N y.. IIIIMIItlBHIgittilWllMIt WIIIltilttlttKWHlltlitWilWISWtBtUtiailiat»( i ' msrasm^ a '"^■"''^ riittatBjBtiiiiBiiyaiijiiilaiitit'jiiiiiiiiiiiiijtf ^ 7.2.2..Z6. LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON, N. J. PRESENTED bTTVcA. cJ.T?\-Vcn \(^ Smi+Vi *DrD. BR 121 .W25 1919 Waring, Henry Fish, 1870- 1936. Christianity's unifying fundamental CHRISTIANITY'S UNIFYING FUNDAMENTAL HENRY F. WARING CHRISTIANITY'S UNIFYING FUNDAMENTAL BY ^^^W OF PSW^ HENRY F. WARING / <^ % AUTHOR OF "CHRISTIANITY AND ITS BIBLE," E^J. JUL 2.'^ 1920 NEW XSJr YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY Copyright, 1919, By Henry F, Waring Printed in the United States of America TO MY SONS WALDO AND HENRY INTRODUCTION 'fTT^IS easy t' think hard, but 'tis sometime I hard V think t' the point." The world crisis has stung all Christendom into deeper thinking — ^not simply to think hard but to think to the point. As one far-reaching re- sult, a spirit that was already growing has been profoundly quickened — a spirit of yearning for unifying co-operation based on that which is really fundamental. To direct attention to the biggest, deepest, and most unifying thought in Christianity is the object of this irenicon. It recognises that many, inside as well as outside the churches, are caring less and less for ecclesiastical differences based on exe- getical subtilties and theological technicalities. They do not deny, perhaps, that these may have a legitimate place. For themselves, how- ever, they want the big, unifying things of re- ligion and life. Many of them are fighting out in their own souls the bitter battle of doubt concerning even the foundations of their fath- ers' faith. To such the following chapters aim to show what really is fundamental and the way it is attained. From a score or more of men of widely dif- Vll viii Introduction ferent training — some members of different de- nominations and the rest outside of the Church altogether — came a significant request. They asked for a night a week until they would be helped through their differences and doubts to a conviction that they would be able to ex- press and support. Inspiring months of these conferences were followed by a course of pub- lic lectures, after each of which questions from the audience were answered. What follows is the precipitate from the laboratory of these experiences. It is not a collection of detached lectures, but each chapter was prepared with the thought of the whole sequence. No effort has been made to construct a steel- turreted creed, since the strongest creedal for- tress inevitably falls. Instead, the thought has been to show how it is possible to **dig in'' successfully against bigotry, scepticism, ma- terialism, and other enemies of progress. The purpose is to suggest how, through progressive intrenchment, continuous victory may be won for humanity in the name of the Christ. The aim of the first two chapters will be to lead to a keen appreciation of a great need; of the next ^Ye^ to give the stages in a quest to satisfy this need; and of the last five to show the result of this quest in its relation to the biggest things of life. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I Bigotry and Scepticism ..... 13 I Bigots II Sceptics III The Rest of Us II The Unifying Way 24 I Tolerance II Questing Truth III Fundamental Truth First III The Knowableness of Jesus .... 34 I Sources for Knowledge of Jesus II Compared with Those for Paul III The Essential Jesus Knowable IV The Immediacy of God 46 I The Divergence of Science and Theology II The Convergence of Science and Theology V The Trinity Truth 57 I The Trinity Historically Considered II Jesus as Immanilel III The Holy Spirit as Immanuel IV The Nature of God VI Christlikeness — of God and Man . . 69 I Christian Prayer II The Christian Ideal ix X Contents CHAPTER PAGE: VII Christianity's Unifying Fundamental . 87 I Fundamental II Distinctively Christian III Historically Wise IV Specially Inspiring V Unifying VIII LONESOMENESS 92 I A Deep Life Fact II Lonesomeness Diagnosed III Christian Fellowship with God IV Christian Fellowship with Man IX Others 109 I In the Life and Teaching of Jesus II Churches as Search Parties III The Social Gospel IV Vicarious Sacrifice X The Unit of Society 125 / I Jesus and the Family II Blessing and Bane III Sinful Silence IV The School of Home XI Character — Here and Hereafter . . 144 I Here II Hereafter XII Joy 157 I The Pursuit of Pleasure II The Normahty of Christian Joy III Special Causes for Joy IV Joy's Undertone CHRISTIANITY'S UNIFYING FUNDAMENTAL CHRISTIANITY'S UNIFYING FUNDAMENTAL CHAPTER I BIGOTRY AND SCEPTICISM I. BIGOTS BIGOTS differ widely. Some are moral. Others are immoral. Some are unctuous. Others are not. Some, nominally at least, will concede that there are two sides. To have such an idea forced upon others might be as fatal as the storied stone that mortally sur- prised Goliath; for such a thought has never entered their heads before. Vehemently as- serting their own position in minor questions, they look with horror on any who doubt the existence of God or of an inerrant book. While all bigots are intolerant, some would wish them- selves accursed for the sake of the cause they have espoused. Striking out from the shoulder because they feel they are doing God's serv- ice, though their intolerance is to be regretted, they themselves are to be respected. On the 13 i^ Christianity's Unifying Fundamental other hand are those who move in sinnous ways, strike in the dark one to them heretical, filch from him his good name, and make him poor indeed. What are the causes of bigotry! With some it is temperamental. It could almost be said that they were bigots bom. With others it is largely a matter of association and environ- ment. Much depends on whether the atmos^ phere is democratic or autocratic. When Chris- tianity was bom democracy was not known. Church polity and its creeds were shaped when Christians were under autocracy. Naturally enough, therefore, much of its theology and its government was autocratic. Emphasis, accord- ingly, was put upon authority rather than in- vestigation, infallibility rather than discussion, what had been rather than what ought to be, conformity rather than experiment, etc. In fact, church leaders often opposed the progress of democracy with its discussions, investiga- tions, and experiments. Bigotry is more out of place in a democracy than in an autocracy. The growth of democracy in the world should mean the decline of bigotry in the church. With many bigotry is due to a perverted love of truth — a good thing gone wrong. To some it might be said, *'I wot that through ignorance ye did it.'' ' As a modern epigram expresses it, Bigotry and Scepticism 15 when a man is not **iip in*' a thing he is usually **down on if The difficulty of being **up in'' biblical criticism is an important explanation of bigotry's anathemas against it. The com- mon cry is that the scholarship engaged in this work is both unspiritual and puffed up with pride. With this in mind it is interesting to note that perhaps the greatest cause of bigotry it- self is just this lack of due humility. Of all bigots the most difficult to get along with are the unctuous kind, who naively imply that they have superior spiritual-mindedness and, as a result, superior insight. A common thought with them is that if a man is scholarly, there- fore, he is not spiritually minded — ^if he dif- fers from them. Under the guise of humility (saying the guidance is all of the Spirit) they practically claim infallibility in the theological matters in dispute. Professing humility, they possess, or are possessed with, a blind self- esteem suggesting Coleridge's lines: "And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin Is pride that apes humility." **It is a melancholy fact," writes Professor David Smith, **that, so far at least as my ob- servation extends, the worst troublers of con- 1 6 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental gregational peace are people of the superla- tively pious order wlio talk mucli about Con- version and the Higher Life. I am disposed to make large allowance for them. They have had an experience and it is so real to them that they regard it as the only possible experience and condemn everyone who does not share it as 'spiritually dead.' Nevertheless, they are very trying, very disagreeable, and very harm- ful. Their bigotry and self -righteousness give Christianity an ill savour and alienate multi- tudes from the Church." According to what is popularly called **The Sermon on the Mount,'' in the eyes of Jesus sins that the sanctimoniously conceited bigot condemns in unctuous tones would be as motes compared with the bigot's own beam of self- righteous, censorious sinfulness. His conver- sion, of which he often speaks, may be but a change of sins, and from bad to worse. Perhaps with him it is the giving up of certain ques- tioned amusements that has made for a serious increase in the intolerance and back-biting of sanctimonious pride. Because he differs from others in that he tithes ''mint and anise and cummin, "though he leaves undone, as may be they do not, 'Hhe weightier matters of the law" —he is self -righteously censorious of them. This very self-righteousness, however, is just the Bigotry and Scepticism 17 thing that blinds the bigot to the greatness of his sin. This is a truth that needs to be re- peated again and again, and with no uncertain sound. Bigotry battens on its autobiography. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for bigotry to read its biog- raphy. Both the Bible and church history show it to be a biography of blood. There is no time to tell it here. Suffice it to say, that bigotry it was that put to death Jesus of Nazareth ; and that as a heretic he was con- demned to death by those whose spirit is still alive. As Beecher so eloquently said, **We have just the same kind of people yet in all the denominations — ^men who feel themselves called to sit in judgment over their church, their creeds, their forms of worship, the whole of religion, and to take care of them, and to see that they do not suffer from infidels, espe- cially from those worst of infidels, heretics, or men that go aside from the regulation belief of the times and of the church. Even a crab knows enough once a year to get rid of its shell in order to have a bigger one; it is the sectary that does not know it! Men think, if you disturb beliefs, creeds, institutions, cus- toms, methods, manners, that of course you disturb all they contain; but Christ said: No: the very way to fulfil these things is to give 1 8 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental them a chance to open a larger way. A bud must die if you are going to have the same thing an hundred-fold increased/' II. SCEPTICS According to what they doubt and the way they treat their doubts sceptics differ widely. Some are double-minded, unstable in all their ways. Others, without guile, are anxious for light and to do the right. The vanity of **a picker up of learning's crumbs," who treats with blatant levity the heart-rooted faith and treasured hopes of others, must be viewed with pity and (for the most part) silence. Not so honest doubt. It must be met. Writes one, whose honest reasoning concerning his earlier view of the Bible brought him into a state of bewilderment: **I am sick of platitudes, eva- sions, and glittering generalities. I want to be treated with sincerity. I want to hear the sim- ple truth — ^not *as to a little child,' but as to a grown man, who must reason as well as feel — • a man who has sinned and suffered and now fain would find a safe anchorage for his soul in this sea of doubt and trouble." Beside such (and they are many) whose doubts are finding public expression in the hope of help, is a still larger number of doubters Bigotry and Scepticism 19 who are silent or give private expression to their doubts only at exceptional times. The central figure in a striking trio, painted by a modem, represents increasingly large numbers today. To the right is calm-faced Faith; to the left gloomy-faced Unbelief; between, and touching both, a sorrowing Soul. Her face has not the settled gloom of Unbelief nor the settled peace of Faith. It is filled with the sor- row of Doubt. How many shrink from the thought of being thought a doubter and yet can- not lay their doubts ! How many, for instance, dread to face the reasons for their inherited view of the atonement lest it appear crude or immoral ! How many who pray concerning the views of their fathers, *'We believe, help Thou our unbelief!" How many others who do not pray at all because they face the doubt of doubts: **God? Is there a good. Almighty God?" Why do doubters doubt? Some have been embittered into it by .misfortune; others by the chicanery and wrong doings of professed religionists in their '^ shirt sleeves." Some are drawn into it by the scepticism of others. Some are driven into it by the intolerant dog- matism of bigots. In a discussion about the absolute inerrancy of the Bible, a conscientious evangelistic 20 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental worker quoted PauPs: ^'He that doubteth. is damned;" and expressed his interpretation thereof by adding: *^and will go to hell." The right rendering and the real meaning of the passage, in the light of its context and times, he had never faced. He conld not appreciate Tennyson's lines: "There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds;" nor Bailey's: '^Who never doubted, never half believed;" nor Shakespeare's "Modest doubt is called The beacon of the wise," nor Paul's own exhortation to the Corinthians as sensible men to form their own judgment of what he wrote. The pathos of the situation was that in his devotion to his convictions he in- creased doubt. It is pathetic to read that in the early stages of his questionings Bradlaugh was snubbed by his clergyman; and that Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, troubled about inspira- tion, was told by the devout Keble that **most of the men who had difficulties on that subject were too wicked to be reasoned with." It is true that some doubt because their hearts are evil. It is also true that many doubt Bigotry and Scepticism 21 because their heads are good. If from a bad heart, doubt may be a cloak, or excuse, for sin. If from a good head, it may be an opportunity to rise to a lofty vision and a sure hope. The way of doubt is often a climbing path to the heights of truth. Dark doubt may usher in an angel of light. Active doubt gives freshness and virility to faith. A man never appreciates a truth as well as he does after he has doubted it and felt its loss. History shows that fan- cied certainty about a view often made for a fatal indifference concerning it. Better an honest doubt that leads to investigation that ends in truth than a credulity that leads to apathy that ends in dearth and death. *^ Moral and religious truths, '^ says one, *' subsist only for him who discerns them freshly out of him- self. *' All hail to the doubt that leads to such discernment ! As a psalmist said to deity, an honest scep- tic may say to doubt, not only, '^Thou art my light ^' but also, '^my salvation.'' If there were no place for doubt, once error crept in (as it inevitably does) there would be no hope of overcoming it. As fog purifies the air, so the subsidence of doubt has often meant the falling away of error from commonly accepted views. In a true sense, then, man, often, is saved by doubt. 22 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental III. THE REST OF US So mucli for bigots and sceptics. How about tbe rest of us? In various degrees both scep- ticism and bigotry are to be found in every one of us. It is not enough to recognise the in- harmonious conditions among Christians in the New Testament, the bitter sectarian persecu- tions throughout church history, and the ec- clesiastical element in the terrible bloodshed of modern war. It should be recognised clearly that it is because of our own variously com- bined scepticism and bigotry that much good is prevented and much evil wrought today. It is thus that we are unable to see, or see but dimly, the different elements of good in the non-Christian religions, in the other two great divisions of Christianity and in the other divisions of the divisions, aye, subdivisions of the subdivisions, in which we find ourselves. Our sectarian blindness commonly is inversely proportioned to the size of the sect to which we belong. We are worse than blind. At times we are bitter. We not only look with unwar- ranted suspicion upon other religionists, but we enter into unbecoming rivalry with them, feel jealous over their success, and even put obstacles in their way. To say the least, we lack lamentably in that spirit of comity and co- Bigotry and Scepticism 23 operation without which it is impossible to overcome the terrible evils of today and usher in the new era. Surely it is time to enter the unifying way and follow hard after the things that make for peace. CHAPTER II THE UNIFYING WAY I. TOLERANCE THERE is the miifymg way of hnmble, appreciative tolerance. Since scepticism commonly despises bigotry, which in turn commonly fears and hates scepticism ; and since bigotry, though it have the truth, is always wrong in spirit, and scepticism, though never necessarily wrong in spirit, is commonly so: it is for bigots, sceptics, and the rest of us to seek to be humbly, appreciatively tolerant. Big souls recognise that those who differ from them may be just as sincere in their belief as they themselves. The sceptic, who doubts even what seems to be fundamental, may be abso- lutely sincere in his doubts. The bigot, de- spised because of his blind intolerance, may be more ready to go to the stake for conscience' sake than those who despise him. The sus- pected and persecuted sceptic should catch the humorously sweet spirit of Bishop Brooks: 24 The Unifying Way 25 "And this is then the way he looks, This tiresome creature, Phillips Brooks? No wonder if 'tis thus he looks, The Church has doubts of Phillips Brooks! Well, if he knows himself he'll try To give these doubtful looks the lie. He dares not promise, but will seek Even as a bishop to be meek: To walk the way he shall be shown, To trust a strength that's not his own, To fill the years with honest work, To serve his days and not to shirk; To quite forget what folks have said, To keep his heart and keep his head. Until men, laying him to rest. Shall say, 'At least he did his best/'' While it is important to recognise the sin- cerity of others, it is also important to recog- nise one's own fallibility. According to that variously given mot, no one is infallible — not even the youngest. Those who claim to be guided by an infallible Holy Spirit should re- member that, granting the possibility of such guidance, it is themselves that decide the ex- tent and degree of that guidance. Can they say that their own human selves are infallible in so deciding? This is the question that, in their self-conceit, bigots cannot, or will not, face. A fair facing of it would kill intolerance. 26 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental Eeligious tolerance has been a hard lesson for the ages to take out. A portal legend at a great Fair ran: *^ Religious toleration is the great achievement of the last four hundred years." John Fiske wrote: *' Cotton in his elaborate controversy with Roger Williams frankly asserted that persecution is not wrong in itself. It is wicked for falsehood to perse- cute truth, but it is the sacred duty of truth to persecute falsehood." Increasing numbers appreciate the humour of such an expression. Unfortunately, however, numbers, even today, do not. Many still are like the disciples, as pictured in the story where they said to Jesus concerning another worker, *'We forbade him because he followed not us." But Jesus said, ** Forbid him not." These widely differing attitudes of Jesus and his disciples are found (often in unexpected quarters) elsewhere in the Bible, throughout church history, and in the church life of today. The great need is for men and women big- Kouled enough to see the elements of good in the positions of others and be willing to co- operate. Mere tolerance may be heartless. What is needed is a spirit of appreciation and co-operation. The Unifying Way 27 II. QUESTING TRUTH There is the unifying way of questing for truth. All those desiring unity, however dif- ferent their beliefs, should have a common quest — the quest for truth — ^not for something to support either their creeds or their doubts, but for truth. Inherited prejudice is blind- ing. Bessemer said that he could not have invented his revolutionising iron-transforming process if he had been an iron-master. The wise man is benefited, not bound, by the past. On the wall of a great reading room in raised letters are the words: ** Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning." Similarily placed, on the opposite wall are the words: **Read not to contradict nor to believe but to weigh and consider.'* Both legends are significant. At one part of the ceremony in the national eisteddfod of Wales, the bard, unsheathing his sword, cries out: *^The truth against the world. ' ' The cry of both scepticism and bigotry should be : '* Amid a world of creeds and doubts the truth, the truth!'' They should neither be bullied, nor try to bully, with opprobrious names. Believing that **the worst infidelity is fear for the truth," both should unite in this slogan for Truth: 28 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental "Whether old, whether new, We will ask: Is it true?" It does not make for progress to condone the old because it is old, or to condemn the new because it is new. The freest honest investiga- tion should not be feared. It should be fa- voured. The honest question to ask is not is this orthodox, but is it true I Not is it in keep- ing with any particular creed, but does it cor- respond to reality? Not is this the view of our fathers; but is it the truth of our God? Eepeating the shibboleths of tradition may but win, as an unenviable epitaph, Crabbers coup- let: "Habit with him was all the test of truth. 'It must be right. IVe done it from my youth.' *' Bigotry must be distinguished from con- fidence. The difference is illustrated in a strik- ing scene in Ephesus: ** Alexander beckoned with his hand and would have made a defence unto the people. But when they perceived that he was a Jew, all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out. Great is Diana of the Ephesians.'' Bigotry, represented by the Ephesian devotees of Diana, asserts rather than proves. Confidence, represented by Alex- ander, gladly gives its reasons. Bigotry abso- The Unifying Way 29 lutely refuses to re-examine, or even examine, into the grounds of some at least of the views to which it holds fast. Confidence, on the other hand, in order that it hold fast that which is good and only that which is good, is ready to prove all things — ^whether old, whether new. III. FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH FIRST Lastly there is the unifying way of quest- ing, first, for fundamental truth, or truths. After what was descrihed as a * ^veiled retort to the higher critics" in which he eloquently referred to his literal belief still in the story of the speech by Balaam's ass and the story of Jonah in the belly of a fish. Dr. Campbell Morgan was followed by a higher critic. Pro- fessor Peake. ^^ Between me and Dr. Morgan," he began, *^ there is a great gulf fixed, but there is solid ground beneath the gulf, and on the deepest things I believe that we are united." Professor Peake 's spirit of tolerance is the spirit, and his deep uniting thought is the thought, greatly needed today. For the sake of peace, for truth's sake, those who differ should consider first the *^ solid ground" of **the deepest things" on which they may unite. First things should be made first. Another sentence from that honest doubter's letter 30 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental reads: '^Most of the religions discussions that I hear or read seem to me to deal with mere side-issues — ^why young men don't attend church — ^how to reach the masses — ^while I want to hear (and never do hear) about the funda- mental, elemental principles of religion." In view of the evils of bigotry ** side-issues'' should be avoided. There should be concen- tration on *Hhe fundamental, elemental prin- ciples of religion" and the minor questions in debate practically ignored. The woodsman comes to where the path divides. Taking one branch, he finds, later, that the two branches join again. So, concerning these minor divi- sions of opinion, there is a better and a worse, to be sure, but in the whole course of man's way through the difficult woods of life they are hardly worthy of a second thought. For the sake of souls there should be no cavilling over a little ornamentation on the outside of the temple. First and foremost should be con- sidered the question of the great foundation truths. In view of the evil of scepticism it should be remembered that, as Antaeus was invincible only as he was in touch with mother-earth, so scepticism should first get a sure standing ground on which to wrestle with its doubts. It should not bump against every sunken rook The Unifying Way 31 along the way; but should learn as quickly as it may where the deep water is. In his explora- tions in the North Seas Dr. Kane was caught in the floating ice. Advance seemed impossible. An iceberg, however, reaching down away be- low the floating masses of ice and by the under- current carried through them, came toward the hemmed-in ship. Came, too, the thought: if I can take sure hold of that berg it will carry Tis through this surface ice. They succeeded in gripping it and in almost clear water were carried through. To scepticism, so beset with floating doubtsi that advance seems impossi- ble, comes the saving thought: See, and see- ing, grip the one deep truth and be carried through. This, then, in a word, is the unifying direc- tion for bigots, sceptics, and the rest of us — in all humility and appreciative tolerance seek the truth; and, first, the fundamental truth. Through it be delivered from disastrously wasteful division?.. By co-operating there be saved from the tragedy of which Hegel wrote, the tragedy indeed, where the conflict is not between right and wrong, but between right and right. To aid in this salvation and to help to Christian co-operative achievement for the , weal of the world, is the aim in the quest that 32 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental follows for Cliristianity's unifying fundamen- tal. The quest is to be, in a large measure, an historical one. The reason is that history teaches what the few generations of one's own observation and experience are not long enough to work out in the how-to -live-rightly labora- tory of humanity. In showing things as they were, history helps one to live aright in the presence of the God of things as they are. In getting in behind the present to see it from the other side, it helps to estimate the rela- tive worth of its differing views. It thus saves from the sectarian illusions that make moun- tains out of denominational molehills. It saves one from putting his own ideas into the Bible and then asserting dogmatically that they are God's. It helps him, as he can be helped in no other way, to appreciate what Christianity is, to get a true perspective of its truth, to see its different parts in their true proportions, and to distinguish what is incidental from what is fundamental. In the study, for instance, of the ancient creeds it avoids two common extremes. The one is to use their outworn phraseology still, but so to modify its meaning that it is but galvanised into what, at best, is only the sem- blance of life. The other is to see only the The Unifying Way 33 outgrown thought-forms in which the creeds are clothed and fail to get the great truth, or truths, that they really contain. While bigotry is prone to go to the former extreme and scepticism to the latter, history helps to avoid both. It is, therefore, along the line of history that, in what follows, Christianity's funda- mental will be sought in the hope of finding it unifying. CHAPTER III THE KNOWABLENESS OF JESUS WHO was Jesus? Since even tlie fact of his existence as a real person has seri- ously been questioned, is it possible to know the real Jesus ? Let it be said, in passing, that the argument for his existence, given for instance in such a work as Professor S. J. Case's, '^The Historicity of Jesus," has done away forever with the bogey that he was simply a myth. The question today is not: **Was he?'' but *'Who was he?" The problem that remains is concerning the nature and degree of what is surely known about the historic Jesus, he whose coming among man has di- vided history into before and after — B. 0. and A.D. I. SOURCES FOR KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS The Old Testament was B. C. The New Testament was A. D. For the very noticeable difference between them the temporal one is important. The personal one, however, is 34 The Knowableness of Jesus 35 more important. The New Testament Epistle to the Hebrews, which presupposes a knowl- edge of the Old Testament, begins with the words: **God, having of old time spoken nnto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken nnto ns in his Son." It is the presence and influence of the **Son'' that make the religion of the New Testament so different from that of the Old Testament. While the Old Testament Scriptures, at least in substance, were his Bible, the New Testament Scriptures have him as their theme from the earliest of them to the very last. The order in which they now are arranged is not the order in which they were written. If they were arranged chronologically, Paul's letters would appear before the gospels. Im- agine, therefore, that we are stepping from the Old Testament into the New Testament thus arranged, and are beginning with Paul's let- ters. What would strike us most forcibly of all? Undoubtedly the most striking thing would be the very frequent reference to Jesus. Paul intended them to be sources of information about Jesus. As personal letters, they, of course, are sources of information concerning Paul himself. Because of the important part PauPs words and works have played in the 36 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental spread of Christianity as the religion about Jesus, after giving the different sources for the knowableness of Jesus, we shall estimate their value by comparing them with the sources for the knowableness of Paul. In passing let it be said we have practically no source for the distinctive knowledge of Jesus physically. In Christian art the representa- tions of him have been so varied, in keeping with the thought of the varying times, and in Christian literature the attempts at word pic- tures of him are so evidently doctrinal and un- historical that Jesus *^ after the flesh'' is, and must remain, unknown. Beginning with the writings not found in the New Testament, our sources of information concerning Jesus morally and religiously are very limited. What they give, while interest- ing, because of the very fact of their reference to him, nevertheless, is meagre. It attracts much attention to them, but reflects little light on him. In the extensive writings of his great Jewish contemporary, Philo of Alexandria, there is absolutely nothing concerning Jesus. It is suggestive, further, that while in the writ- ings of Josephus there is sympathetic and some- what extended reference to John the Baptist, there is at most only a passing allusion to Jesus. Of the several references to him it is generally The Knowableness of Jesus 37 ^— — i— ^ii— ■^"^™— ^■■^^^^— ™~"™"™" ^— ^-^^^-— ^— ^^^^^— ^— «»^»^^— .^.^^ agreed that the chief one is not authentic. The three earliest Roman writers who mention the Christian faith describe it as a harmful super- stition, but give little or nothing about its founder, save his existence, time, country, and death. In 1897 there was discovered in Egypt a single leaf on which were what have been called *^The New Sayings of Jesus.'' For a time they attracted a good deal of varied atten- tion. For instance, as the basis of his poem, ^'The Toiling of Felix,'' Henry Van Dyke used "Raise the stone, and thou shalt find me; cleave the wood, and there am I," one of the two sentences that have no parallel in the New Testament. While suggesting many lines of thought, these *^new sayings" add nothing to our knowledge of Jesus. It is in the New Testament that we must look for such religious expressions as will make him known. There the name *^ Jesus" is found nearly one thousand times — ^very frequently in the gospels, often in the Acts, over a dozen times in the Apocalypse, and repeatedly in every one of the Epistles save the one-chaptered Third of John, which instead of writing ** Je- sus" refers to the **Name." Beside these very many references to Jesus by his personal name, 38 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental he is referred to hundreds of times by such titles as * * Christ" and * * Lord. ' ' The whole New Testament, as a literature about Jesus, from beginning to end, is pre-eminently the source for the knowledge of him. Fortunately, there- fore, it is in the hands, or easily within reach, of all. Of course the general reader of the English New Testament should not completely lose sight of the fact that he is reading only a translation of what was not a perfectly exact copy of any one of the original writings. The different writings were copied again and again with the inevitable changes, for many reasons. It is the work of textual critics, by the comparison of the many different copies and translations, to get back as nearly as possible to the original words. One of their difficult problems is the ending of Mark. A commonly known instance of their work is the removal from the narrative itself, back into the margin, from which proba- bly it came originally, that story about the sin- ful woman. In a number of passages just what the exact words were in the originals is still far from settled. Not only because of the tex- tual nature of their work but also because the textual critics are yet not at one in their meth- ods of work, there is no prospect of a complete agreement, especially in matters of detail. The Knowableness of Jesus 39 Suffice it to say, however, that, in the number and quality of documents they have had with which to work, the textual critics of the New Testament have been in a much better position to get back to the original than have those of the Old Testament. Compared with the number of words on which they agree, the number on which they disagree need not worry the general reader. The fact of the difference is mentioned here only to help him avoid being dogmatic about anything that depends upon a word or two and is not supported by a trend of thought. If on his guard thus, he may be confident that in his use of even the Authorised Version he is getting substantially the original thought. Nevertheless, he should remember that, in be- ing translations of Greek words more nearly the same as the original, as well as in being trans- lated better, the Revised Version and other later translations are much superior to the King James Version as sources for the knowl- edge of Jesus. II. COMPARED WITH THOSE OF PAUL To evaluate the sources for Jesus, it is well to compare them with those for Paul. As with Jesus so with Paul, outside the New Testament the sources of information are very meagre. An 40 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental interesting tradition concerning his personal appearance comes from the second centnry. It is found ia a popular romance concerning him and Thecla, a betrothed maiden, who became fascinated by hearing him teach on virginity. In the story is given a description of him. He was not tall, his head was bald, his eyebrows met, his nose was long and his legs crooked; yet he was full of grace, now like a man and again like an angel. That this somewhat un- flattering representation of him is drawn by an admirer is evidence in favour of its truth. Early Christian art, too, seems to be in keeping with this representation. It is likely that, like Soc- rates, Paul was striking, rather than hand- some, in appearance. Concerning this repre- sentation of him, therefore, we have the feel- ing that we are on surer ground than with the various and varying traditions concerning the physical appearance of Jesus. Coming to the New Testament, outside the Acts of the Apostles and the letters claiming to emanate from Paul, there is only one reference to him and that in the very late Epistle of Sec- ond Peter. It rates the epistles of *'our be- loved brother PauP' very highly as sacred writ- ings, putting them in the same class with **the other scriptures.'' While the first half of Acts refers mainly to Peter, the second half refers The Knowableness of Jesus 41 mainly to Paul. Among the number of speeches imbedded there, most of them are represented as coming from his lips. While, thus, the sec- ond part of the Acts may be considered as be- ing, for the study of Paul, what any one of the gospels is for the study of Jesus, nevertheless, it is only of secondary importance compared with the Epistles of Paul himself. In them w^ have firsthand sources. Though there is con- siderable difference of opinion about how many of the epistles in the New Testament are his, there is general agreement that a number (and they the most important) are from his hand. How often have New Testament scholars wished that they could read some book, or even a letter, from Jesus himself! However, not a single line from his hand has come down through the ages. The removal of the story of the woman taken in sin takes away from the Scripture the only instance of even a reference to any writing by Jesus. The written expres- sions of his religious life come from the hands of his friends. They come, thus, not only col- oured by those times and circumstances, but blended with the expressions of the religious lives of these friends who wrote of him in lov- ing adoration. While, therefore, on the one hand it is true that in the New Testament we have much more about Jesus than about Paul, 42 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental yet, on the other hand, while we have not a single line of literature written by Jesus, we have a body of important letters from Paul. To this must be added the fact that while these letters accordingly were contemporary with Paul, the earliest New Testament books about Jesus date from over a decade after the cruci- fixion and the latest a number of decades later stiU. III. THE ESSENTIAL JESUS KNOWABLE In view of all this some, recognising his his- toricity but declining *^to express any opinion as to any detail about the personal life'' of Jesus, fail to appreciate the wonderful possi- bility of finding the very essence of Jesus' own religious life. It is true, as has been seen, that he is not knowable physically. But is he not knowable morally and religiously? Is not the essential Jesus knowable? Professor Bacon's answer meets the situa- tion luminously: ** Religion does require a true portrait; and therefore every attainable trait of historical realism will be welcome. But it does not require a physical portrait. What it needs to know is the spiritual and moral ele- ment in the character of Jesus. And the spirit survives. A man's contemporaries are doubt- The Knowubleness of Jesus 43 less far better qualified than later generations to give the sensuous testimony of eye and ear. The lapse of but a few years will suffice in case of even the greatest men to obliterate the mem- ory of mere physical characteristics unless memory be sustained by art. But for spiritual portraiture the later generation is apt to be the better qualified. On points of character we may often better rely on the judgment of the second or third generation than on that of the first. ... It is so with the character of Jesus. The traits which remain are traits of moral and religious value, for the obvious reason that those who became his disciples were concerned with these values, and only these. But the sub- ordination — ^yes, even to disappearance — of the physical and temporary is far from invalidat- ing the historicity of the spiritual and moral. It proves only the relative unimportance of the external. ' ' The nature of the records through which comes the revelation of the character of Jesus and the way in which those records originated may well call attention to the relative unim- portance of the external. They suggest the folly of magnifying the temporal at the expense of the eternal, the details at the expense of the big things of religion and life. They support the increasing cry of thoughtful Christians to- 44 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental day — the big things of Jesus for the big, abid- ing things of life. This is shown in the remark- able adaptability of their expression of these big things. Because, as has been seen, nothing in the New Testament records concerning Jesus was written by himself, their expression of his religious life can hardly have the rigidity that it would have had if from his own hand. Again, the fact that there are a number of different representations of his religious life, found not only in the four gospels but also in the rest of the New Testament, militates against an in- flexibility in any one expression. Yet, again, the fact that much of the expression is in fig- urative language prevents it from too closely defining and confining the meaning, while at the same time it makes the meaning vivid and suggestive. Still further, the absence from it of theological abstractions, ecclesiastical tech- nicalities, and philosophic subtleties has per- mitted its fundamentally human appeal univer- sally to find the human heart. Dr. E. F. Scott has expressed it well : * ' The vi- tality of our religion during all these ages has been due in no small measure to this, that Jesus never sought to express his meaning in ab- stract theological form. If he had spoken in the languages of the creeds, his message would long ago have become obsolete, beyond hope of The Knowableness of Jesus 45 revival. But he availed himself of the plastic forms of the current eschatology; and these have never ceased to retain their place along- side of the theological doctrines. Each new generation has felt itself free to associate its own deepest thoughts and longings with that hope of the Kingdom of God which has been given by Jesus. To one age it has meant an inward realisation of the divine life, to another the union of all mankind in a spiritual com- monwealth, to another the perfecting of the so- cial order on a basis of justice and liberty. These ideals, and others like them, were all implicit in the conception of Jesus; and by clothing his message in the apocalyptic imagery he imparted it in all its richness and compre- hensiveness. However we remould it, in ac- cordance with our own needs and our own out- look on the world, we can still give effect to his purpose. *' CHAPTER IV THE IMMEDIACY OF GOD I. THE DIVERGENCE OF SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY GOD'S in his heaven," sang Browning's Pippa. But where is *^ heaven,'' in modern thought? Here is a devout soul who in his morning prayer looks up to heaven. In his devotions at night, also, he looks up to heaven in addressing God. But, because of the rotation of the earth, at the different times that he looks up to heaven he looks in very opposite directions. *^Up" in the morning is **down" at night, as far as any ma- terial location is concerned. Science, in telling modern man that the earth is round and rotates on its axis, takes away from him any absolute up and down as far as any definite place out- side the earth is concerned. In changing from the ancient ideas of the universe, including the idea of waters above a windowed firmament called Heaven (Gen. 1 :8) it has taken away also 46 The Immediacy of God 47 a literal, local heaven as the dwelling place of God. Modern science, too, has changed man's con- ception of the activities of nature. Until com- paratively recent times changes in nature were looked upon as due to the direct fiat of the God of heaven. But, in the nineteenth century, sci- ence made the revolutionary discovery that nat- ural forces acted according to fixed laws. Know- ing these, it could tell why certain things have taken place and could foretell, with reasons, that other things would take place in the phys- ical world. Under the influence of this discovery theology looked upon these natural forces working ac- cording to fixed laws, as secondary causes. It looked upon God, however, as the Creator of the world. He was the First Great Cause. In addition to creating and starting the universe as a great machine, the thought was that, from without, he could, and did, intervene in a spe- cial way to talk to his people or to do some great deed. This special breaking into nature's order was looked upon as spiritual and sacred ; while all the rest was natural and secular. God's work was then simply to fill in the gaps that science did not explain. In the world, ordi- narily, while there were some suggestions con- cerning its Creator (some natural revelation) 48 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental yet to feel his presence required tlie special revelation of the unnatural, the unusual, the spectacular, the miraculous filling in, or the making of gaps. The breaking through was in different ways. By many, and often through the Christian centuries, it was claimed that God spoke to them with an authoritative, audible voice; by large numbers of others the claim was that he revealed the truth through an in- fallible church; and by many others, through an inerrant book. For a time science was willing for theology to call these natural forces secondary causes and affirm that outside of nature was God — The First Great Cause. Later, as engrossed with secondary causes, scientists, by increasing dis- coveries, were able to fill in gap after gap in a natural way, in increasingly large numbers they said there was no breaking through into the nat- ural order; and, accordingly, they had no need of God in their scientific systems. As a result there was waged a long-protracted conflict with the theologians, notably concerning the first chapters of Genesis. This ** prolonged civil war, pitiful and useless and demoralising'' as described in Andrew D. White's *'The Conflict of Science and Theology" shows how theolo- gians have tried, but in vain, to check the be- ginnings of progress in the difiPerent sciences. The Immediacy of God 49 According to Huxley, ** Extinguished theolo- gians lie about the cradle of every science like the strangled snakes about that of Hercules/' The nineteenth century was pre-eminently the century of this conflict. It was early in the century that Laplace, in answer to a question from Napoleon concerning the absence of God from that astronomer's great work, replied: **Sire, I had no need of any such hypothesis." Scientists invidiously distinguished science, as something based solely on ** common sense," from theology, as something that was compelled to resort to *^faith." The concept of God was conceded to theology as, at best, only a symbol, whereas science had to do with matter — some- thing that was real. Matter (with motion) was the great reality and explained all. In fact, in the first part of the century it was held that thought itself was secreted from the brain as bile from the liver. Early in the second half of the century, with the publication of Dar- win's **The Origin of Species" in 1859, there arose, over evolution, the greatest controversy of the century. There were many others occa- sioned by archeology, historical criticism, the comparative study of religion, etc. Speaking generally, in the nineteenth century there were two opposite camps, in one of which were the- ologians dogmatically unscientific, in the other, 50 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental scientists dogmatically materialistic. Towards the close of the century, however, there was a marked converging — with the result that sci- ence has become less materialistic, theology more scientific, and both less dogmatic. II. THE CONVERGENCE OF SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY Notable has been the change of science in the matter of dogmatism. Aided by philosophy, broad-minded scientists in increasing numbers have come to see that after all science does not know, and is not likely to know, all mysteries; that it is based upon assumptions ; and that it, too, has to exercise faith. In the Atlantic Monthly for July, 1915, an article by John Bur- roughs, manifestly far from prejudiced in fa- vour of prevalent theology, begins thus : *^ Scien- tific faith is no more smooth sailing than is theo- logical faith. One involves about as many mys- teries, as many unthinkable truths as the other. ' ' In an earlier number of the same mag- azine, in an article on *^ Science and Mystery,'' Professor Fosdick says: **No one has put it better than the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: * Science is grounded in faith just as is religion, and the scientific truth, like the religious truth, consists of hy- The Immediacy of God 51 potheses never wholly verified that fit the facts more or less closely.' '' A physicist epigram- matically put it thus: *^A11 nature reduces it- self to matter, all matter to electrons, all elec- trons to ether, and all ether to an hypothesis." Another notable thing about modern scien- tists is their growing recognition that the older materialistic conception of the universe is in- adequate. It is evident that many of them ap- preciate that, as the music of Paganini's violin is not fully explained scientifically when ex- plained materialistically as due to the *^ scrap- ing of horse's tails on cat's bowels," so the universe — including man with his appreciation of rhythm and beauty, his ineffably high long- ings, his prayers, his loves and his sacrifices — is not to be adequately explained scientifically merely in materialistic terms. Indeed a modern naturalist protests that, ^^ there is something genuinely brutish in materialism" because, as he says, **It means that the higher attributes of man's nature are never taken at their face value; they are nothing but manifestations of something lower down and more elemental in the scale of beings." Materialistic philosophy, which recent history assuredly shows makes for ^^the genuinely brutish," does not make for, nor does it adequately explain, the higher life of man. This lesson increasingly is com- 52 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental iiig home to science today. Along this line of the less materialistic trend of thought among modern scientists it will be enough to add that many of them, in accepting for a unifying ex- planation of the universe the hypothesis of an ^ ^ ether, ' ' give it many of the characteristics that theologians have used in describing God. Haeckel, who goes the length of identifying chemical repulsion with hate and chemical affin- ity with love, himself suggests that this ** cos- mic ether is God.'* All this makes for the peace-making conviction that often the differ- ence between theologians affirming belief in God, and scientists who do not, is largely a mat- ter of terms. In fact, Evolution, Creative Evo- lution, etc., to many are but names for God. "A fire-mist and a planet, A crystal and a cell, — A jellyfish and a saurian And caves where the cavemen dwell; Then a sense of law and beauty, And a face turned from the clod, — Some call it Evolution, And others call it God." In this connection it is interesting to note that Edison is quoted as saying: *^No one can study chemistry and see the wonderful way in which certain elements combine with the nicety The Immediacy of God 53 of the most delicate machine, and not come to the inevitable conclusion that there is a master intelligence controlling them. ' ' The suggestive article from which the above is taken quotes, against the older materialism, Tyndall, Spen- cer, Le Conte, Fiske, Wundt, James, and Pear- son, with whose inspiring words it closes thus : **Not to convert the world into a dead mechan- ' ism, but to give to humanity in the future a religion worthy its intellect, seems to me the mission which modem science has before it." That this is the view of Sir Oliver Lodge is well known. This also was the view of Lord Kelvin. In 1903, after many years of scientific toil that put him in the first rank of scientists, he wrote : ** We are absolutely forced by science to believe with perfect confidence in a directive power — in an influence other than a physical or dynamical or electrical force." Once in con- versation, quoting in French that oft-quoted saying of Laplace about having no need of the hypothesis of God, he added: **Well, I find that I have constant need of that * hypothesis.' " Speaking generally, therefore, concerning the attitude of science to theology today, it may be said that while, especially among scientists who do not understand the spirit of modem theol- ogy, there is still a feeling of antagonism, it is nevertheless enheartening to Christian leaders 54 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental to find that from recognised leaders in science there comes much that makes not simply for peace but for positive aid. In fact, Professor David Smith goes so far as to say, *^In recent years science has, albeit unintentionally, proved herself the handmaid of theolog}^; and Dr. S. D. McConnell hardly exaggerates when he af- firms in his * Evolution and Immortality,' *that Darwin and the martyrs of natural science have done more to make the word of Christ intelligi- ble than have Augustine and the theologians. ' ' ' Science is helping the moderns to a Christ- like conception of life and of God. This is very remarkably so in two outstanding thoughts that the study of the religion of Jesus shows to have characterised it. One characteristic of Jesus' own religion was that it was ethical. The im- partiality of the scientific laws of nature is bringing home to men's souls the lessons Jesus taught concerning sin. The fact that ** science is not soft" helps men to appreciate the ethical iron in the life blood of the Gospel of Jesus. A second outstanding thought characteristic of Jesus' own religion was the thought of the im- mediacy and intimate nearness of God, the sense of oneness with Him. This, also, is strongly supported by science. In fact, science has so dominated the times with its thought of the immediacy, the immanency, of an energy The Immediacy of God 55 that produces the phenomena we call nature, that it seems almost like a prophet sent to re- discover and reinterpret the message of Jesus concerning God. While the scientists have come toward the theologians, the theologians have gone toward the scientists. In increasingly large numbers they, too, have learned the wisdom of humility. One of the greatest of them has written, **We aim to be faithful to our human ignorance.'^ History has taught them the folly of being un- scientific. Under the various modern influ- ences, including with science the growth of the democratic spirit, the teaching of the typically modem theologian is concerning, or in keep- ing with, the thought of divine immanence. ** Where is GodT' The scientist who is Chris- tian and the theologian who is scientific unite in corroborating the statement that God is not far from each one of us; for in God we live, and move, and have our being. '*We are the white corpuscles of the cosmos, we do serve and form part of an immanent Deity," is the sug- gestive figure of Sir Oliver Lodge, who as aa eminent scientist, who is also a Christian, writes : **That is the lesson science has to teach theology — to look for the action of Deity, if at all, then always; not in the past alone, nor only in the future, but equally in the present. 56 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental If His action is not visible now, it never will be and never has been visible. . . . We can see Him now if we look; if we cannot see, it is only that onr eyes are shut.'* This is the lesson of the life and teaching of Jesus. CHAPTER V; THE TRINITY TRUTH WITH the guidance of history, the aim in this chapter will be, without bumping against the rock of bigotry or being caught in the whirlpool of scepticism, to find the deep middle way of truth in the dangerous doctrine of the trinity. I. THE TRINITY HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED Perhaps the most resented change in the Re- vised Version of the Bible was the omission of the so-called trinitarian text, I John 5:7. It does not follow, however, that the truth of the trinity is not in the Bible because the formu- lated doctrine is not found there. The sug- gestive story of the baptism of Jesus at the beginning of his ministry and the baptismal formula at its close, together with the three- fold benediction of Paul, the Fourth Gospel's representation of Jesus as the pre-existent Logos, and other scripture, formed a basis for the doctrine that in the early Christian cen- 57 ^8 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental turies was formulated in the trinitarian creeds of Greek pMlosophy. With the outgrowing of the philosophy that had made it acceptable to the Greek mind, the doctrine was enforced by the authority of the Church. Many minds, and increasingly, hav0 found it so difficult to accept that it has made much for scepticism in Christendom and for less effective work among such religionists as Mohammedans and Jews. The Mohammedans, for instance, against what they consider the three Gods of Christianity have confidently as- serted that there is but one God and Mohammed is his prophet. Modern Christian scholars, however, in tearing away its now useless husks are making the central truth of the trinity more evident to the scepticism of Christendom and are opening up a better way of approach to the Mohammedans and Jews. Today, therefore, in- stead of making for division, the doctrine of the trinity has so deepened that through it men are helped to find Christianity's unifying funda- mental. In the light of today, instead of quar- relling over the old terms, men may unite on the fundamental truth. By getting down more deeply into it they find themselves at one. It is easy to speak disparagingly of the early trinitarian creeds; but anyone who will take the pains to put himself back into their times The Trinity Truth 59 will be impressed with the fact of the great human need they thought to meet. Jesus was a Jew. The Fourth Gospel, however, repre- sents him in terms of Greek philosophy. The task, therefore, of the theologians who wrote the trinitarian creeds was that of blending the Jewish and the Greek, the moral and the mys- tical, the practical and the philosophical into a consistent whole that would conserve the sep- arate religious values of each for the needy human soul. Back of all their outgrown philos- ophy, back even of their selfish politics and their theological heat, hate, and cruel bigotry, was the human cry for a mighty, gracious God in whom they might live, move, and have their be- ing — a great, good God who cared. To meet this same human need the scientific theologian today, in keeping with the changed thinking and phraseology of today, presents the heart-meaning of the trinity — the meaning that is at its heart and appeals to the human heart. The very figure implied in it, a figure taken from the fundamental social group — the human family — is one that finds the heart of man. But what is the heart- truth in this figure? Ex- pressed in Christian terms acceptable today, what is the abiding truth at the heart of the ancient trinitarian creeds? 6o Christianity's Unifying Fundamental II. JESUS AS IMMANUEL A great cathedral is never decorated like a sxunmer cottage on a gala day. Its greatness demands simplicity — simplicity in the presence of the sublime. The heart-meaning of the trin- ity is a theme sublime. It demands simplicity. In its presence we consider simply the Christian snggestiveness of one great word — Immannel. It is found thrice in the Bible — twice in the Old Testament and once in the New Testament. As used in the Old Testament of the Hebrews it has a Hebrew meaning. As quoted in the New Testament of the Christians it has a dis- tinctively Christian meaning. Its one use in the New Testament is as a name of Him most commonly called Jesus. As such it is descrip- tive rather than personal. The personal name was Jesus — the name his comrades used of Mm, the name his mother called him, with the love-light in her eye and the wonder in her heart. The Old Testament furnishes an inter- esting parallel. The personal name of David's son and successor was Solomon and, like the name of Jesus, it was often used. A descriptive name of Solomon was Jedidiah, and like Im- manuel, was used but once. Jedidiah means Be- loved of Jehovah. As a descriptive name what is the meaning of Immanuel? The word di- The Trinity Truth 6 1 vides into two unequal parts. The first three syllables, '^Immanu/' mean: with us. The last syllable, ^^El,'' means: God. It is found fre- quently in suggestive names such as Beth-el, house of God; Penu-el, face of God; Isra-el, God strives or perseveres. Matthew 1:23 ac- cordingly reads : ^* And they shall call his name Immanuel: which is, being interpreted, God with us.'' **Immanu"^with us. A lowly manger and its babe. Bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, was he. A boy in joyous play, a man with adze and saw, a traveller hungry and athirst, a mis- sioner weary as we ourselves are weary, tired out in doing good, doing good but weary. *^ With us'': He too was tempted. ^^With us!" ^*He came not to be ministered unto but to minister. ' ' ^^With us!" They said of him in days agone that he was 'Houched with the feeling of our infirmities." *^With us!" ^*Yes," have cried myriads of Christian hearts throughout the centuries, *^and as one of us, Thou sympathetic Son of man!" **E1," God. Ears and eyes and hearts are opened to the wonderful life and its wonderful eiiects. What a story of his earthly ministry by river, lake, and mountain, on city street and countryside, modern students read! They see him upon the heights of power. They catch the 62 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental thrill of Ms holy indignation. They feel the spell of his unselfishness. They hear and see the many manifestations of love supreme. And, as from place to place they follow, touched by the spell of vital, vitalising word and deed no wonder they exclaim : Snch a ministry is not the result of chance. A study of the humanity of Jesus deepens the conviction that however much there is of seeming chaos in this old world of ours, it must be a Bethel. ^* Surely God is in this place." The high human values in Jesus make for religious belief in others. As to the best of their ability they seek to get back of the gospels into the life that Jesus actually lived, they find themselves trying to explain the mystery of his personality and, in doing so un- der the influence of the modern emphasis upon immanence, make progress to an unshakable conviction concerning the appropriateness of the name Inmianuel as applied to him. A first visit to the Boston Public Library, to study an intricate creation of his art that Sar- gent had put upon a ceiling there, was a fail- ure, because of the difficulty in looking up. In a second visit a large mirror was found beneath the work. As a result the hidden meaning was more naturally studied and more easily under- stood. In the thought of the early Church, Je- sus, as Immanuel, was like a mirror to God. The Trinity Truth 63 Accordingly the mysteriousness of deity was more naturally studied and better understood. It is an interesting study. The character of Jesus during his life directly (and afterwards through their thought of him as Christ) had much to do with shaping the Christian concep- tion of God. As a Galilean mechanic before the days of his public ministry, Jesus moving about in the circle of his friends and acquaintances, by his lips, but especially by his life, his char- acter, must have changed their thought of God. It was thus he expressed his thought of God throughout his ministry. In the beginning of Hebrews, where it reads that God hath spoken in his Son, who is *'the effulgence of his glory and the very image of his substance, ' ' the word for * ' image ' ' is that which, transliterated, gives the word character. According to this Jesus was the very character of God. In its repre- sentations of him as revealing the Father the Fourth Gospel quotes him as saying: **He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.'' To the early Christians in the character of Jesus God was specially revealed. III. THE HOLY SPIRIT AS IMMANUEL Jesus died. Did Immanuel lose its Christian meaning on the knoll of Calvary? 64 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental "Now he is dead. Far hence he lies In the lorn Syrian town; And on his grave, with shining eyes The Syrian stars look down." Was tliat all? By no means. His followers believed that it was because he lived the mean- ingfulness of Immannel that he was put to death. For the same reason, after his death, they viewed him as the wonderful prophet ex- alted by God to be both Lord and Christ, and as such revealing God. In the eighth chapter of Eomans Paul wrote: *^But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead be- cause of sin." Keeping in mind that back of Paul's exalted but indwelling Christ was Jesus, called Immanuel, his practical identifying of Christ and the Spirit of Christ with the in- dwelling Spirit of God is very suggestive. It does not mean that Paul had the same idea of immanence that scientific theology has today, but it suggests that in keeping with PauPs thought the term Spirit, Spirit of God, or Holy Spirit may be used as taking up into itself the meaningfulness of the word Immanuel as ap- plied to Jesus. The Trinity Truth 65 This is the meaning of Hynmody's address to the Spirit: "Ever present, truest Friend, Ever near, Thine aid to lend." Often the hymn-writers, dominated by thoughts of majesty, have expressed them in such lines as these: "Come Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove, "With light and comfort from above J* "Holy Spirit, from on high Bend on us a pitying eye." "Great Comforter descend and bring Some token of thy grace." Lines like these, however, are supplemented by such Immannel lines as these of Spurge on : "Not far away is he To be by prayer brought nigh, But here in present majesty As in his courts on high;" and by the oft-quoted lines of Tennyson : "Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet. Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet." **Even the Spirit of truth," says the Fourth 66 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental Gospel, ''who abideth with you and shall be in you." *^My brethren," said a French preacher, **we have unlearned the Holy Spirit." Having in mind both the modem thought of immanence and the significance of that beautiful old He- brew word, many modem Christians are re- learning the *^Holy Spirit" as that in which the meaningfulness of *^Immanuel" is increased in breadth, depth, and power. In the small coun- try of Palestine, in his so short ministry, Jesus, in the long ago, influenced comparatively few. More than he, as Immanuel, meant to those few, the Holy Spirit means to myriads in all lands today and will mean in the days to come. And its fundamental meaning is the immediacy of Christlike deity. This is the great thought that is to the trinity of the creeds what Jesus was to the law. It comes not to destroy but to fulfil. Modem scholars — ^wisely or unwisely — ^may call attention to the outgrown thought-forms of the trinitarian creeds, but to millions of hearts to- day, as through all the Christian centuries, this remains as its heart meaning. IV. THE NATURE OF GOD K word in conclusion, to the effect that the modem theologian faces greater difficulties than The Trinity Truth 67 did those who wrote these creeds. The differ- ence between the Christlikeness of God and the idea of God necessary to fit the greatness of his universe and the hard facts of life, was at heart the difficulty with which the earlier creed-makers had to do. This is the heart of the difficulty with many a thoughtful man to- day — only the universe is vaster, and the mis- eries of life affect man's thought of God more deeply than in the times of the first great creeds. "While many see that modem science is aiding theology in some respects, yet they feel that by showing them the stupendous distances of nature, it so dazes them with the thought of the greatness of deity that they cannot even apprehend him. They are crying to the scien- tific theologian today: *^ Canst thou by search- ing find out God I Canst thou find out the Al- mighty unto perfection!" Increased apprecia- tion of the injustice and increased sensitiveness to the misery of the world — ^nature **with ra- pine red in tooth and claw" and the awful carnage, cruelty, and worse than brutishness of war — so daze many morally that they ask: Who is God that this should be? F. W. H. Myers was once asked by a close friend: **What is the thing which, above all others, you most desire to know? If you could ask the Sphinx one question, and one only, what 68 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental would that question be?'' *^If I could ask tlie Spliinx one question,'' was the reply, *^and only one, and hope for an answer, I think it would be this : *Is the Universe friendly?' " To such a question a Christian poet answers : *'I see the wrong that round me lies, I feel the guilt within; I hear, with groan and travail -cries, The world confess its sin. '^Yet, in the maddening maze of things, And tossed by storm and flood, To one fixed trust my spirit clings; I know that God is good !'' The reason he so answered is that as a Chris- tian he believed in the Christlikeness of God. This is the Christian's answer to that same question that many today would ask the Sphinx. It is a vital question, and wise; and wise is the Christian's answer. As one has said: '*The wise question is not *Is Christ divine?' but 'What is God like?' And the an- swer is * Christ.' '' CHAPTER YI CHRISTLIKENESS— OF GOD AND MAN I. CHRISTIAN PRAYER MANY are not sure of the existence of God, and accordingly have lost, or have never acquired, the habit of prayer. Has the Church any word for these I Yes. But not a logically complete demonstration. As others can help to create the atmosphere in which children experience love, but cannot dem- onstrate it to them like a problem in mathe- matics — so with the sense of relationship with God. The work of the Church is to help create the intellectual, moral, and emotional atmos- phere in which this sense will most naturally come in the life-process itself. To this end it is well to remember that each human being is part of a great whole. The uni- verse to which a man belongs is greater exceed- ingly than he. Belonging to it, what is his re- lationship with it 1 It acts on him. He acts on it. Through this interaction man is able to attain and to achieve. That the Universe, the 69 70 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental Cosmos, the Whole, the Eeality — call it what one will — ^is such that it is possible for man as part of it to attain to, or achieve, something of value — this is the very heart of religion. That the Eeality is such as to make possible Christ and Christhke values is the essence of the Christian religion. Scepticism commonly seeks for a reasoned- out, an intellectual, relationship with such a Eeality. But logical reasoning is only one of the phases of man's life. Man's relationship with Eeality is not merely something to be rea- soned out. It is not merely intellectual. It is emotional and volitional as well. It is vital. It is, therefore, not simply in the logical reason- ing of the intellect, but in action, in the life- process itself — ^with its intuitions, its feelings, its willing — that the nature of the great Eeality is to be learned. Not merely by making intel- lectual pictures of different phases of life and viewing them separately, but in the moving- picture process, the life-process itself, do men find the basic Eeality, do they have a sense of personal deity. It is along a line like this that scepticism may come to a view of deity that makes a conscious- ness of personal divine relationship, and so of prayer, natural. "When the man who in some way has felt the spell of Christlikeness faces a Christlikeness — of God and Man Jl great bereavement, or from a course of sin comes to himself, or according to Ms liigli ideal is striving to achieve, then it is, in some snch time in the life-process itself, that he may ob- tain a sense, vision, intuition — call it what one will — of personal, aye. Christlike deity. Then it is that a man naturally prays. Professor James writes: *^We hear in these days of scientific enlightenment a great deal of discussion about the efficacy of prayer, and many reasons are given us why we should not pray. But in all this very little is said of the reason why we do pray, which is simply that we cannot help praying. It seems probable that, in spite of all that * science' may do to the contrary, men will continue to pray to the end of time, unless their mental nature changes in a manner which nothing we know should lead us to expect. . . . It is probably that men differ a good deal in the degree in which they are haunted by this sense of an ideal spectator. It is a much more essential part of the conscious- ness of some men than of others. Those who have the most of it are possibly the most reli- gious men. But I am sure that even those who say they are altogether without it, deceive them- selves, and really have it in some degree.'' In Sir Oliver Lodge's *^The Catechism of a Scientist," designed to give '^a particularly 72 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental scientific basis for future religious education/' the ** Question — ^Wliat do you understand by prayer r' receives the following ** Answer — ' That when our spirits are attuned to the spirit of righteousness our hopes and aspirations ex- ert an influence far beyond their conscious range and in the true sense bring us into communion with our Heavenly Father. This power of filial petition is called prayer/' With the words ''when our spirits are attuned to the spirit of righteousness'' the eminent scientist is strik- ingly at one with the teaching of the Bible con- cerning the prayer-condition that brings to man a sense of communion with Deitv. It is a moral condition. The Bible disquiets many intellectually, but more morally. It is like a man at first heartily disliked because of his brusque manner and pointed words aimed at some besetting sins. In time, however, when his revelation that at first disquieted the mind left its beneficial influence upon the life, his true worth was learned. An effect akin to this is produced by coming in touch with such a text as Psalm 66:18: ''If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear. ' ' However views may differ concerning the interpretation and authority of the Scriptures in general, and of this verse in particular, it is impossible to get away from the deep truth it and its many par- Christiikeness — of God and Man 73 allel texts contain, namely, the moral condition of communion with God. Centuries before Christ, Homer *s Hector, the Greek hero, dreading to sacrifice to the gods, with unwashed hands ; Philo, a Jewish contem- porary of Jesus, admonishing not to go to the altars to pray bringing sin or violent passion; and Burns, the Scottish bard of the eighteenth century, when he sang: "Then how shall I for heaven's mercies pray, Who act so counter heavenly mercies' plan"?" suggest the thought of Jehovah according to Isaiah: ^^Yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. '^ The thought that unless the wicked were willing to *^ forsake his way" or his unrighteous thoughts he had no right to expect God would **have mercy upon him" in hearing his prayer is prominent throughout the Scriptures. One of their blind men voiced their testimony: ^*God heareth not sinners." Though they do not call it such they clearly teach as the golden rule of prayer : Do unto others as you would that God should do to you. Their greatest prophets sig- nal as the condition of achieving prayer : * * God expects every man to do his duty." They go further. They teach that to some 74 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental extent every man is responsible for his concep- tion of duty. The story goes that a yonng clergyman was, for financial reasons, about to change his creed. To the irrefutable arguments of an aged brother he replied: **I do not see that what you urge is my duty." The old man took a pencil, and writing the word, **duty," asked, ^^Do you see that?" **Yes," was the an- swer. Then, putting a sovereign over it, he asked again, **Why do you not see it now?" Reluctantly the young man replied : ' ^ The gold hides it." That the ** filthy lucre" of self- interest that hides men's duty may also hide God's face is the teaching of Scripture. What saith it? *^They will seek me diligently, but they shall not find me; for that they hated knowledge." And again, **He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law even his prayer is an abomination." Because of the issues involved, assurance should be made doubly sure. To this end lumi- nous are the words of one who wrote: *^ Guilt cherishes the pretence of Doubt. And there are ways and manners of life coloured less som- brely than guilt, which also fly to Doubt to keep them out of the way of the celestial police. Many people find, to their temporary comfort, that a respectable face may be put on several indulgences and laxities in respect of purity, Christlikeness — of God and Man 75 sacrifice, charity, if they can sustain, now with sighs, now with rebellious outcries, the posture of men caught and torn in the thicket of first principles. In reality the thicket has no thorns, as they pretend ; within its plaintive shade they cherish their secret and forbidden fruits.'' In the light of today relatively less do the petty pieties, the minor matters of merely personal affairs, the technicalities of ecclesiasticism, and relatively more does the question of readiness to engage in the task of solving social questions, condition the freedom and worth of prayer. There have been those who have prayed to this effect: ^^0 God, if there be a God" — at the same time promising to do the right thing as it became known to them. As a result they have had a feeling of enlargement, of capacity, of moral elevation, of mastery, of triumph, and of fellowship with Deity, from whose presence and activity they have inferred that the prayer- blessings came. In any case, sincerity in seek- ing and determination to live the truth so sen- sitise the soul that it is ready to have the im- pression of God made upon it. If there is an honest resolve not simply to leave the wrong imdone but to do the right, then, or probably not long after in the life-process, will come a consciousness of God that makes prayer possi- ble. It may be out of the quietude of much 76 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental brooding, as a flame suddenly darts from a smouldering fire. It may be at a time of soli- tude among the mountains or out beneath the stars. It may be at a time of great sorrow or of great joy. It may be, and frequently has been, just before going ^^over the top'' or wben lying wounded on *^No Man's Land." It may be occasioned by something, of itself not very important, like the tiny flower that an atheistic prisoner found growing in his prison yard; and, in watching it, found God. It may be, and often is, in a place of worship, when in the at- mosphere of devotion the mind is led to im- merse itself in thoughts concerning Jesus and concerning the experiences of others who have had a Christlike sense of Deity. Whatever the occasion, that which makes for the highest God- consciousness, and one that abides, is this de- termination to "Persistently strive Just the right thing to do." ** Whosoever then," so runs the greatest book of the mystics, *^ would fully and feelingly un- derstand the words of Christ, must endeavour to conform his life wholly to the life of Christ." Striving for Christlike humanity in one's self and others makes for belief in Christlike Deity. Christlikeness — of God and Man JJ II. THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL This suggests that a study of history shows this word ^ ^ Christlike ' ' to be the best descrip- tive, defining term for Christianity's ideal for humanity, as well as for its conception of Deity. Not only its theology, but also its morality, pre- dominantly has been Christ-centred. Funda- mental in ethics, in general, is an ideal of life to make one stop and think. Christlikeness has been and is the distinctive ideal in Christian ethics. In the New Testament it is found frequently. In all three of the synoptic gospels is given, as coming from the lips of Jesus himself in fore- telling his own death: *^If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.'' In the Fourth Gospel he is represented as saying, *'I have given you an example, that ye also should do as I have done to you." Among the many instances in Paul's epistles we read: *'Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." In the Epistle to the Hebrews there is this stimulant: ** Consider him that hath endured such gain- saying of sinners against himself, that ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls." The First Epistle of Peter reasons : *^ Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should yS Christianity's Unifying Fundamental follow his steps." And the First Epistle of John affirms: **He that saith he abide th in him ought himself also to walk even as he. walked." Between New Testament times and the Ref- ormation the outstanding book of the mystics that sums up their best is **The Imitation of Christ." It begins: ^^ ^He that followeth Me, walketh not in darkness,' saith the Lord. These are the words of Christ, by which we are taught to imitate His life and manners, if we would be truly enlightened, and be delivered from all blindness of heart. Let therefore our chief en- deavour be to meditate upon the life of Jesus Christ." Since the Reformation, in the realm of Chris- tian hymnody there are many lines dominated by the aspiration after Christlikeness. Watts, for instance, supplicated in song: "Be thou my pattern; make me bear More of thy gracious image here." Montgomery expressed a common desire: "Through paths of loving-kindness led, Where Jesus triumphed we would tread; To all with willing hands dispense The gift of our benevolence." And so commonly in the prayer services of the Church as to be hackneyed is heard the exhorta- tion : Christlikeness — of God and Man 79 "To the work! to the work! We are servants of God. Let us follow the path that our Master has trod." So, too, the meditation: "Must Jesus bear the cross alone And all the world go free? No, there's a cross for everyone, And there's a cross for me.'' Christlike Deity and Christlike humanity — a belief and a goal. The two should go together. The inclusion of both is necessary in any ade- quate statement of what is fundamental in Christianity. They are not Christians who sim- ply assent to the belief. There must come in that ever inexplicable way a consciousness of God, an Immanuel experience, that makes for achieving relationship, co-operation, aye — to use a warmer, all-suggestive word — fellowship, with Christlike Deity. They must be able to say: *'Our fellowship is with the Father." They must also be able to say: *^We are God's fel- low-workers'' — and in the great work of sav- ing humanity, themselves included, from un- Christlikeness. To be a Christian, then, is to have with Christlike Deity a fellowship that makes for Christlike humanity. On the other hand, striving for Christlike hu- manity leads to fellowship with Christlike 8o Christianity's Unifying Fundamental Deity. This, therefore, in a nutshell, is the message of the modern Christian prophet to any who are sceptical concerning a good God who cares: Philosophic speculations, intellec- tual abstractions, logical reasonings alone, though good, are not sufficient. A brilliant the- orist about electricity may not drive the cars or light the city at all, or as well as one who with little theorising uses the everyday appli- ances. Your philosophising about Deity and prayer may leave you stalled and dark, while one who knows little or nothing about philoso- phy may, because he has practical living con- nection with the great vital Impulse, be giving others, and having himself, luminous progress in that which is most worth while. It is in the life-process itself that you really find God as co-operatively companionable in work and wor- ship, in deed and prayer. Adventure, there- fore, in faith. Impelled by what you recognise as the highest witliin you, as a true knight fol- low the gleam. Self-expression will make for self-expansion. Your reach is beyond your grasp, but reach. If you knew all there would be no novelty and thrilling adventure. Play your part and play it well. You may not like the cards you hold, but play the game. Get a vision of Christ. To this end read the New Testament. Meet Jesus there. Feel the Christlikeness — of God and Man 8l spell of his personality. Eemember — whatever the philosophical and theological attempts to explain the mystery of evil — ^that in the uni- verse back of him, and making him possible, must have been Christlikeness. Do not, how- ever, stop with this reflection. Coming in touch with his own religious life, strive to be like him, aim to make others Christlike also; and, feel- ing your need, you will become conscious of Christlike Deity, will find yourself in fellow- ship with the Father. The firm foundation of God standeth. CHAPTER yn CHRISTIANITY'S UNIFYING FUNDAMENTAL FELLOWSHIP, with Christlike Deity, that makes for Christlike humanity — this, stated in a way that would seem to be wise, historically and psychologically, is Chris- tianity's Unifying Fundamental. The aim in this chapter is to give, and with as much cor- roborative quotation as space will permit, five reasons for this. I. FUNDAMENTAi: It is fundamental. It has what is funda- mental in religion, which itself is fundamental in human life. The fundamental nature of reli- gion is expressed by Professor G. B. Smith thus : **One of the most significant of the conclusions of modern scholarship is the recognition of the fact that religion is a fundamental and primary activity of the human spirit. Science or philos- ophy cannot create religion. The scientific in- vestigator can only analyse what he finds in 82 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental 83 the actual experience of man. The great French philosopher, Comte, with all his eagerness to organise a scientifically determined religion which should supplant crude faiths and unite men in the worship and the service of humanity, failed to attract more than a handful of fol- lowers. Religion is not dependent on science or culture or philosophy for its existence. It is a great fundamental reality due to the prac- tical need of man for superhuman aid in his struggle with the adverse forces of his envi- ronment. ' ' If religion is fundamental in life, what is fun- damental in religion? To get down to this fundamental is the chief reason for a compara- tive study of religions. This reveals the fact that, though religions differ widely, they have much in common, because, though individuals change much, man changes little. The human heart with its needs has been much the same in all races and throughout all ages. All religions have a common foundation. In his *^The Varieties of Religious Experi- ence'' Professor James gave striking expres- sion to what is fundamentally common in all re- ligions. In the concluding chapter he wrote: **The warring gods and formulas of the various religions do indeed cancel each other, but there is a certain uniform deliverance in which reli- 84 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental gions all appear to meet. It consists of two parts : (1) An uneasiness ; and (2) Its solution. (1) The uneasiness, reduced to its simplest terms, is a sense that there is something wrong about us as we naturally stand. (2) The solu- tion is a sense that we are saved from the wrongness by making proper connection with the higher powers." Christians are saved from the ** wrongness," the ^^ uneasiness" or (to use a word even better than either) the loneliness of life through their loving fellowship with the Christlike Father. II. DISTINCTIVELY CHRISTIAN It is distinctively Christian. Having in it that which is fundamentally religious, through the term ** Christlike" it is distinctively Chris- tian. ^^If, however," wrote Professor D. C. Macintosh of Yale, *^we would distinguish the essential quality of the Christian religion from other religions more sharply, we can perhaps find no more accurate modifying term than the word * Christlike.' Christianity is the religion of deliverance from unChristlikeness to a Christ- like morality, through a Christlike attitude to- ward a Christlike superhuman reality. This dis- tinction would serve, we think, to mark off the Christianity's Unifying Fundamental. 85 essence of Christianity definitely from the es- sence of any other moral religion." To the same effect is an editorial in The Bib- lical World which ran: '* Christianity is rightly so named. Viewed historically it arose in an epoch-making modification of the Jewish reli- gion by Jesus who was called Christ. What- ever the evolutionary process through which it has passed since, it has never ceased to profess and in large measure to maintain its loyalty to Jesus. . . . What it has been it will be, a reli- gion always in the making, always turning back to the great Master whose name it bears, to catch anew his spirit and the inspiration of his life and death, yet always reaching out to the future, assimilating new truth, adjusting itself to new conditions, conquering by its docility, vindicating its right to call itself Christian, and its loyalty to Jesus by its endeavour to put into action his teaching, and by its readiness to prove all things and hold fast the true and the good/' III. HISTORICALLY WISE It is historically wise. To the historian who is also a wise seer the present is but a point in a line of development. To get the line it is wise, therefore, to look into the past. The 86 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental term **Cliristlike" keeps that touch with the past that makes for true development. In its reference to both Deity and humanity in no two ages and, in fact, in no two persons, has it meant exactly the same. Its origin goes back to the use of the Greek word ^* Christ" for the Hebrew word ** Messiah" as a name for Jesus. The early Christians, under the influence of his life and the stories of his life, poured into the term that which made it an expression of their great idea. Because of its constant use by them this term naturally has been continued, though, like many other historic terms, the meaning of it has varied with the different environments and experiences of those who have used it. The early Hebrew meaning, influenced by the con- ception of the Messiah, was modified by the thought in the popular mystery type of reli- gion in the Roman Empire into which Chris- tianity was born. It was influenced, too, by Greek philosophy, notably, for instance, in the Logos, or Word, of the Fourth Gospel. Later it was affected by the ascetic and ritualistic types of the early centuries; then by the dog- matic types following the Reformation; and since then it has been changed by types many and varied — romantic, rationalistic, socialistic, and others. Nevertheless, however the mean- ing has varied, back of it has been the personal Christianity's Unifying Fundamental 87 religion of Jesus himself, in which, as even modern science is helping to show, were the big abiding things to fit the need of all the ages. Through both its syllables ** Christlike ' ' is sufficiently adaptable to cover past changes in Christianity and to allow for any further inev- itable changes through the most thorough inves- tigations of modernism and post-modernism. It thus gives for Christianity an inspiring fun- damental symbol upon which all Christians, as Christians, have agreed, do agree, and will agree. *'The name of Christ," said Professor Eoyce, **has always been, for the Christian be- lievers, the symbol for the Spirit in whom the faithful — that is to say, the loyal — always are and have been one." Because of its **rich but not rigid" meaning it may be said of the term *^ Christlike" as of the beautiful Eiffel tower: ** Storms have come and gone, hurricanes may beat against it. It has stood and will stand. It breaks not because it bends ; it sinks not be- cause it sways." IV. SPECIALLY INSPIRING It is specially inspiring. It gives the psy- chological appeal of personality. It is more than principle personified. It is principle per- sonified in an especially searching and inspiring 88 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental way, because it brings man face to face with what one refers to as **the ideal which Jesus presents. ' ' His words are ; * * No one can under- stand the story of the life of Jesus without be- ing brought face to face with the most searching scrutiny of the motives of his inner life. One must make the great decision for or against the ddeal which Jesus presents." Since, in stating the fundamental, *^ Christ'^ was used not merely as a great Ideal, but as the Ideal that has back of it Jesus' own religious life, the fundamental term ** Christlike" has the inspiring appeal of being associated with a definite person and He the founder of Christianity. The pedagogical significance of this must not be overlooked. An intricate lock was made of lettered rings and opened only when the rings were so ar- ranged that the letters spelled ** Jesus." An aged negress after learning her letters asked to be taught the name of Jesus, ** 'Cause," she said, ** 'pears like the rest will come easier if I learn that blessed name fust." To open up the way to highest co-operation with man, to learn the language of the higher life of co-op- erative relationship with God, it is good peda- gogy, as well as **good news," to begin with **that blessed name first." That men might not simply admire, but be dominated by, the Christ, Christian psycholo- Christianity's Unifying Fundamental 89 gists of today urge, in view of the experience of the Church throughout the ages, that it preach not only the message of Jesus but Jesus him- self — failing not, in presenting his Gospel, to use the appeal of his cross, but to remember it is Jesus that is upon it. V. UNIFYING It is unifying. The belief that it is rests upon two reasons. The first is that it puts em- phasis upon that which underlies all the dif- ferences between the churches. Instead of seeking to eliminate these differences, and so calling more attention to them, it calls atten- tion to the inexhaustible depth of what is really fundamental to all the churches. That this is the way of attaining comity and co-operative union is confirmed by the words of an American Congregationalist, Dr. Oliver Huckel: ** Breth- ren, the truth itself, I make bold to say, is a larger thing than is contained in either extreme of the Catholic or Evangelical contentions. Nor is it some golden mean. But it is found, I am sure, in a further comprehension of the abso- lute truth that underlies each position. Here is the point of possible reconciliation — in some- thing greater and richer than either the present Catholic or the present Evangelical position." 90 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental Fellowship, with Christlike Deity, that makes for Christlike humanity includes what all Chris- tians must hold in common. It, however, has the benefit of being that upon which all Chris- tians, as Christians, must stand, without being merely an innocuous remainder after the elimi- nation of all upon which any Christians may differ. The other reason for the belief that our Christian fundamental is unifying is that it does not call for an unnatural union. The adaptability of the term ** Christlike" permits great diversity in unity. To quote from Bal- four's ^* Theism and Humanism": **Men do not necessarily believe exactly the same thing be- cause they express their convictions in ex- actly the same phrases. And most fortunate it is, in the interests of individual liberty, social co-operation, and institutional continuity that this latitude should be secured to us, not by the policy of philosophers, statesmen, or di- vines, but by the inevitable limitations of lan- guage." W. Boyd Carpenter, Bishop of Ri- pon, in his ' '■ Christian Reunion, ' ' wrote : * * The spokes of the wheel may. be many, but the nave must be one. On many important matters churches may teach differently, but may yet find union in some symbol of truth. . . . Better than the way of conference and council, for Christianity's Unifying Fundamental 91 bringing about this reunion, is the way of Christlikeness, whicb is the true way of peace." Fellowship, with Christlike Deity, that makes for Christlike humanity is a nave, or hub, in which all the churches may centre, to make for the progress of humanity. Loving fellowship with God means loving fellowship among men. Fellowship ! What a word to conjure with ! "What a thought with which to face the big things of life! That this may be increasingly evident is the thought in the chapters that follow. CHAPTER Vni LONESOMENESS I. A DEEP LIFE FACT AFTER enjoying for a few days tlie hos- pitality of a wealthy business man, we arrived at the station ahead of time. During the few minutes' conversation before the train pulled out, he opened his purse and took from it a poem, not an original one — ^he did not go so far as that — ^but one enshrining a choice bit of sentiment. A poem in a purse t Again and again out of the commercial and professional has welled up a fountain of sen- timent — the poetry of life. Let, therefore, the application of our argu- ment to the big things of life begin with a beau- tiful bit of Hebrew verse. With subtle charm its pensive poetry would woo from timely topic to eternal truth, from the marts of men to the heart of God. It is the prayer of the afflicted when he is overwhelmed and poureth out his complaint before Jehovah : 92 Lonesomeness 93 "I am like a pelican of the wilderness; I am become as an owl of the waste places. I watch, and am become like a sparrow That is alone upon the housetop." In these four lines there are three pictures with one theme — lonesomeness. In the first, a pelican, standing in an uninhabited place, is motionless, with its head on its breast — '* singu- larly listless and melancholy.'' The second is an owl among the ruins — a boding bird of night. The third seems to be a social little house-sparrow, feeling keenly its solitariness. To be like the melancholy pelican of the wilder- ness, like the boding owl of the ruins, and like the society-loving sparrow, '* alone upon the housetop,'' is not simply to be alone; it is to be lonesome. From the water directly in front of an old shack in the woods, as plainly as was ever heard by ears of man from throat of bird, came the plaintive cry: **I'm alone, I'm alone." It was the call of a loon looking for its mate. Soon the mate appeared, and the plaintive cry- ing ceased. It was alone, as it said, but, as its piteous tone implied, it was more. It was lonesome. Bird parables these of life. The human heart is lonesome. This is a thought with which, for 94 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental many at least, the practical application of Christianity might well begin. Some begin with the thought that the human heart is guilty. It is. Christianity has to do with guilt. It emi- nently is a religion of redemption. But it has a wider and deeper range than that. Guilt makes for lonesomeness, and magnifies it, but lone- someness is deeper than guilt. Most use the word sinfulness. Professor James uses the word ^'wrongness." But for many the one word of words to express the deep life-fact would be lonesomeness. II. LONESOMENESS DIAGNOSED There is the lonesomeness of solitude. Guilt aggravates it. No longer able to endure the torments of solitude, the brutal Legree, stamp- ing and whistling to the dogs, cried out to them in his terror: *^Wake up some of you and keep me company." But the tendency to lonesome- ness in solitude is not necessarily due to some- thing wrong in the life. The desire for society is an instinctive principle of human nature. The language of Scripture is a law of life: **It is not good for man to be alone. ' ' The natural human heart rebels against the grey days of solitude when: Lonesomeness 95 ''No sound, no whirr of wings thrilling the air, The sky hangs motionless — a blur of grey. Would that a fierce wild wind might wake and sway Its pulseless breast! Would that one angry tear Might fall athwart its passive face! Oh, Life, I ask no respite from thy storms and strife. Only thy cold, grey silences I fear." Unpleasant as is the lonesomeness of soli- tude, more unpleasant is the lonesomeness of society. The consciousness of being isolated in. society is worse than the consciousness of be- ing isolated from society. Perhaps most important in the explanation of lonesomeness in society is conscious individu- ality — thinking, feeling, and willing differently from everyone else. Each human birth, a mira- cle ! Each human being, a genius ! Each human life, unique! Carlyle's professor tells of the awakening to the truth, '*I was like no other.'' An awakening leading, according to him, * * some- times to highest, and oftener to frightfullest results!'' Earlier or later everyone awakes to this same truth that he is different from others, who do not fully understand him or he them — • an awakening that is not unmixed with pain. Mankind is not like the continent of North America — a united mass divided here and there .by many rivers and lakes. Like the Thousand Islands, separated from one another by the 96 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental waters of the St. Lawrence, mankind is made up of individuals. "Yes! in the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone I" We are as ''ships that pass in the night," and like the Ancient Mariner : "Alone, alone, — all, all alone; Alone on a wide, wide sea." Fronde was right : ' ' There is always a part of our being into which those who are dearer to us far than our own lives are yet unable to enter." We would enter more than we do into the lives of those we love. We would have them enter more fully into what is best in our own. But this very individuality that makes love pos- sible makes isolation inevitable. Selfishness increases this sense of isolation. It widens the St. Lawrence of our Thousand Isles. It is an insulating stool that prevents the electric flow of sympathy from reaching our lonesome hearts. Without this flow of loving Kympathy the human heart cannot but be lone- some. This it is, more than the weight of years, that so often makes old age a burden to be borne. The unpleasant feeling that in some Lonesomeness 97 way, lie knows not how, he is out of touch with the active, progressive men of today dark- ens what should be the glorious sunset of many a life. The lack of the seasoning of sympathy makes the events of life insipid to many an aged man. Heaven pity the old who are lone- some! Heaven pity all who are isolated by a great sorrow unbridged by sympathy! Many are they who tread the winepress alone. Since selfishness and sympathy both exist in various and varying proportions, lonesomeness has degrees. The farther a man is removed from the level of his surroundings, the greater his lonesomeness. The more the criminal is sunk in his haunts of vice, the more lonesome would he be in the place of purity and peace. The greater the elevation the greater the isola- tion. After he became President, Garfield con- fessed: ^^The loneliness of the position is ap- palling. Nobody approaches me on the same plane as of old. I was never so isolated, never so lonesome in all my life." In moral eleva- tion the tendency is to isolation. **Be good," said the great humourist, **and you'll be lone- some," and his saying has even more wisdom than wit. In the presence of opportunity, the greater the opportunity and the higher the seer the greater the sense of lonesomeness. With his lofty aims, his unselfish work, how Jesus tow- 98 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental ered above his fellows who were unable to enter into his ideals! Harken! **Do yon not yet understand V^ '' What, could ye not watch with me one hourT' Unless he had a good pre- ventive for lonesomeness surely the human heart of Jesus would have been one of the lone- somest hearts that ever beat. From his pre- ventive we get as our prescription for the lone- someness of life: Fellowship with the Father that makes for Christlike fellowship with others. III. CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD According to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus said to his disciples: **Ye shall be scattered, every one to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me." With a Christlike sense of fellowship with God many an otherwise lonesome heart can say: *^ Though the hand of disease touch me and on a bed of suffering, away from former work and friends, I languish alone; though a secret trouble dry up the wellsprings of my former joy and in the privacy of my house and heart I suffer alone; though the sun of pros- perity is shut out by thick clouds and sworn friends forsake in the darkness and gloom; though in heeding the call of duty I am misun- Lon esomeness 99 derstood and left severely alone; yea, wlien I walk through the valley and come to the river over which I must be ferried alone: I am not alone, the Great Companion is with me." It was after what proved to be his last communion with his people when nigh to death, that Henry Francis Lyte expressed the yearning of a lone- some human heart for fellowship with God : "Abide witli me! Fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!'' Above all else it is the consciousness of abid- ing fellowship with God that makes the present rich and fills with hope the future. Through it we rise above the loneliness of death and life, of sin and suffering, of solitude and society. In Him we live and move and have our being. It is true that many today live seemingly in- different to the possibility of having this sense of union and communion with God. They are not willing to acknowledge that they are lost. As the lost Indian said, ^^ Indian not lost, wig- wam lost," it is true that many in the thought of today are saying it is not they but God who is lost. Yet, while this is true, it is also true that deep in these same human hearts, at times, lOO Christianity's Unifying Fundamental is the feeling of lonesomeness and a yearning for what they lack; for "Souls are restless, plagued, impatient things, All dreams and unaccountable desire; Crawling, but pestered with the thought of wings, Spreading through every inch of earth's old mire Mystical hankerings after something higher." In the haunting horror or dark uneasiness of lonely memories of sin, in lonely impotence be- fore an overwhelming grief, in lonely insuffi- ciency in the presence of a mighty opportunity, there is a longing for — God. To all who have drunk deeply of the cup of life there come times when, in the midst of the highest pleasures as well as in the deepest pain, they feel that they are alone and no company of earth, not even the company of the dearest, can satisfy the longings within. There are times when the best that is within rises up against the human barriers to perfect fellowship, when the fountain of love wells up until the soul longs to be known at its worst as well as at its best — *'to be completely known and all forgiven." There are times when the pain of individuality seems greater almost than can be borne and there comes a glimpse of the ocean of yearning back of pantheistic thought and a gleam of that which makes for mystic rapture. Then, then, Lonesomeness loi liowever erroneous the translation of its yearn- ing, the restless heart cries out for God — that his completeness flow round our incomplete- ness, round our restlessness his rest. Six weeks in a cabin on a cliff above a creek among the mountains, and, yet, no great hunt- ing experience, not even a good fish-story to tell. No stories of physical exploits — only visions, from among the mountains! Service sang: ''Let Tis probe the silent places, let us seek what luck be- tide us; Let us journey to a lonely land I know. There's a whisper in the night-wind, there's a star a-gleam to guide us, And the wind is calling, calling, ... let us go.*' In these *^ silent places" of **a lonely land I know" there were no interviews to disturb the eloquent silences of God. Hitherto mountains had occasioned wonder and awe as representing the majesty and transcendence of Deity, but weeks in their presence made for an intimacy, a fellowship with them, until the great Reality became the Christlike God — the mighty king became the gracious father. One early morn- ing out in the open, where two mountain-made valleys sought each other as if they wanted to be one, in the grey dawn, as I compared the I02 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental stable white of the snow upon the mountain peaks with the living white of the roaring tor- rent, a bird lit on a treetop and, looking east- ward, waited in reverent expectation. Above the mountain rose the sun in all his golden glory. Upwelling, came Ruamah's song: "For new, and new, and ever-new The golden bud within the blue; And every morning seems to say: 'There^s something happy on the way And God sends love to you.' " Instinctively I knew Him, felt Him palpably present, ineffably near. That this God-consciousness may be obtained by different persons in somewhat different ways has already been suggested. It may well be emphasised here. Quizzed theologically by a good deacon, his pastor turned and asked: **Well, what to you is the heart of the whole thing f He replied, ** Fellowship with God that means a good life.'' Asked, *'If one who lived a good life said he had fellowship with God but did not get it in the way you did, would you say that he did not have it at all?" he promptly answered **No." **If three men went in at the three different doors of our church building, though no two of them en- tered by the same door, would not all three Lonesomeness 103 be inside the church T' He heartily affirmed that it was not the particular entrance that mattered, so much as the fact of the entering; that the particular way one got this fellowship with God was a question of secondary impor- tance. Pre-eminently the important thing was the fellowship with God itself. *^Good!" ex- claimed the pastor enthusiastically, **Hold on to that and you will find it the guiding thread for the theological labyrinth of today. ' ' A Sal- vationist may get it in one way and a profes- sor of philosophy in another. The important thing is not the method of getting it, but the actual possession of a sense of ^^fellowship with God that means a good life." This is the Christlike cure for sinfulness, wrongness, lone- someness. To condition it otherwise than by the honest desire and will to be righteously at one with God is to rob the sinful, lonesome heart of man, and to depart from the big simplicity of the essential Gospel that Jesus lived and preached. It was not necessary for him to theologise con- cerning his death to make his preaching gospel- preaching. While his death may be considered his most potent sermon on the Gospel, yet he had been preaching the Gospel throughout his ministry. Well may the Christian sing: I04 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental ''In the cross of Christ I glory, Towering o'er the wrecks of time; All the light of sacred story Gathers round its head sublime." In Ms glorying, however, lie should not for- get whose cross it is ; and that the explanation of its power is the religious life of him who died thereon. In determining the saving sig- nificance of Jesus' death due emphasis should be given to the significance of his life. "We are on the way to wisdom concerning the mean- ing of his death when *'we would see Jesus'' in his life upon the earth. Only thus shall we get a theory of the atonement that will express the thought of today. Each of the outstanding theories of the atone- ment has been an expression of its age. The ransom theory, that held sway for centuries, was the expression of an age of brigandage and piracy, when captives were taken for the ran- som they would bring. In its development it found revolting expression in the figure of Peter Lombard that the cross was a mouse- trap baited with the blood of Jesus. Th^ thought was that God tricked and caught the Devil by what purported to be a ransom price. Yet this crude theory had at its heart the truth expressed in the beautifully suggestive figure of Scripture: *'his life a ransom for many.' >> Lonesomeness 105 Following the ransom theory, the satisfac- tion theory of Anselm represented an age of chivalry, when ^' satisfaction" had to be ren- dered for sin's affront to the *^ honour" of God. Later still, in the substitution theory, representing an age of jurisprudence, God was the judge whom Jesus appeased. Whatever the crude and even immoral extremes to which these and other great representative theories went, yet at the heart of each is a great truth expressed in keeping with the age it represents. In this age, dominated as we have seen by the thought of immanence, which has revitalised the doctrine of the trinity, the thought of God ^*in Christ reconciling the world unto himself" has revitalised the doctrine of the atonement. Free from later theological and ecclesiasti- cal additions, as revealed in the life and words of Jesus it is so simple that ^4ts simplicity has almost been its undoing." Yet this source of its peril has been a great secret of its power. Its big, simple, potent thought repeated in a word is this : God, revealed not simply through the words of Jesus but in Jesus himself, is an overflowing fountain of gracious fellowship; and those who will may there refresh their lonesome souls, free themselves from the domi- nance of evil, and fit themselves for joyous lo6 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental Christlike relationship with their fellows. Christlike fellowship with Christlike Deity im- plies a Christlike attitude to others. IV. CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP WITH MAN This, too, is an antidote to lonesomeness. For ideal fellowship, of course, there must be not only a flow of sympathy and love from one heart to another, but also a loving sympathetic flow in return. Naturally craving sympathy from others, when it is not received man com- monly seeks no fellowship with them. If he would unselfishly sympathise with others, even if they did not reciprocate, there would be an association with them that would lessen loneli- ness. Is any lonely! Let him seek another who is lonelier, for *^ there are lonely hearts to cherish while the days are going by." Does any shed secret tears over a sorrow in which no one comforteth? Let her go among the sad and sorrowing, and in wiping away their tears there will come a glow within that will help dry up her own. Is there a barrier between a man and those with whom he ought to come in closest touch! Let him do them a kindness and the barrier is shaken. Let him repeat it and the barrier falls. The hand of kindness unlocks the door of many a fast-closed heart. The hand Lonesomeness 107 of kindness draws not only the recipient to the giver but the giver to the recipient. Captain Marryat, as a midshipman, saved the life of an officer who had bullied him and whom he hated ; but from that time he loved him with an increasing love. In his * ^ Sentimental Journey'' Sterne left something here for the lonely hearts that pass : *^I pity the man/' said he, *^who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry: ' 'Tis all barren,' and so it is and so is all the world to him who will not cultivate the fruits it offers. I declare, said I, clapping my hands cheerily together, that were I in a desert I would find out wherewith in it to call forth my affections. If I could not do better I would fasten them upon some sweet myrtle or seek some melan- choly cypress to connect myself to. I would court their shade and greet them kindly for their protection. I would cut my name upon them and swear that they were the loveliest trees throughout the desert. If their leaves withered I would teach myself to mourn. And when they rejoiced I would rejoice along with them." If sweet myrtles do not abound mel- ancholy cypresses do. He who loses his life for others finds it again and greatly purified. He finds for himself fellowship with others and io8 Chr istianity's Unifying Fundamental increasing fellowship with God who, for others, lessens the lonesomeness of life. A Christ- like cure and preventive for lonesomeness leads inevitably to altruism. CHAPTER IX OTHERS I. IN THE LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS OF the Imitation of Christ/' the famous book already cited, may fairly be said to be represented by such sentences as these: **Fly the tumult of the world as much as thou canst; for the treating of worldly af- fairs is a great hindrance, although it be done with sincere intention; for we are quickly de- filed, and enthralled by vanity — 1:10:1.'' *^0 that we had nothing else to do, but always with mouth and whole heart to praise our Lord God — 1:25:7." ^^ Unless a man be set free from all creatures, he cannot wholly attend unto divine things — 3:31:1." Because of this, Dean Mil- man, together with much that was complimen- tary, in his review of the book, wrote : ** Never was misnomer so glaring, if justly considered, as the title of the book, the * Imitation of Christ.' That which distinguished Christ, that which distinguished Christ's apostles, that which dis- 109 no Christianity's Unifying Fundamental tinguislies Christ's religion — the Love of Man — ^ is entirely and absolutely left out." The significance of this is seen in a sug- gestive story from the gospels, in which is made not only clear but emphatic that Christlikeness implies love for man as well as for God. It is a story of a common question and its uncom- mon answer. The place, time, and whether the question was asked captiously or not, are mat- ters of secondary importance. The questioner was a lawyer. ** Teacher, '* he asked, ^* which is the great commandment in the lawT' And Jesus said: **Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment." So far, probably, the answer was a common one; but instead of con- fining himself to these great words from Deu- teronomy concerning love for God, Jesus went on to say: *^And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hang- eth, and the prophets." The words of the second were taken from Leviticus, where they seem to have been used only incidentally, and where the word neigh- bour did not have the full meaning that Jesus put into it. In his social parable of the good Samaritan he so broadened the meaning of the Others III word that it included anyone in need. In an- swering the lawyer's question, therefore, he took an incidental passage concerning love for neighbour, enlarged the meaning of the word neighbour, and put the whole passage along- side the one in Deuteronomy concerning love for God. The significance of this great answer is this : Although only one commandment was asked for and expected, to avoid a one-sided presenta- tion of religion a second commandment was given. Special care was taken to put love of neighbour with love of God as summing up the law and the prophets. Paul goes so far as to write to the Galatians : ' ' The whole law is ful- filled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. ' ' Jesus and Paul, therefore, insist that religion should concern itself not only with the relation between the individual and God, but also with the relation between the individual and his fellows. **God and one man could make any other religion,'' said Dr. Parkhurst, ^^but it requires God and two men to make Christianity." It asks not simply, ^*Adam, where art thouf " with respect to God, but, *^Cain, where is thy brother," and what hast thou done to himi The greatest ministry was that of saving men 112 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental out of their lonesomeness and sin into fellow- ship with the Father. This salvation is pic- turesquely represented in the story of Zao- chaeus, in which Luke writes that Jesus said: **The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.'' History and the observation of life today show that the mission of Jesus as thus described was a success. Through his com- ing millions have been saved from dangerous wanderings in the worst wilds of sin and have been brought into a pure, sweet, loving fellow- ship with God. His seeking was successful be- cause it was eager. The * * straightways ' ' of Mark's gospel are suggestive of this eagerness. We read that his ministry to the multitudes was so zealous that when his friends heard of it they went out to lay hold on him; for, they said, *^He is beside himself." His seeking was successful because it was persistent. It was so persistent that it killed him. Such was his determination to save others that himself he could not save. As his arrest by his friends showed his eagerness, his arrest by his enemies and their wounding of him to his death showed his persistence in seeking to save. Unlike the hireling, who fleeth, as the good shepherd Jesus laid down his life. Others 113 II. CHURCHES AS SEARCH PARTIES Further, his seeking was successful because it became an organised one. He became the leader of a growing company of seekers. We read **And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he himself would; and they went unto him. And he appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them forth'' — to seek and to save that which was lost. From this society of which he was president organised Christianity has grown. It should be kept in mind by the many church-members today that the different churches are just so many search parties seek- ing the lost. Let an illustration bring home the meaning of lost and so incite to seek and to save. The word went out: *^Earl Hines is lost.'' He was a lad of but six summers. He was seen last on the edge of the picnic grounds at Prince's Lodge, a small place so named because the father of Queen Victoria once resided there. It was surrounded by salt water and dense woods. Straying into these woods, in which there is many a dangerous precipice and bog. Earl Hines was lost. Just what that word meant as applied to him no one knew. If he had fallen over a precipice to his death, or 114 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental perished in a bog, or been drowned in a lake, the word would have a meaning dark indeed. If, however, he still lived and there was any possibility of his being restored to his par- ents, he was still lost, but the word would not have so dark a meaning. The hope was that he was still alive and it inspired to a seek- ing that was sucees^sful because eager, per- sistent, and well organised. What a motley crowd we were — city officials and labourers, professional and business men, soldiers and civilians, beardless youth and hoary heads — all sorts and conditions — but all there for busi- ness. As the number of the searchers increased different companies were organised. As the long lines were being formed to search thor- oughly section after section of the woods, many in their eagerness became impatient of the de- lay. When opportunity was given, through densest woods, over rocks, through bogs, hour after hour continued the eager, persistent march. It was an experience never to be for- gotten. It helped to a better understanding of the meaning of lost and the mission of the Church. Those are lost who are out of right relation- ship with God, who have not the joy and power of fellowship with him, who are in dangerous places without the sweet consciousness of his Others 1 15 presence, who already are suffering from the consequences of sin but who might be brought into saving fellowship with the Father — a pos- sibility inspiring to eager, persistent, organised work to save them. This is the great mission of the Church. In the successful search for the lost boy the seekers were instructed to work together. They did. Dominated by the thought of the best way of saving him, the different companies took different sections, thus supplementing in- stead of interfering with each other's work. It is for the different churches to be so domi- nated by the thought of saving men that thoughts of individual glory will sink out of sight, and instead of being in each other's way and needlessly covering the same ground they should aim to supplement each other's work. With the instruction to work together for the finding of the boy emphasis was given to the thought of individual responsibility. The care- lessness of some one member of the party might mean that the dark meaning of the word lost would be changed to the darker; and the boy's danger end in the boy's death. It is for Chris- tians, though organised into churches, to feel the responsibility of ** individual work for the individuals" who are lost. A tremendous re- sponsibility it is. In a small town in Nova Ii6 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental Scotia a baby boy was ill. The physicians said there was no hope. The mother said he must not die. In an agony of soul she prayed and felt her prayer was heard. Years went by. The boy grew up, went out and down. Again her soul was exercised with pain deeper and more prolonged, until one night, looking upon him in the unsightliness of his drunken stupor, quick pain crazed her to cry: *^0h, God, why did you answer my prayer T' The death of a boy's body is not to be compared with the death of his soul. It is earth's greatest evil to be away from God and its highest joy to have fellowship with him. To awaken to this is to be eager to save. To have this thought abide is to persist in the search, to be like the shep- herd of the parable who goes after that which is lost *^ until he find if It is the work of those who would be Christ- like not only to bring others into fellowship with God but to help them to keep in this fel- lowship and to go even farther into a realisa- tion of its worth. To this end encouragement should be given to both private and public wor- ship. As the word itself suggests, worship is for the appreciation of the worth of God to man. Private worship is most important, but public worship is also very important in Others 117 maintaining and increasing the saving fellow- ship with God. III. THE SOCIAL GOSPEL As a means of helping others to an ever-in- creasing fellowship with God and as a worthy end in itself, the Christlike will ever keep in mind the material surroundings and needs of man. The ^^ Imitation of Christ" reads: **0 that thou mightest never have need to eat, or drink, or sleep ; but mightest always praise God, and only employ thyself in spiritual exercises. '^ Paul, however, wrote; ** Whether, therefore, ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.'' According to the gos- pels, Jesus healed and fed man's body as well as man's soul. One of the reasons why the Jewish religious leaders opposed him was that he treated as sacred what to them was secular. A striking synagogue-picture ! It is the Sab- bath day. Jesus had entered the synagogue. There is a man there with a withered hand. The Scribes and Pharisees, also, are there. * ^ They watched him, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day; that they might accuse him. . . . And he saith unto them, Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good, or to do harm? to save a life, or to kill!" Immediately pre- Ii8 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental ceding this is the story of the criticism of the hungry disciples. In passing along, to satisfy their hunger, they plncked a little grain on the Sabbath and were criticised for thus engaging in a secular work on a sacred day. What an answer was that: **The sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath ! ' ' In view of all this it is not enough to * 'fol- low Christ" in a pietistic way. That following him implies much in daily social life should be presented with no uncertain sound. Christians should take to heart the truth that business and politics are sacred and that men may be in the service of God in these occupations just as truly as in meditating in solitude, baptising the liv- ing, or burying the dead. The Christlike should seek to ethicise industry as well as theology and make moral issues paramount in the political world. It is thus they should manifest the Christlike love of man which so conspicuously lacks expression in the so-called ^* Imitation of Chrisf We have not so learned Christ. Against the dark negation of the individual- istic morality as represented by that great mediaeval book, the modern apostle of social morality may write his social gospel of Christ- likeness. WTaile such a presentation gains much through picturesque contrast, there is danger that it fail in historical perspective. A knowl- Others 119 edge of the fourteen centuries preceding ^*The Imitation of Christ" would honeycomb the con- demning with condoning; and a knowledge of the five centuries since it would quicken con- science because the gospel of social righteous- ness is not being more widely preached and practised than it is. If it be kept in mind that, speaking generally, those antecedent fourteen centuries were domi- nated by the thought that all matter is essen- tially evil, the book's marked distinction be- tween secular and sacred, its magnifying of the Church as opposed to the world, its other- worldliness, its exhortation to deny and mortify the flesh, its discountenancing of social rela- tions as ministering to the fleshly appetites and desires, its consideration of business and poli- tics as at best necessary evils and so its inspira- tion to abstinence from them all become mani- festations of a sincere but somewhat misguided striving toward the ideal life. If, too, in addi- tion to this implicit and explicit philosophy concerning matter, it be remembered that there was no such thing as a scientific study of society in those times, and that Christianity was per- petually exposed to the sacramental and ritual- istic influences of the other religions with which it came into touch and from which it rapidly received converts, who naturally carried over I20 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental something of these influences from their own faiths, it can easily be understood how so much space in the book was ** concerning the com- munion'' and so little concerning social duties. On the other hand, if it be remembered that, in the five centuries since the book was writ- ten, philosophy has changed in its attitude to matter; that, in the incoming of the ** sciences, sociology inevitably found a place among them;'' and that the facilities for travelling and the changed international relations have made for a more democratic organisation of society: the naturalness of the modem em- phasis upon social morality becomes very evi- dent — so evident, in fact, that the wonder is that this more social Christlikeness is not more prevalent today than it is. Surely, therefore, it is not inappropriate to use the words of the Mars Hill speech: **The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; but now he com- mandeth men that they should all everywhere repent" of their neglect of the *^ social gospel" and guard against that ** heresy of the ages" the false distinction between sacred and secu- lar. A modern lawyer, about to turn preacher, wrote to Dr. Parkhurst that the sad scenes in the criminal courts had brought him to the point where he was thinking of casting aside hia Others 121 *^ bright future in law, to enter the service of the Lord!" That is akin to the modem de- liverance that politics has no place for the decalogue or the Sermon on the Mount. Both are extreme illustrations of the modern saying: business is business and politics is politics, but religion is religion — the implication being that religion must be kept separate from the other two. Instead, religion has to do with every de- partment of human life. It is concerned not simply with individual cases to be snatched as brands from the burning, but with general causes — laws, institutions, public opinion — that have to do with the welfare of the whole man. The Christlike message today is: The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of social righteous- ness is at hand. Eepent ye and believe in this full-orbed gospel. IV. VICARIOUS SACRIFICE The bringing in of this kingdom means sac- rifice. A full-orbed gospel today has the cross at its heart. Perhaps no passage of Scripture, therefore, needs to be iterated more today than this: ^*And he called unto him the multitude with his disciples, and said unto them, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.'' 122 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental "Who best can drink his cup of woe, Triumphant over pain, Who patient bears his cross below, He follows in his train." In being equal to these mighty days cross- bearing means more than * * taking part in meet- ing." It means vicarious suffering for the world's good. Our loved ones at the front who have suffered, bled, and died for the sake of democracy have entered into fellowship with Christ's suffering, have had a share in the vicarious atonement needed for the salvation of the world. The spirits of our dear dead may well say to the generations to come: These are our bodies broken for you. Many, too, not permitted to go to the front have nevertheless been permitted to share in this sacrificial sal- vation. One of our boys wrote me that his mother's sacrifice was greater than his. It was harder to give than to go. No wonder Marshal Joffre could not read in a steady voice the letter of a French mother to her son in Canada : * ^ My dear Son : You will be grieved to learn that your two brothers have been killed. Their country needed them and they gave everything they had to save her. Your country needs you and while I am not going to suggest that you return to fight for France, if you do not return at once, never come." That Others 123 old spirit of motherhood that told the son to return with his shield or on it, is not dead. Sacrificial giving and going are common- places in war. The imperative need is for their manifestation in times of peace. Christlike re- construction will be vicarious. As long as evil is in the world the way of the cross will be an inevitable part of the way of helping others. Let no one minimise the courage of those fight- ing for liberty on the bloody field. But let it not be forgotten that many of them would find it easier to risk their lives on the battlefield than to remain poor honestly and to speak and live the truth despite conventions and the en- mity of friends. Many, especially at the front, are getting a vision of what must be done after the war and the uncommon courage that will be needed to do it. Such was one of the truths brought home to many by Hankey's **A Student in Arms." His words, therefore, and especially since they suggest the theme of the next chap- ter, may well bring this chapter to a close. In the last paragraph of his chapter on **An Ex- periment in Democracy" he wrote : ^^When the war is over, and the men of the citizen Army return to their homes and their civil occupa- tions, will they, I wonder, remember the things that they have learned? If so, there will be a 124 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental new and better England for the children. . . . Wonld that it might be so! But perhaps it is more likely that the lessons will be forgotten, and that men will slip back into the old grooves. Much depends on the women of England. If they carefully guard the ancient ruts against our return, and if their gentle fingers press us back into them, we shall acquiesce; but if at this hour of crisis they, too, have seen a wider vision of national unity, and learned a more catholic charity, the future is indeed radiant with hope.'* CHAPTER X THE UNIT OF SOCIETY BECAUSE of the great importance and supreme delicacy of the subject of this chapter the wisest words of expert testi- mony are needed. The first part of the chapter, therefore, will consist of a series of questions and the answers of specialists. I. JESUS AND THE FAMILY Decades ago Dr. Elisha Mulford was wont to ntter these prophetic and suggestive words : ** Sociology is the coming science and the fam- ily holds the key of it." Has that prophecy come true? A Corresponding Secretary of the National League for the Protection of the Family, Dr. E. S. Dike, in considering **The Problem of the Family," wrote some years ago. *^We are coming to see that what we call society is a most interesting as well as most important subject of scientific study. In a way it has been studied for all the centuries of human 12& 126 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental learning. But we are now at work on it in the field of social science, with sociology and the social sciences for our instruments. In pur- suit of this line of study students are confronted everywhere with the family in some of its forms. In its history they find in great degree the story of the other great social institutions. And it has become apparent that with ihQ prog- ress of social science students must continue to be interested in the past, present, and future of the family. If the family, or rather the home, is in any considerable degree to social science what the atom is in physics and the cell is in biology, it is almost inevitable that social science must follow the method of those sciences, so far at least as to concentrate at- tention on its study and discover that the home contains within it the great secrets of all the social sciences. Especially is it true of the problems of government, economics, religion, and pedagogy, that they all need a scientific knowledge of the home as an indispensable con- dition of their solution. We do not see that our corporations, our churches, our schools, as well as our municipal organisations, are the out- growth of communal institutions of long ago and that the history of the modem home is closely interwoven with their rise and develop- ment. We rarely get beyond some conventional The Unit of Society 127 remarks and speak of the family as the ^unit of society.' It would puzzle most of us who use that phrase to tell what it means, even in their own thought of it." Just what does that phrase mean? Professor Peabody after specialising on the problem of ^* Jesus Christ and the Social Min- istry'' wrote: *^The social teaching of Jesus, proceeding from a wholly different point of view, lays its hand on the same key of social progress which is now indicated by the social philosopher; and the character of the teach- ing of Jesus on the subject is one whose impor- tance could not be adequately appreciated until the researches of the present generation had recalled attention to the problem of the family. Modem learning, using the language of re- search, says, * The family is the unit of civilisa- tion.' Jesus, using the language of Hebrew Scripture, says, ^The twain shall become one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined to- gether let not man put asunder. ' ' ' The whole passage reads according to Mark : **And there came unto him Pharisees, and asked him. Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife ? tempting him. And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement and to put her away. But Jesus 128 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental said "Qiito them, For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of the creation, male and female made he them. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife ; and the two shall become one flesh. . . . What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.^' Are these really the words of Jesus? Professor Shailer Matthews, after brilliant work on ^^The Social Teaching of Jesus," wrote: *^No words reported as those of Jesus are more certainly his than these concerning marriage and divorce. In none of his teaching have we greater economy of expression, but in none is his meaning less in doubt. '* What is its meaning? Professor E. P. Gould, author of the com- mentary on Mark in the International Critical Series, interpreted the thought of Jesus in this significant passage thus: ** Jesus nowhere shows the absolute rationality and verity of his thought more than here. Spirituality is the very core of that thought, but it never misleads him so that he misses the material facts. And it is the insistence on these here that saves him from an immoral sentimentality. Whatever may underlie marriage in the realm of the feel- The Unit of Society 129 ings, it is itself physical and produces struc- tural unity/' What, then, according to Jesus, is the rela- tion between sex and love in marriage? Professor E. D. Burton, the eminent New Testament exegete, wrote in The Biblical World: *^The controlling factor is not in what the law of Moses may chance to say, but in the deep fact of sex as an element of human na- ture. ^From the beginning of the creation male and female made he them.' It is fair to as- sume that these words on Jesus' lips refer not simply to the physical differentiation of the sexes, which man shares with the lower ani- mals, but to all that sex means in the human species: the relation that it creates between husband and wife as beings of moral nature, human sensibilities, and sexual modesty; be- tween parent and child, with the corresponding obligations of protection and affection and edu- cation. Sex means one thing to the dog; it means something very different to civilised man, to whom and of whom Jesus spoke. Surely we have but imperfectly apprehended Jesus if we have not learned that the principle of love is supreme in his teaching, and that it takes precedence over all specific injunctions. But if we apply this principle to the present case, we gain as the interpretation of Jesus* 130 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental teaching for practical application substantially this: No marriage is temporary; no divorce is normal; love sets no limit to its endurance; if ever the dissolution of a marriage otherwise than by death is justified, it must be because circumstances are so abnormal that love itself demands the dissolution; the principle of love must be supreme, and must be applied in view of all the facts^ of which most fundamental of all is the nature and consequence of sex in man.'' II. BLESSING AND BANE Just what then is the relation of sex to re- ligion? In his ** Psychological Phenomena of Chris- tianity'' President George B. Cutten sums up the findings of specialists thus : **The evidence for this relation may be divided into three classes, viz.: historical, pathological, and psy- chological. Early religious rites were largely sexual and orgiastic. Especially is this true in phallicism, the worship of the generative prin- ciple. ... A glance at a partial list of sects which have had some abnormal sexual element at least attributed to them shows that the fol- lowers of Jesus have been far from free from this taint. ... In our own times the connec- tion between religion and sexual phenomena The Unit of Society 13 1 is largely confined to revivals. The argument from pathology rests upon the testimony of many alienists to the effect that in cases of in- sanity where religious delusions predominate the disturbance usually has a sexual origin. On this point there appears to be a general agreement. **What I have called the psychological argu- ment has two phases to present : the connection between human and divine love, as having a common emotional basis; and the relation be- tween sexuality and religious awakening during adolescence. ... It seems highly probable that human love has its root in the sexual instinct. Indirectly, then, divine love must have sprung from the same source. If this is true, we can the more easily trace the connection between sexuality and religion, and understand why religious excitement, stirring as it does* the primitive elements of our being, should degener- ate into licentiousness." "While the question this suggests of the funda- mental place sex has in the evolution of so- ciety and religion is one of great interest, what- ever view be taken, its chief interest is im helping to understand the fundamental nature of the influence of sex in society today. It is with this we are specially concerned. What is the influence of sex today? 132 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental More and more the leaders of tliought are appreciating the fundamental importance of this influence. Among them is President G. Stanley Hall, notably in his great work on * 'Adolescence/' On the importance of sex at this and other periods of life his words are: *' There is great reason to look to sex for the key to far more phenomena of both body and soul at this as at other times of life than we have hitherto dreamed of in our philosophy. Sex is the most potent and magic open sesame to the deepest mysteries of life, death, religion, and love. Each sex is more inclined to de- velop the best qualities peculiar to itself in the presence of the other.'' The brightest blessing perverted often makes the blackest bane. Is that so with sex? Dr. Prince A. Morrow, after giving a socio- logical address, in which he showed the fre- quency of the pollution of the home indirectly by the brothel and the bane of the black plague upon wife, offspring, and the man himself, summed it up as follows: *'It is evident that social diseases have most important relations with the family. They are directly antagonistic to all that the family stands for as a social institution — they are destructive to its health, its productivity, and its social efficiency. They occasion an enormous sacrifice of potential The Unit of Society 133 wealth from the loss of citizens to the state. Moreover, they distill a double venom; they poison not only the health, but the peace, honour, and happiness of the family. Their prevention is one of the most pressing problems of social hygiene that confronts us at the pres- ent day. . . . No other commentary upon the intolerable situations created by the introduc- tion of these diseases into the family is needed than the fact that so many women, loyal to the highest ideals of marriage, devoted to home and family, are driven to the divorce courts as a refuge.'' III. SINFUL SILENCE In view of the fact that this great evil flour- ishes in secrecy and ignorance, is not silence concerning it unChristlike. Dr. Morrow in his book * ' Social Diseases and Marriage'' inveighed against the sinful silence of the Church as represented by its clergymen : **With few notable exceptions, the clergy may be justly criticised for their indisposition to touch upon the social evil. With a fastidious- ness which is not derived from the teaching or example of the founder of Christianity, they shrink from all contact with this social leprosy. This foul ulcer in the side of society is a mys- terious horror of nastiness which they do not 134 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental attempt to bind up and cure, but pass by on the other side. Sexual sins, lusts of the flesh, fornication, etc., appear to have been singled out for special condemnation by the apostolic teachers, but at the present day how seldom do the clergy, in the pulpit, in public gatherings, or in private exhortation, inveigh against the vice of immorality or openly condemn that con- ventional code which is based upon the false principle that sex qualifies sexual sin!" Even though unchastity is spoken against, somehow the utterance lacksi power. Why? Dr. Wilson, author of *^The American Boy and the Social Evil," gives as a plain word of explanation: ** Morality and pure living have few champions whose loyalty can stand the final test. The Church itself is full of slothful- ness, insincerity, and covered sin." Few, but to the point, these words suggest the story of Hung Fung the Wise. Asked what was the empire's great danger he replied, '*The rat in the statue," explaining that because of the sacredness of these statues (to ancestors) the rats could neither be smoked out nor drowned. Medical men have spoken plainly about the sinful silence of the Church. How about the silence of medical men? According to Professor A. B. Wolfe: **The medical secret of the physician is a man-made The Unit of Society 135 bit of professional ethics that sacrifices every- thing — wife, children, honour, health, and so- cial welfare — to the supposed interest of the libertine male, even though hei be to a radiant angel linked. Whatever the present legal status of the medical secret, it seems clear that that institution could not long survive under the light and fire of a public opinion which women had equal part with men in shaping. ' ' Profes- sor Wolfe has suggested the question of legis- lation. God speed the day when through legis- lation, if it cannot be reached in any other way, there will be no marriages through which at the very beginning the home is polluted by the white slave plague. Better legislation is im- peratively needed to prevent haste, clandestin- ity, and ill health — often with more or less speedy death — and to ensure eugenic children and happy homes. If w^e had better marriage laws we would have fewer divorces. Since it may open into a heaven or a hell our legisla- tures are fatefuUy remiss that do not closely guard the gate of marriage. Church, medicine, and legislation are remiss. How about the school? Professor Henderson answered: **No apol- ogy is made for urging upon teachers, the moral guides of the nation, the duty of helping in the cause of fighting the black plague of the 136 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental world. A policy of concealment, silence, igno- rance, and quackery has borne its monstrous brood of disease, misery, and moral degrada- tion. A false modesty is guilty of much of this giant wrong. . . . The truth is that our schools have professed to teach physiology, hygiene, and morality and have neglected vital factors, the function of elimination of waste and the function of reproduction. Partly in conse- quence of this neglect we have sexual abuses, excesses, and the plagues of venereal diseases. It is high time to recall the teaching profession to its duty, in order that the next generation of parents may be better fitted to rear and edu- cate a wiser and healthier race.*' What about the sin of silence in the home? Professor George Elliott Howard, author of that monumental work, ^*A History of the Mat- rimonial Institution,'* expressed himself thus: * ^ The folly of parents in leaving their children in ignorance of the laws of sex is notorious. Domestic animals are literally better bred than human beings. The daughter will face the vicissitudes of life more securely if she has been told of the destiny that awaits her as wife and mother, if she has been warned of the snares with which lust has beset the path of womanhood. The son is likely to live a nobler The Unit of Society 137 life if lie has learned to repudiate the dual standard of sexual morality which a spurious philosophy has set up; if he has been warned that selfish excesses within or without the mar- riage bond must be dearly paid for by the com- ing generation." IV. THE SCHOOL OF HOME We have seen that the family is the unit of society because of sex and that the increasing recognition of this is strikingly in keeping with the thought of Jesus. We have seen further the very close connection between religion and sex. We have seen, too, not only the rich blessings of sex, but its deep, dark evils, concerning which there has been most sinful silence on the part of the Church, medicine, state, school, and home. We began with the home as the holder of the sociological key. We must close with the thought that as such it is a sacred school — the sacred school of home. It is taught by some that at its beginning the Christian family was but the authorisation and extension of the pair-marriage custom of the lower classes, who were too poor to have more than one wife. Whatever its origin, it has been and is Christianity's greatest teaching oppor- tunity. In the words of Professor C. A. EH- [I38 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental wood : * * The ettiics of Christianity, indeed, are but an idealisation of the family life.'* As Professor Seely has well said, ** Family affec- tion in some form is the indispensable root of Christianity." Almost from infancy the train- ing for moral purity as well as for physical health may begin. It is in the home — the girls from their mothers and the boys fr^m their fathers — that the children should learn the laws of their own being. What an opportunity to prevent evil, the blighting of solitary vice, the smirch of unclean stories, and the degrading idea of marriage! What an opportunity, too, for the inculcating of the good concerning sex! While, through sex, childhood may be perverted into dynamite destructive of the good, through sex, too, it may be converted into a powerful dynamo to make for light and progress in that which is best. It is in the home as nowhere else that the cumulative influence of example may be felt for moral and spiritual uplift through sex. While parents may well tremble because of the responsibility of training the children to avoid the sexual pitfalls all along the way, well may they tremblingly rejoice in the possibilities given by sex for the development of that which is highest : The Unit of Society 139 "For indeed I know Of no more subtle master under heaven Than is the maiden passion for a maid. Not only to keep down the base in man, But teach high thought, and amiable words And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And lore of truth, and all that makes a man." What a school is home for inctdcating the right relationship between men and women in married life ! Wrong relationship there means a terrible accentuating of the lonesomeness of life. The heart-pangs of many a wife are greater than those of many a widow. Lonelier than the desert is the homeless honse. ' * There is a forsaking which still sits at the same board and lies on the same couch with the forsaken soul, withering the more by unloving proxim- ity.'' In a single sentence George Eliot draws another word-picture, unsurpassed perhaps, of wedded isolation: *^It was as if they were both adrift on one piece of wreck and looked away from each other.'' On the other hand, right relationship there means a wonderful retreat from the lonesome- ness of society. Concerning Conan Doyle 'a words about the *^ eternal duel" between man and woman, Frances Willard asked: ** Didn't he mean the eternal duet?" Sex perverted means duels, with wounded hearts, crippled 140 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental bodies, and dead souls. But sex appreciated and lived aright in wedded life means duets, to be envied by any who neither marry nor are given in marriage. It is in the home that youth should be taught that ^^ Marriage,'' to use Felix Adler's suggestive words, *4s an estate in which we seek to help each other to solve the total problem of our lives. The at- traction of the sexes seen in the light of this conception is glorified and transfigured. Mar- riage is an estate in which we charge ourselves not only with the comfort and the happiness of another, but with the problems of the total spiritual destiny of another. And because our life is strongest and purest where our influence is most penetrating, therefore, in the estate of marriage it is possible for us to attain a depth of spiritual development such as can be achieved in no other relationship whatsoever.'' Great souls though in a little house ! Living the simple life, though in a great house ! Love's inner vision of the deepest worth! The su- preme joys of comradeship! The sharing of anxieties ! The binding together by a common grief! The mutual stimulus to the attainment of the otherwise impossible! The romance of adjusting to the unexpected difficulties, aye, to the unexpected imperfections of one another ! The words of the clever, paradoxical Chester- The Unit of Society 141 ton are stimulating on this tlieme. To Mm the fact that home is such a restricted place in which to live is the very fact that makes most for the romance of living. We question if he ever has written anything better than the fol- lowing : * ' The supreme adventure is being born. The thing that keeps life romantic and full of fiery possibilities is the existence of these great plain limitations, which force all of us to meet things we do not like or do not expect. Of all these great limitations and frameworks which fash- ion and create the poetry and variety of life, the family is the most definite and important. Hence it is misunderstood by the moderns, who imagine that romance would exist most per- fectly in a complete state of what they call liberty. They say they wish to be as strong as the universe, but they really wish the whole universe as weak as themselves." What an opportunity home gives of training in the high calling of parentage! The call is for parents, who, to quote someone's descrip- tion of the purpose of eugenics, will ^*make proper procreation a part of religion and ethics, rather than a matter of whim only." Parentage is so costly in material things that many refuse to enter it, but it is more costly 142 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental still in that wliicli money cannot buy. In view of the awful possibilities for good or ill the responsibility of training is such that it means the practical ** giving of one's life." The cost should be counted, but something of the blessing should be foretold. Whatever the reason for it, the unusual length of helplessness of the human offspring certainly does make for the awakening and developing of those qualities that lift a man above the other animals. Home is a social school, not only for the training of the children by the parents but for the training of the parents through the children. Father, Mother, Child, reverently have they been called the human trinity. The place on which they dwell is holy ground ; their home, heaven. Who become parents aright put on the purple. They are rich beyond what money may buy. While poets well may sing that woman's life is not complete without a babe, not alone for her are the royal riches of parentage. Well may everx man-child be taught as a prince to pray : "And so I reach, Dear Lord, to thee And do beseech Thou givest me The wee cot, and the cricket^s chirr, LoTCj and the glad, sweet faM of h€tr.'' The Unit of Society 143 ''What is loveT' asked Dr. J. H. Jowett and replied; *'It is absolutely indefinable. If you put your analytical finger on love, where would you begin? The biggest thing in love, I tell you, is purity. There can be no love without it. Love at the heart of God is incorruptible holi- ness. Here is the difference between sentiment and sentimentalism. Sentiment alism deals with love that has no holiness in it. Sentiment is pure. Sentiment goes above the snow line. Sentimentalism stays at the base. Because love is holy, love is sensitive, and because love is sensitive, love is also redemptive. Because love is holy, sensitive, redemptive, it is also sac- rificial. 'He loved me and gave himself for me.' " That is love. That, too, is Christlike. On the wall of many a home is a legend represent- ing Christ as an ever-present, all-seeing, though unseen guest. We read that Jesus "was bid- den to the marriage.'^ If Christ be present at the marriage and potent throughout the mar- ried life, there, there, whether it be a palace or a hut, will be earth's highest fellowship in and with God. CHAPTEE XI CHARACTER— HERE AND HEREAFTER WHAT is John Smith worth? Nine times out of ten, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the answer is in terms of money or of that which money can buy. But a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. A man is worth not what he has but what he is. Char- acter is what a man is. Reputation is what a man seems to be. ^'Character,'' said Moody, *4s what a man is in the dark.'' Character is what a man really is worth. In every man there are elements of both good and evil. The greatest saint has some streak of sin, the black- est sinner some gleam of good. The elements of good are the assets, the elements of evil the liabilities. "We need to find the elements of evil, with their degrees, and the elements of good, with their degrees, before we can com- pute the worth of John Smith. The answer will be in terms of character. Once while I was expatiating to a friend on character, he ironically expostulated : '*Do you 144 Character — Here and Hereafter 145 not know that even to use the word character is heresy!'* Many who urge the laying of all ** deadly doing down'' say that character is not emphasised in the Bible, in fact, that the word itself is not to be found there. They do err, not knowing the Scriptures. The outstand- ing New Testament word for ^^holy," and its kindred words, refer mainly to character. In the words of Professor G. B. Stevens: *^It is characteristically Godlikeness . . . the moral purity, the God-like character, which the Gospel requires and imparts. ... II Cor. 7:1, * Per- fecting holiness in the fear of God,' that is, perfectly illustrating in character the holy life which comports with reverence for God." Not only is the idea of character emphasised in Scripture, but even the word itself is found there. In the description of the Son in Heb. 1:3, the word translated ** express image" transliterated is the word character. Dr. James Moffatt's '^New Testament" renders the pas- sage thus: ** Reflecting God's bright glory and stamped with God's character." Christ the character of God! To be Christlike is to be Godlike, Jn. 14:9. Both words spell char- acter. Let it not be forgotten that the New Testament ideal is Godlike, Christlike char- acter. Matt. 5:48; Phil. 2:5; etc. This it is that has the promise of the life that now is 146 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental and that which is to come — the here and here- after. I. HERE To be without character — ^nsing the term in its highest meaning — is to fail of the highest. Dr. Hamilton Mabie gave a vivid and striking illustration of this from the experience of the masterful Mirabeau. **In bitterness of soul he learned that genius and character are bound together by indissoluble ties, and that genius without character is like oil that blazes up and dies down about a shattered lamp. More than once, in words full of the deepest pathos, he recognised the immense value of character in men of far less ability than himself.'' Many are those who are otherwise promising who will never, as a modem writer puts it, *^ strike anything out of nature that is worth having wrestled with her to any purpose. Why? Be- cause they have every sort of capacity, every sort of cleverness, and no character!^' The same thought is brought out unforget- ably in Browning's dramatic monologue, ** An- drea del Sarto. ' ' His was the skill but not the character. It was beyond him, therefore, to produce a masterpiece like Rafael's, in whose drawing he could detect the flaws. Of these, Character — Here and Hereafter i/\r/ and more, lie speaks to his wife in a way that haunts : "That arm is wrongly put — and there again — A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines, Its body, so to speak: its soul is right, He means right — that, a child may understand. Still, what an arm ! and I could alter it : But all the play, the insight and the stretch — Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out! Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul, We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!" Without a Christlike character, no matter how well one is environed the testing time will come, and with it failure. In the twenty-fourth chapter of Second Chronicles is an interest- ingly sad story illustrating this ; King ** Joash did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah all the days of Jehoiada the priest.'* But ** after the death of Jehoiada came the princes of Judah and made obeisance to the king. Then the king hearkened unto them. And they for- sook the house of Jehovah, the God of their fathers'' with the result that Joash was con- quered, diseased, and murdered. He had no character to stand the testing. His was a propped-up goodness. The sombre rides along a lonely necropolis- way are associated with a leaning, pole-propped granary in the wayside meadow. One bleak 148 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental day the pole fell and with it the building. He loved his frail, beautiful-souled wife and by the supporting spell of her sweet presence was kept from falling into his besetting sin. The strain, however, was too great for her. She fell in death and he into sin. The supreme test came and because he had *^no character '^ the passers-by beheld, where once he stood, a ruin. How often parents would fight the battles of their children entering the arena of youth. Before that, however, by inheritance and train- ing they have contributed to their children's character that which mainly determines victory or defeat. Character may be unavoidably environed by vice and yet successfully resist its persistent siege. Consider the water lily, how it grows — rooted in the mire and upon the turbid waters, yet it retains its fragrant purity. From out the mire of politics and amid the defilements of business the man of character wears the ** white flower of a blameless life." Aye, he may be more than blameless. He may achieve. Like Sir Galahad his strength may be as the strength of ten because his heart is pure. How with an unbroken sword the craven failed be- cause his character was that of a craven, while with the broken sword of the craven the king's Character — Here and Hereafter 149 son won the day because he had a royal char- acter, Sill sang in lines that will stand fre- quent repetition these brave days : "A craven hung along the battle's edge, And thought, 'Had I a sword of keener steel. That blue blade that the king's son bears, — but this Blunt thing!' he snapped and flung it from his hand, And lowering crept away and left the field. Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead, And weaponless, and saw the broken sword. Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand, And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down And saved a great cause that heroic day." Whether in the supreme tests or in the ordi- nary ^'process of the suns,'' kingly deeds grow out of the royal soul. Character achieves. Christlike character achieves Christlike values here. II. HEREAFTER How about the hereafter? If convinced that it were true that "We live, no more, when we have done our span," the thought of some would be : "Live we like brutes our life without a plan." 150 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental But those with a Christlike character would cry: "Hath man no second life? Pitch this one high." Such only are ready to make the most of what- ever may await across the river. As Professor H. Hoif ding puts it : '^ Only he who has hon- estly and honourably laboured for the values which can be found and produced in this world is prepared for a future world — if there be a future world, a question which experience alone can decide.'' Is there a hereafter for the individual! Does human personality persist after death? The pantheistic trend of religious thought does not give assurance of individual immortality. The attitude of science commonly has been agnostic and negatively dogmatic. We sympathise with the agnostics who, like Goldwin Smith, are sceptical of any future life, but who would join with him in saying: ^^All this is said on the hypothesis that scientific scepticism succeeds in demolishing the hope of a future life. After all, great is our ignorance, and there may be something yet behind the veil.'' On the other hand we cannot sympathise with the negative dogmatism of science. Surely it is no more to be commended than the positive dogmatism of theology. That men foremost in different de- Character — Here and Hereafter 151 partments of the modern sciences themselves have entertained hopes of a life hereafter, sug- gests, at least, that scientific scepticism has not demolished the hope of a future lifC; What is the hasis of this scepticism? It is based, to a large extent, on the assumption that brain produces thought, which, therefore, ceases when the body dies. But, as Professor James emphasised, this is a mere assumption and as the prism transmits light the brain may trans- mit thought, which, after all, therefore, would not be dependent upon the brain. As another has strikingly put it: **If a man is shut up in a house, the transparency of the windows is an essential condition of his seeing the sky. But it would not be prudent to infer that, if he walked out of the house, he could not see the sky, because there were no longer any glass through which he might see." Another argument against immortality, namely, that man is not worth it, suggests per- haps the strongest argument in favour of it, i. e., the ** worth whileness" of human life. In his chapter on ^*The Ageless Life'' **Ian Mac- Laren" wrote: **How can one be certain that Jesus is with God? It is a question of the last importance. There are four lines of proof. The first is to read reliable evidence that Jesus rose from Joseph's tomb — that is for the law- 1^2 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental yer. The second is historical — the existence of the Christian Church — that is for a scholar. The third is mystical — the experience of Chris- tians — that is for a saint. The fourth is ethi- cal — the nature of Jesus ' life — that is for every- one. The last is the most akin to the mind of Jesus, who was accustomed to insist on the self- evidencing power of his life. He is alive be- cause he could not die.'* Expressed in the terminology of a still more modem thinker, the argument for the immor- tality of Jesus would be that his life-work was superior to time. Because in himself was a core of spiritual life, he was a co-labourer in a spiritual order that must be superior to time. He knew that he belonged to this eternal spirit- ual life and that with it he was immortal Others may have this same spiritual life and the more who thus are Christlike the more deeply will the conviction of immortality take hold upon humanity. The reading of the life of Phillips Brooks resulted in the lines : "Here was a man cast in such generous mould Of body, brain and conscience, heart and soul, That if till now we never bad been told Of an eternal life and perfect goal Beyond the verge of this our mortal space, Straightway of such we should conceive, and dare Believe it builded in God's boundless grace After this man's great fashion, high and fair." Character — Here and Hereafter 153 This conviction of the worthfulness of hu- man life is the basis of the *^ venture of faith'' that lays hold on immortality. This is the con- clusion to which Professor W. A. Brown came in his book on this *' Christian Hope.'' He writes: *^We have considered the different arguments for the Christian hope: historical, philosophical, ethical, and religious, and have found that they all reduce to a form of the argument from value. It is because immor- tality seems supremely worthful that we desire it, and because we expect the universe to an- swer our highest desires that we believe in it. In this respect our faith in immortality rests on the same basis as all our other ultimate con- victions. All that makes life beautiful and so- ciety noble and character secure, we hold in the last analysis by the venture of faith." Significant here is the suggestion of a lad's answer to a traveller in Switzerland. Asked where Kandersteg was, he replied: **I do not know, sir, where Kandersteg is, but there is the road to it." With all our ignorance con- cemiQg the nature of heaven hereafter, faith ventures to assert that character is the sure road thereto. Death is but the breaking of the cage and man sinks or soars, according as he has grovelled in the cage's dust or learned to sing the songs of paradise. To the aged Anas- 154 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental tasius, raised to the throne from humble but faithful service, came the people's acclaim: ** Reign as you have lived." Life hereafter is to be the continuation, and so the result of life here. Some believe there is no chance for re- pentance and improvement hereafter. Others believe that there will be changes after death as well as before. Some have come to their position through *'the venture of faith''; others mainlj through what they believe the Scrip- tures teach ; and still others through what they believe spiritualism has already proved. But whatever the view of the mode of continuance after death, and whatever the reason given in its support, the modern scientists and philoso- phers who believe in immortality, and increas- ingly thoughtful Christians generally, hold the deep conviction that death is but an incident in life and that character here will determine condition hereafter. That is why one of the most suggestive texts in the New Testament is John 6 :54. * ' He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life." Inferences from the oft-used figures of cleansing and covering by the blood should be tested by the truth in this startling figure of drinking the blood. Salvation is not mechanical. It is vital. Saving faith does more than assert. It appropriates. Sometimes Character — Here and Hereafter 155 we hear such a testimony as this: *^I am cov- ered with the blood. God does not see me. He sees the blood. My standing therefore is all right in heaven, no matter what my state is here on earth.'' Though not so crudely put, this is the same thought as that in a Southern quatrain that Dr. A. H. Strong gave years ago in one of his suggestive talks. The theme was antinomianism and the ludicrously ** horrible example" he cited was — as nearly as memory serves — these negro lines : "You may rip, you may tear, You may cuss, you may swear: But you^re just as sure of heaven As if you'd done gone there." The danger of this view is not when it is expressed thus. Most to be guarded against is its subtle presence in such a vague way that it does not find clear expression in words, but, nevertheless, works disastrously in preventing Christlike character. Surely in vain was the cross of Calvary stained with the life-blood of Jesus, if through his death men in the pres- ence of temptation are weakened by an unrecog- nised, unsuspected antinomian heresy. The cross is not an iron anchor with which to grip the lazy shore of false security. It is the mast on which to spread the sail that makes for joy- 156 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental ons progress to the haven of a heavenly bliss through Christlike character. Those who look upon it as a fire-escape from hell, rather than a means of rising above the selfishness of sin, have missed its mighty meaning. CHAPTER Xn JOY I. THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE JOY has been defined comparatively as **more intense than happiness, deeper than gladness, to which it is akin, nobler and more enduring than pleasure.'* Neverthe- less, through the ages, pleasure, rather than joy, has been the common quest. While mil- lions were dying in fighting for a world-peace, pleasure was still a common pursuit. In it sol- dier and sailor themselves shared, especially when on their own. Speaking generally, it is not only common but costly. When the quest is sexually immoral, it is terribly costly, as has been seen; so also when the way is that of in- toxicating drink. Though an effort to break away temporarily from the barriers of human limitation — a blundering quest to get beyond the finite — the ways of lust and drink exact ter- rible toll. In other ways of questing pleasure, though often not morally wrong, the fare commonly has 157 158 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental been high. Winter's parties, balls, plays, and carnivals; summer's outings, its seasides and mountain heights, its conventions and its trav- els ; and the corresponding seasonable activities of the autumn and the spring make up the enor- mous total of the yearly expenditure in the pur- suit of pleasure. The young can hardly enjoy the game they have in their haste to try an- other. The old covet as misers the things that give the slightest thrills of pleasure to their lonely hearts. The boy, in playing marbles, and his father, in making money, have a com- mon quest — pleasure. Some pursue their quest in literature and others hold communion with nature's visible forms, that in her varied lan- guage she may speak some words to pleasure them. Locating her differently, and so taking different roads in the pursuit, old and young, male and female have been impelled on and on in the same costly quest for pleasure. For the most part it is a pathetic search. As has been throughout the ages, so the world today is filled with disappointed seekers. One reason for this is that often the pleasure pur- sued is never overtaken. As children we read of the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow and of him who quested it. It seemed so near at times that hope beat high, but as he neared what seemed the point of contact with the earth, the M 152 rainbow's foot, and so the pot of gold, were no nearer than before. Luring him on and on till the seeker becomes like the Wandering Jew, the object he seeks for pleasure is ever just beyond his grasp. Pathetic the failures of the ambi- tious to reach the pleasure-goal they sought. Many in the race for gold have died of hunger and cold. Many, who kept in view the temple of fame as the end of their pilgrimage and the place of their habitation, have dropped out on the way in the darkness of obscurity. The cry of many hearts today is more than the echo of the cry of old: ** Vanity of vanities, all is van- ity. '^ For "Pleasures, like the circle bounding earth and sky, Entice us from afar, but as we follow fly.'' Another reason for disappointment is that even if the objects sought for be obtained they often do not yield what was expected from them ; and what they yield is not for long, bom but to live a day. Many who have reached what was to them the golden goal of their ambition have found that all that glisters is not gold. They had mistaken the glister of passing pleas- ure for the pure gold of joy. Theirs is not even the sterling silver of serene happiness. The poor are inclined to look upon the wealthy as upon the bell in the belfry serenely filling a i6o Christianity's Unifying Fundamental place high and lifted up. A newspaperman once pulled the rope and this was what rang out from the New York World to all the world : ** Wealth does not bring happiness for many rea- sons ' ' — John D. Eockef eller ; * ' Men are no hap- pier when rich than when poor'' — Russell A. Alger; **With all the advantages and privileges w^hich wealth confers I do not believe that it brings happiness" — George M. Pullman; *^Few people have any idea of the many inconveni- ences which wealth brings. Those who have will never ask such a foolish question as, Does wealth bring happiness?'' — Russell Sage. Commonly the more prosperity, the more dis- satisfaction there is. Often the millionaire is the man who most needs help. He may have the power of money without having the secret of joy. Joy cannot be bought. The wealth of Croesus would not tempt her to sojourn in a heart not suited to her taste, but she comes and takes up her abode in the lowliest heart that is well pleasing in her sight. She cannot be caught — by speed or guile. The swiftest falcon can- not follow her, but she loves to fill with sweet- est music the soul prepared for celestial song. Such souls are magnets that her heart cannot resist : "If solid happiness we prize, Within our breast the jewel lies, Joy l6l And they are fools who roam. The world has nothing to bestow; From our own selves our joys must flow And that dear hut, our home." So many have reached material goals to be as **a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his sonl hath appetite.'* Blindly blundering in their search to satisfy their deep- est yearning they have gone without, for pleas- ure, rather than prepared themselves within to receive the living waters of joy. A Minnesota family, on their ^^ Bunker Hill" in a time of drought, had a well but no water. Having hauled more water than was needed for their im- mediate use, they put the surplus into the well. When they sought it, it was gone. When by chance one of the household was asked if the wells on the hill were dry there came the ready answer: ^*Yes, and there are cracks in the bot- tom." The human heart of many a one most prosperous today is empty of joy because, like the well on the hill, it is unprepared to receive it — *^a cistern, a broken cistern," that can hold no joy. The difference between a broken cistern and a flowing spring! Strikingly suggestive here, from the story of that dialogue at Jacob's well, are the words: ** Jesus answered and said 1 62 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental unto her, Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life/' II. THE NORMALITY OF CHRISTIAN JOY In their final battle for the cup we were cheer- ing on ^^our boys/' and, it seems, were over- heard. Two Christian men, belonging to a small sect of superlatively pious folk, abruptly accosted us with the question: *^ Would Jesus or Paul play football and Martha and Mary cheer them on ? " Not to shock them over much, we simply said we should like a game with Paul. If the traditional picture of him be correct, his would be an interesting figure upon the field. More interesting, however, are his figures of speech drawn from the Grecian games to illus- trate his thought — the strenuousness of the Christian life. We follow his example and our thought is that a Christlike sense of God, while compatible with pleasure, implies joy. We commonly apply to Jesus the description of ^'the suffering servant" of Isaiah and call him **a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," yet I believe that it would be more truly descriptive of his whole religious life to call him Joy^ 163 a man of joys and acquainted with bliss. We read that he wept, it is true, and not that he laughed or smiled. In an apocryphal letter, written as if contemporary with Jesus, it is asserted that no one ever saw him laughing, but, rather, weeping. But assuredly he could not have gone throughout his life, or even his public ministry, without laughter. Surely the sunshine of his smile was more common than the rain of his tears. One may grant that his life was not pre-eminently one of pleasure. Assur- edly, however, it was one of joy. His was the joy of victory over temptation; of helping others in their needs — the joy of one who had ^^ learned the luxury of doing good.'* It is true that he had enemies, bitter and powerful; and that they hounded him to death. It is also true, however, that he had many friends. He had no wife and children of his own, but his attitude to women made them his devoted friends and his love for children undoubtedly was reciprocated by them. Though his disciples did not fully understand him, and so the joy of fellowship was not full, yet he did have joyous fellowship with them. Above all, he had a joyous sense of fellowship with God. Overwhelming all the grief of human enmity, transcending all the joys of human fellowship, was this joyous sense of fellowship with the 164 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental Father. Overshadowing Gethsemane and Cal- vary, out-topping even Bethany, were his moun- tain peaks of prayer. We read that as he prayed he was transfigured — the outshining of the inmost joy of fellowship divine. In his praying he co-operated with the Father, and by his praying was strengthened to further co-op- eration that made for further joy. Say we not truly that his must have been a life of joyf And though the clouds gathered at the last, and he perished in the storm, yet, beyond the incident of his death, he saw the warm welcome to his Father's home and heart. In Hebrews we read that he endured the cross and despised the shame in view of the joy that was set before him. To the joys of realisation were added the joys of anticipation. Unques- tionably his was a life of joy. The normal Christian life should be, there- fore, more than a pleasure-seeking one, more even than a happy one. It should be a life of joy. * * The first sermon I ever preached in Eng- land,'' wrote the author of *^ The Life of Trust," **was on January first, 1830, and was on this subject: *The difference between a Christian and a rejoicing Christian.' The old pastor re- marked, *Wait until we see that young man twenty years hence, and we will see how much of a rejoicing Christian he is.' Twice twenty Joy 165 years have passed and still do I rejoice, and more than ever." While his experience is in- spiring, his sermon subject, as he stated it, is not. It suggests, rather, that the usual Chris- tian life is not joyous ; while the truth is that his own experience ought to be the normal one. Christianity is not a thing of black and grey. It revels in all the colours of the rainbow. Its characteristic music is not the Miserere but the Te Deum. In fact, it gives garlands for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning and the gar- ment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. The Bible is a book of joy. Very few of the psalms end in lugubrious notes. The gospels, as their very name suggests, give glad tidings. They abound in beatitudes. According to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus, in teaching his disciples, said: *^ These things have I spoken unto you that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full." The epistles are bright with hope and radiant with joy. In its fundamental literature and in its deepest life Christianity is a religion of joy. Honest higher criticism is good, but if the spirit that it engenders is not one of joy, then it must give way to the highest criticism — that is, the highest appreciation — of the Bible as a book that giveth joy. We admire the Puritans, but the gloominess of Puritanism must give i66 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental way to the gleam and tlie glory of a Christlike joy. Calvin's was a great mind, but the dark- ness of the theological austerity of Calvinism must be penetrated by the joyous light of the Light of the World. Watts sang : "Religion never was designed To make our pleasures less," in a hymn that has this hortatory close : ' "Then let our songs abound; And every tear be dry. We're marching through ImmanuePs ground To fairer worlds on high." III. SPECIAL CAUSES FOR JOY In this march special causes, and so special seasons, of rejoicing may be expected; but throughout it all there may be a deep, deep un- dertone of joy. Harriet Beecher Stowe sang: "There have been moments blest When I have heard thy voice and felt thy power; Then evil lost its grasp, and passion, hushed. Owned the divine enchantment of the hour." Kemembering such victories and assured /of others, modems, concerning their temptations Joy 167 personified, may use the psalmist^s words: *^And now shall my head be lifted np above mine enemies round about me, And I will offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy." In the Old Testament story we read of Samson, under the power of the spirit, slaying a lion; and, later, getting honey from the carcass thereof. In the New Testament story of a duel in the wilder- ness we read, when the victory over temptatioil was won through the sword of the Spirit: *^then the devil leaveth him" ; but not that only: **and behold, angels came and ministered unto him." The fiercest bestial temptations when overcome yield the sweets of victory, and the most subtle bring the highest ministries of strengthening joy. At the siege of Sebastopol a shot from the foe tore into the hillside, opening up thereby a spring of water to refresh those it was intended to destroy. In the fierce fight with that which besieges Mansoul there is often opened up a living spring of joy. It may mean the discov- ery of a dark passage into a magic cave of light and joy. Times of trial may be but John the Baptists to times of rejoicing. So with times of opportunity to serve. **It is more blessed to give than to receive" is a large part of the Christian secret of a joyous life. This great principle reported, thus, in Acts, as the words of Jesus, was certainly part of the i68 Christianity's IJjiifying Fundamental explanation of the joy of Jesns' life. Because lie lived according to this secret he walked the golden streets here. Because his disciples learned it from him, in the midst of persecu- tion for serving others, they had songs in the night, ^'rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the Name " He finds joy who makes others joyous; for it is a perfume one cannot pour out on another without getting some of it himself. It is Christlike to seek the weal of others rather than joy for self. Joy is hidden from those who selfishly seek her, but is found of those who, in their unselfish- ness, seek her not. This gives special meaning to the pregnant words: *^Not by appointment do we meet delight or joy: they heed not our expectancy but around some comer of the street of life they on a sudden greet us with a smile.'' Who has not cudgelled his brains to call up something that he knew and knew that he knew, but failed to recall, until he became engrossed in something else ; when the thing desired came to mind? He whose sole aim is to bring joy into consciousness will fail. If, however, like Christ he becomes engrossed in work for others' good, joy will come to thrill and fill the heart; and the more the heart is emptied thus of self, the more eagerly will joy rush in to fill the void. There is that scattereth blessings among others Joy 169 yet increaseth joy in self. Said one : *'I can tell your best workers by the shine on their faces.'' Asked how others might have the good cheer she so constantly possessed, Alice Freeman Palmer replied to this effect : Every day commit to memory something good, look for something pretty and do something for somebody. The secret of perennial joy is the abiding spirit of him who went about doing good — ^not to be min- istered unto but to minister. Wliat a joy was ours who co-operated with his father in the finding of little Earl Hines who was lost in the woods. After the successful search, to entrain for home the crowd was massed at the little siding. Suddenly the air became electric. The crowd instinctively gave way. There was a strange hush upon it. Through the advancing angle of the parting mass walked the father with his son upon his breast. Not a cheer rose but many a tear fell and from the eyes of stalwart men. No one spoke to him, nor he to any; but his very si- lence seemed to say: *^This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found." As sharers of his search we were sharers, too, in his unutterable joy. The joy of Jesus was the joy of sharing with the Father in bringing back to him his wandering children with the lonely hearts. 170 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental The supreme joy of Christlikeness is in co- operating with God for the weal of the world. It is not simply praying: *^God save the peo- ple" — **not kings and lords but nations, not thrones and crowns but men." It is co-operat- ing with him in the fight for democracy as against autocracy. Says one: ^^It is the possi- bility of sharing directly in this inward life of the universe, and furthering it by our labours, that gives stability, spontaneity, and greatness to life, inspiring it with an inner joyousness." What is this ** sharing directly in this inward life of the universe ' ' but, stated in other terms : *'we are God's fellow-workers"? It was this that gave to Paul, as to Jesus, **an inner joy- ousness." Even though, according to Bergson, we be but part of the cosmic experimenting, does it not add zest to life that we may have, in as far as we are free, a co-operative part in the work of the whole? In times of supreme effort in war or in peace this thought of co- operation helps to make them special times of rejoicing; and in the ordinary round of life as well it helps us to hear joy's undertone of blessedness. IV. joy's undertone Beneath the discordant din of the mighty manufactory it is claimed that one may hear a Joy 171 rliythmic undertone. Beneath the rumble, jars, and many hideous noises in the modern life of man, aye, amid the shriek of shells, the cries of the dying, the sobs of the mothers of men, and its own Bethany tears of loving sympathy the Christlike sense may hear the rhythmic un- dertone of God, that strangely makes for joy the livelong day and gives at night repose. It is the Christian's privilege to rejoice in the Lord always. Said one who lost his wealth but not his joy: ^^When I had many things I had God in everything. Now that I have nothing I have everything in God.'' He heard the un- dertone. So, too, even those who have **lost awhile" their most dearly and truly beloved may hear it through the rain of natural human tears. Eobert Speer wisely closed a mammoth meet- ing after a brakeman's clear voice had rung out this testimony: *^It's a mighty fine thing to have Jesus with you on the top of a freight car on a dark, wet night. ' ' When the present other- wise would be disagreeable and the future dark and you are driven on and on, it is a mighty fine thing to feel a joyous, almost defiant, sense of the divine presence — to know that you are travelling *' through ImmanuePs ground" and *^to fairer worlds on high." Though it is wise to be warned against the danger of over-concern 172 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental for the hereafter, it does help to give life's noises an undertone of mnsic to think that what- ever awaits on the other side it will be well, and no trne love will have been lost. An aged couple in poverty and distress that have caused despair, in the artist's thought are visited by the Man of Sorrows. As he stretches toward them his pierced hands they hear: ** Voices "Within." However adverse the envi- ronment, the coming of a Christlike sense of God implies the hearing of what Henry Van Dyke calls : "The secret messages of God that make Perpetual music in the hearing heart." "For through the outer portal of the ear Only the outer voice of things may pass; And through the middle doorway of the mind Only the half -formed voice of human thoughts, Uncertain and perplexed with endless doubt; But through the inmost gate the spirit hears The voice of that great Spirit who is Life." Because of this, the life of Jesus was pre- eminently a life of joy. Because of this, too, the lives of the Christlike, whether they abound or do not abound in pleasures, may always abound in joy. It is their privilege to hear and heed as **the voice of that Great Spirit," Joy 173 **Wheii you fall into manifold trials, count it all joy.'' A striking contrast will illustrate this and bring this last chapter to a close with a brave word from a great heart. On the one side is Bertrand Russell's pathetically admirable ** foundation of unyielding despair" and Hux- ley's agnostic ** horror," of which he wrote: *^It flashes across me at all sorts of times with, a sort of horror that in 1900 I shall probably know no more of what is going on than I did in 1800. I would sooner be in Hell a good deal, at any rate in one of the upper circles, where the climate and company are not too trying. I wonder if you are plagued in this way." On the other side is a great though not widely known editor. Consciously near to the end of life, he wrote: ** There are times when our difficulties appear to be grouped, when things combine to make unusually heavy de- mands upon judgment and patience and wis- dom. God does no little for us by means of those with, whom we are associated, but there are circumstances, and they are not rare, that make it necessary to get what is needed imme- diately from Himself. So we withdraw from human voice and the human eye, if duly appre- ciating our high privilege, in order to receive what the Father only directly bestows. Going 174 Christianity's Unifying Fundamental apart, and being seated it may be under His trees of a summer day, or reclining by a brook that goes singing on its course, the very sense of His presence that steals over the uplifted soul alters the world that seemed so trying but a little before. The sad heart becomes happy. The peace of God takes the place of unrest and dark foreboding. In that quiet hour fresh gird- ing is afforded for the duties ahead and we emerge for the bestowment of blessings in un- wonted measure upon those within the range of our influence. *The Still Hour,' of which Professor Phelps wrote years ago with such beauty and helpfulness, works wonders for the hardly bestead. ** Because of what has been learned by per- sonal experience respecting the gainfulness of communion with the Lord, some who read this will enter readily into an understanding of its import. Others again may not be able to do so as yet. If not, then amid the heat and dust and weariness and discouragement of the pilgrim- age let them give heed to the passing word of a fellow-traveller as fraternally he urges them to go aside, when pain comes and the load presses, that the God of the patriarchs and the apostles, the God of their own fathers and mothers, may thoroughly furnish them for glo- rious victory. Though the outlook be dark, Joy 175 the nplook is ever bright, and after the uplook the outlook is dark no more. Put this care- fully to the test, will you not, and see for your- selves." What a word is this for those who are en- titled to have the golden stars upon their flags or who otherwise have had a sword pierce their own soul ! Christ and the big things ! Surely biggest of them all, because of what it is and does, is this loving, consoling, peace-imparting, joy-inspiring fellowship with the Father. It is recorded that Paul and Silas beaten, bleeding, with their feet fast in the stocks, in the dark- ness of the prison were praying and singing hymns unto God, and the prisoners were lis- tening to them. Imperatively needed today are those who can rejoice in the Lord alway. In- evitably it will be known and have its benefi- cial effect. Through the manifestation of fel- lowship with Christlike Deity in the making of a Christlike humanity of altruism, home life, character, and joy the Church, and its individ- ual members, in these ^* mighty days," would be * * equal to the days. ' ' Princeton Theological Seminary Librar^^^ 1 1012 01208 2568 Date Due ^^iri 12':3 i f)