for doing in our own day. He is a very inconsistent man who is opposed to the Christian element in these baptized heathen festivals, while he freely endorses the heathen elements which still remain. Many a man freely allows his children to "knock eggs" at Easter-tide, and to indulge in other heathen elements of the season, but who sharply rebukes his children for giving a Christian significance to that joyous feast. Many a man will allow the erection of trees in his home and the burning of tapers in the branches of those trees at the Christmas-tide, although this custom is pure hea- thenism, who would think his family were going to 330 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Rome or further if they attended a service in God's house on Christmas Day. Such a man will boldly observe the heathen remnants of those old heathen festivals, while he vigorously repudiates the Chris- tian elements for which alone these festivals are worthy of our approval. In a town to which this writer's attention was recently called, there was a few years ago a great beer garden. An earnest preacher visited that town and held meetings near the garden ; many were converted and a church was organized which was called "The Garden Church." Did he do right in so naming it ? Or was he guilty of a fool- ish submission to the world and the devil ? Who will so charge him ? It is a thousand pities that we cannot be governed in our church life by sanctified common sense and not by reasonless prejudice. (3) The desire to commemorate the anniversaries of important events in the life of Christ, as has already been suggested, also had its influence in the development of the Church year. The history of every religious and national organization illus- trates the tendency to this annual emphasis. We are soon to commemorate great events in the life of Carey and in the establishment of Baptist Foreign Missions. We are constantly multiplying commem- orative occasions in the history of the republic. A few years ago our holidays were few; soon they will be very numerous. Already there is discussion of the duty of making the birthdays of the unique Columbus, the immortal Lincoln, and the illustrious THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 33 I Grant, holidays. The seventieth birthday of the great general was made this year a half-holiday in the city of New York. It was simply inevitable that with the development of the history of the church the anniversaiy of leading events in Christ's life should be recognized. The original idea was eminently praiseworthy. It served to keep these events constantly before the mind of the people ; it aimed to intermingle the facts of our Lord's life with the daily experiences of the common people, and to call attention to the great facts on which our salvation depends. Unfortunately, with the introduction of other errors these days came to be unduly multiplied. When the worship of the Virgin Mary was intro- duced, then came days commemorating events in her life ; then came the commemoration of the death days, or as they were poetically called, " the heavenly birthdays " of apostles, martyrs, and saints. The idea soon arose that within the circle of the civil year all the great events, from the first an- nouncement of the Lord's birth to the death of the last saint, should be celebrated. It is said that the Nestorians were the first to suggest that the Church year begin with the first Sunday in Advent. Soon the octave followed the observance of the great festivals such as Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and others. It thus came to pass that the Church year, which began in simplicity, was gradually overloaded, that superstition and idleness increased, that the Sabbath was to some degree superseded, and that 332 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN the work of Christ was held in less esteem than the patronage of saints. Even as early as the Nicene age these feasts connected with Mary and the martyrs were crowded into the church calendar. In the Greek Church at this hour there are to de- vout worshipers only one hundred and thirty work- ing days in the year. This undue development is one of the dangerous tendencies of the system ; but a similar remark will apply to all the command- ments of God and to all the apostolic observances in the church. The Lord's baptism and the Lord's Supper have been so misunderstood as to destroy their true significance, and to make the word of God of non effect. We must at every point in church life distinguish between the use and abuse of that which is commanded by divine authority, and also of that which is permitted in the exercise of Christian liberty. 3. A third reason in favor of these observances is found in the fact that they conduce to the pre- sentation of the truth in its entirety. Truth is a sphere and not an arc. We are all in danger of presenting truth as a segment, rather than as a circle. We should constantly strive to present it in its sphericity ; but too often, at best, the truth is presented as a spheroid rather than as a sphere. We are all in danger of riding some sort of a hobby, which soon rides us. It must be admitted that one advantage secured by a reasonable observance of the Church year is the presentation of truth more nearly in its due THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 333 proportions ; thus avoiding the danger of giving almost exclusive prominence to our own favorite fragments of the gospel, and helping to its presenta- tion with symmetry and beauty. One man is carried away by the idea of Christian perfection ; another by the second coming of Christ ; another by some other doctrine of greater or less impor- tance. These men hold a few truths so conspicu- ously before their eyes that they are blind to many other great and perhaps more important truths of the Bible. In some churches some doctrines are almost never heard, while others are heard with a painful monotony and a reprehensible repetition. Surely no one will deny that the doctrine of the resurrection ought to be presented in every con- gregation at least once a year, and surely no one will affirm that there is a more appropriate time for its presentation than the Easter-tide. Then earth and sky combine to emphasize the truth of that great doctrine. At that season its sublime truths are in the heart of the great majority in every community. It would be worse than folly not to take advantage of the presence of these thoughts for the declaration of this glorious doctrine. The observance is here ; it will remain. A man might as well "whistle down the wind" or " bay the moon " as attempt to prevent the ob- servance of these customs. The question really is not, Shall we have a Church year? It is, Shall we have the best possible Church year ! A recent article in the "Watchman" calls attention to the 334 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN fact that many of our churches are rapidly coming to have a Church year of a very undesirable kind, to some degree of an unchristian kind. The first Sunday in January is Evangelical Alliance Day. The first week in January is a sort of non-Episcopal Lent. Then come Home Mission day, Foreign Mission day, Bible and Publication day. Children's day. Theological Seminary day. Chapel day, Bible day. Prison day, Labor day. College day. Grand Army day, Y. M. C. A. day. Temperance day, Education day, Public Schools day, Mohonk Con- ference day, Freedman's day, Christian Endeavor day, and half a dozen more days. Ever>^ pastor is besieged to introduce new topics for pulpit discus- sion and for the offerings of God's people until he is driven almost to the verge of insanity. If he were to respond to all the calls he would need to add a few Sundays to the year in order to com- plete the list. In our Sunday-schools also we are following the same tendency. One Sunday is practically Peter's day, another is John's, another is Paul's, another is David's, another is Romans' day, another is Cor- inthians' day, another is the Twenty-third Psalm day, another is Parable day, etc., etc., ad infinitum. If we are to have a Church year, that which is ob- served by Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Moravians is certainly preferable to that which has now been outlined. The topics contemplated for that year are drawn directly from the gospel ; they are such great themes as the incarnation, the resurrection, THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 335 the descent of the Spirit, the Trinity, and similar great doctrines. We are obliged with great earnest- ness to resist the desire of Boards and committees to give a day to their special work, however im- portant it may be in itself In this regard, as in the case of the festivals of the church, as they are now observed, we are to choose some and reject others. No man who favors the adoption of this modern church calendar can with consistency oppose the observance of a more reasonable, more histor- ical, and more scriptural church calendar such as this paper approves. 4. A fourth reason for the observance of a modi- fied Church year is that it brings out into strong relief the historic side of Christianity. Christianity is now, and it always has been, attacked vigorously on its historic side. A wisely designed church calendar gives great prominence to the essential facts of Christian life and history. The Church year, with its most commendable cycles, antedated the present divisions of the church into Protestant and Roman, and so antedated the corruptions of the papal system. It was that abominable system which introduced the dangerous multiplication of these days. The papacy is a strange mingling of Paganism and Judaism. Romanism is a baptized mongrelism of the same ; and it was a Roman bap- tism — a mere sprinkling. In observing a reason- able Church year we are lifting up our voice against the additions of the papacy to the simplicit>' of the earlier practices. These observances are a 336 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN constant protest against historic infidelity. They unite us with the eadier centuries in a true fellow- ship, and in primitive evangelical simplicity. By rejecting all such observances we practically submit to papal Mariolatry and Hagiolatry, allowing them to rob us of our privileges ; by observing these feasts in their fewness and simplicity, as they were observed in the early centuries before Romanism multipHed and degraded them, we declare our in- dependence of papalism and our loyalty to an evangelical and primitive simplicity. In this respect these observances stand to the historic reality and authority of the church, as the Fourth of July, the Twenty-second of February, and other great days, stand to the reality, authority, and development of the American Republic. They are to some degree monumental, as is the Lord's Sup- per. So long as Christmas and Easter are observed, two gigantic witnesses to the fundamental facts in our Lord's life will continue to give unimpeach- able testimony. In this respect we do well to em- phasize these great feasts. It must be admitted that where these more modern yearly feasts, so painfully multiplied by Romanism, are most constantly ob- served, the Sabbath is to some degree neglected ; but the more general observance of the earliest, the simple, the great festivals recently in the United States has not interfered with the observance of the Lord's Day. We have introduced many feasts into our American life, feasts that are purely national. In some parts of New England there are days of THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 337 fasting and prayer, and our annual Thanksgiving Day, originating in New England, has now been adopted in nearly all parts of the Union, and has become practically a national institution ; and as the nation grows older, other holidays will be added. But no one will claim that the observance of Thanks- giving Day and similar days has interfered with the reverence which we pay to the Lord's Day. Neither will any one affirm that the observance of Good Friday would create less regard for the Lord's Day. Christmas and Easter are now kept by very many of our most devoted church people in the United States ; and without doubt Good Friday and Pente- cost will soon come to be observed with equal generality. Many denominations have united in union services on Good Friday in New York and in other cities, and the result has fully justified the practice. Good Friday has been made an occasion of general humiliation and prayer, and also of med- itation upon the atoning death of the Lord and Saviour. From personal experience your speaker can testify to the great value of calling attention on Good Friday evening to the history of our Lord's suffering in the garden, and his death upon the cross. The consideration of the events which that day sets forth at nine in the morning, at twelve o'clock noon, and at three in the afternoon, has made the weekly prayer meeting on that evening more solemn and blessed than any meeting of the year. We thus emphasize the privilege of all God's people to enjoy the inheritance which has come w 338 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN from the early days of Christianity ; an inheritance of which we should not allow ourselves to be robbed by the vagaries and idolatries of the Roman Church. 5. Another reason which may be named for fa- voring a modified observance of the Church year, is the influence of such an observance upon true Chris- tian union. This paper has no sympathy with the attempts to secure organic Christian union ; such union will never come, and if it did, as things now are, it would not be a blessing. If it ever comes it will begin at the baptistery, for all denominations accept the catholic rite of baptism. There are bodies organically united who in the essentials of faith are widely separated. There are denomina- tions whose different wings have less in common spiritually than have other bodies bearing different denominational names. We need a union in spirit rather than in form, an essential rather than an organic union. The observance of Christmas and Easter tends to such a unity. Differing consti- tutionally, educationally, and radically in every way from the Roman Church, your speaker joyfully con- fesses to some sense of unity in the common ob- servance of the great feasts — not the saints' days, often of very unsaintly sinners, nor other unwar- ranted additions to the primitive feasts — but the great and ancient feasts of the church universal. All bodies of Christians may commemorate the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit. THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 339 Because we endorse the Christmas and the Easter and the Pentecost cycles, we are not obliged to endorse Mariolatry and Hagiolatry. We have no right to allow our protest against Romanism to rob us of the inheritance which belongs to us as Bap- tists. It has been said that " Romanists are Papists and Episcopalians are Apists." Thank God, we Baptists are neither. We are older than either of these churches. Baptists belong, without a particle of doubt, to the catholic and apostolic church. Sprinkling and pouring are historically and literally ordinances of sects ; baptism is the true catholic and apostolic ordinance. Let us, who are the modern representatives of the primitive and apos- tolic church, not be robbed of our rights because of the abuse of these feasts by Roman and other bodies. If any ecclesiastical authority were to insist upon these observances, observances which are not distinctly commanded in the word of God, we should resist that assumption. On the other hand, if any ecclesiastical authority were to forbid our judicious observance of these days, again we should resist such an assumption. Let every man enjoy his liberty in this respect ; let no man unfairly criticise his brother ; let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind and so let him act. Dr. Schaff shows that even such eminent teachers in the early church as Chrysostom and Augustine emphasize the fact that the observance of these Christian feasts was always an act of evangelical freedom and never of legal constraint. 340 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Some of us occasionally get letters somewhat as follows: " If you wish to wear a gown and observe Easter and other similar days, you had better leave the Baptist denomination." To such suggestions we make with equal earnestness, and we trust with more courtesy, this reply : " We wish to oblige you as far as possible ; but really you are asking too much. We are compelled to say we shall do noth- ing of the kind. The Baptist denomination is our denomination. We love it. We live for it ; and, if need be, we would even die for its principles. If there is any going out to be done, you can do it yourself." The man who is so unfraternal, unbap- tistic, and unscriptural as to cherish the spirit and make the remarks occasionally seen and heard, is the man who ought to go out, if any one must go. To the honor of the denomination it ought to be said that men of that spirit are becoming conspicu- ous for their fewness. Any man of sense can have in the Baptist denomination to-day all the liberty which he will ask. No denomination ought to be, and none is, so abreast of the thought alike of the first and the nineteenth centuries, as the Baptist. Men who go out seeking liberty, often find that they have gone into a prison rather than into a palace. In matters not commanded by Christ and his apostles, we have the right to exercise our Christian liberty. We shall not place the brother who does not choose to observe such times and seasons under the ban ; we shall not restrict his liberty ; we shall not refuse him our fellowship and THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 34I fraternal regard. Neither must he deny the brother who in these respects chooses to exercise his liberty, that privilege. We have no faith in petty popes, whether in editorial or theological chairs ; whether on platforms or in pulpits. We shall not limit another brother's liberty, neither shall we suffer another brother to limit our liberty, — our liberty in and not against the gospel, — no, not for an hour. XV SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE ^ AN ARROGANT ASSUMPTION NOTWITHSTANDING the fact that we are in the closing years of the nineteenth cen- tur}', and in the United States, this is still a living subject. Questions which were supposed to have been exhaustively discussed and conclusively an- swered by our fathers have to be re-examined and the positions reached generations ago re-affirmed. In the Protestant Episcopal Church there is a party using all its influence to change the name of that church to the American Church. In almost every annual convocation of that body this party makes itself heard in its attempts to secure this result. In some of the religious papers published by that church, this name is constantly employed. This is one of the most striking examples of ecclesiastical assumption which our times furnish on either side of the Atlantic. One of the smallest of the sects thus appropriates to itself the name of the American Church, and so far unchurches every 1 Delivered before the Home Mission Society, Philadelphia, May 27, 1892. 342 SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE 343 other church ; most sectarian of the sects, it calls itself "The Church," and attempts to adopt a title suggestive of sole religioiis supremacy on this con- tinent. If the spirit thus manifested were incar- nated in the name of the church, as one faction desires, that church might properly be called the church of the Un-American Assumption. By what right is a bishop of one of its dioceses called Bishop of New York ? He certainly is not bishop of New York. No man can be a bishop in this country' except over those who have elected him to that office. The Romanists have certainly not elected Dr. Potter to that office. With equal assumption they have their own bishop and archbishop. The Methodists have not elected him ; they have their own bishop, but with becoming modesty they give him a title which limits his claims and functions to the body by which he is elected and over which he presides. The Presbyterians have not elected him. The Baptists have not elected him ; they have their own bishops, using the title in its true New Testa- ment sense, as belonging to the pastors of separate and independent churches. The appropriation of these titles is a shadow in America of the power possessed by Episcopalians in England, where their church is by law established. It is here an eccle- siastical figment, as, according to the late Bishop Brooks, the so-called apostolic succession is a his- toric figment. The Roman Church, with equal assumption, manifests similar tendencies in our American life. 344 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN It is constantly assuming positions, manifesting tendencies, and occasionally securing powers, en- tirely hostile to the true conception of the relation which should exist between Church and State. We have in this church a subtle, bold, aggressive, and unscrupulous Jesuitical party aiming at the possession of vast power at the cost to us of much which we hold dear as American citizens and as Bible Christians. We are in the midst of Jesuits, who have been driven by Catholic rulers from Catholic countries as foes to those countries, and who are here as plotters against civil and religious liberty — ^Jesuits whose boldness in some quarters is equaled only by their subtle machinations in other quarters. This party at this moment, it is said, is laying plans to secure a division of public moneys for the support of parochial schools. This fight is already upon us ; it has been opened in New Jersey also, and in Maryland, and it is in various phases waging in Canada. THIS IS A LIVING QUESTION. I am no alarmist ; but I agree with the late General Grant, who wisely said at Des Moines, Iowa, in 1876 : " If we are to have another con- test in the near future of our national experience, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's, but it will be between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, am- bition, and ignorance on the other." Several Protestant churches are now taking public money SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE 345 for the sectarian education of Indians.^ The amount appropriated to Protestant denominations for this year is eighty thousand three hundred and fifty dollars, and to the Roman Church three hun- dred and sixty-five thousand and forty-five dollars. I am no pessimist, but neither do I wish to be blinded by an optimism which refuses to see ex- isting dangers, and which rejects appropriate rem- edies. The subject is, then, a living question, a question which will demand and receive during the closing years of this century the earnest thought of the most patriotic and devout citizens of this great republic. It is fitting, therefore, that we should once more examine our positions, once more state our reasons, and once more affirm with unmistak- able emphasis our rights and our duties. Insistence on the entire separation of Church and State brings us, as citizens and Christians, into sympathy with the teachings of Christ and the apostles. Our Lord with rare wisdom recognized the authority of the State in all secular affairs. If ever there was a religious teacher marked by sanctified common sense, that teacher was Jesus Christ. We have not recognized as we ought his remarkable shrewdness, his holy adroitness, and his sacred cleverness. When an effort was made to entrap him and to secure from him a pronounce- ment which his foes could use against him, he ^ This was true at the time, 1892. Since that, however, all the Protestant denominations have declined to receive appropriations, and the Roman Catholic Church is left alone [Ed.]. 346 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN lightly stepped over the snares set for his feet, and soon involved his enemies in the toils which they had laid for him. He at once perceived their wickedness. They asked a question which they expected would place him in a hopeless dilemma. If he replied with an affirmative, all the Pharisees would announce that he favored paying tribute to Caesar. From this admission they would reason that his claims to be the Messianic King were ridiculous ; they would also charge him with being neither patriotic nor pious. But if he answered with a negative the Herodians would proceed im- mediately to Pilate and make charges against him as a usurper. The Romans cared little for the religious affairs of the Jewish people ; but of course they could not permit open revolt from their authority. Our Lord's answer was one of those great truths which go straight to the heart of the subject dis- cussed. Under the theocracy, duties to the civil and divine ruler were practically one ; but now that the hated Roman was civil ruler, the distinction be- tween civil obligations and religious requirements was of the utmost importance. Jesus here gave a great object-lesson on this subject. Holding up the coin, he emphasized obedience to Caesar in secular things and to God in sacred things. His enemies were confounded. Hostile as they were, they were obliged to acknowledge that he had placed them in the dilemma from which he had himself escaped. They saw also that he had de- SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE 2)47 clined to act the part of a political Messiah, and that he had fully answered a question as difficult as it was important He here distinctly announced that there is a separation between the Church and the State. Later, in addressing Pilate, he affirmed that the legitimate powers of civil rulers were of divine origin. Peter and the other apostles echo the truths taught by Christ when, in their reply to those who commanded them not to teach in the name of Jesus (Acts 5 : 20), they said : "We ought to obey God rather than men." They thus made a direct appeal to the best instincts of their enemies, both as judges and as men. The Sanhedrin, claiming to be appointed by God, must have seen the force of this appeal, for all admitted that the authority of God was superior to that of man. The announcement of this principle has had important bearings on hu- man liberty from the first century even to the nine- teenth. The Apostle Paul in writing to the Romans recognizes the fact that the civil power has its rights, and also that those rights are delegated and limited. In the letters to Timothy and Titus, and also in the first Epistle of Peter, similar truths are taught, and similar courses of conduct are urged. It is affirmed in all these cases that when civil gov- ernment makes demands contrary to religious duties its authority is to be denied ; but in other cases its mandates are to be obeyed. Baptist'i to-day, in their insistence upon separation between Church and State, are in full harmony with the teachings of 348 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Christ and the apostles. Our highest privilege is to be in all respects pupils of Jesus Christ and successors of the apostles. Standing beside him and them we know that we are right. Here we have ever stood ; and, God helping us, here we shall ever stand. THE GROWTH OF A STATE CHURCH. Insistence upon entire separation between Church and State brings us into sympathy with noble souls through all the centuries. The early Christians, as we have already seen, obeyed civil law in secular matters, but they dared to disobey when their Christian faith was in peril. Then they refused obedience and received punishment with Christian submission and with heroic endurance. Their persecutions arose chiefly from the ancient laws which forbade the worship of deities which the State did not recognize. The Roman govern- ment was tolerant of various religions when their representatives were quiescent ; but when Chris- tians became active in propagating their faith they encountered fierce civil opposition. It is certain that some of these early Christians were soldiers and that others held various offices under the gov- ernment; but they believed that their positions were not inconsistent with their Christian faith. With the conversion of Constantine we enter upon a new era in the relation between Church and State. Then privileges were granted to the officers of the church, giving them rights similar to SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE 349 those which had previously been enjoyed by pagan priests. The first exhibition of State-churchism is thus a direct result of pagan ideas introduced into the church. The emperor soon became known as Pontifex Maximus. Constantine did not hesitate to place the cross on one side of the coins in use, and the symbol of the sun-god on the other side. The emperors soon came to consider themselves as patrons of the church. It is true that prominent teachers, such as Ambrose, Jerome, and others, vigorously denied the right of the emperors to pronounce on religious questions and duties. Thus the conflict between bishops and emperors con- tinued, now one and now the other exercising the greater authority. In 494 Bishop Gelasius affirmed the superiority of the ecclesiastical over the secular power; and in 502 Bishop Symmachus resisted the assumptions of King Odoacer over the rights of ecclesiastical officers. Charlemagne conceived the idea of a universal Christian monarchy ; and he considered it his right to oppose or to endorse the election of even the pope, as well as that of the bishops. His succes- sors, however, were too weak to carry into effect the ideas which he had first promulgated. From this time the popes increased their powers at the ex- pense of those of the emperors. But in the ninth and tenth centuries the papal throne was nearly overthrown by the immoralities of some of the popes ; and as a result the imperial power again greatly increased. About the middle of the elev- 350 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN enth century Hildebrand put forth exorbitant claims for the papal see ; and soon the power of the em- perors in the election of popes was annulled and given to the college of cardinals. Under the name of Gregory VII., Hildebrand, in 1073, took his seat upon the papal throne, and boldly claimed that the church was the highest power in the world, and that the secular governments owed their exist- ence to the permission of the church. These as- sumptions led to unceasing conflicts with the Ger- man emperor, especially as the views of Gregory were maintained by Alexander III. and Innocent III. Boniface VIII., in his famous bull, " Unam Sanctam,'' held the belief that it was necessary to salvation to believe that the Roman popes had power over everything earthly ; but he suffered severely for his extraordinary assumptions thus ex- pressed. His own death, the transfer of the papal see to Avignon, and the great schism, were the direct fruits of the unholy seed which Boniface had sown. One of the Avignon popes revoked this blasphemous bull, as far as concerned France, although it was afterward restored by Leo X., in 1 5 16. When we come to the time of the Reformation, we find all these principles entering vigorously into the grave discussions of the hour. Luther and Calvin, Zwinglius and Melancthon, and others, con- demned the claims of the Church of Rome. At times they saw the truth, but through a glass darkly ; at other times they were involved in hope- SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE 35 I less confusion and seemingly in Egyptian dark- ness. Some of their writings show that they wished to keep the two powers separate, and that they favored the government of the church by the church ; but, as many Reformers clung to the idea of a Christian State, whose magistrates had a right to punish heresy, there was no clear teaching re- garding separation of Church and State. I do not charge Calvin with the execution of Servetus ; but I have a right to rebuke him for not exercising the power which he possessed to prevent that execu- tion. State Churchism came finally to be estab- lished in the Lutheran and Reformed countries. The Roman Church used force to suppress Protes- tantism ; Protestantism therefore justified itself in using force to maintain its existence. Rationalism and infidelity later exercised some influence in re- stricting the power of the church. The French Revolution, in 1789, shook ecclesiastical structures to their very foundations. The Congress of Vienna, in 181 5, led eventually to the recognition of Lu- theran and Reformed churches, as well as Roman, as State churches in different countries. PRECIOUS TRUTHS MAINTAINED BY BAPTISTS. The persecutions in the Old World, which drove many dissenters to the New World, opened the dis- cussion afresh on the virgin soil of America. All through these bloody periods there were brave Baptists who saw, who held, and who were willing to die for the truth. They held substantially the 352 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN principles which are maintained by Baptists to this hour. They opposed infant baptism, which was the cause of many of the greatest evils which ever dis- honored the pages of church history. They con- demned vigorously the doctrine of salvation by baptism. Among these were the Paulicians of Eastern Europe, and the Petrobrusians and Henri- cians in the West. They vigorously preached the Baptist doctrines of salvation by faith alone. They saw that infant baptism was responsible in large part for the union of Church and State, and also for the bloody persecutions which resulted from that union. In the times of the Reformation these truer disciples of Christ were numerous in Switzer- land, Bavaria, the Tyrol, the Rhine country, and the Netherlands. They rightly denied their nick- name of Anabaptists, declaring that infant baptism was no baptism at all. They were men of civil virtue as well as of spiritual purity. They were put to death by hundreds for their evangelical faith, so that no Christian body has given so many martyrs to the faith of a pure gospel as has the Baptist. The idea that only converted persons should belong to the church was originally, dis- tinctively, and exclusively a Baptist tenet ; so was the doctrine that infant baptism was not necessary to save dying infants. Infant baptism is one of the darkest and dreariest superstitions that ever afflicted the church ; and the history of its observance is one of the most horrible chapters in the annals of Christianity. SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE 353 In bearing testimony against infant baptism and in favor of infant salvation, Baptists also testified to the doctrine of separation between Church and State. This testimony was not merely a lucky thought of astute Baptist philosophers ; it was the logical outcome of distinctive Baptist principles. How came they to be so much wiser than all other religious bodies ? Their wisdom lay in the fact that they grasped the great principles laid down by Christ and the apostles. They preceded all others in declaring the true relations between civil and ecclesiastical bodies, because they held correct scriptural principles, while all others were involved in the meshes of unscriptural tenets. Baptists thus were the first to condemn the use of force in re- ligion. Down to a comparatively late date, if a man said that the civil magistrate should not inter- fere in strictly religious matters, it was known thereby that he was a Baptist. Most Protestant churches have now come to the adoption of these views which once were exclusively Baptist doc- trines. The Baptist who does not rejoice in the history of his denomination must be pitiably ignorant or he must be hopelessly unappreciative of Christian intelligence and heroic endurance. Such a Baptist must have avast amount of ignorance in his brains, or of iced-water instead of good red blood in his veins. A glance over the brilliant path which Baptist heroes and martyrs have made through the dark centuries will arouse in all our people a holy X 354 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN enthusiasm for the loyal adherence of our fathers to the word of God, and for the heroic faith which made them willing to do or die in support of the truths they held. We would be unworthy sons of these noble and sainted sires if we did not bless God for their lives, if we did not consecrate our- selves afresh to the maintenance of the principles for which they were willing to go to the dungeon and the rack, to the gibbet and the stake. In this land of freedom we put the crown of our gratitude and of their enduring fame on the brows of these martyred and sainted heroes. I have shown that insistence upon separation betw^een Church and State brings us into sympathy with the teachings of Christ and the apostles, and also with noble souls through all the centuries. We are now prepared to see that this principle brings us into sympathy with the foremost thinkers of our day on both sides of the Atlantic, and that it especially emphasizes the duties and privileges of a patriotic Americanism. AMERICAN INFLUENCE. With the Declaration of Independence the abso- lute separation of Church and State was intended to be established in this republic. Then all forms of belief secured legal equality in this land. The growth of our churches under the influence of this principle has widely affected political and religious thinking in the Old World. Independence of the State is now claimed by many religionists in Euro- SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE 355 pean lands, and the claim is emphasized by political parties, which insist upon this separation as a plank in their platforms. Occasionally contradictoiy in- terests unite in demanding this separation. The High Church party in Great Britain desires separa- tion in order to give the Church release from her bondage to the State, that she may be free to in- troduce High Church practices which the State now condemns. Nonconformists at this point, though for widely different reasons, join hands with the representatives of the High Church. The fore- most political thinkers in Scotland and Wales are now earnestly agitating these questions. The Church of England has been disestablished in Ireland ; and the Church of Scotland, without doubt, soon will be disestablished in Scotland. Wales will follow in throwing off the ecclesiastical yoke, and England herself cannot long refuse to walk in line in this march of progress. The British government is now inflicting a great wrong upon all Nonconformists. What right has a government to discriminate among reHgions? What right have certain religious teachers to receive sal- aries from the State ? What right has the govern- ment to legislate for a national church? What right to sit in judgment upon creeds ? What right to prefer one denomination over another? These questions must be answered, and they will soon be answered at the ballot-box in every land. Even under the shadow of the Roman Church the principle of separation between Church and 356 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN State has found earnest advocates. The brave and brilliant Cavour lifted up his eloquent voice for a " free Church in a free State." So has Baron Ricasoli. These are some of the stirring words in a letter dated November 26, 1866 : In the United States every citizen is free to follow the persuasion that he may think best, and to worship the Divinity in the form that may seem to him most appropri- ate. Side by side with the Catholic Church rises the Prot- estant temple, the Mussulman mosque, the Chinese pagoda. Side by side with the Romish clergy the Genevan consistory and the Methodist assembly exercise their office. This state of things generates neither confusion nor clashing. And why is this ? Because no religion asks either special protection or privileges from the State. . . The bishops cannot be considered among us as simple pastors of souls, since they are at the same time the instruments and de- fenders of a power at variance with the national aspirations. The civil power is therefore constrained to impose those measures upon the bishops which are necessary to preserve its rights and those of the nation. How is it possible to terminate this deplorable and perilous conflict between the two powers — between Church and State ? Let us render unto Ccesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's, and peace between Church and State will be troubled no more. DANGERS AND DUTIES. We are confronted at this moment by practical dangers and pressing duties in our own beloved land. We have all seen that separation between Church and State was one of the fundamental prin- ciples of our Constitution, and that great instru- ment insisted on perfect freedom of worship and SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE 357 the protection of each religious body in the exer- cise of its religious rights, so far as they did not interfere with the rights of others, or violate ac- cepted moral laws. It is clear that it was the in- tention of the Constitution that the government should not show special favor toward any religious body or to any set of denominational opinions. This view is clearly deducible from the deliverance of the Convention of 1787; but several of the States deemed it important to adopt amendments which should make this cardinal principle more unmistakable and emphatic. As a result the first amendment reads as follows : "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" Although the several States retained the right to make ap- propriations for sectarian purposes, the feeling throughout the country was so earnestly against such appropriations that a direct prohibition was not deemed necessary by the different States. For many years there has been a growing sentiment in favor of an amendment to the Constitution of the United States which should specifically emphasize the absolute separation between civil government and the ecclesiastical authority, and which shall forbid granting public moneys to sectarian schools or charities. Doubtless this matter will come be- fore the New York Constitutional Convention which will soon be held. The separation of Church and State has secured for us many of the greatest bless- ings which have marked our history. 358 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN The writer has the honor of belonging to the National League for the Protection of American In- stitutions, and he has been somewhat familiar with the discussions in that body, which have led to the preparation of what is known as the Sixteenth Amendment. As early as 1875, President Grant proposed an amendment of this character. Intro- duced into the House by Mr. Blaine, it was passed by an overwhelming majority ; but unfortunately it was defeated in the Senate. In 1876 the National Republican Convention at Cincinnati, and the Na- tional Democratic Convention at St. Louis, inserted in their respective platforms planks committing them to the doctrine which President Grant had suggested. The National League already named has been specially active during the past few years in pressing this Sixteenth Amendment, and on Jan- uary 18, 1892, on behalf of the National League, the Hon. William M. Springer, of Illinois, intro- duced in the House of Representatives, a memorial and petition for the passage of the proposed Six- teenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. This amendment is as follows : No State shall pass any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or use its property or credit, or any money raised by taxation, or authorize either to be used, for the purpose of founding, maintaining, or aiding, by appropriation, payment of serv- ices, expenses, or otherwise, any church, religious denom- ination, or religious society, or any institution, society, or undertaking which is wholly or in part under sectarian or ecclesiastical control. SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE 359 On the same day Senator Piatt, of Connecticut, introduced the same memorial and petition in the Senate. Each house referred the matter to its Committee on Judiciaiy. Several considerations led to the preparation and presentation of this proposed amendment. One of its objects is to prevent the admission of Utah to the Union until she is purged of her abominable Mormonism. This amendment raises a barrier against the effort to legalize the Mormon hierarchy, and to make it a part of the government of the State. Two churches, the Mormon and the Roman, are to-day practically attempting to destroy the time-honored principle of separation between Church and State. The Mormons are determined to main- tain the union of Church and State in Utah ; and the Roman Church joins hands with the Mormon Church to destroy this distinctive principle of Americanism. There is no denomination which can so consist- ently oppose the Roman Church as the Baptist. We have ever championed the right of soul-liberty, even at the cost of imprisonment and death ; we have ever denied the right of the State to dictate as to our duties to God ; we have ever insisted on the distinction between Church and State as laid down by Christ and his apostles. We have denied the " compact of the priest and potentate to crush the rights of conscience ; the combination of legal and prelatical tyranny to repress true religion." We have ever denied the right of civil rulers to 360 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN make assessments and to raise money for the support of sectarian principles ; we have ever denied the right of government either to patronize or to coerce a denomination ; we have ever scorned to accept toleration as a substitute for liberty ; we have ever affirmed that religious freedom is an utter misnomer wherever the unhallowed union between Church and State exists. The time is opportune to reaffirm these great principles, and to declare our fealty to Christ and the apostles in their teaching on this subject, our sympathy with our Baptist fathers through the ages, and our endorsement of the brave men in all countries and denominations in our own day, who are standmg for the maintenance of the separation between Church and State. The Roman Church is to be dreaded and resisted in her en- croachments upon American liberty at this very hour. The Sixteenth Amendment ought to be passed, and become a part of our glorious Constitution. We do not say that the Roman Church has not the right, as things now are, to the large amount of money which she is receiving for Indian education, providing she makes true reports of the number of pupils under her care. The Presbyterian, the Meth- odist, the Episcopal, the Lutheran, the Congrega- tional, and other churches, have erred with the Roman Church in accepting public money for sec- tarian instruction. The largest sum has gone to the Roman Church, for the reason that by various processes that church has reported the greatest SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE 36 1 number of children as under her instruction. So long as other bodies take this money, and so long as the appropriations are made on the per capita principle, and so long as the Roman Church reaches, or so claims, as many children as all these other bodies combined, so long will she have a claim to this larger sum of money. The total amount appropriated has been more than half a million dollars annu- ally. The trouble is with the entire system ; it is wrong in principle and it is vicious in practice. It is inconsistent with the spirit of the Constitution ; and if brought to the test of the courts, it is quite likely that these appropriations would be pronounced illegal. Several churches have in their various convocations passed resolutions against taking this public money for sectarian schools ; but somehow, in most cases, the amounts are still reported as appropriated. We here affirm that no body of Christians has a right to receive public money for sectarian instruction. The Protestant bodies, that have taken this money and are opposed to grants for parochial schools in different States, have acted with utter inconsistency. They have taken all that they could get from the public treasury for the support of denominational schools among Indians, while they are opposed to giving the Romanists public moneys for their parochial schools. Baptists give their greetings to all churches that have de- clared that they will no longer receive public funds for sectarian uses ; and we hope that they will be true to their reported declarations. The attitude 362 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN of the Roman Church regarding the so-called "Freedom of Worship Bill" in New York shows, on the one hand, the danger to which we are ex- posed, and on the other hand, the pernicious ac- tivity of that church. That church under this bill is determined to establish Roman ceremonies and teachings in State institutions supported, in whole or in part, by the whole body of taxpayers, insti- tutions that ought to remain forever non-sectarian. The discrimination made in favor of the Roman Church in this regard is a blot upon the history of New York State, and an outrage which no fair- minded American can impassionately contemplate. The Roman Church is determined also to violate the time-honored principle of separation between Church and State in its effort to secure public moneys for its parochial schools. It is, without doubt, the determination of that church to secure this end. Archbishop Corrigan and Archbishop Ireland are aiming at the same end, though they desire to reach it by different methods ; the first is open, bold, and defiant ; the latter is subtle, skill- ful, and politic. The Roman Church is the ill- concealed or openly avowed foe of the public school system. A few quotations from her own recognized authorities show clearly her hostility to the civil power as well as to the public schools : "The people are not the source of civil power." ^ " Education outside the control of the Roman Catholic Church is a damnable heresy."^ "The 1 Pius IX., Enc. 39. 2 Pope's Syllabus. SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE 363 Roman Church has a right to interfere in the dis- cipUne of the pubhc schools, and in the arrange- ment of the studies of the pubhc schools, and in the choice of teachers for these schools." ^ "Pub- lic schools open to all children for the education of the young should be under the control of the Roman Church, and should not be subject to the civil power, nor made to conform to the opinions of the age." ^ "The Catechism alone is essential for the education of the people." ^ "The common school system of the United States is the worst in the world." ^ "The public schools have produced nothing but a godless generation of thieves and blackguards." ^ "I frankly confess that the Cath- olics stand before the country as the enemies of the public schools." ^ Later declarations betray a similar hostility ; the modified endorsement of Mgr. Satolli is practically opposition to our schools. We are prepared to say that no parochial school can give the training which our public schools fur- nish. Public schools should be the great kinder- gartens of true American patriotism. The Sixteenth Amendment will receive the endorsement of intel- ligent Americans in all parts of our broad land. The National League has among its supporters many of the most prominent men in different de- nominations in the country, including statesmen, jurists, divines, authors, college presidents, students 1 Pope Pius IX., Enc. 45. "'' Pope Pius IX., Enc. 47. 3 Cardinal Antonelli. * Cardinal Manning. ^ Priest Schauer. ^ Father Phelan. 364 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN of political science, philanthropists, and patriots. In all these great movements for the maintenance of libert}^, and for all that is noblest and divinest in Americanism, Baptists, alike by their principles and history, will be leaders. The denomination which gave us many brave heroes and martyrs in the mid- dle ages, and which gave us John Clark, Obadiah Holmes, and James Crandall in Boston in 165 1 ; which gave us Clay, Pickett, and the Craigs ; which gave us the heroic Ireland, who preached the gospel through the bars of the Culpeper prison ; which gave us Roger Williams and a host more whose names, honored in America and glorified in heaven, time would fail me to enumerate, will ever march in the forefront for American liberty, and for the right to worship God according to the dictates of conscience. Baptists will ever be ready to say, with that bril- liant statesman, James G. Blaine: "It seems to me that this [school] question ought to be settled in some definite and comprehensive way, and the only settlement that can be final is the complete victory for non-sectarian schools. I am sure this will be demanded by the American people at all hazard, and at any cost" ; and with the illustrious Grant : " Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school supported en- tirely by private contribution. Keep the Church and the State forever separate." XVI THE REGENERATION OF A RACE^ HISTORY is stranger than prophecy; God's facts are more wonderful than man's fan- cies. The quarter of a century which fittingly closed with the death of General Grant is the most remarkable period of twenty-five years in the his- tory of the race. This statement is true as it is strong. You may carefully examine the history of Oriental nations, the history of Greece and Rome, of France and Germany, of Italy and Austria, of Great Britain and all her colonies, and the previous history of the United States, and you will find no period of twenty-five years in which so many great social, political, and moral questions were anxiously asked and rightly answered, as during the period already named. The only possible exception, and that exception is a matter of interpretation, is the period marking the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are always disposed to depreciate the present. We see the past veiled in the mists of memory, mists which soften its deformities and magnify its beauties. We see the future radiant with the splendor of hope ; but the present is, to most ob- 1 Delivered before the American Baptist Home Mission Society, at Saratoga, May 23, 1894. 365 366 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN servers, insignificant, threadbare, and commonplace. We stand too near its great events rightly to appre- ciate their intrinsic or relative importance. We need historic perspective to enable us to see cur- rent movements in their historic relations. Every traveler visiting the valley of Chamouni and gazing for the first time on Mont Blanc, experiences dis- appointment The mountain is not so high, not so vast, not so majestic, as he had supposed. He forgets that the valley itself is three thousand four hundred feet above the level of the sea and more than two thousand feet above Lake Geneva ; he forgets that the mountain is surrounded with snow- capped, white-robed, and cloud-kissed attendants, themselves beautiful and majestic. Not until he has driven on the magnificent road to Geneva, and has looked back upon the mountain lifting its crystal domes and glittering spires fifteen thousand seven hundred and eighty-one feet into God's clear blue or losing themselves amid the clouds, will he appreciate its grandeur and glory as the king of the Alps ; he will be ready then to say with Lord Byron : Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains ; They crowned him long ago On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds. With a diadem of snow. Two brothers-in-law of mine were in the battle of Gettysburg. They have often spoken of the humdrum duties and commonplace routine which marked much of the time during that battle and THE REGENERATION OF A RACE 367 Other terrible battles of those historic days. They knew that they were participating in one of the decisive battles of the world, and yet amid their daily routine and commonplace duty it was hard to realize that they were making immortal history. We are so often blinded by the smoke and deaf- ened by the din of battle in our everyday life, that we fail rightly to appreciate the movements of the great forces which are making for the good of men and the glory of God. It has been said that " Memory's geese are all swans." The great Burke lamented over the mediocre character of statesmen and orators in his day ; but we all are ready to say of the men of his day, and of other similar epochs, "There were giants in those days." We have only to think of some of the great events which occurred during the third quarter of the present century to appreciate their greatness. We saw during this period all Germany united into one great empire ; we saw France devastated by war, and recuperating with a rapidity as surprising as it was delightful ; we saw Italy united, the tem- poral power of the pope forever destroyed, and Victor Emmanuel riding in triumph into the eternal city as king of United Italy. We saw Alexander the Second of Russia issuing his imperial ukase and giving liberty to more than forty million serfs. And we have seen the greatest civil war of the world waged on our shores, the chains of bondage stricken from four million American slaves, and we have heard the song of liberty rolling across this 368 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN land from the mighty Atlantic to the mightier Pa- cific, chanted by rejoicing millions, with the music of both oceans as its sublime accompaniment. But we have not yet fully appreciated the signifi- cance of the emancipation of the American Negro. Generations hence historians will set this great event in its true light. It will be hundreds of years before the characters of Seward, Grant, Lincoln, and other American heroes and statesmen, will be appre- ciated at their true value. It requires great lapses of time rightly to estimate any great character of history ; we are only now learning truly to judge Martin Luther, William the Silent, and Oliver Cromwell. Carlyle, in 1846, gave the world, for the first time, a true conception of the majestic Oliver Cromwell, the greatest man England has yet produced. The coming historian will yet show us that the memory of Abraham Lincoln has lifted itself like a mighty dome over the American Re- public — a dome through which the sun shines by day and the moon and stars by night, guiding this republic along a pathway of honor and glory to the first place among the nations of the earth. Thus it comes to pass that the historian of to-day cannot truly describe the significance of the birth of a race from the death of slavery into the life and liberty of freedom ; but some elements of that trans- formation we even now may justly consider. MANHOOD OF THE NEGRO. The Negro race, by the emancipation proclama- THE REGENERATION OF A RACE 369 tion, was born again to manhood. Slavery made the Negro a chattel ; but freedom made the Negro a human being. Slavery made him a thing ; freedom made him a man. On that first day of January, 1863, the manhood, which had so long been taken from the black man, was gloriously and divinely restored. Mr. Lincoln long hesitated regarding the expediency of publishing this proclamation. Even nine days before the issuance of the preliminary proclamation, on September 22, 1862, he declared that such a proclamation was inexpedient, impracticable, and impossible. But the hand of God was in this move- ment. Guiding the hand which wrote the proclama- tion was a hand bearing in its palnr the print of a nail received on the cross of Calvary. White men declared that the war was " a white man's war," but God practically declared that it was a war for the emancipation of the black man. Southerners af- firmed that the war was for the maintenance of State Rights, men of the North that it was a war for the preservation of the Union ; but the great God taught us that the Union could be preserved only as the slave was liberated, and that if slavery did not go, the Union must go. Mr. Lincoln aimed to preserve the Union, with or without slav- ery. Strictly speaking, in his public acts and utter- ances up to this time, he was not an Abolitionist ; but he found that if slavery did not go the Union could not remain. Almighty God crowned the final emancipation proclamation with the blessing of sublime victories on the field of battle. Y 370 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN The restoration of the Negro to a consciousness of his manhood was in harmony with the teaching of the Bible. During the first half of this present century numerous writers on ethnology, philology, and theology, strenuously urged that the Negro did not belong to the human family. The cruel treat- ment to which he was subjected was in harmony with this unscientific, unscriptural, and inhuman teaching. Thank God, the day has passed when science, falsely so-called, shall be employed to de- grade and dehumanize any member of our race. Thank God, the day has passed when the Bible will be used as a missile to strike the crown of manhood from the noble, though sable, brow of a being made in the image of God. In the very first chapter of Genesis the unity of the human race is implied. After the flood, as we learn by the eleventh chapter of Genesis, " the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech." This statement clearly teaches that there was but one nationality, and implies that this nationality was of one blood. In the Apostle Paul's magnificent sermon on Mars Hill, he teaches us that God made of one blood all nations of men. Biblical scholarship, it is safe to affirm, will never again deny the humanity of the Negro, and never again strive to place him outside the human family. The belief in the manhood of the Negro is in harmony with all that we know of the antiquity of his race. The word Ethiopia, the biblical Gush, is probably used to describe those whose color was black and whose blood was akin to that of the THE REGENERATION OF A RACE 37 1 Negro; the word Ethiopian means "sunburned." We know that the Negro race can be traced to a period three thousand years before the birth of Christ. Colonel G. W. Williams, to whom I am indebted for several historic allusions, has shown in his "History of the Negro Race in America," that monuments are found in a Theban tomb which show both the antiquity and the dignity of the Negro people. There a Negress, who ap- parently is a princess, is represented as drawn by oxen whose driver and groom are red-colored Egyptians. A belief in the manhood of the Negro is also in harmony with all the achievements of his race. These achievements are both numerous and endur- ing. He has an honorable place on the monu- ments, in the temples, and on the pyramids of the older races of the earth. He won fame in the armies of Egypt under Sesostris, and in the vast armies of Xerxes. Herodotus makes eighteen of the Egyptian kings to have been Ethiopians. Some of the idols in Japan are represented as woolly-haired Negroes ; so are some idols in Siam ; and Osiris in Egypt is frequently represented as being black. And in some countries Vishnu and Buddha are rep- resented with Negro features. Some writers have supposed that the wife of Moses was a Negress ; and Dr. James Hamilton speaks of her as a "sable prin- cess." We know that "hoary Meroe," with which city Moses as a soldier was brought into contact, was the chief city of the Negroes on the Nile. 372 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Before Romulus founded Rome, and even before Homer, The blind old man of Scio' s rocky isle, sang on the shores of the Mediterranean of the glories of Greece, Meroe was a city of splendor and glory. The private and public buildings, the colossal walls and stupendous gates of Meroe made it famous among the cities of the world. Its in- ventive genius and varied scholarship made it the cradle of civilization, and the mother of art. Meroe was the queenly city of Ethiopia ; here learning found a home ; and to this city great caravans brought silver and gold, ivory and frankincense and other rich products from all parts of Africa. Negroes seem to have been the builders of the city of Thebes, with its hundred gates, its wonderful temples, and its glorious palaces — Thebes which supplanted Memphis, the ancient capital of the Pharaohs. Ethiopia probably gave learning to Egypt, Egypt to Greece, Greece to Rome, and Rome to Britain, and Britain to the world. Mar- velous was the Negro civilization of that early day. There are, it is said, not fewer than one hundred and thirty-seven tribes of Negroes represented in America to-day. Some of these, no doubt, and perhaps the majority of them, were of the lower order of Negroes ; but others were of the regal races of Africa. Out of the thirty millions of souls who during three hundred and sixty years were dragged from Africa, and about one-half of whom THE REGENERATION OF A RACE 373 survived the horrors of slave-ships, many were the descendants of the imperial Ethiopians of "the brave days of old." Echoes of that far-off time and of those superb achievements must have floated through the memory of slaves as they toiled under the master's lash in the fields of the Sunny South. SOLDIERSHIP OF THE NEGRO. The Negro, by the Emancipation Proclamation, was born again to soldiership. The Negro lost his early greatness by forgetting God and practising idolatry. The Negro was degraded as the result of sin ; but he was not so degraded as to be in- different to the possibilities awaiting human en- deavor on the American continent. It is a most interesting fact that the first blood shed during the American Revolution was the blood of a Negro. There was much discussion in those early days as to the wisdom of arming the Negroes. England sent many slaves to the American plantations, and the part which these slaves should take when hos- tilities began was very important. It is instructive to study the records of that early day and to ob- serve the solicitude manifested and the embarrass- ment experienced by the American colonists. On the second day of October, 1750, the Boston "Ga- zette" called attention to a "Runaway," "a Molatto Fellow, about twenty-seven years old, six feet two inches high." Twenty years later the name of this slave once more appeared in the journals of Boston. This time he was not advertised as a " Runaway," 374 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN but the papers wrote of him in glowing terms as a Negro patriot, soldier, and martyr. On March 5, 1770, occurred the Boston Massacre. This manly- looking fellow, Crispus Attucks, was a commanding figure among the irate colonists. As our Negro author tells us, he had listened to the fiery elo- quence of Otis, the convincing arguments of Sewall, and the tender pleadings of Belknap, until the sacred fires of patriotism burned in his soul. He led in the bloody drama which opened an eventful and thrilling chapter in American history. He attacked the "main-guard" of the ministerial army; then Captain Preston's guns were discharged, and the brave Attucks went down before the terrible fire. They did well to bury him from Faneuil Hall, so fittingly called "the cradle of liberty." Four hearses bore to one grave the bodies of Attucks, Caldwell, Gray, and Maverick. Negroes responded to every call to arms from Mas- sachusetts Bay to Lake Champlain. Every North- ern colony had its troops of Negroes ; and, with the exception of the black regiment of Rhode Island, they were not in separate organizations. At first only free Negroes were admitted into the army ; but before the war closed Negroes were purchased and sent into the war with the offer of freedom and fifty dollars bounty at the close of their service. At Bunker Hill the Negroes dis- played bravery of the highest order ; and Bancroft gives just praise to the heroic Negroes who partici- pated in this battle. Major Pitcairn, the gallant THE REGENERATION OF A RACE 375 officer of the British marines, led the charge against the redoubt, shouting, "The day is ours!" His presence intimidated many of the soldiers who con- fronted him, and at this critical moment Peter Salem, a private in Col. Nixon's regiment of the Continental Army, dashed forward and shot down the advancing major. Peter Salem was then a slave, but the sense of liberty made him a hero on that historic occasion. Salem Poor was another Negro soldier who won for himself fame and glory at Bunker Hill. In the war of 1812, there was no doubt as to the help which the Negroes could render in battle. In the battle of New Orleans, in the battle on Lake Erie, and in other of the great battles of the period, the Negro has an honorable place. The brush of the painter has given him his deserved share of praise by placing him in the painting commemorating Perry's victory, the superb painting hanging in the Capitol of the Nation. In the great Civil War he had his place, and won glory which will never be taken from him. Slavery found its apologists in every rank of society. Even the pulpit of Lyman Beecher and that of the great Channing was practically silent regarding the sin of slavery. Apologists of slavery were found in Stuart of Andover, in Alexander of Princeton, and in scores of other men in pulpits and theological chairs ; but brave men were not wanting who lifted up their voices like trumpets in many parts of the land. Parker, Lovejoy, Birney, the immortal John Brown, Lundy, Garrison, Phillips, and a host of 3/6 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN other heroes and patriots were heard against the sin of slavery and regarding the hope of freedom. No man can pronounce the names of Fort Harri- son, Port Hudson, Port Royal, and Fort Wagner, without recalling the bravery of Negro troops. Nearly a decade after the battle of Fort Harri- son, September 29, 1864, where Negroes made one of the most brilliant charges of the war, with "Remember Fort Pillow" as their battle-cry, General Butler in Congress, in a speech on the Civil Rights Bill, pronounced a glowing eulogy on the bravery of the Negro troops as he described that battle, and especially the space of three hun- dred yards long, and " not wider than the clerk's desk," in which lay the dead bodies of five hundred and forty-three of " my colored comrades, fallen in defense of their country, who had offered their lives to uphold its flag and its honor, as a willing sacrifice," We remember, with special interest, the "Fifty-fourth Massachusetts," whose signal bravery is commemorated in the volume entitled "A Black Regiment." We cannot forget that dur- ing the war for the Union, including white officers, one hundred and eighty-six thousand and seventeen black men enlisted in the service of the nation, and participated in two hundred and forty-nine battles. We cannot forget the blood of Crispus Attucks, nor that of Nicholas Biddle, a member of the first company that passed through Baltimore in April, 1861 ; we cannot forget that the first regiment to enter Petersburg was composed of Negroes ; we THE REGENERATION OF A RACE 377 cannot forget that the first troops to enter Rich- mond were two divisions of Negroes ; we cannot forget that the last guns fired at Lee's army at Appomattox were fired by Negroes ; we cannot forget that the last volley of the war was fired by the colored troops on May 15, 1865, at Palmetto Ranch, Texas ; and the world will never forget that when President Lincoln was silent in death, a Negro regiment guarded his remains and marched in the stately procession which bore the immortal man from the White House. And the South and the world ought never to forget that when "the cradle and the grave were robbed to furnish men to sustain the Confederacy in its last terrible struggles," the wives and children of these Con- federates, who were fighting to make slavery per- petual, were committed to the keeping of Negroes, and most loyally and tenderly did they keep this sacred trust. CITIZENSHIP OF THE NEGRO. With the Emancipation Proclamation came the new birth of the Negro to American citizenship. The close of the war found the Negro in a distressed condition. He was without experience, without suitable clothing, without a home, and thousands were without a name. Their rejoicing over free- dom was long and loud, but then came the build- ing up of a race under new conditions and amid terrific trials. The period of reconstruction was, to a great degree, a period of misconstruction. ^yS CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Evils of every kind ran riot ; the Negro was forced into positions for which he was utterly unfitted. He was given the statute book when he ought to have been given the spelling-book ; he was sent to the legislature when he ought to have been sent to a common school. It is easy now to criticise the follies and wrongs of that disorganized period. Many of the South refused to take part in the re- construction of the government, and many who were willing to take part were unfitted for the task. Bad men, both of the North and of the South, took advantage of the situation for personal gain and for political ambition. The death of Mr. Lincoln made the task of reconstruction enormously difficult. President Johnson was without the training and the ability of any sort for so great an undertaking. The government admitted the Negro to share the honors of citizenship, but like many white men who have the ballot he was not fully qualified to exercise the right of suffrage. He must now, how- ever, fully qualify himself for this high honor. Probably he will never be permitted to exercise this right, as the law, properly interpreted, de- mands, until he has developed in knowledge, in character, and in the acquisition of property. It will scarcely be denied that in many parts of the South he is practically disfranchised, and it will scarcely be claimed that it is wise now to insure him his rights at the point of the bayonet in the hands of United States troops. The colored man must accept the responsibility as well as the hon- THE REGENERATION OF A RACE 379 ors of citizenship. He is henceforth to be a man among men. He must understand that no issue in State or national government is foreign to him. He has already proved his patriotism for his native land, and already his life is undergoing a radical change. With citizenship have come the sacred- ness of marriage and the responsibility of parent- hood. All the horrors of slavery are soon to be but a sad and terrible memory, and already he is interested in the education of his children, and in preparing competent teachers and preachers for his race. The day of jubilee over freedom is giving place to the stern realities of work which will fit him for that freedom. He is turning from his semi-civilization to the duties of the living present and the hopes of the mysterious and glorious fu- ture. Already he is learning that " man shall not live by bread alone." He is now passing through the fiery trials incident to freedom and precedent to growth in all the elements of civilization. It was said at the time of his emancipation that the Negro would perish in freedom, but this proph- ecy facts utterly disprove. The race has almost dou- bled since the issuance of the Emancipation Procla- mation. The time may yet come when he will be the most numerous race on this continent. It has been said that the Negro ought to be deported, but by the time the ships had returned for a second load the births would be greater than the numbers the ships had carried away. Race prejudice must give way as the Negro develops character and se- 380 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN cures culture and wealth. Without wealth he can- not have leisure, and without leisure he cannot fully develop intellectual power, and without in- tellectual power he cannot make needful progress. We must recognize his rights as a citizen. He is not to be the subject of pity ; he simply asks jus- tice. More he does not ask ; less we ought not to give. He is now bound up with us for weal or woe in the history of the American Republic. He is an American of the Americans. Ignorant, su- perstitious, and immoral as many Negroes doubt- less are, they are far more worthy of the honors of citizenship than thousands of priest-ridden immi- grants from countries dominated by the papacy. A thousand times better would it be for us to trust our future to the patriotic, loyal, heroic Negro, than to the inflammable communist, the dynamite nihilist, and the ignorant and un-American Ro- manist BORN TO SCHOLARSHIP. The Negro has been born again to scholarship also. The tendency of slavery was to blot out every element of humanity. Only as it made the Negro less a man and more a brute did it maintain its supremacy. There were affectionate and Chris- tian masters, and they treated their slaves with marked kindness. But a careful examination of their kindness will show that it was, to a great degree, such kindness as would be shown to do- mestic animals, rather than that which springs from THE REGENERATION OF A RACE 38 1 a sense of brotherhood with the Negro. In most cases his ignorance, at the time of the emancipa- tion, was as dense as the African forests and as black as his own skin. Touching is it to learn of his anxious desires to acquire knowledge. Men who had preached the gospel for fifty years were found in the schools established by the noble Gen. O. O. Howard, by our grand Home Mission So- ciety, and by the various denominations, studying with little children that they might learn how to read the name of Christ, who had bought them with his precious blood. Marvelous are the possibilities and the achieve- ments of this abused race. A new day has dawned upon the Negro of America and of the world. A nation has been born in a day. The Negro has an inborn love for music, he has a remarkable mem- ory, and an eloquence in speech that never fails to stir his countrymen. The American Negro in these days is not the African Negro in his degraded days. The American Negro is quite another product. He is civilized, Americanized, and largely Christianized. He is Anglo-Saxonized to a great degree. In many cases the so-called Negro is more Saxon than Ne- gro. He is racially, nationally, educationally, and religiously a new creature. His actualities are mar- velous to men ; his potentialities only God can rightly estimate. Our Negro students are pushing forward with a vigor and success as inspiring as wonderful. All the great colleges of the North are open to the Negro ; Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Chi- 382 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN cago, Rochester, and Hamilton offer a helping hand. There is no treasury of wealth in library, or museum, or in brain of professors, to which he is not wel- come. He has already won honors in the most famous colleges of America and of the world. He has proved his ability as a scholar as truly as his bravery as a soldier. He is climbing up the heights of fame and soon will stand upon its sun- kissed summit. The schools established by the various churches in the South are regenerating the Negro race. Money has been poured with lavish hand into the building and conduct of these schools. Men of the North have made their names immortal because of their gifts to their black brothers and sisters. Call the roll of our Southern Baptist schools for the Negro ; it is an honored and immortal roll. Some of the noblest men and women in the Bap- tist ranks have associated their names with these schools. Men and women who now wear the crown of glory, have found that crown resplendent with stars because of their work for their black brethren. Men and women still among us have their names pronounced by the rising race of Negroes with gratitude to God and with benedic- tion upon these noble donors. A NOBLER CHRISTIANITY. The Negro has also been born again to a nobler Christianity. Many of the race were, in a sense, unduly religious in their time of bondage ; they THE REGENERATION OF A RACE 383 had a vague faith in God as a deliverer ; they had zeal without knowledge. Many of them still have more zeal than knowledge. Many have largely separated between an exciting religious experience and a practical morality. Many of them are to this hour largely under the influence of African paganism and its unwholesome traditions. But a brighter day is dawning ; a brighter day has already dawned. This true Christianity is closely allied to the new scholarship of which mention has been made. The two cannot be separated. Ignorance may be the mother of gross superstition, but never of true devotion. True scholarship must ever kindle its torch at the cross of Christ ; true disciple- ship must ever study in the school of Christ, which is the noblest university. But these colored people labor under great disadvantages. Practically, the great universities of the South are closed against them ; practically, many of the great trades in the North are closed against them. They are a de- spised race ; they struggle against great odds ; they are handicapped in every step they take. They are shut out from many profitable trades and help- ful labor organizations. Many army officers, when discussions arose regarding the recruiting of Ne- groes, declared that they would never serve in the army with Negroes, whom they invariably called " '^igge^'s," as so many to their own dishonor still do. When we consider their disadvantages we are simply amazed at the progress they have made. 384 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Has not the time come when the Christians of the South may join hands with the Christians of the North for a greater upHfting of the Negro people? Baptists of the South must, and we beHeve will, join hands with their brethren of the North for the sake of a common country, a common flag, a com- mon faith, and a common Lord, to give the Negro all his rights, to remove from him all his disabilities, and to start him afresh on the path of national and Christian progress. Out of the eight million Ne- groes in the South about one million five hundred thousand are members of Baptist churches. It is safe to say that about four millions, or one-half of the entire number, are directly or indirectly under the influence of Baptist teaching. A tremendous responsibility is thus laid upon us as a denomina- tion in regard to the Negro race. With an en- thusiasm for humanity, with loyalty to our catholic and apostolic faith as Baptists, and with fervent devotion to Jesus Christ, who died for men of all colors, we must lay ourselves on the altar of serv- ice for the Negro at this crucial moment. THREE REASONS. Three great objects will soon be attained if we do our full duty to the black man of the South. First, he will save us from the dangers of sectional- ism. Christ put a little child in the midst of war- ring disciples to teach them lessons of humility, do- cility, and loyalty. God has put these millions of blacks in the midst of Baptists North and South THE REGENERATION OF A RACE 385 that they may forget their sectionahsm and think only of their duty to their fellow-men and to their common Lord. I believe in every drop of my blood that God has wonderful possibilities, nation- ally and religiously, at this moment to be accom- plished through the instrumentality of the Negro. Baptists North are proud of Baptists South ; those of the South of those of the North. At Dallas, Texas, a committee has just been appointed to consult with Northern brethren regarding plans for common work for the Negro. This is a hopeful indication. We shall meet this overture in the spirit of love and loyalty to our black brothers and to our divine Master. The time has surely come when all true Baptists of the South will feel that helping in the support of our Southern schools is alike their duty and their privilege. They must not, they will not, longer remain even partially indifferent to the work of these schools ; and they will no longer even apparently ostracise those who work for the Negro. All their interests as American citizens and as Bible Christians compel them to take hold of this work and to lift the Negro to his true place as an American citizen and as a Bible Christian. No method of work which denies to the Negro the honors of manhood, the rights of brotherhood, and the blessings of Christhood can ever be considered by true brethren either North or South. Standing beside the Negro we shall declare with an emphasis born of human sympathy and Christian devotion, 386 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN that whether a man be white or black, " a man's a man for a' that." God grant that even now we may see the eastern sky colored with the crimson and gold of a new day, proclaiming that sectional- ism is dead and buried in a grave so deep that it shall never know a resurrection, and that Baptists North and South will work with an enthusiasm and a consecration for the honor of Christ and for the uplifting of the black man to the highest citizen- ship, the truest brotherhood, and the noblest Chris- tianity ! A second reason for doing our full duty to the Negro is that he may yet protect us from anarch, ism. The dangers from anarchism to this republi( are real and at times menacing. Both great polit ical parties must put into their respective platform* planks favoring restricted immigration. The time was when we needed population. We urged men of every class and from every country to come to this land. We looked upon all foreigners as possible cit- izens of great worth ; we regarded all as probable Lafayettes, Steubens, and Pulaskis. But that day has passed not to return. We have known too much of the anti-draft riots of 1863, arid of the inflam- mable material sent to us from Italy, Poland, Hungary, and other similar countries. We have made naturalization laws too lax, and we have very laxly administered these lax laws. Judges have, in the interest of party politics, admitted men to citizenship whose residence in America could be numbered by hours rather than by years, Fraudu THE REGENERATION OF A RACE 387 lent certificates and wholesale perjuries have re- sulted in the naturalization of ignorant, superstitious, and un-American foreigners. Latterly the quality of immigration from Sicily, Southern Italy, Russia, Poland, and Hungary has made the earlier immigration seem, by contrast, almost a desirable acquisition. The time has come when we must cease to make America the dump- ing ground for the worst populations of Europe. We must teach foreigners that liberty is not license, and that the hand of law in a republic can be as heavy, when lifted against the lawless, as under a monarchy. We must insist upon it that we shall not import anarchy and dynamite by shiploads. We must learn that Ellis Island is the place to begin when we would stop lawless outbreaks in the min- ing regions of Pennsylvania. God in heaven save America from the floods of ignorance, superstition, and savagery that have been pouring for the past few years into our beloved land ! We must insist upon having Americans for America. Just at this point the Negro has a great mission to perform. He is a true American, as are but few in this land. He came to us on a Dutch man-of-war in 1619, when fourteen or twenty Negroes were offered for sale to colonists in Vir- ginia, in August of that year. Virginia thus, through her English colonists, was the mother of slavery as well as the mother of presidents. Eng- land, in all her colonies, was only too ready to use the strong hand of power against a weaker people. 388 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN God forgive the North and South, Britain and her colonies, for the sin of slavery ! Negroes are, there- fore, as I have said, Americans of Americans. They have been the sufferers of wrong rather than the perpetrators of wrong. It was Irish and other mobs which created the anti-draft riots, which hung Negroes to the lamp-posts in the city of New York, and which destroyed Negro orphan asylums. The day is coming when the Negro will once more be the supporter of distinctively American institu- tions as in the days of the Revolutionary War, when he fought at Bunker Hill ; as in the days of 1812, when he fought in New Orleans and on Lake Erie ; and as in the days of the Rebellion, when he baptized American soil with his loyal blood. The Negro has still a great mission to perform for the elevation of his own race, for upholding the American flafj, honoring the American Constitu- tion, and perhaps protecting America from anarch- ism, socialism, Romanism, and other isms equally dangerous and terrific. He is an example, where he has had a fair opportunity, of industry, economy, and success. During all these hard times in the city of New York, and in the country as a whole, the number of Negroes who are beggers and paupers has been gratifyingly small. It fell to my lot, as the pastor of the Calvary Church, to be the channel for giving supplies during a period of six weeks to three thousand of the poor in New York. Not one family of colored people asked help ; to one colored widow help was offered by me and not THE REGENERATION OF A RACE 389 solicited by her. Not once, during all these try- ing weeks and months, have I been solicited for alms on the street by man, woman, or child of the Negro race, although I have been asked six times in a single walk from my study to my home by representatives of another race and faith. Third, the Negro may yet be our chief protec- tion against a dangerous ecclesiastico-political Ro- manism. It is a fact comparatively little known that Romanism is responsible for African slavery. This fact ought to be proclaimed. In 1442 the Portuguese under Prince Henry captured some Moors on the Atlantic coast of Africa. These were afterward exchanged for Negroes and a quantity of gold dust, and soon some slave ships were built and some Negro slaves were brought into Spain. But the vast territory known as the kingdoms of Benin, of Dahomey, and of Yoruba, was later vis- ited, and these kingdoms finally gave more people into American slavery than any other part of Africa. These Negro empires once were intelligent and powerful. Here were a social state and a political government of an orderly people. In 1485 Al- fonso de Aviro, a Portuguese, discovered Benin and established settlements of Portuguese. When he returned to the coast of Portugal an ambassador from the Negro king of Benin went with him ask- ing for Christian missionaries for his people. Fer- nando Po was sent to the Gulf of Benin. He ascended the river of the same name to Gaton, and there located a Portuguese colony and soon estab- 390 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN lished the Roman Church. Men with the spirit of the Jesuits of a later day followed him, and at once had the king partly under their control. The king offered to turn over all his subjects to the Roman Church, provided the priests would give him a white wife ; and their part of the contract these missionaries undertook to perform. A strong appeal was made to various sisterhoods to furnish a wife for the Negro king in order to lead him and his people into the Roman Church, and one sister finally agreed to accept the hand of the swarthy ruler. Her name is not known, but surely she ought to have been canonized. The missionaries worked with a will, but sickness and death swept away the Portuguese as with the fiery breath of lightning. But they established the slave trade. Soon, however, in the minds of these untutored savages there was some contradiction between a Christian church and a slave-pen under one man- agement. The inhuman treatment given to the people led them to doubt the sincerity of the mis- sionaries, and it is stated that to-day there is no trace of the Roman Church in that country ; but it was there long enough to sow the seeds of one of the most gigantic evils the world has ever known. It laid the foundation of the slave-trade, whose cruelties were so terrible that one's heart grows sick as he reads of them in the May number of the "Century Magazine." The Roman Church, in this instance, as later through the instrumentality of Columbus, showed an astounding alacrity to THE REGENERATION OF A RACE 39 1 seize innocent savages and to subject them to inhuman slavery. The slave-trade, having been established by Roman missionaries, was followed up by the natives themselves. They left their fish- nets, their cattle, their fields, and their villages, and went forth to battle against their weaker neighbors, and their prisoners of war they sold to slave-dealers for rum and tobacco. They became thieves and murderers in order to secure slaves for this Satanic market. This was the real beginning of African slavery ; this was the first enduring contact of the Roman Church with this dehumanizing crime. What was the last semi-official relation of this church to slavery? The years passed ; the slaves groaned and died in bondage. Chief Justice Mar- shall died in 1835, and the President appointed Roger Brooke Taney his successor. A year later the nomination was confirmed in the Senate. In 1857 the Dred Scott case was decided. In that decision Judge Taney affirmed that the patriots of the Revolution and their progenitors regarded the Negro race as so far inferior that they had no rights which white men were bound to respect. President Buchanan knew the decision before it was promulgated, and he shaped his inaugural address, delivered March 4, 1857, accordingly. He believed that this decision would speedily and finally settle the whole question of slavery. He was a prophet, for this decision led, in no small part, to the Civil War, and then God settled the question by the arbitrament of the sword. Judge Taney 392 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN was a loyal son of the Roman Church ; that church sowed the seeds of African slavery, and after the lapse of hundreds of years, in the person of this judge, it erased the last trace of manhood, and shattered, apparently, the last hope of freedom on the part of the despised and hated Negro. The world cannot shut its eyes to these terrible facts, to this long line of infamy begun in Africa and ended in America. Once more Romanism is trying to enslave the Negro. It would put on his soul the chains of ignorance and superstition ; it would make him ten- fold more the child of superstition, tradition, and hoodooism. Every instinct of patriotism, every command of a pure Christianity, and every Baptist obligation call upon us to save the Negro from the bondage of Romanism. Ethiopians early came near to the divine Lord ; for as Jesus Christ was being led away to Calvary his persecutors and crucifiers laid their hands upon Simon of Cyrene. Many commentators believe that he was a Negro, and many of the most celebrated pictures of the cruci- fixion represent him as a black man, and give him a prominent place in this most tragic scene. Bap- tists early were brought into contact with Ethio- pians ; for Philip baptized the noble treasurer of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. Who to-day will be the next American Baptist who will make his name immortal by generously endowing some or all of our Baptist colored schools in the South? Who will be the associate of the THE REGENERATION OF A RACE 393 noble men and women whose honored names these institutions now bear? Never was a grander op- portunity laid before the denomination than the providence of God now gives us in connection with the Negroes of the South. God Almighty lays upon us the tremendous responsibility, and he offers us the golden opportunity. Who to-day will follow where God leads ? Who to-day will walk by the side of Simon bearing the cross of Christ and win- ning the crown of American patriotism, of Negro gratitude, and of divine benediction ? God has given us in General Morgan a noble leader in this work. A brave soldier, a trained educator, a trusted statesman, a loving brother, a true patriot, and a consecrated Christian, God has eminently fitted him for his position. His superb service for the Government, as the ablest Commis- sioner of Indian Affairs we have ever had, grandly completed his training for still greater achieve- ments. He honors the position so nobly filled by his worthy predecessors, and under his administra- tion the American Baptist Home Mission Society will do still grander things for the Negro, whose best interest it has always so patriotically and Christianly sought and secured. We are builders of a nobler cathedral than that of Cologne, just completed after centuries of patient waiting. Jesus Christ is the divine-human archi- tect. The New Testament gives us the immortal plans ; and out of the world's quarry we are hewing the living stones. Black as truly as white marble 394 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN and granite enter into this noble structure. Silently it is going up in the sight of men and angels. One day the capstone will be laid, and amid the songs of saints and seraphs there will be no voices sweeter than those of our black brethren who so long illus- trated the prophecy of Scripture, " Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands unto God." Their songs and ours shall be, " Not unto us, but unto thy name, O Jesus Christ, who alone art worthy, shall be all the glory now and forever." Amen. XVII THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTER/ THE task which I attempt is deHcate and dif- ficult. Various conceptions are honestly- entertained regarding the true sphere of preacher and pastor ; and these conceptions, doubtless, change somewhat from year to year and perhaps from decade to decade. It is possible, however, to lay down a few general principles which perhaps the majority of pastors in evangelical pulpits will endorse. THE MINISTER A STUDENT OF GOD'S THOUGHTS. We may say, in the first place, that the minister must be a student of the thoughts of God in their manifold revelations. He certainly must know before he can teach ; and in order to acquire truth he must realize that he is a student in a wide field of knowledge. All knowledge is his province, so far as opportunity will permit him to acquire that knowledge. Knowledge gathered from every quar- ter can be made useful in declaring the glorious gospel of the blessed God. Three departments of knowledge may here be stated. ^ Delivered at the Convocation of the University of Chicago, October, 1896, and before the Robinson Rhetorical Society, Ro- chester Theological Seminary, May 12, 1897. 395 396 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING. MEN The true minister must be a student of God's thoughts as they are revealed in creation. This is a vast volume ; it contains numerous chapters. It reaches from sea to sea, from heaven to earth. It vocalizes earth and air, sea and sky ; but no man can do more than master the alphabet of this vol- ume. The infinitely great and the infinitely small are equally within its province. It demands the use of telescope and microscope. We must rec- ognize God as the Author of creation as truly as of revelation, in the more technical sense of that word. We have been unwise in supposing at times that we exalt the God of the zvord by de- pressing the God of the world. There is no con- tradiction between God's revelations in the two great volumes of creation and revelation ; the God of Genesis speaks the same language as the God of geology. There may be contradictions between our interpretations of God's thoughts in this two-fold revelation ; but there is no contradiction between the revelations themselves. This thought is beau- tifully illustrated in the nineteenth Psalm. In the first six verses of the psalm we have a statement of God's glory in the natural creation ; and beginning with the seventh verse we feel that we have come into a new atmosphere, and that our feet are stand- ing on the solid rock. That verse opens with the words, "The law of the Lord is perfect." We have in the first six verses God's revelation in na- ture ; we now have God's higher revelation in the inspired word, but both belong to the same system THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTER 397 of religion. Both illustrate the perfection and glory of the same divine Author. A true friend of religion claims the glory of God in nature as well as in the Bible. When we come to the twelfth verse of that psalm, we have God revealing himself in the re- generate soul ; and the last verse is the cry of God's redeemed child to the Creator made known by the works of his hands in the opening verses of the psalm. There can be no contradiction between a true science and a divine revelation. Science is revelation, so far as it goes. The whole world was once a thought of God ; it is now God's thought materialized, incarnated, embodied. The moun- tains are God's majestic thoughts, the flowers his beautiful thoughts, and the stars his brilliant thoughts. The whole creation is vocal with his praise and resplendent with his glory. This thought gives dignity to all forms of scientific study. In studying chemistry we are discovering in every law of attraction, repulsion, and combination the thoughts of God. In mathematics, sines and co- sines, angles and triangles, are revelations of eternal truths of the Almighty. These truths are universal as gravitation and eternal as God. Every science, when rightly understood, is a herald of the thoughts of God. Other things being equal, the devoutest student must be the most accurate student. The undevout scientist is unscientific. We have a right to demand of the student of music that he shall be in sympathy with musical thoughts, sounds, and 398 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN laws. The same remark applies to the student of art in its various forms. Not less does it apply to the student of natural science. No man can under- stand the everlasting hills except he have moun- tains on his brain ; no man can fully appreciate the sea except he have oceans in his soul ; no man can study, in the best sense, any department of nature, except he be in sympathy with the Creator who sits as King in nature's vast realm. The true minister must be a student of God's thoughts as they are revealed in the inspired rec- ord which we call the Bible. For its fullest study, and even its partial mastery, a vast and varied degree of equipment is required. The student must know the languages in which God's thoughts were earliest given to men. He must understand the terminus a quo and teiDivins ad qticjn of each book in the library which we call the Bible. But most of all must he be in sympathy with the spiritual atmos- phere which pervades this old book. Only spirit- ual men can truly understand spiritual things. We know that God is a spirit, and we know also that only those who possess purity of heart can see God. This statement is both scientific and scrip- tural. Every science has secrets which only its loving students can discover. It has occult prop- erties and affinities which no novice can master ; not otherwise is it with the Christian revelation. Sir Isaac Newton was right when he said to Dr. Halley, a man of science, but religiously an unbe- liever, " I am glad to hear you speak about astron- THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTER 399 omy and mathematics, for you have studied and you understand them ; but you should not talk of Chris- tianity, for you have not studied it." We are told in Scripture that, " He that is spiritual judgeth all things." Often a believer on his knees can see farther than a philosopher on tiptoe. Locke has rightly, said, " It needs a sunny eye to see the sun " ; Goethe also has expressed a similar thought ; and we well know that, " the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him." We ought to be very slow in affirming, or per- mitting others to affirm, that there are contradic- tions between the teachings of God's two great revelations. There is a realm in which the natural and what we call the supernatural are one and the same thing. The Bible never contrasts the natural with the supernatural ; that latter term is of human and not of divine origin. The contrast in the Bible is always between the natural and the spiritual. All the discoveries of modern science are making it easier than ever before to believe in spiritual realities. There is really neither small nor great with God. The universality and invariability of law once affirmed in a triumphant tone by unbe- lievers and heard with timidity by believers, really make it easier than ever before to believe in God. Back of all forms of evolution is God as the great Evolver ; nothing can be evolved which was not first involved. Back of all forms of order is God as the divine Ordainer ; back of all law is God as the great Lawgiver. Law is not a motor, but a 400 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN motion ; not a force, but a form ; not an actor, but an action ; and not a power, but a process. We do not eliminate God by putting him farther back in the Hne of development. Law is only a name which we give to the manner in which we have observed some force to act. If the force is phys- ical, we call it a physical law ; if it is moral, we call it a moral law. There may be nothing miraculous, in the sense of being contrary to natural law, in the miracles recorded in the Bible. The discovery of electricity in its various applications is almost marvelous. What to-day is a truism, was yesterday an unknown phenomenon. The finger of God seems to drive the trolley cars through our streets. To-day thoughts instantaneously leap from America to England, passing thousands of miles under the mighty deep. This daily occurrence once would have been called a miracle ; but it is simply a utilization of a perfect natural law. We are greatly in need of a new definition of miracles. To-day Paris speaks to London and to Brussels through the telephone ; to-day New York speaks to Chicago, in round numbers one thousand miles away, through the telephone. The opening of this long-distance telephone marked an era in the history- of inven- tion. The utmost pains were taken in the con- struction of this telephonic line. A cornet was brought to the receiver in New York, and every note was heard in Chicago, a thousand miles away. An editor in Chicago dictated through this telephone THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTER 4OI an editorial to a stenographer in Brooklyn. The presses in Brooklyn were soon printing this editorial, and the noise of the presses was heard in Chicago. Had a man affirmed these facts one hundred years ago he would have been burned as one who had uncanny relations with Satan. This telephone makes it easy to believe that God can hear and answer prayer. If a man in New York can talk to Chicago, not contrary to natural law but in perfect harmony therewith, who will dare say that man cannot talk to God in perfect harmony with natural law ? A decade ago we would have said with the utmost emphasis that no man could talk to his fellow-man a thousand miles away ; we would have said, " it is utterly contrary to all natural law." It was then contrary to natural law, as we knew natural laws ; but we did not then know all natural laws — we do not know all such laws now. When a man says, " God cannot hear prayer," we may rightly ask, " How do you know? " The time may come when we shall understand that the act of hearing and answering prayer is in as perfect harmony with natural law as the use of the telephone is to-day. Telepathy may yet explain thousands of secrets which are now profoundly mysterious. Marvelous laws of locomotion are yet to be discovered, laws whose discovery will enable us to girdle the earth in a few days and perhaps to cross broad oceans in a few hours. We have brought lightning from the clouds ; we use the sun to print photographs ; we are able to register the 402 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN amount of heat generated by the flash of a firefly ; and we may yet be able to tell mechanically, as Dr. Holmes has suggested, the amount of good or evil which men exert over those who come near them. Our discoveries are so wonderful that they have ceased to excite wonder. Who will dare say what God can do without violating law, when man has accomplished such wonders in harmony with the higher laws lately discovered ? Surely it is not wonderful that God could arrest the course of a river like the Jordan, when man can change seas to fields in Holland. Surely it is not so wonderful that the Creator of heaven and earth should cause the walls of Jericho to fall, and that, perhaps, by perfectly natural means, pressing into his service laws with whose existence and oper- ations we are not familiar, when a little girl by touch- ing a button caused an explosion of the rocks in the East River near New York ; or when by the same means one could cause an explosion to-day which would lay Chicago, New York, Paris, or Lon- don in ruins. Surely it is not so wonderful that our inmost thoughts should be read by God when the X-ray can photograph a coin in a pocket-book within a traveling bag. A few years ago the new photog- raphy would have been said to be against all the laws of nature. Who could photograph through a plank ? Impossible ! Then came a quiet, plod- ding German ; and from his obscurity he flashed the Roentgen ray upon the world, and new laws of nature were discovered. THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTER 4O3 Two men to-day, one an East Indian, the other partly Italian and partly English, are teaching the world the possibility of telegraphing without wires ; and soon the new telegraphy will take its place alongside of the new photography as among the wonders of the world, which will soon cease to be wonderful because of their familiarity. Soon all our senses will be vastly quickened and multiplied, and we shall see thousands of things now unseen and hear thousands of things now unheard ; and the whole world will be enlarged, ennobled, and beautified ; and we shall become more like God in his omniscience than once we thought it reverent to dream, to hope, or to pray. Natural law may yet show that the biblical narrative of the fish swal- lowing Jonah is not only historical but strictly scientific ; cases of catalepsy, hypnotism, ecstasy, and trance are almost equally mysterious ; and well-attested cases of hibernation, or estivation, are certainly not less inexplicable, according to the laws of nature with which we are now familiar. Who are we that we talk about what God can or cannot do ? Who are even our greatest scientists who presume to deny what greater scientists may accomplish in the near future ? It may be that all the miracles performed by our Lord will yet be seen to be in perfect harmony with natural laws, but laws with which at present we are not familiar. In changing water into wine, and in multiplying the loaves of bread, our Lord simply did what nature is doing constantly. Our 404 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN Lord accelerated the ordinary natural processes. His unusual acts certainly were not co7itra-na.tura.\, even though we may say that they were supra — supernatural. The man who opposes a divine rev elation because of its affirmations regarding natural phenomena, might with equal propriety oppose the affirmations of modern science regarding any phe- nomenal events with which he did not chance to be familiar. All true science lays its crown at the feet of the Almighty Creator ; all true science is the handmaid of divine revelation. In the presence alike of true science and divine revelation, human ignorance should be modest, obedient, and reverent. The true student of the thoughts of God will re- gard the book of nature and the book of inspiration as revelations from the hand of the same divine Author. The day is coming, I firmly believe, when the perfect Jiarmonization of all the revelations in these two volumes will be conspicuously, gloriously, and divinely manifested to all students of both volumes. The true minister will be a student of the thoughts of God as they are revealed in history. All history is a revelation in time of the thoughts of God in eternity. It is an unfoldment before the eyes of men of the purposes of the Almighty. No man can write an intelligent history of the human race and leave out Jesus Christ. As well might a man attempt to write a treatise on astronomy and leave out the natural sun. Christ's cradle and cross are the pivotal points around which the great events of THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTER 405 histoiy revolve. Toward his birth historic events previous to his coming converged ; from it since his coming they have diverged. The pierced hand of Jesus Christ is on the helm of the universe. We have too much relegated God to distant lands and remote times. We often forget that he is as truly in the world to-day as he ever was in the past. Current events are ordered of God as truly as were the historic movements recorded in the Bible in connection with the names of the greatest patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. We can readily see the figure of the web in the loom of current history ; but we often fail to see the hand of God behind the loom guiding all its movements and shaping all the patterns which it weaves. We need constantly to remember the words of Lowell : Behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadows, keeping Watch above his own. We are in need of a lectureship on the divine mean- ing of current events. We need a professorial or ministerial chair for the interpretation of the voices of God in the events of the week. God is speak- ing to the nations to-day on the banks of the Bosphorus, the Ganges, and the Indus, in Japan, in China, and in many of the islands of the sea, as well as in our own beloved land, as truly as he ever spake from Sinai or from the mount of Beati- tudes, No true minister can afford to be indif- ferent to these divine voices. We have too often 406 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN neglected them and so have failed to shape our course in harmony with the divine thought of the hour. These are marvelous times in the history of the human race ; we are making history with greater rapidity now than ever before since the creation of man. May God help us to hear his foot-beats and to obey his divine voice in these closing days of the world's most wonderful century ! THE MINISTER A PROPHET OF GOD'S THOUGHTS, The true minister, in the second place, is a prophet of the thoughts of God as manifoldly re- vealed by God, and prayerfully received by the minister as a reverent student. The true minister is not a priest. The word priest should never be used as applying to a minister, except in the broad sense that all God's children are priests unto God. When used by the Roman Church the word is consistent with the fundamental idea of that church in its conception of the mass as a sacrificial offering ; but when used by Protestants, who deny the sacri- ficial character of the mass, the word is inconsistent as well as unscriptural. It is unscriptural when used by the Romanist, but it is both inconsistent and unscriptural when used by the Protestant. It is surprising that so many fag-ends of popery are still found in Protestant creeds ; indeed, it is not too much to say that remnants of heathenism are still found in some Christian creeds. The idea of the priesthood ought to be utterly foreign to all conceptions of the duties and functions of the Chris- THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTER 4O7 tian minister. The priest in the old dispensation occupied a place in many respects very much lower than that of the prophet. The priest was only an ecclesiastical butcher. His duties required no such intellectual training and no such spiritual exaltation as those of the prophet. His work was relatively coarse and rude, and was possessed of elements of vulgarity and cruelty ; but the functions of the prophet were high, refined, heroic, and spiritual as those of the priest never could be. It is true that the dynasty of the priests began early and contin- ued long, and still lingers both in Judaism and Christianity. Nevertheless the /unctions of the priesthood were precisely what I have represented them to be. The prophet, on the contrary, was the reformer in Israel. In popular estimation the foretelling of future events is the chief characteristic of prophecy ; but this is not the dominant attribute of the Hebrew prophet. This is not the true thought of the He- brew word nabi, neither of the Greek word prop he tcs. These words have a much more comprehensive meaning. The nabi is the man who speaks in the name and by the authority of God ; he is, if we may so say, the voice of God to man. The word nabi, is derived from a word meaning " to bubble forth" like a fountain. He was often known by his ecstatic utterances. The verb which we trans- late "to prophesy" was occasionally used in the sense of ecstasy amounting to madness. The prophet is a fore-teller ; he is also a " forth-teller " ; 408 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN and, still more exactly, he is a " for-teller," that is a spokesman. In the time of Samuel this office was recognized as belonging to a special class of men. There were schools of the prophets in which a distinct life was lived and a special discipline was given. Like Orientals generally, when they be- lieved they were under supernatural influences, these students were often wrought up to a degree of ecstatic excitement which expressed itself in wild dance and profuse gesticulation. Much as the Roman Church has exalted the priestly character of her ministers, she has not been indifferent to their prophetic character as preachers of the gospel. We know that the mass, according to the theory of the Roman Church, is the very heart of the entire system. This " real though unbloody offering" is the soul of the Roman faith. But no one can read the history of that church without discovering the power of its Dominican, Redemptorist, Paulist, and other preachers of still other orders. Some of these preachers undergo a disciplinaiy training of the most rigid character. The students in our Protestant theological semi- naries know nothing of a discipline so prolonged, so varied, and so exacting as that to which some of these preachers are subjected. Thus we see that even the Roman Church, exalting as it does the significance of the mass, cannot afford entirely to depress the importance of the pulpit and the dig- nity of the minister as the prophet of God. The true distinction now made between prophet THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTER 4O9 and priest indicates the necessity of differences in education, according to the recognition of the dif- ferences between the respective duties of priest and prophet. The ordinary priest need not be a man of broad education. He has only to follow a pre- scribed ritual ; he simply has to be familiar with times and seasons, and with various details of priestly ceremonies. Priests may be, as all minis- ters have unfairly been called, simply christening, marrying, and burying machines. It is meet that the priest have a reasonable degree of social cul- ture, that he may discharge his ritualistic functions with some element of aesthetic propriety ; but his sphere is essentially narrow. The conception here given of the work of the minister has its influence also upon character. The nature of the service rendered by the priest is not materially injured in its perfunctory character by any moral defects on the part of the performer. The prophet, on the other hand, stands out in a vastly different light. He is to be the master of all knowledge ; he is to touch life at every possible point. He should be a man and a king among men. He must declare the truth with absolute fearlessness and with the inherent authority which truth evermore gives to its proclamation. All knowledge must be his prov- ince. This conception of the ministry shows that we want no "short-cut" courses into its dignities and duties. Never were the demands of the prophetic ministry so great as they are to-day ; never before 410 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN was the competition so terrific. The minister must compete with the Sunday newspaper, with Sunday- amusements in many cities, and with social attrac- tions in many homes, and with all forms of intel- lectual attractiveness in public and private libraries. Boy preachers seldom become men preachers. The inevitable penalty of undue precocity is speedy decay. The pastor is like a man on a bicycle, he must go on, or very soon go off. He must grow up or down. No man can afford to enter the ministry to-day with any kind of handi- cap which he can by any possibility remove. The young minister is serving God when he is studying for fuller service ; he is in the work when he is pre- paring for the work. We want no kindergarten theological seminaries. As a true prophet of God the minister will patiently acquire and powerfully declare the truth of God. He will understand that the best way to preach down error is to preach up truth. No prophet has a right to preach his doubts. If a pastor has doubts, let him tell them to God ; if he has truths, let him declare them to men. Men have doubts enough of their own without getting an additional supply from preachers. No man has a right to preach his unverified thinking and his untested speculations. The work of the merely destructive critic is comparatively easy and is cor- respondingly worthless. It requires but little talent to destroy. A child or an idiot with a knife or a hammer, in a gallery of paintings or a hall of THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTER 4II statuary, could destroy more in an hour than a Raphael or an Angelo could create in a lifetime. We believe firmly in the imperial power, resistless majesty, and divine glory of truth. We want truth ; we want nothing but the truth ; and, as far as possible, the whole truth. No true prophet of God ever fears truth, from whatever quarter it comes and by whatsoever messenger it is brought. He welcomes truth as the child of God and the daughter of eternity ; but he must be sure that it is truth, and not some specious error or half truth which he thus welcomes. No man has a right to pull the roof off my house, even though it be only a thatched roof, unless he has a better roof with which he will immediately cover the exposed walls. We are not primarily to distinguish between new theology and old theology, as if this distinc- tion were of any great value ; what we want is the true theology, whether it be new or old. Let us patiently wait until our theories are verified. We need not oppose unverified theories. If still un- verified they are unworthy of our opposition ; if verified we would be unworthy of our office did we then manifest opposition. The only way to drive out darkness is to let in light ; the best way to keep chaff out of the measure is to fill it with wheat. We ought never to raise the devil unless we are sure we can speedily lay him ; we ought never to challenge him unless we are prepared to give him a deadly lunge. The true prophet will avail himself of the most 412 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN far-reaching results of truth in every department of inquiry. He is wilHng to let every system, every creed, every prejudice go if it is not concordant with truth. He will desire expert knowledge wherever it can be found, but he must not implic- itly trust the deliverance of the so-called authori- tative experts. Many experts are almost necessar- ily narrow, and some of them, while loudly declar- ing their liberality, become apostles of bigotry. One turns to a volume bearing a well-known title and an authoritative name ; he there finds a con- clusion reached and perhaps defiantly affirmed. He is disposed a pnma vista to accept this conclu- sion as the last word that can authoritatively be spoken on the subject, but his curiosity is somewhat excited and he goes back of the conclusion so pleasantly or so positively announced, to discover the premises laid down and the process of reasoning pursued. He immediately observes that there is a marvelous hiatus, an impassable gulf between the premises laid down and the conclusion reached. He is startled ; he feels that he has been victimized. With all due modesty he knows that he can do a little reasoning himself, and that the conclusion reached by his author by no legitimate processes of ratiocination is deducible from the premises. The reasons assigned are utterly inadequate to the con- clusion affirmed. The true prophet in the pulpit must, with all modesty, be himself an expert in certain departments of knowledge ; and he must limit the authority of other experts to the exact THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTER 413 dimensions of their own domain of knowledge. He must also, in some sense, be an expert of the experts, knowing the department in which each ex- pert is an authority, and so classifying the experts and giving them only the weight to which their special learning entitles them. The critics of to- day are destroying the critics of yesterday. Pro- fessor Sayce has recently affirmed that the spade is to demolish many of the conclusions of philology ; that the tablets in the main establish the traditional rather than the modern critical view of the histori- cal trustworthiness of the Old Testament records ; that he has come utterly to disbelieve in the later views of the composition of the Pentateuch ; that he believes it belongs to the Mosaic age and was written chiefly by Moses ; that the literary analysis of the Bible is an unsafe method of reaching re- sults, and that he mistrusts the conclusions of the higher critics. Professor Harnack has also recently uttered his protest against many of the conclusions of modern biblical criticism and in favor of the traditional view. There are few Old Testament critics in our day more thorough and independent than Professor Klostermann, of the University of Kiel. Yet he, on purely critical grounds, sharply opposes the reconstruction scheme of the Penta- teuch made by Wellhausen and his school. Klos- termann is a critic of an advanced character as compared with Zatin, of Stuttgart, Rupprecht, and others of their consei'vative type ; but he in- sists that both the methods and manners of Well- 414 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN hausen are utterly wrong. He has in a series of long, detailed, and able articles impeached this style of modern criticism. These articles were published in the '' Ncuc Kircliliclic Zeitsclirift.'' It is an interesting conflict, this destruction of critics by critics. Scientific experts, in the light of their blunders, have become much more modest than were their fathers. Some biblical experts have not yet acquired the grace of modesty to the same degree as their scientific brethren. Many prophets of God can stand with open face, hand, and heart, calmly waiting for and rejoicing in truth while the critics are destroying one another in the biblical arena. The prophet may wait, knowing that though nothing but the disjecta vicvi- bra of the critics may remain, the truth in its per- fect symmetry, spotless purity, and radiant splen- dor, will finally appear. Let no true student of God's word and church be alarmed. Some un- sightly scaffolds are coming down ; let them fall. The temple of truth in its beauty, perfection, and divinity is all the more transcendently and divinely revealed. The criticism which has arisen in recent years regarding Moses and the Pentateuch is similar to that which arose years ago regarding the existence of Homer, and the historical reality of his author- ship of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey." There have been, as we all remember, several critical periods regarding him and his writings. Heyne, Wolf, and Niebuhr indulged themselves in several THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTER 415 varieties of historical skepticism. They reduced Homer, as well as Cadmus and Hercules, to mere "symbols." It has been claimed at different times that Homer was merely a name given to the ideal patron of an association of poets (Homeroi). Some made the word " Homeros " mean "hostage," but others supposed that its earlier meaning was "one who connects or combines," and so was analogous to that of Yyasa (collector), the name given to the compiler of the Hindu Vedas and Puranas. Others gave the name the significance of " counsel- lor," others " follower," and still others dismem- bered the name, making it mean, " one who does not see," referring to the legend of the poet's blindness. In support of the opinion that Homer was not a real person, but that his poems were handed down by a generation of rhapsodists or professional min- strels, it was said that no one could remember and recite, in the absence of writing, poems of so great a length. Before the days of Wolfe, several scholars entertained these views. But we know that in the early days in Scotland bards would recite legends and poems by the hour and evening after evening. Just when this argument as to the impossibility of remembering poems of so great a length was used an English student arose who recited one or both of these great epics verbatim ct literatim et punctiia- tim. A similar achievement has recently occurred, the recitation of Dante's " Divine Comedy." There is no absolutely certain evidence that there 41 6 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN were not written documents in the Greek of that early day. Indeed, it has been positively affirmed that tablets have been found among Egyptian ruins containing inscriptions in the Greek of that period. It is also well known that blindness is usually ac- companied by great tenacity of verbal memory. We know that about the time of the Christian era there were critics called "Separatists," who main- tained that the " Iliad " and the " Odyssey " were the work of different poets ; but both that theory and its modification, brought forth by Wolfe in 1795, tax our credulity more than a belief in the exist- ence of Homer as a historical character. It is simply begging the question to say that no poet could compose and retain in memory works of so great a length ; it also greatly taxes our credulity to believe that there were many poets in Greece, or in any other country in any age, who could write as did Homer. It has been jokingly said that Homer's poems were not written by Homer, but by anothei man of the same name. If it is difficult to believe in one Homer, it is surely much more difficult to believe in a dozen Homers. The criticism regarding the historical character of Moses will have its day as did that concerning Homer, but both Homer and Moses will live after all their critics are dead and forgotten. It is well for many of the critics of Moses that he has now been a long time in heaven. When he was upon the earth he certainly proved himself to be a foeman worthy of the steel of his bravest THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTER 417 antagonists. Those who tilted against him always suffered in the encounter. Pharaoh went down before Moses like lead into the Red Sea, and Jan- nes and Jambres, the Egyptian magicians, remain on the page of the New Testament as solemn wit- nesses to their utter defeat at the hand of Moses, the majestic lawgiver, the illustrious leader, the sublime poet, and one of the divinest men God has yet given to the world. Doubtless, the Pentateuch is, without intending any pun upon the word, a mosaic. Moses was a sensible man, and he availed himself of all accessible documents. It is barely possible that William Shakespeare will endure after Ignatius Donnelly shall have been forgotten ; so will Moses after his critics have been dead for cen- turies. One grows utterly weary of the microscopic criticism often applied to various parts of the Penta- teuch, separating it into sections with a wearisome display of divisional vagaries, indicated by the letters of the alphabet. If the plays of Shakes- peare, the poems of Milton, chapters of Macaulay, or the orations of Daniel Webster, were submitted to similar treatment, the authors and their writings would be made inexpressibly ludicrous. We need to be conservatively progressive, or progressively conservative. Let no one's faith be disturbed ; let no one rush to support God's Ark lest its bearers should stumble and it should fall. We have God's own triumphant word regarding his own eternal book, " The grass withereth, the flower fadeth ; but the word of our God shall stand forever." 41 8 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN The prophet must be in Hving touch with his age. Large portions of the Old Testament consist of denunciations of the sins of the hour, and of poHtical sermons on the relations of Israel with adjoining nations. We are to preach Christ and him crucified, but this kind of preaching includes every interest of the human race. When the words of Terence, "I am a man, and nothing com- mon to man is foreign to me," were pronounced in a Roman theatre they elicited tumultuous applause. The true prophet of God can say, " I am a man, and nothing common to men for whom Christ died, is foreign to the pulpit that pleads in his name." The pulpit ought to be the great leader in all phil- anthropic movements. Christian teachers ought not to allow infidel lecturers, or even Christian or- ganizations outside of the church, to surpass the church in all humane endeavors, philanthropic pur- suits, and humanizing and divinizing agencies. It is to the humiliation of the pulpit that it so often has opposed radical reform movements until they had become victorious, and then it had to take an apologetic and a cringing attitude when it ought to have been crowned with honor as the leader of the reform. The pulpit may not preach partisan politics ; but it must patriotically lift up its voice in favor of moral principles as applied to political parties and platforms. There is no sliding scale in the Decalogue. The eighth commandment has not been expunged from the divine law. It is no more difficult to understand moral questions as THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTER 419 related to politics than as related to any other subject. It has been said that there is no place for the Sunday-school in politics ; it was also said by a brilliant Western senator that the Ten Command- ments and the Golden Rule were an iridescent dream. This senator was elected to remain at home to study the iridescence of his dream, while some Christian politicians endeavored to realize these high ideals in political activities. We give all politicians fair warning that the Sunday-school is in politics, and that the pulpit is in politics and will stand for the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule as the foundation of the republic's hope and as the brightest glory of the republic's resplendent flag. The pulpit will to-day show the world that America stands not for anarchy, but for law ; not for repudiation, but for national honor ; not for sectionalism and dishonesty, but for patriot- ism, for piety, for truth, and for God. THE MINISTER THE IMPERSONATOR OF GOD'S THOUGHTS. In the third place, the true minister is to be the impersonator of the thoughts of God. He is to live over again the life of the Lord Jesus ; he is to incarnate the spirit which actuated the divine Master from his cradle to his cross, and from his cross to his throne. He is to be, in his measure, Christ to the world. He must, like the Master himself, go about doing good. He is to be the Shepherd of souls. He is to have in charge the 420 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN cure of the sin-sick. He is to be a cure among men. He must develop a character which will give power to all the words of his mouth and the sen- tences of his pen. The power of character is in- calculable ; character must be behind, above, be- neath, and before every sermon, poem, and picture of artist, poet, or preacher. It is the man behind the words which gives them their power. It has been well said that, "Character is the diamond that scratches every other stone." Personality is immortal, and the personality imbued with, inspired by, and consecrated to, Jesus Christ is simply irre- sistible. Wellington said that Napoleon's presence in the French army was equivalent to forty thou- sand additional soldiers ; and it was said, " You could not stand with Burke under an archway while a shower of rain was passing without observ- ing that he was an extraordinary man." Franklin recognized that while he was a bad speaker, having much hesitance in his choice of words, and being hardly accurate in his language, his known integ- rity of character gave him his remarkable power over men. Behind all that any historian may say of the great characters of whom he writes, there is a name- less element which was the secret of their power and which no historian can describe in words. Charles James Fox could not be Prime Minister of England because England distrusted the sincerity of his character in his more private relations. Wil- liam Pitt towered above him and won the honors THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTER 42 1 which would have been Fox's but for his fatal lack of transparent character and assured virtue. It is this nameless element, as has been suggested, which gave power to Moses at the Red Sea, to Leonidas at Thermopylae, to Nelson at the Nile, to Wolfe at Quebec, to Washington at Yorktown, to Grant at Vicksburg, to Sheridan at Winchester, to Carey in India, to Judson in Burma, and to thou- sands more in other heroic crises of life. Finely did Emerson say, "What care I for what you say, when what you do sits over my head and thunders so loud that I cannot hear what you say? " The prophet of God should be as transparent as plate glass, and he should be as erect as the alabaster columns in St. Mark's in Venice. We need not so much more men in the pulpit as we need more man in the pulpit and in the pew. The whole world to-day is looking for men. The search was never so arduous and the discovery was never so highly appreciated as at this hour. The whole world has written over every profession : "Wanted — A man." One has put it thus : Wanted ; men : Not systems fit and wise, Not faiths with rigid eyes, Not wealth in mountain piles, Not power with gracious smiles, Not even the potent pen : Wanted ; men. No profession is more in need of manhood of the highest order than the profession of the minis- 422 CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR THINKING MEN try ; only the great God can estimate the power of such men in their own churches, in their own de- nominations, and to Christianity and the world in their broadest reaches. Such men give direction to the thoughts of their generation ; they interpret God to men, and men to themselves. They open vast possibilities to churches and communities. My heart grows tender as I see a body of young men going out into the ministry. Subtle tempta- tions await them ; marvelous possibilities beckon them forward ; glorious opportunities stand before them with open doors ; but terrible precipices are near all these grand possibilities. They must ever sit as students at the feet of Jesus Christ ; they must ever be brave in declaring the truth as proph- ets of God ; and they must, above and beyond all besides, be true to themselves, to their calling, and to their God in their innermost souls. If true to themselves in the highest sense, as the great drama- tist has taught us, they can never be false to their fellow-men. May God help us to walk worthy of our high calling, of our sublime possibilities, and of our divine and enthroned Prophet, Priest, and King, the peerless, glorious, divine Jesus Christ ! Of every minister of Jesus Christ it ought to be said, in some measure at least : The elements so mixed in him that nature might stand up, and say to all the world : 'This was a man.' Princeton Theological , Semmanf Libra^ 1 1012 01236 2929 DATE DUE III iriii k GAYLORO PRINTED IN U S A.