Book J5- y 
 
 GopyiightN 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
Life and Light 
 
Life and Light 
 
 tlbougbts 
 
 From the Writings of 
 
 George Dana Boardman . 
 
 WITH 
 
 MEMORABILIA 
 
 In Him was life 
 
 And the life was the Light of men 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Gbe (Briffitb & IRowlanD iprese 
 
 1905 
 
LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 DEC 23 1905 
 
 , Copyright Entry 
 CLASS CX. XXc, No 
 
 .557 
 
 Copyright 1905 by 
 Mrs. George Dana Boardman 
 

 Go 
 
 THE SERVICE OF 
 
 ®ur Iking 
 
Introit 
 
 Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve, 
 
 He taughte, but first hefolwede it himselve. 
 
 —GEOFFROI CHAUCER. 
 
Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 I. Life 3 
 
 II. Light 9 
 
 III. Facts and Truths 17 
 
 IV. Forms and Figures 23 
 
 V. The Incidental Christ 49 
 
 VI. The Way, the Truth, the Life 55 
 
 VII. The Optimism of Jesus 69 
 
 VIII. Evolution . . 75 
 
 IX. The Sacred Use of Words 83 
 
 X. An Eirenicon . , 89 
 
 XI. The Unification of Christendom 93 
 
 XII. The Parliament of Religions 105 
 
 XIII. The Disarmament of Nations 115 
 
 ix 
 
x CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 Outlines : 
 
 XIV. St. Paul's Cloak 128 
 
 XV. Life-Music 137! 
 
 XVI. The Name Christian 141 
 
 XVII. The Olympic Games 149 
 
 XVIII. "The Old Order Changeth " 163 
 
 XIX. The Universal Homo 173 
 
 XX. Outlook for the Twentieth Century . .179 
 
 L'Envoi 185 
 
I 
 
 St. Paul's Definition 
 of Life 
 
'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant ; 
 O life, not death, for which we pant ; 
 More life, and fuller, that I want. 
 
 —In Memoriam. 
 
I 
 
 |OME years ago, in discussing a certain 
 physiological problem, I had occasion 
 to gather together various definitions 
 of life. Among the sixty or seventy collected not 
 one was positive. They all expressed a negative 
 rather than an affirmative. For example, Bichat's 
 definition : " Life is the sum of the functions by 
 which death is resisted." You perceive at once 
 that this definition is negative, death being rec- 
 ognized as the positive force to be overcome. 
 
 But St. Paul deals not with negations, indirec- 
 tions, or uncertainties. His conception is as clear 
 and straight as a ray of light : " To me to live is 
 Christ." Here is no manner of doubt. The 
 assertion is perfectly absolute, and yet it is 
 perfectly simple. St. Paul's definition of life is 
 expressed by a single word. That word is so 
 simple that a little child can understand it, and 
 be glorified by it. And yet it is so vast that no 
 archangel shall ever gauge it. 
 
 5 
 
6 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 Observe too, the intense personality of the 
 phrase. The personality is two-fold. First, the 
 subject : to me, in my own personal case, to live 
 is Christ. Secondly, the predicate : Christ, the 
 personal, living Christ. He does not say, to me 
 to live is to love Christ, or serve Christ, but he 
 says to me to live is Christ himself. Other per- 
 sonages there have been who have exercised and 
 still exercise transcendent personal power ; for 
 instance, Plato, Shakespeare, Paul himself. But 
 who can say, To me to live is Plato ! Shakes- 
 peare ! Paul ! Ah, Christ is not so much a 
 historic power as a present power ; not so much 
 an external as an internal force ; not so much a 
 creed as an experience. " It is no longer I that 
 live, but Christ that liveth in me." 
 
 To St. Paul Christ was his life-sphere, the 
 sphere for every capacity, alike of spirit and 
 soul and body. Christ was the sphere for every 
 spiritual capacity. Christ was the sphere for 
 every intellectual faculty, for imagination and 
 reason and utterance. In Christ he conceived 
 and imaged and reasoned and concluded and 
 declared. In him was all 
 
 large discourse, 
 Looking before and after. 
 
ST. PAUL'S DEFINITION OF LIFE 7 
 
 Again, Christ was the sphere for every emo- 
 tional capacity looking heavenward ; for adora- 
 tion and allegiance and trust and love and com- 
 munion and aspiration. In Christ every choice 
 originated, every purpose took form, every voli- 
 tion marched forth, every habit crystallized. In 
 Christ was his sanctuary, his only holy of holies, 
 wherein he adored and implored and trusted 
 and communed and joyed and soared and felt 
 himself grow celestial. 
 
 Again, Christ was the sphere for every emo- 
 tional capacity looking earthward ; for love, joy, 
 peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith- 
 fulness, meekness, temperance ; for every duty 
 and feeling toward man as well as toward God. 
 Christ was his first and only meridian whence 
 he calculated all earth's longitudes. 
 
 Once more, Christ was the sphere for every 
 bodily capacity ; for his eye, refusing to gaze on 
 anything which did not reflect Christ's image ; 
 for his ear, refusing to listen to anything which 
 did not echo Christ's praise ; for his tongue, 
 refusing to say anything which did not add to 
 Christ's glory ; for his hand, refusing to touch 
 anything which he could not turn into Christ's 
 honor ; for his foot, refusing to step where 
 
8 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 Christ's own hallowing footstep had not been. 
 In the judgment of St. Paul Christianity and 
 secularity instead of being foes, were friends, so 
 thoroughly penetrating each other that he felt 
 assured that Christ would be magnified in his 
 body, whether by life or by death. 
 
 To St. Paul, then, Christ was the source, the 
 means, the end of life. Christ was his life ele- 
 ment. He had no conception of life apart from 
 Christ : "Life was but another name for Christ." 
 Christ's love was his motive power, Christ's 
 wish his aim, Christ's character his constitution, 
 Christ's example his precedents, Christ's right- 
 eousness his raiment, Christ's will his food, 
 Christ's truth his light, Christ's spirit his atmos- 
 phere. He breathed Christ. Jesus Christ was 
 thus alike the root and the stalk and the blossom 
 and the fruit of St. Paul's character. He was the 
 realizer and fulfiller of every human capability. 
 As in Christ Jesus dwelt all the fulness of the 
 Godhead bodily, so St. Paul felt that in Christ 
 Jesus he himself was completed, filled full, 
 fulfilled. With, from, under, by, toward, for, in, 
 Christ he lived. Christ was thus the center 
 and circumference of his being, his Alpha and 
 Omega, his all in all. 
 
II 
 
 God is Light 
 
O Light Supreme that doth so far uplift thee ; 
 
 O Light Eterne, sole in thyself that dwelleth ; 
 
 The Love which moves the sun and the other stars ! 
 
 The primal light all irradiates. 
 
 — Dante's Paradiso. 
 
II 
 
 HEN we talk of light we are moving in 
 presence of a very subtle mystery. The 
 origin and nature of light is still a pro- 
 found problem. True, we talk about the laws 
 of light ; its laws of reflection, refraction, absorp- 
 tion, dispersion, polarization, etc. But these are 
 only phenomena. We do not know the essence 
 of light itself. Are we wiser than when the 
 Almighty, addressing the Emir of Arabia, speaks 
 out of the whirlwind, saying : 
 
 The way — where is it to Light' s dwelling-place ? 
 And Darkness — where the place of its abode ? 
 That thou shouldest take it to its bounds, 
 Or know the way that leadeth to its house ? 
 
 —Job 38 : ip, 20. 
 
 One thing is certain, light is the nearest known 
 
 sensible approach to immateriality. Indeed, the 
 
 undulatory theory denies that light is material, 
 
 and affirms that it is but a mode of motion. We 
 
 11 
 
12 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 are accustomed to say that there are but two 
 things in the universe — spirit and matter — and 
 that the chasm between these is infinite. Possibly 
 this is one of those assumptions which, did we 
 know more, we would affirm less. Possibly light 
 is an instance of what the philosophers call tertium 
 quid — a third something, intermediate between 
 spirit and matter, etherially bridging the measure- 
 less chasm. Possibly light is God's natural expres- 
 sion, outflow, radiation, manifestation, vestment : 
 
 O Lord, my God, thou art very great, 
 Thou art clothed with honor and majesty, 
 Thou coverest thyself with light as with a mantle. 
 
 ■ — Ps. 104 : I, 2. 
 
 Possibly, when the Creator moves in that 
 finite world we call time, he leaves light as his 
 personal vestige and train ! His mantle ripples 
 into light, is light itself. Possibly the bard of 
 " Paradise Lost" is right when he sings : 
 
 Hail, holy Light ! Offspring of heaven, firstborn, 
 
 Or of the eternal, co-eternal Beam, 
 
 Bright Effluence of bright Essence Increate. 
 
 — < ' Paradise Lost, ' ' III. , 1-6. 
 
 In view of this possibility, how natural as well 
 as fitting that the ancient token of God's per- 
 
GOD IS LIGHT 13 
 
 sonal presence among the Hebrews should have 
 been the Shechinah, or dazzling glory-cloud : 
 
 By day along the astonished lands, 
 
 The cloudy pillar glided slow ; 
 By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands 
 
 Returned the fiery column's glow. 
 
 — Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 As God is Light, so are his children. I believe 
 that light is latent within us all, and that, under 
 the free transcendent conditions of the heavenly 
 estate, it will ray forth spontaneously. 
 
 Jesus Christ himself, as incarnate, is the 
 Shadow of God's Light. Infinite God, deity, as 
 unconditioned and absolute, no man hath ever 
 seen or can ever see and live (Exod. 33 : 20). 
 He dwelleth in light which no man can approach 
 unto (1 Tim. 6 : 15), is light itself. "Dark with 
 excess of light," we poor finite beings cannot 
 behold him except through the softening inter- 
 vention of some medium. Therefore the Son of 
 God, brightness of his glory and express image 
 of his person (Heb. 1 : 3), radiance of his efful- 
 gence and character or impress of his substance, 
 became incarnate, that in the softer morning star 
 and suffused dayspring of the incarnation we 
 
14 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 might be able to look on the dazzling Father of 
 lights and not be dazed into blindness. How 
 bright Christ's inherent glory was may be seen 
 from the fact that when he had risen again and 
 appeared to Saul on his way to Damascus, his 
 splendor was so effulgent that it actually smote 
 the persecutor into blindness (Acts 22 : 11). 
 The eternal Word who in the beginning was, and 
 was with God, and was God (John 1:1), laid 
 aside for a while the glory which he had with the 
 Father before the world was (John 17 15), and 
 became flesh (John 1 : 14), that through the 
 mitigating veil of that flesh we might be able to 
 gaze on the burning face of the infinite One and 
 still live. The incarnation was a benignant 
 eclipse of the llght of light, christ's hu- 
 manity casting its solemn, majestic shadow 
 athwart the immensity of human time as his 
 earthly nature swept in between infinite 
 God and finite man, thus graciously obscur- 
 ing THE OTHERWISE INTOLERABLE, CONSUMING 
 
 blaze. Wretched the man whom the god of 
 this world has so blinded that that eclipse be- 
 comes a total one ! Blessed the man who, 
 however profound the obscurity, still perceives 
 the flashing corona of immortal God-head ! 
 
GOD IS LIGHT 15 
 
 Thrice blessed the man who abideth under the 
 shadow of the Almighty! (Ps. 91 : 1.) Thus 
 Jesus Christ is the shadow of God ; and this 
 in a two-fold sense : a shadow of interception 
 and so obscuring God, and a shadow of rep- 
 resentation and so revealing God. Yea, that 
 God who in the beginning commanded light to 
 shine out of darkness amid the night-palled 
 chaos, saying, " Let light be," and lo, light was 
 — that same God hath shined in our hearts to 
 give the light of the knowledge of the glory of 
 God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4 : 6). 
 
 But Jesus Christ is not only the shadow or 
 tempered image of God ; in the very act of be- 
 coming that shadow Jesus Christ also became 
 the Light of the world (John 8:12). The Son 
 of God is the true Prometheus, descending from 
 the true Olympus, bringing down to this dark- 
 ened, groping, chaotic world the blazing torch 
 of heaven's own fire. In his light we see light 
 (Ps. 36 : 9). He is the true Light which, coming 
 into the world, is enlightening every man (John 
 1 : 9). And he is enlightening every man 
 through the manger in which he was laid, 
 through the words he spake, through the works 
 he wrought, through the example he set, through 
 
16 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 the character he was, through the death he en- 
 dured, through the resurrection he won, through 
 the throne he holds. This, in fact, was the 
 secret of the Christ's mission into the world. 
 The very purpose for which the Spirit of the 
 Lord God had anointed him was that he might 
 claim recovery of sight to the blind (Isa. 61 : i) 
 by becoming himself the Light of men. 
 
Ill 
 
 Facts and Truths 
 
Take all in a word ; truth in God's breast 
 Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed ; 
 Though he is so bright and we so dim, 
 We are made in his image to witness him. 
 
 — Robert Browning. 
 

 Ill 
 
 E must distinguish between facts and 
 truths. On the one hand, facts belong 
 to the physical world ; they exist un- 
 der conditions of space and time, having a be- 
 ginning, and, it may be, an ending ; they appeal 
 to the senses — to the eye, the ear, the touch ; 
 they are matters of weight, form, color, place, 
 history, science ; but they are not necessarily 
 moral. For example, there is no moral quality in 
 the geometrical fact that a cube has six sides, 
 or in the chemical fact that a molecule of water 
 consists of two weights of hydrogen and sixteen 
 weights of oxygen, or in the chronological fact 
 that Jesus of Nazareth died on Calvary. On 
 the other hand, truths belong to the spiritual 
 world ; they are largely independent of the con- 
 ditions of time and space ; they appeal to the 
 senses of the soul — to reason, imagination, con- 
 science ; they are matters of faith, hope, love ; 
 
 as such, they are intensely moral. For example, 
 
 19 
 
20 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 the idea of morality culminates, not in the phys- 
 ical fact that Jesus died on Calvary, but in the 
 moral truth that Jesus died on Calvary to save 
 sinners. Now, science, or the Bible of Nature, 
 has to do with facts, and moving in its solemn 
 cloisters we tread on holy ground ; we have the 
 God of law, of force, of motion, of phenomena. 
 Christianity, or the Bible of Scripture, has to do 
 with truths — with the spiritual God, in his rela- 
 tion to moral character ; the God who par- 
 dons, loves, transfigures, whose moral secrets 
 are beyond the horizon of scientific observation, 
 above the zenith of philosophical induction, who 
 interprets all facts, who reveals all truths, because 
 He is in himself the Truth of truths. 
 
 Thus, truths are infinitely more important 
 than facts, and it requires more faith to be- 
 lieve in truths than in facts. When the Judge 
 of the quick and the dead shall summon us 
 before his bar, he will not ask us about facts, 
 however important they may have been for us 
 as citizens of this world. But he will ask us 
 about truths — those august verities which shall 
 abide when earth's facts shall have vanished. 
 Voltaire was a learned man, knowing a great 
 many facts. But learned as Voltaire was, he 
 
FACTS AND TRUTHS 21 
 
 was no match in wisdom for the Christian 
 serving-woman who, 
 
 Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true — 
 A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew. 
 
 — William CowpeS s "Truth." 
 
 Thank God that in the Lord Jesus facts be- 
 come truths. Light in nature is a fact ; light in 
 Jesus becomes a Truth. He transfigures ma- 
 terialism into Spiritualism ; environment into 
 Instrumentality; biology into Life; history into 
 Providence ; nature into Scripture ; science into 
 Ethics ; philosophy into Theology ; theology into 
 Character ; opportunity into Achievement ; an- 
 thropology into Manhood ; society into Church ; 
 earth into Heaven. 
 
IV 
 
 Forms and Figures 
 
The things of earth 
 Are copies of the things in heaven, more close, 
 More clear, more near, more intricately linked, 
 More subtly than men guess ; mysterious, 
 Whispering to wistful ears, 
 Nature doth shadow spirit. 
 
 — Sir Edwin Arnold. 
 
 Earth's crammed with heaven, 
 And every common bush afire with God ; 
 But only he who sees takes off his shoes, 
 The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries. 
 
 — Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
IV 
 
 ALL TRUE ART A HUMAN FIGURATION FROM A 
 DIVINE FORM 
 
 Distinguish Form and Figure 
 IRST of all it is needful that we dis- 
 tinguish carefully between Form and 
 Figure. Not that the distinction is 
 recognized in common speech ; although, as it 
 seems to me, it ought to be. Form, in the large, 
 philosophical (Platonic?) sense of the word, is 
 not so much visible figure as it is that invisible 
 pattern of which the visible figure is more or 
 less a representation or copy. The Form is the 
 idea existing prior to the figure, and independ- 
 ently of it ; the figure is the Form actualized in 
 the sphere of matter ; the idea, so to speak, ma- 
 terialized. Thus the Form is the essential ; the 
 figure is an incidental. The Form is invariable ; 
 the figure is variable. The Form is common to 
 a class ; the figure is an individual of that class. 
 
 The Form is the invisible, ideal plan ; the figure 
 
 25 
 
26 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 is a visible, more or less close, copy from that 
 plan. The Form is the perfect archetype ; the 
 figure is a more or less perfect antitype. The 
 Form is the precedent idea ; the figure is the 
 Form as it appears when it comes within the 
 range of our senses. Let me illustrate : A cater- 
 pillar passes from the state of a larva into the 
 state of a butterfly; it is an instance of trans- 
 figuration or change of figure ; not of trans- 
 form2X\on or change of Form. True, we speak 
 of the change as a " metamorphosis " : but this 
 is because we speak loosely; the metamorphosis 
 is only phenomenal — a change in figure : it is 
 not radical, that is, a change in form or iden- 
 tity. The Form, which no mortal eye has seen 
 or can see, is common to the caterpillar and to 
 the butterfly; the caterpillar and the butterfly 
 are different figurations from the one invisible 
 Form. Were it possible for the caterpillar to 
 be changed, say, from an articulate into a verte- 
 brate (that is, were it possible for the caterpillar 
 to undergo what is called ''transformation of 
 species "), the change in that case would be 
 more than a trans-figuration ; it would be a 
 trans/^^ation, or metamorphosis in the strict 
 sense of the term. 
 
FORMS AND FIGURES 27 
 
 This Distinction Biblical 
 
 And this distinction is as biblical as it is phil- 
 osophical. For example, St. Paul in writing to 
 the Romans, says : " Be not conformed to this 
 world (ffov(T^fjLaTc^eade y configured to this aeon); 
 but be ye transformed ([xezafiopipouade) by the re- 
 newing of your mind, that ye may prove what 
 is that good and acceptable and perfect will of 
 God (that is, be not content with undergoing 
 transfiguration of behavior ; undergo transuda- 
 tion of character)" (Rom. 12 12). 
 
 Again, writing to the Philippians, the same 
 apostle says : " Our conversation (citizenship, 
 commonwealth) is in heaven : from whence also 
 we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ ; 
 who shall change (//era^/zanW, fashion anew, 
 re-fashion) our vile body (the body of our hu- 
 miliation), that it may be fashioned like unto 
 (o6fjLjuop<pov, conformed to) his glorious body (the 
 body of his glory) according to the working 
 whereby he is able even to subject all things 
 unto himself" (Phil. 3 : 20). 
 
 Accordingly, human identity does not lie in 
 the visible, incidental, variable figure ; human 
 identity lies in the invisible, essential, archetypal 
 Form. In other words, the resurrection body is 
 
28 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 not a re-emergence of the old figure ; the resur- 
 rection body is a new and nobler figuration from 
 the immaterial, archetypal Form. That arche- 
 typal Form, as in the case of the caterpillar and 
 butterfly just cited, is common to the present 
 figure or natural body and to the coming figure 
 or spiritual (pneumatic) body ; it is in that arche- 
 typal Form that the identity consists. The resur- 
 rection then will be a transfiguration — not a 
 transformation. The same thing may be said of 
 the coming (2 Peter 3:13) new heavens and earth, 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness. The present 
 heavens and earth are to be destroyed ; not in the 
 sense of annihilation, but in the sense of transfig- 
 uration (2 Cor. 7). The fashion (figure) of this 
 world is passing away : but the Form of it is 
 abiding (Matt. 20 : 28). In the regeneration 
 {palingenesis, rebirth of nature) when the Son of 
 Man shall sit on the throne of his glory, the new 
 cosmos will be identical in Form with the present 
 chaos : but it will be a new and sublimer figura- 
 tion from the same unseen and everlasting Form. 
 
 Summary 
 
 To sum up : Forms are, so to speak, the Crea- 
 tor's thoughts before they are materialized into 
 
FORMS AND FIGURES 29 
 
 or represented in things ; they are the arche- 
 typal font of God's ideas impressed on the visi- 
 ble page of his creation. The material universe 
 is a myriad-fold visible illustration of a few in- 
 visible Forms or archetypal ideas in the Crea- 
 tor's mind. To cite the noble lines of Edmund 
 Spenser : 
 
 What time this world's great Workmaister did cast, 
 
 To make all things such as we now behold, 
 
 It seems that he before his eyes had plast 
 
 A goodly patterne, to whose perfect mould 
 
 He fashioned them as comely as he could, 
 
 That now so fair and seemly they appear, 
 
 As naught may be amended anywhere. 
 
 That wondrous patterne, whereso' er it be, 
 Whether in earth, laid up in secret store, 
 Or else in heaven, that no man may it see 
 With sinful eyes, for fear it to deflore, 
 Is perfect beauty. 
 
 To restate our theme : All true art is a human 
 figuration from divine Form. 
 
 Applications of this Truth in the 
 Art-world 
 
 And now let me apply this great truth to 
 various departments in the art-world. Of course 
 
30 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 I shall not be so foolish as to undertake any 
 technical presentations ; Apelles the painter long 
 ago forewarned me against this when he said to 
 his cobbler-critic: " Ne sutor ultra crepidam" 
 (Let not the shoemaker go beyond his last). If, 
 however, I might at this point venture to use 
 one or two technical expressions, I would say 
 that in presenting my theme I shall try, so to 
 speak, the brush of the impressionist rather than 
 that of the pre-Raphaelite ; attempting large- 
 ness of outline and strength of effect rather 
 than exactness of detail or minuteness of finish. 
 In other words, I have to do with principles 
 rather than rules ; with parables rather than 
 technicalities ; with Forms or patterns rather 
 than figures or shapes. Let me then apply this 
 great truth of divine Forms. 
 
 First, to Architecture : Worship is the divine 
 Form ; temples are human figurations. I men- 
 tion architecture first because it is in many 
 respects the fundamental art. 
 
 Before proceeding, however, to make the ap- 
 plication, let me remind you that the Creator 
 himself is the primal archetypal architect. For 
 "nature," as Sir Thomas Browne has said, "is 
 the art of God." Recall the sublime architecture 
 
FORMS AND FIGURES 31 
 
 of the creative week. How grandly grow before 
 us, tier on tier, the outlines of nature's cathedral, 
 its materials of atoms emerging from the abyss 
 of infinite space, and grouping into molecules ; 
 its colossal foundation-stones quarried from 
 chaos ; its clinks and sparks at the strokes of 
 celestial chisels ; its flying buttresses of the 
 hills and massive walls of the mountains ; its 
 mosaic pavement of gems ; its stately aisles of 
 the primeval forests ; its towering columns of 
 crystals ; its foliated capitals and pendants and 
 moldings of vegetation; its windows of auroras; 
 its "majestical roof fretted with golden fires"; 
 its choir of humankind ; its priest and sacrifice 
 the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world ; 
 its vergers of cherubim ; its bell-toll of Sabbath. 
 No wonder then that when its corner-stone was 
 laid, the morning stars sang together, and all 
 the sons of God shouted for joy (Job 38 : 6, 7) ; 
 or that when its headstone was brought forth, 
 it was with shoutings of Grace, grace unto it 
 (Zech. 4 : 7). 
 
 But to return to the application of our great 
 principle — divine Forms and human figurations — 
 to architecture ; an application specially pertinent 
 because architecture is in an eminent sense the 
 
32 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 sacred art. " See that thou make the tabernacle, 
 and all the furniture thereof, according to the 
 pattern that was showed thee in the mount " 
 (Exod. 25 : 40). So said Jehovah to Moses dur- 
 ing the forty days and nights that he was en- 
 shrined in the glory-cloud of Mount Sinai. But 
 although the tabernacle was divinely planned, 
 yet the details of the plan were humanly exe- 
 cuted. The divine Form of the tabernacle was 
 shown lo Moses on the mount but the human 
 figurations from the divine plan were entrusted 
 to the artists Bezalel and Aholiab, to devise 
 and work in gold and silver and brass and stone 
 and wood and all manner of workmanship. All 
 which is a hint very rich and significant. There 
 are moments of inspiration or sacred rapture 
 which come to every true architect when, like St. 
 John in Patmos, he is carried away in the Spirit 
 to a mountain great and high, whereon he is 
 shown a pattern of the temple not made with 
 hands, even the temple of the Lord God the 
 Almighty and the Lamb, and hears a voice divine 
 saying : " See that thou make all things according 
 to the pattern shown on the mount." And as he 
 comes down from that height of spiritual exalta- 
 tion, and engages again in his vocation, the 
 
FORMS AND FIGURES 33 
 
 memory of that sacred vision shall be to him a 
 guide and oracle and inspiration. He will hence- 
 forth conceive his own vocation as a divine call 
 to be also a spiritual architect, commissioned by 
 the Lord of the worlds to do his part in design- 
 ing and rearing (Heb. 8 : 2) the true tabernacle 
 which the Lord pitched, not man. Not that all 
 his architecture must be in the technical sense 
 ecclesiastical. Far from it. But his architecture 
 must be in the real sense sacred, that is, Chris- 
 tian. He may select any style of architecture he 
 chooses — Egyptian, Assyrian, Hellenic, Roman, 
 Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Arabic, Com- 
 posite ; but the purpose and spirit of his archi- 
 tecture must be religious. For example : Is he 
 commissioned to design a dwelling-house ? He 
 must not only study comfort and beauty ; he must 
 also accompany his design with the prayer that 
 his dwelling-house may indeed prove a Christian 
 home. Is he commissioned to design an educa- 
 tional edifice ? He must accompany his design 
 with the prayer that all the lessons taught in 
 that edifice may be true and uplifting and serv- 
 iceable to mankind. Is he commissioned to 
 design a civic structure ? He must accompany 
 his design with the prayer that all the legislation 
 
34 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 enacted in that structure may be patriotic and 
 just and beneficent. Is he commissioned to 
 design a bourse ? He must accompany his de- 
 sign with the prayer that all the transactions in 
 that bourse may be honest and generous and 
 truly sacred. Is he commissioned to design a 
 pleasure-house ? He must accompany his design 
 with the prayer that all the entertainments offered 
 in that pleasure-house may be pure and whole- 
 some and uplifting. In brief, is he commissioned 
 to design any kind of structure whatever ? He 
 must accompany his designs with the prayer that 
 his structure may be as it were a porch, or a 
 chapel, or a choir, or a shrine, or a column, or an 
 arch, or a window, or a turret, in our Father's 
 house of the many mansions, even God's own 
 spiritual cathedral. And observe that architec- 
 ture is true in the proportion that it adheres to, 
 and false in the proportion that it departs from, 
 the pattern shown in the mount. Accordingly 
 that divine Form in and by its very nature ex- 
 cludes all human figuration of evil structures, 
 whether distillery, saloon, gaming-house, or 
 seraglio. Beware then, O youth, looking forward 
 to the architectural profession, of rearing any 
 tower of Babel, however lofty or strong or 
 
FORMS AND FIGURES 35 
 
 splendid. Be it for you to inscribe as the motto 
 for your studio the divine legend — 
 
 Except Jehovah build the house, 
 They labor in vain that build it. 
 
 — Psalm 127 : 1. 
 
 Secondly, to Sculpture : Righteousness is the 
 divine Form; virtues are human figurations. I 
 mention sculpture next because, having started 
 with the concept of a temple, I cannot help think- 
 ing of niches and statues and monuments. 
 
 " But how," I hear you asking, "will you rec- 
 oncile your application with the Second Com- 
 mandment, which expressly says: "Thou shalt 
 not make unto thee any graven image, nor the 
 likeness of any form that is in the heaven above, 
 or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the 
 water under the earth " ? (Exod. 20 : 4.) 
 
 I answer, by quoting the very next part of 
 this same Second Commandment, which also 
 says : " Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto 
 them nor serve them " (Exod. 20 : 5). 
 
 Remember that Jehovah himself commanded 
 Moses to adorn the tabernacle with figures of 
 cherubim. In fact the imaging faculty or faculty 
 of making images — imagination in the primary 
 
36 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 sense of the term — is itself a divine gift ; and 
 therefore, like any other divine gift, is to be cul- 
 tivated. The lower the conception of God, the 
 ruder the art of the worshiper. Recall the gross 
 figure of the Philistine Dagon ; the vulgar statue 
 of the Indian Guatama ; the tawdry figure of the 
 Italian Bambino. On the other hand the higher the 
 conception of God, the more exquisite the adorn- 
 ments of his sanctuary. I know not all the com- 
 ing ministries of art. But I do believe that, as 
 the Creator himself — the Artist of artists — has 
 already opened the way for the legitimate use of 
 shape and hue and poetry and music in his sanc- 
 tuary, so he will in the course of his unfoldings 
 open the way for the legitimate use of sculpture 
 and painting and gems. No ; the Second Com- 
 mandment does not forbid the use of sculpture 
 in worship. 
 
 Then what does the Second Commandment 
 forbid ? It forbids all idolatrous representations 
 of Deity. And this for the reason which the 
 divine Man himself stated at Jacob's well : 
 
 " God is a Spirit : and they that worship him 
 must worship in spirit and in truth " (John 4 : 24). 
 
 That is to say, we must worship God according 
 to his own nature ; his nature is spiritual ; there- 
 
FORMS AND FIGURES 37 
 
 fore, just because his nature is spiritual, we must 
 worship him spiritually, that is, spirit-wise, not 
 image-wise ; for only what is spiritual in us can 
 worship what is spiritual above us. Recall that 
 memorable scene when the great apostle to 
 the non-Jews, standing on the Areopagus, re- 
 minds his Athenian listeners of a saying of one 
 of their own poets named Aratus : "We are 
 also his offspring." Then pointing to the 
 mighty Acropolis towering within almost a 
 stone's throw of him, and crowned with its daz- 
 zling and colossal statue of Pallas Athena, he 
 adds : " Being then the offspring of God [the 
 spiritual God] we ought not to think that the 
 Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, 
 graven by art and device of man " (Acts 17 : 29). 
 As the architecture of which I have spoken is 
 spiritual architecture or the cathedral of wor- 
 ship, so the sculpture of which I now speak is 
 spiritual sculpture or statues of character. The 
 sculptural Form of which I speak is the arche- 
 typal character-pattern shown on the mount. 
 The statues of which I speak are human excel- 
 lencies and virtues figurated from that divinely 
 archetypal Form. Even now, as I am speak- 
 ing, I catch glimpse of the Incomparable One: 
 
38 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 " Who, existing in the form of God [God's 
 primal, essential, archetypal condition], counted 
 not the being on an equality with God a thing 
 to be grasped ; but emptied himself, taking the 
 form of a servant [the essential archetypal con- 
 dition of a servant], being made in the likeness 
 of men, and being found in fashion as a man 
 [the assumed, incidental figure of a man] " 
 (Phil. 2 : 6-8). 
 
 The Son of God is the archetypal Form of 
 Deity ; the Son of Man is the absolutely perfect 
 human figuration from that archetypal Form. 
 The Man of Nazareth is the perfect character- 
 figure sculptured from the infinite Form of 
 the eternal Righteousness. And it is our un- 
 speakable privilege and honor to be sculptured 
 as statuettes, each according to his own endow- 
 ments and temperament figurated from the 
 Divine Man and enshrined in the niches of 
 Jehovah's own cathedral. 
 
 It is the physical forces, light, electricity, gravi- 
 tation, which are swift. It is the vital forces 
 which are slow — they are processes. For exam- 
 ple, how slowly grows the plant ; first the blade, 
 then the ear, then the full corn in the ear ; and 
 the nobler the plant, the slower the growth. 
 
FORMS AND FIGURES 39 
 
 Again, how slowly grows the body. How slow 
 also the educational processes. Which things are 
 an allegory. Thus Laertes to Ophelia : 
 
 Nature crescent does not grow alone 
 In thews and bulk j but as this temple waxes, 
 The inward service of the mind and soul 
 Grows wide withal. 
 
 —"Hamlet." 
 
 Visit the sculptor's studio. Watch that grow- 
 ing statue ; how long the time between the ideal 
 form as it stands in the artist's conception and 
 the actual realization in the complete figure. 
 What cost of unwearied diligence, careful meas- 
 urements, constant alterations, painful toil. 
 Even so with the Divine Man enstatued within 
 us. How slowly figurated. How inadequate 
 our first conceptions of him. How many mis- 
 takes to correct. How many discoveries to make. 
 How countless the touches with which the fingers 
 of the soul must shape the godlike statue which 
 is to hallow and glorify her shrine. 
 
 Thirdly, to Painting : Beauty is the divine 
 Form ; graces are human figurations. I am aware 
 that our great master in artistic literature, John 
 Ruskin, has said : 
 
40 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 My impression is that up to the present moment the best 
 religious art has been rather a fruit and attendant sign of 
 sincere Christianity than a promoter of, or help to it. More, I 
 think, has always been done for God by few words than many 
 pictures, and more by few acts than many words. Sometimes, 
 indeed, the love of this form of art is the mask under which 
 a thirst for morbid excitement will pass itself for religion. 
 
 On the other hand, I remember that this same 
 great master of thoughts, as well as of words, 
 has also said : 
 
 In my opinion, sacred art, so far from being exhausted, has 
 yet to attain the development of its highest branches ; and 
 the task or privilege yet remains for mankind to produce an 
 art which shall be at once skilful and entirely sincere. The 
 histories of the Bible are, in my opinion, waiting to be 
 painted. Moses has never been painted ; Elijah, never j 
 Gideon never ; Isaiah never. What single example does the 
 reader remember of painting, which suggests so much as the 
 faintest shadow of these people or their deeds ? Strong men 
 in armor, or aged men with flowing beards, he may remem- 
 ber who, when he looked at his Louvre or Uffizi catalogue, 
 he found were intended to stand for Moses or for David. 
 
 Now I would go farther than Ruskin himself 
 in this latter paragraph, and say that, in my judg- 
 ment, painting has yet a great mission to accom- 
 plish in the domain of worship. I feel sure that 
 the God who himself is light, and in whom there 
 
FORMS AND FIGURES 41 
 
 is no darkness at all, and who has disfracted his 
 own whiteness through the prism of his own cre- 
 ation into the various colors of his various natural 
 objects — the red of his rose, the green of his 
 grass, the blue of his sky — has still a sacred mis- 
 sion for his colors in the service of his sanctuary 
 — the red of his love, the green of his life, the 
 blue of his heaven. 
 
 However this may be, do not, I pray you — let 
 me say in passing — misuse God's colors ; for they 
 are holy. Never use your brush to pander to what 
 in us is low — the coarse, the mean, the unlovely, 
 the impure ; ever use it to chasten and heighten 
 and strengthen what in us is best — the things 
 that are true, and honorable, and just, and pure, 
 and lovely, and of good report. For instance, 
 were I an artist, I do not think I would ever 
 paint a monster, or demon, or ruffian, or hag, or 
 satyr, or sybarite, or bacchante, or cyprian, or 
 even a nudity. Moreover, I believe that the 
 time is coming when it will be considered artistic 
 in painting the picture of a good man, not only 
 to portray him accurately, so that his likeness 
 shall be easily recognizable, but also to portray 
 him — so to speak — transcendently, that is, at the 
 crest of his good possibilities. What a sad testi- 
 
42 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 mony to the fall of human nature that we justify 
 and enjoy caricatures of our public men, but 
 would criticise transfigurations of them, as being 
 sentimental and visionary. 
 
 As the architecture and the sculpture of which 
 I have spoken is spiritual, belonging to the 
 cathedral of character ; so also is the painting 
 of which I am now speaking. God's beauty is 
 the archetypal Form ; man's excellencies are the 
 antitypal figurations. This application of our 
 theme to painting, it seems to me, is especially 
 appropriate. For, while painting appeals chiefly 
 to the sense of beauty, it is God himself who is 
 the primal, archetypal, essential, infinite Beauty. 
 How often we read in his own Book of the 
 " beauty of holiness " ; and God is holiness itself. 
 For there is an inward world of beauty even 
 more truly than an outward world. As Mrs. 
 Browning, in her " Sonnet to a Child Asleep " 
 sings : " Folded eyes see brighter colors than 
 the open ever do." 
 
 There are beautiful moral shapes and hues 
 and sounds and motions which are beyond the 
 touch of mortal pencil. Even pagan Socrates 
 felt this, and said : "I pray thee, O God, that I 
 may be beautiful within." There is the beauty of 
 
FORMS AND FIGURES 43 
 
 adoration, thanksgiving, confession, supplication, 
 aspiration, communion ; in one word, the beauty 
 of character. Aye, "the king's daughter is all 
 glorious within." And moral beauty, like physical, 
 
 Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, 
 But is when unadorned, adorned the most. 
 
 And holiness is the culmination of beauty ; 
 consecration is the acme of perfection. Worship 
 Jehovah, then, in the beauty of holiness. Or as 
 a modern poet quaintly phrases it : 
 
 Straight is the line of duty, 
 Curved is the line of beauty ; 
 Follow the one, and thou shalt see 
 The other ever following thee. 
 
 Fourthly, to Literature : Trtith is the divine 
 Form ; words are human figurations. 
 
 Words are the most wonderful of things : And 
 Jesus Christ himself is the divine, archetypal, 
 true, eternal Word. " In the beginning was the 
 Word, and the Word was with God, and the 
 Word was God" (John i : i). 
 
 The Divine Man is Deity's eternal alphabet, 
 from eternity to eternity God's every inter- 
 mediate letter. And just because Jesus Christ 
 
44 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 was and is and ever will be the Word of God — 
 that is, God in human expression, articulation, 
 manifestation — the express image in Deity's sub- 
 stance, the very impress of his person, he, 
 Jesus Christ, was and is and ever will be the 
 Truth. And therefore by his own words and 
 works the world and the universe is year by year, 
 century by century, aeon by aeon, justifying him 
 — the Word of God — more and more. 
 
 And as Jesus Christ is the Divine Form of 
 truth, so human language is true in proportion 
 as it is figurated from him. This in fact is the 
 reason why language is such a sacred gift. The 
 Creator has bestowed it on man that it may serve 
 as the shrine and organ and disburser of truth. 
 For it is by means of words that men can under- 
 stand the truth, and convey it to one another, 
 and so co-work in building up society. Language 
 is the bridge between man and man ; it is the 
 circulating medium of human exchange — the 
 exchange of human thoughts, sentiments, plans. 
 Language is the blood of mankind, flowing 
 through its arteries and veins, making all man- 
 kind one human corporation or body, converting 
 the numberless human units into the one human 
 unity, all men into one Man. Hence language, 
 
FORMS AND FIGURES 45 
 
 in order to its being true to its great mission, 
 must itself be true — that is, modeled after the 
 divine pattern of Him who is truth itself. Here is 
 the secret of a genuine, wholesome, abiding, per- 
 fect literature. That literature is the most con- 
 summate which is the most imbued with the spirit 
 of Him who is the divine Word become flesh. 
 
 Let me apply this. Are you looking forward 
 to public life, preparing yourself to become 
 a preacher, a lecturer, a lawyer, a statesman ? 
 Your oratory will be true and wholesome and 
 powerful in proportion as it is vocal with the 
 eloquence of Him who taught as never man spake. 
 Are you contemplating a literary career ? Your 
 publications will be true and ennobling and gen- 
 uinely classical in proportion as you use your 
 rhetoric for the praise of God in the weal of man. 
 In brief, you will be successful figurators of 
 words in proportion as you are followers of Him 
 who is the Form of Truth. In the day when he 
 shall judge the quick and dead, may it be said of 
 each one of us : " Thou also art a Galilean : for 
 thy speech betray eth thee/' 
 
 Lastly, to Music : Harmony is the divine Form ; 
 melodies are human figurations. 
 
 Let me first say a few words about devotion 
 
46 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 and poetry. All deep feeling is essentially poeti- 
 cal. It is so in all lands ; it has been so in all 
 ages. All deep emotion, alike of joy and of 
 grief, instinctively yearns for the accompaniment 
 of sound and measure. Hence the paeans of 
 Miriam and Hannah and Mary ; hence the 
 laments of Job and David and Jeremiah. Even 
 the Delphian pythoness was wont to breathe 
 forth her oracle in hexameter. All this is pre- 
 eminently true of religious feeling. For the 
 truest devotion is the highest poetry. Accord- 
 ingly, the Bible is in way of eminence a book of 
 poems, and the Psalter of the Bible has ever 
 been the favorite praise-book of the church. 
 What does not the church also owe in way of 
 devotion to the ancient doxologies and hymns ; 
 such as Gloria in Excelsis, Gloria Patri, Te 
 Deum, Ter Sanctus, Veni Creator Spiritus ? To 
 the thoughtful worshiper few things are more 
 inspiring and sublime than the sense of joining 
 in strains thus centuries old. What does not the 
 Church also owe in way of worship to Greek 
 Anatolius, to Latin Ambrose, to French Bernard, 
 to German Luther, to English Watts, to Ameri- 
 can Palmer ? Ah, here is the real concord of the 
 ages ; here is the true ecumenical. 
 
FORMS AND FIGURES AH 
 
 And as there is a profound relation between 
 devotion and poetry, so there is a profound rela- 
 tion between devotion and music. 
 
 Devotion borrows music's tone, 
 And music takes devotion's wing ; 
 
 And, like the bird that hails the sun, 
 They soar to heaven and, soaring, sing. 
 
 But the music, not less than the feeling and 
 the words, must be religious (Eph. 5:19); sing- 
 ing with grace in our hearts unto God (Col. 3 : 
 16), making melody unto the Lord. 
 
 But devotion is even more than a song ; devo- 
 tion is also a life. And here even the deaf and 
 dumb may sing, singing and making melody in 
 their hearts unto the Lord. Oh, how many spirit- 
 ual Beethovens there are ! 
 
 There are in this loud, stunning tide 
 
 Of human care and crime, 
 With whom the melodies abide 
 
 Of the everlasting chime ; 
 Who carry music in their heart 
 Through dusky lane and mart, 
 Plying their daily task with busier feet, 
 Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat. 
 
 —Keble's " Christian Year." 
 
48 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 Yes, there is such a thing as rhyme of life ; an 
 inward life-psalm, and so an outward heaven the 
 phone, earth the antiphone. Our Father, thy 
 will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. The 
 real music after all is the anthem of daily life, 
 the antiphone of daily character, the doxology 
 of daily service. 
 
 I have discussed with painful meagreness a 
 transcendent theme. I have tried to show that 
 the Art of arts is to shape life according to the 
 pattern shewn on the Mount. Thus living, we 
 shall build a celestial house ; we shall shape a 
 heavenly statue ; we shall paint the incomparable 
 beauty ; we shall speak the ineffable language ; 
 we shall sing the undying song. 
 
V 
 
 The Incidental Christ 
 
Though truths in manhood darkly join, 
 
 Deep seated in our mystic frame, 
 
 We yield all blessing to the name 
 Of Him that made them current coin. 
 
 And so the Word had breath and wrought 
 With human hands the creed of creeds, 
 In loveliness of perfect deeds, 
 
 More strong than all poetic thought. 
 
 — In Memoriam. 
 
V 
 
 HILE there is but one divine Christ, 
 there are two ways of conceiving of 
 that one Christ, i. e. } an Incidental and 
 an Essential. 
 
 The Incidental Christ is the outward Christ of 
 circumstance ; contingent ; chronological ; geo- 
 graphical ; racial ; hereditary ; temperamental ; 
 educational ; ecclesiastical ; theological. This is 
 the Christ of most biographers ; the Christ of 
 nationality, — the Christ of the Hebrew John, the 
 Roman Paul, the Greek Athanasius, the Latin 
 Augustine, the German Luther, the French 
 Calvin, the Dutch Arminius, the Old Eng- 
 land Spurgeon, the New England Bushnell, 
 the Hindu Mozoomdar, the American Hodge. 
 In brief, this is the Christ of environment ; of 
 our own temperamental conception, our educa- 
 tional training, of our own desire ; the Christ 
 whom our own longings robe, vesture, image 
 
 forth to consciousness. 
 
 si 
 
52 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 But environments alter ; incidentals are good 
 as settings, but circumstances change ; we our- 
 selves change. The Essential Christ is the in- 
 ward Christ who is therefore independent of 
 circumstances, or conditions of time and space : 
 the absolute, changeless, eternal, ever-contem- 
 poraneous, uncontingent Christ ; the immortal 
 Christ of character, the divine Christ of the 
 Incarnation ; that is, God's embodiment in the 
 Son of Man. How often is this divine Christ 
 obscured, hidden by environments and tempor- 
 alities. We recognize Jesus the Man, but not 
 Jesus the Christ. He stands among us, but "we 
 know him not,'' except as casual, incidental. 
 
 He is in history ; as center of chronology, 
 migrations, institutions, legislations, progres- 
 sions ; yet to many historians he may be but a 
 racial, geographical Christ. 
 
 He is in philosophy ; as center of nature, mat- 
 ter, law, order, cosmos ; yet to some scientists 
 he may be but a transient, phenomenal Christ. 
 
 He is in Christianity ; as center of Gospels, 
 Acts, Epistles, Covenant, Church ; yet to some he 
 may be but an ecclesiastical, theological Christ. 
 
 He is in art ; as center of letters, poetry, 
 essays, biographies, of music, painting, sculpture; 
 
THE INCIDENTAL CHRIST 53 
 
 yet to some artists he may be but a contingent, 
 local Christ. 
 
 He is in society ; as center of mankind, of 
 individuals, of outcasts, of monopolists ; yet to 
 some sociologists he may be but an incidental, 
 temporal Christ. 
 
 Suppose we endeavor to translate the Christ 
 of the past into the Christ of the present ; the 
 Christ of Palestine into the Christ of America ; 
 the Christ of the Hebrew into the Christ of the 
 English ; the Christ of idiom into the Christ of 
 language ; the Christ of theology into the Christ 
 of ethics ; the Christ of ritual into the Christ of 
 practice ; the Christ of parable into the Christ 
 of science ; the Christ of letter into the Christ 
 of spirit ; the Christ of form into the Christ of 
 life ; the Christ of the church into the Christ of 
 the kingdom ; the Christ of yesterday into the 
 Christ of to-day; the Christ of to-day into the 
 Christ of to-morrow. 
 
 Do we not find the Essential Christ "the same 
 yesterday, to-day, and forever"? Ever adjust- 
 able, because absolute ; ever flexible, because 
 changeless ; the preterit and futurist of all 
 existence. 
 
 Christ formed within us the crescent hope of 
 
54 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 character, becomes the life-element ; the motive 
 power, ever unfolding all incipient possibilities ; 
 ever developing all capacities ; allowing for all 
 personal equations ; healing all discords ; enno- 
 bling all weakness ; transfiguring all errors. 
 
 Thus drawn by his graces into the sphere of 
 his royal personality the visibles vanish, the 
 invisibles emerge ; the tangibles dissolve, the 
 intangibles solidify ; the vast dwindles, the 
 small expands ; the near recedes, the far ap- 
 proaches ; and the dynamic force of an endless 
 growth swells into the full-orbed glory of the 
 Essential, Eternal Christ. 
 
VI 
 
 The Way, the Truth, 
 the Life' 
 
 1 Published from stenographic report. 
 
 £ 
 
We faintly hear, we dimly see, 
 
 In differing phrase we pray ; 
 But, dim or clear, we own in Thee, 
 
 The Light, the Truth, the Way ! 
 
 —J. G. Whittier. 
 
 Without the Way there is no going ; 
 Without the Truth there is no knowing ; 
 Without the Life there is no living. 
 
 —Thomas a Kempis. 
 
VI 
 
 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the 
 life : no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. 
 
 —John 14 : 6. 
 
 ISTAKES have often been the occa- 
 sion of the profoundest utterances of 
 truth. Christ had just been saying: 
 " I go away to prepare a place for you ; and 
 when I have gone away and prepared a place 
 for you, I will come again, and will take you to 
 myself; that where I am, ye also may be. And 
 ye know the way whither I go." Thomas, char- 
 acteristically judging by material tests, construes 
 literally : 
 
 " Lord, we know not whither thou goest: how 
 then do we know the way?" Jesus saith to him : 
 " I am the way, and the truth, and the life ; no 
 man cometh to the Father but through me." 
 Thus the stupidity of Thomas was the occasion 
 of one of the most magnificent deliverances of 
 the eternal Word. 
 
 57 
 
58 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 1. "I am the Way." In what sense? In every 
 sense. 
 
 i. In the sense of beginning. He is the door 
 of entrance into his own kingdom ; the gate of 
 the soul's access to God. 
 
 " Through him we have our access" — introduc- 
 tion (Eph. 2 : 1 8). " Boldness to enter into the 
 holy place," etc. (Heb. io : 19). Jesus is the true 
 ladder between earth and heaven, the true Scala 
 Sancta of our devotions, 
 
 The great world's altar stairs 
 
 That slope through darkness up to God. 
 
 By his incarnation, life, teachings, and death, 
 he reveals the mystery of existence, awakens 
 the sense of God's loving Fatherhood, gives 
 the impulse of obedience to the divine will, and 
 the hope of higher life, of knowledge, and com- 
 munion with the Father. 
 
 2. In the sense of continuing. He is not only 
 the beginning ; he not only shows the way ; he 
 is the Way itself. 
 
 He is the conditioning element of all things, 
 the sphere and medium of all existence. " In 
 him were created all things, those in the heavens, 
 those on the earth, the visible and the invisible, 
 
THE WAY, THE TRUTH, THE LIFE 59 
 
 whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, 
 or powers ; all things have been created through 
 him, and for him, and he is before all things, 
 and in him all things subsist." Nature is 
 not alongside him : Nature is in him as its 
 sphere and vehicle — constituted, systemed, kept 
 in everlasting equipoise in him. He is the 
 medium not less than the source and the end of 
 all existence. 
 
 How significant are those frequent scriptural 
 expressions which represent the Christian life as 
 a way or walk ! As then we receive the Lord 
 Jesus, so let us walk in him ! He is the true 
 line of direction — the king's highway of holi- 
 ness ; the saint's promenade — the sacred, majestic 
 aisle along which the church catholic and im- 
 mortal are marching up to perfectness. The 
 emphasis Jesus put on himself as the Way, made 
 the word a synonym for Christianity. 
 
 No wonder the early Christians loved to talk 
 of "the Way." For example : " If he [Saul] found 
 any that were of the Way " (Acts 9:2). " Speak- 
 ing evil of the Way" (19 : 9). " Arose no small 
 stir concerning the Way" (19 : 23). "I persecuted 
 those of the Way unto death" (22 : 4). "After 
 the Way which they call a sect" (24 : 14). "Felix, 
 
60 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 having more exact knowledge concerning the 
 Way" (24: 23). 
 
 3. In the sense of ending. He is not only the 
 source and medium, he is the goal, the terminus ; 
 the "author and finisher." The Way leads us 
 into the Truth, eternal and unchanging — into 
 the Life. 
 
 " I go to prepare a place for you," etc. Christ 
 is himself the fountain, arena, meaning ; final 
 cause of all things from atom to vastest star, be- 
 ing in himself Nature's origin, Nature's means, 
 Nature's goal. The center of gravity and pivot 
 for the universe, he yet fills all things ; raying 
 every possible radius to utmost periphery ; or, 
 to use Pascal's striking paradox, his " center is 
 everywhere, his circumference is nowhere." 
 
 II. I am the Truth. 
 
 1. Jesus Christ is the truth or reality in dis- 
 tinction from prophecy and type. He is the ful- 
 filler and realizer of all figures and shadows. 
 Thus : He is the True Light ; he is the original, 
 underived, archetypal Light, of which John was 
 but a reflection and suggestion. He is the True 
 Bread ; not that the manna of the wilderness 
 was not bread, not that the wheat of our own 
 tables is not bread ; but he is the Real Bread of 
 
THE WAY, THE TRUTH, THE LIFE 61 
 
 which manna and wheat are but signs. These 
 are but symbols : He is the Reality. He is the 
 True Tabernacle. Not that the tabernacle of 
 the wilderness was not a sanctuary ; but he is 
 the original, archetypal temple ; the True Taber- 
 nacle which the Lord pitched and not man, and 
 to which all other tabernacles, whether of Sinai, 
 of Moriah, or of Christendom, are preliminary 
 and subservient, and of which they are but 
 figures and signs. They are types ; he is the 
 Antitype. The phenomenal is the parable ; he 
 is the interpretation thereof. 
 
 2. Jesus Christ is the truth or reality in dis- 
 tinction from mere facts. Facts are physical, 
 belonging to the realm of matter ; truths are 
 spiritual, belonging to the realm of morals. 
 Nature teaches facts ; the Bible teaches truths. 
 Facts are conditional, temporal, local, secular. 
 There is no necessary morality in the facts 
 of arithmetic, chemistry, geometry, chronology; 
 but truths are unconditional, eternal, universal. 
 There can be no truth except in connection with 
 a personal moral nature. Jesus, dying as a man, 
 in a Roman province, may remain but a historic 
 fact ; Jesus, dying as King of kings to redeem 
 mankind, is a truth of incalculable personal 
 
62 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 value. Calvary changed the trend of human 
 history. 
 
 Jesus Christ is the Truth in that he is the 
 meaning of facts. It is a great thing to know 
 facts, or what Is ; it is a greater thing to know 
 truth or what the Is is For. Science tends to 
 be retrospective, searching out antecedents as 
 the basis or at least conditioning element of 
 what is : Religion is prospective, asking what 
 the is means, and what its final issue. Science, 
 regarding what is, as the inevitable progenitor 
 of what is to be, and content with this iron bar 
 of entail, has for its watchword Mitst. 
 
 Religion, regarding what has been, and is, and 
 is to be, as means to end, and exulting in the 
 prerogative of choice, has for her watchword 
 Ought Thus at a single immeasurable bound, 
 she springs from necessity to duty, from matter 
 to spirit, from earth to heaven ; from nature as 
 a means and man as the end, to nature under 
 man as a means and God as the end — God in 
 Christ, the final cause of both nature and man. 
 
 3. Jesus Christ is the truth or reality in distinc- 
 tion from the apparent. There is an invisible 
 world more truly than there is a visible. The 
 things which are seen are temporal, but the 
 
THE WAY, THE TRUTH, THE LIFE 63 
 
 things which are not seen are eternal. Hence 
 we are bidden to walk by faith, not by sight. 
 What, in fact, is faith but transfigured imagina- 
 tion ? One of the most felicitous instances of 
 masterly diction in the realm of science is Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall's discourse delivered before the 
 British Association in 1870 on "The Scientific 
 Use of the Imagination." In this, as often else- 
 where, he earnestly bids us exercise the power 
 of "visualizing the invisible." That is to say, 
 he bids us exercise faith in the unseen. That 
 magnificent theory of modern science, the wave 
 theory, is a palmary instance of faith. No man 
 ever saw and, by reason of the very terms of the 
 atomic hypothesis, ever will see, an atom of 
 ether. Yet the whole scientific world unhesi- 
 tatingly proceeds on the assumption that there 
 is this universal ether. The theory is even said 
 to be demonstrated, and I do not for a moment 
 question the assertion, because it perfectly ac- 
 counts for so many various phenomena otherwise 
 inexplicable. For instance, phenomena of radia- 
 tion, absorption, reflection, refraction, polariza- 
 tion, etc. Allow me also the scientific use of the 
 imagination. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 although he has never come within the range of 
 
64 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 my natural senses. I believe in him because he 
 accounts for moral phenomena otherwise inex- 
 plicable. He accounts for my moral nature, my 
 experiences, my aspirations, my joys, my victories. 
 " I endure as seeing him who is invisible." He 
 is the real world behind the phenomenal, giving 
 to the phenomenal whatever of worth and abiding 
 glory it has. He is the substrate of all existence. 
 In him all things were created and in him all 
 things subsist. He only can answer Pilate's 
 question : " What is truth ? " He is himself the 
 Truth ; God's universal Verily, Verily ; God's 
 eternal Yea and Amen. 
 
 III. I am the Life. 
 
 i. yesus Christ is the life of all animate exist- 
 ence, alike vegetable, animal, human, angelic. Not 
 only have all things been created by him and 
 through him and for him, all things are subsist- 
 ing in him. He is the universal sub-stans, the 
 sphere and continuing element of all that lives. 
 Particularly is this true of man. He is the life 
 of our bodily nature. Poor Marthas may weep 
 by the sepulchres of dead brothers, but Jesus shall 
 say, " I am the resurrection and the life." And 
 an apostle shall echo, " Since through man came 
 death, through man also shall come the resurrec- 
 
THE WAY, THE TRUTH, THE LIFE 65 
 
 tion of the dead, for as in Adam all die, so also in 
 Christ will all be made alive." 
 
 2. Jesus Christ is the life of all spiritual exist- 
 ence. He, and he only, is the vitalizing, immor- 
 talizing principle. I enter into no debate con- 
 cerning man's natural immortality. Enough that 
 I echo Jesus' own saying, " God so loved the 
 world that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
 every one who believeth in him may not perish, 
 but may have everlasting life." Life, life, life, 
 is the keynote of his gospel ; it is precisely this 
 which makes his words and career a gospel, a 
 glad tidings. 
 
 " I came that they might have life and that 
 they might have it more abundantly" (John 
 10 : 10). 
 
 'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant, 
 O life, not death, for which we pant ; 
 More life and fuller that I want. 
 
 Life holy; independent; luminous, manly, new; 
 patient ; resolute ; spiritual ; wise, youthful. Here 
 is the secret of Jesus' advent, mission, life, teach- 
 ings, death, resurrection, ascension, return. He 
 gives "the power of an endless life," the power 
 that conquering circumstances, heredity, sin, 
 
66 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 death, brings the spirit into conscious commu- 
 nion with the Father, transfigured into his image ; 
 the cumulative force of all unfolded capacities, 
 enthusiasm, faith, goodness, hope, imagination, 
 insight, inspiration, joy, knowledge, love, manli- 
 ness, purity, reason, righteousness, solidity, true- 
 ness, worship. And this Christ-force is not 
 mere endlessness of existence, but the cumu- 
 lativeness of endless growth ; not mere static 
 perpetuity, but dynamic immortality of love. 
 
 IV. "No one Cometh to the Father but 
 through Me." 
 
 Men there are, and they are mournfully many, 
 who perpetually talk of God's Fatherhood and 
 yet boastfully say they have no need of the 
 Christ. On the other hand we are told, and 
 this on an authority the same as that which 
 asserts God's Fatherhood, " He who hath not 
 the Son, hath not the Father." And that Son 
 himself saith, " He that hath seen me hath 
 seen the Father." And no one cometh to the 
 Father but through the Son. True, Liberalism 
 says, "There are many ways to the Father." 
 The Truth says, "I am the Way." Philosophy 
 says, "There is another way; it is through devel- 
 opment." The Truth says, " I am the Way." 
 
THE WAY, THE TRUTH, THE LIFE 67 
 
 Ecclesiasticism says, " There is another way; it 
 is the Church." The Truth says, " I am the 
 Way." Sacramentism says, " There is another 
 way; it is through the sacraments." The Truth 
 says, " I am the Way." Jesus the Nazarene, 
 Deity Incarnate, is the one and the only door 
 and way to the Father. All who seek to climb 
 over into God's Fatherhood in any other way are 
 thieves and robbers. 
 
 Thus is Jesus Christ the Way, the Truth, the 
 Life, the Gate, the Path, the Goal, the All in All. 
 
 O Almighty God, whom truly to know is ever- 
 lasting life, grant us perfectly to know thy Son, 
 Jesus Christ, to be the Way, the Truth, and the 
 Life ; that, following the steps of thy holy apos- 
 tles, Saint Philip and Saint James, we may stead- 
 fastly walk in the way that leadeth to eternal 
 life, through the same thy Son, Jesus Christ our 
 Lord. Amen. 
 
VII 
 
 The Optimism of Jesus 
 
That soul 
 Hath done with sadness, which knows Christ aright ; 
 Not as fear reads, but as quick love reveals. 
 
 — Sir Edwin Arnold. 
 
VII 
 
 HERE are two kinds of human esti- 
 mate. First, there is the pessimistic 
 kind ; it searches for the worst ; it de- 
 tects, because it loves to detect, blemishes, crook- 
 edness, weakness, infidelity, paganism, apostasy 
 — in one word, demonism. The other kind of 
 human estimate is the optimistic kind ; it searches 
 for the best ; it discerns, because it loves to dis- 
 cern, breadth, length, height, strength, beauty, 
 majesty — in one word, angelism. The pessimist 
 searches for towers of Babel ; the optimist 
 searches for the city of God. 
 
 Thank God, the Saviour of mankind, and 
 especially of his church, was — I speak it most 
 reverently — an optimist. Had he been a pessim- 
 ist, taking us in the trough of our weakness 
 rather than at the crest of our possibilities, 
 where would have been to-day our hope of the 
 possibility of perfected character and the bliss- 
 ful immortality? In fact, Christianity reverses 
 
 r 71 
 
72 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 Darwinism, or rather that part of Darwinism 
 which teaches the doctrine of the survival of 
 the fittest in the struggle for existence. The 
 Founder of Christianity came not to call the 
 righteous, but sinners to repentance — searching 
 for and especially welcoming those whom society 
 spurns as the unfittest. He was known as the 
 friend of publicans and sinners, receiving them 
 and eating with them. He did not stand on the 
 shore and wait till people floated up to him on 
 the flood-tide of prosperity ; he himself swam 
 out after them as they floated down from him on 
 the ebb-tide of adversity. He came to seek as 
 well as to save that which is lost. No breaker 
 of bruised reeds was our King ; no despiser of 
 storm-shaken souls ; no crusher of stumbling 
 hearts ; no trampler on prostrate characters. 
 For the Spirit of the Lord Jehovah was upon 
 him, because he anointed him to preach good 
 tidings to the poor, to proclaim release to the 
 captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to 
 set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim 
 the acceptable year of the Lord. No quencher 
 of smoking flax is our King ; no uprooter of dis- 
 couraged souls ; no extinguisher of the divine 
 possibilities existing in every human soul, how- 
 
THE OPTIMISM OF JESUS 73 
 
 ever imbruted ; no quencher of the dim light of 
 nature in the pagan's heart, of the dying flame 
 of conscience in the American infidel, of the 
 waning embers in the disheartened Christian, of 
 the expiring spark in the fallen wanderer. In- 
 stead of extinguishing the flickering wick, he 
 stoops down to fan it, establishing the things 
 that remain, which were ready to die. And 
 therefore in his name the Gentiles are hoping, 
 and earth's weary outcasts finding in him their 
 refuge and heaven. 
 
 Thus Jesus of Nazareth was in the preemi- 
 nent sense an optimist. Peering down into the 
 lowest grades of our fallen humanity, his gener- 
 ous vision was the first to discern beneath wreck 
 and rubbish any sense of right however dim, any 
 idea of duty however faint, any yearning after 
 better things however incipient and nebulous. 
 Do you ask for instances of his optimism ? Re- 
 call how he sought out obscure fishermen of 
 Galilee, and transfigured them into apostles of 
 Christendom ; how he summoned and rescued 
 Matthew, transfiguring the despised publican of 
 Capernaum into his own apostolic biographer ; 
 how he sought and saved Zaccheus, transfigur- 
 ing the sinful publican of Jericho into a true son 
 
74 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 of Abraham ; how he rescued the sinful woman 
 of Jacob's well and the outcast woman of the 
 Pharisee's banquet, transfiguring them into 
 trophies of his redeeming grace ; how he deliv- 
 ered the unfortunate Mary of Magdala, trans- 
 figuring this most wretched victim of demoniacal 
 possession into his most adoring ministrant ; how 
 he forgave the apostate fisherman of Bethsaida, 
 transfiguring Simon, cowering son of flesh and 
 blood, into Peter, intrepid son of everlasting 
 rock ; how he saved the murderous Pharisee of 
 Jerusalem, transfiguring Saul his persecutor into 
 Paul his missionary. 
 
 Be it for us to follow our King's divine philos- 
 ophy of life ; to seek eagerly for the possible good, 
 the hidden Best behind every surface repellence 
 of the unlovely and the unattractive. Let the 
 same " thought" be in us that was in Christ Jesus, 
 for as Robert Browning truly writes : 
 
 As is your sort of mind, so is your sort of search, 
 You'll find what you desire. 
 
 And finding, if even but a faint and blurred 
 image of our Father in heaven, you have the 
 King's heart of optimism — immortal love. 
 
VIII 
 Evolution 
 
In tracts of fluent heat began, 
 
 And grew to seeming-random forms, 
 
 The seeming prey of cyclic storms, 
 Till at the last arose the man ; 
 
 Who throve and branched from clime to clime, 
 
 The herald of a higher race, 
 
 And of himself in higher place, 
 If so he type this work of time 
 
 Within himself, from more to more. 
 
 — In Memoriam. 
 
VIII 
 
 MEANING OF " EVOLUTION " 
 
 ET us understand exactly what we mean 
 by this word " evolution," for clear- 
 ness of conception here is absolutely 
 essential. Indeed, it is quite astonishing to 
 notice how loosely many intelligent persons use 
 such words as "evolution, development, variety, 
 species," etc. Look, for example, at this word 
 " species." A species is a purely subjective 
 thing, an ens rationis, a mental outline, an ideal 
 padlock. Who ever saw or touched a species ? 
 To talk, then, of the origin, or transmutation 
 of species is to talk of a subjective idea, which 
 never has had and never can have any actual, 
 objective existence in the world of matter. If 
 there is ever any "transmutation," the trans- 
 mutation is a concept existing only in the mind 
 of the conceiver. In other words, the affair is 
 an affair of metaphysics, not of physics. Here, 
 
 77 
 
78 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 as elsewhere in such matters, let us abide by the 
 glorious rigor of the scientific method. Physical 
 science, we are solemnly told, deals only with 
 objective, concrete realities ; it has nothing to do 
 with abstractions or concepts ; not but that con- 
 cepts or abstract terms are useful, and even indis- 
 pensable, as tools, or "working hypotheses." 
 And with concepts as such — that is, with abstract 
 terms as instruments of thought and investiga- 
 tion — physical science does have to do. Never- 
 theless, concepts are not objective existences ; 
 abstract terms are not concrete realities. And 
 "species" is an abstract term or concept. Ac- 
 cordingly, the only evolution or transmutation 
 which physical science, as an affair of observa- 
 tion and induction, can consistently consider, is 
 the evolution or transmutation of an objective, 
 concrete, definite plant or animal. 
 
 And precisely here, where the proof should be 
 decisive, is the weak point in the theory of evolu- 
 tion. And no chain is stronger than its weakest 
 link. Look at this very word "evolution." It 
 is another lamentable instance of the loose use 
 of terms. To "evolve" is to unroll, unfold, de- 
 velop. But you cannot unroll what had not 
 been inrolled ; you cannot unfold what was not 
 
EVOLUTION 79 
 
 infolded ; you cannot develop what was not en- 
 veloped ; you cannot evolve what has not been 
 involved. You cannot unfold a ton out of an 
 ounce. You cannot account for the origin or 
 unfolding of man by evolving him out of a 
 primary bioplastic cell ; for he — man — was never 
 in the cell at all, not even as a prisoner. 
 
 But while I cannot accept evolution as being the 
 philosophical cause or initial force which accounts 
 for the progress of life, there is a kind of " evo- 
 lution " which I must and do accept : it is an ideal 
 evolution ; that is to say, the evolution along the 
 ideal axis of a divine plan and purpose ; for ex- 
 ample, the unfolding of a leonine ovum into the 
 adult lion is an evolution along the ideal axis of a 
 vertebrate mammal. It is not, as atheistic evolu- 
 tionists hold, that the pickerel was transformed 
 by vertebral metamorphosis into the tortoise, the 
 tortoise into the owl, the owl into the gorilla, the 
 gorilla into man. It is as theistic evolutionists 
 hold, that pickerel, tortoise, owl, gorilla, man, 
 are divine modifications of the general archetypal 
 vertebra for specific purposes, adjusting the phys- 
 ical application of the archetypal ideal vertebra 
 to new necessities as occasioned by new condi- 
 tions or environments. I believe that the process 
 
So LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 of creation was, and that the process of evolution 
 is, the unrolling of a divine plan or conception. 
 " Premeditation prior to Creation "■ — this is the 
 favorite formula of Louis Agassiz in his famous 
 "Essay on Classification." I believe that the Bible 
 story of origins is the story of the unfolding of a 
 divine plan or idea; ascending from the creation of 
 matter-atoms, along the pathway of soil and plant 
 and animal, to man. The advance may have 
 been, and in many cases doubtless was, genetic ; 
 but the advance, in so far as it was an " evolu- 
 tion," was ideal. And not only was evolution, 
 in the proper sense of the term, true of the orig- 
 inal creative process, evolution is also still true 
 of every living thing to-day, whether plant or 
 animal or man. The acorn unfolds into the oak, 
 the babe into the man, the man into the 
 Christian, along the ideal axis of a divine 
 thought or plan. Evolution, in the sense of 
 physical, objective unfolding of protoplast into 
 man, is false. Evolution, in the sense of ideal, 
 purposeful unfolding of protoplast into man, is 
 true. And science has it for her stately vocation 
 to try to read the Creator's thoughts before they 
 are materialized into his things. 
 
 Moral movement, i. e., progress, is inevitable. 
 
EVOLUTION 81 
 
 Progress is the great watchword of this century. 
 Excelsior is written in the heart and urges on- 
 ward. There is no such champion of progress as 
 St. Paul, and no such exponent of evolution as 
 the evangel of Jesus Christ. Darwin busies 
 himself with what man has been ; Paul, with 
 what he can be. Darwin dwells upon the past 
 and present ; Paul looks toward the future. 
 Darwin's evolution ends in himself ; Paul's evolu- 
 tion ends in Christ. What is prophetic in Christ 
 is historic in man. Christ is the perfected, con- 
 summate Man — The Son of Man. 
 
The Sacred Use of Words 
 
Is there, then, no death for a word once spoken ? 
 Was never a deed but left its token 
 Written on tables never broken ? 
 
 Do the elements subtle reflections give ? 
 Do pictures of all ages live 
 On nature's infinite negative ? 
 
 — Whittier. 
 
IX 
 
 ERE I asked what I thought was the 
 most wonderful faculty in man, I should 
 answer : The faculty of language. For, 
 consider for a moment what a word is. A word 
 consists of two elements, which not only have 
 nothing in common but are diametrically op- 
 posed. Suppose it is a spoken — that is, an 
 audible word; as such it is but a sound — an 
 aerial vibration striking tympanum and brain. 
 Suppose it is a written — that is, a visible word ; 
 as such it is but a shape on a piece of paper. 
 Yet in either case, whether an audible word or 
 a written word, it is also an enshrined, infigured, 
 so to speak, materialized idea. A word is a 
 symbolized thought, an embodied idea. The 
 same material air that wafts a leaf may enshrine 
 and waft to the percipient mind an immaterial 
 idea. Language marries thought and matter, 
 or rather thought and thought in the sphere 
 
 of matter. A word may incarnate the vastest 
 
 85 
 
S6 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 conceptions, as e.g., an astronomical fact ; or the 
 subtilest conceptions, as e. g., a biological hy- 
 pothesis. Again, words conserve the immaterial 
 past, turning it into an immortal heirloom ; a 
 word carries us back to Washington, to Shakes- 
 peare, to Mohammed, to Cicero, to Plato, to 
 Abraham, to Adam. Words are the manes of 
 past centuries. You think that the phonograph 
 is a wonderful thing, and so it is ; but the phono- 
 graph does not compare in wonderfulness with 
 the most careless, insignificant word which it 
 echoes and preserves. Even the childish prattle 
 of the nursery is more marvelous than the most 
 surprising metamorphosis in chemistry ; for it 
 turns vibrations of material, unconscious air into 
 immaterial, intelligible, influencing ideas. Yes, 
 words are the most wonderful of things. 
 
 Not only is the power of words tremendous, 
 their power is also immortal. Words are not 
 the evanescent sounds we sometimes fancy them 
 to be. For what is a word ? A spoken word is 
 a series of sounds, so arranged as to embody 
 an idea. And what is a sound ? A sound, 
 to answer roughly, is a disturbance of the air, 
 so that certain vibrations, or waves, reach the 
 mind through the ear and brain. Now it is 
 
THE SACRED USE OF WORDS 87 
 
 one of the solemn teachings of science, and 
 of vastest import, that no atom of matter can 
 undergo any change whatever without affect- 
 ing each adjacent atom ; nor can these adjacent 
 atoms be affected without affecting, in turn, 
 every atom adjacent to each of them ; and so 
 on until the original impulse, or change, started 
 by the first atom is propagated through im- 
 mensity, so that the whole material creation is 
 in a different state from what it would have been 
 had not the disturbance of that first atom taken 
 place. Nor is this all : inasmuch as these atoms, 
 thus disturbed throughout the material universe, 
 keep acting and reacting on each other per- 
 petually, it is evident that the effects of the 
 slightest atomic change are not only propagated 
 throughout all creation, but are propagated ever- 
 lastingly. Thus the slightest word vibrating in 
 the air, though it be but a whispered interjection, 
 sets in operation a series of changes which un- 
 dulate to the very outskirts of creation, rising 
 and falling like an everlasting tide. Milton 
 utters but scientific truth when he speaks of 
 
 Airy tongues, that syllable men's names 
 
 On sands and shores and desert wildernesses. 
 
 — " Comus." 
 
88 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 Thus the whole material universe, from tiniest 
 atom at earth's center to farthest orb in limitless 
 space, is a divine phonograph. 
 
 If, then, the scarcely audible rustle of an un- 
 conscious aspen leaf sets in inexorable motion 
 atom after atom — from leaf to tree, from tree to 
 earth, from earth to star, till the whole material 
 creation responds in agitation — think you that a 
 word, however " idle," spoken by conscious, re- 
 sponsible man, will ever die away ? Oh, no ; 
 every word you and I have spoken has already 
 taken the witness-stand before the Judgment 
 Throne, to testify for us or against us. Words 
 are immortal ! Is not language, then, a sacred 
 trust to be sacredly used ? Dare you put 
 your thought into coarse, ill-fitting, degraded 
 "slang" ? Dare you use words without consid- 
 ering their sequences ? 
 
 Tho* ill-timed truth we might have kept, 
 Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung ; 
 
 The word we had not sense to say, 
 Who knows how grandly it had rung. 
 
 — Edward Rowland Sill. 
 
X 
 
 An Eirenicon 
 
That they may all be one ; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in 
 thee, that they also may be in us : that the world may believe that thou 
 didst send me. _ Jesus Christ 
 
What it Means and How to Secure It. A 
 Message to Christians of All Creeds 
 
 By Dr. George Dana Boardman 
 
 THE coming ideal church, or the kingdom of God, is larger than any 
 denomination within it ; as our United States are larger than the 
 State of Pennsylvania. Denominationalism still has its place in the 
 economy of Christendom ; but that place is no longer in the foreground ; 
 that place is henceforth to be in the background. We are still to work 
 along denominational lines, but only with a view to the Church as one 
 Corporate Whole. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for us? Was 
 our baptism into the name of Peter, or John, or Luther, or Calvin, or 
 Wesley, or Fox, or Swedenborg, or Bunyan, or Campbell ? No ! One 
 is our Master, and all we are brothers, fellow-members of that one body 
 of which Christ is the one Head. 
 
 And fellow-members are co-ordinate in function and co-operation. 
 If the whole church were only one cyclopian Congregational eye, or one 
 colossal Methodist ear, or one gigantic Lutheran nose, or one stupen- 
 dous Episcopal hand, or one enormous Presbyterian thumb, or one 
 measureless Baptist foot — where were Christ's one, yet many-membered 
 body ? But now there be many members, yet but one body. Accord- 
 ingly, the Episcopal hand cannot (or at least ought not to) say to the 
 Baptist foot, "I have no need of thee." For all Christians form the 
 one body of Christ, and each Christian is a functional organ thereof ; 
 and the body of Christ is healthy and effective in proportion as each 
 Christian faithfully discharges his own organic functions — all the mem- 
 bers, whether eye or hand, ear or foot, working together in reciprocal 
 co-operation. 
 
 Sent out in 1 89 1. 
 
XI 
 
 The Unification of 
 Christendom 
 
For all Thy Church, O Lord, we intercede ; 
 
 Make Thou our sad divisions soon to cease ; 
 Draw us the nearer each, to each we plead, 
 
 By drawing all to Thee, O Prince of Peace ; 
 Thus may we all one Bread, one Body be, 
 Through this blest Sacrament of Unity. 
 
 — W. H. Turton. 
 
XI 
 
 HE problem of ecclesiastical unity is 
 a complex, serious problem worthy 
 of the profound study of all sons of 
 the Kingdom. 
 
 The Ideal Church a Unity. On the one 
 hand, the ideal church of God, God's one church 
 of transfigured characters, is an ideal unity. St. 
 Paul portrays this ideal unity under a sevenfold 
 aspect, thus : 
 
 "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as 
 also ye were called in one hope of your call- 
 ing ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God 
 and Father of all, who is over all, and through 
 all, and in all " (Eph. 4 : 4-6). 
 
 Observe that the great apostle uses the nu- 
 meral "one" seven times. It is as though he 
 had said : 
 
 "There is one Christian church; one Holy 
 Spirit ; one heavenly vocation ; one Lord Jesus 
 Christ ; one baptism in the one Spirit by 
 
 95 
 
96 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 the one faith into the one church ; one All- 
 Father-God." 
 
 The Actual Church a Disunity. On the 
 other hand, the actual, organized church of 
 Christendom is a painful disunity. Observe 
 with grief and shame its divided condition. 
 The church ecclesiastical is, literally speaking, a 
 church militant on a war footing. Unfortu- 
 nately, however, this war footing is an interne- 
 cine strife. Instead of her wrestling against the 
 dark principalities of the spiritual powers of evil 
 in the heavenlies, she is wrestling against her 
 own flesh and blood, making schism in her own 
 body, tearing asunder the limbs of her own 
 personality. 
 
 The spirit of sectarianism, not the mere fact 
 that there are sects, alienates the Christian 
 brotherhood, setting the members of the one 
 great family in Christ against each other ; it 
 narrows our spiritual horizon ; it inverts the 
 Christian order by exalting ordinances above 
 principles, ritual above character ; it caricatures 
 truth by magnifying its fractions and minifying 
 its integer ; it dissipates spiritual energies in- 
 stead of concentrating them ; it arrests moral 
 growth. 
 
THE UNIFICATION OF CHRISTENDOM 97 
 
 Problem of Ecclesiastical Unity. And so 
 we pass to ponder the problem of Ecclesiastical 
 Unity. How shall we make the church of man 
 and the church of Christ — the church of form 
 and the church of life — coincident ? How shall 
 we adjust man's church to God's Kingdom ? 
 How shall we bring about the ideal, promised 
 Unity of the Christian Church ? It is a mighty 
 problem, as gracious as mighty, wholly worthy of 
 the best thought of Christendom. Although in- 
 capable of absolute solution, yet, like the famous 
 problem of squaring the circle, our problem is 
 nevertheless capable of approximations ever 
 closer and closer. 
 
 Church Unity Cannot be Secured by De- 
 creeing Church Uniformity. Church Unity 
 means an inward, organic, so to speak, divinely 
 biological life wherein all varieties of organs and 
 functions are vitally convergent to one divine 
 end. You can organize an external organization 
 — this is man's work. You cannot organize an 
 internal organism — that is God's work. All at- 
 tempts therefore to enact ecclesiastical unity, 
 either by decrees of hierarchical conclaves or by 
 votes of congregational assemblies, are attempts 
 at human manufacture rather than recognitions 
 
98 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 of divine offspring, and therefore must sooner or 
 later issue in moral failures. The truth is, all 
 attempts at singleness or uniformity of formal or- 
 ganization are against all the analogies of living 
 nature. Take the plant world : what varieties 
 of structures and functions from the cedar of 
 Lebanon to the hyssop that springs up by the 
 wall ! Take the animal world : all flesh is not 
 the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, 
 another flesh of beasts, another flesh of birds, 
 another flesh of fishes. Take the man world : 
 what varieties of races, statures, faculties, tem- 
 peraments, customs ! Take the church world : 
 what varieties of creeds, polities, gifts, missions, 
 graces ! To undertake to decree that there shall 
 be but one kind of church organization is as un- 
 natural and futile as to undertake to decree that 
 there shall be but one kind of plant or one kind 
 of animal or one kind of man. Many different 
 members, but one common body. 
 
 Unity Cannot be Secured by Abolishing 
 Sects. Nor, again, can the church unify herself, 
 at least in this aeon, by abolishing sects. In fact, 
 I believe that each Christian sect, in so far as it 
 really has Christ's own spirit has a divine mis- 
 sion of its own. Who would wish to erase from 
 
THE UNIFICATION OF CHRISTENDOM 99 
 
 the history of Christendom the story of the Wal- 
 denses, the Lutherans, the Puritans, the Mora- 
 vians, the Jansenists, the Methodists, the Con- 
 gregationalists, the Quakers, the Baptists ? For 
 all things are ours ; whether Paul, the apostle of 
 advance, or Cephas, the apostle of arrest, or 
 Apollos, the apostle of culture ; all are ours ; 
 and we are Christ's ; and Christ is God's. 
 
 Unity Cannot be Secured by Compromise. 
 Nor can the church unify herself by compromise. 
 This is the mistake of those unfortunates who 
 are afflicted with cardiac hypertrophy or diseased 
 enlargement of heart. Compromise is often right 
 in matters of policy or method. Compromise is 
 always wrong in matters of principle or duty. 
 Truth abhors compromise as light abhors dark- 
 ness. Truth advances her kingdom by affirma- 
 tion, not by evasion ; by victory, not by surren- 
 der. If there is in all this world a sacred right, 
 it is the right of every human being to have his 
 own personal, moral convictions. If there is in 
 all this world a sacred responsibility, it is the re- 
 sponsibility which every human being has before 
 his God and before his fellows for those personal 
 convictions. If there is in all this world a sacred 
 obligation, it is the obligation which rests on 
 
 it t 
 
ioo LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 every human being to be true, at whatever cost, 
 to those convictions. For the man who is will- 
 ing to surrender his own convictions for the 
 sake of " unity" is a man whose convictions for 
 the sake of unity, or of anything else, are to be 
 distrusted. For he who begins by being false to 
 himself will end with being false to everybody 
 else. Moreover, the unity which is brought 
 about by compromise is not unity at all ; it is 
 only a weak, sentimental, flabby uniformity. 
 
 Unity can be Secured only by Compre- 
 hension. This idea of comprehension is the 
 modern contribution to ecclesiology or the doc- 
 trine of the church. The old method was to 
 search for similarities ; the new method is to 
 recognize diversities. The church's true policy 
 here is not rejection, but adjustment ; not insist- 
 ence, but assistance ; not as Paul and Barnabas 
 angrily parted at Antioch, but as Abraham and 
 Lot peacefully parted at Bethel ; not as John, 
 who cried, " Forbid ! " but as Jesus, who replied, 
 " Welcome !" not as cave-dwellers moping in 
 solitude, but as cosmopolitans living in God's 
 open air. O ye Christian sectarians ; ye who 
 are dwelling in dark glens of denominationalism ; 
 ye who, like Elijah in his cave, imagine that you 
 
THE UNIFICATION OF CHRISTENDOM ioi 
 
 alone are Jehovah's true prophets ; ye who live 
 in the hamlet of your sect, and 
 
 Think the rustic cackle of your bourg 
 The murmur of the world — 
 
 come out from your dark little glen into the sun- 
 light of God's open country, and see how vast is 
 the dome of his sky. 
 
 Catholicity the Ideal Church Form. But 
 how shall this unity by comprehension be effected? 
 And so I pass to present for a moment catho- 
 licity as the ideal church form. For, as we have 
 seen, each Christian sect, in so far as it has 
 Christ's own spirit, does have its own divine mis- 
 sion. Each Christian sect is a facet in God's 
 great diamond of truth, flashing prismatic hues, 
 the union of which makes the dazzling white 
 light. It is not given to any one man or to any 
 one set of men, however great, to comprehend 
 all truth ; for if it were, men themselves would 
 be infinite. Accordingly, while sectarianism is 
 born of sin, and is devilish, sect is born of finite- 
 ness and may be even angelic. Do not try, then, 
 to secure unity by hammering diversities into 
 monotonous flatness. But try to secure unity 
 by soaring high enough to comprehend diversi- 
 
102 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 ties, even as God's own sky comprehends ocean 
 and forest, valley and mountain, man and flower. 
 As a matter of fact, each denomination, in 
 rearing its own ecclesiastical structure, does work 
 selectively. Each sect, in building its own creed 
 or polity, builds on the remembrance of certain 
 Scriptures which it regards as favorable, and on 
 the oblivion of certain other Scriptures which it 
 regards as unfavorable ; equally skilled in the 
 art of remembering and in the art of forgetting ; 
 dexterously adjusting its powers of memory and 
 its powers of oblivion to the supposed necessities 
 of the case. In other words, each sect errs not 
 so much in what it believes as in what it fails to 
 believe. The coming ideal church will be built, 
 not on a selection of Scriptures, but on the Bible 
 in its wholeness. Can there be any better way 
 of bringing about the unification of Christendom 
 than by the occasional and considerate inter- 
 change of different scriptural views by represent- 
 ative Christian thinkers of all communions ? If 
 the church is ever to be perfected into one, that 
 perfection will be effected, not by resolutions 
 of conventions or decrees of councils, but by 
 the gradual permeation of Christian sentiments 
 throughout Christendom. 
 
THE UNIFICATION OF CHRISTENDOM 103 
 
 This matter, then, of the unification of Chris- 
 tendom, is more than a mere sentiment or sweet 
 privilege ; like humility or prayer or faith, it is 
 not even a matter of option ; it is the most im- 
 perial of the commandments. If you insist on 
 the word " ordinance," love is the ordinance of 
 the ordinances. Now abide Faith, Hope, Love, 
 these three ; and the greatest of these is love. 
 And no wonder ; for God himself is love, so that 
 he who abides in love abides in God, and God 
 abides in him. 
 
XII 
 
 The Parliament of 
 Religions 
 
I'm apt to think the man 
 That could surround the sum of things, and spy 
 The heart of God, and secrets of his empire, 
 Would speak but love. With him the bright result 
 Would change the hue of intermediate scenes, 
 And make one thing of all theology. 
 
XII 
 
 T the Columbian Exposition in 1893, 
 there were one hundred and sixty con- 
 gresses, lasting six months ; the crown- 
 ing one was the Parliament of Religions, in which 
 intellectuality and spirituality culminated. This 
 stupendous idea of these various congresses was 
 conceived by the Honorable Charles C. Bonney, 
 a man of the rarest gifts and spirituality, who 
 conducted them with great breadth, patience, and 
 skill to a noble consummation. 
 
 The Purpose of the Parliament. The pur- 
 pose of the parliament was not to "array one 
 form of religion against another form of religion ; 
 but to array (if possible) all religions against all 
 irreligion." 
 
 Religion, as I understand the term, is largely 
 subjective ; it is the heart-sense of adoration, 
 thanksgiving, penitence, confession, prayer, sac- 
 rifice, aspiration ; in one word, religion is wor- 
 ship. As such, religion is common to mankind ; 
 
 107 
 
108 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 whatever the race, the age, the form. Religion 
 is a mark of human nature, however degraded 
 Accordingly, not only are Christians religious ; 
 so also are Jews, Gentiles, Buddhists, Confucian- 
 ists, Mohammedans, Fetishists, etc. The Apostle 
 Paul himself states the matter very clearly when, 
 in his address on the Areopagus, he says to his 
 pagan listeners : " Ye men of Athens, in all 
 things I perceive that ye are (what? "too super- 
 stitious" ? No ;) very religious!' 
 
 On the other hand the term religions, as I un- 
 derstand the word, means objective human struc- 
 tures ; what man himself has either discovered, 
 invented, elaborated, selected, or whatever other 
 term you may please to choose in that connec- 
 tion. Religions are theologies. Accordingly, 
 religions are more or less matters of topography, 
 race, temperament, environment. Thus we speak 
 of the religion of the Jew, the Greek, the Roman, 
 the Romanist, the Protestant, etc. In brief, while 
 religion is an essential mark of Man, religions 
 are incidental marks of men. 
 
 We often hear it said that Christianity is the 
 only true religion, and therefore it is exclusive 
 of all other religions. I venture to think that it 
 is the other religions which are really exclusive ; 
 
THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 109 
 
 that it is the Christian religion which is really in- 
 clusive ; and, therefore, that the Christian religion 
 is the only true, adequate religion for mankind. 
 This is one of the great truths which the Parlia- 
 ment of Religions brought into clearer light. It 
 showed that our Father is as impartial in religion 
 as he is in nature ; making his moral sun to rise 
 on the evil and on the good, and sending his 
 moral rain on the just and the unjust. If any 
 particular man continues darkened and parched, 
 the fault is not in God's sun or rain ; the fault is 
 in the man himself; for he persists in living in a 
 cave. Meanwhile, God's own sky does encom- 
 pass all the earth. Do not let the Southerner, 
 who has never been North, deny that there is a 
 Northern Aurora. Do not let the Northerner, 
 who has never been South, deny that there is a 
 Southern Cross. 
 
 Personnel of the Parliament of Religions. 
 We are always interested in conspicuous charac- 
 ters. Let me allude to some of them in way of 
 rough characterization. There was the broad 
 and tactful John Henry Barrows, the chairman 
 of the parliament. I will name the speakers 
 (such as I have time to mention at all) in the al- 
 phabetical order of their creeds. There were such 
 
no LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 Baptists, for example, as the eloquent Lorimer, 
 the scholarly Wilkinson ; such a Brahman as the 
 accomplished Narasima of Madras ; such Bud- 
 dhists as the gentle Dharmapala, and the keen 
 Hirai ; such a Confucianist as the grave Pung 
 Quang Yu, secretary of the Chinese Legation at 
 Washington, who received a most enthusiastic 
 ovation, because he stood there as the represen- 
 tative of outraged China ; such Congregation- 
 alists as the radical Abbott, the orthodox Cook, 
 the brilliant Moxom, the considerate Noble ; 
 such educators as the vigorous Bruce of Scotland, 
 the wise Fisher of Yale, the versatile Grant of 
 Canada ; such Episcopalians as the evangelical 
 Dudley of Kentucky, the aesthetic Haweis of 
 London, the brilliant Momerie of Cambridge ; 
 such Evangelists as the gallant Fielding, the 
 stout Pentecost ; such Greeks as the picturesque 
 Archimandrite of Damascus, the massive Latas 
 of Zante, the princely Wolkonsky of Russia ; 
 such Hindus as the devout Mozoomdar, such a 
 Jain as the acute Ganthi ; such Jews as the elo- 
 quent Gottheil, the broad Hirsch, the scholarly 
 Wise ; such Methodists as the genial Arnett, the 
 energetic Bristol, the militant Townsend ; such 
 Missionaries — I love to call their honored names 
 
THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS ill 
 
 — as the facile Candlin, the veteran Faber, the 
 zealous Haworth, the judicious Hume, the ac- 
 complished Jessup, the dignified McFarland, the 
 venerable McGilvary, the learned Martin, the 
 evangelistic Phillips, the scholarly Post, the en- 
 thusiastic Reid, the diplomatic Washburn ; such 
 Presbyterians as the steadfast Dennis, the courtly 
 Niccolls, the illustrious Schaff (how well I re- 
 member him as he stood on that platform, 
 trembling from a recent assault of paralysis) ; 
 such Reformers as Dike of Massachusetts, Glad- 
 den of Ohio, Peabody of Harvard University ; 
 such Romanists as the eminent Gibbons, the 
 American Ireland, the catholic Keane (I do not 
 say Roman Catholic — he is more than that ; he 
 is a catholic) ; such Scholars as the conservative 
 Sir William Dawson, the progressive Henry 
 Drummond, the erudite Max Muller ; such a 
 Shintoist as the gracious Shibata ; such Unita- 
 rians as the philosophic Alger, the versatile Hale, 
 the enthusiastic Jones ; such Women (and they 
 were a blessed force in the Parliament) as Laura 
 Ormiston Chant, Augusta J. Chapin, Lydia H. 
 Dickinson, Annis F. Eastman, Alice C. Fletcher, 
 Ellen M. Henrotin, Julia Ward Howe, Ida C. 
 Hultin, Elizabeth R. Sunderland, and that ex- 
 
112 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 quisite specimen of redeemed Parsee womanhood, 
 Jeanne Serabji. They were among the elect 
 spirits of mankind. 
 
 Results of the Parliament. First, The Par- 
 liament raised our spiritual zenith by heightening 
 our conceptions of God. It has intensified the 
 conviction that our God is no geographical deity, 
 like the local gods of Egypt, the tribal gods of 
 Greece, the pantheon gods of Rome, the national 
 god of Palestine, the ecclesiastical God of Chris- 
 tendom. It has shewn that our God's name is 
 Elohim as well as Jehovah. It has taught us 
 again the lesson which St. Peter was so slow to 
 learn when, in the presence of the devout heathen, 
 Cornelius, he was divinely forced to admit : 
 
 " Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter 
 of persons ; but in every nation he that feareth 
 him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable 
 to him." 
 
 Again, as the Parliament of Religions raised 
 our spiritual zenith by heightening our concep- 
 tions of God ; so the Parliament of Religions 
 broadened our spiritual horizon by enlarging our 
 conceptions of man. For it showed that mankind 
 is at bottom religious. Man is still made in the 
 image of God. True, that image is fearfully 
 
THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 113 
 
 defaced ; but it has not been totally effaced. 
 Deep down the grades of our fallen humanity, 
 in the very lowest and guiltiest of our race, a 
 generous vision shall discern, beneath wreck 
 and rubbish, some dim sense of right ; some 
 faint idea of duty ; some incipient, nebulous 
 yearning after better things. And these and 
 such as these are fragments, tiny and blurred, 
 indeed, nevertheless real fragments of the Divine 
 image. And these and such as these are the 
 prophets of hope ; the human basis for the pos- 
 sibility of human redemption and perfectation. 
 These and such as these are the real basis of 
 the human brotherhood. 
 
 Every morning there was a moment of supreme 
 sublimity in connection with the devotional serv- 
 ice. Some one, whom the chairman selected, led 
 the multitude of worshipers in repeating rever- 
 ently with bowed heads the Lord's Prayer. Thus, 
 representatives of mankind, and of various faiths, 
 bent in unison before the one Almighty Father 
 on the basis of his Son's universal prayer. Pagan 
 joined with Christian in exalting the name of 
 Him who is the King of kings and Lord of lords. 
 
XIII 
 
 The Disarmament of 
 Nations' 
 
 1 This proposal of disarmament was originally given in a public 
 address delivered in Washington City, on March 4, 1890, eight years 
 before the czar proposed his international conference for considering 
 the policy of reducing armaments, in the presence of a large audience, 
 including the then Secretary of State, several members of the Cabinet, 
 many members of Congress, many foreign ambassadors, etc., Mr. Jus- 
 tice Harlan, of the Supreme Court of the United States, presiding. It 
 was substantially repeated before the Peace Congress at the World's 
 Fair in Chicago, August 18, 1893, and the Peace Congress in London. 
 The original pamphlet has long been out of print. 
 
WAR 
 
 From hill to hill he harried me, 
 
 He stalked me day and night ; 
 He neither knew nor hated me, 
 
 Not his, nor mine, the fight. 
 
 He killed the man who stood by me, 
 
 For such they made his law ; 
 Then foot by foot I fought to him 
 
 Who neither knew nor saw. 
 
 I trained my rifle on his head, 
 
 He leapt up in the air, 
 My screaming ball tore thro' his breast 
 
 And lay imbedded there. 
 
 It lay imbedded there, and yet 
 
 Hissed home o'er hill and sea, 
 Straight to the aching heart of her 
 
 Who ne'er did harm to me. 
 
 —From " Ainslee's Magazine.' 
 
 I 
 
XIII 
 
 |OCIETY is more than a human organi- 
 zation ; it is a divine organism, into 
 which, ideally speaking, every human 
 being is born, from which no human being can 
 escape, the nature of which no human being can 
 change, to the essential terms of which every 
 human being is morally bound to conform. In 
 other words, Society is not an outward law ; So- 
 ciety is an inward life. St. Paul's classic analogon 
 of the human body, may well be applied to that 
 auguster organism we call Mankind. For Chris- 
 tianized Mankind is the culminating sample, the 
 realized ideal of St. Paul's " body," for it is only 
 when we conceive mankind as one colossal ideal 
 body, having all its organs in co-ordination and 
 all its functions in reciprocal action that we can 
 truly grasp this mighty word Mankind. It is a 
 sublime conception, which shall yet by God's 
 grace dominate humanity. 
 
 This analogon of the human body is not an 
 
 117 
 
u8 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 anatomical homologue, to be taken structurally, 
 but it is an ideal analogue, to be taken func- 
 tionally. Accordingly, his language is not to be 
 taken literally or sound-wise, but ideally or hint- 
 wise. In other words, his analogon is ideally 
 true ; and ideas are often the truest of truths. 
 Let not our familiarity with this analogy deaden 
 our sense of its varied and profound significance. 
 
 An Outline Statement. What our apostle's 
 analogon suggests is in main outline this : The re- 
 lation between men and men as being fellow-mem- 
 bers of the one great body of mankind is a func- 
 tional relation as real, vital, reciprocal, organic, as 
 the relation between the fellow-members of the 
 human body. That is to say : — as the human body 
 is a single organism, consisting of many different 
 organs and functions, balanced in common coun- 
 terpoise, and working in mutual interaction ; so 
 mankind is a single moral organism, consisting 
 in like manner of many diversities, balanced in 
 similar counterpoise and working in similar inter- 
 action. It is Christianity's positive, majestic 
 contribution to Sociology, or the Philosophy of 
 Society. 
 
 The Body the Truest Analogon of Man- 
 kind. Thus the human body is a profound and 
 
THE DISARMAMENT OF NATIONS 119 
 
 telling symbol, or rather suggestive functional 
 analogue of that majestic ideal organism which 
 we call the Social Body or Corporate Mankind. 
 How significantly we hint all this when we use 
 such familiar expressions as " Body Politic," 
 u Corps Legislatif" " ecclesiastical body," "taking 
 the sense of the body," "esprit de corps" etc. We 
 shall never rise to a higher or truer conception 
 of human society or mankind than under this 
 biologic analogue of the bodily organism. We 
 outlive human theories ; we shall never outlive 
 divine biology. And now let us attend to some 
 applications of this biological analogon to inter- 
 national life. 
 
 "Body" Implies Diverse "Members." On 
 the one hand the term "body" itself implies 
 "members"; and "members" imply diversity, 
 and diversity implies specific functions. Accord- 
 ingly, in the one great body of mankind, the 
 individuality of the component nations is pre- 
 served. For each nation — oh, that all the nations 
 understood it ! — is charged with its own divine 
 mission. Surveyed in this light, each nation, at 
 least while we are surveying it, is as it were a 
 single person. Recall how Jehovah — the Cove- 
 nant-God of the Hebrew people — in proclaiming 
 
120 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 his Ten Commandments, addressed the millions 
 of Israel as a single personality or one corporate 
 unity, saying : 
 
 "I am Jehovah, thy God, who brought thee 
 out of the land of Egypt, out of the house 
 of bondage " (Exod. 20 : 2), and continuing 
 to use the singular pronoun, "thou," "thee," 
 "thy," throughout the whole Decalogue. The 
 Jews, surveyed as individuals, were many Israel- 
 ites ; the Jews, surveyed as a nation of individ- 
 uals, were one Israel. In like manner, every 
 other nation worthy of the name of nation is 
 also a person, having at least some of the 
 attributes of personality ; that is, each nation 
 has its own peculiarities or natural idiosyn- 
 crasies. Recall, for example, Hebrew devout- 
 ness ; Babylonian constructiveness ; Egyptian 
 seriousness ; Greek culture ; Roman jurispru- 
 dence ; Indian (Asiatic) mysticism ; Gothic im- 
 petuosity ; Scandinavian valor ; Chinese conser- 
 vatism ; Japanese flexibility ; African docility ; 
 Indian (American) nomadism ; Spanish pride ; 
 Italian estheticism ; Roman persistence ; Swiss 
 federalism; French savoirfaii-e; German philos- 
 ophism ; English indomitableness ; Scotch shrewd- 
 ness ; Irish humor ; Welsh eloquence ; Canadian 
 
THE DISARMAMENT OF NATIONS 121 
 
 thrift ; American versatility, etc. Each nation 
 has its own Role definitely assigned it in the 
 great drama of mankind. What an insight into 
 the philosophy of history is given us by the 
 great missionary Paul when, addressing the proud 
 autochthones of the Areopagus, he announced : 
 
 ' 'God made of one every nation of men to 
 dwell on all the face of the earth, having fixed 
 appointed periods and the bounds of their habi- 
 tation " (Acts 17 : 26). 
 
 Diverse " Members" Imply a " Common Body." 
 While it is true that each nation has its own 
 individual mission, it is also true that all the 
 nations constitute one common Nation, namely, 
 the one august body of Mankind, the one sub- 
 lime corporation of humankind, whereof each 
 nation is, so to speak, a component member, and 
 each individual a specific organ, having its own 
 definite function to discharge in the one organism 
 of Mankind. In other words, each nation, in 
 simple virtue of its own existence as a nation is 
 also strictly international, being a corporate 
 member of the one divinely incorporated Society 
 of Mankind ; so that its relation to its fellow- 
 nations is a relation, not of hostile competition, 
 but of integrant co-operation. In still other 
 
122 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 words, the relation of nationalism to internation- 
 alism is the relation of the members and functions 
 to the body. 
 
 War is National Self-maiming. And now- 
 let me apply this sublime idea of international 
 life or corporate mankind to that frequent and 
 sad violation of it, namely, war. For, from what I 
 have said concerning the bodily organism as the 
 divine ideal of the one organic, corporate man- 
 kind, it follows that all war is not only interna- 
 tional wounding, but also national self-maiming. 
 Indeed, it is just because we persist in conceiving 
 society as a mechanical organization, like Hobbe's 
 "Leviathan/' rather than as a natural organism, 
 like the human body, that we also persist in re- 
 sorting to mechanical methods like war rather 
 than to natural methods like peace for settling 
 human quarrels. In fact, war is the culminating 
 sample of what St. Paul calls "a schism in the 
 body"; that is, a rending asunder of human 
 society, a dismemberment of mankind. 
 
 The whole New Testament, not only in its 
 trend but also in its details, is distinctly and em- 
 phatically against all war. Study it from Mat- 
 thew to Revelation ; I do not think you can cite 
 from it a solitary statement that even hints that 
 
THE DISARMAMENT OF NATIONS 123 
 
 Jesus Christ or his apostles ever approved of 
 physical war. No, the Son of Man came not to 
 destroy men's lives but to save them. The only 
 way in which you can defend war from the Bible 
 is by quoting from an expurgated edition — strik- 
 ing out the whole New Testament or ministra- 
 tion of life, leaving only the Old Testament or 
 ministration of death. Thank God, the New 
 Covenant is gaining on the old ; Moses is giving 
 way to Jesus. Even within the comparatively 
 short time since our own desolating civil strife 
 ceased, the conceptions of men concerning man- 
 kind have wonderfully cleared and broadened ; 
 the great problem of Sociology itself has come 
 conspicuously to the very front of human think- 
 ing. In fact, this great problem is no longer a 
 local problem concerning societies or men ; it is 
 henceforth a universal problem concerning So- 
 ciety or Man. Thinkers begin to see that war of 
 whatever kind, foreign as well as civic, is suicidal 
 as well as murderous. It is as though the mem- 
 bers should again revolt against the belly, or the 
 foot should kick against the nose, or the right 
 hand amputate the left. In fact, it is war which is 
 the real stupidity ; it is peace which is the real 
 sagacity. The time is fast passing by when 
 
124 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 thoughtful men will any longer cherish the senti- 
 mental tradition and barbarous fancy that a ques- 
 tion of national honor or international right can 
 really be settled by an appeal to gunnery, how- 
 ever elaborate. If we were materialists, and really 
 believed that the national honor is a matter of 
 molecular bulk — say a hundred cubic feet, or of 
 molecular weight — say a hundred tons, then we 
 might with some consistency undertake to de- 
 fend the national honor by a molecular appeal 
 to bayonets and bombs. In fact, molecular force 
 is the brute's standard of ethics. But if we be- 
 lieve that honor and right and truth are in their 
 nature spiritual, not molecular, let us be con- 
 sistent and maintain them by spiritual weapons, 
 not by molecular. 
 
 Divine Summons to American Disarmament. 
 Here, then, I take my stand as a Christian Soci- 
 ologist. Solemnly believing that the policy of 
 my Divine Master is a policy of peace, I as sol- 
 emnly believe that my Divine Master is summon- 
 ing earth's nations to a policy of disarmament. 
 How they shall effect this disarmament, whether 
 suddenly or gradually, whether separately or 
 simultaneously, I do not presume to assert. 
 But I do presume to assert, unhesitatingly and 
 
THE DISARMAMENT OF NATIONS 125 
 
 unqualifiedly, that the time has come when the 
 nations should commit themselves openly to the 
 policy of disarmament. 
 
 America's Great Opportunity. Meanwhile, 
 if I had the ear of my beloved country, I would 
 venture to offer so much as this : Let our Amer- 
 ican nation propose to our brother nations to 
 disarm ; substituting arbitration, or some other 
 pacific policy, for armament. All of us, whether 
 Republicans or Democrats, whether natives or 
 immigrants, will agree that if there is on earth a 
 nation that can afford to disarm and be known as 
 the great peace people, it is the American nation, 
 for our fortunes do not vibrate in the oscillating 
 balance of European powers. We are strong 
 enough, and ought to be brave enough, to say to 
 our brother nations of mankind : 
 
 We believe that war is a foolish, antiquated, 
 wicked policy. Let us disarm, referring our dis- 
 putes not to the bloody decisions of capricious 
 war, but to the peaceful arbitrament of Christian 
 common-sense. Let us enter into a covenant of 
 everlasting amity ; organizing a peace league 
 that shall be not only Pan-American, but also 
 Pan-human. We Americans take the initiative 
 in inviting all the nations of the earth to meet 
 with us in that greatest of congresses, " The 
 Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World." 
 
126 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 Summary. Here I rest my argument. I 
 might, of course, have descanted on the waste- 
 fulness of war — its frightful waste of money, of 
 time, of strength, of health, of capacity, of love, 
 of joy, of morals — in one great word — of life. 
 Never producing, forever consuming, war is the 
 very genius of that monstrous, pitiless, ghastly 
 fugitive from the infernal abyss, whose name in 
 the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon ; in the Greek, 
 Apollyon ; in the English, Destroyer. England's 
 Iron Duke, " foremost captain of his time," never 
 said a truer or sadder thing than in his dispatch 
 from the red field of Waterloo : " Nothing ex- 
 cept a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a 
 battle won." Our own brilliant Sherman ex- 
 claimed, " War is hell ! " But while such consid- 
 erations as these might perhaps have been more 
 thrilling, I have chosen to take higher ground, 
 appealing to a loftier principle. That loftier 
 principle is this : The divine conception of all 
 mankind as constituting one vast, many-mem- 
 bered moral body, one colossal corporate organ- 
 ism. In this majestic conception lies the secret 
 of the reconciliation of the great schism or dis- 
 memberment in the one body of Mankind. The 
 cure of war lies not in the suspicion and enmity 
 
THE DISARMAMENT OF NATIONS 127 
 
 and rivalry that are entrenched in armaments; 
 the cure of war lies in the confidence and brother- 
 hood and co-operation that are announced in 
 disarmament. For in what proportion Mankind 
 feels itself to be what its Maker and Lord meant 
 it should be, namely, one organic person rather 
 than a congeries of organized structures — in that 
 proportion race strifes will cease, nation saying 
 to nation, "We are members one of another." 
 
XIV 
 
 St. Paul's Cloak 
 
 1 Unfinished study. 
 
The cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, 
 bring, and the books, especially the parchments. 
 
 — 2 Timothy 4 : 13. 
 
 . . . lade Onesimus 
 
 . . . deep with love from me. 
 Christ will not fail him, if he fail not Christ ; 
 
 "It is but for a moment, all the pain," 
 
 Charge it upon Onesimus to-day, 
 " But for eternal ages is the joy ! " 
 
 I am to die . . . 
 But the majestic kingdom of my God 
 Will stand forever and forever good. 
 
 — The Epic of Paul. 
 
XIV 
 
 ATHOS of Parting Requests. Amid 
 the dreary damps of his Roman dun- 
 geon, with the most uncomplaining 
 simplicity, St. Paul writes to Timothy to bring 
 him his earthly possessions. 
 
 The Cloak. Was it a Roman penula? A 
 traveling mantle ? In all events, an old, well- 
 worn garment, keeping its own tale of sea and 
 storm ; of loving words and cruel taunts ; of 
 scourgings and blood. A warm mantle needed 
 in that Mamertine prison ; as Latimer in the 
 Tower of London, an old man ill-clad and fire- 
 less, cried out, "You look that I should burn, 
 but unless you let me have some fire I am like 
 to deceive your expectations, for I am like to 
 starve from cold." It is one of the curiosities of 
 ecclesiastical literature that some have regarded 
 this cloak as a " chasuble." 
 
 That I Left. He may have been too sud- 
 denly arrested to take his own possessions. 
 
 131 
 
132 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 At Troas. What memories attach to Homer's 
 "Tale of Troy Divine" ! The glory of Greece, 
 the magic of heroes ! It was in this city that St. 
 Paul beheld by night, on the opposite side of the 
 iEgean Sea, the phantom which beckoned him 
 to come "over and help" Macedonia. Was it 
 in rehearsing this vision that the enthusiastic 
 apostle spoke so long that Eutychus was overcome 
 with sleep and fell from the window ? 
 
 With Carpus. His name only is mentioned 
 here ; yet because it is mentioned here, it is more 
 illustrious than that of royal Priam, heroic Hec- 
 tor, naval Agamemnon — whose ships assailed 
 the Dardanelles — fierce Achilles, mighty Ajax, 
 brave Diomedes. Happy every custodian who, 
 like Carpus, is faithful in the charge of even 
 an old cloak. 
 
 Bring When Thou Comest. Then Paul was 
 expecting Timothy, or had sent for him, hope 
 which brightened the gloom of his dungeon. 
 
 The Books. The biblia, the little papyrus 
 scrolls. How many of us think, when we see 
 the Bible, that it was written on small scrips of 
 papyrus ? What were these biblia ? Were they 
 copies of Homer's " Iliad " ? Herodotus' histo- 
 ries ? ^Eschylus' tragedies ? Plato's dialogues ? 
 
ST. PAUVS CLOAK 133 
 
 Aristotle's ethics? Orations of Demosthenes? 
 Commentaries of Julius Caesar ? Speeches of 
 Cicero ? " ^Sneid " of Virgil ? 
 
 Or were these biblia copies of the Old Tes- 
 tament Scriptures ? The Pentateuch ? The 
 Chronicles ? The Psalms ? The Prophets ? Or 
 were they his private copies in which he had 
 written his own marginal notes? Did he dream 
 that when he was writing this request to Timothy, 
 he was writing a part of the Bible ? 
 
 Especially the Parchments. Membranes, 
 sheepskins, vellum. Some of the rarest treasures 
 of the great libraries of the world are membranes 
 or parchments ; for instance, the Codex Sinaiti- 
 cus, kept under glass in St. Petersburg. To this 
 day the diplomas of our universities are inscribed 
 on sheepskins. 
 
 What were these membranes, parchments ? 
 Were they his own private memoranda ? Out- 
 lines of letters to churches? Correspondence 
 with Peter, James, John, Apollos, Philemon ? 
 Love letters ? Caesar's sign-manual accrediting 
 his Roman citizenship ? Life is in the spirit. 
 The essential things are few. The biblia and 
 the parchments were essential to him, because 
 they held the great verities by which his life was 
 
134 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 dominated ; the body needed only warmth to 
 hold the spirit for the headsman's axe which 
 set it free. 
 
 Listen to the martyr Tyndal as he writes from 
 his prison in the castle of Vilvorde, to the gov- 
 ernor in the winter of 1535 : 
 
 " I entreat your Lordship, and that by the Lord 
 Jesus, that if I am to remain here during the 
 winter, you will request the Procureur to be kind 
 enough to send me from my goods which he has 
 in possession a warmer cap, for I suffer extremely 
 from cold ; a warmer coat also, for that which I 
 have is very thin ; also a piece of cloth to patch 
 my leggings, my shirts also are worn out ; I 
 wish also his permission to have a candle in the 
 evening, for it is wearisome to sit alone in the 
 dark. But above all, I entreat and beseech 
 Your Clemency to be urgent with the Procureur 
 that he may kindly permit me to have my 
 Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Grammar, and Hebrew 
 Dictionary, that I may spend my time with the 
 study'' (Demaus* "Biography of William Tyn- 
 dal," pp. 476, 477, etc.). 
 
 The Nearness of St. Paul. What though 
 he could work miracles ? He yet suffered like 
 ourselves with cold ; he sent for an old cloak. 
 
ST. PAUDS CLOAK 135 
 
 What though he was inspired ? He felt that he 
 must have his books and parchments, like any 
 other scholar. What though he was the hero 
 " who had fought the good fight " ? He yet calls 
 for little things. What though he was on the 
 confines between two worlds ? He grasps with the 
 one hand " the crown of righteousness," and with 
 the other the old cloak " which he left at Troas." 
 
 The Blessedness of Youthful Ministries 
 to Saintly Veterans. Happy the young Timo- 
 thies who may bring to the aged Pauls cloaks, 
 books, and manuscripts. Happy those who 
 bring to the aged Annas flowers, smiles, fruits, 
 jellies. "'Tis a little thing to give a cup of 
 water, yet its draught of cool refreshment, 
 drained by fevered lips, may give a shock of 
 pleasure to the frame more exquisite than when 
 nectarean juice renews the life of joy in happiest 
 hours. It is a little thing to speak a phrase of 
 common comfort, which by daily use has almost 
 lost its sense ; yet on the ear of him who thought 
 to die unmourned, 'twill fall like choicest music " 
 (Talford's "Ion," i : 2). 
 
 May each one of us receive Christ's cloak of 
 righteousness ; Christ's book of truth ; Christ's 
 parchments of heavenly citizenship, 
 
 K 
 
136 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 " O Almighty God, who alone canst order the 
 unruly wills and affections of sinful men ; grant 
 unto thy people, that they may love the thing 
 which thou commandest and desire that which 
 thou dost promise ; that so, among the sundry 
 and manifold changes of the world, our hearts 
 may surely there be fixed where true joys are to 
 be found, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." 
 
XV 
 
 Life Music 1 
 
 1 Elements of an extemporaneous address delivered at a musical 
 festival, Judson Memorial, New York City. 
 
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the 
 
 chords with might ; 
 
 Smote the chord of Self, that trembling, pass'd in music 
 
 out of sight. 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
XV 
 
 AN himself (the inner, true man) the 
 true music. 
 True for each individual. 
 Solo of Heart ; 
 Duet of Lips ; 
 
 Trio of Spirit and Soul and Body ; 
 Quartette of Hands and Feet ; 
 Basso of Righteousness ; 
 Contralto of Hope ; 
 Tenor of Faith ; 
 Soprano of Love ; 
 Gamut of the Beatitudes ; 
 Concert of all his Faculties ; 
 Harmony of his Profession and Character ; 
 Orchestra of his Bodily Powers ; 
 Tonic of Christ. 
 
 True for the Church. 
 Choir of each Church ; 
 
 Chorus of Christendom ; 
 
 139 
 
140 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 Symphony of the Kingdom ; 
 Hymn of Aspiration ; 
 Chant of Worship ; 
 Anthem of Adoration ; 
 Oratorio of Life ; 
 Organ of the Divine Breath ; 
 Bell of Invitation ; 
 Cymbal of Praise ; 
 Harp of Devotion ; 
 Trumpet of Jubilee ; 
 Overture of Human Time • 
 Heaven the Phone ; 
 Earth the Antiphone ; 
 Hallelujah-chorus of heaven. 
 
XVI 
 
 The Name Christian 1 
 
 i « why art thou called a Christian ? " asks the thirty-second question 
 in the Heidelberg Catechism. "Because I am a member of Christ by 
 Faith, and thus a partaker of His anointing ; that so I may confess His 
 name, and present myself a living sacrifice of thanksgiving to Him." 
 
The best of men 
 That e'er wore earth about him, was a sufferer; 
 A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit ; 
 The first true gentle-man that ever breathed. 
 
 — Thomas Decker. 
 
XVI 
 
 NTIOCH was a heathen city ; it was in 
 Antioch some ten years after the As- 
 cension, that the Disciples were first 
 called " Christians" or followers of One "Christ." 
 Although this word " Christian" has become one 
 of our most sacredly familiar words, yet it may 
 be surprising to learn that it occurs but three 
 times in the New Testament. Let us glance at 
 these successive instances ; for they mark a 
 progress in the order of their occurrence — an 
 order as logical as chronological. 
 
 And, first, the word " Christian " as an 
 epithet. Who gave the followers of Jesus this 
 name ? The followers of Jesus themselves ? 
 Hardly ; they were wont to speak of themselves 
 as " Believers, Brethren, Disciples, Elect, Faith- 
 ful, Followers, Holy, Saints, Those of the way," 
 etc. The Jews ? Hardly ; for the word " Chris- 
 tian " comes from the word " Christ " ; and to the 
 
 Jew the Greek word " Christ" meant "anointed," 
 
 143 
 
144 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 and was equivalent to the Hebrew word "Mes- 
 siah " ; accordingly, for Jews to call the followers 
 of Jesus " Christians " was to admit virtually that 
 they were followers of the Messiah. The Jewish 
 epithet for this new sect was " Galileans, Naza- 
 renes, Heretics." The heathen of Antioch? 
 Probably ; they knew little, and cared less, about 
 this Jewish foreigner called "Jesus"; but they 
 noticed that his followers were forever using the 
 word "Christ" in their talk, and so they called 
 these followers " Christians." 
 
 Secondly, the word " Christian " as a Pros- 
 elyte. 
 
 " Agrippa said to Paul, Almost thou persuad- 
 est me to be a Christian ; With but little persua- 
 sion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian ; 
 Thou somewhat persuadest me to make me a 
 Christian " (Acts 26 : 28). 
 
 Recall the thrilling scene : Agrippa's visit to 
 Festus ; the arraignment of the famous Jewish yet 
 cosmopolitan prisoner ; Paul's masterly defense ; 
 his sudden appeal to Agrippa, a man expert in 
 all the Jewish customs and questions : " King 
 Agrippa, believest thou the prophets ? I know 
 that thou believest " ; Agrippa's attempt to parry, 
 resorting to a semi-jest, " Oh, you fancy that with 
 
THE NAME CHRISTIAN 145 
 
 but little persuasion you can win me over to your 
 new sect ? " How magnanimous the illustrious 
 prisoner's reply : 
 
 " I could pray God, that both in some degree 
 and in a great degree, whether with little effort 
 or with great, not only thou, but also all that 
 hear me this day, may become such as I am, 
 except these bonds " (Acts 26 : 29). 
 
 Thirdly, the word " Christian " as a Char- 
 acter. 
 
 " If a man suffer as a Christian, let him not be 
 ashamed " (1 Peter 4:16). 
 
 How impressive the context. 
 
 " Be not astonished at the fiery test taking 
 place among you to prove you, as though a 
 strange thing were befalling you ; but, in so far 
 as ye share in Christ's sufferings, rejoice ; that, 
 at the revelation of His glory, also, ye may 
 rejoice with exceeding joy. If ye are reproached 
 in Christ's name, happy are ye ; because the 
 Spirit of glory and that of God rests on you. 
 For let no one of you suffer as a murderer, or a 
 thief, or an evil-doer, or as a busy-body in other 
 men's matters ; but if as a Christian, let him not 
 be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this 
 name" (1 Peter 4 : 12-16). 
 
146 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 According to Peter the Rock, to be a Christian 
 is to follow Christ himself ; to walk in Christ's 
 footsteps ; to share in his character ; to experience 
 his beatitudes ; in brief, to have Christ within, 
 and so put on Christ. It is a beautiful fulfilment 
 of the ancient prophet's saying : 
 
 " One shall say, I am Jehovah's ; and another 
 shall call himself by the name of Jacob ; and 
 another shall subscribe with his hand unto Jeho- 
 vah, and surname himself by the name of Israel " 
 (Isa. 44 : 5). 
 
 11 Christian " the greatest of names. Thus 
 the name " Christian," notwithstanding its 
 heathen and perhaps opprobrious origin, has 
 become the greatest of names. The term sums 
 up all that is greatest in character, history, gov- 
 ernment, literature, oratory, poetry, art, philoso- 
 phy, heroism, wisdom. It was great to be able 
 to say " Romanics sum." It is greater to be able 
 to say, " Christianus sum." How majestic the 
 moral growth involved in such words as these : 
 "Jesus," "The Christ," "Christ," "Christian," 
 "Christendom," "Christianity." Let us thank 
 God then for Antioch ; for in that pagan city the 
 word "Jew" was lost in the word "Christian." 
 How this great word " Christian " dwarfs such 
 
THE NAME CHRISTIAN 147 
 
 personal titles as " Athanasian, Augustinian, 
 Arminian, Lutheran, Zwinglian, Calvinist, Wes- 
 leyan, Swedenborgian, Campbellite," etc. How 
 it dwarfs such denominational titles as " Baptist, 
 Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist, Congre- 
 gationalism Quaker, Catholic, Protestant/' etc. 
 Yet the title " Christian " does underlie them all. 
 The two cosmopolitan names are " Man " and 
 " Christian." 
 
 The practical problem of the church is to make 
 these two names inter-changeable. 
 
XVII 
 
 The Olympic Games 
 
 " Chairete Nikomen ! " 
 
 1 A lecture at the University of Pennsylvania. Stenographic. 
 
On the Marathon day, 
 When Persia was dust, all cried : "To Akropolis 1 
 Run, Pheidippides, one race more ; the meed is thy due. 
 Athens is saved, go shout ! " He flung down his shield. 
 Run like fire once more. 
 
 Till in he broke : " Rejoice 
 Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died — the bliss. 
 Athens is saved ! " Pheidippides dies in the shout, for his meed. 
 
 — Robert Browning. 
 
XVII 
 
 O the superb conception of " Interna- 
 tional Athletics as a Factor in Secur- 
 ing Universal Peace," by the brilliant 
 French Baron de Coubertin, the world owes the 
 revival of the Olympic Games. " We shall not 
 have peace," wrote the baron, "until the preju- 
 dices which now separate the different races shall 
 have been outlived. To attain this end, what 
 better means than to bring the youth of all 
 countries periodically together? The Olympic 
 Games, with the ancients, controlled athletics 
 and promoted peace. It is not visionary to look 
 to them for similar benefactions in the future." 
 
 The Athenian generosity of Monsieur Georges 
 Averoff erected a marble Stadion, holding forty 
 thousand spectators — a restoration of the time 
 of Herodes Atticus. Once more Athens had the 
 excitement of watching a splendid building rear 
 its marble walls on the historic Panathenaic 
 
 site. In every province of Hellas and among 
 
 l 151 
 
152 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 the Athletic Associations of Germany, France, 
 England, Australia, Sweden, America, applica- 
 tions were made for a place in the lists. 
 
 The ancient games were only for one country, 
 Hellas ; "barbarians " were excluded ; the mod- 
 ern games included all nationalities, in racial 
 equality, as contestants for the olive boughs of 
 Olympia. 
 
 Easter Monday, April 6, 1896, was fixed for 
 the opening of the games, the seventy-fifth Anni- 
 versary of Greek Independence. 
 
 The solemn ceremonies of the impressive 
 Greek Easter had preceded, as was most fit- 
 ting ; for the ancient Games of Olympia were 
 above all things else supremely sacred contests, 
 into which only the pure in heart and aim might 
 enter in devotion to the great god Zeus. On 
 that glorious Easter Monday beautiful Athens 
 was even more beautiful than in the days of old, 
 when her poet exclaimed, 
 
 O thou ! our Athens ! violet-wreathed, brilliant, most 
 enviable city ! 
 
 The skies were as blue as when Pallas Athena 
 stretched her spear over the sea, and ^Eschylus 
 recited in the theatre of Dionysus. The bees 
 
THE OLYMPIC GAMES 153 
 
 were humming on the honeyed slopes of Hym- 
 mettos ; the plane tree of Plato was shining with 
 fresh young leaves ; and the snowdrops were 
 blooming on the bank by the Ilissos, where 
 the two great philosophers reclined to talk of 
 immortality ; small yellow-stars covered the hill 
 of Sophocles at Colonos, and down at old Pha- 
 lerum, by the asphodel meadows, the blue sea 
 sang the same song it sang to Ulysses. 
 
 The city was gay with decorations, wreaths, 
 garlands, pennons ; the houses were draped in 
 blue and white bunting ; the flags of many 
 nations, banners of the " barbarians, " waved 
 over the old letters " O A." 
 
 Heralds of this new age of International Peace, 
 the representatives of many nations in pictur- 
 esque and varied costumes moved through the 
 bright streets to the great Stadion of M. AverorT. 
 The sixty tiers of seats were entirely filled, 
 and on the hills around a great concourse was 
 gathered in eager expectation. 
 
 Fifteen hundred and two years after the Em- 
 peror Theodosius had abolished the Olympic 
 Games, " thinking he was furthering human 
 progress," a Christian King of Greece was about 
 to re-open them with loftier purpose and world- 
 
154 LIp E AND LIGHT 
 
 wide outlook. Who that saw that memorable 
 scene in the great hemicycle can ever forget its 
 mighty thrill ? The vast throng, the hush of 
 awe as all arose ; the solemn entrance of the 
 King and the Queen ; the stately proclamation 
 of the opening of the games ; the Olympic ode 
 sung by one hundred and fifty voices ! In that 
 moment of intense excitement no one was wholly 
 Athenian, or wholly French, or wholly American, 
 but the dream of Socrates was realized — each one 
 was a citizen of the world. And the thought of 
 a greater than Socrates seemed also realized, 
 when addressing the proud autochthones of the 
 Areopagus, but a short distance away from the 
 Stadion, he announced : " God made of one 
 blood (nature) every nation of men to dwell on 
 all the face of the earth" (Acts 17 : 26). 
 
 The games lasted ten days, and it cost but a 
 drachma to enter. Each day was intensely inter- 
 esting, not because the games as athletics were 
 especially marked by skill or prowess — I need 
 not have left Philadelphia for that — but because 
 of the historical associations going back nearly 
 three thousand years. 
 
 It was gratifying to my pride, of course, that 
 a decisive majority of the games were won by 
 
THE OLYMPIC GAMES 155 
 
 Americans, chiefly from the Boston Athletic 
 Association and Princeton University. I sin- 
 cerely hope, as a trustee of the University of 
 Pennsylvania, we may be nobly represented in 
 the next Olympiad. There were all sorts of 
 games, except equestrian. There were wrest- 
 ling, boxing, foot races, leaping, throwing the 
 discus, which has been from the beginning pecu- 
 liarly a Greek game. The victor in the discus 
 throwing was Mr. Robert Garrett, of Princeton 
 University. One game, however, seemed to be- 
 long by right to the Greeks — the race to Mara- 
 thon, called Marathon Day. You will remem- 
 ber that the battle of Marathon, fought 490 b. c, 
 was one of the decisive battles of the world, 
 when Miltiades, by his superior tactics, won the 
 ever-memorable victory over the army of Xerxes, 
 the Persian sovereign. 
 
 " Hallowed by his prowess lies the field of 
 Marathon," said the lyric poet Simonides. 
 "Cold, indeed, and little to be envied, is that 
 man," said Lord Macaulay, "whose patriotism 
 does not gain force on the plain of Marathon." 
 
 When the battle was won, and " Persia 
 was dust," eleven thousand Greeks having 
 vanquished one hundred thousand Persians, 
 
156 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 Pheidippides, the fleetest runner of Greece, who 
 had previously run to Sparta for aid — according 
 to Dr. William Smith, covering the distance of 
 one hundred and fifty miles in forty-eight hours — 
 was now chosen to carry this glorious news to 
 Athens. Robert Browning, thrilling with Greek 
 pride, has told us how he "ran like fire," falling 
 dead at the gate of Athens as he cried : 
 
 Chairete Nikomen ! Rejoice / we conquer / 
 
 Spyridion Loues, an humble peasant living ob- 
 scurely a few miles from Athens, in the village of 
 Marousi, applied to enter the race, and the com- 
 mittee refused on the ground that many of the 
 contestants had been practising a year, and he 
 had never run at all. He pleaded so earnestly 
 for the honor of Hellas to be admitted, that at 
 length his pertinacity triumphed, and Prince Con- 
 stantine added his name. For three days pre- 
 ceding the race he fasted and prayed, asking for 
 the honor of Greece that he might win, perchance 
 with some faith in the aid of the great Saint Spyri- 
 dion of Corfu, whose name he bore. On the morn- 
 ing of Marathon Day, he set out from his farm, 
 with his mother's Spartan blessing : " My son, 
 return to me victor, or dead." 
 
THE OLYMPIC GAMES 157 
 
 At least seventy thousand spectators— some say 
 one hundred thousand — were present in the Sta- 
 dion and on the surrounding hills. As the time 
 drew near for the arrival of the winner of glory for 
 Greece, every eye was intensely strained toward 
 the entry gate to see which of the eighteen run- 
 ners should come in first. The suspense grew 
 so keen and painful that the mighty throng even 
 ceased to whisper. Suddenly there was a boom 
 of cannon, token of some arrival along the 
 Cephissia road ; a moment of the most intense 
 expectation, holding of breath, then the soldiers 
 on the outside of the arena parted right and left, 
 and the white chiton of a Greek appeared. 
 Shouts rent the air. 
 
 Ellene! Ellene? 
 Ellene / Nikomen / 
 Chairete Nikomen / 
 
 The vast throng rose, screamed, waved, 
 stamped, jumped ; the Crown Prince seized the 
 victor in his arms and lifted him on high ; the 
 King tore his cap as he flung it into the air in 
 triumph; cannon boomed, music burst, the Greeks 
 wept with joy ; flights of doves bearing little 
 Greek flags were sent over the city and through 
 
158 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 Attica ; the tumult of excitement passed beyond 
 all bounds of description and Loues was suffo- 
 cated in eager embraces and loaded with gifts. 
 The race of twenty-five miles over the stony road, 
 jagainst practised runners had been won in two 
 hours, fifty-eight minutes and fifty seconds. 
 Avoiding the crowds as soon as he could Loues 
 modestly hastened away to the small farm at 
 Marousi, where the Spartan mother came forth 
 to meet him : " My son, thy meal is ready, I have 
 expected thee." 
 
 Loues subsequently refused the large sums of 
 money offered him, and gave the precious vase 
 and silver cup to the Museum at Athens. He 
 said with simplicity : " I have run for the honor 
 of Greece, that is enough." 
 
 Thus the sacred element which made the 
 ancient games so profoundly religious was per- 
 petuated in the new Olympiad by the persistent 
 faith of the son of the soil. 
 
 How often during these days while gazing on 
 that arena and the " great cloud of witnesses " 
 did my mind revert to St. Paul's words : "I strain 
 every energy to win my race." Again, on the 
 closing day, when the procession of the victors 
 came to receive each man his olive bough from 
 
THE OLYMPIC GAMES 159 
 
 the sacred grove at Olympia : "I have finished 
 my race ; henceforth there is laid up for me the 
 garland." 
 
 The Apostle Paul was fond of imagery sug- 
 gested by the ancient stadion ; himself a Christian 
 athlete, he could find no sturdier metaphors than 
 those suggested by the religious athletics of the 
 Greeks, whose language he spoke and wrote. 
 For instance : Does he wish to incite the Cor- 
 inthian Christians to a sturdier religious life? 
 He reminds them of the Isthmian Games cele- 
 brated every three years at a spot some nine 
 miles from Corinth itself. Let me presume to 
 paraphrase : 
 
 " Do you remember that although many enter 
 the lists in your national games, yet only the 
 winner receives the prize? In like manner, you, 
 who are running the race marked out for you in 
 the Christian stadion, should run in such a way 
 as to win. You know that every one who com- 
 petes in these games must be temperate, not only 
 in food and drink, but also in every direction. 
 Now these competitors, whether at the Corinth- 
 ian Isthmus or in the Olympian Plain, struggle 
 for a prize that is perishable — a branch of fading 
 olive or pine. But we Christians struggle for a 
 
160 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 prize that is imperishable — even the amaranthine 
 crown of perfected character. I also have en- 
 tered the lists. When I run, I run with a definite 
 goal clearly in view. When I box, I box with a 
 real antagonist, not an imaginary. In my case 
 that real antagonist is my own body-nature with 
 its appetites and lusts ; these I am trying to train 
 down to the utmost, and so bring my body-nature 
 into absolute subjection to my spiritual ; lest by 
 any means, after having served as one of the 
 heralds in proclaiming the lists, I myself should 
 be cast out of the arena" (i Cor. 9 : 24-27). 
 
 Again, would our apostle warn the Philippian 
 Christians against self-complacent sense of per- 
 fection ? He tries to do this by setting forth his 
 own desperate struggles after the ideal life in 
 terms again borrowed from the stadion : 
 
 " Not that I have already reached the goal 
 and so obtained the prize ; but I keep pressing 
 on in the race, if so be that I may achieve that 
 vocation for which Christ Jesus seized me on my 
 way to Damascus. Brothers, I do not deem my- 
 self yet to have grasped the prize ; on the other 
 hand, I am straining every energy to run my race 
 and so accomplish my mission ; instead, then, of 
 turning back to look at any way-marks I may 
 
THE OLYMPIC GAMES 161 
 
 have passed, I bend every energy in stretching 
 forward to what still lies before me, pressing on 
 toward my goal, even the prize of God's heavenly 
 vocation of me in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3 : 12-14). 
 
 Again, is our apostle in his second Roman cap- 
 tivity awaiting Nero's sentence of martyrdom ? 
 He writes to his dear Timothy in language vivid 
 with the imagery of the stadion : 
 
 " I am already being poured out as a drink 
 offering on the altar of service, and the time of 
 my exodus is at hand. I have struggled the good 
 struggle, I have finished the race assigned me, 
 I have guarded the trust confided to me ; hence- 
 forth there is laid up for me the garland — not of 
 fading olive — but of immortal righteousness ; 
 which our master — the impartial Arbiter — shall 
 give to me on that day of final awards ; and not 
 only to me, but also to all those who have loved 
 his epiphany" (2 Tim. 4 : 6-8). 
 
 Once more, would the writer of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews inspire his readers with patient 
 steadfastness in their Christian career ? He also 
 uses imagery suggested by the ancient stadion : 
 
 " I have just called out a muster-roll of the Old 
 Testament sons of faith ; behold them crowding 
 those benches of our Christian stadion, tier on 
 
1 62 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 tier, from righteous Abel onward, surrounding us 
 like a mighty cloud of witnesses. Let us also, 
 like them, rid ourselves of every kind of encum- 
 brance as though so much superfluous flesh, and 
 especially the easily entangling mantle of sin, and 
 let us run with heroic endurance the race our 
 Father has appointed us in the arena of Provi- 
 dence, looking away unto Jesus, who is alike our 
 goal and our prize, himself both the leader and 
 the closer of the mighty lines of the sons of 
 faith ; who for the prize that was set before him 
 endured the cross, despising shame, and is now 
 enjoying as his reward his regal session at the 
 right hand of the throne of the Majesty on high" 
 (Heb. 12:1, 2). 
 
 May every one of us so acquit himself in the 
 Christian stadion as to win the crown of glory 
 that fadeth not away. 
 
XVIII 
 
 The Old Order Changeth 
 
'The old order changeth, yielding place to new." 
 
 The succeeding of an order new, 
 
 A heavenly kingdom, with a heavenly King." 
 
XVIII 
 
 ROBABLY the greatest discovery which 
 has been made in modern times is the 
 ethical discovery that the human race 
 is a solidarity or one body politic. True, Socrates 
 had caught glimpse of this noble conception when 
 he said he was "not an Athenian or a Greek, but a 
 citizen of the world "; a sentiment which Terence 
 echoed when he declared, " I am a man, and 
 nothing that concerns a man do I deem alien 
 to me." Nevertheless, Aristotle, broad-minded 
 though he was, expressed the general sentiment 
 of mankind when he asserted that "of all wars 
 those are most necessary and just which are 
 made by men against wild beasts, and next, 
 those made by Greeks against strangers, who 
 are naturally our enemies"; a sentiment which 
 the brilliant but morbid philosopher of Geneva, 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau, echoed when he pessi- 
 mistically affirmed, "War is man's natural state." 
 
 Accordingly the nations have hitherto regarded 
 
 165 
 
1 66 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 themselves as being independent or insular, and 
 therefore naturally competitive and hostile. 
 
 Hence the assumed necessity for fortifications, 
 permanent armaments, military academies, etc. 
 "Assumed" I say: for this well-nigh universal 
 conviction of the necessity of wars and therefore 
 of standing armies is in my judgment a sample 
 of what Bacon calls "idols of the tribe" or 
 fallacies incident to mankind in general, and 
 also " idols of the theatre," or errors due to im- 
 perfect and misleading philosophic systems. In 
 other words, this notion of the insularity of 
 nations is one of the many fallacies and mis- 
 educations bequeathed us from an immemorial, 
 possibly pre-adamite, antiquity. Perhaps the 
 time has not yet come when we ought to teach 
 our youths the duty and practicability of in- 
 variably substituting arbitration or some equally 
 pacific policy for war in settling international 
 disputes. But the time has surely come when 
 we ought to teach our youths the duty of study- 
 ing this transcendent matter of international rela- 
 tions, no longer in the infant realm of traditional 
 assumptions and hereditary postulates, but in 
 the adult realm of intellectual and ethical in- 
 quiry. For example : I think the time has come 
 
THE OLD ORDER CHANG ETH 167 
 
 when we ought to teach our students in moral 
 anthropology to raise some such questions as 
 the following : 
 
 "Is it really true that we are living under a law of prog- 
 ress, so that what our fathers regarded as right may possibly 
 be wrong to-day ? " ' ' Is it really true that right is a matter 
 of physical molecules so that physical force does settle 
 disputed questions of honor, veracity, morality, ' might thus 
 making right ' ? ' ' "Is it really true that ' vox populi, ' is 
 always ' vox DeV ?" "Is it really true that there is such a 
 thing as i manifest destiny, ' and if so, is ' manifest destiny ' 
 therefore always right?" "Is it really true that because 
 our flag has once been raised in a particular locality it must 
 therefore remain there always, wholly irrespective of the 
 moral circumstances under which it was raised?" "Is it 
 really true that the 'end sanctifies the means'?" "Is it 
 really true that ' victory ' always means ' Providence, ' so that 
 Voltaire was right when he said that ' God is always on the 
 side of the heaviest battalions'?" "May not polygamy 
 and slavery as well as war be defended from the Bible ? ' ' 
 ' ' Does the founder of Christianity really teach war, or 
 peace ? " " Was William Penn' s pacific policy in Pennsyl- 
 vania a civic failure ? " " What is the exact arithmetical 
 proportion required to transfigure the wickedness of a fight 
 between two individuals into the holiness of a war between 
 two nations?" "At what precise mathematical point does 
 the wrong of duel end and the right of battle begin?" etc., 
 etc., etc. 
 
 M 
 
168 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 Such are some of the many grave questions 
 which are challenging to-day the profound in- 
 vestigation of all true students. They are as 
 truly matters of careful research as any ques- 
 tions in chemistry or biology. As we no longer 
 teach astronomy from the standpoint of Ptolemy 
 or biology from the standpoint of Paracelsus, so 
 let us no longer teach international ethics from 
 the standpoint of hereditary assumption or pre- 
 historic tradition. 
 
 Even our Benjamin Rush so long ago as 1798 
 proposed the establishment at Washington of a 
 Department of Peace which should be co-ordinate 
 with the Departments of the Army and Navy. 
 Since we have come now, in our twentieth cen- 
 tury, to a different stage of human thought and 
 development, 
 
 " New occasions teach new duties." 
 
 Hitherto, the competitions, the ambiguities, the 
 assumptions, the misunderstandings, the selfish 
 feuds of nations have been settled by 
 
 An Old Method. From the wrathful heights 
 of Sinai : that lex talionis, which adjusted all 
 disputes by physical retaliation, "an eye for an 
 eye," etc.; "a life for a life," etc.; brute force 
 being the animal standard of ethics. But are 
 
THE OLD ORDER CHANGE TH 169 
 
 we not now wise enough to observe the law of 
 adaptation by which God has been pleased to 
 reveal himself — " the law of economy of action." 
 Shall we not progress to educate by 
 
 A New Method. From the peaceful height of 
 Calvary : the Pax Vobiscum, which regards men 
 as mankind, one moral organism, one corporate 
 life, and settles all difficulties by Christ's standard 
 of Ethics. Of these two methods, one is : 
 
 Outward. Animal in force, brutalizing in 
 result ; killing, exterminating, wasting strength, 
 youth, manhood ; lowering the capacities of love, 
 joy, hope ; checking development, never pro- 
 ducing, forever consuming. The other is : 
 
 Inward. Gentle in progress ; healing the 
 wounds of society by the therapeutics of love ; 
 co-operative in moral life, constructive, produc- 
 tive, economical. 
 
 Why should not our own beloved America 
 lead all other nations in a higher education in 
 the loftier Science of sciences, Christian Ethics ? 
 
 Mankind needs an esprit de corps ; the sense 
 of corporate life. And this esprit de corps, this 
 sense of organic relations, can come to mankind 
 only through the avenue and in the sphere of 
 the Lord of Eternal Ethics. 
 
170 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 The teachings of those higher personal, social, 
 national, international Ethics must be 
 
 First, Negative. To rectify misconceptions 
 and historic assumptions : 
 
 That greatness consists in vastness ; 
 
 That might consists in force ; 
 
 That right consists in numbers ; 
 
 That patriotism consists in following the flag; 
 
 That victory proves Providence ; 
 
 That Old Testament is Christianity. 
 
 Second, Positive : 
 
 That righteousness consists in altruism ; 
 That patriotism consists in internationalism ; 
 That chivalry consists in Beatitudes ; 
 That manliness consists in Christliness. 
 
 There are two men in every man, the lower 
 and the higher. The lower man is egotistic, 
 isolated, aggressive. War appeals to him be- 
 cause his moral obtuseness clings to the methods 
 of animal life. Despite all its so-called "glory," 
 what is war but the enlarging of the tusks, claws, 
 stings of animals, into the mangling, tearing, 
 crunching bullet, shell, bomb, cannon ? 
 
 The higher man in each man is altruistic, 
 
THE OLD ORDER CHANGE TH 171 
 
 loving his neighbor, co-operative, productive, 
 economical, seeking to pursue after a divine 
 Ideal, crying : 
 
 Arise and fly 
 The reeling faun, the sensual feast ; 
 Move upward, working out the beast, 
 And let the ape and tiger die ; 
 
 aspiring to the wonder of Christ's character. To 
 follow Christ's teachings is to dwell in the lofty 
 freedom of his truth— it is to end all feuds and 
 rivalries and to league all mankind in a covenant 
 of endless amity. 
 
 Peace requires far more courage than war. 
 The true warrior is he who carries the olive 
 bough. The true hero is he who wields that 
 sword of the Spirit which Christ "came to 
 bring," according to Christ's own methods. The 
 athletics of the Beatitudes are the very essence 
 and pith of a genuine manhood. They require 
 sturdy moral muscle and robust mental disci- 
 pline. Christ's altruism is the true philosophy 
 of society. 
 
 Do you tell me this is all impracticable, 
 Utopian ? 
 
 Do you ask : 
 
172 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 Watchman, tell us of the night, 
 What its signs and promise are ? 
 
 Look backward from to-day, 1897, to Ae time 
 when we had no International Sunday-school 
 Lessons ; no interdenominational salutations and 
 reciprocities ; no interminglings of peoples ; no 
 International Court of Arbitration. Thank God 
 for that word " inter." 
 
 Look onward. 
 
 Not in vain the distance beacons. 
 
 Observe carefully the changing trend of human 
 thought, and beware lest you remain stranded. 
 
 & Homme a Venir 
 
 is no vain dream. The Beatitudes are the re- 
 sistless dynamic forces which hasten the reign of 
 Universal Peace. 
 
 Sounding through the spaces, though as yet 
 faint and far, yet surely sounding, are the bells 
 
 that 
 
 Ring out the thousand years of war, 
 
 Ring in the thousand years of peace ; 
 
 Ring in the Christ that is to be. 
 
XIX 
 
 The Universal Homo 
 
Christ ! to Thee, with God the Father, 
 
 And, O Holy Ghost, to Thee ! 
 Hymn, and chant, and high thanksgiving, 
 
 And unwearied praises be ; 
 Honor, glory, and dominion, 
 
 And eternal victory, 
 Evermore and evermore. Amen. 
 
 — Aurelius Clemens Prudentius 
 (Fourth Century). 
 
XIX 
 
 iESUS was — to use his own favorite 
 designation of himself, recurring some 
 eighty times in the Gospels — " The Son 
 of Man" Observe : the designation is not " a 
 son of man " ; neither is it "a son of men"; 
 neither is it " the son of men " ; but it is " The 
 Son of Man." As such the designation is ab- 
 solutely unique. See how the Son of Man 
 illustrates in himself all essential human capaci- 
 ties — for example, reason, imagination, con- 
 science, courage, patience, faith, hope, love ; 
 blending in his own pure whiteness all colors of 
 all manly virtues, all hues of all womanly graces, 
 as though he himself were Eternal God's own 
 infinite, ever-blessed sunlight. In other words, 
 Jesus is the universal Homo ; blending in himself 
 all races, ages, capacities, temperaments, types. 
 See how he blends in himself the race-marks of 
 the three sons of Noah — Shemitic reverence, 
 
 Hamitic force, Japhetic culture. Jesus is the trans- 
 
 175 
 
176 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 cendent Vir, from the hem of whose robe virtue 
 is ever flowing ; himself alike the radiating focus 
 of all best impulses and the converging focus of 
 all best achievements. Towering above all man- 
 kind, yet permeating all mankind, Jesus is man- 
 kind's one mighty archetypal, antitypal, consum- 
 mate Man ; the symbol of perfected human 
 nature ; the Alpha and the Omega of unfolded, 
 full-filled humanity. The Son of Man, he, and 
 none but he, realizes Auguste Comte's majestic 
 dream of the apotheosis of humanity ; the very 
 refusal of the great positivist to enshrine Jesus 
 in his own Pantheon being his own possibly 
 unconscious, but certainly transcendent tribute 
 to the Man of men. 
 
 Glance for a moment at the universality of 
 Christ's religion. All other religions are, com- 
 paratively speaking, more or less topographical ; 
 for example, there is the Institute religion of 
 Sinai ; the Priest religion of Egypt ; the Hero 
 religion of Greece ; the Empire religion of Rome ; 
 the Brahma religion of India ; the Buddha relig- 
 ion of Ceylon ; the Valhalla religion of Scandi- 
 navia ; the Islam religion of Arabia ; the Spirit 
 religion of our aboriginal America. But Chris- 
 tianity is the religion of mankind. Baal was 
 
THE UNIVERSAL HOMO 177 
 
 Phoenician ; Osiris was Egyptian ; Apollo was 
 Greek ; Mars was Roman ; Zoroaster was Per- 
 sian ; Confucius was Chinese ; Gautama was 
 Indian ; Odin was Norse ; Mohammed was Ara- 
 bian. But Jesus is the Son of Man. And there- 
 fore his religion is the religion of the sons of men ; 
 equally suited to black and white, mountaineers 
 and lowlanders, landsmen and seamen, philoso- 
 phers and catechumens, patriarchs and children. 
 See how he absorbs and assimilates into his own 
 perfect religion all that is good in other religions 
 — the symbolism of Judea ; the aspiration of 
 Egypt ; the sestheticism of Greece ; the loyalty 
 of Rome ; the hopefulness of Persia ; the con- 
 servatism of China ; the mysticism of India ; the 
 enthusiasm of Arabia ; the energy of Teutonia ; 
 the versatilities of Christendom. Like the great 
 sea, his religion keeps flowingly conterminous 
 with the ever-changing shore-line of every conti- 
 nent, every island, every promontory, every estu- 
 ary. And this because he is the Son of Man, in 
 whom there is and can be neither Jew nor non- 
 Jew, neither Greek nor Scythian, neither Asiatic 
 nor American, neither male nor female ; but all 
 are one new man in him, and he is All in All. 
 
XX 
 
 The Outlook for the 
 Twentieth Century' 
 
 A. d. 1898. 
 
Surely the world doth wait 
 The coming of its Redeemer. 
 
 — Longfellow. 
 
XX 
 
 FEEL sure that the general trend of 
 the next century will be onward and 
 upward ; and this because I feel sure 
 that the Lord of the Centuries has not lived 
 and died and risen in vain. Accordingly, I 
 believe that the spirit of Jesus Christ will be 
 the dominant force in the coming century. I 
 believe, for instance, that his Mountain Ser- 
 mon will become more and more the supreme 
 constitution for Mankind ; that as the church 
 understands more and more his mission and 
 character, and teachings and work, her con- 
 ceptions of God will be more and more height- 
 ened, and her conceptions of man will be more 
 and more broadened ; that the instincts of ani- 
 malism will be lost in the sense of divine son- 
 ship ; that agnosticism will melt in the heat of 
 personal Christian experiences ; that anarchy 
 against man will flee before loyalty to God ; that 
 the kingdom of God will be less in word and 
 
 181 
 
1 82 LIFE AND LIGHT 
 
 more in power ; that sectarianism will be swal- 
 lowed in catholicity ; that ecclesiasticism will 
 wane and Christianity will wax ; that character 
 rather than opinion will be the test of ortho- 
 doxy ; that Church and State will dissolve part- 
 nership ; that Church and Academy will join 
 hands in glad bridal — the church acknowledging 
 the Bible of Nature and the academy acknowl- 
 edging the Bible of Scripture — that the standard 
 of ethics — personal, domestic, social, educational, 
 commercial, national, international, Christian — 
 will grow higher and higher ; that heredity will 
 gain Christian momentum ; that environment 
 will undergo transfiguration ; that the sense of 
 individual responsibility, and also of corporate 
 community, will alike deepen ; that society will 
 agree that chastity shall be as binding on man 
 as on woman — that life-imprisonment will sup- 
 plant death penalty ; that legislation, whether 
 mandatory or prohibitory, will make way for in- 
 telligent and cheerful self-regimen ; that office 
 will soar from ambition into service ; that wealth 
 and work, instead of quarreling, will co-operate ; 
 that culture will become more conscious of ac- 
 countability to God and to man ; that society 
 will tend toward equilibrium of forces and of 
 
THE OUTLOOK FOR THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 183 
 
 functions ; that egotistic insularity will be merged 
 into altruistic terrestrialism ; that the Jew will 
 regain the blessings promised in Abraham ; that 
 Christendom will disarm ; that the whole world 
 will become one neighborhood ; that human 
 units will grow into human unity — men into 
 Man ; that the Golden Rule will become more 
 and more the law of society ; that faith, hope, 
 love will be acknowledged the human trinity — 
 in brief, that the twentieth century will be in 
 very truth a century of Christocracy. 
 
L'Envoi 
 
LOVE 
 
 Love is the ethereal medium pervading 
 God's moral universe, by means of which are 
 propagated the motions of his impulses, the 
 heat of his grace, the light of his truth, the 
 electricity of his activities, . the magnetism 
 of his nature, the affinities of his character, 
 
 THE GRAVITATION OF HIS WILL. In BRIEF, LoVE 
 
 is the very definition of deity himself. " god 
 is love ; and he that abideth in love abideth 
 in God, and God in him." 
 
-)Jf- 
 
 flllemorabiKa 
 
H Character 
 
 Tin Jttlemortam : George Dana 3Boavbman 
 
 By William Cleaver Wilkinson 
 
 Large-minded and great-hearted; loyal friend 
 Master of all amenity and grace, 
 Yet capable of scorning what was base 
 With a serene severity to send 
 A thrill of pleasure to the pulses' end, 
 A sympathetic flush into the face, 
 Of any noble who might chance in place 
 Hearing to such severity to lend; 
 
 Brave, manly, gentle, gentle-manly, sweet, 
 He had his arch, appealing, childlike ways, 
 
 At times, as if of helplessness complete ; 
 And he was amiably fond of praise, 
 
 But fond not less of praising, as was meet- 
 Peace-lover and peace-maker all his days! 
 University of Chicago 
 
Memorabilia 
 
 **fdgg|F asked to characterize in one word the distin- 
 I WSi g u ishing feature of that ideal Christian gentle- 
 rt ^ 1 ™ man, George Dana Boardman," writes Dr. Kerr 
 Boyce Tupper, his eminent pulpit successor, " I should 
 say, Manliness, in the broad, inclusive sense of that 
 large term. This is not a single trait of character sep- 
 arable from others ; it is rather a resultant, the fulness 
 and harmony that arise from a combination of the higher 
 human excellencies. It is what a man weighs morally, 
 the substance of life after the chaff has been blown 
 away. It is devotion to right in a large way, on a gen- 
 erous scale. Manliness is more than eloquence or titles 
 or position. Doctor Boardman was an author, gifted 
 and voluminous ; a scholar, profound and accurate ; a 
 preacher, clear and instructive ; a pastor, loving and 
 wise ; a man, strong and sincere ; a Christian, presenting 
 ever in himself constant and consistent illustrations of 
 the glorious principles of the blessed evangel he de- 
 lighted to preach. Our friend and brother won admira- 
 tion, honor, and respect wherever known. Few men so 
 translated high thinking into noble living, few Christian 
 ministers so matched creed with character, doctrine with 
 doing, sermon with service. More than his finely stored 
 intellect was his beautiful, generous, Christlike spirit, 
 
 3 
 
4 MEMORABILIA 
 
 rich in transcendent virtues, which are the girdle of a 
 man's real beauty, himself an admirable moral force as 
 well as an attractive Christian personality. 
 
 " His character was essentially aromatic ; he bore al- 
 ways an atmosphere of fragrant and enduring influence, 
 with an exquisite tenderness of thought and speech. 
 His manners were the translation of his spirit into 
 form, the true balance and harmony of soul, the shadow 
 of virtue itself." 
 
 "The first thing," says Doctor Morse, "that impresses 
 one concerning Doctor Boardman, whether in his books 
 or in personal intercourse, is his courtesy. He was first 
 of all a Christian gentleman. With some courteous men, 
 politeness is an outward acquisition, a garment that may 
 often be forgotten or worn awry. With him it was a 
 cultivated instinct, a trained spontaneity, an inner con- 
 stitutional habit ; to forget it would be as if he forgot to 
 breathe. The fellahin of Egypt and the peasants of 
 Galilee were as much impressed by it as were the assem- 
 blies of scholars and the men of light and leading in all 
 countries. It was simply his inward altruism moving 
 outward, his unselfish thought of his neighbor first, 
 before himself, which characterized his entire life from 
 childhood to maturity." 
 
 Willis Fletcher Johnson, the eminent New York ed- 
 itor, writes : " It was an inestimable privilege to know 
 Doctor Boardman, and it is likewise a privilege to be 
 permitted to pay even a part of the tribute due to his 
 
MEMORABILIA 5 
 
 great worth. He was conspicuously a man who de- 
 voted himself to his calling. There was in his whole 
 career no straining for applause or notoriety and no 
 seeking after selfish interests. He strove with all the 
 energies of his rare mind and heart to preach the gospel. 
 " He was a most effective and convincing pulpit ora- 
 tor and master of a pure and fascinating English style. 
 His ripe scholarship made him a potent force in mat- 
 ters of theological and philosophical education, and en- 
 abled him to make on the thought of his time a deep 
 and lasting mark. Measured by enduring influence for 
 righteousness, Doctor Boardman must ever stand in the 
 foremost rank of Christian ministers of his time and 
 land. The work he did was so well done that his pass- 
 ing away did not affect it — the workman is gone but 
 the work abides." 
 
 Dr. Lyman Abbott writes : " It is a gratification to 
 me to be asked to add a few lines to the memorabilia of 
 Dr. George Dana Boardman, to accompany the volume 
 of his addresses, soon to be issued. 
 
 " Doctor Boardman seemed to me to belong in that 
 happily increasing number of men who, thoroughly loyal 
 to their own denomination yet perceive that Christianity 
 is larger, not only than any one particular church, but 
 also larger than the church universal. This breadth was 
 not that of indifference or apathy, nor was it due to any 
 notion that faith is less than knowledge, or that spir- 
 itual truth is to us incomprehensible, and therefore must 
 be passed by in silence. It was due to his realization 
 of the truth, of which in all his writings, so far as I 
 
6 MEMORABILIA 
 
 know them, he was an apostle — that spiritual truth is 
 greater than any single expression of it ; due to his reali- 
 zation of the principle declared by Paul in the saying : 
 1 We know in part and we prophesy in part, but when 
 that which is perfect is come, then that which is in 
 part shall be done away.' I 
 
 " In other words, his breadth, coupled with intensity, 
 strong convictions, and the courage of his convictions, 
 was due not to any tolerance of error, but to the spiritual 
 insight which perceives that in all forms of sincere faith 
 there is some measure of spiritual truth. This quality, 
 which was apparent in his writings, was not less apparent 
 in personal conference. I met him but rarely, but always 
 with a larger sense of the greatness and the value of life." 
 
 Doctor Williams, of New York, says : " Doctor 
 Boardman was a man of large intellectual gifts and of 
 high spirituality. The purity, sweetness, generosity, 
 and unselfishness of childhood characterized him 
 throughout his life. Feeling in the finer sense was 
 apparent in all his work. Not as our ^Eschylus, pro- 
 claiming in thunderous tones the majesty of divine 
 law, nor as our Euripides, delineating for us with wit 
 and wisdom the lights and shadows of modern life, do we 
 hail him ; rather do we recognize in him our Sophocles, 
 lofty in feeling, exquisite in style, perfect in grace, a 
 teacher of moral wisdom." 
 
 " My acquaintance with Doctor Boardman," says Mr. 
 Warren Teele, an esteemed government official in Iowa, 
 
MEMORABILIA 7 
 
 "began in his early years, when amid poverty and 
 hardships he was reading law. His parents were dead, 
 he had no home ; his childhood behind him had been 
 inexpressibly sad ; his future before him promised little 
 but privation to his frail health. His youth was 
 launched into the work of the world, lacking all those 
 home affections which make a boy strong. He hid all 
 that was adverse in his environment under a cheerful 
 wit and quick thoughtfulness for others. His brilliant 
 talents which made him the desire and delight of all 
 those who knew him, made us wonder what he might 
 become if he lived. Antigonus, when asked who would 
 become his best captain, replied : ' Pyrrhus, if he can 
 grow old.' 
 
 " But behind these talents there was something not 
 quite easily understood, as of a soul apart and conse- 
 crate; something behind the intense love of nature 
 which took him so often into the groves and under the 
 stars ; something of a far remoteness, as of one who 
 had messages from the Infinite. On one occasion 
 we had walked far away, when a sharp thunderstorm 
 came up ; I trembled for him as he stood exposed to the 
 fierce blast in his thin, worn black cape, his one wrap in 
 summer and winter ; but he stood calmly looking up 
 with an ecstatic awe in his face, and whispered : 
 
 " « I am in the presence of my Maker ; never so near 
 his adorable majesty as now.' 
 
 " This was one of the very rare times in which he 
 ever broke through that gentle, courteous reserve 
 which the cruel sufferings of his childhood had forced 
 as a necessity of self-defense upon his exceedingly deli- 
 cate, sensitive nature. It was a glimpse into the hid- 
 
8 MEMORABILIA 
 
 den depths of his nature, and as such I have ever 
 cherished it. 
 
 "He was about to be admitted to the bar in St. 
 Louis when a dangerous attack of cholera changed the 
 whole purpose of his life. He resolved to enter the 
 ministry and set out for the East to fight his way through 
 college and seminary with gallant courage. Such frail 
 health, such brilliant gifts, such lofty ideals, such genu- 
 ine consecration, such sensitive delicacy, such proba- 
 bilities of suffering ! With what deep sorrow I bade 
 him good-bye. 
 
 " I held him then as I hold him now, when years 
 have finished his service, physically bravest of the brave, 
 and morally, noblest of the noble, and of all men I 
 have ever known, the purest and most lovable." 
 
 "Was it not," inquires Laurens, of Boston, "the very 
 privations and hardships of Doctor Boardman's painful 
 early life, with its fortitude and enforced repression 
 amid varying and uncongenial environment, that was 
 the source of his success in preaching, especially in his 
 reaching young men ? For his power over young men was 
 great and enduring. His early ministry in the university 
 city of Rochester, had a marked influence on the lives 
 of many young men since filling proud positions." 
 
 " My recollections of Doctor Boardman," says Dr. E. 
 H. Johnson, an eminent divine and author, " date back 
 forty-five years, to the time when he preached in Roches- 
 ter. His slender frame, his frail health, his threatening 
 
MEMORABILIA 9 
 
 cough, and his scanty strength which sometimes failed 
 him, so that he was unable to finish his service in due 
 form and order, combined with his winsome personality 
 and his gorgeous eloquence and his dauntless perse- 
 verance in work — to make him most fascinating. We 
 students of the university used to line the galleries and 
 hang over them in the intentness of listening. It was 
 the glow of sentiment, not the parade of words ; not 
 even entirely the rhyme and melody of phrases that 
 made his address so entrancing. 
 
 "We held that in the Lyceum lectures not even 
 George W. Curtis could equal our Boardman in music 
 and rapture of style." 
 
 Dr. Philip L. Jones writes : " I came in touch with 
 Doctor Boardman while a student at Rochester. He 
 was the ideal of all the college students. His boyish 
 form, his graceful bearing, his manifest enthusiasm, his 
 evident grip of things, all suggested to them their own 
 future. He gave the students an outward look on life 
 and an inward vision of thought, with words in which to 
 clothe them, which have remained with them through 
 the years. 
 
 " In 1870 I became associated with him as pastor of 
 the mission chapel of his church which bore his name. 
 I found him all and more my student fancy had thought 
 him. Kind, considerate, suggestive, helpful, no young 
 pastor could have found more indulgent mentor, no 
 1 colleague ' as he graciously called me, more considerate 
 associate. No transaction of all the steps attending 
 the transformation of inchoate mission into established 
 
io MEMORABILIA 
 
 church with a building commodious and costly brings 
 other than the most grateful memory, and each enlarged 
 a friendship for him which must remain while individ- 
 uality exists." 
 
 Another, Dr. Wayland Hoyt, says of this period : 
 " I owe a great debt to the vision-giving teachings of 
 Doctor Boardman. I can hear him now, after all the 
 years : the clear voice, which one wondered could come 
 from so slight a body ; the fascinating Boardman, the 
 exquisite intonations of rare music, the winsome bear- 
 ing — for he had never the slightest tinge of self-conceit 
 — the reverence of attitude and gesture in Scripture 
 readings, and the masterly sermons." 
 
 Of his later years Mr. Mitchell Bronk writes : " He 
 had always a large following of young men in his 
 church, in the city ; among the students of Philadelphia, 
 at Crozer Seminary, everywhere. You had only to be 
 a young man and interested in Christian culture, and he 
 could not do too much for you. Many of the Crozer 
 alumni look back upon their acquaintance with Doctor 
 Boardman as one of the priceless features of their 
 course. In modernity of scholarship his last book is 
 as up-to-date as if he had been under thirty." 
 
 Dr. Edward Braislin, of Colorado Springs, Colo., 
 writes : " During those splendid years at Broad and 
 Arch Streets, Doctor Boardman molded my life, as he 
 
MEMORABILIA n 
 
 did that of hundreds of other young men. Life took on 
 new power to every one who might be his friend. Had 
 there been any sham or pretense or flaw in the man, 
 we keen young critics should have discovered it, but he 
 was without a peer. Unmanly impulses fled from his 
 nature. He never betrayed in the confessional of pri- 
 vate friendship any word of another that he would not 
 have said in his presence ; he wore always the white 
 moly of the blameless Arthur. 
 
 " I knew him better than others, for I entered the 
 ministry and so came nearer, and in every official func- 
 tion of that solemn profession found him ever ready to 
 counsel and to bless. By the Adirondack campfire, in 
 the hills of New Hampshire, on the ocean, in England, 
 Scotland, and Tyrol, for twenty-two years it was my 
 great privilege to be with him, to hear him talk of the 
 great themes of life and Life eternal. 
 
 "He was a splendid traveling companion, for his 
 learning was encyclopedic in his sweeps down the cen- 
 turies of history. His characterizations of the great 
 men of each country were always brilliant, and his 
 reading of the daily newspapers in French or German 
 or Greek or Italian, as it chanced, kept him always 
 well informed on the world's events. 
 
 " He was a combination of heroic qualities. He was 
 like Sir Philip Sidney, chivalric to sacrifice ; like the 
 knight Sir Galahad, pure to accomplish ; like the Cheva- 
 lier Bayard, ever without fear and without reproach. 
 
 "He was generosity itself, but very rigid never to 
 owe any man a penny, even for a day. 
 
 " I think he was preeminent in his ability to distin- 
 guish between things important and things unim- 
 
12 MEMORABILIA 
 
 portant, or as he would say, between things transient 
 and things eternal. Knowledge was to him important 
 in proportion to its moral and spiritual utility. He be- 
 lieved that the function of truth was to illuminate duty 
 or to reveal destiny. To him God was immanent in his 
 universe, the present Lord of the intellectual life, and 
 that knowledge was responsibility and commission. 
 He was more anxious to know how to use what he knew 
 than he was to acquire knowledge. Accordingly there 
 was never a sermon or address written without the pre- 
 vious offering of the blank pages upon which it was to 
 be written, to God. Where others offer work accom- 
 plished upon the altar, he offered the storehouse and 
 the workman and sought to have all specialization not 
 his, but God's. Armed as have been few men with 
 controversial weapons and keenly alive to every phase 
 of current discussion, Doctor Boardman was peerless 
 among his contemporaries for his brotherly love. No 
 man was ever more constrained than was he by the 
 spirit of constructive peace. Through the labyrinth of 
 years one close thread held this man true to a definite 
 purpose. He would glorify Christ. This was so un- 
 varying a passion that it gave unity to all he was and 
 all he did. 
 
 "Once, when unexpectedly receiving from an in- 
 quisitive friend a sudden lance-thrust into his gentle 
 reserve, ' Tell me the secret of your success ! ' he re- 
 plied with evident pain and sensitive shrinking : 'I am 
 not sure that there is what you term "success." I 
 have ever striven to be loyal to Christ and to my 
 vow of consecration as his servant. I strive each day 
 to lift to him the thoughts and hearts of men.' " 
 
MEMORABILIA 13 
 
 Dr. Edwin T. Darby writes : " In accepting the min- 
 istry of our large and historic church Doctor Boardman 
 spoke to us of an ideal to which it was his purpose to 
 devote his life. 
 
 " « To me,' said he, * the Bible is the one great classic 
 of literature, and I hold its study to be of preeminent 
 importance, The dominating ideal of my ministry 
 among you I desire to be to unfold the word of God 
 as written in the two Bibles ; the Bible of Scripture 
 and the Bible of Nature, for science and religion are 
 not antithetic. I believe them complemental, science 
 being the natural side of religion, religion being the 
 spiritual side of science.' To accomplish this purpose he 
 planned to travel ; to gain thorough topographical knowl- 
 edge of the Holy Land, by acquaintance with archae- 
 ological scholars whom he knew through membership in 
 the Palestine Exploration Society, the Egyptian Ex- 
 ploration Society, etc. I was his happy companion in 
 Eastern travel. It would be impossible to tell all, or 
 even a small part, of the pleasure which I enjoyed while 
 in Doctor Boardman's company. There were three 
 days in our travels which I remember with greatest pleas- 
 ure. The first was our visit to the Pyramids, the second 
 the ascent of Mount Sinai, and the third our entrance 
 into Jerusalem. 
 
 "In 1 87 1 there were three ways of getting to the 
 Pyramids, nine miles from Cairo — to walk, to ride a 
 donkey, or to go in a carriage. The distance from 
 Cairo was a little too great for the first, and we decided 
 to try the donkey. I shall never forget that ride, for 
 the donkey upon which I was seated was so small that 
 my feet almost touched the ground and the appearance 
 
14 MEMORABILIA 
 
 I made was a source of much amusement to Doctor 
 Boardman. There was only a pontoon bridge across 
 the Nile at that time, the superb Kasr el Nil bridge 
 having been built some years later. 
 
 " I remember that the Pyramids looked nearly as 
 large when we first caught sight of them, six miles 
 away, under the lebbek trees, as they did when we 
 reached them. The beautiful Moorish building, named 
 after the first king of Egypt, the Mena House, was not 
 then standing, so that our introduction to the hoary 
 monuments by toiling up the hillocks of sand by the bat- 
 tered Sphinx was more impressive than that of the mod- 
 ern traveler. We climbed the mighty side of the great 
 pyramid of Khufu, or Cheops ; crawled into its low, 
 dark, stifling chambers, disturbing the bats ; penetrated 
 to the king's chamber, with its mysterious coffer and 
 its scientific archives, and crept out again into free, 
 bright air. These awesome places were deeply thrill- 
 ing, and I recall Doctor Boardman's luminous eyes as 
 he said : 
 
 " < Well, doctor, this has been the greatest day of my 
 life except one, and that was the day I was married to 
 my dear wife.' 
 
 " The second great day was our visit to Mount Sinai. 
 We had been in the desert riding our camels for a 
 whole week and much of the time suffering intensely 
 from the heat. As we came out of Wadi Sheikh onto 
 the plain in front of the mountain, Doctor Board- 
 man cried with enthusiasm, ' That is Mount Sinai. I 
 should know it if I were in any other country.' 
 
 " We crossed the plain and camped for the night. 
 Early in the morning we visited the Convent of St. 
 
MEMORABILIA 15 
 
 Katharine's, where some dozen years before Count 
 Tischendorf had discovered in a waste basket the price- 
 less * Codex Sinaiticus.' We obtained the services of 
 two monks to act as our guides in ascending the moun- 
 tain, Jebel Musa. The emotions in standing on the 
 summit of the Mount of the Law, or those of our Sab- 
 bath services the day after in the vast plain below are 
 impossible to describe. 
 
 " Doctor Boardman's cheerful patience and wit were 
 never exhausted by adversities, even by some of our 
 adventures in Philistia. We left our camels at Gaza 
 and took horses, and on the Jaffa road our dragoman 
 lost his way. We rode from the early morning, on and 
 on till night. Never shall I forget the groans that 
 unhappy dragoman uttered when he discovered that we 
 knew he was lost in an unknown country. Towards 
 midnight we discovered a bright light, which cheered 
 us. On approaching it proved to be a cave of robbers. 
 Our dragoman trembled with alarm, desired me to pre- 
 sent firearms in my right hand as we ventured to 
 enter. The pacific doctor suggested baksheesh in the 
 other hand. The cave was a large rock recess, with a 
 fire blazing in the center, and grouped around it some 
 dozen naked men and women, with goats, buffaloes, and 
 donkeys. The odorous atmosphere made one reel, but 
 eighteen hours in the saddle without food made us bold 
 to ask these savages for food and drink in exchange for 
 baksheesh. A large leathern skin was brought, ostensibly 
 filled with goats' milk. In his excessive thirst the doc- 
 tor took a draught, but quickly stopped, saying as he 
 handed it back to me with a most captivating smile : 
 
 " ' Something besides milk in this, doctor ! ' 
 
1 6 MEMORABILIA 
 
 "Examining the leathern jar as best I might by the 
 light of the fire and the fiery eyes upon me, it seemed 
 to be full of dead flies and nameless other remains. 
 Our fear-stricken dragoman warned us to offer large 
 baksheesh and ask for a guide as our only means of escape 
 from these fierce savages. It was no time to hesitate. 
 We offered a large sum, which induced one Goliath 
 robber to come out and guide us to the lost road. Be- 
 tween two and three o'clock in the morning we reached 
 the goal of our long pilgrimage and camped outside the 
 walls of Jerusalem, the most memorable Sunday morn- 
 ing of our lives, having ridden, it was estimated, between 
 sixty and eighty miles. 
 
 "About four o'clock that afternoon we approached the 
 city, but instead of entering at the Jaffa gate we skirted 
 the city and ascended Mount Olivet. It was Doctor 
 Boardman's long cherished desire to look down first 
 upon the City of Peace from the top of the sacred 
 mountain. We lingered reverently by the old olives at 
 the Garden of Gethsemane, and then climbed to the 
 summit of Mount Olivet and there had our first view of 
 the Holy City. By this time the sun was setting in 
 the west and the gilded domes of the Mosque of Omar 
 and the Holy Sepulchre were aflame with light and the 
 mountains were purple. It was an indelible picture of 
 the most affecting, momentous scenes in the great 
 tragedy of humanity, a sacred memory far beyond words. 
 
 " It is now thirty-four years since we were together 
 in those sacred places and yet I remember the details 
 as though it were but yesterday. I have lived over and 
 over again those delightful days that I spent in his 
 company. He was the most charming companion that 
 
MEMORABILIA 17 
 
 I ever knew, always unselfish and never depressed even 
 though, at the end of a long and weary day of travel, we 
 would reach our tents at night very tired and hungry. 
 His tireless mind, his ever-ready wit, his marvelous 
 store of knowledge, his simplicity, his utter lack of self- 
 consciousness and never-failing thought of others, all 
 these qualities remain, 
 
 1 ' a deathless memory entwined 
 With all that conquers, rules, or charms the mind. ' ' 
 
 " Prince of exegetes ! " cries Doctor Judson, the emi- 
 nent professor of homiletics, "who used to lead his 
 people beside the still waters of the holy Book, travers- 
 ing with them the entire Bible from Genesis to Revela- 
 tion inclusive, and that, merely as an aside at his Wednes- 
 day Evening Lectures without encroaching upon the 
 Sunday services and the regular week-night prayer 
 meeting of the church, — a feat of exposition which I 
 believe to be unparalleled in the whole history of the 
 Christian church. 
 
 u As a careful student of the original text, as unfolder 
 of the hidden meaning of obscure passages and of the 
 spiritual richness of the deep truths of God's word in 
 language so plain and direct that the mind can grasp it and 
 the heart appropriate it to the need of daily life, these 
 Wednesday Evening Lectures can hardly be surpassed. 
 
 " These Bible instructions rightfully began in the 
 Gospels, as Bible studies should. The whole New 
 Testament series — six hundred and sixty-six — were con- 
 cluded in 1882 and printed as 'Titles for Private Dis- 
 tribution.' Many copies were at once ordered by 
 
1 8 MEMORABILIA 
 
 professors in various seminaries for use ' as a course in 
 biographical theology.' 
 
 " Two other editions of the ' Titles,' when the whole 
 series, nine hundred and seventy when completed, were 
 issued by the Sunday School Union, entitled < Topical 
 Index of the Scriptures.' 
 
 " The only record of these nearly one thousand care- 
 fully prepared studies that now exists is in these pam- 
 phlets, 'The Titles of Wednesday Evening Lectures.' 
 Sunday-school teachers call them ' far more suggestive 
 than many a commentary.' Of these lectures, the labor- 
 loving author of the Variorum Shakespeare, says they 
 were 'work enough for a lifetime for any ordinary man.' ' 
 
 "Only a series of Titles," writes the accomplished 
 critic, Dr. William Cleaver Wilkinson, " but each title 
 has a character ; there are no chance words and phrases, 
 but study and most loving heed went into the choice of 
 each one of them — it is a whole library of exegesis. 
 You are fairly dazzled from one compact, pregnant, 
 happy phrase to another. 
 
 " His fine Greek scholarship brought him into corre- 
 spondence with the authoritative exegetes, and in his 
 visits to England into close personal friendship with 
 such workers as Dean Alford, Bishop Ellicott, Bishop 
 Westcott, Bishop Perowne, Dean Stanley, and others ; 
 and he met the illustrious Board of Revision in the 
 famous Jerusalem Chamber. 
 
 " ■ His scholarship,' said these English friends, 'is an 
 atmosphere, a presence. It flashes out in unexpected 
 ways, all unconsciously to himself.' " 
 
MEMORABILIA 19 
 
 " The records of Doctor Boardman's church bear this 
 testimony as to his service : « We believe this achieve- 
 ment of continuous labor to be unequaled. These lec- 
 tures in addition to the Sunday sermons would make (if 
 reported) sixty-four duodecimo volumes of three hun-' 
 dred and fifty pages each. They constitute Doctor 
 Boardman's sufficient monument on which may well be 
 inscribed, his own truthful, but too modest words : 
 
 " ' He tried to unfold the word of God' " 
 
 " How was it," inquires the German scholar, Doctor 
 Rauschenbusch, " that this orphaned boy of the tropics, 
 bearing always the bravely hidden suffering of cruel 
 injuries inflicted on his helpless childhood, accomplished 
 so much hard work, and that too, in so many spheres ? 
 He held so many offices, in city and State, and the high- 
 est his own denomination could give him ; he filled so 
 large a place in public interests ; he was a member of so 
 many organizations — the Historical Society, the Philo- 
 sophical Society, the Oriental Society, the Academy of 
 Sciences, the Victoria Institute, the Academy of Political 
 Science ; was eagerly sought for as a presiding parlia- 
 mentarian ; was president of the New England Society 
 and many other societies, trustee of several universities 
 and institutions of learning, etc. No wonder that his 
 incessant industry occupied nights as well as days. 
 
 " What lofty courage, what dauntless pursuits of high 
 ideals, that wrought out, not great learning, not fame 
 merely, but something far higher ; that supreme self- 
 control, that harmony of powers, in noble thinking and 
 sane living — the moral altitude of life's sovereign power ! 
 
20 MEMORABILIA 
 
 " His famous free noonday lectures on the « Creative 
 Week ' not only formed an epoch in Philadelphia, but 
 had a wide influence all over the land in changing the 
 belief in a verbally inspired history into the spiritual 
 significance of a religious parable. His literary ability 
 and his infinite tact, his vivacity of style, his candor 
 and openness to truth, and his utter lack of self, gave 
 to his brave thinking its power. 
 
 "These lectures were issued in book form, of which 
 the first edition of three thousand was sold in one week, 
 and which after more than a quarter of a century are 
 still selling. His style of presenting truth was not the 
 didactic, which is the easiest, but the suggestive — for a 
 suggestion best expresses the spirit of a thought. 
 
 " More than any other preacher, he solved the problem 
 of teaching science and religion as complemental. To 
 quote his words, ' The true scientist is a theological 
 specialist in the Bible of nature, and the true theologian 
 is a scientific specialist in the Bible of Scripture.' 
 
 " 'The force of his ethical conclusions and appeals is 
 never broken by false science, faulty exegesis, or inade- 
 quate philosophy.' He has never published his guesses, 
 nor wearied men with the processes of his thinking ; he 
 simply tells, in the simplest, clearest, most compact and 
 elegant English, the results of the widest reading and 
 the profoundest meditation of the industrious years." 
 
 An eminent Hebrew rabbi of Philadelphia, writing of 
 the busy years as they swept on in large activities, 
 varied duties and demands, says : " There was no appeal 
 to any cause that might promote human welfare, to 
 
MEMORABILIA 21 
 
 which he remained deaf. The spirit of love knows no 
 boundaries of sect, creed, race, or nationality, and Doctor 
 Boardman acted on this principle. No man ever had a 
 keener sense of the value of time, yet no man ever gave 
 time more willingly." 
 
 " His life," says Mr. Justice Lore, " touched every 
 phase of educational, moral, and religious life in our 
 communities. With him it was one constant battle, 
 fought with a heroism that was of itself sufficient to 
 use up all his energies. 
 
 "The time required for the manifold demands of 
 public charities, directorates, committees, trusteeships, 
 societies, lectureships, all literary work, was never taken 
 from his consecrated duties to his church. There were 
 always the nights in which he lengthened the days. 
 That this ceaseless toil several times nearly cost his life, 
 only intensified his desire to work for his fellow-men 
 and, as he said, * to lift hearts to Christ. 
 
 " His love for young men was strong and ardent ; he 
 longed to help their doubts and struggles ; for them he 
 wrote his ' Problem of Jesus,' by far the most impor- 
 tant of his books ; * unique in its intense directness, 
 concentration, clearness, and a cumulative force that is 
 tremendous.' " 
 
 Professor Jastrow, of the University of Pennsylvania, 
 writes : "Asa moral force in civic and university life 
 in Philadelphia, his clear penetration and balanced calm 
 of judgment settled many problems. 
 
22 MEMORABILIA 
 
 " None of his gifts or graces could have given to 
 Doctor Boardman's work its permanent power and effi- 
 cacy had they not been dominated by a spirit of self- 
 forgetting love for his fellow-men. His earliest effort in 
 beginning public life, his last cry in leaving it, was the 
 same : 'Let me try to do yet a little good in the world.' 
 
 " Doctor Boardman realized in his utterances, his 
 works, and in his activity in the many channels into 
 which it was directed, that it was more blessed to give 
 than to take, and so he gave ; gave his time, gave his 
 means, gave his strength, gave all his energies to the 
 work that he set out to do, and he did all this in the 
 charitable spirit, the spirit of sympathy with his fellows, 
 of devotion to the highest ends of mankind, of con- 
 sideration for the shortcomings of man, in the spirit of 
 love, aye with that love of which we read that it is * as 
 strong as death, as unyielding as the grave.' 
 
 " Naturally, Doctor Boardman's distinctive work as a 
 public teacher was eirenic. To use his own words, his 
 purpose was : 
 
 " i Not to argue y but to inquire ; not to destroy, but to 
 upbuild ; not to dispraise creeds, but to exalt Christ! 
 
 " It was sometimes said of him as of his friend Dean 
 Stanley, whom he much resembled in mental character- 
 istics : ' It is such a pity he cannot be a hater ; he can 
 absolutely not hate at all.' 
 
 " He is unfortunately ignorant of the vocabulary of 
 polemics." 
 
 " His was the soul of things," writes Dr. J. O'B. 
 Lowry, " the atmosphere in which he lived. His ear was 
 
MEMORABILIA 23 
 
 quick to catch their spirit and undertone. His eye 
 was alert to discern structure and proportion. The very 
 shading of truth found a hospitable mind in him. 
 
 "The surprising quality in his style was its objective 
 force. The synthetic feature is not usually associated 
 with the finest discrimination. Subtle in his mental 
 processes, Doctor Boardman was clear as crystal in 
 expressing his thoughts. 
 
 " He had an etymological mastery of language, and a 
 sense of sacred moral value in the use of words. His 
 thoughts never rattled loosely in coarse, ill-fitting 
 words. He sought carefully, with pains, the best word. 
 Adjectives are under the ban with many writers. Not so 
 with him. He marshaled them with climacteric force." 
 
 The illustrious Dr. Horace Howard Furness exclaims : 
 " Let others extol him as a theologian and as a pastor. 
 I knew him as the warm-hearted friend, the genial 
 companion whose store of learning and refined culture 
 illumined every hour in his society, whose convictions 
 were adamantine, but their expression as gentle as the 
 air. Ah, when shall we look upon his like again ? 
 Who that had once seen it can ever forget that win- 
 ning smile, those luminous eyes and face irradiated by 
 some happy, humorous thought ? " 
 
 Dr. H. H. Peabody thus writes with keen under- 
 standing : " Doctor Boardman had the gift of the 
 humorous, than which nothing has a more finishing 
 effect upon character. He had it, not that it had him. 
 
24 MEMORABILIA 
 
 It frequently has as we know, its encroachments upon 
 reverence, upon earnestness, upon sobriety. Yet I 
 never knew of an occasion when the strings of his dig- 
 nity — and a dignified man he was — were so loosened 
 that the undignified for a moment had sway with him. 
 His humorousness had its subsoil of sobriety and was 
 a part of the rare common sense with which he was 
 endowed. It was only when the humorous mood came 
 that you saw how sharp-eyed he was in his perceptions, 
 how shrewd and detective of the weak point, and how 
 absolutely sane he was in all his judgments. 
 
 "Again this humorousness of our absent friend was 
 united with great purity of heart, and unlike many a 
 humorist was never betrayed into a coarseness. The 
 higher type of humor that he possessed has no need of 
 being held in check, but is too well and permanently 
 poised to taint itself by a coarseness of spirit or word. 
 His humor was one form of his refinement, the field in 
 which he innocently played and where he touched 
 others with his own genial glow. 
 
 " His humor tended to preserve the simple natural- 
 ness of his character and prevented a morbid faith 
 setting up its dominion over him. 
 
 "To him religion was his nature's best. He safe- 
 guarded himself from appearing even to be more relig- 
 ious than he was, while his heart moved out more and 
 more after the realism of his Master. In this moral 
 realism his humor bore its part. He would have made 
 fun of himself under a spurious emotion, and laughed it 
 out of his heart. 
 
 " He never seemed anxious to shine. He was not 
 combative by nature nor morally disputatious. He was 
 
MEMORABILIA 25 
 
 serene and unswayed by passion and prejudice, and so 
 to those about him always had that sweet graciousness, 
 which is only another name for the beautiful. He had a 
 quiet insistence, and a clear self -revelation. He was sen- 
 sitive over the wounds he might give, but never gave. 
 "The spiritual modesty, the absolute unpretentious- 
 ness of this St. George of ours, marked him always. He 
 was a beautiful man. And permeating all, crowning, fin- 
 ishing all, was this sweet humorousness, in which his very 
 soul went into play amid the sunshine of life's fair fields." 
 
 The honored bishop of Eastern Pennsylvania, the 
 Right Reverend O. W. Whitaker, in speaking of Doctor 
 Boardman's tireless efforts to promote Christian unity 
 says : " He believed in and longed for spiritual church 
 unity, and lamented the divisions among the followers 
 of Christ. He had a remarkably clear and distinct spir- 
 itual vision and a strong intellect. His sympathies were 
 not bound by the church as it exists in the world but 
 they took in the whole of humanity and he longed for 
 the time when there should be one flock. 
 
 " Doctor Boardman was a firm believer in the * Mis- 
 sion of Sects,' teaching that * each sect has a special and 
 destined use and blessing in God's kingdom on earth,' 
 as he many times eloquently set forth for various de- 
 nominations. He yet deplored the spirit of sectarianism, 
 which alienates and divides, criticises and condemns, and 
 he suffered deep and bitter pain in harsh comments and 
 careless words in differing opinions. 
 
 " Love, that uniting force, which 
 
 * makes one thing of all theology! 
 
26 MEMORABILIA 
 
 gave to his pure vision the ' unification of Christendom.' 
 To quote his own words, * Not by compromise of prin- 
 ciples, but by comprehension of diversities, by magni- 
 fying points of agreement and minimizing points of 
 divergence. This idea of comprehension is the modern 
 contribution to ecclesiology. The old method was to 
 search for similarities ; the new method is to recognize 
 diversities. Do not try, then, to secure unity by ham- 
 mering diversities into monotonous flatness, but try to 
 secure unity by soaring high enough to comprehend 
 diversities, even as God's own sky comprehends ocean 
 and forest, valley and mountain, man and flower.' 
 
 " In many addresses, notably one before the Evan- 
 gelical Alliance at Florence, Italy ; in his ' Eirenicon,' 
 widely sent over the country, in his influence in the 
 ' League of Catholic Unity,' in the inauguration of 
 union services on Good Friday, in clerical reunions, in 
 the Brotherhood of the Kingdom, he presented this 
 ideal, to quote his own words, of 'the one organic 
 Church of the living God, the one Church of the elect 
 and regenerate and sanctified, the one Church of the 
 spiritual corporation of redeemed humanity, the one 
 ideal Church of the sum total of Christly characters in 
 all lands and times and of all sects.' " 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Henry C. McCook, of that famous 
 Scotch Presbyterian family known as the "fighting 
 McCooks," says : " Doctor Boardman was a Son of 
 Peace. He was a well-known champion of universal 
 peace, and the disarmament of nations. He was a pa- 
 triot that loved his country well, but loved her best, not 
 
MEMORABILIA 27 
 
 in war, but in the nobler achievements and paths of peace. 
 To him true * patriotism was internationalism,' and war 
 was intolerably cruel and abhorrent. Yet I, who took 
 part in two wars, and he, who was verily a Friend, dwelt 
 together in unity as neighborly pastors for thirty years. 
 
 " To him, the Divine Altruist's philosophy seemed to 
 forbid war ; * The idea that moral wrong can be righted 
 by physical force/ again and again he cried, * is alike in- 
 human and unchristian. It is a reversion to the animal 
 stage, or pre- Adamite type. I cannot be so elaborate in 
 my exegesis, as to believe that when our King said, 
 " Love your enemies and bless them," he really meant, 
 " Fight your enemies and kill them." ' He seized upon 
 St. Paul's analogon, ' We are members one of another,' 
 as the basal biological concept of ideal society. There- 
 fore, these integral biological relations of nation with 
 nation make 'all nations constitute one common Nation, 
 the one august body of Mankind.' 
 
 "Again, to quote his own words : 'That majestic ideal 
 organism which we call the Social Body, or Corporate 
 Mankind, consists of many diversities, balanced in com- 
 mon counterpoise, and working in mutual interaction. 
 Each nation has its own distinct individual mission, but 
 its relation to its fellow-nations is not one of hostile 
 competition but of integrant co-operation.' 
 
 "'Patriotism then is Internationalism' So profound 
 and insistent became at last his convictions of the waste 
 of war, not merely of material resources but of spiritual 
 energies, that in 1890 he took the bold step of an indi- 
 vidual appeal to the American people to disarm and to 
 lead the van of all nations in ending wars, and leaguing 
 all mankind in a covenant of endless amity. 
 
28 MEMORABILIA 
 
 " ' The Federation of the World! His address on 
 * Disarmament of Nations, or Mankind One Body,' 
 delivered at Washington, immediately published, ran 
 through several editions, and was a notable contribution 
 to the thought of the time. 
 
 " As president of the American Arbitration and Peace 
 Society ; and as a member of the Pennsylvania Peace 
 Society, of the Universal Peace Union ; the Boston Peace 
 Society ; the British National Peace Society ; La Societe* 
 de la Paix, France ; the International Bureau de la Paix, 
 Berne, Switzerland ; the Belgian Peace Society ; the 
 International Arbitration and Peace Association, he gave 
 addresses on both sides of the ocean, and his epigrams 
 went ringing down the aisles of European countries : 
 
 Chivalry consists in Beatitudes? 
 
 Manliness consists in Chris tliness? 
 
 Righteousness consists in Altruism? 
 
 Patriotism consists in Internationalism? 
 
 The Athletics of the Beatitudes require most sturdy 
 moral muscle? " 
 
 The world-widely known secretary of the British 
 Peace Society, Dr. W. Evans Darby, writes from Lon- 
 don : " One of the best of your citizens of Philadelphia, 
 who for many years represented the cause of Peace, 
 and, in fact, every good cause, and whose strenuous ad- 
 vocacy was most effective, Dr. George Dana Boardman, 
 is greatly missed in our onward work. He was so thor- 
 oughly identified with your city and so identified with 
 the cause of peace that one can hardly think of peace 
 or Philadelphia apart from him. 
 
MEMORABILIA 29 
 
 " We all miss him greatly. Doctor Boardman was an 
 advocate of International Peace when the cause was not 
 popular, as it is to-day ; when, as Lowell says : 
 
 • ' To side with Truth is noble, 
 
 When we share her wretched crust, 
 Ere her cause bring fame and profit, 
 And it' s prosperous to be just. 
 
 " He ever thought more of the justice of a cause than 
 its prosperity. Truth was always imperative to him, 
 and its advocacy never admitted of expediency, however 
 it may call for a wise judgment. 
 
 " He practically stood alone save for a few chosen 
 witnesses who were associated with him, but his advo- 
 cacy has penetrated to the ends of the earth. 
 
 " It was an honor to have his personal friendship, 
 and to be associated with him in one of the greatest of 
 causes, and I cannot satisfy heart or conscience without 
 a few simple words of personal tribute and loving recol- 
 lection. As I said before, we miss him greatly. I am 
 sure that if the inhabitants of that higher sphere to 
 which he has withdrawn are cognizant of what transpires 
 here below, he is deeply interested in our proceedings. 
 
 " A higher power than his will establish that ' Peace 
 Bureau,' which his earnest efforts failed to accomplish 
 at the American Capitol, but it will be the World's 
 Bureau of International Peace." 
 
 The Hon. Charles B. Lore, Chief Justice of Dela- 
 ware, writes : " Doctor Boardman's Christ-like spirit 
 and faith broadened beyond all denominational lines and 
 
30 MEMORABILIA 
 
 grasped Christianity in its essence as the doctrine of 
 love and peace. 
 
 " The brotherhood of men as sons of God was the 
 keystone of his Christian philosophy. He held on high 
 the lofty ideal of brotherhood and sonhood to a loving 
 Father and lived it out himself in his gentle, courteous 
 altruism. The Prince of Peace uniting all Christen- 
 dom, ending all disputes and wars of nations — this was 
 the God whom he served. 
 
 " His soul panted for the day to come when the 
 sword should be turned into the plowshare, the spear 
 into the pruning-hook, and all men should dwell to- 
 gether in unity. That more than a tenth of the human 
 race should be kept in arms and marshaled in war to 
 mutilate and destroy their fellow-men, was repugnant to 
 his nature. I well remember his expressions of joy, 
 when amid our war the conference at the Hague prom- 
 ised to open the door for the settlement of all national 
 disputes by international arbitration. In the Parliament 
 of Nations he, as a seer, saw the time come when wars 
 would cease. All his later years were dominated by 
 this grand thought. It stands out as a beacon light on 
 all his writings. His big soul lived in the future, far in 
 advance of his time. A foregleam of this ideal unity 
 of Christ-dominion came in the memorable ' Parliament 
 of Religions ' in 1893, when representatives of all nation- 
 alities, creeds, faiths, bowed once a day for nearly three 
 weeks in the spirit of reverent worship before one Al- 
 mighty Father, ■ on the basis of his Son's universal 
 prayer.' 
 
 " To Doctor Boardman was given the illustrious honor 
 of delivering the closing address before these august 
 
MEMORABILIA 31 
 
 assemblies, on ' Christ the Unifier of Mankind,' the one 
 august Sovereign, < blending all races, ages, capacities, in 
 his own transcendent personality as the Son of Man.' 
 
 " He had been often sent as the American rep- 
 resentative to Ecumenical Councils, World's Mis- 
 sionary Conferences, Universal Peace Alliances, Evan- 
 gelical Alliances, but I believe one of the latest of these 
 services was when he was present at the Hague Con- 
 ference as an unofficial representative of the sylvan 
 city of Penn. 
 
 " It was not given him to see in flesh the one nation 
 of mankind, his ideal ' Corporate Mankind ' nor his 
 * Universal Peace Bureau,' but his influence still moves 
 onward in the mighty progress of our race." 
 
 Mr. Harry S. Hopper, the philanthropic banker, whose 
 name is generosity, writes : " Of the many pleasant and 
 helpful memories of the most lovable man I have ever had 
 the privilege of associating with, the one standing out 
 most prominently is the intimate knowledge of the Scrip- 
 tures possessed by George Dana Boardman and his power 
 to impart this knowledge to others. His gentle, lovable 
 manner made me feel as though I were giving a little, 
 instead of receiving great draughts of the truth. His 
 life was an inspiration, and though dead he yet lives." 
 
 Doctor Braislin writes : " Doctor Boardman during 
 the busy years often spoke to me of his fixed purpose to 
 resign public work when in full and entirely recognized 
 vigor of manhood, thus loyally devoting to this one 
 
32 MEMORABILIA 
 
 beloved church the best energies of a man's lifetime. 
 After long and conscientious deliberation he fixed on 
 the thirtieth anniversary of his ministry as the dreaded 
 time of parting, which caused him more intense pain 
 than the world ever knew. His people cried out in 
 grief and remonstrance, but his judgment remained 
 firm. The Press of Philadelphia cried out : 
 
 " ' The resignation of Dr. George Dana Boardman as 
 pastor of the First Baptist Church of this city will be 
 a real loss, not only to that church but to the city as a 
 whole. Doctor Boardman, by example as also by pre- 
 cept, has done a great and useful work in Philadelphia. 
 Every Christian, without regard to denominational 
 lines, will learn of Doctor Boardman 's retirement with 
 a sense of real sorrow.' 
 
 " ' The Philadelphia public will decline to consider the 
 resignation of Doctor Boardman as an announcement of 
 his retirement from anything but active pastoral work. 
 He will remain an energetic force in the upbuilding 
 of all that is worthy and noble in the city, to whose 
 fair fame as the nursery of eminent men he has con- 
 tributed and is contributing so much. His moving 
 eloquence, his scholarly tastes, and his productive pen 
 will not be laid aside with his ministerial functions. 
 He will continue to benefit his fellow-men in accus- 
 tomed congenial activities in his denomination, and far 
 beyond it. Doctor Boardman will not be an idler in 
 the world.' " 
 
 Immediately following his resignation came various 
 invitations. A college presidency, professorships, 
 
MEMORABILIA 33 
 
 courses on ethics. He accepted for one term an 
 ethical lectureship at the University of Chicago, after- 
 wards for months gave a series of lectures, addresses 
 at Chautauqua, Saratoga, Colorado Springs, and many 
 summer schools. 
 
 At the request of prominent citizens a course of 
 lectures on " Corporate Society " was given in Phila- 
 delphia which were chronicled as " having magnetized 
 thinkers and lovers of the truth, and made an impression 
 upon the city." Judge Ashman in behalf of " the people 
 expressed their gratitude for these masterpieces of eru- 
 dition and compend of sound moral precepts." From 
 the basal concept of " Corporate Mankind," with diverse 
 functions but integrant interaction, he ascended to "the 
 corporate head of mankind, the Lord Jesus Christ, the 
 unifying force of humanity." " Mankind," to quote his 
 own words, " passed through three stages of life : 
 
 "First: The I-istic, or barbarous, saying with Cain, 
 ' Am I my brother's keeper ? ' 
 
 " Second: The Other-istic, or civilized, saying with 
 St. Paul, * We are members one of another.' 
 
 " Third: The Whole-istic, or Christian, saying, with 
 the Son of Man, 'perfected into one.' " 
 
 "The coining of this term 'I-ism' by Doctor Board- 
 man is a happy thought," says Mr. Herman Hegner, of 
 the Chicago Commons. " This word is exactly what is 
 needed ; the I-istic class are essentially selfish ; give 
 the right-of-way to this word which shows their evils." 
 
 In speaking of Doctor Boardman's lectures on soci- 
 ology, so widely delivered from East to West, a New 
 
34 MEMORABILIA 
 
 York sociologist says : " Doctor Boardman was not a 
 political economist and did not assume the role of one. 
 But because his mind was enlightened by Jesus Christ 
 he saw and he foresaw a richer, truer, healthier life of 
 the great social body of humanity. His was a religious, 
 ethical, prophetical sociology of divine biology. 
 
 " His ethical books, such as 'The Kingdom ' and 'The 
 Church,' considered as literature, are characterized by ex- 
 ceeding clearness of conception and by exceeding direct- 
 ness of statement ; by very practical discussions of modern 
 problems in crisp and vigorous English, perhaps icono- 
 clastic to some old mannerisms of thinking — broad posi- 
 tions, but always as generous toward the convictions of 
 others as he is clear in the statement of his own. 
 
 "The catholic and irenic spirit of the author is 
 everywhere conspicuous. There is no trace of a polemic 
 temper or purpose. We have only thought and rev- 
 erent studies of great and sacred subjects. We are 
 face to face with a teacher who is in search of truth." 
 
 In 1899 Doctor Boardman founded a "Lectureship 
 in Christian Ethics " in the University of Pennsylvania, 
 with which he had many years been connected as 
 trustee, chaplain, and ethical lecturer. 
 
 By invitation of the Board of Trustees he delivered 
 the inaugural lecture on his own foundation on "The 
 Golden Rule." In it he outlined the terms of his 
 lectureship as will be always printed on the forefront 
 of every printed volume of lectures : 
 
 " The purpose : Is to build up Christian character 
 after the model of Jesus Christ's. 
 
MEMORABILIA 35 
 
 " The range: Should be as wide as human society 
 itself. 
 
 " The spirit: It must be a lectureship in practical 
 ethics from the standpoint of Christ's own personal 
 character, example, and teachings. 
 
 " The qualification : The lecturer may often be a 
 layman, for Christian ethics is a matter of daily prac- 
 tical life rather than a metaphysical theology. He 
 may belong to any sect, for Christian ethics or Christ's 
 behavior is not a matter of ecclesiastical ordination. 
 The only pivotal condition of the lectureship is that 
 the lecturer is unconditionally loyal to our King, our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, who is himself the world's true, 
 everlasting Ethics." 
 
 The eloquent lawyer, John Sparhawk, Jr., Esq., 
 writes: "There has passed from our midst one who 
 left his footprints on four continents and his memory 
 in loving remembrance all over the earth. And yet this 
 world-citizen, born as he was under the skies of Asia, 
 realized so well that he was now a citizen of no mean 
 city, that when others read from the sacred word, 
 ' Let brotherly love continue,' he read from the Greek, 
 < Let Philadelphia continue.' And again, when others 
 exhorted to add to faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge 
 and to knowledge temperance and to temperance god- 
 liness, he would add the final word, ' and to Godliness, 
 Philadelphia, the love of the brotherhood.' 
 
 " And this brotherly love pulsed through every fibre of 
 his being. Love, unity, peace, — these formed the great 
 triumvirate which became to him the supreme dynamic. 
 
36 MEMORABILIA 
 
 For these he labored incessantly, unintermittently, tire- 
 lessly. He knew that it was a far cry to the mil- 
 lennium ; that we may not look away to the Pillars of 
 Hercules and see the results closing in as fast and far 
 as one might wish. He knew that it was only when we 
 have rested from our labors that our works do follow 
 us. But he was content to wait and work and watch 
 and pray and hope. 
 
 " We speak with love of him as our fellow-citizen, and 
 yet he loved the burning suns from whence he came, 
 and longed at times to go back under them to die. 
 You cannot take the Orient out of the blood. Rudyard 
 Kipling says, ' You can hear the East a-calling on the 
 road to Mandalay,' and her voice never dies out of the 
 ears which have once heard her and known of her 
 spell. He said to me once, ' I want to die in the East.' 
 
 " He came of a great and a godly race, whose name 
 and influence are known wherever the four winds of 
 heaven and Euroclydon blow. His sainted father, 
 George Dana Boardman, whose name he bore, was one 
 of the first missionaries to India. He himself was 
 born in Burma, where rests his father's dust. His 
 mother's grave is where the waves wash the rocks of 
 St. Helena. 
 
 " He labored for the world's work and spent his 
 strength in her service. Let the multitudes whom he 
 has helped by his generosities and his words bear wit- 
 ness. His parish was the globe. He did not crave, 
 like the great philosopher, eighteen inches of West- 
 minster Abbey. The trumpets of fame, as one has said 
 of another, were to him as « the hootings of gnats.' 
 The gold of the Nibelungen was as the penny of 
 
MEMORABILIA 37 
 
 Caesar in the fish's mouth. He never wearied in well- 
 doing. Like his Master, he went about doing good. In 
 the Koran, it is said, ' When a man dies his fellows ask, 
 What has he left behind him ? The angels ask, What 
 has he sent before him?' And he sent much before. 
 His rectitude of purpose never failed. His steps never 
 faltered on the King's highway. He kept the sky-line 
 in view. He knew that the age of the exotic and the 
 orchid had passed. He knew that he was not to be 
 carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, but that 
 travel-stained and battle-swept he was to reach the door 
 of his Father's house. 
 
 " Sorrow and suffering hedged both the beginning 
 and the end of his days. He never referred to his 
 youth willingly ; he did not wish it spoken of ; indeed, 
 so great was his reluctance, and so guarded his manly 
 reserve that very few friends ever knew of its terrors at 
 all, or how heroic was his quiet self-control, how brave 
 the struggle for years continued over nerves that 
 quivered at sharp sounds. They read in the * Encyclo- 
 paedia of Missions ' of a mother clasping a frail infant, 
 fleeing at midnight, amid yells and shots of fierce na- 
 tives and firing of jinjals, and knew that he never 
 could endure a sudden noise or shock, and always 
 absented himself from the cities on the fourth of July. 
 
 " But surely now one may speak, and * not offend ' 
 the intense manliness of personality, of an experience 
 that hued his whole life ; a strange preparation to 
 equip a man for the world's work. 
 
 "At the age of six he was sent alone on a nine 
 months' voyage from India. Alone, but for the com- 
 panionship of a wild crew of a sailing vessel who made 
 
3% MEMORABILIA 
 
 his little life a plaything for torture; the tender and 
 shrinking child was assailed with coarse jests upon 
 saying his prayers, taunts upon his weakness, abuse 
 of his habits of refinement, throwing overboard the 
 tokens of love ; he was tied up aloft to witness the 
 dying agonies of his poor goat, its throat cut from ear 
 to ear, his playmate in the mission compound at 
 Moulmein ; he was shocked with frights, dragged 
 through the sea in the wake of the vessel by a rope ; 
 extended on the deck and knives drawn across his help- 
 less little body; he was thrown into convulsions by 
 being forced to fire a cannon that he was told would 
 cause his instant death. Mind you, this was at six 
 years of age, and alone on a wide, wide sea ; his only 
 escape was to climb into the boat at the stern of the 
 ship and weep his lonely tears, look over the gray 
 waves, and pray to the God his mother had taught 
 loved him. When the sailing vessel, on which the 
 crew had mutinied, and the craft been given up for lost, 
 finally reached Boston, he was thrown like a package of 
 merchandise from the deck to the land, striking the 
 ground with violence and filling his little mouth with 
 earth. But he kissed the earth of his mother's land, and 
 prayed that his mother's God would make some one kind 
 to him. Nor did his child-sufferings end here. From the 
 equator to the North ; from one vicissitude to another ; 
 from one kind of treatment to another ; now carried 
 from bed to an ice douche in the morning ; now shut up 
 in a steam box. Precocious, polite, reserved, he was mis- 
 understood, because he did not talk like other children ; 
 all the while he was holding the resolve that his dear 
 mother should never know what he endured. Those 
 
MEMORABILIA 39 
 
 cruel men might come, as they had said, in the dark 
 midnight when he lay shivering, to cut out his tongue, 
 to cut out his heart — he could suffer but she should not 
 know. And never till she was safe in heaven did he 
 tell one word. Meantime, as he grew his chief refuge 
 was in study ; his precocious ability was nearly fitted 
 for college, and he read Greek with the advanced theo- 
 logical classes before he was ten years old. The 
 inevitable followed ; nerves revolted from so much 
 pressure ; three years of illness ensued, illness incom- 
 prehensible, misunderstood, mysterious, intense ; three 
 years of loss. He had to begin life anew and fit for 
 college afresh. 
 
 " It is marvelous that from a youth of such suffering 
 and pain that there should have emerged a disposition 
 and a nature so sweet, so sunny, so sane, so genial, so 
 loving. Out of bitterness and sorrow his ' ways were 
 ways of pleasantness and all his paths were peace.' 
 
 " He was asked once if his life-work were summed 
 up in one word what would he rather have it be, and 
 his answer was Eirene — peace. He longed for the 
 furled battle-flag and the spiked gun. The window- 
 embrasures of his life looked out from the chamber of 
 peace, and on his far horizon line he saw with keener 
 vision than the world hath, the peaks and pinnacles of 
 the delectable mountains, and afar beyond them the 
 sunlighted spires of the Celestial City. 
 
 " Peace was with him not an iridescent dream, but a 
 breathing, pulsing reality. A few weeks before his 
 death he asked me to go over and to revise with him a 
 long communication to President Roosevelt urging 
 that, as there was a secretary of war, could there not 
 
4© MEMORABILIA 
 
 be a secretary of peace — in other words, a cabinet po- 
 sition created for this great office and purpose ? He 
 longed for the day when the nations should, 
 
 ' ' freighted with love' s golden fleece, 
 Bring back the argonauts of peace. 
 
 " Men smiled at the enthusiasm of his quest. And 
 because he saw these 
 
 * ' argosies of magic sails, 
 Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales, 
 
 not many really understood. Men saw him coming 
 down the Dothan path and said, ' Behold, the dreamer 
 cometh.' But they did not know that the dreamer 
 was a seer, and that down the dim perspectives of time 
 he knew that the stars of heaven and the sheaves of 
 earth would some day make obeisance to the eternal 
 principles he taught and practised. 
 
 " But his usefulness and his activities were not con- 
 fined to one field. His books will live after him. His 
 'Creative Week,' his 'Ethics of the Body,' his 'Chris- 
 tian Unity,' 'The Kingdom,' 'The ChurcrT,' each has 
 its place in the wide fields of influence. 
 
 " I will not speak of his long and useful pastorate, 
 for others have referred to it at length. 
 
 " The last occasion on which I heard him speak in 
 public was at the time the chair of Christian Ethics, 
 which he had endowed, was established at the Uni- 
 versity of Pennsylvania. This gift will perpetuate his 
 memory to a phase of student life which he longed to 
 reach and help. 
 
 " He reminded one of Valiant-for-Truth, that captain 
 
MEMORABILIA 41 
 
 of the Lord's host in Bunyan's dream, who vanquished 
 Wildhead, Inconsiderate, and Pragmatick. And when 
 his feet came down to the wash of the waves of the river 
 he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded on the other 
 side. But before he departed he left his last will and 
 testament. ' My sword I give to him who shall succeed 
 me. My courage and skill to him who can get it. My 
 marks and scars I carry with me as a witness that I 
 have fought a good fight and kept the faith.' And so 
 he knew no fear, and pain was to him but a challenge. 
 Beside the silent sea he waited the muffled oar in pa- 
 tience and his patience was a benediction. Nothing 
 could swerve him from his cheerfulness. As the months 
 went by his sufferings increased, but he worked on. 
 Death stood at salute beside him day after day, but un- 
 afraid he heeded him not. The shadow struggled 
 backward and forward. With marvelous fortitude he 
 filled his patient days of imprisonment with work for 
 others, ennobling every hour with wit and cheerful 
 bravery, dictating when too weak to move about, a 
 book on 'The Ethics of the Body,' for the boys of 
 ' the Boardman Boys' Guild,' a work of redemption for 
 street boys carried on by noble workers, irrespective of 
 denominations, affectionately dedicating it ' to all who 
 long to make their body-life tributary to their spirit- 
 life.' When too feeble to read or dictate he had little 
 classes in chemistry in his bedroom ; his weak, sil- 
 very voice blithely telling the ' fairy tales of science ' 
 which he loved, as messages from a dear Father. 
 But suddenly came to this knight of God a voice out 
 of the darkness. And so he passed into the peace which 
 passeth understanding." 
 
42 MEMORABILIA 
 
 " Doctor Boardman," says a well-known writer and 
 editor, " was no closet student. He traveled much 
 and widely; Rome and Athens were as familiar to 
 him as Philadelphia. This freshened his literary work 
 and his ethical lectures, for it was in these lectures in the 
 years that followed his leaving the pastorate that possibly 
 his best powers were used. The course he founded at 
 the University of Pennsylvania, and his other lectures 
 were full of thoughtful eloquence, religious wisdom, and 
 spiritual insight, the product of a mind conservative 
 and catholic, truly devoted to the search of truth. He 
 discerned the good things in men classed worldly, and 
 in his speech there was never bitterness. He taught 
 all men to wear the white flower of a blameless life by 
 wearing it ever himself. 
 
 " To the end he toiled with his pen in the literary 
 service of religion with unstinted heroism. I had oc- 
 casion to observe him when he came back to Phila- 
 delphia from the climates to which he went to prop his 
 waning strength ; from the winter he spent in the dry air 
 of the Libyan desert, at the Mena house by the ancient 
 Pyramids, regaining strength in the kind attentions of 
 his English, Greek, and American friends, especially the 
 genial Dean Butcher of Cairo, who called him 'the most 
 lovable man he had ever known' ; and again from the less 
 favorable climates of Florida and the Bahamas in which 
 his weakness increased. But however weak, even then, 
 far into the night he was working in his library. 
 
 " Philadelphia is a better city for his having lived in 
 it, for the lives fashioned by his words and his counsels. 
 
 "He scarce had need to doff his pride or slough the dross of earth, 
 E'en as he trod that day to God so walked he from his birth, 
 
MEMORABILIA 43 
 
 In simpleness and gentleness and honor and clean mirth. 
 
 Who had done his work and held his peace and had no fear to die.' ' 
 
 <** 
 
 President Alvah Hovey, of Newton Theological Insti- 
 tution, Mass., wrote : " Doctor Boardman was one of the 
 choice spirits of Christendom, a man to be loved and 
 admired, and I have for a great many years counted it 
 one of my greatest privileges to be numbered with his 
 friends. Hundreds will testify their love of him, but 
 no one more sincerely than myself. Oh, that I could 
 deserve a tithe of the love and admiration which were 
 rightfully his ! He was more than half in heaven before 
 he left this world. He was in earth, but not on it. 
 His thoughts, his aims, his words belonged to the 
 higher life that continues forever. 
 
 " Approaching the realm of peace, he felt more 
 keenly than ever the unity toward which all things 
 tend ; the interrelations of celestial and terrestrial 
 laws grew clearer ; deeper meanings grew in all lan- 
 guage ; ' God is light ' glittered in new resplendence 
 before as yet the wonder of radium had been certified 
 to the world. 
 
 " Mighty sweeps of thought came which he ' could not 
 utter.' In the long, wakeful midnights, when nerves 
 quivered with pain, his listening spirit heard that 
 
 « ' sentinel 
 That moves about from place to place, 
 And whispers to the vast of space 
 Among the worlds that ' all is well. ' ' ' 
 
44 
 
 MEMORABILIA 
 
 Seraph, we called thee. With thy lofty thought 
 
 In far-sighted vision thou didst descry 
 
 The time of ' ' peace, good-will to men ' ' draw nigh. 
 
 For this thy life its holy service wrought ; 
 
 Like him who first the heavenly message brought, 
 
 The Master s spirit thine. In purpose high 
 
 A builder thou for immortality. 
 
 Living still, in all thy faithful lessons taught, 
 
 Thou mighty one, triumphant, glorious now, 
 
 Thou read' st the stars in new, discerning light, 
 
 Stars often watched from out the earthly night, 
 
 And One among them shineth near and fair, 
 
 The Bethlehem star, with peace upon his brow, 
 
 And in His face the glow of greeting rare. 
 
 A. G. Braislin. 
 
 Tamarlyn, N. J. 
 
DEC 23 1905 
 
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