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BELL STREET CHAPEL DISCOURSES. 
 
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 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/bellstreetchapelOOspenrich 
 
BELL STREET CHAPEL 
 DISCOURSES 
 
 BY 
 
 Anna Garlin Spencer 
 
 M 
 
 CONTAINING SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF 
 
 James Eddy 
 
 Providence, Rhode Island 
 1889-1899 
 

 »t/7f 
 
 Printed by 
 Journal of Commerce Co., 
 Providence, R. I. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Man's Ideal of God 
 
 Gratitude and Trust in the Powers 
 Above 
 
 How Religions Grow . 
 
 Reason in Religion 
 
 Man's Freedom and Responsibility, 
 or Character in Religion 
 
 Fellowship in Religion 
 
 Index to Quotations from Writings 
 of James Eddy 
 
 PAGES 
 
 1-18 
 
 19-36 
 
 37-55 
 57-75 
 
 76-93 
 94-1 10 
 
 III 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Bell Street Chapel was dedicated ** to God, to 
 Truth, and to all that ennobles Humanity," on 
 the first day of December, 1889. Since that 
 time, public worship free to all has been main- 
 tained. A Religious Society has been formed, 
 a Resident Minister chosen, a Sunday School 
 established, and regular Sunday services have 
 been held for ten months each year. From time 
 to time many noted preachers and lecturers from 
 different parts of the country have addressed the 
 Society. Week-day meetings of an educational, 
 philanthropic and social character have been 
 held from six to eight months of the year, with 
 growing influence in the community; and many 
 civic enterprises for the betterment of the peo- 
 ple have been aided from this centre of thought 
 and effort. The building and endowment were 
 the gift of James Eddy to all who desire to help 
 carry on the work in the spirit of the Trust, of 
 which the Society is the beneficiary. 
 
 After ten years of such life and labor, it seems 
 fitting to mark in some signal manner the decade 
 milestone. The ** Initial Discourses," given at 
 the Chapel on the Sundays following the Dedi- 
 cation, outlining the general purposes and ideals 
 
VIII PREFACE. 
 
 of the movement then inaugurated and contain- 
 ing selections from Mr. Eddy's writings, are 
 reprinted and condensed in this volume, and 
 reaffirm the reverent, rational and ethical devo- 
 tion which is at the heart of all the Chapel 
 activities. 
 
 May these discourses win a broader and more 
 earnest support for the future of the work "for 
 moral and religious purposes," initiated and 
 made possible by the gift of one man and already 
 consecrated and enlarged by the appreciative 
 and helpful response of many people. 
 
 Anna Garlin Spencer, 
 Resident Minister and President of the Religious 
 Society of Bell Street Chapel. 
 
MAN'S IDEAL OF GOD. 
 
 DO you remember standing some time on the 
 top of a high foot-hill in a mountain country? 
 Do you remember how clearly showed the road 
 leading to its summit, when once you had gained 
 its point of view ? And do you remember how 
 the paths from it to other foot-hills, and from all 
 the lower ranges toward the majestic heights of 
 the great mountains, could be traced by the rifts 
 in the greenness of the wooded slopes, until the 
 solitary peaks were all linked together by the 
 tiny roadways of man? Just such a foot-hill 
 summit is this age of ours. 
 
 To-day "we look before and after," we trace 
 the past in its relation to the present and the 
 future as never before. 
 
 That which more than anything else will dis- 
 tinguish this century, now drawing toward its 
 close, in future history is the rise and growth of 
 the scientific spirit. And what do we mean by 
 the phrase "scientific spirit?" Simply this: a 
 free and fearless search for actual facts of nature 
 and of human life; a careful test of all the re- 
 ports concerning these facts of the universe 
 made by man's observation; a cautious analysis, 
 
2 MAN S IDEAL OF GOD. 
 
 classification and arrangement of each order of 
 knowledge gained from these verified facts under 
 accepted axioms or working hypotheses. In a 
 word, the crowning distinction of our age is that 
 now thinkers and students are dealing with 
 things as they really are, so far as can be ascer- 
 tained, without the slightest regard to what any- 
 body has once thought things to be. The eager 
 intellect of our time is hunting for facts, and 
 fitting facts together to make certified knowledge, 
 in all directions. 
 
 It is true that this scientific spirit was in some 
 men of the ancient world, notably Aristotle; 
 some men whose towering thought make them 
 visible to us across the centuries as mountain 
 peaks reveal themselves across vast stretches of 
 level country; but to-day the leading teaching 
 and thought of those not great are shaped, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, by this prevailing 
 view. 
 
 Hence, as I say, we have reached an intellect- 
 ual hill-top: a point of view whence we can trace 
 the roadways of the pioneering intellect of man 
 as they wind over summits of vision, and across 
 fertile valleys of human effort, and among 
 morasses of superstition, and dark places of 
 ignorance. 
 
 And what, in brief, has been the effect of this 
 rise and growth of the scientific spirit upon the 
 religious consciousness of man } At first surely 
 
MAN S IDEAL OF GOD. 3 
 
 a deep disturbance of fundamental faiths ; or at 
 least of mental conceptions of theology which 
 were so closely allied to fundamental faiths that 
 many mistook them for the grounds of religion 
 itself. Astronomy gave us glimpses of the vast 
 reaches of the heavens, and directly it became 
 absurd to connect this little planet with such a 
 stupendous tragedy as the death of a "very 
 God." Geology made of the so-called Mosaic 
 account of creation, so long accepted as authentic 
 history, a poetic fancy merely. Biology made 
 of the " fall of man " so long the centre of the 
 Christian system of religion only a suggestive 
 myth. While ethnology, critical history, and 
 ethical science alike conspired to reduce the 
 dominant dogma of the atonement of an incarnate 
 deity for man's sins from a fact to a suggestive 
 allegory. 
 
 As the frail shrines of religious ideals 
 crumbled at the touch of the image-breakers, 
 the dogmatists who resisted the oncoming influ- 
 ence of the time, contested valiantly every inch 
 of ground, while the wounded sensibilities of 
 affection cried out at every step " spare me this 
 object of devotion." 
 
 I am wrong to speak as if all this was of the 
 past : to-day the struggle, so happily over for 
 many of us, is but just beginning in numberless 
 hearts and minds : aye, is yet to be awakened in 
 countless sluggish or timid natures. To most 
 
4 MAN S IDEAL OF GOD. 
 
 thoughtful people, however, whether or not 
 logically worked out to the giving up of old 
 theologic systems and old phrasings of truth, the 
 emphasis of religious, as of other theories and 
 beliefs, is upon the reasonable, the universal, 
 and the natural, rather than as of old upon the 
 dogmatic, the partial and the supernatural. 
 
 Meanwhile the new method of enquiry has 
 pressed closer toward the inner citadels of old 
 beliefs. The outer details of literal readings of 
 scripture texts, the literal following of creedal 
 statements, and the narrow partisanship of 
 denominational allegiance, have been surrendered 
 by most of the more intelligent of all sects of 
 Christendom ; often with utter unconsciousness 
 of any change in their outlook. But the relent- 
 less logic of the scientific method once accepted, 
 there is no chance for "halt" until everything in 
 the universe and in the consciousness of man 
 has come under the dissecting knife of analysis. 
 And of late years the cry has gone up, not alone 
 from the timid and the thoughtless, but from 
 many most profound and earnest natures, 
 "Behold the integrity of the human soul is 
 assailed ! The immortal Hope is destroyed I 
 Even the God in whom we trusted as the Father 
 of our spirits. He is pushed from his throne 
 within our hearts into the limitless spaces of the 
 universe, and we are orphaned in a world of 
 struggle and of sorrow." 
 
man's ideal of god. 5 
 
 How many of us remember to-day, with 
 twinges of pain from the old wound, the hour 
 when first the extremest implications of modern 
 scientific thought burst upon our terrified con- 
 sciousness. How the once solid rock of our 
 inherited faiths crumbled beneath our feet. 
 How desolate we stood in the pitiless noonday 
 glare of an inquisition which spared no tender 
 feeling, and seemed to threaten all that we had 
 called by the name of " Spirit." 
 
 But to as many of us as met that terrible hour 
 with simple fidelity to truth, it marks in our 
 memory not only a new era in our intellectual 
 growth, but a glad rebaptism of our faith in the 
 eternal verities. For they know, perhaps best 
 of all, they who have borne the fiery heat of 
 such a struggle, that whosoever becomes patient 
 outcast and willing slave for Truth's sake, learns 
 that Truth and Righteousness and Love are 
 One, that " One in whom man lives, and moves, 
 and has his being." 
 
 " They bade me cast my doubt away, 
 
 They pointed to my hands all bleeding, 
 They listened not to all my pleading; 
 
 The thing I meant I could not say; 
 
 I knew that I should rue the day 
 
 If once I cast that doubt away. 
 
 *' I grasped it firm and bore the pain; 
 
 The thorny husks I stripped and scattered; 
 
O MAN S IDEAL OF GOD. 
 
 If I could reach its heart, what mattered 
 If other men saw not my gain 
 Or even if I should be slain? 
 I knew the risks : I chose the pain. 
 
 " O, had I cast that doubt away 
 
 I had not found what most I cherish, 
 A faith without which I should perish, — 
 The faith which, like a kernel, lay 
 Hid in the husks which on that day 
 My instinct would not throw away ! " 
 
 The personal struggle, however, but epitomizes 
 the world movements. To-day we see that same 
 fidelity to truth which in so many single lives 
 has brought a higher faith, bringing to the general 
 belief the same reward. To-day we mark on all 
 sides, from the specialists of science as well as 
 from the philosophic leaders, a tendency toward 
 such a restatement of the philosophy of the 
 universe as harmonizes with the essentials of all 
 religious faith. The faith in God as the One^ 
 distinct from, yet immanent in, all nature, this 
 fundamental postulate of worship, Herbert 
 Spencer himself reaffirms when he talks of 
 " Eternal Energy," and begins the words with 
 the capital letters which indicate entity, while 
 other high thinkers not a few, enlarge and 
 elaborate the hints of science into a system of 
 scientific theism. However impersonalized, in 
 the old sense of the word, may have become 
 man's Ideal of God, that Ideal still persists; 
 
man's ideal of god. 7 
 
 and just now is reinforced, with a power of logic, 
 and a confident appeal to science itself, not 
 known before. Faith in the One in All is not 
 only left intact, it is deepened and greatened, 
 so that to-day the conceptions of common minds 
 may easily mount to the poetic imaginings of the 
 seers of all times. 
 
 And if the faith in man as a spiritual entity 
 (as something more and other than a functional 
 flower upon the great tree of life), if this faith, 
 which has been supposed, at least, an essential of 
 the highest form of moral responsibility, is not yet 
 reinforced by the later science, it is at least not 
 invalidated. The persistence of the individuality 
 of a human being through the widest range of 
 structural change testifies pretty strongly of 
 something in man which no scalpel discovers 
 and no physical fact explains. Those few great 
 prophets of the soul like Emerson, who kept the 
 faith when the multitude knew not that it was 
 assailed, have been lately hailed chiefs by the 
 main army of religious leadership. 
 
 And it is curious and interesting to us, who 
 seek to set before you the more important 
 elements of Mr. Eddy's thought upon these 
 great themes, to trace his course along these 
 world currents of change. I will now give you, 
 in a selected and arranged portion of his manu- 
 scripts, the outline of his philosophical conception 
 of the universe and of its Source. 
 
8 man's ideal of god. 
 
 "Much time has been spent by the human 
 mind in the endeavor to conceive of the beginning 
 of things. And a harmony of conclusion seems 
 now to be arrived at, viz.: that man is not con- 
 stituted in mind, body or senses to comprehend 
 a beginning or origin of the least particle of 
 matter or of what we call mind : and we may 
 safely say will never be. To be in accord with 
 human reason there must always exist an a 
 priori to all thought-of beginnings. It would 
 seem wiser, therefore, to leave the problem of 
 creation and pass on to the consideration of 
 questions within the scope of human intelligence. 
 
 "We perceive that organizations exist com- 
 bining mind and matter or intelligence and 
 phenomena. 
 
 "What we term spirit, or mind, is always 
 invisible to the human senses. No man ever 
 saw the mind of another man nor the mind of 
 any living creature. The moving power and 
 character of mind is known only by manifesta- 
 tions or phenomena. So of the mentality of the 
 Power above the human mind, it is hidden and 
 invisible to the human senses : but not so its 
 manifestations, since the phenomena of nature 
 all indicate an interior Intelligence, a great Mind 
 in all things. 
 
 "This intermingling of mind and matter is 
 certainly a great mystery ; perhaps next to the 
 crowning mystery of the primal origin of all 
 
man's ideal of god. 9 
 
 things. But in spite of the unfathomable mys- 
 teries in which we are immersed, we do know so 
 much of the orderings of nature, of the wise 
 guiding principles or laws of growth revealed 
 through phenomena, that we may surely perceive 
 the goodness and the power of some great Mind 
 above the human. And we are constantly on 
 the road, as experience develops us, toward the 
 acquisition of more knowledge in all our relations 
 with nature, with each other, and in our relations 
 with the great mind of all substance which we 
 call God. 
 
 " Man finds on his advent upon earth certain 
 invariable laws in operation, which, on examina- 
 tion, he realizes were necessary to his birth and 
 existence. He finds in nature, from the minutest 
 lichen upon the rock up through the animal 
 kingdom to man, the highest manifestation of 
 life, that all grades of being are under the opera- 
 tion of these laws. And since man cannot 
 conceive of a First Cause, the human reason is 
 forced to fall back upon these laws as the agency 
 of revelation of God's nature and character. 
 Would you know the character of a man } Sum 
 up the phenomena of words and deeds he mani- 
 fests through life and you find the sum total is 
 the man himself. We find phenomena in the 
 universe indicating a Supreme Mind and Char- 
 acter. And although we cannot idealize even 
 the Primal Power, we can comprehend, in a man- 
 
10 MAN S IDEAL OF GOD. 
 
 ner, the character of the God these phenomena 
 reveal. 
 
 "Man is the flower of all the phenomena 
 manifested in this world. And since our finite 
 and invisible minds are manifested to others by 
 our works, we must believe that in the God-Mind 
 of the universe is combined, speaking humanly, 
 all that is noble and manly in man, united to all 
 that is sweet and lovely in woman. Hence we 
 may say that the noblest men and the noblest 
 women are faint types of the character of God, 
 and reveal that character to our comprehension. 
 
 " We are justified in believing in the existence 
 of invisible mental Power above the human, 
 most of all, because man himself has the power 
 to plan in the secrecy of his own mind, and can 
 exert influence over both substance and mind in 
 a similar manner. And we are able to personify 
 a casual Power, because the qualities of intelli- 
 gence and of goodness are faintly but distinctly 
 typified in the personalities of the human race ! 
 
 " Let us be voluntarily grateful to that Life- 
 giving and Life - sustaining Power which is 
 revealed by nature and by human experience ! 
 To be religious, as I understand it, is to ascertain 
 by careful study of the phenomena of nature 
 and of human experience the character of the 
 Power above humanity. Whom we call God : 
 then to study ourselves and our relations to God 
 and to each other. Then will come in our 
 
MAN S IDEAL OF GOD. 1 1 
 
 religious obligations, which consist of the con- 
 scientious performance of our duties in our 
 relations with God and of all duties in our rela- 
 tions with each other. To honestly perform 
 these duties is all that could be expected of us 
 by any Power above us ; and the sincere per- 
 formance of duty will enable us to become 
 intelligent and good. Let us begin now the work 
 of perfecting ourselves ; for in this way shall we 
 best perform the duty of the hour, which is to 
 know God and ourselves. 
 
 "The error of all who sustain the popular 
 religious systems of our day is that they oppose 
 this divine law of progress and change. Chris- 
 tian theologians admit that the increase of 
 knowledge, through experience, gives humanity 
 progress in all things outside of religious creeds ; 
 but they believe, with more or less of sincerity, 
 that in those narrow creeds is concreted all of 
 truth respecting God, and man's relations with 
 God, which it is necessary for man to know. 
 But *a change is coming over the spirit of their 
 dream.' Faiths and creeds hitherto held too 
 sacred to justify examination, are now being 
 submitted to the investigation of common sense 
 thinkers, who criticise them with a hardihood 
 wounding perhaps to the sensibilities of many, 
 who perceive with fear that * old things are pass- 
 ing away and all are becoming new.' This change 
 and dissolution of old ideas is, I think, inevitable. 
 
12 MAN S IDEAL OF GOD. 
 
 One modification of accepted truth leads to an- 
 other. But to me this means progress. I have 
 placed on a panel of a door in Bell St. Chapel 
 these words, ^Many beliefs of to-day will become 
 the heathenisms of the future.' The same 
 power of truth and of reason which casts from 
 their pedestals our old faiths, will place a truer 
 God in the heart and mind of the intelligent and 
 good. From our knowledge of the character of 
 the most perfect specimens of human kind it 
 has become impossible for many to believe in 
 the existence of a God with a character such as 
 the popular creeds of Christianity ascribe to 
 Him; since that character is represented by 
 those creeds to be inferior to our best men and 
 women in a moral point of view. In the abstract 
 all Christian believers declare that God is wise 
 and good ; and they meet in fine churches, no 
 doubt with the honest intent to worship and 
 honor God. But the tendency of much which 
 they teach is to prove that God is not wise and 
 good ; since they teach that He will torture 
 forever an honest unbeliever ; and that He finds 
 it necessary, in establishing a Divine Revelation, 
 to break His own laws ! 
 
 "I wish it to be understood that in this 
 criticism of Christian dogmas I do not impugn 
 the sincerity of Christians. Many, perhaps 
 most of them, have a higher practical standard 
 of morality than is justified by the character of 
 
man's ideal of god. 13 
 
 the God they profess to imitate and worship. 
 And to the liberal minded I would suggest that 
 if it were possible to close all churches wherein 
 systems of error are taught, such a course would 
 not be desirable. In all natural processes, which 
 are divine, changes are slow, and in consequence 
 more sure. What we want to begin with is 
 toleration toward each other. 
 
 " All popular religions which now prevail upon 
 the earth, including Christianity, were founded 
 in superstition and error. And in the Christian, 
 as in other religious systems, some changes are 
 absolutely necessary to fit it to our present 
 conceptions of truth. 
 
 " Poor human nature requires a God that it can 
 look up to : One Who possesses intelligence and 
 goodness superior, not inferior, to the best of 
 men ! Let us from now on consecrate our 
 church edifices, and our own minds and hearts, to 
 a God whom we recognize as above our highest 
 human standard ; One whom we can love and 
 honor with our own free will ; for this would 
 enable us to consider the performance of our 
 religious and moral duties the greatest privilege 
 of life ! 
 
 "And now what the writer of these lines 
 desires above all things is to assist in founding 
 and building up a religious society which shall 
 be guided by the highest principles of truth and 
 right which the mind of our day can conceive. 
 
14 MAN S IDEAL OF GOD. 
 
 He aspires, by che aid of those who may sympa- 
 thize with and appreciate his views, to initiate a 
 church service which shall be modified in im- 
 portant respects from the old liturgies. Believing 
 in the existence of a paternal Power he believes 
 that we should strive to comprehend His char- 
 acter ; and that this knowledge of God joined to 
 a knowledge of ourselves, will enable us to 
 understand our true relations with God and with 
 each other. Then will be enlisted our conscience, 
 our sense of duty, our dignity of character, and 
 our most noble emotions to help us perform all 
 the duties growing out of these relations with 
 our Divine Father and with our brother man ! 
 
 " We believe in God ; in humility; in gratitude ; 
 and in obedience to His laws. The intelligent 
 and good live near to God. All scientific truth 
 is knowledge of God and His ways of wisdom 
 and kindness. 
 
 " May we all live nearer and ever nearer to 
 God ! " 
 
 Closing thus our quotations from Mr. Eddy's 
 writings, we note how true ran the course of his 
 single experience to the line of the great 
 thought - tendencies of which it was a part. 
 Working out as he did, for himself, the great 
 problems of religious belief, his convictions 
 assumed to his apprehension the force and the 
 importance of original discoveries. And his 
 conclusions were and are both forceful and 
 
MANS IDEAL OF GOD. 1 5 
 
 important. Not alone or chiefly because they 
 have the somewhat unique value of the testimony 
 of a clear-headed practical man of affairs upon 
 themes generally treated by scholars, — although 
 this is an aspect not to be ignored — but because 
 he reached by independent methods of investi- 
 gation conclusions which coincide in their most 
 essential particulars with those of many of the 
 world's thinkers of all times. 
 
 The religious need of any time is its vital 
 need. And to-day the great religious need is on 
 the one hand for a religion of essentials stripped 
 of the veiling, transient robes of outgrown 
 creeds and traditions : and on the other hand 
 for a revival of the religious spirit itself : for a 
 genuine faith that it profiteth a man nothing to 
 gain the whole world if thereby he lose his own 
 soul of aspiration and of righteousness ! 
 
 The cry goes up to-day from disturbed minds 
 and burdened hearts, "Show us the Father!" 
 Not the partial monarch mindful of his own 
 glory ; but the tender Heart ** that is mindful of 
 all his own." Not the jealous despot who 
 reserves ingenious tortures for those who have 
 offended him ; but He, the merciful, who " re- 
 moveth our transgressions from us." Not the 
 fickle and childish sovereign who repents him 
 of past kindnesses and recklessly disturbs the 
 regular order of events to display his power, but 
 "He with whom is no variableness, neither 
 
i6 man's ideal of god. 
 
 shadow of turning," whose glory the steadfast 
 heavens declare. Not he, the big man, who 
 stands without his creation, turning the wheels 
 of a mechanical universe ; but He the Immanent 
 life of all that is, the Soul of Nature, Who sleeps 
 in the stone, flutters in the winged bird, blos- 
 soms in the flower and creeps upward, as " the 
 ages rise and cluster," through animal to man, 
 in whom He forever "maketh for righteousness." 
 
 ' ' God of the granite and the rose ! 
 
 Soul of the sparrow and the bee ! 
 The mighty tide of being flows 
 
 Through countless channels, Lord, from Thee. 
 It leaps to life in grass and flowers ; 
 
 Through every grade of being runs ; 
 Till from creation's radient towers 
 
 Its glory flames in stars and suns." 
 
 By thought and by experience alike men and 
 women have climbed upon such mounts of 
 vision to-day that they realize as never before 
 that God is Spirit, and must be worshipped in 
 spirit, not with forms or symbols or childish idol- 
 creeds. 
 
 And in the light of this thought how worse 
 than foolish, how hurting to the true faith 
 which is at the heart of religion, seem the hair- 
 splitting differences, the quarrels over vestments, 
 and statements, and sacraments, and traditions ! 
 How small the bickerings which divide the 
 church of God into contending factions ! How 
 
MAN S IDEAL OF GOD. 17 
 
 suicidal seems the sectarian's bigotry, in a world 
 where little children are born to wretchedness 
 and sin, where strong men fail because of sick- 
 ness and death, where struggle and toil and 
 sorrow are ever calling for succor and for help ! 
 "Verily," saith Jesus of old, ''not he that crieth 
 Lord, Lord, but he that doeth the will of My 
 Father " is the true annointed. 
 
 The wave of changing thought which has 
 passed over our age has left unchanged the root 
 elements of human nature. It makes small 
 difference whether we call God by this name, or 
 that, or in self-distrustful reverence hold our- 
 selves dumb before His presence. We want, as 
 all men and women in all times have wanted, 
 more than we want anything else, to feel some 
 ** peace of trust which passeth understanding." 
 When life grows difficult, when trouble disturbs 
 youth's joyousness, when sin appals, when 
 cowardice hinders, when temptation assails, 
 when the loved dead answer not again, when 
 friends misunderstand, and the world seems at 
 odds with our ideal, then we would escape from 
 the seen and temporal into the unseen and eternal 
 Perfection, 
 
 And not in weakness or in sorrow alone do we 
 need strong faith in the One in All. We are 
 sketched on a large pattern, we incomplete and 
 imperfect mortals. Nothing contents either 
 thought or feeling but the Infinite, 
 
i8 man's ideal of god. 
 
 We are haunted in the heights as in the depths 
 of our natures by visions which allure to endless 
 aspiration. That " Something deeply interfused " 
 in nature, which calms our trembling nerves and 
 steadies our feverish pulses, witnesseth to the 
 " central peace at the heart of endless agitation." 
 That leap of the exultant mind when a new 
 truth is revealed, is evidence that we are of one 
 substance with the Eternal Energy and can 
 "think God's thought after him." 
 
 The deep religious need of our time is that we 
 free this permanent spirit of religion from all 
 that dwarfs and hinders it ; that we in sincerity 
 and courage declare the new readings upon the 
 scroll of time ; and above all, that we translate 
 the old comfort, the old call to righteousness, 
 the old God-ward search, in terms of the newer 
 thought. 
 
 And if this little movement here be only the 
 frailest and humblest of efforts in this direction 
 it has the high sanction of most holy use ! 
 
GRATITUDE 
 
 Trust in the Powers Above. 
 
 "\1/E believe in God," says Mr. Eddy, "and 
 ' ' in gratitude. Our truest relations with 
 God ask from us humility, gratitude and love. 
 The purest and sweetest essence of true Religion 
 lies in its confiding simplicity of character." 
 And again he said in words dictated only a 
 week before he died, " Man's true worship is 
 gratitude and love for the gift of life and all 
 that we receive. Let us be voluntarily grateful 
 to God; there is no higher duty nor higher 
 motive than gratitude for obeying the behests 
 of a pure religion and morality. 
 
 " Life is a free gift to man, from a higher 
 power existing antecedent to man's advent to 
 this world. So we are of divine origin ! Life is 
 costless to us, but priceless. There is no doubt 
 of the unequal value of life to babes who receive 
 it ; but we must not forget that the parents them- 
 selves create or furnish the conditions of health 
 and well-being, or otherwise, under which we are 
 
20 GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 
 
 born. The power, the gift of life is from God ; the 
 conditions under which we are born are created 
 by man, and appertain to his liberty of will. 
 
 "To be grateful for favors received from others 
 is natural and sensible ; and when we can make 
 no return for favors received then is our grati- 
 tude enhanced. Wholly do we stand in this 
 light toward God, the author of our existence; 
 for we can render no equivalent for all we receive 
 from his power and goodness. The best and 
 most acceptable return we can make to God is 
 to enjoy life rationally and fully; which would 
 harmonize with God's will and intent toward us. 
 Gratitude, like other good sentiments of our 
 minds, should be cultivated. A study of our 
 relations to each other teaches us that parents, 
 children, brothers and sisters, husbands and 
 wives, have mutual natural claims upon each 
 other to be unselfish. This inspires gratitude, 
 and a mutual disposition to make returns where 
 it is possible. And where it is not possible to 
 give equivalents for favors received, there is one 
 return which in justice should be made, and that 
 is gratitude. And ingratitude toward those from 
 whom we have received disinterested favors has 
 always been considered a crime. But God has 
 a character so noble that the persistent force of 
 his love is not affected either by gratitude or 
 ingratitude. From the character of God we 
 get the idea that 'virtue is its own reward.' 
 
GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 21 
 
 God being personally invisible, he acts through 
 proxies or agents. On a panel of a door in Bell 
 Street Chapel I have caused to be inscribed 
 these words, 'The infant smiles not upon its 
 mother, but God smiles through the infant.' 
 Now, by the power of our hearts to feel, by the 
 power of our minds to perceive, we will love our 
 mothers, children, and all our near and dear 
 relations, because such is the will of God. But 
 let us acknowledge that our deepest love, honor 
 and gratitude are due to that divine Power, the 
 giver of life and of all well-being, who is behind 
 all and in all that we esteem as the most pre- 
 cious in life. 
 
 *♦ God does not require this worship. God has 
 no need of the praise, homage, love or gratitude 
 of man. But man has great need of exercising 
 all these sentiments towards God. With an in- 
 telligent and just man the cherishing and the 
 expression of these sentiments is a necessity; 
 a demand of conscience. The exquisite satis- 
 faction we derive from them constitutes our 
 highest privilege of experience. And it is 
 reasonable to conclude that since the highest 
 happiness and well-being of man, and of all 
 created beings, is the end and aim of the activi- 
 ties of the high power above man, so the free 
 expression of gratitude from man toward this 
 high power should give satisfaction to the great 
 mind and heart of God himself. He could not 
 
22 GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 
 
 feel such satisfaction, however, if he required of 
 us any exercise of worship ; for this requirement 
 would be derogatory both to his dignity and to 
 ours. 
 
 " No man that respects himself would beg to 
 be praised or honored, however praiseworthy or 
 honorable he might be. Conscious of his own 
 integrity he would let his character speak for 
 itself in his acts. If he were not appreciated, 
 he would exercise the virtue of modesty, and 
 wait patiently until the distinction and honor 
 due him should be voluntarily paid. Now in 
 regard to the God of wisdom and beneficence, 
 we may be sure that his dignity and self-respect 
 are not less than that of a good and intelligent 
 man in this particular. No equivalent for a gift 
 can be properly required from the parties bene- 
 fited; all return must be voluntary on the part 
 of recipients; but there exists in the human 
 mind a sense of justice, a feeling that there 
 should be some recognition of favors bestowed. 
 If ingratitude is a crime, the feeling and ex- 
 pression of gratitude is a simple duty. Grateful 
 feelings should be as common as favors received ; 
 but a high-minded, good man will not withhold 
 favors and charity because of the lack of thanks 
 or gratitude from the recipients. And in the 
 laws of God, while all crimes against our fellow- 
 men are punished with unpleasant effects with 
 reformatory intents, for ingratitude to God, who 
 
GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 2$ 
 
 is the real author of our existence and of all the 
 blessings comprised in life, there is no special 
 punishment ; no more than there is for a lack of 
 homage or love toward Him or for non-concep- 
 tion of His existence. His sun shines on all, 
 and no laws giving happiness to man are sus- 
 pended for the punishment of the atheist or the 
 ingrate. 
 
 "Gratitude, then, is the first return we can 
 and should make to God for His great gifts to 
 us. But do we owe anything else to God for 
 the manifold blessings of life.? Yes, we owe, 
 and I thank heaven can make, another, and a 
 most important return to God, the divine Father; 
 we can obey His will as we ascertain it and so fur- 
 ther His intents and purposes of righteousness 
 in this world. How may we do this t By learn- 
 ing the laws He has instituted for the govern- 
 ment of man and of all nature. These laws being 
 instituted for our best good, an intelligent self- 
 interest would lead us to obey them. But there 
 is a higher reason, even gratitude; a principle of 
 high honor towards Him who has so richly en- 
 dowed and blessed us. Should we not gladly 
 obey our best friend } Gratitude towards human 
 beings who have aided us in kindness we all 
 admit to be a duty ; and any service possible to 
 render to one who has thus kindly aided us 
 would be at once cheerfully given by every 
 rightminded man. Can there be a doubt, then. 
 
24 GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 
 
 that we owe God gratitude, and obedience to 
 His will and ascertained laws ? It is a great 
 principle of duty to make ourselves and each 
 other as happy as possible ; always in subservi- 
 ence to reason, common sense, and the high 
 sentiments of truth and virtue. 
 
 " My strong faith is in the perfect righteous- 
 ness and goodness of God ! I do not believe 
 there exists in nature, or in human life, as con- 
 stituted, anything to justify us in an arraignment 
 of the Power or Powers above the human. The 
 governing laws and principles which we recog- 
 nize in the manifestations of nature are all 
 beneficent. The mass of mankind have thought 
 and acted like badly made up children respecting 
 their relations with God: crying and begging, 
 fearful or hopeful, troublesome towards each 
 other, and demanding great patience from their 
 Divine parent ! God's gift of life, and all the 
 happiness which life may comprise, has been 
 full, rich and free; no onerous conditions 
 attach to it. Whether we acknowledge the ex- 
 istence and goodness of God or not. His disin- 
 terested paternal kindness will not be withheld 
 from man or from any living creature ! 
 
 " Therefore our relation to God should be one 
 of love and veneration. We should humbly 
 acknowledge the existence and divine power of 
 our first and greatest friend, that great Spirit of 
 intelligence and goodness which called us into 
 
GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 2$ 
 
 being. It is not necessary in order to cherish 
 these sentiments of love and gratitude that we 
 should perceive in our rmnds 3. personality. We 
 know of no personality higher than the human. 
 But since mentality exists in all the operations 
 of nature, and in all the qualities and powers of 
 human life, we may look up, each in his own 
 way, to the Source of all things in trust and 
 confidence ! 
 
 " The true religion is one of faith in an infinite 
 Righteousness and Love, and the working out 
 of these principles of the Divine Nature in human 
 life ! " 
 
 Closing thus our quotations from Mr. Eddy's 
 writings we are confronted with the problems 
 and difficulties which beset so many of us. Not 
 to all is it given to feel such " strong faith in the 
 perfect righteousness and goodness of God" 
 that they never arraign the conduct of this 
 world under His laws. The "duty of gratitude" 
 seems to many very questionable; the "trust in 
 the powers above " very difficult, in so troubled 
 and incomplete a world as ours. " Gratitude for 
 life," these would say, "when it is one long 
 struggle, one constant pain, one succession of 
 disappointments "^ Gratitude for one's own life 
 when every one calls it a failure .-^ Gratitude for 
 the life of nearest kin when sin and shame 
 and anxiety are the links which bind 
 them to us ? Gratitude for life as a whole ; for 
 
26 GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 
 
 mankind with its feet rooted in bestiality ; for 
 mankind, still showing the * tooth and claw of 
 nature ' as the fight for selfish advantage goes 
 on ? * Trust in the powers above ' that all is 
 well with us all, is well with the world, when the 
 Ideal within is mocked and tortured every day 
 with the *pain and wrong enthroned below ? ' " 
 Ah, when we say in greatest strength of faith 
 " we believe," the response of doubt's weakness 
 presses quick, " Help thou my unbelief." Yet, 
 mark it well, the experience of mankind has 
 shown that along the ways of gratitude and trust 
 lie soid-health and soul-power. 
 
 Let us look at two lives, true pictures of this 
 fact of human experience. 
 
 There was a woman dowered at birth with 
 exceptional advantages. Her ancestry for gen- 
 erations had been clean, high-minded, talented 
 and cultivated people, of comfortable means. 
 She, flowered upon this stock, had rare talent, 
 and a brilliancy of intellect which made her one 
 of the most remarkable women in this country. 
 Early in life she married a good and honorable 
 man whose devotion to her was an adoration ; so 
 that she was enfolded with love and appreciation 
 as with an atmosphere. A child came to bless 
 their home, a beautiful boy, reproducing her own 
 brilliant attractions. She had wealth and travel 
 and leisure in which to grow her uttermost. 
 And the real nobility of her nature kept her 
 
\ B ^ A R y^ 
 
 QV rHB 
 
 riVEBSITY 
 
 GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 2^ 
 
 from stagnation and frivolity, so that her life 
 was an inspiration to many ; her days were rich 
 with high labors ; and her home a centre of 
 intellectual and artistic enjoyment. One day 
 Death, which had spared her when he had 
 snatched many treasures from those less blessed, 
 knocked at her door, as sooner or later he will 
 at each hut and palace. And this beloved wife 
 became a widow. In an hour the whole current 
 of her life was changed. She shut herself away 
 from the world, denied herself to friends, closed 
 her heart against the appeals of charity to which 
 before she had carelessly but generously re- 
 sponded. She shut herself in to an unresigned 
 desolation which she felt was greater than any 
 other soul had known. 
 
 Her son lived, when the wail of bereaved 
 mothers ceases not upon the earth ; but she felt 
 no joy even in that. In her seclusion the large 
 property left her by her husband was mismanaged 
 by the man to whom he entrusted its care ; and 
 this woman awoke one morning to find herself, 
 not a poor, but no longer a rich woman. Every 
 comfort was still hers, while many women as 
 delicate and as sensitive as she toiled for bread 
 and were rudely swept by every breath of for- 
 tune ; but for her comforts she gave no thanks. 
 Disaster following upon bereavement turned her 
 weak sorrow into a bitterness which spoiled her 
 home life, appalled her best friends, and turned 
 
28 GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 
 
 her clear logic and fine wit into harsh railings 
 and stinging sarcasm. A blight fell upon her 
 intellectual nature itself. Diseased at the root 
 of being, looking at all the world through the 
 distorted vision of a selfish resistance to fate, 
 the end of that brilliant creature was a fret- 
 fulness and a complaining restlessness akin to 
 insanity. 
 
 I know another women, gifted not so highly, 
 but still exceptionally favored in birth, breeding 
 and opportunity. She too married young, and 
 in her case the husband, an artist of exquisite 
 nature, was to her the embodied beauty and 
 inspiration of the universe ; while she to him 
 became rest, and support and all-surrounding 
 care. Death early widowed her. And no one 
 who knew her could doubt that the blow struck 
 to the very centre of her being. But she turned 
 bravely to the lonely duties and pleasures left 
 for her. On their child, a daughter who inherited 
 much of the best of both father and mother, 
 she lavished the tenderness which this chief 
 bereavement and the loss of most of her near 
 kindred forced into one channel. And out into 
 the world of intellectual work and of philan- 
 thropic effort she pressed with a vigor unknown 
 before. When the daughter was grown a young 
 woman of exceptional gifts and powers, she too 
 was suddenly taken away. Those who knew the 
 rare bond between the two said, " How can the 
 
GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 29 
 
 mother bear this loss ? " With just a little pause 
 to gather strength after the sudden blow, all the 
 old pursuits were resumed, all the old friends 
 welcomed, and the old work for the sorrowful 
 and needy of the world redoubled, and with a 
 tenderness and sweetness of spirit excelling 
 anything witnessed in her before. More than 
 this; not to keep the house a grave of buried 
 hopes, a young man needing sorely its shelter 
 and help, a student in a neighboring college, was 
 taken to live with her. The pathos of this 
 woman's patient smile, the deep lines in the 
 sweet face, the marks of sorrow's aging hand 
 upon the bodily frame, these alone testified how 
 heavy had been the stroke. And an increase in 
 breadth and insight of sympathy, a deeper and 
 higher consecration of all life's gifts and oppor- 
 tunities, testified to the enrichment of sorrows 
 patiently and unselfishly borne. Now who of 
 us can doubt that of those two women, she who 
 in gratitude and trust, in self-forgetting and 
 patience made the best of everything life brought 
 her, was right ; and she who in angry revolt at 
 sorrows and troubles common to all, threw away 
 all of comfort and blessing that remained to her, 
 was wrong f 
 
 And as we use these words, signifying moral 
 responsibility and ethical quality, do we not 
 show our underlying conviction that gratitude 
 and trust are duties^ not merely tempera- 
 
30 GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 
 
 mental peculiarities or accidental states of mind ? 
 
 It is true that temperament and outward con- 
 ditions have much to do with cheerfulness. But 
 there is such a thing, as the ancient poet says, 
 as " putting forth all our strength to exalt the 
 Lord, and justify His ways," and with success. 
 
 Do you remember that poet David Wasson, 
 a man of such rarely individualized mental powder 
 that no popular success could come to him, and 
 one at whose life a distressing spinal disease 
 dragged until it smote him with blindness, do 
 you remember how he, who had surely tasted 
 some of life's disappointments and hardships, 
 wrote for us i* — 
 
 Ask and receive — 'tis sweetly said; 
 
 Yet what to plead for know I not; 
 For Wish is worsted, Hope o'ersped, 
 
 And aye to thanks returns my thought. 
 If I would pray, I've naught to say 
 
 But this, that God may be God still. 
 For him to live is still to give. 
 
 And sweeter than my wish his will. 
 
 O wealth of life beyond all bound. 
 
 Eternity each moment given ! 
 What plummet may the Present sound? 
 
 Who promises a future heaven ? 
 Or glad or grieved, oppressed, relieved. 
 
 In blackest night or brightest day, 
 Still pours the flood of golden good 
 
 And more than heartful fills me aye." 
 
GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 3 1 
 
 "Ah but," you may say, "these you speak of 
 were exceptional people. They knew the delights 
 of that intellectual life which furnishes the best 
 antidote to sorrow and trouble that human nature 
 knows. And one had the poet's temperament, 
 the exaltation of genius. But what of the com- 
 monplace people, the ordinary sick and crippled, 
 the dwarfed in mind, the abnormal in develop- 
 ment } What of the fragmentary, even the 
 loathsome, of the children of men ? " Ah, friends, 
 I speak not here as " one who hath attained." I 
 feel with George Eliot " the exceeding difficulty 
 of human life." I walk through the world's 
 hospitals for diseased minds and bodies with a 
 shuddering sense of the terrible facts of human 
 experience. I hear amid the joyful psalms of 
 praise which heal and lift my soul the undertone 
 of earth's travail pains, the "low, sad music of" 
 suffering "humanity." And I know, as most of 
 you do also, the weight of cares and anxieties 
 my trust cannot always carry serenely. Nay, 
 more than this, I see how the element in human 
 nature which rebels against bad and hurting 
 things, which revolts against "the slings and 
 arrows of outrageous fortune," I see how that 
 element in human nature is closely allied to the 
 " divine discontent " which leads the race 
 upward toward better conditions and so toward 
 better living. I recognize that not alone should 
 Pippa's song be sung — 
 
32 GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 
 
 *' God's in His heaven 
 
 All's right with His world," 
 
 not only tKat, but the clarion call to ourselves 
 make this world better and safer and happier 
 for all the tempted and weak and oppressed ; 
 ourselvesy with all our might, as though we alone 
 must do it. 
 
 But however these two great principles of 
 life — gratitude for the present and trust for the 
 future, and the reformer's impatience at existing 
 ills and haste to mend them, — however these 
 two great principles may at times clash in the 
 interpretation of human history, in the conduct 
 of the single life they need strike no discord. 
 We have right and duty to '• covet earnestly the 
 best, gifts," and get rid of all avoidable ills of 
 life. But if the wisdom of experience teaches 
 us anything it is this, — that when a personal 
 trouble cannot be pushed away it must be borne 
 patiently, sweetly, heroically, or it will kill the 
 best life of the soul. The wisdom of experience 
 teaches us that those who rail against fate, who 
 resist with bitter complaint the sorrows and dis- 
 asters which come upon them, neither grow in 
 the beauty of holiness, nor are strong to help 
 others. And if we cannot trust in confidence to 
 righteousness and love at the heart of things we 
 cannot keep our true sanity. That is sure, if 
 experience makes anything sure both to our 
 
GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 33 
 
 thought and feeling. With doubt of the moral 
 order of the universe we lose grip upon our own 
 unity of consciousness, lose hold upon all other 
 natures for succor and help. Feeble and 
 struggling may be our faith, choked with many 
 a burdening weight, but its life is our life. I 
 believe that Mr. Eddy's thought was profoundly 
 true when he defined true religion as " faith in 
 an infinite Righteousness and Love, and the 
 working out of these principles of the Divine 
 Nature in human life." 
 
 And this, too, I believe, that the seal of high 
 usefulness, such as is set upon trust in the 
 powers above that shape our lives, seal of high 
 usefulness in personal growth and in world help- 
 fulness, is never set upon a lie. If faith in 
 Righteousness and Goodness at the heart of 
 things makes for self -bettering and kindly help- 
 fulness as it surely does, and doubt of the eternal 
 justice and love works madness and leads to 
 selfishness as it surely does, then faith is true 
 to the actual fact, and doubt here is falsehood 
 as well as suicide ! 
 
 Who are they whom you seek in trouble.? 
 Who are they who bear on their hearts as on 
 eagle's pinions, the feeble uplooking of weaker 
 ones } Who are " they who suffer, and grow 
 strong " to succor the afflicted t Who are they 
 whose sympathy can most surely be counted on, 
 whose love is bravest, whose work for the least 
 
34 GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 
 
 of their brethren is most radiantly hopeful ? Is 
 it not those who in this incomplete and strug- 
 gling world have surest faith that " God is on 
 the field when He seems most invisible?" Is it 
 not those who meet their own trials most 
 bravely and serenely, who resign with patience 
 cherished dreams and hopes when the call 
 comes, who wear overmore " a smile where tears 
 have run ? " 
 
 Ah, not as these who have attained dare I 
 speak ; but this I know full well, these saints of 
 the blessed life show us the way of truth, the 
 way of beauty, the way of peace and sweetest 
 helping ! And this, too, I know, that such saint- 
 ship comes not only by nature ; it is also the 
 gift of grace, the grace of striving for that which 
 is above. Such saints are made as well as born. 
 If always we seek for the good in our own lot 
 and in the world-condition, and magnify that, 
 nor dwell hopelessly on the dark side, we 
 acquire more and more a habit of gratitude and 
 trust, a soul-attitude that makes for this saint- 
 ship. If we resolutely shut out selfish dwelling 
 upon pain and weariness we shall not only sooner 
 cease to burden other lives with our bodily 
 weakness, we shall also the sooner attain what 
 command of our bodies is possible to us. This 
 is the real " mind-cure," the enduring truth 
 under the transient " craze " of our time. 
 
 Nay, deeper than all, if we feed our souls 
 
GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 35 
 
 upon the faith of those who have seen of the 
 travail of their souls and been satisfied ; if we 
 realize that in this as in all other matters con- 
 nected with the conduct of life " there is cast up 
 a highway " for our soul's ascent ; then, when 
 we are overwhelmed by our own poor doubts we 
 can " stretch lame hands of faith," and find the 
 " world's great altar stairs which slope through 
 darkness up to God." 
 
 There is no gift so great in all this world as 
 he bestows upon his fellows who "walks in the 
 light and lets his light shine." It makes not the 
 smallest difference how he phrases his faith or 
 how he thinks he comes by it. He may not only 
 picture its Source in most ancient wordings, but 
 hang childish ornament of miracle-story and 
 mistaken symbolism upon it. Or he may fear 
 to do aught but hint its origin in mysteries he 
 does not try to translate in terms of common 
 speech. The only essential is that like a flower 
 he face upward and " widen for others the skirts 
 of light." 
 
 Saints of the Blessed Life ! They are many ! 
 They are rich and poor : wise and simple : 
 learned and untaught : of favorable circum- 
 stance, sometimes, — oftener, perhaps, tried as 
 by fire with great afflictions. As one I once 
 knew : — who was crippled to helplessness ; poor 
 to hurting dependence ; bereft of all near helpers 
 save one sister who was blind and one who was 
 
36 GRATITUDE AND TRUST. 
 
 a querulous, nervous invalid ; and who moreover 
 bore in her heart the sorrowful consciousness 
 that her own and her sisters' ills were the fruit 
 of a loved father's wrongdoing: — and yet who 
 was the cheer and comfort of a whole village 
 because she trusted and was glad in the ever- 
 lasting Strength and Perfection ! 
 
 Saints of the Blessed Life ! Would we might 
 all be such ! 
 
 *' Thou Life within my life, than self more near ! 
 Thou veiled Presence infinitely dear ! 
 From all my nameless weariness I flee 
 To find my centre and my rest in Thee. 
 Take part with me against these doubts that rise 
 And seek to throne thee far in distant skies ! 
 Take part with me against this self that dares 
 Assume the burden of these sins and cares ! 
 How shall I call thee who art always here, — 
 How shall I praise thee who art still most dear, — 
 "What may I give thee save what thou hast given, — 
 And whom but thee have I in earth or heaven." 
 
HOW RELIGIONS GROW- 
 
 "P VERY intelligent, conscious, human being," 
 ^ said Mr. Eddy, " requires and must have a 
 religion. Man himself, acting individually and 
 collectively, has instituted every religion that 
 ever existed or that now exists. The philosopher 
 may observe that the rationality in the creeds 
 of every religion of every age has corresponded 
 to the degree of general intelligence existing in 
 the human mind at the time of their adoption. 
 And the creed, belief and general character of 
 each and every religion corresponds with the 
 supposed character of God and the supposed 
 nature of man's relations to God at the time of 
 its adoption. God being invisible to our sense, 
 the human mind has idealized Him in various 
 forms and symbols. 
 
 "As children we naturally conform to the 
 belief of the character of God, of his laws, and 
 of our relation to him, which our parents hold 
 and assure us is the simple, solemn truth. We 
 are all born into our religion as we are into all 
 other conditions and faculties which grade us in 
 creation. It is the will of God that mankind 
 universally should be born into the love and 
 
38 HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 
 
 affection of their parents, rather than into any 
 especial faith and belief in regard to himself. 
 And he relies upon Mahometans, Jews, Chinese, 
 Indians and Christians alike, to give sincerely 
 to their children the best material and mental 
 food they can command in all unselfish kind- 
 ness. And that is just what is being done to-day 
 in our world, has always been done, and will 
 continue to be until the end of time. God will 
 not interfere either to eradicate human errors 
 or to increase human knowledge, save by and 
 through the operation of laws fixed in the con- 
 stitution of things. To man's more or less 
 evolved intelligence at every given period of 
 human growth is left the ascertainment and 
 teaching of religious as of other truth. 
 
 "Wonderful discoveries have been made by 
 the human intellect. But man's progress is slow 
 both mentally and physically. The prevailing 
 faith of one period of time has been rejected by 
 the succeeding one ; but in these changes there 
 have been no abrupt transitions. One faith or 
 system of religion has gradually dissolved into 
 another like Daguerres dissolving views. Owing 
 to this slowness of growth, and the often blurred 
 views of religious matters which these changes 
 give, it is often hard for a young person to know 
 what to believe. 
 
 "As some trees in a forest dominate others in 
 height and wide extent of branches, so in every 
 
HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 39 
 
 age of the world there are a few men who rise 
 in intellectual power above the masses and be- 
 come conspicuous in various lines of thought 
 and action. The love of truth is stronger in 
 these men than in the average of mankind, and 
 they therefore seek with earnestness to winnow 
 truth from the inherited errors of superstition. 
 The intelligent and honest investigations of 
 these strong minds lead the way to transitions 
 of growth. 
 
 "To represent God as partial in his benefi- 
 ence to those who have accepted a special form 
 of belief, while honest and good men and women 
 who accept another as more consistent with 
 their reason are punished by Him, is to repre- 
 sent Him as an unreasonable being, and to cul- 
 tivate selfish feeling in those who consider them- 
 selves His favorites. These views of God's 
 partiality must pass away. 
 
 "We are now in a transition state; and it is 
 as true to say that we have always been in a 
 transition state. And altho' it is permitted to 
 man to organize for the support of many institu- 
 tions which have outlived their real usefulness, 
 no human organization or decree can prevent 
 the progress of the human mind, however ignor- 
 ance and superstition may retard that progress. 
 The idea of God, of a higher power than man, 
 will, I believe, never be eradicated from the 
 mind of man: but by the training and cultiva- 
 
40 HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 
 
 tion of reason and science that idea is becoming 
 enlarged and refined as man progresses in intel- 
 ligence and civilization. It has already become 
 perceptibly refined and enlarged from the old 
 and grosser forms of the Christian faith ; and all 
 the foundations of that faith are being now 
 examined and reflected upon; and slowly but 
 surely the truths of science will dispel the clouds 
 of misconception and error which now obscure 
 the real truths of religion. Surely we are justi- 
 fied in looking for progress toward perfection 
 in all things appertaining to humanity, in our 
 religious views and systems of faith as well as 
 in all other departments of human thought and 
 activity. 
 
 "We want the Christian to modify his ancient 
 faith, but not to change those feelings and 
 affections of the heart which have been culti- 
 vated and advanced while the reason has lain 
 dormant. Christians have clung to the Bible as 
 a perfect rule of faith and practice. In face of 
 scientific discoveries which have disproved their 
 doctrines, they have still believed they had the 
 whole truth. Every scientific man believes in all 
 the truth that is in the Bible but no one is justified 
 in believing that all of the Bible is true. And 
 in regard to the prevailing faith in what are 
 called miracles, I would say that I do not believe 
 that the laws of nature, which are wisely estab- 
 lished by a higher power than man, were ever 
 
HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 4I 
 
 broken or interfered with by God. And any 
 system of religion that requires miracles to 
 establish it is not worth sustaining. If such 
 interference with established laws were possible 
 to any God as is narrated in the holy books of 
 many religions it would prove no religious prin- 
 ciple. A miracle, if true, would have no moral 
 quality whatever. To perform a miracle, in the 
 ordinary sense of that word, would be to prove 
 only how much folly could be attached to power ! 
 And we do not reverence God or Devil simply 
 because they are powerful. Power must be 
 associated with goodness and intelligence to 
 command our respect and worship. 
 
 "As the mind and heart are most affected 
 in music by sweet and simple melodies, so the 
 human soul is most moved in religious senti- 
 ments by the simplest principles of religion. 
 On a tablet in Bell Street Chapel is this inscrip- 
 tion: 'The intelligent and good live near to God.' 
 I believe that is true, and will always remain so. 
 In the human soul are the possibilities of approx- 
 imation to the Divine Mind; and the qualities 
 of intelligence of mind and goodness of heart 
 should always be united in humble imitation of 
 the character of God. We are God's children, 
 the offshoots, so far as we know, of His best 
 thoughts. To perceive and appreciate His intel- 
 ligence and goodness should be as easy as to 
 breathe ; and would be so if our minds and 
 
42 HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 
 
 hearts were attuned to nature as they might be. 
 
 "The religions of the world may be likened 
 to a forest of beautiful and stately trees, round 
 which have grown the briars and heavy under- 
 wood of superstition and prejudice. Our men 
 of science, and our great religious pioneers, like 
 Emerson, Parker and Channing, have done much 
 to clear away the parasitic growth of noisome 
 weeds and the clogging underbrush which ignor- 
 ance has cherished around the roots of these 
 great trees of religion. These pioneers need 
 themselves to be watched ; and must be guided 
 by reason, by justice, and by patience, for they 
 act as engineers and directors for a host of 
 levelers and workers. The tall and grand old 
 trees which represent our various types of re- 
 ligion may be left to grow; their taproots run 
 down deeply in the soil of human needs and 
 sentiments; but we should prune away those 
 limbs of superstitious errors that prevent the 
 sunlight of Truth from penetrating to cheer our 
 minds and hearts. Let us not attempt to destroy 
 these trees of human faith ! Let us trim them, 
 and beautify them, and when they gradually 
 decay they will be replaced by the newer faiths 
 which we in our generation believe and teach to 
 our children." 
 
 We close here our quotations from Mr. Eddy's 
 thought respecting the subject of our present 
 discussion. 
 
HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 43 
 
 How Religions Grow! The words suggest a 
 natural process rather than a supernatural revel- 
 ation. And hence the very title of this discourse 
 outlines a point of view which differs from that 
 of many good people in this community. To 
 many, perhaps to most people, religion does not 
 seem a part of man's natural development, but a 
 gift to man from without; a special revelation, 
 not in his own nature but externally from God. 
 To many, perhaps to most people, only the most 
 secular parts of religious history seem proper 
 subjects for critical study: the substance of 
 religion itself is to be accepted without debate 
 from the written record of some Bible which to 
 them is literally inspired, as other books, how- 
 ever true, cannot be. To many, perhaps to most 
 Christians, the word religion has slight meaning 
 outside of its Christian significance. All that 
 is called religion outside of Christianity is to 
 such a "heathenism" to be exchanged for the 
 real path of spiritual growth; not an undevel- 
 oped but authentic passage to the Temple of 
 the Soul. To many, perhaps to most Christians, 
 there is something too sacred for investigation, 
 too perfect for criticism, in the views of truth 
 and duty which they think they find in the 
 Bible, and which are woven into their religious 
 consciousness by the traditions of their church 
 beliefs. Other beliefs, all the other world- 
 religions, seem to them of human origin; the 
 
44 HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 
 
 Christian religion seems alone divine in its 
 source, omnipotent in its power of salvation 
 and uplift. And to most people the proof of 
 this special power of Christianity rests not so 
 much upon the facts of actual experience in 
 Christian living to-day as upon the account of 
 miracles attending the birth and life of one to 
 them a God-man. And so to many, Christianity 
 to-day is not so much loving discipleship of a 
 good man Jesus, as mystical relationship with 
 the unique Christ. 
 
 To us who seek to build here a little chapel 
 of worship to the All-Father, such a narrow 
 view of religion as this has passed from our 
 minds long ago "as a tale that is told." We 
 believe with the ancient Persian poet that "The 
 paths to God are more in number than the 
 breathings of created beings." We believe with 
 Paul, the great apostle of the Christian faith 
 itself, that "God giveth to all life and breath 
 and all things ; and that he hath made of one 
 blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face 
 of the earth ; that they should seek the Lord if 
 haply they might feel after Him and find Him, 
 though He is is not far from every one of us; 
 for in Him we live and move and have our 
 being." We believe with Peter, another apostle 
 of early Christianity, that "God is no respecter 
 of persons ; but in every nation he that f eareth 
 God and worketh righteousness is accepted of 
 
HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 45 
 
 Him." We believe with Jesus himself that all 
 "the pure in heart see God." We believe with 
 the Hindu poet that "Altar flowers are of many- 
 species, but all worship is one." We believe 
 with the modern scientific teacher Tyndall, that 
 "there are such things woven into the texture 
 of man as the feeling of Awe, Reverence, 
 Wonder, the love of the beautiful, physical and 
 moral, in Nature, Poetry and Art. There is also 
 that deepset feeling which, since the earliest 
 dawn of history, and probably for ages prior 
 to all history, incorporated itself into the 
 religions of the world." And we see that Plu- 
 tarch spoke truly when he said "If we traverse 
 the world it is possible to find cities without 
 walls, without letters, without kings, without 
 wealth, without coin, without schools and thea- 
 tres ; but a city without a temple or that prac- 
 tiseth not worship, prayer, or the like, no one 
 ever saw." 
 
 To us then it has become clear that religion 
 is the great whole of which special religions, 
 Christianity as well as all others, are but the 
 parts. It has become clear to us that religion 
 is witness to certain elements of worship and 
 right-living, universal in human nature. And we 
 see clearly that this universal element in man, 
 out of which all religion is born, is subject to 
 the same personal limitations, to the same laws 
 of development from the lower toward the 
 
46 HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 
 
 higher, as that of every other human faculty 
 of perception and of attainment. And that 
 enables us to see clearly, what otherwise would 
 make us confused, that while the All-perfect 
 dwells near each heart, no one can see Him save 
 through his own limiting vision ; and no one 
 can know the ways of His working save through 
 his own small measure of enlightenment. And 
 what is true of the individual nature is equally 
 true of those systems of belief and conduct 
 which we call the religions of the world, "The 
 great Religions of the world," says T. W. Hig- 
 ginson, "are but larger sects." 
 
 What then is the Source of this universal 
 religion of man of which Christianity is but a 
 part.-* It is not in Bibles, or Church-canons, 
 or Miracle-stories. It is in the great powers 
 of nature to which we stand related; in the 
 Laws of being, but half understood, which 
 bruise us as we in ignorance and sin stray from 
 our true orbit. Its Source is in the Mysteries 
 which encompass us about, "things nameless 
 which in passing touch us so" close, we cringe 
 in terror, or are lifted to reverence, according as 
 we are weak or strong. Its Source is in the 
 tokens of the hidden Life of All that is. The 
 realities of the spiritual existence are the Source 
 of j religion. And the impression which these 
 make upon us, the outlook and the uplook which 
 these give us, are what makes our religion. 
 
HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 47 
 
 Looked at in this large way, do you not see how 
 impossible it is to believe that religion is con- 
 fined to any one form of expression ? Do you 
 not see how impossible this view makes it to say 
 of all the great world-faiths by which millions of 
 human beings have sought and found comfort 
 and moral growth, to say of all the great world- 
 faiths outside of Christianity, these be false 
 religions and Christianity is alone the true 
 faith ? If, as now seems true, religion's essence 
 be the sense of each soul's relation to the univer- 
 sal Soul of all things ; and if, as now seems true, 
 religion's /(^rw be of necessity to each soul, that 
 soul's individual perception of this universal, 
 then no one can say to another, " I have religion 
 and you have it not." But each must say, "I 
 have a part, my part; you have another, your 
 part, of that which the world of human spirits 
 cannot contain, the All in All." 
 
 And history teaches, what this philosophy 
 shows, that man has found God in various ways, 
 that man has shaped his religion in various 
 forms; forms not so unlike each other if studied 
 critically and without prejudice that one can 
 say their difference is of kind, but only of degree, 
 and characteristic. And history shows us also 
 that man everywhere, so soon as he had set his 
 religion in form, supposed he had got into it the 
 whole of Truth and of Right. We find that the 
 same miracle-stories which Christianity, as an 
 
48 HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 
 
 external system of faith, has built itself upon, 
 have been told of and believed by every other 
 religious system to be the guarantees of its gen- 
 uineness and power. And we see, more and 
 more as science shows us the Unity and the 
 Inviolability of Law, that all such tales are to 
 be explained as the natural effect of great per- 
 sonalities and extraordinary events upon the 
 excited imagination of superstitious and un- 
 learned people, and not accepted as authentic 
 history. More and more is it becoming impos- 
 sible for thinking people to see in Nature or in 
 human history anything but a revelation of 
 regular order and steady natural development. 
 And this modern way of looking at things is 
 leading us all, whether we perceive it or not, to 
 look at religion as natural and universal rather 
 than as supernatural and partial. 
 
 How then have Religions, the differing special 
 expressions of this natural and universal human 
 endowment, how then have Religions grown.? 
 Not from the top down, so that we must look 
 backward for our Eden and our Golden Age, 
 but from the bottom up, so that "all before us 
 gleams truth's campfires: we ourselves must 
 pilgrims be." How have Religions grown.? Not 
 from the Perfect Word spoken by God from 
 Heaven, and written by his own hand upon 
 human parchments, to be worshiped ever after 
 as the absolute truth, but by the stammering 
 
HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 49 
 
 speech of men, as they have "stood God-con- 
 quered with face upward to the sky;" by men 
 of all times, and of all peoples, as they have 
 sought with struggle and in joy to "tell the 
 tale" the universe has told to them. How have 
 Religions grown.? Not by the Tables of the 
 Righteous Law given in the Sinai thunders of 
 one sacred mountain, to one race of men only, 
 but by the Law of Conduct written on the tab- 
 lets of men's hearts everywhere; and deciphered 
 slowly through the long ages as life's needs, 
 life's desires, life's loves and hates, its joys and 
 sorrows, have taught man the "sacred Ought" 
 of conscience. How have Religions grown? 
 Not only, not chiefly even, by the great offices 
 of Saints, Sages and Seers who earliest spoke 
 its Word, and best lived its Life, but by the 
 strain and stress of lowly and humble lives, by 
 those who in every nation and in all times have 
 eagerly sought their little truth, have earnestly 
 followed their feeble right, have loved with all 
 their childish hearts the best they knew! These, 
 the humble and unknown, have made the soil 
 and climate wherein those fair and stately 
 flowers of humanity, whose names have been 
 given to earth's Religions, have grown in beaut y 
 and in strength ! 
 
 Be not afraid, my friend to whom these thoughts 
 are new. Do not fear that aught you ever love d 
 in your own faith will perish when it is seen to 
 
 5 
 
50 HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 
 
 be not a unique blessing but one of a family of 
 heavenly gifts ! 
 
 Religion is no hot-house plant, to be killed 
 with the first breath of frosty air brought by a 
 new wave of thought. Religion is no hot-house 
 plant; altho man's childish play with sacred 
 things of life has forced it often into abortive 
 and unnatural growths. It is a plant of the 
 open air ; of the traveled highway ; of the desert 
 and the mountain wilds ; and of the walled city 
 as well. The special system of religion we have 
 inherited, that complex faith, product of many 
 elements of most diverse life which we call 
 Christianity, what is its history t It was planted, 
 a seed of pregnant meaning, in the open plains 
 where our Aryan forefathers sang hymns of 
 praise to the "Heaven-Father." It was named 
 with interlacing and intricate tracery of nature- 
 worship and pantheistic philosophy, by the 
 Greek life which gave us Art and the poetic 
 hint of modern science. It was nursed at the 
 hearth-fire of ancestor-worship, and of the hero- 
 worship into which ancestor-worship grew, in 
 the "Ancient City," by the Roman life which 
 gave us law and civic autonomy; and the 
 human element, the germ of the Christ-idea, in 
 religion, as well. It crossed its seed for richer 
 fertilization with the majestic rugged monothe- 
 ism of the higher Judaism ; that faith which like 
 a lonely pine in the desert stood for one growing 
 
HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 5 1 
 
 beauty in a harsh and barren civilization, as it 
 testified "Behold the Lord our God is one God! 
 Worship ye Him with the whole heart!" 
 
 This complex religious inheritance of ours 
 which men call Christianity, was tended to new 
 and wonderful growth, its leavings were multi- 
 plied for the healing and delight of many nations, 
 by that Great Gardener of the Soul, Jesus of 
 Nazareth. Not a God was he to know all things. 
 Not a great philosopher to teach all the shadings 
 of truth. Not even an exact guide in all the 
 complicated duties of modern social relation. 
 Just a man among men; with the deficiencies 
 of his time-vision, with the incompleteness of 
 every human receptacle of Divine Life. But 
 one who so mingled the ethical passion with the 
 glad trust in God as a Heavenly Father, that he 
 seems to me the most helpful teacher of religion 
 for the most varied sorts of people, of any the 
 world has known. How mightily under his 
 hand spread the real life of religion! How 
 thick as leaves in autumn fell from its ancient 
 branches the out-worn traditions and gaudy 
 trappings of the plant of faith he tended ! But 
 Ah, the pity of it, how soon, when his immediate 
 touch was gone, his simple faith of love to God 
 and love to man was buried under the rubbish 
 of wordy theologies! The name of him who 
 was great, not so much in the theory or science 
 of religion as in its Practical Arty was used to 
 
52 HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 
 
 blaspheme with in the temple; to blaspheme 
 against the Holy Spirit of religion, while men 
 bowed low before the letter that killeth. 
 
 The name of him who lost his life in trying to 
 teach men that "the kingdom of heaven is 
 within" was straightway used to cover a vast 
 system of external forms and of secular power 
 which for ages nearly crushed out the distinctive 
 life of Christianity! 
 
 Almost, not quite: the faith which is woven 
 into the tissues of our complex civilization still 
 holds the kernel of ever renewing life. The 
 kernel of that life which is oney altho' from every 
 hundred men who profess to be Christians you 
 may get as many definitions of Christianity. 
 
 Says F. W. Robertson: "All true unity is 
 manifold. Identical feelings find countless forms 
 of expression." And what Lowell says of "na- 
 tions" is preeminently true of Religions: 
 
 *' Each has its own message from on high 
 For the fulfillment and delight of man. 
 One has to teach that Labor is divine, 
 Another Freedom, and another mind. 
 And all that God is open-eyed and just. 
 The happy centre and calm heart of all." 
 
 The word which Christianity, more than any 
 other world-religion, was formed to teach is 
 still a living word. 
 
 And all the world around, at least once a 
 
HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 53 
 
 year, when the Christmas chimes ring, "Peace 
 on earth ; Good will to Men," that central Word 
 of Christianity is passed along from sheltered 
 nursery to darkest prison-house of sin, that 
 Word which Jesus spoke, "Behold, God is 
 our Father, and all we are brethren." 
 
 And why does distinctive Christianity live, 
 persist under changes which make its outward 
 form over unnumbered times.'* Because it is 
 named after one called Christ, and has a sacred 
 book we call the Bible.? Because God fosters 
 its growth in ways peculiar and different from 
 those common to all plants of human aspiration 
 and upward striving.? Not for such small and 
 childish reasons. Our inherited faith lives to- 
 day because in spite of its misshapen branches, 
 and its gnarled spots of human frailty and 
 error, it has part and lot in that everlasting life 
 of the soul, "which is hid with Christ," as it has 
 been hid with Buddha and with other great 
 seers of religion, "in God." The name of our 
 inherited faith is an incident of human lan- 
 guage ; its changing fortune the fashion of this 
 world which passeth away. Only that in it which 
 was alive before it was named, and which could 
 survive all new naming in any future, is the 
 permanent and essential part. Said St. Augus- 
 tine, "What is now called the Christian religion 
 has existed among the ancients, and was not 
 absent from the beginning of the human race 
 
54 HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 
 
 until Christ came in the flesh ; from which time 
 the true religion, which already existed, began 
 to be called Christian." And we who have 
 learned more than St. Augustine could know 
 of the unity of law and the unity of human 
 nature, may well say, without fear, that when 
 the universal spirit of religion outgrows for any 
 single worshipper, or for the world's temples, 
 the special names by which it has been called, 
 still its life will be that which was, and is and 
 shall be forever more; the upward look, the 
 self-purification, the world-helpfulness which all 
 Religions have hinted. 
 
 Our subject is, " How Religions Grow." This 
 problem fibres itself upon the deeper one, how 
 does that inner life of faith and service which is 
 the heart of all Religions, grow.? In the ex- 
 ternal sense, the spirit of religion which is 
 common to all systems of world-faiths grows 
 in the joining of what is excellent in one to 
 what is excellent in another ; grows by the large 
 outlook and the broad fraternity which slights 
 no flower in the garden of the Lord. 
 
 But the spirit common to all Religions, that 
 which is religion's very life, grows not so much 
 in any knowledge about it, as in the feeling of 
 each individual heart that it is the great Reality. 
 Not what we can tell about the progress of 
 the human soul upward but what power of 
 growth is in ourselves. Our philosophy of re- 
 
HOW RELIGIONS GROW. 55 
 
 ligion may be perfect and yet religion find in us 
 no fair exemplar. Our "views" may be small 
 and poor, and yet our daily lives may show the 
 majesty and beauty of the Eternal Truth and 
 Right. 
 
 " Nor knowest thou what argument 
 Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent." 
 
 Man's thought about religion grows with all 
 that enlarges his vision of truth, with all that 
 greatens his devotion to righteousness, with 
 all that sweetens and enriches his affectional 
 life. Man's experience of religion itself grows 
 by one thing only, the sincere and faithful striv- 
 ing toward the best each one sees and feels. 
 Let us be grateful for the new thought, which 
 has given us all in these later days grander 
 views of the Sources and of the growth of 
 religion than were common a generation ago. 
 
 But above all let us not forget what was well 
 known to the generations of old, "That God is, 
 and that He is the rewarder of them that 
 diligently seek Him." 
 
REASON IN RELIGION. 
 
 "\17E may doubt the truth of any system of 
 ^^ worship," says Mr. Eddy, "that cannot 
 weave into its service all truth of every science 
 and department of human knowledge. Let us 
 not forget that by human reason and experience 
 we are to judge of all things mental and 
 physical in this world. We must judge by 
 human reason of our relations to God, and our 
 relations to man, as well as of all matters per- 
 taining to physical existence and the laws of 
 nature. And when a theologian presents to us 
 for our sanction and credence any doctrine or 
 article of belief which violates our reason and 
 common sense we must reject such as an insult 
 to human reason. And if the sentiment or 
 affirmation such a theologian may urge is also 
 derogatory to the character of God, we may 
 doubly resent it as an insult to the dignity of 
 both God and man. I count the dogma of an 
 eternal hell of torment a striking example of 
 such a double insult to the character of both 
 God and man. All such ideas are unfounded in 
 experience and violate every dictate of reason 
 and justice. Why will not mankind forever 
 
REASON IN RELIGION. 57 
 
 cast aside the pessimistic and unreasonable idea 
 that God has attached such conditions to His 
 gift of life to man as would rob it of all its value! 
 
 " It is true that all sects are softening the 
 expression of old dogmas. And many who still 
 profess them I believe have secretly repudiated 
 them for the most part ; for as Matthew Arnold 
 says in substance, * Insincerity in teaching re- 
 ligious doctrines is the crime of the age.' In 
 olden times Christians in their strong and 
 fervent faith in the dogmas of the church felt it 
 their duty to co-operate with God in His punish- 
 ment of unbelievers by means of the fagot, the 
 stake, the chain and the scourge ! The In- 
 quisition is a witness to the intense faith of 
 many Christians of an earlier age in a cruel and 
 revengeful God. These cruel methods of en- 
 larging the church, and punishing those who will 
 not join it, are now softened and changed. And 
 the influences which lead toward the recognition 
 of the human reason as the supreme judge of 
 what it is right and wise to believe and to do are 
 increasing every day. We have to-day news- 
 papers and periodicals devoted to ' establishing 
 religion upon a scientific basis,' and which 
 take 'Truth for authority and not authority for 
 truth.' 
 
 " In order that the intelligent apprehension of 
 religion and the growth of a true religion may 
 become universal, we must secure for all human- 
 
 OK THR 
 
58 REASON IN RELIGION. 
 
 kind, children as well as adults, perfect liberty 
 in thinking. What greater service can we 
 render to our children, than to teach them to 
 think, to think for themselves. As the bird 
 mother teaches her fledglings to use their wings 
 to hop, and move their pinions and finally to 
 soar, so in regard to their minds should we act 
 towards our children. Whilst we honestly teach 
 them the truest and best we know in the 
 principles of morality and religion, yet in teach- 
 ing them let us leave their minds free. 
 
 "We should give them to understand that 
 while as parents we sincerely and honestly 
 teach them what we ourselves believe, we do not 
 seek to smother or bind their souls. Many 
 children, by exercising the spiritual forces 
 within them, arrive at a higher point of intelli- 
 gence and goodness than their parents ever 
 attained to ; and there should be no jealousy, no 
 opposition to this in the mind and heart of the 
 parent. God, by planting disinterested love in 
 the minds of parents, has willed the existence of 
 a principle in the paternal mind which unwit- 
 tingly operates in accordance with the divine 
 principles of development and evolution. We 
 might perhaps safely trust this natural action in 
 parents toward their children were it not for the 
 injurious principles and influence of the churches 
 with fixed creeds of belief, requiring conformity 
 to narrow, bigoted views, on threats of direful 
 
REASON IN RELIGION. 59 
 
 consequences in this world, and in the world 
 which they believe is to come. We must, how- 
 ever, be charitable towards the superstitious 
 sects darkened in their minds; for as Christ 
 said of His murderers, 'they know not what 
 they do.' 
 
 "There are heights and depths in the laws of 
 mind which are less understood than the laws of 
 matter. In the laws of conscience, for instance, 
 we are dependent upon education, and education 
 depends upon circumstances which we create. 
 In the construction of conscience in many cases, 
 reason, the natural guide, is not permitted to 
 govern, or rather is not developed by reflection 
 and experience. For instance, the young thieves 
 attached to a gang of robbers are taught as a 
 matter of conscience to steal on every available 
 occasion ; and their consciences are wounded 
 when they let slip an occasion of filching, and 
 the public sentiment of the gang condemns 
 them. The poor Hindu widow, who burns her- 
 self upon the funeral pile of her husband, does it 
 in obedience to the laws of conscience created 
 by a superstitious public sentiment. It may 
 seem a hard doctrine to declare that in every 
 case to act in accordance with an approving 
 conscience carries with it the smile of God in 
 the soul, — a melancholy smile it may be in the 
 case of the young thief and the poor sacrificed 
 widow, — but such is the law of conscience in 
 
60 REASON IN RELIGION. 
 
 regard to sincerity, and it is just and must be so. 
 God cannot in justice require of any human 
 being to act contrary to the best he knows. 
 The same law holds good with the intelligent as 
 with the ignorant ; we should all of us act 
 honestly and sincerely in accordance with the 
 best we know. Our Puritan Fathers in perse- 
 cuting and hanging the poor Quakers did the 
 best they knew. 
 
 "Hence it is of vital importance that we 
 develop the spirit of intelligence and freedom in 
 our plans of education, in our moral and religious 
 principles. Let us never forget that we are free, 
 and that an inevitable responsibility accompanies 
 soul-freedom, and that we are guilty if we do not 
 search diligently to find the truth in all questions 
 of religion and morality. For unless we use 
 the reason and reflecting powers with which we 
 are endowed to correct erroneous views of 
 religion, morality, justice in government and so 
 on, we shall always be subjected to error. The 
 evils of error can never be measured save by the 
 new truth which is revealed. And we may well 
 ask with Festus of old * What is truth } ' One 
 fixed fact is that truth is of slow development, 
 and its progress must be measured by the gro^vth 
 and influence of reason and experience. 
 
 "We have to judge of all things in this world 
 by human faculties, more or less enlightened by 
 reason and common sense. By these tests I 
 
REASON IN RELIGION. 6l 
 
 dare to judge of the Christian system of theology, 
 and where it seems to conflict with the revelation 
 of God's character in outward nature, to condemn 
 that system as erroneous. We should consider 
 without dogmatism those questions respecting 
 religion which are of the highest import and 
 interest, both to ourselves and to our children. 
 We must decide by the light of our mental con- 
 stitution the great questions concerning the 
 character of God and our relations to him and 
 the sentiments we should cherish and express 
 toward him. And as the interest of all requires 
 that the best guiding principles in all our 
 relations with God and man should be adhered 
 to, as far as we know them, all should be willing 
 to meet amicably on the common ground of 
 reflection, investigation and kindness. 
 
 " When the Roman Catholic Christian church 
 was at the height of its power it was not safe 
 for doubters, or those leaders of thought who 
 first define the next step of progress, to think 
 aloud. For freedom of speech in those times 
 meant punishment by fagot and torture. In 
 those days it seemed to ask too great sacrifice 
 of any philosophic thinker to risk the penalty 
 incurred by any criticism of the prevailing 
 religious views. But some noble men did take 
 those risks and received their martyrdom ! By 
 the efforts of these lovers and seekers of truth 
 we have reached a stage when no religious 
 
62 REASON IN RELIGION. 
 
 organization amongst us can forbid freedom of 
 speech or check independent thought. But in 
 our own day the systems of theology bar out the 
 masses by the onerous unreasonable conditions 
 which they annex to discipleship. Belief in 
 repulsive dogmas and in a special order of 
 ceremonies is still demanded of those who would 
 become members of the church, which in our 
 own land means the Christian church. And 
 preachers do not ask us to study the grounds of 
 the belief which they press upon our acceptance. 
 Their tone is still imperative, * Believe or you 
 will be damned.' 
 
 " I would not have a religious society attach 
 merit to belief nor demerit to unbelief ; for both 
 may be honest states of the mind in regard to 
 the truth or error of what is presented to it for 
 decision. If our minds are weighted, as all must 
 admit is possible, with any degree of the ignor- 
 ance and superstition bequeathed to us by our 
 honest forefathers, how willing we should all be 
 to revise and reexamine the grounds of our faith 
 and guiding principles of action in religious 
 matters ! 
 
 " Every man's convictions should be stamped 
 by his own reason and judgment, and packed 
 away in his memory ticketed with the reasons 
 for his faith. But all convictions supposed by 
 any one to be true are likely to be modified : for 
 in the evolution of thought there are no finalities. 
 
REASON IN RELIGION. 63 
 
 The data of science, philosophy and religion are 
 constantly changing with the onward progress 
 of the human mind. No man can therefore 
 conceive of any advance or amelioration in 
 science, morals or religion that his own study 
 has enabled him to make, which another man, 
 wiser and better than he, may not improve upon. 
 
 '' Man in every age is entitled to the best 
 thought which experience, reflection and science 
 ripen into wisdom as fruit is ripened by sun- 
 shine, showers and time." 
 
 We end thus our quotations from Mr. Eddy's 
 thought upon the topic of our present discussion, 
 — Reason in Religion. 
 
 Reason, we say, is the "faculty of judging." 
 Reason in religion, then, is the use of this faculty 
 of judging in all that relates to religious concerns. 
 Judgment implies a power of discernment. And 
 discernment implies intelligent observation and 
 perception. Hence to exercise reason in religious 
 concerns is to intelligently perceive the facts of 
 nature and human life which relate to religion, 
 to judge of them with discernment or discrimi- 
 nation, and to pass an independent opinion from 
 conclusions arrived at by careful and rational 
 methods. That all means that if one exercises 
 his reason in religion, he — to use a most signifi- 
 cant phrase of common speech — " makes up his 
 mind " about religious matters precisely as he 
 "makes up his mind" about the things which 
 
64 REASON IN RELIGION. 
 
 relate to all ether concerns of life. Reason is 
 only educated " common sense ! " And what is 
 common sense ? Common sense is that in the 
 average man or woman which registers for the 
 personal conduct of life results of general human 
 experience. Common sense is the common 
 reason about common things and common ideas. 
 Common sense is the " balance wheel " of the 
 ordinary nature, that which keeps it from running 
 off on tangents of eccentricity and foolishness. 
 We say often of a brilliant but erratic or ill- 
 balanced person, " He has every sort of sense 
 but common sense." We mean by this that 
 although he has unusual ability to perceive and 
 utilize the special elements of thought and life 
 to which his individual nature allies him, he has 
 less than the ordinary capacity to take advant- 
 age of these general elements of thought and 
 life which are the "common-wealth " of all man- 
 kind. Common sense is, then, the faculty by 
 which ordinary men and women see things in 
 sensible fashion, put this and that together 
 shrewdly, and so learn how to fit their own lives 
 into the social organism with as little friction as 
 may be, and with some measure of success in 
 conduct and affairs. 
 
 Now the educated common sense which we 
 call reason is simply that same acute observation, 
 that same sensible balance of judgment, that 
 same shrewd fitting of a part into the whole. 
 
REASON IN RELIGION. 6$ 
 
 (which give ordinary men success in the lower 
 elements of life), trained and brought to bear 
 upon high questions. What man's common 
 sense absorbs from general human experience, 
 often unconsciously, and applies to the every- 
 day problems of life, the reason of men in its 
 free and trained exercise explains, enlarges, sets 
 in right relation, consciously^ and with philosophic 
 statement, in application to the profounder 
 questions of our existence. 
 
 Mr. Lecky has sketched for us in his masterly 
 way the " Rise and Growth of Rationalism in 
 Europe." And we see by his picture how this 
 rationalism, which is simply the dependence upon 
 trained reason, is the key to progress in thought 
 and morals. And the rightful sovereignty of 
 reason is acknowledged now-a-days by intelligent 
 people, without fear, in every department of life 
 save in religion. The only places where the 
 human reason is decried as a dangerous and 
 mischievous element in man's nature are pulpits 
 and church conventions. The daily newspaper, 
 and the finest as well as the most ordinary 
 literature of our time, calls constantly upon us 
 to use our best and freest judgment. Art stimu- 
 lates not only the imagination, but the critical 
 faculty. And every element of charity and of 
 social reform demands that we examine fearlessly 
 the actual conditions of life and decide independ- 
 ently upon a course of theory and practice. 
 
 6 
 
66 REASON IN RELIGION. 
 
 And to-day the way in which the common 
 sense of the ages is condensed and explained 
 by the free action of the trained reason is 
 understood by every intelligent reader of 
 history, save only in the department of religious 
 history. 
 
 How has it been in government .? The common 
 sense of the oppressed for ages during monarchial 
 rule saw clearly that something was wrong. The 
 common sense of justice was outraged by the 
 cruel exactions of kings and nobles. The com- 
 mon sense of human brotherhood was at work 
 even in palaces, making the truly noble among 
 the reigning classes uncomfortable in their 
 superiority of place and power. And this com- 
 mon feeling which for ages never dared question 
 the inherited belief in the "Divine Right of 
 Kings," beat helplessly and with bitter complaint 
 against the effects of that belief when carried 
 into action. At last the reason of man applied 
 to affairs of social order put this and that to- 
 gether, and declared that the something which 
 all knew was wrong was that one class had too 
 much power and others too little freedom under 
 the monarchial form of government. And 
 straightway what had for ages been known 
 to be hurting was declared to be wrong. The 
 reason of man put the extravagance, the 
 licentiousness, the idleness, the cruelty of the 
 reigning classes on the one side, against the 
 
REASON IN RELIGION. 67 
 
 grinding poverty, the degradation, the overwork, 
 the suffering of the lower classes on the other, 
 and judged that the two were twin evils of a bad 
 system of social order. And so, by the decree 
 of reason, a new order of government, one 
 recognizing more fully equality of human rights, 
 was instituted. And do you not see that so long 
 as men held slavishly to the tradition that Kings 
 Ruled by Divine Right there could be no 
 successful revolt against the cruel abuses of 
 kingly power.? Humble petition there might 
 be when the oppression was too heavy and 
 grievous to be borne in silence: appeal from 
 religion and philanthropy to the magnanimity 
 and generosity of kings and nobles in behalf of 
 the suffering: but no uprising of an outraged 
 human dignity to strike the conquering blow for 
 its own emancipation from governmental abuses, 
 until the idea of the Divine Right of Equal 
 Justice was born. 
 
 In government, what the common sense of 
 man sought for ages to mitigate and make more 
 tolerable by practical action, which was incon- 
 sistent often with the theory of government still 
 loyally professed ; — that the trained reason, by 
 sharp and fearless questioning, by free investi- 
 gation of actual facts, by balanced, firm judgment 
 applied to real conditions without regard to 
 traditions, — overthrew. So that to-day in this 
 great and blessed country of ours we have the 
 
68 REASON IN RELIGION. 
 
 grandest testimony to the beneficent action of 
 the human reason that the world affords. 
 
 Now, just as in government our ancestors 
 inherited the idea that the King's Right to 
 power is of Divine origin, and must not, there- 
 fore, be assailed or sharply criticised, so in 
 religion we have all inherited the idea that our 
 Religion is of Divine origin in such sense that 
 it is not subject for our free enquiry and for the 
 judgments of our untrammeled reason. At one 
 time, as you know, all our ancestors were mem- 
 bers of the Roman Catholic church ; and then 
 loyalty to religion meant unquestioning accept- 
 ance of the interpretation put upon the Bible, 
 the sacred book of the Christian religion — by an 
 infallible church. But one day the human reason 
 spoke through Luther, and declared that what 
 the unrest and deep dissatisfaction of the com- 
 mon life for ages had testified had foundation in 
 fact, namely, that the church was not infallible; 
 for it worked evil as well as good, and many of 
 its ministers and dignitaries were corrupt and 
 wrought corruption in society. And straightway 
 we had the Reformation ; that great movement 
 in thought and life which has shaped all the 
 modern tendencies of our civilization. Then 
 after Luther gave voice to reason's arraignment 
 of the pretensions of Latin Christianity, the 
 chief dogma of the church was changed. It had 
 been " an infallible church to interpret and apply 
 
REASON IN RELIGION. 69 
 
 a perfect Word of God." It now became " The 
 open Bible ; each man his own guide through 
 the Inspired Word." 
 
 Since the era of the Reformation ** the open 
 Bible" and "the right of private judgment" 
 have multiplied Christian sects until the wisest 
 cannot tell their number nor the most exact 
 their variations. And each little hamlet in our 
 land is made the scene of dividing rather than 
 uniting elements of religion ; as the spires of 
 Baptist and Methodist and Episcopalian and 
 what not, bristle toward heaven ; more in 
 defiance of each other, often, than in uplifting 
 symbol ! 
 
 Meanwhile the development of natural science 
 — the vast increase of human knowledge in 
 matters relating to our earth and to the universe, 
 to the structure of animal and man, and to all 
 the facts of physical life, — this has wrought a 
 change in man's understanding in religious con- 
 cerns which is vast beyond telling. Added to 
 this, and outgrowth of it, is the increase of 
 the critical faculty, which enables us to pick 
 flaws in the supposed Infallible Record of our 
 ancient faith. And added again to this is the 
 manifold intellectual influence of association 
 with peoples and literatures hitherto unknown, 
 which predisposes us against any spirit of ex- 
 clusive assumption in respect to any possession 
 of our own. 
 
70 REASON IN RELIGION. 
 
 To-day I venture the statement that the great 
 majority of the membership of what are called 
 the orthodox Christian churches, while profess- 
 ing allegiance to the ancient creeds and perhaps 
 voting against their revision, hold them only by 
 such elastic use of words as stretches them 
 beyond all legitimate meaning. 
 
 The fact is, that the people of the churches 
 have pretty generally outgrown their creeds. 
 They do not really believe in eternal damnation ; 
 for each man saves those of his own family when 
 they die, no matter what their belief may have 
 been ! And they do not really believe, as the 
 creeds mean it, "that there is no salvation outside 
 of Christ ; " for the heroes and martyrs, like 
 Abraham Lincoln, whom they send straight to 
 glory, are as often rationalists in religion as 
 they are " Christians " in the technical sense of 
 that word. 
 
 They do not really believe in the Bible as the 
 " only and perfect rule of faith and practice." 
 For they no longer go to it expecting to find 
 exact directions for all moral procedure and 
 intellectual definition. When, for instance, 
 questions respecting the care of the criminal or 
 vicious or defective classes of modern society 
 are up for discussion, our most orthodox people 
 do not talk of the way that these things were 
 managed in Jesus' time. They proceed to make 
 up their minds about these great and perplexing 
 
REASON IN RELIGION. 7I 
 
 questions as well as they can by the light of all 
 the past and of all the present experience of 
 mankind ! And so of unnumbered elements of 
 thought and conduct. The common sense of 
 men and women dealing with daily problems 
 goes straight at them with eyes open, even 
 when they are problems which concern church 
 life and church work. This common sense does 
 not feel that in cases of difficulty and doubt it 
 must shut its eyes and open the Bible at random, 
 as some used to do, expecting a magical answer 
 to a prayer for guidance. No, average men 
 and women are to-day so wise in respect to the 
 practical Art of the Religious Life that they 
 deal with facts and inferences at first hand, and 
 exercise their "faculty of judging" with great 
 freedom ; with inconsistent freedom for those 
 supposed to be pledged to look backward only 
 for light and help in the conduct of life. 
 
 Now, what the practical sense of ordinary 
 men and women does for the Art of Religion, the 
 educated reason is doing for the science and 
 philosophy of religion ! And to-day the voices 
 are many and wondrous winning which fit the 
 Word of Faith to the Life and Thought of this 
 new day of growth ! 
 
 To those who have never questioned the claims 
 to supernatural powers made for the Bible and 
 the Church, to those whom the Time-Spirit 
 has not yet touched, there is no present need 
 
72 REASON IN RELIGION. 
 
 of change. But all who have a double conscious- 
 ness of living with one part of their brain in 
 the past and one part in the present, need to 
 come as fast as may be into this glad and con- 
 scious unity and freedom. For in so far as an 
 outgrown statement of religious philosophy 
 cramps a man's perception of the new truth 
 which is constantly revealed, that creed is a 
 hindrance to his intellectual growth, and there- 
 fore a hindrance to the highest development of 
 Religion. And in the same way, in so far as an 
 outgrown statement of religious philosophy 
 cramps a man's ideal of right, which changing 
 relations of social order should constantly 
 enlarge, that creed is a hindrance to ethical 
 progress, and so a hindrance to the higher 
 development of Religion. And if an outgrown 
 statement of religious philosophy is so far out- 
 grown that it does not in the least hamper a 
 man's thinking or doing, yet is still professed as 
 present belief, though inconsistent with both 
 his thinking and doing, then is the soul of 
 Religion wounded at its centre. For only "he 
 that speaketh the truth in his heart and speaketh 
 the truth with his lips ascends the Holy Hill of 
 the Lord." 
 
 I wish I could g^ve you, friends, some adequate 
 picture of the joy of those who have won a 
 conscious freedom of spirit in religious concerns, 
 some idea of the more eflFective power for service 
 
REASON IN RELIGION. 73 
 
 of the good, of those who have squared their 
 religious philosophy with their intellectual out- 
 look in all other directions. 
 
 A great teacher says "you get the best of a 
 book not when it masters you, but when you 
 master it." And it is profoundly true that we 
 get the best of the Book we call the Bible, that 
 one of the great religious classics of the world 
 which is most deeply inwoven with our civiliza- 
 tion, when we have outgrown all bondage to it 
 and it has become to us " not dogma, but litera- 
 ture." And still more of the Religion which has 
 been based upon the Bible ; of that Christianity 
 which is our inheritance, — " Only the free 
 possess the land." Much moral force, more 
 intellectual power, and an enormous amount of 
 affectional influence is worse than wasted when 
 intelligent people try to make themselves believe 
 what they really cannot, or try to pour into old 
 words meanings they were never meant to hold. 
 Do not mistake me here ; I would use freely 
 every avenue toward God, every uplifting symbol, 
 every heavenward climbing trellis on which the 
 soul of man has ascended, as worships as litera- 
 ture, as song, as picture, as poem, as the effort 
 of the imagination to portray the Hidden Soul 
 of All. There is no form of worship but has 
 something sacred in it. And the freer a man's 
 thought is in religion the more his religious 
 sentiment can become a citizen of all the world's 
 
74 REASON IN RELIGION. 
 
 temples. But the beliefs which have hardened 
 into dogmaSy and to which assent in formal 
 words is required, these if they have use at all 
 are like the Heavenly Manna of the pretty story 
 of the tented Israelites, they must be " gathered 
 fresh every morning" or they will cease to 
 nourish. 
 
 Can you not see, friends, how faithless is he 
 to the Ever-living God who dares not let go of 
 one tradition of His passing lest he lose God 
 himself, when He walks with all who are faith- 
 ful day by day } Truth ! Who dare say he has 
 it when the heaven of heavens cannot contain it } 
 And who shall dare reject hastily that which 
 bears good evidence of being a part of truth, 
 because it is revealed to-day instead of hundreds 
 of years ago } Right ! What man is he who 
 knows all that word means .^ And who shall 
 dare, then, silence harshly the later prophets 
 who declare " now is the accepted time, and now 
 the day of salvation ? " Love! 
 
 •' Immortal Love ! Forever full, 
 Forever flowing free, 
 Forever shared, forever whole — 
 A never-ebbing sea ! " 
 
 Where is the heart that really trusts but 
 knows that all of Love that ever " stooped to 
 share our sorrow and our joy" is here and now 
 at hand, to comfort and to bless ? 
 
REASON IN RELIGION. 75 
 
 Be not afraid, O ye of little faith. The 
 unrest of our intellectual life to-day in religious 
 concerns is only " Spring's delicious trouble in 
 the ground;" harbinger of a fuller harvest of 
 thought to be ! 
 
 The stress and strain of moral problems which 
 now perplex us are but the " growing pains " of 
 a developing social order ! 
 
 The seeming "eclipse of faith" which now 
 shadows some souls is but the " covered 
 bridge" leading to more confident trust, to 
 brighter light. 
 
MAN'S FREEDOM AND RESPONSI- 
 BILITY: OR CHARACTER IN 
 RELIGION. 
 
 *' OINCE mind," says Mr. Eddy, "is concomi- 
 *^ tant with all organized matter in all 
 nature, the degree and quality of mind in each 
 organized being is in exact accordance with 
 the sphere in which that organized being is 
 intended to move. By the operation of this 
 law, which was not instituted by the organism 
 itself but by a higher Power, it cannot swerve 
 from the orbit of its sphere. Therefore human 
 liberty, which I believe to be absolute under 
 Divine Laws in its own department of life, is 
 limited, like that of all organized existence both 
 beneath and above man, to the sphere of man's 
 own powers and duties. Liberty is a power 
 or quality of the human mind ; and through this 
 power of liberty, or the ability to shape our own 
 action toward ends which the reason perceives 
 to be good, comes the ability to make progress. 
 From the godlike power of the liberty of the 
 human mind proceeds its activities. From its 
 
man's freedom and responsibility. 77 
 
 activities, con-jointly with the faculty of mem- 
 ory, comes experience; which, by the aid of 
 reason, impels to improvement. Without free- 
 dom and liberty to act as we wish there could be 
 no vice and no virtue among men. All our act- 
 ing and even our thinking would in that case be 
 but the exercise of some arbitrary power outside 
 our own natures. The belief in the doctrine 
 of "necessity," i. e. that a human being must do 
 what he or she does do, when carried out in prac- 
 tice is, it appears to me, one of the most erroneous 
 and destructive that the mind can conceive. To 
 the mind accepting this doctrine human respon- 
 sibility has no meaning, virtue and vice have no 
 meaning. If the believer in necessity believes 
 in Justice then he should believe that the conse- 
 quences attendant on virtue and vice ought 
 to be the same. Why should virtuous conduct 
 be productive of happiness and vicious conduct 
 be productive of misery ? Why, if the virtuous 
 and vicious must do as they do do, have 
 we any need of human tribunals of justice, 
 of any Judges or Juries ? If there is any intelli- 
 gent Power above the human it is a pity the be- 
 lievers in the doctrine of necessity cannot have 
 a chance to give this High Power a lesson; for 
 evidently, if that doctrine is true, God is in 
 error ; for he attaches effects to virtuous action 
 which are both pleasant and encouraging to us 
 to persevere in the guiding principles of con- 
 
y8 man's freedom and responsibility. 
 
 science, reason, and scientific research after the 
 truth. 
 
 No; rounded and full to the measure of our 
 being is the liberty accorded to man by nature ; 
 which is but another name for the Power above 
 all nature and life. Natural and moral laws 
 must be obeyed. Every man should be edu- 
 cated to understand, accept and obey these 
 laws. Man is finding out the justice and neces- 
 sity of their existence by bitter experience, but 
 he is endowed with liberty to so act as to place 
 himself in harmony with these laws and so en- 
 sure his well being and happiness. By study 
 and attention to the law of heredity his chil- 
 dren may be well constituted; and through 
 obedience to the law of health man may with 
 care be preserved to old age. Let us see to 
 it that every child is educated, physically, men- 
 tally and morally. Let us keep children in 
 the path of duty. And above all, if by reason of 
 our own disobedience to God's laws severe con- 
 sequences of suffering come upon us, let us 
 not impugn the justice of God; but rather, exer- 
 cising confidence and love, seek to learn 
 how to avoid such calamities in the future. 
 The limitations or bounds of our human free- 
 dom and will are as wide as the world we live in 
 and as extended as are human activities and 
 human relations. Within these bounds we are 
 responsible for evil conditions and to this ex- 
 tent we may co-operate with God in helping 
 mankind to attain more and more perfect condi- 
 
MAN S FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY. /Q 
 
 tions. There is a power in human organization, 
 and it pertains to human liberty to organize 
 for good or for evil. Altho thought and pur- 
 pose are so free and unhindered in the individual 
 that no other can even know what passes in a 
 man's mind, the consequences of acts resulting 
 from his most secret purposes are shared by- 
 all related to him. No man's virtuous acts 
 result in good for himself alone; and no man 
 can commit a crime without injuring the well- 
 being of his family, of the community in which 
 he lives, and the nation to which he belongs. 
 So that individually we are affected by and 
 affect society. A virtuous or an evil act, like a 
 pebble dropped into the calm surface of a pond, 
 sends an influence to the outward verge of 
 the social organism. 
 
 "Truly it is said 'By their works ye shall 
 know them!' 
 
 "We know the nature of God by His work of 
 kindness and wisdom. 
 
 " Each man is known by the deeds of his life. 
 
 "I would that the great principles of justice, 
 kindness and a reasonable charity to all might 
 be universally recognized, taught and practiced. 
 
 ^^^ Noblesse oblige' is the motto of the Noble 
 who, in a conspicuous position of power and 
 dignity, feels that he must act in harmony with 
 the grandeur of his opportunity. True nobility 
 obliges any man set apart as richer, more in- 
 
8o man's freedom and responsibility. 
 
 telligent or more powerful in any way than 
 his fellows, to act justly and kindly toward all 
 other men. On the other hand no one can 
 say that an humble life is not a noble life ; it is 
 only a life whose possible nobleness has not 
 been revealed by publicity. And no one can 
 tell what undeveloped powers may be in the 
 humblest man until some great crisis of per- 
 sonal or public experience tries him. 
 
 " In every human mind God has reserved 
 for himself a little field of influence which we 
 call Conscience. Conscience is the Ought to 
 which every human mind assents. But altho' 
 God has thus given us a sense of what is right 
 and wrong he does not interfere with our free- 
 dom under this law. God permits us to violate 
 our conscience ; and He permits the conscience 
 itself to be modified and affected in its action by 
 influences of education, by self-reflection and 
 self-discipline, by the influence of parents, of 
 teachers, of ministers and of all whom we love 
 and respect, and by all the varied effects of the 
 social organism upon the individual life. 
 
 Inasmuch as man is given intelligence, an 
 intuitive sense of justice or the law of right 
 in the conscience, and his memory of the experi- 
 ence of good and bad effects of actions, he 
 has great obligations laid upon him to both 
 know and do the right. 
 
 "To secure an enlightened conscience we 
 
man's freedom and responsibility. 8 1 
 
 must have an education in truth and right, 
 beginning with good and intelligent parents, 
 and continued by wider social influences, for 
 every individual. 
 
 " Let us each and all cultivate in ourselves 
 and in our children acquaintance with the God 
 within us, the conscience which frowns or smiles 
 as we do wrong or right ! The measure of our 
 intimacy with God, the character of the princi- 
 ples which guide us, are shown by our daily life. 
 If reason and love rule us it will be revealed 
 by acts of kindness, respect and consideration 
 toward our fellow-men. 
 
 " And in our relations with God not only is 
 our Divine Father to be honored by dedicating 
 memorial churches, by grateful acknowledge- 
 ments and by that warmth of heart-love growing 
 out of our consciousness that we are the objects 
 of His generous, disinterested care, but more 
 than all we should honor Him to the full power 
 of human freedom and will by co-operating with 
 Him in advancing the well-being of humanity. 
 
 " I believe that we find the law of human con- 
 duct in the revelation of the will of God as 
 made in the laws which govern man's nature. 
 Our liberty is restrained and limited in matters 
 of physical life. The physical laws of nature 
 are indeed protective and show the paternal 
 character of God, as upon obedience to them 
 depends our safety, even life itself. And it 
 
82 man's freedom and responsibility. 
 
 is becoming almost universally accepted as a 
 fundamental truth that obedience to the laws of 
 the moral nature constitutes virtue and con- 
 fers the happiness which alone follows upon 
 virtue. 
 
 " In other words, God has so constituted man 
 that the performance of his highest duties, when 
 actuated by the highest principles of his nature, 
 secures to him the greatest amount of happiness 
 possible to him in this world. 
 
 " A good and virtuous human being never 
 enquires * Is life worth living.?' He lives hap- 
 pily from day to day. A good and intelligent 
 man is sincere, kind and charitable toward his 
 fellows ; not for the sake of any return from 
 man, but because he feels he ought so to act ; 
 and because God has so constituted him that 
 his own highest happiness and dignity are sub- 
 served by cultivating these virtuous actions. 
 We have the power to do good in this world 
 or to work evil. Shall we not make ourselves 
 coadjutors with God to work with Him to make 
 ourselves and others good and noble, since He 
 permits us so to carry out His kind intents ? 
 Whilst God through and by His laws sustains 
 all things, man is specially endowed with free- 
 dom and power to progress, to improve and to 
 perfect, or to retard, corrupt and destroy. Only 
 by obedience to the laws of God, as shown in 
 nature, and in natural human relations, may 
 
man's freedom and responsibility. 83 
 
 we co-operate with our Divine Father in doing 
 good. 
 
 "And if to make two blades of grass grow 
 where only one has grown before is commenda- 
 ble, how much more so is it to discover and 
 exemplify and teach a virtue lost sight of or 
 before unknown ! And equally commendable is 
 it to brighten up old and accepted virtues and 
 to place them in a better light, that they may 
 appear more attractive ! " 
 
 In arranging the series of initial services in 
 this Chapel we have tried to present, as clearly 
 as might be, in the sketchy and incomplete 
 manner alone possible when traversing so wide 
 a range of thought, the spirit and tendency out 
 of which this movement toward religious 
 association sprang, and toward which it must, if 
 consistent with its founder's wishes, develop. 
 And to-day in seeking to mass in one topic the 
 vast double problem of the personal and the race 
 element in morals we must limit ourselves to the 
 merest hint. 
 
 The question of man's freedom of will forms 
 a vital part of ethical enquiry. The problem 
 of how far a human being is responsible for his 
 actions, lies at the basis of personal condemnation 
 or praise, or personal example and appeal. And 
 how far the actions of a man witness to his 
 faith or faithlessness is indeed a pivotal question 
 in religion. 
 
84 man's freedom and responsibility. 
 
 To our friend, Mr. Eddy, these two questions 
 were settled so far as he apprehended their 
 meaning. He had outgrown the "necessarian- 
 ism " of the balder Calvinism : he never accepted 
 the more complex and subtle " necessarianism " 
 of certain scientific teaching. To him the appeal 
 of religion seemed truly philosophic and all- 
 prevailing. He did not believe with the old 
 theology that God had "elected" any to damnation 
 nor to glory ; but that each person " must work 
 out his own salvation." He did not believe, on 
 the other hand, that the theory of " evolution " 
 made the will of a man of no effect, that "heredity" 
 and "environment" relieved any one of the awful 
 responsibility which attaches to man as a moral 
 being, — a being who may do right and who may 
 do wrong as he himself wills. Mr. Eddy's 
 statement of human free will and liberty may 
 seem to many extreme; but in the main it is 
 that which has been the keynote of every re- 
 ligion which has nerved men to the highest 
 moral advance. 
 
 The philosopher may say with Emerson when 
 he philosophizes, " if you wish to reform a man 
 you must begin with his grandfather," and so 
 he will state a terrible truth, and an encouraging 
 one as well. But the preacher will say with 
 Emerson when he preaches, — 
 
 *' When Duty whispers low, ' Thou must,' 
 The youth replies, ' I can.' " 
 
man's freedom and responsibility. 85 
 
 The scientist may say with the witty Dr. 
 Holmes, " every disease, physical and moral, may 
 be cured if the physician is only called in time ; 
 but * in time ' is often several generations before 
 the patient is born." And here again the hard 
 but helpful truth is spoken. But the religious 
 teacher leaps over and through these facts of the 
 effect of a man's inherited and surrounding 
 circumstance upon his nature, and says, " Be ye 
 perfect here and now." " If thy right eye offend 
 thee pluck it out." "Behold if any one shall 
 apply himself unto virtue I have not seen the 
 day when he was not sufficient unto the task." 
 And there is something in all of us which 
 responds right nobly to the call to master all 
 that is evil, both within and without. Whatever 
 may be the inferences from scientific studies in 
 some directions, whatever the effect of the 
 Whole upon the Part may seem at times to be, 
 there is an indestructible belief in us that in the 
 soul of man is a power of self-betterment. 
 
 Dr. Maudsley himself, whose acute observation 
 sometimes seems to make of man but a puppet 
 of circumstance, has given us that noble book 
 which so reinforces religious appeal, " Responsi- 
 bility in Mental Disease." A book which in its 
 very title bears witness to something in man 
 which can be appealed to confidently for self-help 
 and for world-help. And this something in man, 
 which men even like Dr. Maudsley believe in 
 
86 man's freedom and responsibility. 
 
 appealing to, lies at the basis of morals, both in 
 the personal and social significance of the word. 
 The moral law dances off into mist if there is no 
 moral nature in man which may consciously and 
 of purpose obey such law. And whatever may 
 be our philosophy of ethics, however we may 
 define the genesis of the moral nature or write 
 its history, we may be all agreed in one practical 
 point, namely, that somehow, and somewhere, 
 and sometime, man found out that there were 
 such things as Right and Wrong, and that he 
 Ought to choose the Right and flee the Wrong 
 with all his heart and mind and strength. And 
 if he Ought, then he can ; with fear and trembling 
 may be, with weakness and failure often, with 
 foolishness of blunder and half understanding of 
 ignorance always, but with growing power and 
 success ! And what is true of mankind as a 
 whole is true of each man and woman and child. 
 One man's possibility of virtue may be so far 
 short of another's, that no one praises it as virtue 
 at all. But at the foot of the hill one may begin 
 to climb ; and must begin there, if anywhere, if 
 he is born there. And if one nears the top he 
 must still climb ; and perhaps the harder that 
 the summit grows steep and rugged, and the sun 
 hot with mid-day strength. And in spite of 
 inherited beliefs which have blurred the doctrine 
 of man's freedom and responsibility toward the 
 moral law, in spite of new ideas of "environment " 
 
man's freedom and responsibility. d>7 
 
 and new "data of ethics," there is a growing 
 conviction that "conduct is three-fourths of 
 life," that character is the main thing, that to be 
 good is to be Godlike, and that goodness is the 
 only essential of true religion. Many who show 
 by their judgments and practical living that they 
 really believe all this, do not yet consciously 
 see what that belief implies in respect to the 
 philosophic statement of religion in its personal 
 and world aspects. But " all the churches are 
 growing practical," we all say. What does that 
 mean } Simply that all serious-minded people, 
 whatever their professed dogmas may be, are 
 turning their attention more and more toward 
 making people better and wiser and happier and 
 freer from bad conditions. And the growth of 
 what we call the " liberal " spirit in religion is as 
 much due to this practical tendency, to this 
 increased devotion to conduct, as to any intel- 
 lectual changes. 
 
 Universalism was a moral revolt from Cal- 
 vinism. "Could God be Father, as Jesus 
 said He was, and damn His children.?" 
 This was the question the early Universalists 
 asked ; and to ask it was to answer it sooner or 
 later with the Quaker poet, "Nothing can be 
 good in God which evil is in me." And Uni- 
 tarianism, with all its refinement of taste, with 
 all its literary exclusiveness and intellectual 
 tendency of influence, was pre-eminently a vindi- 
 
88 man's freedom and responsibility. 
 
 cation of and an appeal to the moral nature of 
 man. The Friends, with their simple gospel of 
 fidelity to the " inner light " — the Friends, whose 
 saintliness has blessed a world which never 
 knew them, — the Friends, also, bore their testi- 
 mony to the authenticity of the Soul's message 
 from the Infinite in a beauty of holiness which 
 has leavened great masses of dull and bestial 
 life in this and other lands ! From many quarters 
 of the religious world the news has spread that 
 it is not technical "conversion" which insures 
 soul-health ; that still less does assent to dogmas 
 prove that a man is citizen of the heavenly king- 
 dom ; but that this rather is true, whoso reveals 
 soul-health in a pure life **void of offence," 
 warm and helpful toward all good on this earth, 
 is saved already and stands a king and a priest to 
 God. The great anti-slavery movement in 
 America contributed wonderfully to the growth 
 of this idea of character as the real test and aim 
 in religion. It taught a whole great people to 
 see that whatever may be the false show of 
 things when "Right is on the scaffold and Wrong 
 is on the throne," still '* Right is Right, and 
 right the day must win ; to doubt it is disloyalty, 
 to falter is a sin." 
 
 To-day it is greatly needed for the better and 
 quicker helping of men and women enslaved to 
 evil and ignorance that the mighty powers of 
 the Christian church should be liberated fully 
 
man's freedom and responsibility. 89 
 
 and consciously from all bondage ; both that 
 which cramps the intellectual growth, and that 
 which fetters the moral sense. It is not enough 
 that with a confused and confusing double vision 
 the great body of the Church profess that 
 salvation is of the next world, while at the same 
 time it acts as if salvation were of this world. 
 This inconsistency, useful as it is, is but 
 the bridge from one point of clear vision 
 to another. What is wanted is that with 
 no ifs and buts, and with no cowardice or 
 shrinking, men and women everywhere should 
 declare that he is saved who is good and whose 
 life is helpful to all the better side of other's 
 lives ; and that he is in danger here and now 
 who is cruel or selfish or vicious, who is narrow 
 in sympathy or low in aim. What is needed 
 above all things to strengthen and concentrate 
 the influence of the better life in every com- 
 munity against the evil in that community 
 is the feeling, united and powerful, that men 
 can make themselves better, and that to 
 seek and follow the good is the one vital thing 
 in life. And the hope is that this little effort 
 towards religious association here may empha- 
 size that truth. 
 
 It seems to us that in an age when, by reason 
 of new ways of looking at things and new 
 wealth of knowledge, all preconceived notions 
 stand on trial for life before the enlight- 
 
90 MAN S FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 ened judgment, they weight themselves as 
 foolishly, as needlessly, who stop to ask liberty 
 of the past to study freely either the past or 
 present. It seems to us that in an age, when, 
 by reason of changes in social order coming with 
 bewildering rapidity, every old maxim of con- 
 duct must be tested by wholly new conditions, 
 they confuse their moral judgment and lessen 
 their moral power as dangerously, as unwarrant- 
 ably, who defer to aught save a free and reverent 
 listening for to-day's revelation of Right. We 
 want here to call together a company of people 
 whose watchword, confessed and ringing with 
 confident assertion, shall be, "Character the aim 
 and test in Religion ; to make men good and 
 happy the business of a Church." 
 
 And though this little Chapel never assume 
 the Christian badge, and though it were denied 
 the sympathy of every Christian church in this 
 community, if it were truly bound in deed as in 
 word to this gospel, it would have more right to 
 claim kinship with the spirit of Jesus than any 
 Church amongst us which puts the creed above 
 the life and sneers at "mere Morality." Listen 
 to the crack of the whip with which Jesus drove 
 the moneychangers from the Temple! Hear 
 the terrible denunciations he sent to the very 
 centre of the "orthodox" church of his day 
 against the pretences of those who "made long 
 prayers, yet devoured widows' houses," who put 
 
man's freedom and responsibility. 91 
 
 the profession of faith above the doing of the 
 simple right ! Listen to the Sermon on the 
 Mount, which is extolled by thousands who stone 
 the new prophets who seek to make its lessons 
 real to-day for to-day's needs and opportunities ! 
 Hundreds of thoughtful people now find them- 
 selves out of touch with the great body of the 
 Christian Church because it is infidel to the 
 teaching of him whom it calls Lord and Master, 
 infidel to him whose ethical passion was as a 
 consuming flame against all that hurt the soul, 
 infidel to him whose love for man, his brother, 
 matched his trust in God his Father. And 
 thousands of poor and sorrowful and burdened 
 and sinful souls feel themselves neglected to-day 
 by the great body of the Christian Church because 
 — while the rich and successful and wise are 
 ministered to — they hear no helpful gospel. It 
 is a pitiful commentary on the life of the Church 
 that on Sunday only are its chief Temples lighted 
 and warmed, and then for the few, while the 
 multitude are won to the haunts of vice by 
 every-day cheer and fraternal feeling ! I do not 
 speak in any bitterness. This is no question of 
 "Orthodox" and "Liberal." This is a question 
 of religious or not religious, faithful or faithless, 
 believing or infidel ! He who puts aught before 
 the doing of one's duty here and now, hides the 
 entrance to the Holy of Holies ! He who puts 
 aught before love to his brother man, even that 
 
92 MAN S FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 which he calls Love to God, veils that East 
 window of the soul which earliest lets in the 
 light of day ! 
 
 The business of a Church is to make true and 
 noble men and women. If it can not do that it 
 has no call to existence in a world where the 
 faithful must forever war against the hosts of 
 evil ! The office of Religion in the heart of each 
 man and woman is to cleanse from bodily sins, 
 to purify the heart, to uplift and strengthen the 
 moral nature. If that which one calls his 
 Religion does not do these things he is mistaken 
 about it and the Spirit of Life is not in him. Said 
 Dr. Channing — whom we honor here with 
 Emerson, High Priest of True Religion, and 
 Parker, the fiery-hearted and devout Reformer — 
 "The true love of God is the same thing with 
 the love of virtue, rectitude and goodness." And 
 again, "The grand heresy is to substitute 
 anything, whether creed or form or church, for 
 character^ for goodness, which is essentially, 
 everlastingly and by its own nature, lovely, 
 glorious, divine ! " 
 
 Said Charles Darwin — Servant in Truth's 
 Temple, and so honored here with the rest of 
 God's Teachers — said Charles Darwin when 
 indicating his agnostic position in respect to 
 the Mysteries of Life — " But at least a man can 
 do his duty." 
 
 And at most, we ask, what can a man do more } 
 
man's freedom and responsibility. 93 
 
 " That man is great, — and he alone 
 Who serves a greatness not his own 
 
 For neither praise nor pelf : 
 Content to know and be unknown, 
 Whole in himself. 
 
 '* Strong is that man, he only strong, 
 To whose well ordered will belong 
 
 For service and delight, 
 All powers that in the face of Wrong 
 
 Establish Right. 
 
 ** And free is he, and only he 
 Who from his tyrant passions free 
 
 By Fortune undismayed, 
 Hath power upon himself to be 
 By himself obeyed. 
 
 '* If such a man there be, where e'er 
 Beneath the sun and moon he fare, ' 
 
 He cannot fare amiss. 
 Great Nature hath him in her care; 
 
 Her cause is his. 
 
 " He holds by everlasting law 
 
 Which neither chance nor change can flaw; 
 
 His steadfast course is one 
 With whatsoever forces draw 
 
 The Ages on." 
 
FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. 
 
 " 'T'HE most effective method," said Mr. Eddy, 
 '■■ *' of sustaining any system of thought or 
 religion is organization; which includes the 
 teaching of children by all parents and teachers 
 of what is esteemed by them to be the truth. 
 Recognizing that the highest well-being of all 
 demands of each a pure, just and honorable life, 
 we deem it for the best interests of society that 
 men unite in the formation of religious associa- 
 tions for co-operation in the extension of 
 knowledge and virtue. It is necessary for our 
 growth that the best guiding principles of 
 religion and morality should be fixed in our 
 minds. And to this end it is necessary that we 
 study and reflect upon them, repeating them in 
 various forms of expression ; but trying always 
 to convey the essence of the principles by which 
 we should be governed. Especially is this course 
 of frequent repetitions of accepted truths 
 necessary in regard to the education of children. 
 Parents should feel bound to bring up their 
 children in such manner as will ensure their own 
 well-being in this world, and that of all who may 
 
FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. 95 
 
 be connected with them in close relations of life. 
 And they should be taught an ever-widening 
 interest in mankind, until they can say as did 
 that noble man, Thomas Paine, 'The world is 
 my country; my countrymen are all mankind.' 
 
 "We are beginning to realize and use our 
 God-given right of soul liberty to investigate 
 and discover all of truth as best we may. May 
 each Christian sect claim and maintain its right 
 to differ, according to its honest convictions, 
 from all other Christian sects. And may all 
 those outside of any church organization claim 
 and maintain entire freedom of thinking and of 
 speech on these important questions of religion, 
 on all suitable occasions. Clear convictions of 
 the truth can only be arrived at by study of facts 
 and by serious reflection ; and when an individual 
 claims to be convinced, or to have real convic- 
 tions, it is not in order for another to question 
 his results so far as they pertain to himself. 
 There is great diversity of mind and heart ; and 
 this is well. The honest and true convictions 
 of each and every thoughtful mind must be 
 arrived at by and through its own mental labor. 
 Our rule should be to adopt nothing which has 
 not been passed through the analysis of the 
 laboratory of our own minds. In the religious 
 and moral duties the mental inspiration of the 
 day and hour in which we live will suffice for the 
 needs and demands of that day and hour. But 
 
96 FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. 
 
 the progressive changes of the human mind are 
 and ought to be guarded and slow. 
 
 " Our creed should be made up of true 
 principles of thought and conduct ; and I see no 
 objection to noting down in the form of con- 
 stitutional principles, or a creed of beliefs, the 
 honest convictions of to-day by those who would 
 form a Religious Society. 
 
 " Why can not all stand on a platform of the 
 truest and noblest principles the head and heart 
 can conceive of in our day and generation ? We 
 may do this, and yet admit that there is nothing 
 now conceived in science, morals and religion 
 which may not in time be improved upon. We 
 should hesitate to affirm finalities in regard even 
 to the most rational of the accepted truths of 
 the hour in which we live. Like time, the 
 natural course of our intelligence and knowledge 
 is onward, not backward, nor even standing still. 
 We write our creeds to-day^ comprising the 
 highest principles of action towards God and 
 man that we can conceive of. We crystallize in 
 our moral and religious beliefs the best thoughts, 
 the noblest truths of to-day. And let us have a 
 prominent article of our faith that as human 
 thought and experience develop new truth we 
 may add to or modify our old articles of faith. 
 When our creeds perfect us then they may be 
 considered as finalities. 
 
 " We believe in the divine influence of intelli- 
 
FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. 97 
 
 gence and nobility of mind, and of the unselfish 
 emotions of the heart, wherever found. And in 
 a religious society we should have no desire to 
 diminish in any sect the religious sentiment or 
 devotional spirit ; far otherwise ! We should 
 aim to increase and purify this spirit of devotion 
 by presenting a truer object of inspiration, and 
 by giving sound reasons for the cultivation of 
 the religious sentiment." 
 
 We close here our quotations from Mr. Eddy's 
 writings. 
 
 Fellowship in Religion. Our subject may 
 well be divided into three parts: Fellowships 
 Fellowship in Religion^ Fellowship within and 
 without Oicr Religious Home. 
 
 Human Fellowship, in the broadest sense of 
 the words, rests upon the great fact of life that 
 the things wherein men are alike are greater 
 than the things wherein they differ. Beneath 
 all divisions into class and color and race and 
 condition we strike the bedrock of human unity. 
 Just as beneath all the multiform shows of 
 Nature we strike, if we go deep enough, a unity 
 of law and substance. ''The solidarity of the 
 human race " is the ethical phrasing of the 
 science of evolution : and it is the modern trans- 
 lation of the New Testament gospel, " We are 
 all members one of another." 
 
 Fellowship in Religion is the recognition of the 
 unity of mankind in its highest life. 
 
 8 
 
98 FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. 
 
 Fellowship within our religious home : Fel- 
 lowship without our religious home : What do 
 these words mean ? Let us see. 
 
 Take a score of the most devout and intelli- 
 gent men and women from as many different 
 Christian sects in America, and set them all to 
 talking of the " Unity of the Spirit which is the 
 bond of peace " in Religion, and they will very 
 likely all talk much of the underlying likeness of 
 all faiths : and of the ** sympathy of Religions," 
 at least within Christian lines. But when the 
 talk is ended each will go his way, labeling 
 himself as precisely as ever with his badge of 
 denominationalism, and seeking to fasten it upon 
 others as before. Get together " Union Meet- 
 ings " by the dozen all over this city during the 
 " Week of Prayer," and everybody who speaks 
 or listens will be glad of the fraternal touch 
 with neighbor sect. But when the set meetings 
 are over, no Calvinist Baptist may admit the 
 more readily to his " Communion " privilege his 
 devout brother Congregationalist ; no Presby- 
 terian will abate his " Confession " of one hard 
 dogma : and not a Methodist will perhaps seem 
 less clannish than before. 
 
 Call a meeting of the " Evangelical Alliance " 
 with its motto, '* In Essentials Unity : In Non- 
 essentials Diversity: In all Things Charity." 
 And the Unity and Charity will be emphasized, 
 the divisions resulting from diversity will be 
 
FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. 99 
 
 obscured as the air rings with the words, " The 
 things we hold together;" "Our Common 
 faith ; " "A united front to error aud sin," and 
 the like. But straightway the meeting is over 
 no Episcopalian will open his pulpit to the most 
 saintly brother unless ordained in his way ; and 
 not one may seem the more inclined to organic 
 union if it involves any sacrifice of his sect pre- 
 judice. 
 
 Says the good Methodist brother in the quaint 
 story, talking of " Christian Union : " " It's a 
 shame for Christians to fight and quarrel so, 
 cutting themselves up into little knots and rings! 
 Why can't they all use their common sense and 
 be good, straightforward Methodists t " And in 
 less transparent simplicity most sectarians show 
 that their idea of religious unity is for everybody 
 to adopt their views ! 
 
 Now why is this t Not that these people are 
 hypocrites or fools. It is more than all else 
 because the sect feeling, large and small, is the 
 home feeling in religion. It may be a palace 
 home of grand proportions, even all the broad 
 Christian Communion. And then, however a 
 man may .like to travel in foreign lands of faith, 
 and taste the food of Confucius, Bhudda or 
 another, he is glad always to get home again ; 
 and likes best to stay where all high thoughts 
 and aspirations translate themselves in Christian 
 terms. 
 
ICX) FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. 
 
 The home, on the other hand, may be a small 
 cottage of faith, even one so tiny that the 
 essential thing seems the quantity of water it 
 takes for baptism, or the shape of the garment 
 worn by its minister, it is still, perhaps all the 
 more dearly. Home. And a very short visit to 
 a very near neighbor's house of worship makes 
 the timid homekeeper fearful lest all should not 
 go well in his absence ! 
 
 The various sects of Christendom represent 
 the natural differences in men's ways of looking 
 at things crystallized into institutions by the 
 theologians. And where one will go and stay 
 to find a home is determined chiefly either by 
 early training or temperamental affinity. 
 
 No one is obliged by any dictum of conscience 
 to leave a house of faith which suits him, and go 
 off on a voyage of religious exploration to settle 
 in some unfamiliar Temple-House ; or perhaps 
 seek his Trysting-Place with the Spirit only in 
 solitary places, when he really belongs with the 
 rest of the folks. The only essential for growth 
 in human Fellowship in Religion is that one 
 look wide enough abroad to see that others can 
 rightfully feel at home in those unfamiliar 
 Temple-Houses, and others still in the solitary 
 wild meet God face to face ! Yes, more is 
 essential : — That one study bravely enough and 
 deeply enough to make sure that he really 
 belongs in the House he dwells in ; and that it is 
 
FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. lOI 
 
 large enough to let him grow all he can ; and that 
 it does not crowd his neighbor's House unfairly ! 
 
 Looking over the whole field of Religious 
 thought and effort in America, to-day, there 
 seem to be four grand divisions sufficiently 
 differentiated, in large outline, to make separate 
 organization justifiable. 
 
 These are the Trinitarian or Evangelical 
 Christian : the Unitarian Christian : the Ration- 
 alistic Theists with Free Religious bases of 
 Union : and the Ethical Culturists who aim to 
 put all their affirmation of the Highest in Life 
 in terms of such abstract reserve that the con- 
 scientious Agnostic may use them. The main 
 army of Christians is of course that marked 
 " Evangelical." It is an army doing grand 
 service in countless directions of devotion to 
 God and service to man. It saves and helps 
 innumerable poor and feeble and defective of 
 the children of men, otherwise orphaned and 
 desolate. It makes warm hearthfire Altars of 
 Worship for multitudes otherwise unsheltered 
 and unblest. Whether or not its leaders, or its 
 rank and file always name themselves sincerely 
 is not our question to-day. But granted that all 
 is honest and true in the main creed of this main 
 army of Christendom, are all the sub-divisions of 
 creed which separate this main army itself into 
 sections, often antagonistic sections, either 
 necessary or useful ? 
 
102 FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. 
 
 I cannot think they are. If Union Meetings 
 and Evangelical Alliances do so much good, if 
 dwelling upon the things which unite is found 
 so helpful now and then in meetings, and always 
 in humanitarian work, why in the name of 
 common sense and business economy of force, 
 cannot the organization be upon the large and 
 not the small things of faith ? How many a 
 struggling little church in some small place is 
 hopelessly broken down by the opposition of 
 another, of an Evangelical sect so like its own 
 that one accustomed to large views of Religion 
 must use a microscope to see the difference. 
 How much force so sadly needed in helping 
 sinful, struggling, despairing men and women 
 toward some Worship and Goodness is spent in 
 keeping the denominational fences in repair. 
 Fences within the Evangelical lines, remember, 
 and useful if at all in keeping apart those so 
 nearly related they seem to belong together. I 
 believe if that spirit of limited Fellowship in 
 Religion, which finds expression in great union 
 meetings and efforts to do good within the Evan- 
 gelical lines, could but rule the daily life and 
 official action of the Orthodox leaders, the result 
 would be a revival of real religion in this 
 country, and in the whole Christian world, 
 beyond anything yet experienced, and would be 
 helpful to a wider circle of people than any 
 other one thing. By such a bond of union upon 
 
FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. IO3 
 
 the simple elements of faith common to all 
 Evangelical Christians there could be sub-division 
 of that vast army for Service and not for idle creed 
 tinkering ; and, while keeping all the true home- 
 feeling, that "more stately mansion of the soul" 
 might shelter millions now unchurched. 
 
 The Unitarian Christian marks a departure 
 from the Evangelical creed, even when reduced 
 to its simplest terms, so great that it rightfully 
 justifies separate housekeeping. The rule of 
 all righteous organization of mankind is 
 "first pure" and just, "then peaceable." 
 The rule of helpful religious homebuilding is 
 first sincere, and suited to personal needs, and 
 then beautiful with fraternal hospitality. The 
 vast body of orthodox Christianity, even if it 
 were bound together by the large rather than 
 the small elements of faith, would still feel cold 
 and dreary if aught should separate from 
 allegiance to Christ as the Divine incarnation. 
 The Unitarian would find it equally impossible 
 to cumber with such mysticism his human 
 discipleship of the Elder Brother, his simple 
 faith in Christianity as our special revelation of 
 the Universal Religion, and the world's most 
 perfect and helpful faith. Therefore the Evan- 
 gelical and the Unitarian belong in separate 
 although not in hostile households. 
 
 The Unitarian Christian body, counting the 
 central majority of its membership as its most 
 
104 FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. 
 
 characteristic expression, is that which to-day in 
 America represents, I believe, the most widely 
 and practically useful liberal element in Religion. 
 Its combination of rational criticism, historic 
 continuity, ethical life and teaching and refined 
 and spiritual forms of worship is suited to 
 enlightened minds. And now that that body 
 for the first time in its history has entered upon 
 a period of organization and missionary effort, 
 we may look with certainty for a vast and rapid 
 increase in its power and influence. All things 
 considered, I have no doubt that the greatest 
 religious needs of the largest number of pro- 
 gressive people in our America are met by that 
 Unitarian affirmation. 
 
 The birth of the Free Religious Association, 
 however, and of similar movements, bear witness 
 to the fact that there are men and women who hold 
 a pure and simple Theistic concept of the Uni- 
 verse, a Morality based upon common human 
 experience and a worship of the Highest with 
 no required prefix, Christian or other ! 
 
 Lastly come those who in Ethical Culture 
 Societies not only put their bond of union in 
 these abstract forms of speech, but refrain 
 from public Worship, and discard all theological 
 affirmations. 
 
 To my thought the varied organization of the 
 Liberal element in Religion along these three 
 lines is both right and useful. 
 
FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. 10$ 
 
 Within the Evangelical Christian body analysis 
 and differentiation have been carried indeed to 
 their ultimate ends ; often to a repulsive 
 and wasteful extreme. It is time for the 
 main army of Christianity to synthesize, to 
 harmonize, to combine in a mutual benefit 
 "Trust" which shall at once broaden and 
 strengthen its position. But the natural, un- 
 dogmatic, " radical " or " Root " element in 
 Religion has only so lately begun to express 
 itself in Christendom that it would be quite 
 outside the usual law of growth if it could, at 
 first, unite all sensitive to its influence in one 
 bond of organization. 
 
 The Friend who has opened for us this Re- 
 ligious opportunity of Bell St. Chapel occupied 
 a somewhat unique position in the Liberal Faith. 
 He stood with the worshiping Theists both 
 inside and outside the Unitarian body. But he 
 wished to bear neither the Unitarian nor the 
 Christian name. Nor, on the other hand, did he 
 feel able conscientiously to accept the abstract 
 Bond of Union which the Free Religious position 
 asserts. He was not only a worshiping Theist, 
 he was a Theist of creedal affirmation. He 
 believed in a Church of the Living God, and he 
 thought such a Church should not only assume 
 God in Service of Praise, it should declare Him, 
 and allegiance to Him, in basis of organization. 
 To Mr. Eddy, lack of such Theistic delaration in 
 
I06 FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. 
 
 the Bond of Fellowship, made Worship less 
 consistent, and was a treason to Religion itself. 
 I do not feel on this point as our Friend did. 
 To me the position in the Liberal Religious 
 world, not most practically, but most philosophic- 
 ally strong is that of a citizen of the World's 
 Temples whose sentiment soars in all higher 
 forms of aspiration known to men, but who so 
 separates religious sentiment from dogma that 
 his chosen bond of union with others is as 
 impersonal and abstract an allegiance to the 
 Best in Life as can be framed. Hence I cannot 
 share Mr. Eddy's philosophical objection to the 
 Free Religious Society's basis of organization. 
 But Liberal Religious Societies with the Theistic 
 affirmation in both creed and worship (such a 
 double affirmation as Mr. Eddy wished made 
 here in this place), may have strength of local 
 influence, warmth of attraction and a sufficient 
 breadth of union. And for the sake of this 
 broad and practical usefulness I gladly do what 
 in me lies to help start here a Church of the 
 Universal Fatherhood which shall in prose of 
 creed, as well as in poetry of worship, declare its 
 belief in God, and its purpose of service to man. 
 And my Ethical Culture Brother, to whom 
 such personalized conceptions are forbidden, 
 alike in prose and in poetry, what shall I say of 
 him } He has stripped from the ancient Temple 
 of Faith its Altar, as well as all adornment of 
 
FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. IO7 
 
 mythical picture and allegory. And he has 
 inscribed on its bare walls the four-square 
 legend: — "Learn Truth. Teach Truth. Be Good. 
 Do Good." 
 
 What shall I say of him ? That I am heartily 
 glad he has built a place where he can feel at 
 home and where thousands to whom the Churchly 
 element is not attractive may learn to revere the 
 " Sacred Ought in Man." If I see, as I think I 
 do, that when he reaches in glowing speech the 
 heights of Goodness and Truth he touches the 
 heart of an Infinite Love also, to which our 
 hearts are so allied that none but poetic Person- 
 alities can name It, I am neither grieved nor 
 vexed that he does not see it. 
 
 If to strip his Religious Purpose of garments 
 of beauty I love, makes him feel stronger — as 
 an athlete preparing for the fight — to war 
 against Wrong, that is his affair ; and so long 
 as he works in harmony with that ** Power not 
 ourselves which makes for Righteousness," I 
 am glad to feel kinship with him. And I believe 
 that now we are at the point in thought and 
 morals where he can help in ways many of us 
 cannot. 
 
 Standing where I do in Religion I can Fellow- 
 ship all who will Fellowship me. Is the name 
 Religion vaster and yet dearer to me than its 
 " given " name Christian ? Truly it is. But if my 
 Brother on the Left puts into his word Christian 
 
I08 FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. 
 
 all I mean by my word Religion, as so many do, 
 shall I wince when he talks, or think the less 
 of his brave and beautiful words ? I trust 
 not. If he can stand my want of a surname I 
 can surely bear with his filial love for our com- 
 mon family inheritance of faith. Do the words, 
 Truth, Right, Love, standing all alone, seem 
 nobler in completeness, more far-reaching in 
 significance, than with any prefix, even Christian? 
 Truly they do to me. But if my Brother asks me 
 to join him in Truthseeking and in Right-living 
 and in Loving helpfulness, I am not troubled 
 that he always calls such " Christian work." 
 There is so much more in that prefix Christian 
 than has ever yet been lived out, that it is more 
 a question whether I am worthy of such a badge 
 than whether my brother makes a mistake in 
 wearing it ! 
 
 On the other hand, do the words, God, 
 Soul, Religion, Immortality, all the root words 
 of Worship, seem dear to me and right to 
 use, however they may have been surcharged 
 with superstitious meanings or coarse concep- 
 tions .•* Aye, truly they do. And my place is 
 with those who can no more help giving wing to 
 the Spiritual Imagination than a flower can help 
 turning toward the sun. But if my Brother on 
 the Right shrinks from using any of these 
 words, and limits himself to such literal 
 phrasings of man's nobler nature as the logical 
 
FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. ICQ 
 
 faculty alone suggests, what of that ? If he puts 
 a reverent Silence — not a boisterous and rude 
 outcry — but a reverent Silence in place of my 
 Worship, and if moreover he listens in that 
 reverent Silence closely and tenderly for the 
 cry of human need and the Word of human 
 helpfulness, then, if he can endure my prayer, I 
 can be glad of his Silence if it helps him more 
 than speech ! 
 
 Fellowship in Liberal Religion, my friends, 
 goes both ways, or it is not true Fellowship. 
 
 Fellowship in Religion is to keep the Unity 
 of the Spirit in the bond of Peace all around 
 the World of Faith and Service. 
 
 Fellowship within our own Religious Home is 
 that near and dear tie of those who believe so 
 much alike that they can be one in all things of 
 word and deed. This Fellowship, to be truly 
 helpful, must be upon the large and not the 
 small elements of belief and of service. 
 
 Fellowship without our own Religious Home 
 is sympathetic understanding of those from 
 whom we differ, constant effort to join on with 
 them, and keep company, where we can, all the 
 more that at some roadways we must unclasp 
 hands and walk apart for Truth's sake. 
 
 Fellowship in Religion demands of no man 
 that he make himself a *• mush of concessions." 
 Still less that he blur real and far-reaching dis- 
 tinctions for the sake of keeping step with the 
 
no FELLOWSHIP IN RELIGION. 
 
 main army. Least of all that he be-juggle with 
 words, or trifle with austere sincerity, just to 
 stay where it is snug and warm. No man has a 
 right to be free-handed in hospitality when he is 
 in debt and cannot feed his own family. And 
 an all-round Fellowship in Religion is neither 
 just nor honest until we have bought and paid 
 for our own Household of Faith by strenuous 
 search for our own religion and sincere speech 
 about it. 
 
 First find your own place of Worship and of 
 Service. 
 
 Then, where you stand, all you can, speaking 
 your Religious Truth in love as in sincerity, 
 doing your Religious Deed in fraternal feeling 
 as in personal faithfulness, join effort with who- 
 so also loves Truth and would do the Right 
 wherever your hands can clasp each other's. 
 
 This, I take it, is the rule of Fellowship in 
 Religion. 
 
 This is the Fellowship in Religion I must ever 
 seek. 
 
 This is the Fellowship in Religion I hope may 
 be manifest in this place. 
 
INDEX 
 
 TO 
 
 Quotations from the Writings of 
 James eddy. 
 
 Pages. 
 Man's Ideal of God 8-14 
 
 Gratitude and Trust in the Powers Above 19-25 
 
 How Religions Grow 37-42 
 
 Reason in Keligion 56-63 
 
 Man's Freedom and Responsibility; or, Character in 
 
 Religion 76-83 
 
 Fellowship in Religion 94 - 97 
 
 Allusions to Bell St. Chapel and to Mr. Eddy's desires 
 respecting the Religious Organization receiving the 
 
 benefit of the Chapel-Trust 
 
 10, 12, 13, 21, 25, 37, 41, 42, 56, 62, 81, 94, 96 
 
7?C7^ 
 
 TV 7? 4-': 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY