By WILLIAM C. DOANE Bishop of Albany S<«j» ^^^i: ^m JAN 23 1912 M hmki t,^ THE BEDELL LECTURES Evidence • Experience • Influence -sv rs. The Bedell Lecture! EVIDENCE EXPERIENCE INFLUENCE DELIVERED AT GAMBIER, OHIO NOVEMBER, 1903 WILLIAM C. DOANE JAN 23 1912 BISHOP OF ALBANY EDWIN S. GORHAM Church Missions House New York Copyright, 1904, by Edtvin S. Gorham Published, February, 1904 THE TROW PRESS, NEW YORK CONTENTS PAGE EXTRACTS 7 I EVIDENCE 11 M EXPERIENCE . . . . . . .43 m INFLUENCE . 69 FOUNDERS' MEMORIAL . . 97 EXTRACTS from the communication of the donors to the Board of Trustees of the Theo- logical Seminary of the Diocese of Ohio and Kenyon College. Cleveland, June 21, 1880. Gentlemen : We have consecrated and set apart for the service of God the sum of $5,000, to be devoted to the estabhsh- ment of a lecture, or lectures, in the in- stitutions at Gambier on the " Evidences of Natural and Revealed Rehgion; or, the Relations of Science and Religion." [7] Evidence, Experience, Influence We ask permission of the Trustees to establish the lecture immediately, with the following provisions: The lecture, or lectures, shall be deliv- ered biennially on Founders' Day (if such a day shall be established), or other ap- propriate time. During our lifetime, or the lifetime of either of us, the nomina- tion of the lectureship shall rest with us. The interest for two years on the fund, less the sum necessary to pay for the pub- lication, shall be paid to the lecturer. The lecturer also shall be paid one-half of the net profits of the publication dur- ing the first two years after the date of publication. All other profits shall be the property of the Board, and shall be added to the capital of the lectureship. We express our preference that the lecture, or lectures, shall be delivered in [8] Extracts the Church of the Holy Spirit, if such building be in existence, and shall be de- livered in the presence of all the members of the institutions under the authority of the Board. We ask that the day on which the lect- ure, or the first of each series of lectures, shall be delivered, shall be declared a hoHday. We wish that the nomination to this lectureship shall be restricted by no other consideration than the ability of the appointee to discharge the duty to the highest glory of God in the completest presentation of the subject. We desire that the lectures shall be published in uni- form shape, and that a copy of each shall be placed in the libraries of Bexley Hall, Kenyon College, and of the Philomathe- sian and Nu Pi Kappa Society. Ask- [9] Evidence^ Experience, Influence ing the favorable consideration of the Board of Trustees, We remain, with great respect, G. T. Bedell, Julia Bedell. The Board accepted the gift, approved the terms, and named All Saints' Day, November 1st, as Fomiders' Day, and made it a holiday. [10] I EVIDENCE + •(■■!• ■!■■!■ 1 !■■ ! ■ l'- i -- i -- l -- H - i '- l --l'l- !■ I- I I- !!■ M 1! I i 11 'M' -I- ■!■•{• EVIDENCE EXPERIENCE INFLUENCE EVIDENCE JUST because the range of subjects is so very wide, it is not easy to choose that which may have in it a certain element of freshness, and still more, of helpfuhiess to those for whom, ahke in the purpose of the founder and the intention of the speaker, these lect- ures are primarily intended. And in the choice which I have made I am a bit puz- zled as to what ought to be the order of the subjects. If one is thinking of a life born and nurtured in the atmosphere of [13] Evidence^ Experience^ Influence religion, the order which I have chosen must needs be inverted, because the first approach of God to the soul would have been through the deep and sacred impres- sion of the home. Out of that would grow the experience as the nature assim- ilated and absorbed the influence, and these together, perhaps without the need of any searching, would be to the indi- vidual, and in him to others, the surest evidence of Christianity. I recognize, too, another difficulty in drawing very definite lines of demarcation, because each one of the three may in a sense be counted evidence of the strongest kind. There is a sort of tri-unity among them which makes them difficult to divide. Just as in considering the classification of the senses there is not only no need of in- venting a sixth sense, but it is almost truer and more accurate to count the five [14] Evidence as one; because they so depend upon con- tact y with the palate, with the eye, with the ear, — with the organ of taste or sight or smell or hearing, — that one might call them only one sense, namely, the sense of touch. And while that reduces deU- cate and subtle things to a most material level, it is simply another way of show- ing how limited all our mere physical faculties must be in the range and reach of their power, since through them we can only know things that are within touching distance somehow of ourselves. I am inclined, on the whole, to stick to the order laid down; and speak to you first of evidence, the tested proof of the inner and imseen things by which we can know God. Ages ago on that famous hill in Athens, St. Paul found those very God-fearing people, having exhausted all their store of names in the roll of known, [15] Evidence^ Experience, Influence or at least of named divinities, resorting to a very pathetic title, and putting on one altar the inscription to " an," not " the," but " an unknown God," oLyvcoa-Tdi 6e(o. There are some altars at which men are worshipping to-day which ought to be thus inscribed, for the God whom some men worship is not the God who reveals Himself to us in any of His revelations, natural or spiritual. Worse than this, it is true that many men will have no altar and will offer no worship, on this very gromid of unknowableness and with a strange self-condemnation adopt to themselves a title borrowed from this old utterance of despair, — the agnos- tic, because the God is ayvoxxro^. I do not take the time to dwell upon either one of these two points, but I am quite sure that you and I can recall certain statements of theology and certain the- [16] Evidence ories of religion so absolutely inconsist- ent with the nature either of God or of man, that whoever holds them does not know God. And it is equally familiar to us all that with a strange confusion in any intelligent use of words, men un- dertake to-day to exclude, from the very element to which it most naturally be- longs, that blessed faculty of belief which they are willing to use upon the ordinary things of common experience, and un- willing to apply in the realm in which it is especially at home. Meanwhile it is not too much to say that, universally, human nature craves a known God. JNIonstrous exceptions there have been and there will be, but if you take either end of a man's life, — the child with its up -looking dependence, its conscious rec- ognition of an unseen presence, its reali- zation, sometimes in fear, but oftener in [17] Evidence^ Experience, Influence assurance, of a higher power, of a reakn and region of immaterial reahty; or, if you take the old man, with a loosened hold upon the things of sense, and a need that is hungry and eager for some mani- festation of that which lies beyond, — it is not too much to say that there is a crav- ing in human nature for a God known. Such an instinct implanted in man means the possibility of its satisfaction, means the existence of that for which it longs, and we have the very highest authority for saying that, alike in the suggestions of natural religion, or even in the gro- tesque caricatiu'es of pagan invention there is a glimpse of God. Never left " without witness," " ignorantly wor- shipped " under most unhkely forms, God " in divers manners and in divers portions," strange ways some of them, and mere fragments, so to speak, of truth, [18] Evidence God spake, and it was God who spake in time past. It is quite true that men by searching cannot find out God, but it is also true that the mere fact of searching has been always an intimation of the great fact of God, and that this very failure has been witness to the need, and intimation of the gift, of a revelation which should make Him known. We are concerned, it seems to me, with the consideration of the way in which to-day God can be known. The divers man- ners and the divers portions of the past are matters of curious inquiry and evi- dence of a great consistent fact, namely, the progressiveness of God's dealing with men. And as they pile up and accumu- late, they are in themselves strong side- Hghts of evidence. Even idols and hu- man sacrifice and the deifying of created things and the apotheosis, that is to say, [19] Evidence^ Experience, Influence the God-making of heroes, have in them rough-hewn suggestions of the great truth of God made man and of the offering of that Man upon the cross. And then those unused arguments, useful in their day, from design, from comparative reHgions, from corrupt traditions con- trasted with the pure revelation, are in- teresting subjects of research. But the teacher and the learner of to-day are con- cerned with the evidence of to-day. And I am quite sure that in the babel con- fusion of irreligious and anti-christian tongues we are wise to concentrate our attention upon the one point, of God revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ. I know that His supreme and sublime personality appeals on different groimds and in varying degrees to differ- ent minds. To the Hebrew He is the last and the greatest of the prophets. To [20] Evidence the Unitarian He is the flower and finest fruitage of human character. To certain others who profess and call themselves Christians, He is the one absolutely sin- less and perfect man. One wonders at such illogical inconsistency as one recalls that the reason of om* Lord's crucifixion was that the Jews condemned Him for blasphemy because He made Himself equal with God; for surely He could not be the greatest Hebrew prophet, or the man without sin, if He were guilty of blasphemy. But letting men settle that for themselves, Jesus Christ stands the central figure in all history; and century after century as it rolls by and leaves Him in this prominent position, makes clearer and stronger the fact that in Him God is revealed, and that in Him there is a ground of appeal to every fairly in- telhgent mind. I mean that in our argu- [21] Evidence, Experience, Influence ment we must begin with Him and argue from Him, His personality, His charac- ter. His influence, instead of beginning somewhere else and arguing on to Him. Let us try to prove this by the conditions and contentions of much modern and popular controversy. Christ is revealed to us first in the Holy Scriptm-es, and the study of prophecy and type in the Old Testament and of biography and dogma in the New Testament are of infinite necessitj^ and importance. But what is called the higher criticism occu- pies itself so much with authorship and authenticity and textual accuracy and chronological order that it fails to find or to look for Him of whom " Moses and the law and the prophets did write." 'Back to the minutest and most micro- scopic examination of the words of the Holy Scripture we must go, but " the [22] Evidence battle of the books" is not the starting point; and while men are doubting and disputing the age and the authority of the Bible it is idle to ask them to accept its statements as the first or as the final evidence of God. It is like showing brilhant colors to a blind eye, or discours- ing sweet music to the ear of the deaf. It makes no appeal. It answers no de- mand. It responds to no need. If we have found God in Christ, you and I, we must take His own word to the two disciples, " Come see," see Him, " in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." So it seems to me we are mistaken when we seek to bring men to acknowledge Christ and to own God in Him by what is known as the evidence of miracles. We must prove the miracles by Christ, and not Christ by the miracles. One is tempted to re- [23] Evidencej, Eocperience, Influence gret sometimes that this word has found its way so prominently and so con- stantly into om- English Bible and our English speech. It is the very lowest of all the descriptive words, in the orig- inal, of those acts of omnipotence which marked with marvellous beauty the story of om' Lord's earthly life. It is the Latin translation, done into English, of the Greek word re/aa?, which is never used by itself to describe these works of Christ. The true word is o-rjixeCov, a sign. From the wedding feast at Cana to the last of those great works of mighty mercy there were never " miracles " or wonders alone, but always either " signs," or " signs and wonders" ; and their appeal is always, not to the amazement or aston- ishment, but to the instruction and con- viction of those for whom and before whom they were wrought. To fling [24] Evidence them baldly at the unbeliever is to pro- voke denial and prevent belief. It is written of the first of these great signs that only those who were already His disciples believed in Him; and to-day I am quite sure that the argument from miracles is for disciples and not for de- niers: that is to say, the argument from what are called the miracles which Jesus wrought, and which ought to be called the signs which He showed. But before and behind all, in our appeal to those who do not believe hes the miracle of the Christ Himself, the sign that He was, the won- der that He was, and the sign and the wonder that He is to-day. Here we begin, and here we stand face to face with certain facts. One may study Christ in many places and in many ways, — the Christ in prophecy, the Christ in biography, the Christ in history. Or, [25] Evidence, Experience, Influence when He is known, one may come to Him for love and honor and worship and help and consolation, in His Word, in His sacraments, in His ministry, in His Church. But the personality of Jesus Christ, the revealer of God, as we ex- amine it, is the overwhelming proof, the incontrovertible argument, the irresisti- ble evidence of God, of religion, of Chris- tianity. Poor George Romanes, — rich George Romanes rather — when he was passing back from scientific doubt to religious belief used to say, " Why is the Gospel story so natural, why can we find no flaw in Jesus Christ? Were not His words, after all, the words of truth, telling the mind of God, infinitely more accurately than any reading of nature?" And as he queried, he prayed, and the old faith came back to him. Let it be granted [26] Evidence that there are questions raised about the trustworthiness of records, about the authorship of the Gospels, about the au- thenticity of a passage here or there, etc. Men may have to go, some men at least, back through the weary waste of wit- nesses to these; but not first; because Jesus Christ to-day stands out in life and fact, in influence, in power, in reality, in recognition, so distinct and clear that any open eye can see Him, and seeing Him, there is no explanation of Him but the one. He stands as the one fulfilled ideal of humanity. We may pick out a man here and a man there in history or in our own knowledge of men as splendid speci- mens of some special grace of human nature ; — he is brave, or he is pure, or he is generous or he is unselfish, — but in every such instance there are other graces un- developed and there are faults and flaws, [27] Evidence, Experience, Influence (not many perhaps, and overshadowed by what in him is good) which lessen and lower the value of the character. But the human nature of the Master is without fault and without flaw, — His teaching. His example, Himself. For nineteen centuries man after man and nation after nation has found Him and followed Him, " the chief est among ten thousand, the altogether lovely." If one could gather a collection of adjectives which describe noble character and put them all in the superlative degree, it is not too much to say that they would come short of any real portraiture of Him. How can we explain this but on the ground that " He is the word made flesh," the utterance, the expression, in human form, of God; the God incarnate, who is the supreme revelation, the supreme man- ifestation, the supreme evidence of God. [28] Evidence And when one blurs the perfectness of this humanity with a denial of His own claim to Godhead, surely one forces a most vital inconsistency upon his in- telligence and upon his belief. There are those who have dreamed nightmares of a change in the character of our Lord's claims as to Himself, who have fondly imagined that the God-consciousness came to Him at His baptism; that the claim of Godhead as Son grew on Him, as in later life He surrendered Himself to some subtle and mystic influence from the fanatical enthusiasm of those who fol- lowed Him with an exaggerated love. But sui'ely they forget that the later period of our Lord's life was fullest of all that is manly and magnificent in His human nature. Sm-ely they forget that He suffered death upon the cross because He held to the assertion of His God- [29] Evidence^, Experience, Influence head, which the Jews who condemned Him comited blasphemy. Surely they forget that the mastery of the intelli- gence, the aifection, the worship of the civilized world came to Him and has grown and gathered more and more about Him, because of His Cross. Surely they forget that the incontestable reality of His resurrection is the clinching and con- vincing proof of the perfect humanity and the entire divinity of Jesus Christ, — very God of very God, and also very man, — as the concentrated extract and the dis- tilled essence of ideal manhood. " First of all," Dean Robbins writes, " there is the moral elevation of Jesus Christ to be explained on natm'alistic grounds. Shall we, or shall we not, take Him as our Master? Every instinct of the heart prompts to the acknowledg- ment of His complete moral supremacy. [30] Evidence But how reconcile this supremacy with His antecedents and environments? Whence came the cathohcity of that teaching, which never grows old and never disappoints? How accomit for the im- rivalled influence that He has exerted over all sorts and conditions of men? These questions press for an answer; they will not be postponed. No theory of morals can have any consistency, no practical evangel can hope for effective- ness until the mind has tried conclusions with this central problem, and a defmite decision has been reached. " Moreover, the character of Christ is hopelessly comphcated, from the rational- istic point of view, with what must be esteemed the most gigantic blunder ever made by mortal man — the claim which He put forward that He is the Eternal Son of God. The purest and highest [31] Evidence, Experience, Influence character is degraded by a blasphemous self-assertion that finds parallel only among the insane, and the lowest charla- tans who have disgraced religious history. How has the unique influence of Christ for good maintained itself, thus handi- capped? If Christ made no such claim, how can we disentangle truth and fiction? Ai'e we not forced, in this case, to ac- knowledge that we know practically noth- ing of Him from whom the world has derived its noblest inspirations? " Now, just as a practical test of this power we may go back, for instance, to two points to which I have alluded, the verity of the Holy Scriptures and the reality of the signs. There is nowhere written a clearer or a fuller statement of the object, for which the volume which we call the Bible was written and has been so wonderfully preserved, as in our [32] Evidence Lord's words to the Jews of His time, *' Ye search the Scriptures." It was a word, not of commandment, but of com- mendation, and then He added, " These are they that testify of me." Now searching the Scriptures is rightful and rehgious work. Just now it is so popu- lar as to be almost fashionable, and for one I believe that in every direction of searching it is to be encouraged, provided only the motive is right. The searching with the avowed and anxious pui'pose to find mistakes, inaccuracies, contradic- tions, the searching of mere destructive criticism, with its spirit of bitter animosity has nothing to commend it, and from it nothing is to be expected. The man who starts out upon the theory that the Bible is to be treated like any other book avows himself unfitted for treating it at all. Professor Sanday, speaking at the recent [33] Evidence, Eccperience, Influence Church Congress in Bristol, said, " The critics are too eager to make the narra- tive of the Gospels conform to the con- ditions of other narratives, and to make the life described in it conform to the standard of other lives. I do not think that there is anything, at least in the somider part of modern historical meth- ods, that compels us to do this. It is one thing ' to read the Bible like any other book,' and another thing to assume that we shall only find in it what is found in other books. Unique spiritual effects re- quire an unique spiritual cause, and we shall never miderstand the full signifi- cance of that cause if we begin by deny- ing or minimizing its uniqueness." The searching of the critic for technical study, the searching for the discovery of analo- gies to profane history, the searching for scientific agreement, the searching for [34] Evidence comparative study with the monumental inscriptions, even the searching for topo- graphical or botanical investigations, is all well enough, but the true search of the Scriptures is studying them because they testify of Christ. And one throws back and throws down the challenge with un- hesitating assurance, from the personal- ity of Jesus Christ as we know it in Him- self and in His influence in the world, to the Scriptures, to prove that they are in- herently and essentially the word of God, because He whom we have come to know stands imaged in them in type, in prophecy, in biography and in doctrinal deduction, plainly and clearly, and be- cause He is true, we know they must be true. The Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Professor Bernard, says, " Dissect the Gospels as we will, we do not get rid of [35] Evidence, Experience, Influence the supernatural. Go back as far as analysis can lead, the central Figure re- mains greater than man. We can say, with more assurance than would have been legitimate half a century ago, that the earliest extant records of Christ give the witness of those who saw Him, and that these represent Him as Divine. The earliest available testimony about Him rests in the confidence of His having risen from the dead. ' The earliest nar- ratives of the resurrection,' writes Dr. Schmiedel himself, ' arose simultaneously with the occurrences to which they relate.' " Here is a great gain indeed. So far as the external testimony to the Resur- rection of our Lord is concerned, it has been strengthened rather than weakened by analysis of the Gospels and criticism of the Epistles. The behef of this can- not be represented as a later accretion to [36] Evidence the primitive faith. Coeval with the Apostles, the two great articles of the Resurrection and the Virgin Birth can never be acceptable to, or possible for, those who cannot believe the Christ of the Church to be more than man. I make bold to say that these two articles are no whit less credible than of old to those who recognize in Christ the Incarnation of the Divine; nor has the criticism of the Gospels, while it has affected many minor beliefs as to our records of Christian origins, done anything to weaken the faith of a Christian man in these central truths." Or take the question of miracles. Just in passing remember this. Here is a man of evil character, of wicked aims and motives, an immoral person. Here is a man upholding a cause which we know to be wrong, or a man who is a mere [37] Evidence, Experience, Influence money-maker and self-seeker, and we see him do wonderful works, but because of the character of the worker, and because of the object of their working we know that thc}^ must be like the wonders and tricks of the charlatan, marvels that can be explained and exposed as one sees through a clever magician or detects the dishonesty of so-called spiritualistic mani- festations. It really is the way of the world, it is the habit of intelligent men, not to test a man by miracles, but to test the miracles by the man. I am sick and tired of the average exploded description of miracles, on account of which objec- tions are made to them. They are im- possible. As if anything was impossible with God. They are against the law of nature. As though nature had fixed laws established by a dead creator inside of a lifeless machine; as though anything was [38] Evidence more disorderly than what we call the order of nature; as though after one of these marvellous manifestations, like the raising of Lazarus, the order of nature, that all men must die, did not go on un- changed. They are supernatural. As though we knew the boundaries of nature ; as though in our childishness we thought the little receding horizon of our imper- fect vision was the end of the earth; as though we did not know that birds and beasts and insects can see and hear things that lie beyond the reach of our human senses. Such objections really refute them- selves. JNIeanwhile the character of Jesus Christ, His personality. His pur- pose vindicated by the accumulating tes- timony of all the centuries, verifies as true, as real, as possible, najy as natural and inevitable, every sign that He [39] Evidence^, Experience, Influence showed. Accept the facts of His life, (and if we accept His life, we must ac- cept its facts, for it is explicable in no other way) — accept the facts of His life, — ^the virgin birth, for only so could God have been made man, the Word have been made flesh, — the death upon the cross of the Prince of Life, the very God, the God-man submitting himself to die, so that His going out of life is as marvellous as His coming into it, — then the resurrec- tion, in which He who had the power to lay His life down had the power also, and used it, to take it again, — accept the fact of Jesus Christ, born and dying and ris- ing again, and it is inevitable that from such a life should flow signs and wonders as the natural expression of such a nature. Just as truly and really as our limited natures hold us within certain bounds, be- yond which we cannot go; so truly and [40] Evidence really the unlimited and illimitable nature of the God-man makes not merely pos- sible, but natural, the exercise of those illimitable powers; and so the man Christ Jesus proves and compels belief in what are called the miracles of His earthly life. [41] II EXPERIENCE II EXPERIENCE I RECOGNIZE that I am approach- ing in this lecture something that may well be called " holy ground," not to be trodden upon by feet that are shod with the roughness of rude contro- versy nor with the irreverence of an idle curiosity. " My inner religious life," Bishop Ran- dolph says in his Paddock Lectures, " its experiences, its feelings, its deepest con- victions, cannot be formulated into words or arguments to establish your faith. If I could express them, they might be strange to your experience, for feelings are as variable as temperament or asso- [45] Evidence, Experience, Influence ciations. Wesley, in his later years, seems to have had some doubt about ' Ex- perience Meetings ' as a means for pro- moting and deepening spiritual life, and endeavored to confine them to an ex- change of sympathies in its duties and its daily habits. " I can give my reasons for believing in God, for my faith in Christ from every field of knowledge, from every source of evidence addressed to thinking beings. But behind and deeper than these exoteric reasons, there are esoteric convictions which are untranslatable into words. The sources are too secret and the realities are too spiritual, too subtle, too sacred to tell." We are driven in upon ourselves from time to time to find some assurance of our religious position. I have dealt with the question of evidence from the out- [46] Expejience side, and I am calling this rather experi- ence than any other name, meaning the interior assurance which a man may have whether he is really religious or not. Sometimes the need of this assurance arises from the presence of some great mystery which comes to ourselves or which we see or know in the lives of other people. Sometimes it lies in the form of some tremendous temptation. Some- times it is due to the intrusion into our minds of doubt. But from what- ever source it comes, it needs looking at and looking into. There is of com-se a prevalent and easy assurance which contents us at ordinary times, in the frequency and regularity of our use of the ordered and outward acts of religion, — the habit of saying prayers, which may not be praying; the habit of read- ing the Bible, which may not be get- [47] Evidence^ Experience^ Influence ting a message from God's word; the habit of coming to church, which may not be worshipping; the habit of Holy Com- mmiion, which may not be discerning the Lord's body. Now and then there must be some stirring and searching in our use of these means to see if there is in them the power of purpose and desire and faith. More dangerous is the easy assurance of one who is content with the mere nega- tive avoidance of forbidden things, the living of what is called a moral life, for- getting that life is made up of positive duties and not merely of avoided sins, and forgetting the need of active obedi- ence to the law filled full of the new mean- ing and the new motive of life. It was said to the men of old time, " Thou shalt not kill." It is said to us in the new time of Christ, " He that hateth his brother is a murderer," And there is [48] Experience still another facile and superficial tem- peramental test; careless about the life and indifferent to the observance of what are called the demands of institutional Christianity, quite apart from morality, not often accompanied by immoralness, floating in a thin solution of sentiment and emotion, which calls itself love of God, but lacks the instinct of love, which is conformity to the will of the beloved. But somehow or other into every real life there must come something deeper and truer than all this, — a real experience of religion. I am almost afraid to use the word " conversion " lest I should seem to give any warrant to the false and dan- gerous notions that pertain about the con- verted life; and yet the question of ex- perience begins and centres in this tre- mendous fact of every real life. Mr. Eugene Stock, in describing an [49] Evidence:, Experience, Influence address which he made to some EngHsh- speaking Hindus in India, puts very strongly the relation of experience to evi- dence. " I used the old and simple illus- tration of the three kinds of evidence — historical, internal, experimental. You send a boy to the druggist's shop to buy some phosphorus. In due course he re- turns and hands you a little packet. He tells you how he went to the shop, how he asked for phosphorus, how the shop- man said ' Yes,' and gave him this packet ; that is the historical evidence. You open the packet ; the substance within looks and smells hke phosphorus ; that is the internal evidence. Have you still any doubt what it is? Set it alight! see how it burns! That is the experimental evidence. I as- sured my Hindu audience that I for one considered we had ample historical and internal evidence to the truth and author- [50] Experience ity of God's one revelation as contained in the Scriptures; while I acknowledged that this evidence might fairly be debated by reasonable men. But the experi- mental evidence of Christianity — how ob- tain that? Try it every man for himself. Taste and see! " I confess that many things have forced this thought upon me this year, — the Wesleyan centenary and the revival of interest in that extraordinary life; a book of strange and startling suggestiveness, attractive, here and there repellent, the Life of Gipsy Smith; the account which comes freshly to me this year of the power and peace of a Sunday service at North- field; and then, the statement, which I know to be true, of a most devoted and able priest of this Church, who came to what he believed to be a real conversion, after he had professed the Christian life [51] Evidence, Experience, Influence and been active and earnest in the Chris- tian ministry, in and during and by means of the singing of the hymn, " Just as I am without one plea." We are too much in the habit, in our communion, of ignor- ing the whole fact and teaching of con- version, which is part at least of the ex- perience of the religious life. It has been, let us grant it, associated in our minds with people and with incidents most unattractive to our tastes, most an- tagonistic to our methods and habits of thought and life and worship. Have we not carried this feeling too far? Have we not condemned the reality because we have distrusted and disliked some of its manifestations? Our Lord has used the expression and given us the illustration of its meaning in His memorable words " except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the [52] kingdom of heaven." Always it seems to me that this utterance of our Lord stands side by side with the expression similar and yet diverse from this, " except a man be born again, he cannot.'' That is a law in the spiritual life. It refers, I believe, to the earthly entrance into God's earthly kingdom, the Church, whose only door is that birth "of water and the spirit," not of water and of the spirit, but with the sin- gle preposition which implies that the two are inseparably united to make one in- strument, e^vSaros Acat Trveujaaro?. It is a question of what can or cannot be. It is of the nature of the case. But this other is the revelation of the will of the King. It is the utterance of a law of the kingdom. And as it refers not to the outer sign of citizenship, but to the inner mark of character, it applies to the final admission into the completed and con- [53] Evidence, Eocperience, Influence summated kingdom. " Except ye turn," the revisers put it, perhaps more accu- rately, but not exclusively of the other expression, " except ye be converted." Of course it does not mean that strange delusion that a man may sit still and wait and wonder and do nothing, until some- thing comes from outside and acts upon him, as though the whole operation was external to the man. And yet, not " ex- cept ye turn " as though the whole action were an individual act and an unaided effort. I like the words that begin with " con " in the spiritual life, — confess, con- firm, conform, conscience, convert and the like, — because they mean co-operation, the spirit of God and the will of a man. " Work out your own salvation because it is God that worketh in you." The spirit of son-making, whereby we cry " Abba, Father." And so, while conver- [54] Eicperience sion means turning as well as being turned, while there is no being turned ex- cept as one turns, while turning must be the act of the individual soul under the power of the spirit of God, we will use this word " conversion " in this sense, " except ye be converted." I am free to say that I think no man can dare to set himself against even the most astounding statements of individual or collective conversions, lest " hapty he be found to fight against God." I am free to say that no man of quick and keen sen- sibility to reUgious influences and impres- sions can dare to mark as unconverted, a man who has never experienced the sensa- tions that he himself has felt. And I am as free to say that no man of cold and in- expressive nature can dare to question the reality of the conversion of a man, whose sensations he has no power to imagine or [55] Evidence, Experience, Influence to feel. And again I say, lest " haply he be found to fight against God." There is only one thing of which I am absolutely sure, that there never was and never can be the instantaneous and per- manent change by conversion, of a sinner into a completed saint. One may believe in the quick sprouting of a seed out of congenial soil and under a genial sun into the fair promise of a strong shoot, but after that, before the flowering and the fruitage, there must be gradual growth. So we are ready, I think, to study out this grave and vital question of conver- sion, of experience, as our Lord has taught it in connection with these words. " Ex- cept ye be converted and become as lit- tle children ye shall not enter into the kingdom." And first of all, let us re- member that the words are spoken to disciples. Jews and Turks and infidels, [56] Ea^perience these need conversion and we pray for them; and people of evil lives, drunk- ards and adulterers and blasphemers, — and so we work in the slums and we send missionaries to the heathen; but disciples? you and I? yes, over and over and over again. Wherever there has been a turn- ing aside there must be a turning back. After every lapse into sin there must be conversion, not the feeling, but the fact. And morning after morning and night after night, in the waywardness and the wilfulness and the carelessness of our lives, the cry of the Holy Spirit is ring- ing in our ears, " Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die? " In one sense conversion is not the beginning of the Christian life, because the little child that is born of water and the Holy Spirit is in the king- dom of God. Perhaps it is more safe to say, since the meaning and the power of [57] Evidence^ Experience^ Influence that baptismal gift is faint and far away in some of us, conversion is not neces- sarily the beginning of the Christian Hfe. But over and over again it is the re- newal, the refreshment, the restoration of that which, but for this gracious possi- bility, would be the lost opportunity of the soul. And then the test of it and the proof of it. It is a little child that Jesus takes and sets in the midst of the disciples, and makes the aim and the ambition of their lives and the test of their conversion. Apparently men have misunderstood un- til they have perverted this lesson, mis- taking childishness for childlikeness ; as though one would dare to let the senile helplessness of second childhood stand as representing the maturer attainments of completed manhood. We certainly put childishness for childlikeness in our prac- [58] Experience tical application of this thought, for child- hood has its graces and its disgraces, and we mistake the one for the other. Our lives are childish in that they are trifling and frivolous, with no sense of responsi- biUty, lived for mere amusement and en- joyment. That is the childish life. Whereas the graces of childhood are not easy to get or to keep in the rush and race of life ; for a little child is simple and seri- ous and aiFectionate and grateful and de- pendent and humble and pure. And the graces and marks of childhood really are the fairest ornaments of manhood or womanhood in their maturity. Alas, there is one element of childhood to which manhood can never come. It is inno- cence. But penitence and pardon can give purity, so that in the language of one of the most perfect of the Collects " God's faithful people, being granted pardon [59] Evidence^ Experience, Influence and peace, can serve Him with a quiet mind." And of these graces of childhood the one which our Lord selects as the special test and token is humility. Rather, it is the act and habit of self-humiliation, — " Whosoever shall humble himself." Let us face this as the test of a real religious experience, as the evidence of a religion that has taken hold of our natures, as the indication of what religion really is in the life. It is neither right nor safe to be making comparisons among sins, as to which is more and which less deadly and destructive. But surely prominent among the evil tendencies of human nature is the sin of pride. Prominent and most bane- ful, because it hardens the heart against God and against man. There is no open way of access by which God can reach a man, and there is no sense of the need [60] Experience of a way by which a man can approach God, while the soul is filled with the pride of self-sufficiency. If it is pride of in- tellect, then it will resist the whole thought of any need of revelation, confident of having power to know all that needs to be known. If it is pride of possessions, then it will satisfy the soul with that dra- matic utterance of the rich fool, — " Soul, take thine ease," — and there will be no craving and no cultivation of any craving, for the riches and fruition of the life eternal. And as it shapes life in relation to other men, pride breeds the contemptu- ous sense of superiority and the selfish withdrawal from all needs and interests except its own. It was the root sin of Satan. And whatever form it takes, pride of opinion, pride of social place, pride of power, pride of race, the vulgar pride of wealth or the petty pride of [61] Evidence^ Experience^ Influence vanity in beauty, it is the hardest hardener of hearts. Nor may we forget that it is so common a tendency as to show itself in most unHkely places, in people whom our proudness looks down upon as having nothing to be proud of. No wonder that our Lord puts self-humiliation first as the evidence of conversion, as the test of any real experience of religion. We have peculiar racial temptations in this direc- tion. I say racial, because it runs in our English blood to feel that somehow there has been given to us a place among the nations of the earth which means the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race; and our modern Americanism emphasizes and intensifies this tendency, in the boastful- ness with which we are tempted to meas- ure everything by size, just the mere big- ness of territorial extent, or numbers of population, or value of imports and ex- [62] Experience ports, or growth in material things. The cure for the race and for the nation is in the humihation of the sense of our short- comings, with our great responsibihty for all these gifts and powers. And indi- vidually the two chief collective influences are first, the insistent comparing of each man's self with the one ideal and example, namely, the perfect humanity of Jesus Christ; and then, the constant comparison of ourselves as we are, with the selves we might have been had we been faithful to our graces and our gifts. Put side by side the great apostle's estimate of him- self, — " Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of which I am chief," — with the Pharisee's estimate, gained by manufacturing in his mind's eye a con- temptible creature in the shape of the Pubhcan as he rated him, — " I thank God that I am not as other men are, or [63] Evidence, Experience, Influence even as this Publican." Real humility, real self -humbling, not false modesty, not vulgar self -depreciation, but the tram- pling down of the fatal possession of pride, is the supremest evidence and the most sure experience of religion in the character and life. I cannot think that it is matter of accident that in this 18th chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, which contains this teaching of conversion, our Lord has used perhaps the very most in- tense expression of effort and energy that can be found in all His teachings. Here is the disciple seeking conversion, seek- ing childlikeness, seeking self-humiliation, and the hand or the foot that offends is to be cut off and cast away, and the eye that offends is to be plucked out, — the hand of covetousness, the hand of cruelty, the hand of dishonesty; the foot that strays into the way of forbidden pleas- [64] Experience ures, the foot that errs from the path of God's commandments, the foot that makes haste to do evil ; the eye that envies, the eye that bhnds itself to truth, the eye that wanders, the eye that lusts. And the lesson lies for us, who would have the evidence, the experience, the assurance of rehgion, that it is not an easy attainment once for all secured, but a long and con- stant conflict with our natui'es, the real battle of life, to be won only at the cost of self-denial and self-mastery, slowly and gradually, " until the breaking of the day." The somewhat strange and startling in- troduction into this chapter of the elev- enth verse (which Lachmann and Tisch- endorf and Tregelles omit), belongs here it seems to me, or has, at least, suggestive connection with our Lord's teaching here, because it sets before us at once the [65] Evidence, Eocperience, Influence great need and the great hope of every life. The great need, in that it recalls the teaching of our Lord of the won- derful threefold parable of penitence. Whatever may be the step or stage of wandering from Him, the foolish stray- ing of the sheep, the suUen self -separa- tion of the coin, the remote self -exile of the boy, each one is lost. It is a hard word and a strong one, telling the actual result of every unrepented sin. Each one is lost, absolutely and equally, until it is found, forgiven, restored to the fold, to the hoard, to the home. And then the great hope : for over against the otherwise intolerable awfulness of this declaration, it paints the patient and perpetual seek- ing of the Son of Man for every least lost thing, for every one lost thing, for everything so little lost or so very far away, to whose seeking the love of the [661 Eojperience Son of Man sets no limit of time or place, for it is written that " He seeks mitil He finds." And the evidence of experience within each one for his own assm-ance, and going out from each one for its influence upon others, the evidence of experience is that the lost is found, the penny re- stored to the frugal store, the sheep re- turned to the fold, the boy brought home. [67] Ill INFLUENCE Ill INFLUENCE IF I have seemed to stray somewhat remotely from the assigned subjects of these lectures, which are to deal with the evidences of natural and revealed religion, I hope that I may gather up into the teaching of this last lecture, the two lines of thought on evidence and experi- ence, the inner and the outer evidence, really, into an examination of the evi- dence, as it shows itself in character, of religion fii-st natural and then revealed; and then the evidences, in effect and in- fluence upon character, of the various re- ligions, as they are called, which have sprung from some purely human origin. [71] Evidence, JEocperience, Influence I am quite aware that I am not using these words in the sense in which Bishop Butler has immortahzed them in his in- comparable Analogy, wherein he develops the great thought that the " chief objec- tions, equally untenable in either instance, toward the truth and the proof of the moral and Christian dispensation as re- vealed to us, lie equally against what is experienced in the constitution and order of nature and Providence." Studied along the line of this analogy, the evi- dence which natural religion gives to the truth of revelation is marvellous indeed. I am using the word rather to mean the religion of nature as it manifests itself in the history of the peoples to whom no direct revelation of God has yet come. We are in the habit of judging harshly and severely the morahty of the Hebrew people in the time of Moses, for instance, [72] Influence because we are always contrasting them with Christian standards ; but the true con- trast is between them and the character, morahty, belief and worship of the other contemporary nations of the world. And if one studies the story of the heathen, their cruelty, their superstition, their un- bridled lust, their incessant wars, their treatment of captives, their treatment of women, — none of them destitute of some form of religion, some recognition of a superior and unseen power, something that they call worship, — one gets the evi- dence of the character of these religions of nature and of their effect on character, and reahzes its low morality, its degrada- tion of human nature, its surrender to passion, its absolute animalness, with hardly an uplift above the so-called brute creation, its material conceptions even of life after death (for the instinctive im- [73] Evidence^ Experience^ Influence pression of immortality exists even in the most degraded people), its hmiian sac- rifices, its cannibalism (explained and de- fended on religious principles that the best must be sacrificed to the gods, and that the virtue of the great chief slain and eaten was imparted in this way to the captors), and their only and entire appeal to the baser element of fear. Surely judged by such results, the power of the religion is self -condemned. No one who is familiar with the here and there glimpse which the historical portions of the Old Testament give of the habits and beliefs and practices, for instance of the heathen nations of Canaan or of the peo- ple of Sodom, or of the ancient Egyp- tians (highest of all peoples except the Hebrews in their intellectual elevation), no one can doubt the evidence that the influence upon character of the religions [74] Influence of nature never lifted man to any develop- ment of the nobler elements of himself. They rather dragged down God to their own lower levels. So that the argmnent lies not only from analogy to the proba- bility of the Christian revelation, but from contrast, to the immeasurable superiority of the religion of Jesus Christ; and even before that, to the infinitely higher devel- opment, through the imperfect and pro- gressive revelation which led up to the full manifestation of God's will and God's truth, when the law, like a school- master, a pedagogue, was slowly leading the world on and up to Christ. There is another open page which lies before the student of history in the con- dition of things in Greece and Rome dur- ing the very height of what is called their civilization. We remember that St. Paul described the Athenians of his day [75] Evidence, Eocperience, Influence as a more than usually God-fearing peo- ple. The Acropolis bristled with altars. The chief feasts of the people were con- nected with their religious ceremonies. Processions in honor of the Gods were the most splendid and magnificent and the most popular of all the holiday keep- ings. They named the days of the week after the deities; and the great games, which have become historic in connection with the famous tragedies of classic litera- ture, had all rehgious elements at their foundation. This is true of pagan Rome. So far as superstition is a token of re- ligious belief, — and while religion need not and must not be superstition, supersti- tion has always a religious foundation, — they lived their daily lives, hour by hour, and act by act, under its direction. The calendar of gods and deified heroes ran over every day of every year. And [76] Influence somewhat after the fashion of impagan Rome in its canonization of saints, they filled any vacancies that might be, by the apotheosis of an emj)eror, an athlete or a soldier. And their literature is rich in dreams and imaginings of an immortal life, material, sensuous, earthy, but still a Ufe after death and beyond the grave. And yet when one comes to know how their very religion was gross with licen- tiousness and impurity, how they deified lust and invented a god of drunkenness, how the orgies of the Saturnalia and the Bacchanalia were too disgusting even to read or to recall, the evidence of such a religion is a protest against its desecration of the name. And underneath this and because of this, what is the evidence of its influence upon their lives? When the thin veneer of the boasted civilization of Greece and Rome is peeled off, when one [77] Evidence^ Experience, Influence has looked under and into the exquisite grace and beauty of their art, the splen- did monuments of their architecture, and the polish and wealth of their literature, one comes upon a condition, not of morals, but of recognized, tolerated, universal immorality passing comprehension and refusing to be described, — the human slavery, the exposure of children, the degradation of women, cruelty to animals, gluttony, drunkenness, unbridled passion, extravagance of expenditure for display, for luxury, for pandering to appetite, until it fills out the Master's description of the sepulchres that were beautiful out- side, but within were filled " with dead men's bones and all uncleanness." Surely the evidence of the influence of such a religion upon life is its own condemna- tion. It is more perhaps to the point, because [78] Influence it enters much into the popular talk of our day, to look at and to look into the evi- dence of the influence upon life and char- acter, of the religions other than Chris- tianity which still hold sway over large populations of the world. That almost sacrilegious parody which was enacted at a World's Fair, called the Parliament of Religions, undertook to set forth as part of its entertainment, the beauty and value of Buddhism and Brahminism and the rest; and in that strange combination of cults and views which pertains in Bos- ton, a distinguished representative of the Chinese nation boldly proclaimed the vast superiority of Confucianism to Christian- ity. I remember very well hearing Phil- lips Brooks, when he came back from India, say virtually that the worst condi- tions of life in a Christian land were better than the highest attainments of the relig- [79] Evidence^ Eocperience, Influence ions of the East. Aiid just because of the passing fashion which has exalted into dignity the esoteric doctrines of Buddha, and has proclaimed Nirvana as a very high attainment of character, and circulates and reads with great admiration the Ht- erature of eastern religions, it is well, I think, to look at the evidence of non- christian religions and to know just what human life and character, in their aims and their results, are, under their influence. It is, alas, true, that in the shortcomings of our Christian lives there exist condi- tions that reproduce these evils; but it is always to be remembered that with us such lives are against and in spite of our religion, and with them they are the out- come and result of their religious teach- ing. One may not forget the great example of St. Paul in approaching a non-chris- [80] Influence tian religious system, to try first to find and recognize in it some common point of contact, from which to lead on and up to the higher and better teachings of Christianity. As Mr. Speer states it, " There is nothing good in them that is not in Christianity. They are not wholly bad. In each one of the great religions some vital truth is emphasized: the sover- eignty of God in ^lohammedanism, the divine immanence in Hinduism, human submission and gentleness in Buddhism, filial piety and political order in Confu- cianism, patriotism in Shintoism, the spirituality of nature in Shamanism — these are great and valuable truths." To which he also wisely adds, " These truths are held in distortion, unbalanced by needed counter-truths. The Moslem holds the doctrine of divine sovereignty so one- sidedly that he gives up all hope of prog- [81] Evidence^ Experience, Influence ress, loses all sense of personal responsi- bility for the change of evil conditions, and answers every appeal for energetic effort by the resigned protest, * It is the will of God.' The Hindu holds the doc- trine of divine immanence in so loose and unguarded a form that it becomes a cover for utter antinomianism. The man is his own god. The horrible immorality of much Hindu worship is the legitimate re- sult of the pantheistic development of the Hindu doctrine of inmianent deity. The Buddhists teach submission without its needed counter-checks, and listlessness and Nirvana even now brood over the Buddhist peoples. Confucianism teaches the ethics of a present life, and forgets that there is a life to come. Shintoism exalts loyalty to country and master, and goes to the extreme of subordinating to such loyalty the moral law. Shamanism [82] Influence makes every bush the house of God, and propitiates Him by adorning His house with rags or old shoes. The religion whose God is not above its bushes as well as in its bushes can do no better." To carry on the arraignment let me add that Mohammedanism commands the murder of unbelievers who will not embrace Islam and pay tribute, and of every apostate from Islam. It allows slavery and polyg- amy and concubinage and justifies war as a means of promoting religion. Hindu- ism, by the character of the gods, by the teaching of the sacred books, by the na- ture of much of the temple worship, fos- ters uncleanness and sanctions immoral- ity. Buddhism promotes indolence and dignifies mendicancy and degrades wom- anhood, teaching that the only hope of heaven for a woman must be some trans- migration to be born a man. And compe- [83] Evidence^ Experience, Influence tent scholars living in the East and know- ing its so-called sacred books, bear witness to the fact that many of them are " in- capable of translation for vileness," that the priesthood of Hinduism is the main- stay of every unholy, immoral and cruel custom and superstition, and that the shrines and endowed temples are fester- ing masses of crime and vice and gigantic swindling. " The sacred cities are the foul- est places of all." Such facts and such re- sults as these must be fairly faced in any comparison of the evidence, for or against a system called a religion, from its influ- ence upon the lives and characters of its followers. And while it may be wise and right for the missionary, in dealing with the holders of these imperfect systems, to look out in them for some " broken light of God," the student of what is sometimes called comparative religion must learn [84] Influence what the Bishop of Rochester speaks of, as the duty of " right intolerance, in these days when there is such a tendency to break down moral distinctions and throw over everything the mantle of an inverte- brate charity." Now over and against this I set the evi- dence, in His influence on life and char- acter, of Jesus Christ as revealed to us in Holy Scripture, and as shown in His ef- fect upon the world. Two things must be borne in mind. First, it is absolutely impossible for any man calling himself unbeliever, agnostic, or by any other anti- christian name, living in our day and gen- eration, to rid himself of the atmospheric element of the nineteen centuries of Chris- tianity in the midst of which he lives. In- evitably and imconsciously he is affected by conditions which he does not recognize or realize as Christian or religious, which [85] Evidencej Experience^ Influence nevertheless have made him what he is and given him the freedom and fukiess of the Hfe which he enjoys. He cannot be as though he lived before or apart from the great fact of Christian civilization. And secondly, it must be acknowledged that the influence of Christianity in Christian lands is marred and maimed by the incon- sistency of the lives of those who " profess and call themselves Christians," just as its spread throughout the world is hindered by our indifference. But for all this, no man can deny the power and the kind of influence, upon human life and upon hu- man society, which religion, as revealed in and through our dear Lord, has exer- cised and is exercising wherever it has gone. The one single fact stands first and foremost, that He Himself, the ideal Man, the only sinless man, is the example for the rest. We are to look to Him as [86] Influence He is revealed to us in the Gospel story and in the history of the Christian cen- turies, as the representative of the kind of character which His teachings are meant to produce. On the one hand are such ex- amples as Hercules or a god Mars, a Ma- homet, a Buddha, standing for certain merely human graces, defaced and dis- figured with human vices. On the other stands the Christ, practising and exempli- fying the virtues of purity, of patience, of meekness, of forgiveness of enemies, of tenderness, of sympathy, of active ministries of mercy ; and all these mingled with manliness, with justice, with the stern reproof of hypocrisy or inmiorality, with a power of righteous indignation at sin, with heroic courage, sealing by His death the witness of His life ; and with no fault or flaw that mars the ideal perfec- tion of His nature. It is quite true that [87] Evidence^ Eccperience, Influence the graces which our Lord exempHfied and taught are not those which commend themselves to the natural man, but it is not true that they stand for anj^ merely sentimental and unmanly character. " It was reserved for Christianity," Lecky says, " to present to the world an ideal character, which through all the changes of eighteen centuries has filled the hearts of men with an impassioned love and has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments and conditions ; has done more to regenerate and soften man- kind than all the disquisitions of philoso- phers and all the exhortations of moral- ists; has indeed been the well-spring of whatever has been best and purest in the Christian life." Surelj^ this influence is the crowning evidence of revealed reli- gion; from the very beginning in the dim adumbration of type and prophecy, [88] Influence through the slow but gradual develop- ment of the Christ that was to come, un- til it all breaks forth, like the sun in the splendor of its might, in the incarnate Son of God, the fulfilment, the realization of the hope of the ages. And the end is not yet. It is not a mere matter of knowledge and possibility that all this comes to you and me, it is the laying upon us of an in- calculable responsibility. No man can measure the accountability of personal in- fluence and example. It is to be the priv- ilege of some of you to proclaim the riches of the everlasting Gospel, to be teachers and preachers of the word. There come to all of us who look for them, and have the courage of our convictions, opportu- nities often to speak the word which may " convert a sinner from the error of his ways " ; and in the various relations of life, fathers and mothers, husbands and [89] Evidence, Experience, Influence wives, and the elder brothers and sisters in the family, masters and mistresses, sponsors and teachers — in all these, the power for good or for evil, of speech and Hfe, is mitold. And I believe it is true that, as the smallest stone strikes water and makes an ever-widening circle of waves, so there is no life lived on the earth so inconspicuous, so insignificant, but touches some other life with a strong and subtle power of influence. Thank God there is an infection and a contagion of health and of holiness as well as of sin and disease. Our Lord does not hesitate to class the disciples with the Holy Ghost as His witnesses, — " Ye are witnesses and so is the Holy Ghost." And to-day there is no more powerful evidence of religion than the daily and hourly setting forth of the life of Christ in the character of a man or a woman or a child. For this we have [90] Influence not only the fulness and perf ectness of the teaching, not only the faultless beauty of the character of our Lord (if this were all, we might well despair, because of our inability to be the one or to attain to the other) , but He who is " the Way and the Truth" is also "the Life"; and in the abundance of His gifts of grace, in our sacramental incorporation into Him, which makes us partakers of His life, and in His sacramental re-creation and re- newal and refreshment of that life in us we are " out of weakness made strong," and able, if we stir up the grace that is in us, "to do all things through Christ who strengthens us." And so the life and person of Jesus Christ becomes, not only in Himself, not only in His revelation, but in every one of us, clinching and crowning and conclusive evidence of His revealed religion. [91] Evidence^ Eooperience, Influence However unusual, I trust the method of treatment of these lectures will not have seemed unnatural, or remote from the subjects selected by the founder. No man, I think, can set himself to-day fair- ly before the facts of the existing rela- tions between science and religion without the conviction that what seemed, in the first flush of more thorough scientific research, a quarter of a century ago, an- tagonism and discrepancy, has, by the fur- ther and fuller research, become agree- ment and harmony; and by the same process it seems to me that nature has become more religious and religion more natural. Lord Salisbury's almost epi- grammatic utterance is witness to the fact that it is not religion alone, but nature, as well that is confronted with mystery. " We live," he said, " in a small, bright oasis of knowledge surrounded on all [92] Influence sides by a vast unexplored region of im- penetrable mystery, and from age to age the strenuous labor of successive genera- tions wins a small strip from the desert and pushes forward the boundary of knowledge." And the sermon of the Bishop of Liverpool at the last meeting of the British Association, preached from Job's " magnificent description of the miracles of God as revealed in nature " — "Lo, these are but the outskirts of His ways ; and how small a whisper do we hear of Him! But the thunder of His power who can understand? " — calls attention to the three great improvements to theology which have come from the study of na- ture, " that it had helped man to realize the present activity of God, had brought to him the immanence of the Creator in His creation and had shown that atheism was unscientific." Beside which, condens- [93] Evidence, Experience, Ijifluence ing part of this sermon, the study of na- ture helps men to perfect methods of re- hgious inquiry in insisting upon the value of facts and laws, because the Christian faith rests on facts and because law itself plays a function even in the kingdom of grace. And the study also produces a spirit of humility and reverence and in- creases our sense of mystery in the uni- verse and especially in man. I am glad to close these lectures with the Bishop's truly noble peroration. " Such were some of the gains to theol- ogy from the study of Nature. But there were definite and distinct limits to the teaching of Nature. It could teach much, but not everything. It could never take the place of religion. It could not touch nor illuminate the highest problem of ori- gins. It had discovered no substitute for God. Nature could give no comfort; [94] Influence could inspire no hope; could yield no evi- dence of personal immortality. It could provide beautiful analogies for a resur- rection, but nothing more. Nature could throw no light on the existence or removal of sin. It could neither tell of pardon nor of victory. The conscience spoke in ac- cents that could not be ignored. Nature told them the certainty of retribution. About forgiveness it was silent. And there was soul-hunger. It was true, not only of the prodigal, but of every man apart from God, " he begins to be in want." Nature as revealed by science, knew nothing of love. Nature had no law for life or conduct. She had her victories and her lessons, but she had her limita- tions. She could not meet man's highest aspirations, nor solve the greatest riddles that perplexed his soul. Yet there was One who could speak where Nature is [95] Evidence, Experience, Influence dumb — One who could reveal and illu- minate where Nature is only cloud and darkness. There was One who claimed what no other man had dared to claim, and who had j^roved the truth of His claim by His sinless life, His triumphant resurrection — the deathless influence He exercised upon the thought and character and conduct of man. If only they were honest and patient and pm-e and humble and earnest in their search, to them in due time, without fail, would be given the vision of God in Christ." [96] FOUNDERS' MEMORIAL KJENYON College All Saints' Day, 1901 FOUNDERS' MEMORIAL Kenyon College r %\\ ^aint^' 2Dap, X90X WE REMEMBER BEFORE GOD this day the Founders of these In- stitutions : Philander Chase, the first Bishop of Ohio, clarum et ven- erabile nomen^ whose foresight, zeal, un- wearied patience, and indomitable energy devised these foundations, and established them temporarily at Worthington, and permanently at Gambier; he was the Founder of the Theological Seminary, Kenyon College, and of the Grammar [99] Founders' Memorial School. Charles Pettit McIlvaine, the second Bishop of Ohio, rightly known as the second Founder of these Institu- tions, whose decision of character and self -devoted labors saved them at two dis- tinct crises of difficulty; he builded Bex- ley Hall for the use of the Theological Seminary; Ascension Plall, for the use of Kenyon College ; Milnor Hall, for the use of the Grammar School; and he com- pleted Rosse Chapel on the foundations laid by Bishop Chase. We remember before God this day pious and generous persons, contributors, whose gifts enabled the Bishops of Ohio to lay those foundations, and who are therefore to be named among the Found- ers. We make mention especially of those who have departed to be with Christ, and now rest in Paradise. [100] Founders' Memorial Among the many, we name only a few whose gifts are noticeable because of the influence of their character and position: Henry Clay, whose introduction of Bishop Chase to the Admiral Lord Gam- bier, of England, initiated the movement in 1823; the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Lords Bishops of London, Durham, St. David's, Chester, and Lichfield; the Deans of Canterbury and Sahsbury; Lords Kenyon, Gambier, and Bexley; Sir Thomas Acland; the Rev. Edward Bickersteth, Henry Hoare, Marriott, Pratt, William Wilberforce, Thomas Wiggin, Thomas Bates; the Dowager Countess of Rosse, who aided Hberally the Chapel which afterward bore her name; and Hannah More, who also be- queathed a Scholarship which bears her name. [101] Founders' Memorial We remember before God the liberality of William Hogg, from whom this do- main was purchased under the advice of Henry B. Curtis and Daniel S. Norton, with the consent of Henry Clay; the grantor contributing one-fourth of its market-value. In 1828, John Quincy Adams, the President of the United States; Mrs. Sigourney; Arthur Tappan, who orig- inated the Milnor Professorship; St. George's Church, New York, which es- tablished a Scholarship; the Rev. Drs. Milnor, Tyng, Bedell, Sparrow, and Keith; the Rev. I. Morse, Dudley Chase, Albert Barnes, John Trimble, WilHam Jay, Abbott and Amos Lawrence, Peter Stuyvesant, Richard Varick. These were the first Founders of these Institutions. [102] Founders' Memorial Among those who aided Bishop Mcll- vaine, we mention before God to-day: In 1832, Bishop White, the Rev. Manton East burn and Ascension Church, the Rev. Dr. Cutler and St. Ann's Church, Brook- lyn; the Rev. Drs. Mulilenberg and Wing; Peter A. Jay, James Lennox, Robert Minturn, Henry Codman, Robert Carter, Matthew Clarkson, Charles Hoyt, I. N. Whiting. And in 1835, in England, Daniel Wil- son, Bishop of Calcutta; the Bishops of London, Winchester, SaHsbury, and Lich- field ; the Duchess of Ivent, the Duchess of Gloucester, the Princess Augusta, the Duchess of Beaufort, the Earl of Car- narvon, the Rev. Thomas Hartwell Home, Charles Brydges, John Fox, Jer- ram, Jowett, Baptist Noel, Dr. Plmnptre, Charles Simeon, Henry Thornton, Sir Thomas Baring, Henry Roberts, archi- [103] Founders' Memorial tect, who gave the plan and working- model for Bexley Hall. These are the second Founders of these Institutions. We mention before God to-day the gifts of Bishop Gadsden, Bishop Johns, Colonel Pendleton, John Kilgour, the Kinney s, Dr. Doddridge, Charles D. Betts, who founded a fund for the pur- chase of theological books; the Rev. C. C. Pinckney, who contributed for fitting up a laboratory; J. D. Wolfe, who contrib- uted to found the Lorillard and Wolfe Professorships; John Johns, M.D., of Baltimore, who left a valuable legacy to the Institutions; Stewart Brown, Will- iam H. Aspinwall, and others who con- tributed to the buildings of Ascension Hall; Thomas H. Powers, Lewis S. Ash- urst, John Bohlen and sister, and others who founded a Professorship in memory [104] Founders' Memorial of the late Dr. Bedell of Philadelphia; Mrs. Spencer; Mrs. Lewis, who partly founded a Professorship; the Rev. Dr. Brooke, the Rev. Messrs. Lounsbury and E. A. Strong, whose efforts brought many valuable contributions to these In- stitutions; W. W. Corcoran, President Andrews, and the Rev. Alfred Blake. And last, the philanthropist, George Peabody, the intimate friend of Bishop Mcllvaine, who in token of that friend- ship founded the Professorship that bears his name. We mention before God to-day, among the donors to this College, William E. Gladstone, late Prime Minister of Eng- land; the Rev. Canon Carus, and J. Pye Smith ; and, in the United States, the Rev. Drs. Dyer and Burr, Professor Francis Wharton, A. H. Moss, John Gardiner, the Rev. Archibald M. Morrison, who [105] Founders' Memorial founded the Griswold Professorship; the Rev. Drs. Muenscher and Bronson, and others whose names are recorded. We mention before God to-day the Rev. Marcus T. C. Wing, D.D., who, besides being a Professor in the Theo- logical Seminary, was for thirty years its financial agent; R. S. French, who, with the assistance of friends at Mount Vernon and Gambier, provided the full set of nine bells and the clock, and placed them in the tower of the church, with power to ring the Canterbury chimes. We mention before God to-day Mrs. Alfred Blake, who founded three Scholar- ships to bear her husband's name. To her beautiful soul may the Lord grant peace and refreshment in Paradise. We reverently mention before God this day that venerable and apostolic man now in Paradise, the Right Rev. Gregory [106] Founders' Memorial Thurston Bedell, the third Bishop of Ohio, who, with the aid of WilHam H. and John Aspinwall, James M. Brown, Samuel D. Babcock, Wilham B. Astor, and other members of the Church of the Ascension in New York, builded the Church of the Holy Spirit for the use of all the Institutions; through him Mrs. Bowler founded the Professorship which bears the name of her husband, R. B. Bowler, who gave a philosophical ap- paratus, and who, with Larz Anderson, Henry Probasco, William Proctor, and others, founded the Mcllvaine Professor- ship; Jay Cooke founded the Professor- ship which bears his father's name ; Frank E. Richmond founded the Hoffman Library Fund; Stewart Brown builded the tower of the church to bear the name of his son, Abbott Brown. By the same Bishop and his wife the organ was placed [107] Founders' Memorial in the church as a memorial of the second Bishop of this Diocese, and the episcopal chair as a memorial of the great Founder ; members of St. Ann's Church in Phila- delphia completed the endowment of the Bedell Professorship, among them chiefly William Welsh, John Bohlen and his sister, Thomas H. Powers, and Robert H. Ives and his wife. We mention before God to-day Julia Strong Bedell, the wife of the third Bishop of Ohio, who with her husband had contributed most generously of thought, time, and money to these Insti- tutions, and who may truly be said to have been their most munificent Founder. Her gifts during her life were constant and imfailing, and at her death she remem- bered the College with a large bequest. We mention with gratitude the success- ful efforts of the late President of Ken- [108] Founders' Memorial yon College, the Rev. William B. Bodine, D.D., to complete the endowments, and the gifts that have resulted therefrom, namely: from Rutherford B. Hayes, President of the United States; Peter Hayden, Dr. I. T. Hobbs, the Rev. Will- iam Horton, Thomas McCulloch, Samuel L. IMather, and H. P. Baldwin; from John W. Andrews a donation in lands for the foundation of Scholarships in mem- ory of his son; from Columbus Delano the hall which bears his name; from Mrs. Ezra Bliss, of Columbus, a library build- ing, which bears the name of Hubbard Hall, in memory of her brother ; and from Henry B. Curtis, Scholarships which from generation to generation foster sound learning. We mention before God to-day James Sullivan Warren, of Boston, and John Sherman, late Senator from Ohio, who [109] Founders' Memorial left legacies to the General Fund of these Institutions; Job M. Nash, of Cincinnati, who founded the Scholarships that bear his name; and Mrs. Mary A. McBride, of Wooster, who left a bequest to found a Scholarship in memory of her son, a dis- tinguished alumnus of this College. We mention before God to-day Will- iam Simpson, of Sandusky, whose widow gave the Wilham and INIary Simpson Memorial Fund for the restoration of Rosse Hall, which was destroyed by fire May 9, 1897. We mention with gratitude the gift of James P. Stephens, who has contributed $18,000 to found a Library Fund which is to bear his name, and who gave the funds for the Stephens Stack Room. For all these generous gifts of the liv- ing, and for the memory of the dead who [110] Founders' Memorial were the Founders of these Institutions, we give hearty thanks to God this day; ascribing the praise of their benefactions to His ahnighty grace, and the glory of His most Holy Name, Who is the God of our fathers and our God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, one Adora- ble Trinity, for ever and ever. Amen. [Ill] Princeton Theological 5eminary-5peer Ubtary 1 1012 01016 2016