THE HERESY OF CAIN GEORGE HODGES YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 1942 THE HERESY OF CAIN Classbook of Old Testament History Everyman's Religion Christianity Between Sundays The Heresy of Cain The Battles of Peace The Human Nature of the Saints The Path of Life In This Present World The Year of Grace (2 Vols.) The Cross and Passion Faith and Social Service THE HERESY OF CAIN BY GEORGE HODGES DEAN OF THB EPISCOPAL THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL- CAMBRIDGE, MASS. NEW REVISED EDITION KTeui gjorft THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1914 Jill rights reserved Copyright, 1804, Bt THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Reprinted 1914. CONTENTS. The New Philanthropy 9 To Help the Pook 29 The Gospel and Poverty 47 The Church and the Labor Movement ... 58 Business and Religion 78 The Gospel of the Kingdom 90 The Christian Family 103 Saints in Society 117 Ethics op the Parish 132 The Church at Work 146 Eleven Laymen 159 Our Duty to Cjesar 171 War and Politics 183 The Christian in the City 193 New Quests for New Knights 205 The Failure op the Pharisee 217 Disposition and Duty 230 Foreign Missions 242 The Cattle op Nineveh 256 The Power op Persuasion 269 The Man with the Measuring Line .... 28C1 THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. " Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up ; and he arose." — St. Mark ix. 27. There he lay upon the ground, the victim of the devil. What could be done with him ? All remedies had failed. The physicians had prescribed for him; the apostles had prayed for him, — but to no purpose. Then came the Master, holding out his friendly hand; and he arose. It is a parable touching our own problems. What to do with the man who is down — who can tell us ? We stand about, as they stood that morning at the foot of the Transfiguration Hill, curious, sympathetic, desirous to help ; some with theories, some with medicines, some with prayers. In the midst is the possessed of the devil. And the devil continues to possess him. What shall we do? We must give him our fraternal hand. The new philanthropy is older than the church. It began with the beginning of the 10 THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. ministry of Jesus Christ. All that is new about it is the application of his teaching and example to our present needs. It is not easy to practise, but the preaching of it is simple enough. One does not need to be deeply versed in political economy to be able to under stand it. Friendship is the heart of it. The symbol is the extended hand. One characteristic of the new philanthropy is the definition which it gives to the word " betterment." For a long time the concern of the church in the progress of mankind was thought to be only with the soul. It was of great interest to the church that men should be helped spirit ually. They must be converted ; they must be led to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and to confess that faith openly before men ; they must he drawn into the allegiance of the church ; they must be taught to pray ; their feet must be set in the road that leads to heaven. It was forgotten that man is not all soul. The consequence was that a false distinction was set up between the sacred and the secular. The church set much more emphasis upon the behavior of men on Sunday than upon their THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. 11 conduct between Sundays. A thousand mis leading conventionalities confused the vision of Christian thinkers. Faith, for example, was given an ecclesiasti cal definition, and was made synonymous with theology. The true believer was he who as sented to the pronouncements of the theological doctors. Faith was set apart from reason ; be lieving was made a substitute for thinking. Still wider was the distance between creed and character. No man's sense of religion was affronted by the account given of the French cardinal, who was declared to be mean, cruel, avaricious, and dishonorable, but very religious ! Benvenuto Cellini broke all the commandments, but attended the services of the church with regularity and devotion, and believed that his steps were guarded by the blessed angels. An honest, pure-hearted, God-fearing heretic, no matter how upright his life, would go to hell. But a loyal son of the true church, who recited the creed and knelt at the sacrament, might live most basely, and yet have place hereafter with patriarchs and saints among the saved. Faith was shown not by works but by words. Inspiration had reference, men imagined, only to the composition of the books of the 12 THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. Old and New Testaments. The Holy Spirit ceased to speak when the last apostle died. Isaiah was helped to write his sermons by the dictation of the Lord God Almighty; but Chrysostom and Augustine, Francis and Ber nard, had to get along by themselves as best they might. The men who wrote the Hebrew Psalms heard the melodies of heaven; but the writers of the Christian hymns looked into the silent sky. A very different conception from that of the good people of the elder time, who held that even the architects of the new church which was built in the wilderness were inspired of God. Different, too, from the be lief of the apostles and brethren who met in convention at Jerusalem, and claimed that the Holy Ghost was with them as he had been with their fathers. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob waj3 the God of Peter, James, and John, they held. They set no narrow limits to God's assisting benediction. By the same mistaken interpretation a pic ture, if it had a religious name written on the frame, was accounted to be sacred. If there were some other name, the picture was held to belong to the secular side of art. If the artist painted a mother and a child, and set halos THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. 13 about their heads, the painting belonged to re ligion ; take away the halos, and it belonged to the world, the flesh, or the devil. Music which was set to the words of Holy Sciipture was considered to be sacred music ; poems of patriot ism, sung in time to the tramp of marching armies, were outside the province of the church. To build a cathedral was to do a service to religion: as much could not be said regarding the erection of a block of model tenements. To be a vestryman in a parish was to hold a religious position : it was quite a different thing to be a councilman in a city. The affairs of the church were considered in religious con ventions ; that good adjective was not given to the assemblies which discussed the needs of the state. St. Philip and St. James were honored by a day of commemoration; but it was not customary to celebrate with religious services the birthday of Washington, and the heroes of the Civil War were better remembered by the state than by the church. This distinction ran between great spaces of human life, dividing it right and left into the sacred and the secular. The province of re ligion was narrowed. The church attended to certain phases of the affairs of men, and stopped 14 THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. there, saying little about what lay beyond, ac counting that to be none of its business. " To make men better " was a phrase having but a limited meaning, applied almost entirely to the direct concerns of the soul. But when Jesus was here he was interested in all that entered into the life of man. He cared for the soul, but not for the soul only. He desired to save men — body, mind, and soul. It was his wish and his purpose that men and women should be happy here and now, without waiting till they go to heaven. He attended a wedding-feast, and contributed to the enjoyment of the guests, without holding a prayer-meeting or preaching a sermon. He came down from the mountain of the Transfiguration, and found a lad possessed of the devil, and straightway healed him. The sight of sickness moved him to compassion* He did not account it a matter of small moment that people should be hungry. He was stirred to sympathy by the privations of the poor. He made himself the enemy of disease and death, of avarice and selfishness, of poverty and ignorance, as he was the enemy of sin. To him, all life was of concern, and all that had to do with the best living of it came within his province. THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. 15 That is the spirit of the new attitude of Christian men toward human needs. It is being understood now that the church of Jesus Christ is meant to touch the whole circumference of society, and to deal with every day and every place. Jesus came to make men better, and sent his disciples to make men better in every kind of way. The Christian intention is that every human being shall have a chance, and every kind of chance. The purpose of the Christian religion is to uplift all life ; to make good citizens, wise statesmen, unselfish poli ticians, honest lawyers, conscientious doctors, just judges, prudent housekeepers, industrious mechanics, scrupulous salesmen, public-spirited capitalists, fraternal employers, high-minded re porters and editors, intelligent school-teachers, genuine Christians, who will not lie nor steal nor abuse their neighbors, nor do any mean, false thing. And Christianity is interested in everything which is meant to make earth more like heaven, — in the progress of education and its universal extension; in the improvement of machinery; in the discoveries of the men of science ; in the researches of the scholars ; in political reform and social betterment; in the houses that men and women live in, and the 16 THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. clothes they wear, and the dinners they eat, and the wages they get, and the amount of pleasure and of opportunity that enters into their lives. Jesus comes down from the green hill where he has been praying and conversing in the clouds with Moses and Elijah, gloriously trans figured ; and at the foot of the hill lies a sick child, and he takes him by the hand and raises him up. The Lord never meant that the church should abide forever on the heights of celestial vision, communing with the saints and fathers, delighting in devotion. The church, like her Master, must come down, with helping hand extended, into the midst of the sufferings and sins at the foot of the hill. True it is that prayer is good, and meditation is sweet, and the reading of old books is pleasant, and fine it is to stand, upon the summits of the moun tains. But work, too, is good; and brother hood is at the heart of all that is highest. Privilege, unless it flowers and fruits into fra ternal ministry, is barren and unlovely. We are set here side by side that we may help each other. Another characteristic of the new philan thropy is its purpose not only to make men THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. 17 better, but to keep them in that good condi tion. It would help men in such wise fashion that they may thenceforth help themselves. It is not satisfied to go on ministering year after year to the same needs of the same people. It was formerly taken for granted that pov erty is one of the necessary evils ; that God him self has made some rich and others poor, and that it is the divine desire that these two classes shall continue side by side forever. It was thought that the poor will gratefully receive, and the rich will generously give, to all eter nity. Master, and man, mistress and maid, were taken to be unalterable divisions of human society. And, no doubt, there will be unequal- ities in the society even of heaven. It is not likely that a monotonous level will character ize the new Jerusalem. There will still be wise and unwise, rich and poor, and some will be better saints than others in that blessed country — unless human nature very widely changes. The penitent thief and the beloved disciple will not be precisely alike. But the inequalities of heaven will differ from the in equalities with which good people were for merly quite contented here below in this respect; 18 THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. that up above there will be constant growth, un ending betterment, the poor growing richer in spiritual wealth; and the saints delighting to have it so. The diminishing intellectual distance between the parent and the child may serve as an illus tration. Year by year, as the child grows, ob serves, learns, enters into the experiences of life, the small circle of sympathy and common interests widens out, until it touches the larger circle of the elder life. That is what comes by growing. But the old idea was that those who stood in the larger family of the town or of the State where the children stand in the household, should continue there, children forever, always dependent upon the beneficence of others. They who ministered to the poor did so with out much notion of doing more than to re lieve the distress of the moment. They cheer fully expected to have the same kind offices to do over again upon the morrow, and were quite satisfied with that expectation. The monks, for instance, gave their daily dole of bread at the monastery gate; and the same people came day after day to get it. The land was full of sturdy beggars who lived THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. 19 upon the alms of the charitable. That there was anything more to do than to appease the desires of hunger was scarcely thought of. That hunger was an indication of wrong condi tions in society, which ought to be righted that man might no more go hungry — this idea entered but dimly into the almsgiving of the past. The philanthropy of the kitchen door prevailed in Christendom. The result was that philanthropy was an excellent thing for the philanthropists. It developed and cul tivated kindly feelings in their hearts. But it pauperized the poor. It touched only the sur face of poverty. The good that it did was not of much importance. The ills that it encour aged counterbalanced many of its benefits. That is but a poisoned blessing which makes it possible to get money without honest labor. It is a matter of history that the gold-mines of Peru wrecked the fortunes of Spain. Men abandoned their small farms and their suffi cient, steady earnings to become adventurers. The character of the whole nation was weak ened. The old almsgiving had a similar effect. Wherever it still survives, as it does in the kind hearts of thousands of unwise people, it serves but to complicate the problems of pov- 20 THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. erty and to postpone their solution. It is as if the physician should content himself with giving the patient anodynes and tonics, bring. ing temporary release from pain, while mean time the disease, unchecked, untouched, and unthought of, is going on in the patient's body. What is the matter with the man ? That is what the good physician wants to know. What is the matter with society ? That is what, the new philanthropy desires to learn. We are trying to-day to find out what wrong conditions conspire to keep men poor and miserable, and to get these wrong conditions righted. We no longer feel that we have done our duty when we have ministered to the more evident needs of those who are down. We wish to discover what it is that keeps them down, that we may lift them up. Thus a significant feature of the new philan- thropy is the "Settlement." Men and women of culture, religion, and fraternal enthusiasm, make their homes among the poor. They live among them in the spirit of Jesus, coming in creasingly into acquaintance and sympathy with them. They share the difficult conditions of their lives. Gradually they get knowledge. They know by the impressive lessons of per- THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. 21 sonal experience what life means in the crowded quarters of the town. They know from the inside what the man who is down thinks of the landlord, of the sweater, of the health commissioner, of the ward politician, of the saloon-keeper, of the clergyman, of the dis trict visitor from the associated charities ; and what reason he has for his conclusions. And they know the man who is down. They are his confidential friends. They are intimately acquainted with his temptations, with his hin drances, and with his real needs. They are beginning where the competent physician be gins, with the diagnosis. They are making it possible for us to minister, not to the symptoms, but to the disease. They are teaching that dis cretion which a philosopher has pronounced the better part of charity. To compassion they would add intelligence. This is the heart of the new philanthropy. The work of the Settlement suggests another characteristic of the new and better almsgiving. We are realizing now that the genuine and permanent uplifting which we desire can be brought about only by the ministry of man to man; only by the benediction of personal contact. 22 THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. There was that significant scene beside the Mount of the Transfiguration. The demoniac lad was a type of the unrelieved distress of the world, of which we read in every morning's paper, and which we may read, plainer if we will, and closer, in the faces of our fellow-men. The devil had got into the boy. Some of the bystanders looked on with curiosity at the lad's ravings and contortions, probably with little pity, — the sight was not an uncommon one ; they were accustomed to it. Others were in terested, sympathetic, sharing in the grief and anxiety of the father so far as perfectly con tented outsiders can, desirous of doing some thing, yet having no idea of what to do — a company in whose midst most of us stand to-day. Some were even hostile, secretly hop ing that nothing would be done ; not because they were on the side of the devil, nor be cause they bore any grudge against the father or the boy, but because they were the political and ecclesiastical opponents of the apostles, who were trying to be of help : better that the pain should grip the lad a deal longer than that help should come from such as these. The apostles themselves knew what it was to be blinded by that jealousy. Finally, there were THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. 23 the apostles ; they were doing what they could, applying such remedies, putting up such peti tions, pronouncing such exorcisms as they knew how, but to no purpose. The victim of the devil lay upon the ground. Then the Master came. And what did he ? He might have done the twenty ineffective things which we would prob ably have done, since we are still doing them. He might, according to our modern fashion, have appointed a committee consisting of three apostles, Peter and James and John, to inves tigate the case ; and they might have held a meeting, and, having elected Peter to be chair man, might thus have proceeded to consider the matter. It would have failed. We know that by experience. This kind cometh not out by committees. The Master came himself. He took the lad by the hand : we are not told that any of the others had done that. He showed himself the friend of the father and the boy, putting him self into direct personal relation with them. Thus he raised him up, and he arose ; and the defiant devil was expelled. The personality of Jesus entered, of course, immeasurably into this marvel. It is not likely 24 THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. that any one of the Twelve, taking the lad by the hand, or by both hands, could thus have lifted him into sanity and health. The empha sis is distinctly upon character. When they sought the reason for their failure, Jesus pointed out their deficient devotion, their lack of prayer, their consequent want of faith and love, the essentials of the highest character. They had not been good enough to make their personality tell. That, no doubt, is why even the new philanthropy does not immediately bring in the millennium. The fault is in the new philan thropists. Still, it is significant that not only here, but elsewhere, Jesus got very close to the man whom he would help. It means something — that he took him by the hand. He was forever doing that. Throughout his ministry he dealt with individuals, not with crowds. He went among the people, never holding himself aloof from them ; coming into personal acquaintance with their temptations, bearing their sicknesses, and carrying their sorrows. He was called the friend of publicans and sinners. And the name was a true description of his ministry among them. He talked with them, walked with them, ate at their tables, knew the names of their little THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. 25 children ; he helped them not so much by what he said as by what he was. He won their hearts and changed their lives not by his sermons but by his blessed friendship. He took them by the hand; thus he lifted them up, and they arose. We are growing into profounder realization of the fact that if we are to help those who are down, we must do it in that way. The personal element must be emphasized. The privileged must become the friends of the un privileged. It will not do to disparage com mittees, nor to dispense with organizations, nor to disband the charitable societies ; but it must be understood that these agencies are Christian and effective only when institutionalism is sub ordinated to personality. The worker among the poor will do good work, worth doing, only as the official disappears in the friend. The hand of help must be held out, cordially, fra ternally, and ungloved. Elisha is sent for in a case of need; the widow's son lies dead. And Elisha sends his servant and his staff, and the servant lays the staff upon the boy; but there is no breath nor motion. Then the prophet comes himself : up he goes into the chamber where the dead child 26 THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. lies, and he casts himself upon the child, with his face upon his face, and his hands upon his hands, and life comes back. The servant and the staff are not enough ; he who would help must go himself. The new philanthropy, accordingly, sets itself against all that tends to build up barriers across society. It deprecates that most natural, but most unfortunate, condition of things which puts the rich, the cultured, the good, the wise, in one part of the town, and gathers the shift less, the ignorant, the reprobate, and the poor into another part; and thus erects a wall be tween those who need help and those who are able to help them. It cannot see how the bread can rise while the yeast is kept apart from the dough. It despairs of lasting betterment until the wealthy and the educated begin to build their homes on the back streets and take pleas ure in becoming acquainted with their neigh bors. Society is provincial, parochial, and narrow. The same people meet the same people day after day, even to weariness. The caste spirit tends to take all interest out of social life. To belong to an exclusive clique is as belittling as to live one's whole life in a little country town. The THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. 27 new philanthropy would widen society, bring new elements and new interests into it, make it broad as humanity. It would take high and low, rich and poor, the classes and the masses, and establish the fine Christian principle : From every one according to his ability, to every one according to his need. What we want is not that those who are better off than we are should give us bread and shoes, or even district nurses and evening classes ; we want their interest, their personal affection, their fraternal love. Nothing else will greatly help us. And noth ing else that we can give will greatly help. We must give ourselves. Where is the successful man who is not help ing some brother of his up the steep ladder of success? Where is the happy woman who is not carrying sunshine out of her pleasant home into some house with dark windows and black rooms? Where are the cultured who are not ministering of their culture to those who lack? and the privileged who are not making them selves helpfully acquainted with the unprivi leged? Who has wealth, education, social position, and is content, though others lack? Who is satisfied to be a Christian, without try ing to make somebody else Christian? Come 28 THE NEW PHILANTHROPY. down, come down out of the mountain, out of the golden clouds, and bring your blessing with you, and find the need which awaits your com ing at the foot of the hill ! Find the neighbor who is struggling in a losing battle with the devil, give him your hand ; not your money only, nor your interest only, not your prayers only, — but your hand, and lift him up. TO HELP THE POOR. 1 Give to him that asketh thee. " — St. Matt. v. 42. There is a great difference between the four Gospels and the four books which Euclid wrote on conic sections ; the Sermon on the Mount is not an instruction in mathematics. One would think that a truth so plain as this must be sufficiently evident to all intelligent people. Nevertheless, it needs to be stated and explained and emphasized. Many excellent Christians persist in reading the Bible as if it were a religious arithmetic. There is a difference between mathematics and literature, between a problem and a poem, between a sum and a sermon, between a geo metrical proposition and a prayer ; one must be read literally, the other must be read spiritually. One must be taken precisely as it stands ; we are not to go around it, nor above it, nor be neath it. It means exactly what it says, and neither less nor more. The other may be only a symbol or a simile. The real truth lies be- 29 30 TO help the poor. hind it, and is to be sought not in the gram matical construction of the words, not in the definitions of the dictionary, but in the mind and heart of the writer. He finds the thought who is possessed not only of knowledge but of sympathy. As truth broadens and deepens, it gets too great for the narrow reach of mathematical expression. It eludes the grasp of speech. It defies definition. It can only be hinted at, sug gested; words can be thrown out in the direc tion of it, hoping to hit some part of it, but with small chance of striking the centre. Con sider the inevitable difference in the definition of a piece of wood from the definition of a piece of music. The whole of the piece of wood can be got into the description ; but the piece of music — what master of language can ade quately describe it ? Suppose that the descrip tion of the piece of music were to be read literally, and accounted a complete description, and we should persuade ourselves that there was nothing more in the music than appeared in the words — what a mistake ! That is what we have in mind when we say that the Bible ought not to be read literally. We ought not, that is, to think that the whole to help the poor. 31 meaning of the words of Christ is on the sur face, and that we have fully understood his meaning when we have interpreted the sentence with a grammar and a dictionary. St. Paul often contrasted these two ways of reading religious truth, the literal and the spir itual ; and always to the disadvantage of the literal. " We serve," he said, " in the newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." Another time he spoke with even stronger emphasis : " The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." The history of inter pretation is a long commentary upon these texts. People who have declared that the Bible means exactly what it says, meaning that the Holy Scriptures are to be read like a page in arithmetic, have fallen into endless absurdities and fanaticisms. Only they who have seen that the Bible means a great deal more than it says have found the real will of God. Not in the letter, then, but in the spirit, must we interpret that notable word of Jesus Christ where he said, " Give to him that asketh thee." This was spoken in the Sermon on the Mount; and one of the chief purposes of that 32 to help the poor. sermon was to substitute the new spirit of the gospel for the old letter of the law. Thus Jesus said that he had come to fulfil the law ; that is, to fill it full, to get the hearts of men so in sympathy with the great teachings of the law that they would have no more need for the intricate and petty regulations which at that time occupied the minds of religious people. There was to be the same difference between a new Christian and an old Hebrew that there is between a master of music, whose heart is filled with the sublime thoughts of a great composer, and another who is able to think only of half notes and quarter notes, and sharps and flats, and the right position of the fingers. Accordingly, Jesus laid all emphasis upon the spirit. He regarded not so much the hands as the heart. He taught that the com mandments could not be adequately understood by their grammatical construction only. They were not to be learned by any process of spell ing or parsing. They meant more than they said. Presently, in the sermon, Jesus set forth what at first sight seemed like rules. For a moment he appeared to be teaching like the scribes. "Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for TO HELP THE POOR. 33 an eye, and a tooth for a tooth ; but I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil, but whosoever smiteth thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man would go to law with thee and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall com pel thee to go one mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn thou not away." At first these read like absolute injunctions. These acts, it would seem, we are every one of us to do. But presently we find that Jesus himself protested against an unjust blow, and did not turn the other cheek. And we come by and by to see that a great principle is set forth here, and not a series of rigid regulations. Indeed, so desirous is Jesus that it shall not be thought that he is following the example of the religious teachers of Jerusalem, and binding his disciples with the confining cords of unelastic rules, that, as it seems, he purposely puts these statements into the form of paradox, and makes them so extreme that it must be evident that the spirit rather than the letter is intended. " Give to him that asketh thee : " put that into absolutely literal practice. Take it, for 34 TO HELP THE POOR. example, in domestic life ; let parents use it with tlieir children. Whatever the small child asks for, give it. Give it a pair of scissors, give it a looking-glass and a hammer, give it unlimited confections ; no matter what the child asks, there is your literal duty. You see what the Bible says ; you see what your Lord and Master directs you to do. There stands the commandment, plain and unquali fied, without exception. Obey, asking no ques tions, making no reservations. Why, that would actually kill half the babies in this town to morrow ! It must, then, be evident that this word of Jesus was not intended to be taken literally. What he meant to teach was not the letter of an indiscriminate, injudicious, and pernicious distribution, but the spirit of generosity, of un selfishness, and of fraternal love. We are to give only when our gift will be a real gift ; that is, a benefit. It is likely that nine times out of ten to-day we will best obey this divine commandment by refusing to give to him that asketh. How shall we help the poor ? We all desire to do that. The poor, it is true, have hard thoughts sometimes against those who live more TO HELP THE POOR. 35 comfortable lives than they. Yet almost all the people who have money really wish to minis ter to their neighbors who have none. There are selfish people the world over, among the rich as among the poor ; and there are hard hearts beneath all kinds of coats. But the peo ple who dwell in the palaces are for the most part well-intentioned and good-hearted people, who think a great deal more about the poor than the poor imagine, and who do a great deal more for the poor than anybody ever finds out. They might, no doubt, do more. They might bring in the kingdom of heaven to-morrow, if they knew how. The worst hindrance is not the lack of sympathy, not the lack of willing ness, but the lack of knowledge. What to do, and how to do it — who can tell ? Most people remember the description which Jesus gave of the last judgment. We know what kind of sinners will stand in that day upon the side of malediction. All the unhelp ful people will be there ; all the men and wo men who have cold hearts and stern faces, who have seen Christ hungry and have given him no meat, and thirsty, and have given him no drink, and a stranger, and have turned him out into the cold. Seen Christ? Yes, in the person 36 TO HELP THE POOR. of his poor. We have no wish to be among that company. But how shall we minister to Christ ? How shall we know him when we see him ? It used to be thought that if we were to give to all who asked, and never to turn away a beggar hungry, then, at least, we would not miss the Lord Christ when he came knocking at our door. But we are learning now that ninety-nine times out of a hundred — yes, and in most people's experience oftener than that — the beggar is not the dis guised Christ, but the disguised devil. And we are beginning to doubt if Christ would desire us to do his poor a harm a hundred times in the hope that one time out of the hundred we might do a deed of help. These men who tell us that they live in Jer sey City, and have been sick in a hospital some where, and have spent all the money they had saved up to pay their passage home, are all thieves and liars. At least, I have never found an honest exception. These women who have a drunken husband and seven sick children, and the rent due at four o'clock this afternoon, and a cruel land lord ready to put them out unless they pay him the eight dollars that they owe him, are all TO HELP THE POOR. 37 thieves and liars. Not one of them deserves a penny. These are the enemies of the decent poor. They bring all honest poverty into disrepute. They harden the hearts of the generous. They take the money that many a hungry man or wo man would be glad to spend for bread, and they spend it for beer. Every dime that is given to these beggars encourages pauperism, invites idle rascality to continue in idleness, and goes to the support of that most dangerous of all our insti tutions, the saloon. We ought, indeed, to desire to help even the undeserving poor. We ought to try to lift up all those who are down ; and if they are down morally as well as socially, if they lack con science as well as comfort, if they are not only poor in treasure here on earth, but are absolutely bankrupt up in heaven, so much the more do they need our interest and our pity and our help. Jesus came, he said, to seek and save the undeserving poor, — the lost. He was re proached by some eminently respectable people because he was the friend of sinful men and sin ful women. If we are Christians, we will follow his example. These thieves and liars who come to us with their manufactured misery, and try 38 TO HELP THE POOR. to persuade us to support them in their evil living, — we ought to be interested in them. They are brothers and sisters of ours. We ought to give to them when they ask, but not to give them what they ask. The purpose of Jesus in his intercourse with the undeserving poor was always to uplift them. He never gave them anything to encourage them to keep on in their old life. He took them by the hand, indeed, and met them kindly. And so ought we. But it was that he might lift them up. Indiscriminate charity will never lift anybody up. It is our Christian duty to refuse to give anything to an unknown beggar at the door. But what if Christ should come ? What if amid the company of vagabonds there should be one deserving man, one needy woman, one hungry child? Christ sometimes comes strangely at.tired, when we would least expect him, and we do not wish to turn him away when he comes. What shall we do ? The only good plan, if we cannot ourselves look up the case, is to send the beggar to some body who can make investigation for us. Even if we were to help, what we might do would be but a temporary relief. There would be no real good in it. The kindest charity would be TO HELP THE POOR. 39 to put this beggar, whose pathetic story per suades us that here at last is that improbable person, the honest mendicant, within reach of personal uplifting influences, where he may get bread and money, and individual interest also. If we can ourselves go home with him, and see with our own eyes, and take the case under our own care, that is best of all. If not, we can send him to the nearest office of the Asso ciated Charities. The good people whom the mendicant will find there are devoted night and day to the service of such as he. They will do for him, and speedily, exactly what he needs. They will examine him as the physi cian examines the patient, and find out what is the matter with him. We do not know enough for that. They will verify his sad account. And when they find a case of gen uine need, where a bag of flour and a bushel of potatoes, as St. James says, make a gift ever so much more religious than prayer and cold ad vice, they will minister to these necessities. We may have confidence in their judgment, in their ready hands and their kind hearts. Wherever such an association is not in reach, the wisest recourse is to the minister of the parish. The beggar should be sent to him. 40 TO HELP THE POOR. He has money provided by the parish for this purpose. It is a part of his work to look up just such cases. You may tell him, if you like, that you will be glad to assist if the person is found worthy. Only do not dispense alms at your own door. You make yourself thereby a conspirator against the community. You encourage the enemies of honesty and industry. You support the idle inhabitants of the worst houses in the town. And you defeat the purposes of the good people who are trying to uplift the poor. But there are deserving poor. These have fallen into poverty sometimes by reason of sickness, sometimes by reason of accident, or old age, or bereavement, or the incapacity or the iniquity of the bread-winner of the family. More often, however, the chief reason for their ne,ed is simply that they live in the nineteenth century. They are the victims of an imperfect civilization. They are poor, as people were enslaved in Athens and in Rome, and in lands somewhat closer to us both in space and time, because they cannot help it. They suffer poverty as great numbers of people in the Middle Ages suffered from the plague. Slavery and the plague were in their day con- TO HELP THE POOR. 41 sidered inevitable. They were regarded as the mysterious workings of an inscrutable Providence, by which one man was lifted up and another was thrust down, and by whose will disease was let loose to prey upon the nations ; man's part being only to make the best of them. But we have learned better than that. We have remedied that. There is a day, and we ourselves are living in it, when it is considered equally inevitable that great multitudes of people should remain in poverty. That idea shows how much need we still have to teach the lessons of civilization and Christianity. There is no more perma nence in poverty than there was in slavery or plague. Poverty is not older than those twin evils that we have got rid of. It is only a little harder to fight. Every year we are outgrowing our old barbarism and our old paganism, and getting more civilized and more Christian. And we will one of these days get the better even of poverty. Let us understand clearly that poverty is simply one of the signs of social imperfection. These poor people are the victims of our ignor ance of the true principles of political economy. They are paying the penalty of our universal 42 TO HELP THE POOR. industrial mistakes. The great industrial ma chine is out of gear. It is giving some people great fortunes and wide acres, and other people starvation wages and the unclean corners of tenement houses. Evidently it is in sad need of repair. We make a mistake if we think that the poor in general are to be blamed for their poverty. We are all to blame for it. It is the fault of the century. Accordingly, the helping of the deserving poor is a deeper and more difficult matter than is sometimes thought. It means, indeed, the dispensing of orders for groceries and coal; it means that Christian people ought to provide from their abundance for the immediate needs of their poorer neighbors, and not wait to be asked, but rather to be on the watch for ways of giving to those who do not ask and will not ask. But it means more than this. Not by doles of bread and money will the poor be per manently helped. Often that kind of charity is but a hindrance ; it endangers self-respect and weakens independence. What the poor are really in need of is opportunity and sym pathy. They want a chance, and they want a friend. The poor ought to be given clean streets in TO HELP THE POOR. 43 front of their houses. The street is the poor man's lawn ; that is where his children play. The happiness and the health of the poor de pend upon the condition of the pavement. If there were more monej^ spent on the streets, less might be spent on jails and hospitals. We grow but slowly into appreciation of the fact that the most important products of the city come not out of its mills, but out of its houses. The essential thing for the best prosperity of the town is that its people shall be industri ous, intelligent, and moral. The day will come when the improvement of a street will be val ued not with reference to the price of real estate, but with regard to the better living which is made possible on the two sides of it. It is but idle to build our public schools of oak and granite, while the children who attend them dwell in wretched homes, fronting upon narrow and foul thoroughfares. Another efficient way to help the poor is to secure an enforcement of the sanitary laws, especially to see that the tenement houses are fit for human habitation. He who owns the tenement has a clear path to his duty to the poor. God knows how much of the daily earn ings of the poor he takes for the miserable 44 TO HELP THE POOR. privilege of living in his house. God knows what kind of family life, or desecration of family life, the landlord is responsible for by the conditions of his building. And God knows, if we do not, that the man who owns an over crowded or unclean tenement, and out of the money which comes to him from the misery and sin of his poor brothers and sisters, makes pious contribution to the church, mocks God. Some people seem to think that God is blind ; that he can see only in the dim light of conse crated buildings, and that he knows how people conduct themselves in church, and does not know how they behave anywhere else. They seem to believe that God looks only at the houses which have steeples. But God looks closest at the houses of the poor. And the question of sanitation and the question of rent are of immense interest to the Lord God Almighty. The rich are debtors to the poor, because the rich and poor are brothers, and every brother owes his brother something. There is one debt, St. Paul says, which never can be paid; it is perpetually outstanding; instalment after in stalment touches only the interest, the principal remains. It is the debt of fraternal love. The TO HELP THE POOR. 45 rich ought to use some of their money in pay ing the interest on this debt. They do use a great deal of money for that purpose, but not always with ideal wisdom. For the deserving poor do not ask alms. They ask opportunity and brotherly consideration. And to that they have a right. The poor ought to be given the right hand of every prosperous Christian. The poor man ought to have a friend in any member of the church. Every employer of labor has his answer to the question, How to help the poor? marked out plain before him. The poor, so far as he is concerned, are his own men. It is his place to see that they are not taken advantage of by reason of their poverty; that they are not given a scant wage; are not overtaxed ; are not kept to work so many hours that they have no chance to live like Christians. That is what the poor man asks of the philanthropists — the plain philanthropy of practical fair-dealing. And from us all the poor need sympathy. The rich and the poor alike need to know each other better. Genuine help comes along the way of personal acquaintance. Jesus helped the poor, not by giving them money, for he had none to give, but by giving them his time and 46 TO HELP THE POOR. his attention and his love. Every Christian family which is comfortably circumstanced ought to have some neighbor, not so plenti fully supplied, whom they are fraternally helping; and helping not in any spirit of condescension, not with any taint of pride or of position, but with real interest and personal friendship, and delight in giving pleasure. " Blessed is he that considereth the poor and needy." Considereth! — the benediction comes not to the careless giver. " Give to him that asketh thee" — give what? Give your atten tion, your best thought, your helping hand, yourself. THE GOSPEL AND POVERTY. "And the poor have the gospel preached to them." — St. Matt. xi. 5. This is the end of the authoritative list of the credentials of Christianity. It is the climax of the appeal of Jesus to the trust and loyalty of men. People asked questions in those days as they do now, and found it hard to believe in the Christian religion. Even Jesus Christ himself did not satisfy, did not convince, all those who heard him. One would think that people who had been taught by John the Baptist, and who had actually looked into the face and heard the voice of Jesus of Nazareth, would find faith easy and natural, not to say inev itable. How could they help believing? But it is more than suggested in the narrative from which the text is taken that even John himself had fallen into doubt. Certain came from John to inquire of Jesus, " Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another ? " And they are sent back with a message to their Master, as 47 48 THE GOSPEL AND POVERTY. if the question had been his, and he had been the one who stood in need of reassurance, " Go and tell John." Jesus of Nazareth was so different from all men's idea of Christ, that it is no wonder if some doubted. They had speculated with re gard to his coming as we to-day speculate about his second coming. They had all sorts of vague and mistaken notions about him. They thought that the advent of Messiah would be like the triumphal entry of a king, only a thou sand-fold more gorgeous and dramatic. He would appear enthroned amidst the splendid clouds of sunrise, a hero more of heaven than of earth, a supreme, magnificent archangel. They had looked for one with such counte nance as the sun shineth in his strength, with hair as white as snow, and eyes like a flame of fire, and a yoice deep and thunderous as the sound of many waters, holding the stars in his right hand. He would come, they imagined, in glorious majesty, as St. John saw him in the Revelation. And when he came, looking like any other man, only not half so well dressed as many, not rich, not politically influential, not ac quainted with kings' palaces, not learned in THE GOSPEL AND POVERTY. 49 the ostentatious learning of the schools, walk ing about the streets and talking to the com monest people in simple language such as they could understand, it is not strange that people wondered, and asked questions, and doubted. Men and women were as blind in those days as they are now. The Lord Christ comes and stands beside us, and we are looking so hard into the clouds that we do not see him. He speaks to us, but we are so busy debating about him that we do not listen. Every call of need is his voice : he has told us that plainly enough. The man whom we pass in the street, with the sad face and the shabby coat, with his idle hands thrust into his empty pockets, looking for work, and going hungry till he finds it, — who is he ? We do not recognize him ; he is not one of our acquaintance. We are as dull-sighted as the old scribes. For here to-day, in these streets, Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. So John's disciples came with their question. And there was Jesus, who appeals to us to-day in the person of his needy brethren, revealing himself by his gracious ministrations to the needy. And he gave them an answer, whereof the text was the last sentence. They desired to be assured that Jesus was the Christ, and 50 THE GOSPEL AND POVERTY. he invited them to observe what he was doing. " Go," he said, " and show John again those things which ye do hear and see. The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk ; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear ; the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gos pel preached to them." " Ye shall know them by their fruits." Not by any Latin label stuck into the ground to certify what sort of seed was planted there, but by the green stalk which the seed pushes up out of the earth, with leaves and branches, with blossoms in their season, and then with fruit. The fruit is the only assurance that is worth anything as to the excellence of the seed. If we are Christians we will be like Jesus Christ. If we speak as he never spoke, if we act as he never acted, we are none of his. The Christian Church is Christian not by reason of its origin, and not in proportion to the ortho doxy of its creed, but only as it has the same purpose which Christ had, and can answer the doubting questions of men as he answered them. What are you doing, you Christians, that we may see if you deserve your name ? Nothing can be plainer than that Jesus of Nazareth set the emphasis both of his life and THE GOSPEL AND POVERTY. 51 of his teaching upon the practical side of reli gion. He came to minister to the needs of men, and he sent his disciples to continue that blessed ministry. Religion as he taught it was not a ritual, nor an organization, nor a philosophy, but a life, and a life crowded with fraternal deeds. The church of Jesus Christ is in the world to carry on that work which he was doing when John's questioning disciples came to see him. Our task is to care for the distressed, to comfort the sorrow ful, to open the eyes of the blind, to make the lame walk and the deaf hear, to cleanse the lepers. The moral and spiritual meaning of these miracles is evident enough. We are to teach, to strengthen, to uplift. We are to concern ourselves with all the needs of men. A church which is silent, unresponsive, un sympathetic, selfish, and unhelpful in the pres ence of distress ; which is not occupied in feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked, and ministering to the sick and sorrowful — it matters not how many services are held within its sanctuary, nor how many jewels shine in the cross upon its altar, nor how many litanies are sung, nor how many prayers are prayed, nor how accurately orthodox may 52 THE GOSPEL AND POVERTY. be the creed that the people utter with their lips — that church lacks credentials. The one chief sign by which the genuine religion of Jesus Christ is known is absent. Such a church does not deserve the name of Chris tian. It is a sham ; it is a synagogue of Satan. God looks out over his world, parting men to right and left, and he puts that church on the left. And any Christian in even the busiest, the most generous, the most Christlike congrega tion, who is but a passive listener, who takes no part in any of this Christian ministry, who is not himself doing any of these good deeds — he is no Christian. The workers in the organized industries of any church are but a small minority of the congregation. It is no doubt true that many of those whose names are not upon the rolls of the parish societies are nevertheless busy in some other kind of Christian service. But it is certain that in every church there are some who are not doing anything. If we were to come to them as John's disciples came to Jesus, and observe their lives, taking note of their good deeds, we would bring back a blank page. We could not say that they are Christians. THE GOSPEL AND POVERTY. 53 Christians? What Christian deeds are they doing ? What needy neighbors are they help ing ? What contribution are they making towards the betterment of the community ? What are they for? Where is that fruit of fraternal works which is the only sign by which the Christian may infallibly be known? It is notorious, also, that the giving of money is mainly confined to a few people. When there is a collection for charity these good givers are expected to give largely. In every emergency which needs money we go to them, to the same men over and over. It would be possible to write a list of a hundred citizens who are not so very much more wealthy than many of their fellow-citizens, but who give fifty times where their neighbors give once. They are appealed to upon every possible occasion, and they always respond to the appeal. Thank God for those good Christian citizens ! But what about these other citizens? In every church there are these three classes of contributors, — people of large means, who give largely ; people of small means, who sometimes give ten times as much — as God counts it ; and between the two a great body of people of fair ability who either give nothing, or give 54 THE GOSPEL AND POVERTY. without conscience or without thought. These last are not necessarily mean people. They are lacking in the sense of personal responsibility. The call comes, but they do not realize that it means them. The appeal is intended, they think, for their next neighbor, and they hope that his response will be both prompt and gen erous. Or else they do not think at all. Who ever has sorted out the coins of any church collection knows well enough how a small pile here and a small pile there stand for conscience and real Christian charity, and receive credit in the ledgers of heaven, while whole handfuls of money have no Christian meaning whatever, because they were not given in any Christian spirit, and have no value up above. But the giving of money is a part of religion. It is a kind of ministry. It is one way in which we may help, as the Lord Christ would have us help, our needy brethren. And the call to share that which we have with others is addressed to every one of us. Money may be translated into all manner of service. It may be made to open the eyes of the blind, to cleanse the lepers, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to preach the gospel to the poor. That last benefaction includes all the others. THE GOSPEL AND POVERTY. 55 All that has been said here is vitally related to it. " To preach the gospel to the poor " — we think at once of pulpits and sermons ; but these are the least parts of it. What is the gospel ? It is the good news that God loves us. Jesus came to make us sure of that. God cares for us. Tell it to the poor ! Let the hungry know that they are not forgotten. Let the destitute and the distressed be assured of the sympathy of God. These poor people who live in a wretched tenement, and have no money with which to pay the rent, and no more credit at the grocer's ; these fathers and mothers who shiver in the cold to-day, and look with despair into the faces of their hungry children, who have no work and no prospect of work — what do they need? There are thousands of them in this Christian city — what do they need ? They need to have the gospel preached to them. No ; I do not mean sermons, nor any conven tional religious exhortation, nor prayer-meet ings. I mean such a plain assurance of the love of God that the most desolate will hear and understand and believe, and so take heart. In what language shall we put this message ? Here are poor people who are Poles, and we cannot speak Polish; others are Italians, and 56 THE GOSPEL AND POVERTY. we are not proficient in Italian. How shall we address them ? In the one universal language, — in the language of fraternal deeds. A loaf of bread is a loaf of bread in every dialect which is spoken by the human race. And brotherly love is brotherly love all the world over. And the love of man is the best interpreter of the love of God. The gospel of the fatherhood of God is really preached only when they who listen lift up their heads, and new hope and new love begin to grow in their sad hearts. And no mere words can effect that. It is idle to tell people that God loves them unless we ourselves show them the truth of it by loving them. It is vain to tell the poor that God is their Father unless we make that plain to them by being ourselves their brethren. God will help them, we say — such is the blessed gospel. Yes, but how? Not out of the clouds, not by any dramatic miracle, but by the hands of us ordinary people. God helps by sending us to help. That is how the gospel is to be preached to the poor. We must go and preach it by bring ing hope into their lives — giving them some reason for hope ; and by bringing happiness into their hearts — giving them some good cause to THE GOSPEL AND POVERTY. 57 be happy. We must assure them of the watch ful, wise, and loving care of God by making that love plain in our own fraternal provision for their needs. Not by words only, but by our helping hands, must we preach the gospel to the poor. THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT. What can the church, as an organization, do in the labor movement? At present very little ; first, for lack of disposition. Many members of the church are enthu siastically disposed toward the cause of the workingman, but not all ; probably less than a majority. Some who hold back do so from interested motives, being themselves upon the other side. A portion of the employers, the operators, the owners, the capitalists, against whom the labor movement is directed, are members, or at least attend the services, of the church. Dives belongs to the vestry; Mammon passes the alms basin. It was nat ural and easy for St. James and some of the other writers of the New Testament to preach against the rich, because their audiences were made up almost entirely of the poor. Wealth in that day was all on the side of the devil. Such sermons are not common in our pulpits. 58 THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. 59 The parable of the camel vainly essaying to pass the eye of the needle is not often taken as a text. Nor will you hear a well-dressed congregation exhorted either in the words or in the spirit of this apostolic utterance, " Go too, now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries which shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Behold the hire of your laborers who have reaped down your fields, wliich is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them that have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbaoth." Some, of course, will be prompt to say that we do not preach after that fashion because we fear that such a sermon would affect our sal ary. But, while I am not prepared to deny that the clerical mind works in some cases quite like the lay mind, I am altogether con vinced that the chief reason why the clergy of the present day do not more often shake their rhetorical fists in the faces of the rich is because they do not feel that the rich deserve that sort of treatment. Most parsons are ac quainted with a great many people of all con ditions, rich and poor, employers and employed ; and they know perfectly well that the figures 60 THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. of a man's income do not at all show where he stands upon the scale of sanctity. You cannot persuade them by any socialistic argu ments that the poor are all saints, and that the rich are all sinners. They know better. They know that the bad and the good are closely intertangled in this queer world. They are personally acquainted with labor leaders who are wholly given over to selfishness, and with capitalists who are altogether devoted to the good of others. Moreover, it ought to be kept in mind that in the present condition of things, when the capitalist goes to church and the workingman stays away, the parson naturally knows the employer better than the men whom he em ploys. And personal acquaintance counts for much in the formation of our judgments. I am surprised that there is so much disposition toward the cause of labor as there is in the church, where so many of the leading laymen are men of wealth, and where the clergy are so naturally turned for counsel toward their direction. In addition to these members of the church, who are thus in the position of partisans in this matter, and who can hardly help looking THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. 61 at things from their own point of view, there are many others who are selfishly satisfied. Even in the church not all are Christians. The devil always gets in everywhere, — into the church, into the labor unions, — and hin ders our progress toward the right. Still others have a narrow notion of the pur pose of the church. It is such a spiritual so ciety, as they regard it, that it is quite in the air, barely touching this profane planet, look ing ever into the sky. The church is organ ized not for interference in the labor movement or in any other mundane matter, but for the saying of litanies, for the offering of adoration, and for the saving of the soul. The clergy are to preach on sacrifices, but they may not mention that form of sacrifice which makes a man devote himself to the interests of the town he lives in. Jerusalem may be named in sermons, but not Boston. The preacher may praise the golden pavements of the celestial streets, but he is out of his province if he ventures to criticise the unclean thoroughfare beside his door. This sharp and foolish distinction between the sacred and the secular, which cannot stand in the light of the life of Jesus Christ, and 62 THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. which is disappearing as we get closer to him and look into the world as he did, still holds among some, and hinders sympathy. An organization is evidently made up only of the people who comprise it. The church, as an organization, contains these three kinds of people, — those who thus limit the functions of the church and stand aloof from any com bination between religion and economics ; those who are well off themselves and do not care, preferring the present conditions for selfish rea sons; and those who are not prepared to go very far in the labor movement because they see the other side, men of wealth, careful and conservative, knowing their own business some times better than we do. What we want is the real truth ; what we seek to know is not things as they ought to be, but as they are. The church as an organization can at present do little in the labor movement for lack of disposition. Secondly, for lack of knowledge. It is not unlikely that a unanimous church enthusiasm for the cause of labor would just now do more harm than good. For the great, good-hearted church, having its eyes open to the evils that beset the world of industry, and THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. 63 being vigorously disposed to do something, would probably do something rash, foolish, and mistaken. The conditions are exceedingly com plicated. Those who imagine that they are simple, and may be remedied by the applica tion of this or that economic nostrum, do not know what they are talking about. The truth is, that nobody knows what ought to be done. That is the most discouraging feature in the whole situation. The times are evidently out of joint, but the fracture is such a complicated one that our wisest surgeons do not know how to treat it. In this condition of things we may well pray to be delivered from the parsons. It is within easy memory, for example, how the parsons dealt with the scientific difficulties that were involved in that great readjustment of ideas caused by the teaching of the doctrine of evo lution. Again and again the whole matter was disposed of in a twenty minutes' sermon. Darwin's epoch-making book, the " Origin of Species," begins with this significant para graph: "When on board H. M. S. Beagle as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the organic beings inhab iting South America, and in the geological re- 64 THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. lations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts, as will be seen in the latter chapter of this volume, seemed to throw some light on the origin of species — that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On my return home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflect ing on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it. After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes ; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions which then seemed to me probable ; from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be excused for these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a con clusion. My work is now (1859) nearly fin ished ; but as it will take me many more years to complete it, and as my health is far from strong, I have been induced to publish this abstract." The results of these twenty-two years of pa tient and painstaking research were completely disproved again and again to the complete satis- THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. 65 faction of the preacher, by the youngest gradu ates of the theological schools, and by other men also, who were old enough to know better. One dreads to have another problem, equally complicated, equally demanding time and study and knowledge of details, set forth for discus sion in ecclesiastical conventions. Fortunately the disposition to discuss it is lacking, else there is no predicting the will-o'-the-wisp mil lenniums into which we might be persuaded. The sermons that are occasionally preached upon the labor movement, taking strikes for texts, are such as to fill all intelligent labor leaders and all intelligent employees alike with blank despair. The brethren speak unadvisedly with their lips. Indeed, if the church will consult the ex ample of its Founder, it will hesitate, even with a fair equipment of knowledge, to deal with the labor question in a detailed way. We wish to know what is the best service that the church can render; and that best service, judged by the example of Jesus Christ, is the setting forth, not of regulations, but of eternal princi ples. The instance is a familiar one, where the two brethren came to him and desired that he would decide a dispute in which they were 66 THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. engaged over their father's will. They were dividing the estate between them. And one said, " This much belongs to me ; " and the other answered, " No, a part of that is mine ; you take too much." And they asked Jesus to be their arbitrator. You remember that he immediately declined. He refused to look at the account books, to consult the will, or to inspect the ground. "Take heed," he said, " and beware of covetousness, for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." That is, he set forth this deep and abiding principle, which, taken into the hearts of the disputants, would settle the dispute forever. We can see evidently enough that no interference in the discussion would have finally settled the fraternal variance. These brethren would not agree by reason of any argument based on addition or subtraction, on measurements or valuations. The trouble lay deeper than these surface matters. And the trouble to-day lies deeper far than an ad justment of the scale of wages. The church does not, indeed, know enough about the details of the situation to speak with intelligence ; but if the church were ten times wiser, the best voice would be one, not of po- THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. 67 litical economy, but of religion. What we ask of the church, speaking in her representative assemblies, or from her pulpits, is inspiration, uplift, eternal principles, guidance of motives, the strengthening of a right spirit. A church which is set against the workingman, arguing1 as a partisan advocate in refutation of his cause, lacking in sympathy with his needs and his pur poses, is of the devil. It is a synagogue of Satan. But I do not know where such a church is to be found. True there are occasional utterances and silences which are discouraging. That the par sons in a town where the street-car men were working seventeen hours a day without any clerical complaint should rise up in almost unanimous objection against the opening of a public conservatory of God's flowers on the Lord's Day is disheartening to one who wishes to be loyal to the church. That owners of un sanitary tenements should be able to sit comfort ably cushioned in the house of God, and listen serenely and somnolently to the preacher's ser mon, Sunday after Sunday, shows that the preacher is making a mistake as to the meaning and application of the Christian religion. That men and women should find it possible to carry 68 THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. their selfish and unbrotherly hearts to church and bring them away again untouched, is evi dence of something wrong. But this wrong is not to be righted by sermons upon the details of sanitation, or upon the better regulation of industry, but by the declaring, and impressing, and emphasizing, and reiterating over and over, so that nobody can mistake it, that no man can possibly be a Christian without behaving like a Christian, and that he alone lives like a Christian who speaks and acts as Christ did ; friendly as he was, brotherly as he was, loving as he was, wishing not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give even his life for others. Principles, rather than details, are the prov ince of the church. The clergy are of more use in the labor movement as inspirers than as instructors ; partly because principles go deeper into the heart of things ; partly because people are more likely to heed the applications which they are left to make for themselves ; partly because no man can speak with wisdom unless he knows what he is talking about. Yet it is the duty of the church to bring heaven and earth into close contact ; to speak not into the air, but into the individual ears of particular THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. 69 people ; to make sure that its eternal principles are understood in their concrete relations by those whose lives they touch, and, wherever it has certain knowledge, there to speak with emphasis. The principle that every man is his brother's keeper is one which falls quite within the limits of the responsibility of the teaching church. And the obvious inference from that principle — that no man has a right to profit by his neighbor's disadvantage — is an excellent theme for a Christian sermon. And the cases which that inference concerns, — the carrying on or encouraging of a business which depends upon the payment of starvation wages, or upon the doing of the work under unsanitary conditions ; the taking of rent from a tenement house which is so constructed or so crowded as to make Christian living, not to say decent living, impossible; and, in general, the receiving of money without knowing how it was earned, — ¦ these are good things to preach about. The kindred principle that every man who lives is a son of God, and the brother — not the slave or tool — of even his most prosperous neighbor, comes also into the proper scope of the Christian pulpit. And the preacher is fruit fully occupied who draws out the evident con- 70 THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. sequences of that principle, that every man has a right to that which tends toward his best life, and may not by any Christian be ground down to such short wages and long hours as to de prive him of a chance to be anything better than an animal — these inferences, which carry the necessity and the righteousness of trades' union ism along with them, ought to be preached by the Christian church. The church knows enough already for such teaching, and has no need to wait for further economic light. It is in the application of these truths to indi vidual misdemeanors that the church is in peril of error. The clergy, by the mere fact of their seclusion from the industrial world, are inevi tably ignorant. Arguments based upon the statements of newspapers are liable to serious fallacy. Ideas gained by reading books rather than by knowing men are open to mistake. The parsons would best confine themselves to principles. The church, as an organization, is not prepared at present to do much in detail in the labor movement, for lack of knowledge. You may remember against me the story of the herald who stood by the city gate when the king entered, and informed him that the mayor was unfortunately unable to meet him, for THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. 71 seventeen reasons, the first of them being that the mayor was dead. The king dispensed the herald from reciting the other sixteen. Now that I have said already that the church is detained by lack of disposition and by lack of knowledge from meeting the labor movement with extended hand of welcome, it may be thought unnecessary that I should add a third reason to the other two. I will venture, how ever, to suggest such a third reason in the church's lack of utterance. If the church, as an organization, had an ideal disposition toward the labor movement, and a sufficient knowl edge, it would be still hindered by the fact that it has no voice. I mean that the church, except in a most imperfect and fragmentary way, is not able in these days to say anything. To this has our spirit of unhappy separation brought us. There was a time when the church, gathered in a representative assembly, was able to express the great truths of the Christian faith, so that everybody could hear and understand. The time may come when a united church, meeting again in a convention which shall represent Christianity rather than partisanship, shall be able to utter forth the great truths of Christian 72 THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. morality, so that they shall be heard and heeded. But at present there is a Roman Catholic Church and a Presbyterian Church and an Episcopal Church, each speaking for certain numbers of Christians, for a fragment of the community, representing divisions, strife, weak ness. And outside is the admirably disciplined army of the devil — the allied forces of intem perance, of impurity, of corrupt politics, of fraud and falsehood, of theft and murder. And the Christian church stands in the midst of these abominations, reads the morning newspaper sor rowfully and helplessly, and accomplishes — next to nothing. Here and there some good man makes an assault upon the satanic forces, running out alone in front of the Christian ranks; but his brethren behind throw stones at him to bring him back, and the rest of us preach sermons upon interesting texts touching the remote sins of Israel, and meet in conven tions to debate rubrics and pass canons. Not because we are wholly deaf to the great and bitter cry of our brethren about us, but because we do not see what we can do. We are divided among ourselves. We are in no condition to go into a real battle. THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. 73 One may easily dream of a united church, gathering into its one fold all the people in the community who are on the side of righteous ness, and insisting that the right and not the wrong shall prevail among us. There is noth ing which such an organization could not accomplish. All the temperance societies, all the law and order leagues, all the white-cross guilds, all the city clubs and good-citizenship associations, all the labor unions, under one banner, Christ's banner, against the enemies of the country, of the city, and of the soul — who can doubt the outcome of such a combination? Certain it is that the church, united and converted, can over come the world. Of old it stood on the side of the people against the tyranny of kings; it may again be the people's advocate against the tyranny of other corrupters and oppressors. At present, however, partly from lack of dis position, partly from lack of knowledge, and partly from lack of utterance, the church as an organization can do little in the labor move ment. And yet the church, possessed of dis position, of knowledge, and of utterance, could bring in the industrial millennium to-morrow. The church is beyond comparison the most 74 THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. powerful engine which can be brought into action in any cause. In no other way can a truth, a purpose, a reform, be brought so closely into contact with so many people. The minis try of a whole nation, teaching definite instead of vague and general religion, applying Christi anity to the concrete lives of actual present people, enforcing particular and detailed better ment, and setting forth these matters two or three times every week everywhere, could do almost anything. The vantage ground of the pulpit and the parish is not adequately under stood. The question, then, may need reversal. Might we not cease to ask what the church, as an or ganization, can do in the labor movement, and consider what the trades' unions, as an organi zation, can do in the church ? The church is open to capture ; the leaders of the labor move ment may take possession of it. What we lack in disposition, knowledge, and utterance, these, the men who have this cause at heart, can give us if they will. The church, as represented by its ministers, is hospitable to the truth, inter ested unusually at present in social and eco nomic questions, honestly desirous to do right and to serve all righteous causes, and tender- THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. 75 hearted to a fault. We need better acquaint ance with the men and with the ideas of the labor movement. So long as the representa tives of this movement and their followers stand apart from the church, antagonistic to it, suspi cious of it, just so long must the church be im peded in its progress toward right thinking and right acting. The present duty is not of an organization, but of the individuals who compose it, or who ought to compose it. Every man and woman who desires to follow the life of Jesus Christ, and to work and speak in his spirit, must put the emphasis of action where he put it, not upon the church, not upon the creed, but upon character, and upon character not personal alone, but social. Jesus thought not of him self. His thought and care and effort were for the people about him, always. Much which we value he utterly despised. To be brotherly he accounted the supreme virtue of a man, — to care for those who were in trouble, to right those who suffered wrong, to lift up those who were down. Not to be min istered unto, but to minister — it was for this he came ; and that these things and such as these might be done he established the church. 76 THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. Nobody is a Christian who looks with indiffer ence upon the oppression, the robbery, the mani fold and aggravated iniquity, against which the labor movement is a righteous revolt. The Christian will inform himself, as best he can, regarding this most significant of all modern discontents. He will read and study, that he may be intelligent about it. He will account it of more consequence to be informed regarding the history of the rebellion of the workingmen against their modern bondage than to be learned in all the chapters and the verses which describe the escape of the Hebrew slaves out of the bondage of Egypt. God is in his world to-day as much as he ever was. The morning paper records his administration of this planet yesterday in as true a sense as the Old Testament tells us what he did three thousand years ago. He who believes in God and looks brotherly towards his neighbors, as Jesus did, will not be satisfied to remain in ignorance. He will both learn and teach. And by and by, with the growth of dis position and of knowledge, must come utter ance. The church is nothing more than all of us. When we all are sympathetically and intelligently interested in the labor movement THE CHURCH AND LABOR MOVEMENT. 77 the church will be. And then the church must speak. Christian unity is likely to come about not by agreement first in polity or creed, but by co-operation, by working side by side in the labor movement and in every other move ment for the general good. Whenever any man or woman anywhere enlists with enthusiasm and earnestness in any righteous cause, the millennium, the day of blessed freedom, the kingdom of God and h;" righteousness, comes a step nearer. BUSINESS AND RELIGION. Church attendance may or may not be an evidence of Christianity. All good people ought, indeed, to go to church. According as they are present or absent, we may guess at their goodness or their lack of goodness. Church-going is a fairly accurate thermometer of religion ; it indicates degrees of spiritual heat and cold. But it is by no means an infallible thermometer. Christianity is not proved by church attendance. Even church membership may or may not be an evidence of Christianity. All good people ought to be members of the Christian Church. There is something incongruous in the position of honest and earnest men and women who wish to know the highest truth and aspire to live the worthiest life, and yet remain outside the Christian society. They ought to join the church for their own sake — to get good ; and for the sake of others — to do good. Member ship in the Christian church I hold to be the 78 BUSINESS AND RELIGION. 79 duty of all good citizens. The good citizens who stand aloof do not understand what the church is and is for, being deceived some times by our own mistaken definitions, or deterred by our unchristian tests and barriers. Yet I know some most excellent Christians who are not members of the church ; and I am informed by business men that the fact of church membership is not by any means a guaranty in the business world of commercial integrity ; which means that a man may be a member of the Christian church and yet not be a Christian. That which is true of church attendance and of church membership is equally true of church orthodoxy. John Wesley said, in his strong way, that a man may be as orthodox as the devil — and as wicked. Our Lord drew a clear distinction between two kinds of blasphemy, one of which may be forgiven, but the other never forgiven. Blasphemy against the Son of man, he said, is capable of pardon ; but blasphemy against the Holy Ghost " hath never forgiveness," even in the world to come. What is the difference ? Blasphemy against the Son of man is theological heresy. Whoever is ac quainted with the annals of controversy knows 80 BUSINESS AND RELIGION. how heresy has centred about the doctrines of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, and of the Atonement; that is, about the person of the Son of man. Jesus says that all that kind of heresy may be pardoned ; that a man may be the most mistaken of theological heretics and yet be a Christian. But blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is moral heresy. It is the sin of the man who calls wrong right, and right wrong; who calls darkness light, and light darkness ; who persistently, and with rejoicing, disobeys the plain command of his own conscience. There is no forgiveness, Jesus says, for him who con tinues in that attitude towards God, neither in this world nor in the next. The most perni cious of all heresy is that which contradicts the law of righteousness. No amount of theological orthodoxy makes a man a Christian. Thus we. may take these three significant items, - — ¦ church attendance, church membership, and church orthodoxy, — and add them all to gether, and yet not arrive at the definition of a Christian. The real test of Christianity is not a man's behavior on Sunday, but his attitude and disposition during the days that follow ; it is six times more important to be' a good Chris tian on week-days than on Sunday. The real BUSINESS AND RELIGION. 81 test of Christianity is not a man's membership in the church, but his membership in society, his place in the estimation of good people who come into business relations with him. The real test of Christianity is not the creed, but the deed. It is the life that tells. But we live in contact with other people. Human life is to be judged largely by our fulfil ment of our duty towards our neighbor. Most men spend eight or ten hours every day in close touch with other men, engaged in the transac tions of the world of industry and trade. So that, for a man, it is pre-eminently essential that he should be a Christian in his business. At the foundation of Christianity in business are certain elementary truths. One of them is that the Christian will not lie. There is no place in the Christian church for a liar, unless he is a reformed liar. St. John, in his descrip tion of the holy city, has shown where he who loveth and maketh a lie belongs — " without," he says, in the company of other like offenders against God. Lying is any kind of tampering with truth to our neighbor's disadvantage. Misrepresentation of the quality of goods is lying. Evasion of contracts is lying. The breaking of agreements 82 BUSINESS AND RELIGION. because they have not been written down on paper is lying. He who takes the opportunity of his customer's ignorance lies to him. He who makes promises which he does not purpose to perform tells lies. A second elementary truth is that the Chris tian will not steal. There is no room in the Christian church for a thief, unless he is a penitent thief. Stealing is any process by which a man gets something for nothing. The workman who takes his employer's wage for a scant day is a thief. The clerk who wastes his employer's time steals. The rule which the Christian re ligion lays down for service is that every em ployer shall be regarded as if he were the Lord Christ himself. Every real Christian serves in that spirit. Gambling is one of the meanest kinds of stealing: the curse of Cain rests on every dollar of the gambler's money. Some speculation, I am told, has theft mixed up with it. Dealing in futures and options, so that one buys what one never expects to have delivered, and sells what one has never owned, cannot be classed as honest business. Not everything which is according to the law of the land is according to the law of God. Suits that are BUSINESS AND RELIGION. 83 won by legal quibbles, or delayed by legal obstacles wliich hinder justice, are but so much theft protected by law. Every way in which a man is defrauded is theft. No matter how his rights are wrested from him, no matter how his money is abstracted from his safe ; it may be by a set of burglar's tools ; it may be by an attor ney's clever brief — the people who are concerned in the operation are but thieves and robbers. This, however, is all upon the outside of the subject. This would be true if we were con sidering the Mohammedan in business, or the Buddhist in business, instead of the Christian in business. Everybody agrees to this. The man who lies, the man who steals, knows what God thinks of him. It is not necessary to say much to him. We must get nearer to the heart of the matter. It is possible for a man to attend the services of the church with regular ity, and to be a member of the church in good and regular standing, and to recite every article of the church creed every Sunday, and to be, in addition, an honest business man, and yet not be a Christian ; because Christianity means all that, and more. It means the putting of some thing else ahead of all these excellent respecta bilities. And what is that ? " The Kingdom of 84 BUSINESS AND RELIGION. God and his righteousness " ! And what does that mean ? Divested of vagueness and senti ment and cant, what does that mean ? It means, first of all, and in general, the setting of the higher before the lower. No man who so attends to his business that it unfits him for the worthier occupations of life, for the better pleasures of life, is a very good kind of Christian. He who so grinds at his business that he has no leisure for reading or for thinking is not an ideal Christian — unless he is forced into that drudgery by the unchristian conditions under which he is compelled to work. He who spends so many hours at his business that he has no time for his family, and is so good a business man that he is a very poor husband and a very neglectful father, is not much of a Christian, — unless, again, he is driven against his will in.to that miserable kind of life. And we must go farther, and maintain that he who permits his business to obstruct his spirit ual life ; to come in between him and his pray ers; to take the religious meaning out of the Lord's Day, is not conducting even an honest business in a way which would be approved by the Lord Jesus Christ. The man who is too tired to go to church on Sunday is the victim BUSINESS AND RELIGION. 85 of an unchristian way of doing business. But what shall we say of his employer, who exacts such services from his men, but never fails him self to be devoutly present in the house of God? There he kneels, who is carrying on a business which degrades men into beasts of burden and puts their souls in peril. He is responsible. Against him is counted, sure enough, every unhappy home, every spiritual failure, every degrading consequence of his un christian business. What a surprise is awaiting him at the day of judgment ! The Lord Jesus Christ was acquainted with a great many business men. He was interested in and cared for business men. He enjoyed a conversation with a business man more than he did with all the priests and theological doctors in Jerusalem. When he came to choose his twelve apostles, he chose twelve business men. When he selected a place of residence, he left Jerusalem, the city of worship, and took up his residence in Capernaum, the city of commerce. So that the Lord Jesus Christ knew very well the temptations of the business man. He knew what reason he had for his repeated warnings against laying up treasure down here on the earth, and being bankrupt up above. The in- 86 BUSINESS AND RELIGION. vitation comes to-day which was given in the parable of the king's son, the invitation into worthier living, the call to choose that which is of chief importance ; and still men say that they must go to their merchandise ; they cannot come. " I pray thee, have me excused." And they are left to go as they desire. The gate of heaven opens, and they who pass by on the dusty road are invited to enter ; but they may be excused, if they will. The "kingdom of God" means even more than this. As Jesus preached it, it signified a reorganized society, in which the Lord God should be the head of the state, and all men should be brothers. The Christian is more interested in brotherhood than he is in business, and cares more for men than he does for money. No man is a Christian who does not love his fellow-men. Evidently the man who loves his fellow-men will pay a Christian rate of wages. That good adjective does not belong to any sum of money which represents just one remove from bare starvation. I know that the man of business is hampered by the conditions of his time ; and those conditions bear with fearful heaviness upon the poor. I know that competition is to BUSINESS AND RELIGION. 87 blame for many evils, and that good men with Christian intentions find themselves entrapped by the devil, and set in unchristian positions. Many times they would be glad to pay a decent wage if they knew how. Under such circumstances it is the business man's initial business to find out how. He ought not to be able to eat his dinner with any relish, so long as there are men in his employ whose scanty wages for their honest work keeps them face to face with hunger. He ought not to be able to sleep in peace at night while the men in his mill or in his mine live like beasts of burden. There are some who would persuade us that the world of business is even now a section of the kingdom of heaven, and that there would be sweet peace everywhere if it were not for the ambition, the avarice, and the bad temper of the workingmen. But we do not so read the daily papers. The workingman is fighting a desperate battle for his life. Defeat means slavery ; success means the possibility of living like a man. Surely there is something wrong when a man can work from the dark of morn ing to the dark of evening, and his wife work, and his children work, and with all the labor of the whole family in all their waking hours get 88 BUSINESS AND RELIGION. only a starvation dinner and a sty to live in. True, nobody knows exactly what is the matter. But if there were no strikes nobody would try to find out. "He's true to God who's true to man: wherever wrong is done To the meanest and the weakest 'neath the all-beholding sun, That wrong is also done to us ; and they are slaves most base, Whose love of right is for themselves and not for all the race." To do unto others as we would have them do unto us is but the beginning of Christianity. That good rule was not a new commandment. Jesus Christ came to teach us to love our fel low-men as he loved us. That is the Chris tian standard. That is the heart of Christian ethics. To behave one's self in the transactions of the world of industry as the Lord Jesus Christ would conduct himself under the same circumstances is the one sufficient rule. To work in an office or a mill as Jesus worked in the carpenter shop at Nazareth is the ideal. What would Jesus say? What would Jesus do ? Thus questions the Christian with himself as he sits at the board meeting, as he makes his bargains, as he counts his money, BUSINESS AND RELIGION. 89 as he manages his affairs, as he deals with his clients. Would Jesus Christ be satisfied to own this tenement? Would Jesus Christ con sent to this commercial combination ? Would Jesus Christ vote this way? Would Jesus Christ set his signature to this scale? And what would Jesus Christ say if we were to object that " all that sort of thing might be good enough religion, but it would be pretty poor business"? The Christian business man is never in al liance with the devil ; he would rather go bankrupt. He is never in partnership with Cain. He values his own soul more than he values the whole world beside. And he cares as much for the souls of his neighbors as for his own. If he cannot carry on his business in accordance with that blessed brotherly love which Jesus taught, he will abandon it to morrow. "Blessed are the poor," who have made themselves poor for the kingdom of heaven's sake. Difficult? Nothing is so difficult as to be a Christian in business. You remember the camel and the eye of the needle. The Chris tian business man is tested every day. But he that is not a Christian in his business is not a Christian. THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM. " Preaching the gospel of the kingdom." — St. Matt. iv. 23. These two characteristics are essential to the Christian religion, — that it is a gospel, and that it has to do with a kingdom. The gospel, however often the word may be mistranslated, means the good tidings, — the good tidings, first of all and including all, that God so loved the world that he sent his most dearly beloved Son into it that it might become through him a world worth living in. That good news begins with the birth of Jesus Christ, and it continues without end in all the gracious blessings which God forever gives us by his Holy Spirit. We have the good authority of the Christmas angels for affirming with regard to these good tidings that the news which they bring is a message of great joy, and that this message is intended for all people. We are able, accord ingly, to say with complete assurance that the Christian religion is meant to make men happy. 90 THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM. 91 It is intended to bring joy into the world, and to bring it to every inhabitant of the world. That was a dull world into which this new happiness came at the beginning. All things were dark, disordered, sad, and were growing worse rather than better. Men had lost hope. The old religions which had held the allegiance of the fathers had been dis credited by the sons ; and in their place were superstitions and idolatries and witchcrafts and hypocrises and crimes and fears. Everywhere men and women were looking, with despair in their faces, towards the black sky. And, with religion, the virtues had departed out of common life. The state was a despotism administered without regard for justice. Soci ety was made up of a few wealthy and aristo cratic people amidst unnumbered multitudes of slaves. And all that naturally belonged to such a society grew like weeds of poison out of the bad ground. Even the pleasures of men had no longer any pleasure in them, but were filled with cruelty and all uncleanness. There was no joy in life. The light of life was hid in the blackness of darkness. And there were heard the voices of the sing ing angels, chanting carols over the sheepfolds 92 THE GOSPEL OP THE KINGDOM. of Bethlehem, and proclaiming good tidings of great joy. And presently there were discovered men and women walking about along the com mon roads, sharing in the common tasks, living the common life of the time, but in a new way, after a better fashion, and in quite a new spirit. These people were so different from the other folk about them, that they could be recognized by the light in their faces. They were happy. Marvellous ! Miraculous ! In this sad world these fortunate people had somehow discovered the lost secret of joy. It made small difference what kind of lot came into the lives of these new-fashioned men and women, they were always rejoicing. That was their habitual condition. They might be insulted, put upon, treated with injustice, smit ten with fists, or sticks, or stones, tied to stakes amidst the .hungry flames — nothing daunted their unceasing jubilation. Stephen is stoned, looking up to heaven with his face so full of joy that it glows like the face of an angel. Paul and Silas are beaten and imprisoned, their feet made fast in the stocks. There they are in the darkness, in the foul air of the inner jail, with bruised backs, kept by stout chains, surrounded by enemies, THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM. 93 deserted by their friends — they actually enjoy it ! They sing together the old glad psalms of faith and triumph. Persecution comes upon the little company of Christians. They hold out their hands to welcome it. They rejoice that they are counted worthy to suffer shame for Jesus' sake. These people were Christians. They had learned the Christian secret. They had heard the good tidings which came into the world with Jesus Christ, and they actually believed them with all their hearts ; and that made all that old world over new. The purpose of Christianity is to bring that Christian happiness into every heart. The mission of the minister of God, which was written of old time in Isaiah's prophecy, and was repeated by the lips of Jesus Christ, and so comes to us with the supremest of sanctions, is to proclaim this message of unfailing happi ness, these good tidings of great joy. To preach the gospel to the poor, and deliverance to the captive, and recovering of sight to the blind ; to set at liberty them that are bruised ; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord — put it all into a sentence, and what is the meaning of it ? What but this, — that the secre.t of serenity has 94 THE GOSPEL OP THE KINGDOM. been discovered ? that a way has been found out by which tears may be transmuted into smiles ? Rejoice, rejoice, ye sons of men ! Lift up your heads, lift up your hearts ; behold, he comes who has the keys of pain and sorrow to lock them up forever and forever. Religion is not sent with a scowl nor with a threat upon its errand to the sons of men. It is not meant to make the heaven black over our heads, but to brighten it with all the glorious sunrises of hope, and with all the meridian splendors of faith and love. Religion has been made too sombre. It has been used as a device for scaring people into goodness. It has too often been represented by men and women with long faces and grim voices, who have looked with disapproval upon pleasure, frowned at the smiles of youth, and done their^ most to make life disagreeable. Whereas, religion ought to be synonymous with joy. It ought to be associated in everybody's mind with all holiest pleasures, with all worthi est experiences, with the best of life, with literature and art and music, with all that is most interesting, most inspiring, and most help ful. Be sure that something is the matter with the message when God the Father is repre- THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM. 95 sented as desiring anything but the most satis fying happiness for every child of man. Yes, for every child of man ; for this gospel is of universal application. The good tidings of great joy are meant for all people. The gospel is intended to touch the planet at all points. It is meant for every race, for every century, for every generation. It is as wide in its intention as the all-embracing atmosphere, and is as new every morning as the air we breathe. And as it is intended for all people, so it is intended also for all life. That is, it is meant to affect the well-being of all the people all the time. It is for the church, but no less for the home, the study, the office, and the shop. It is for Sunday, but six times as much for the rest of the week. It is concerned, indeed, with what is commonly called religion, but just as much with society, and just as much with politics. It has to do with prayers and with parties, with church ordinations and with town elections ; with one as much as with the other. It is one of the blessed things in the end of the century that so many people are now aware that this wonderful new message of good tidings that Jesus Christ brought into the world is a 96 THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM. message of absolutely universal signification. We no longer account that alone to be religious which relates to the soul. We know that the body and the mind belong to God, and are to be considered by the people of God, and come within the province of the ministers of God. Christianity, thus interpreted, is God's agency for making the world better, for the uplifting and enlivening of all life. The Christian church is set in the world to be the centre of all manner of helpful influences. The purpose of religion would seem to be evident enough. The vital connection between Christianity and character ought not to need extended argument to make it plain. Yet, as a matter of fact, this application of religion to all the questions that concern the good of man is frequently lost sight of. It was but a few months ago* that a New York newspaper, main taining that the opening of the World's Fair on Sunday was a breach of faith with the national government, said that this, however, was not a question of religion, but a question of contract. Religion, that is, is concerned with the keeping of Sunday, but not with the keep ing of contracts ! And the writer who calls attention to this remarkable statement, sets be- THE GOSPEL OP THE KINGDOM. 97 side it the assertion of a certain historian con cerning a cardinal of France, that he was mean, deceitful, and covetous, but exceedingly re ligious. Mean, deceitful, and covetous, but exceedingly religious ! And all this after the wise words of St. John have stood now these eighteen hundred years upon the pages of the Christian Bible, Little children, let no man deceive you ; he that doeth righteousness is righteous — and religious ; he that committeth sin, he that breaketh contracts, and is mean, deceitful, and covetous, is of the devil. Accordingly, the Christian minister to-day, looking into the world about him, trying to have some understanding of it, trying to deal with it in the spirit of Jesus, endeavors to bring Christianity to bear upon every detail of daily conduct and upon every need of man. His mission is to persuade men not only to believe like Christians, but to behave like Christians. He is to bring the common transactions of the market to the test of true religion. He is to ask himself before he begins to write his ser mon, and at every new paragraph in it, and at the end of it, and when he preaches it, What can I say, what have I said, to make men better ? to help them in their temptations, dif- 98 THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM. ficult alternatives, spiritual combats, failures, and sorrows? He is to account every utter ance of his which does not concern itself with character as a misspent opportunity. He re minds his people, even to weariness, that the mission of the Christian religion is to proclaim happiness to every inhabitant of the land, and to make the proclamation true. And he shows how this comes about by Christian constraint upon the temper, by Christian kindliness of speech, by Christian courtesy and honesty of dealing, and by the constant exercise of Chris tian love. The minister of Jesus Christ feels a personal responsibility for all the unhappiness about him. He knows that it is a condition which Christianity has come to change. Pain of body, distress and perplexity of mind — these are as real to him, and press as close upon him, as the diseases of the soul. The Christian min ister and every Christian citizen ought to be profoundly interested in politics, in education, in the problem of hunger, in the employment of the unemployed, in the unending and in creasing contest between the workingman and his employer. He ought to give his atten tion, his sympathy, his help, to all that looks THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM. 99 towards the betterment of life ; towards the good of the city; towards the bringing of more light and more knowledge and more pleasure into the experience of men. It is well that the Christian minister should be wise in theology, but better still in sociol ogy. He ought to know a great deal about the people of Palestine, but ever so much more about the people of Pennsylvania or Massachusetts, or whatever may be the State in which he lives. He does well to be inter ested in Jerusalem, but he does better to be doubly interested in the town of which he is a citizen. He follows the excellent example of Jeremiah and Isaiah, and takes the town for his parish. The " holy city " for the Christian minister is not that which stood of old upon Mount Zion, nor yet that other which St. John saw in vision, coming down out of heaven from God. That is the holy city now in which the min ister of Christ has residence. And if it does not deserve the name, he applies himself to make it better. But this gospel is the " gospel of the king dom." What is the kingdom ? The " kingdom of heaven," it is called in 100 THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM. the New Testament, the colony of those whose citizenship is in the celestial country, set boldly here in the dominions of the ruler of this world, with aggressive purpose to capture the whole planet and annex it to the sky. The gospel would naturally have brought to gether into some sort of association the people who believed in it. The common interests and sympathies of Christians, the new joy, the new sense of brotherhood, would have resulted as a matter of course in the founding of a fraternity. The church was absolutely necessary. These men must meet, and speak together of their Friend, the Lord Jesus Christ, and rejoice to gether in the new life which he had opened to them, and enter into blessed intercourse with him in prayer and sacrament. But this is only a part of the purpose of the church. We have not yet justified that strong and significant name, the kingdom : that means centralization, authority, obedience, laws, armies. At the heart of the kingdom is the king; the kingdom exists that the will of the king may be the better carried into effective execution. Jesus comes preaching the gospel of the kingdom, because he intends to gather men together, not only for spiritual satisfaction, THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM. 101 but for strength. The church is organized for the propagation of the gospel. People are asked to join it, not only to be helped, but to give help. It is meant to be a mighty working and fighting force. Thus the Christian minister believes in Chris tian unity. He holds not only that the world needs the gospel, but that the gospel needs the kingdom. He is not surprised at the slow progress of religion, at its manifold discourage ments and failures, at its small place in the city and the state, at its weak assaults upon the evils of society, when he considers that the gospel which is preached to-day is not the gospel of the kingdom. The kingdom is broken into fragments. The church of Jesus Christ has become a crowd of separated sects. The army of the living God is but a mob. What we need is the kingdom. Christian people must unite for strength. The miseries of mankind are so manifold, and so hard is it to dislodge them out of human life, so intrenched are they in perverted affections, in sinful in clinations, in vested interests, that it must be plain to all reasonable people that one man here and another man there, one denomination working in this way and another denomination 102 THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM. working in that way, can accomplish nothing. We must join hands. We must work together. Christian unity means Christian co-operation. At its best and fullest it means much more than that; but that is the rational beginning of it. The day will come when Roman Catholics and Unitarians, Congregationalists and Episco palians, will say their prayers together and re cite their creed together, and there Avill be no more divisions among us. But we will wait a long time, if we wait for that millennial day. Indeed, it will never come at all unless we begin by doing what we can. We can join in Christian work. We can put aside, for love of Jesus Christ, our prejudices, our jealous nar rownesses, our ecclesiastical partisanships, and some of our theories and our ideals, and co operate with our Christian brethren. We can bring the Christian gospel into a new relation to the deepest needs not only of the individual, but of the community, by preaching it and realizing it more and more as the gospel of the kingdom. THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. It is not likely that any one of the " many mansions " of the new Jerusalem will be either a boarding-house or a tenement house. But here, at present, both of these residences front upon our streets. The Christian in the family is the person whom we are just now to con sider ; but we will do well to spend a prelimi nary moment upon the Christian who is not in the family, but who has his dwelling in a board ing-house ; and upon the family in which it is uncommonly difficult to be a Christian, — the family which is crowded into a back room or two in a tenement house. The Christian in the boarding-house is sub ject to peculiar temptations. One of these is the tendency to perpetual complaint. The con ditions are such as to foster a critical view of life, and to incline one to fall easily under the impression that he is being ill-used and cheated. It is lamentable that one's daily meals, which ought to be sacraments of brotherly love, are 103 104 THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. made objects of barter, being bought and sold, so that the guest is forever anxious lest he should fail to get the worth of his money. Everybody who has lived in a boarding-house knows how that suspicious temper, that carp ing, critical, dissatisfied, and unsocial spirit grows upon the boarder. It makes Christian consideration for the feelings of the boarding- house keeper well-nigh impossible. I have a number of friends who keep boarders, and I know how life in the boarding-house looks from their point of view ; and I am persuaded that there are few people in the world who see more selfishness, more ingratitude, and more meanness than they. The idea that a Christian will be as considerate and as cour teous toward the keeper of a boarding-house, and towards those who wait upon its tables, as he will be. towards any lady whom he may meet in society, does not seem to be recognized. Another evident temptation is that of being exceedingly solicitous about meat and drink, extremely interested in breakfast and luncheon and dinner, so that one comes to anticipate these meals as if they were events of serious moment, and to discuss them afterwards as if they were problems in philosophy. The THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 105 temptation to this sort of animalism is natur ally strong in a boarding-house, where the din ing-room is the most prominent apartment, and where the boarders often imagine them selves to have no interest in common except the weather and the bill of fare. But eating and drinking ought not to be matters of espe cially absorbing interest to intelligent people. To care very much about this side of life, except in its relations to health and to so cial happiness, is manifestly degrading. The Christian is interested in other things than these. " Eat such things as are set before you," is our Lord's wholesome counsel. St. Paul had much experience of boarding-houses, yet he had learned no matter where he was to be content. Jesus in all his ministry had no home of his own, yet he said that we ought not to think much about what we might eat or drink, but about higher things, seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. The Christian in the boarding-house is still further tempted to spiritual unrest. The life is one of unnatural independence. God set us in families. He meant us to be surrounded by the safeguards and the encouragements of domestic life. We are shaped by our environ- 106 THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. ment. We do what other people do. The Christian who wakes up of a Sunday morn ing in a boarding-house, and knows that most of his neighbors will spend half of the morn ing in sleep and the other half in the study of the Sunday paper, is conscious of a natural disinclination to go to church. If he goes, it will quite likely be to one church this week and another church next week, looking for music and eloquence and other attractions which have but slight relation to religion. Religion is extremely sensitive to transplanta tion. It has withered and died, again and again, in the process of removal from the home to the boarding-house. Now that I have spoken of the Christian who is not in the family, let me go on to say a word about the family in which it is especially difficult to be- a Christian. I mean the family which has its residence in a tenement house, crowded in upon the fifth or sixth floor of a poisonous dwelling. We who have the blessed privilege of family life ought to remember that a great multitude of our brothers and sisters are denied that privi lege. They are engaged in such a struggle for a bare subsistence, for a starvation dinner and THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 107 a kennel to live in, that they have no heart to think about religion. And they live under conditions which make a decent life almost impossible. We glance, perhaps with a sensa tion of disgust at the inordinate number of paragraphs which the newspaper editor prints for his bar-room readers, — at the chronicles of the police courts. But we ought to know that, ' after all, the chief reason why we are different from the people whose misbehaviors are there recorded, is that we live in a different part of the city. If we spent our days and nights where a great many of our brothers and sisters spend theirs, not from choice, but from neces sity ; if we lived where they live, we also would in all likelihood make acquaintance with the patrol wagon. The tenement house is a place more dangerous to character and more full of menace to the community than the saloon. Although I do not know that there is any thing which most of us can do in this matter, we ought at least to have it in mind. We have no right to be content in our comfortable houses, to sit down in selfish satisfaction there, without remembering the multitudes of our neighbors who live under these unspeakably unchristian conditions. 108 THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. Somehow, there must be a change. I hope the time will come when there will be no board ing-houses and no tenement houses on the face of the earth ; when every family will live in its own house, and have the blessing of a real family life. And we know assuredly that there will some time be a land of many mansions, not one of which will be either a boarding-house or a tenement house. We are concerned at present, however, with the Christian in the family. The family is the most important institution known to man. It is more important than the state ; it is of more consequence than the church. It is the heart of both. The present and the future of both state and church depend upon the family ; because the family is the training-school of character. Here it is that human beings are gathered together in their most impressionable time of life, to be touched by the most abiding and decisive influences. The habits, the tastes, the aspirations, the con science, of the race are at this moment being determined in the family. That is why the loss of family life, which is represented by the boarding-house, and the degradation of family life, which is assisted by the tenement house, THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 109 are such especially serious matters. The future depends upon the present and the most impor tant moral element in the shaping of the future in the present, is the influence, for good or evil, of the family. Accordingly, it is hardly possible to exag gerate the importance of being a good Christian in the family ; because it is there that a Chris tian counts more than anywhere else. Church Christianity is very well, and society Christian ity is better still ; but home Christianity is best of all. Whether the boys and girls are to be Christians or not, depends upon the fathers and mothers. The boy will probably be like his father and the girl like her mother. One of the most foolish ideas that can be held by sensible people is that parents ought not to try to "bias" the religious position of their children. The great purpose of the family, and supreme reason for its existence, is that it may set its bias on character in every direction. The father and the mother ought to have in their minds a clear ideal of what is right, and to impress that ideal as firmly as they can upon their children. People who believe that it is right to be Christian, ought to bring up their children to be the same kind of Chris- 110 THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. tians they are. People who believe that it is right to be infidels, and account that the ideal life, ought to teach their children that the Bible is a lie, and that religion is a sham. The family is the most important institution within the range of human life. And yet it is the verdict of all experience that it is peculiarly difficult to be a Christian in the family. Per haps it is because we are there removed from certain social restraints, and our natural self comes out. The natural self — so it is found in a great number of instances — is not an especially commendable nor pleasant part of us. It is notorious how much better Christians people are in the church and in society than they are at home in their own families. Thus the family affords a test of Christianity. If a Christian is not a good Christian at home, he is not a good Christian anywhere. The face of a Christian is put on for the benefit of other people. He does not need to put on anything at home, consequently we see him there exactly as he is. A printer, upon one occasion, setting up in type a sermon rather hastily written, translated " ethical Christianity " into " ethereal Christian ity." There is a great deal of ethereal Chris- THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. Ill tianity in the world, which is all up in the blue sky, and does not mix with common life. The kind of Christianitjr we want is ethical Chris tianity, Avhich touches every hour of every day, and guides the man who believes in it, and the woman who accepts it, in the homeliest domes tic duties as much as in the worship of the house of God. One characteristic of the Christian in the family is the spirit of courtesy. The Christian religion lays more stress than some think upon good manners. Our Lord him self emphasized the importance of good man ners. He noticed his host's neglect who failed in certain details of Oriental etiquette, bringing him no water to wash his feet. Blessed are they who have good manners, he declared in the Sermon on the Mount. We miss the mean ing in our English version, " Blessed are the meek." Blessed, the word means, are the gracious folk who are courteous and considerate of others. We all know how much more polite most people are in society than they are in the family. Nobody can count the respectable citizens and church-members who keep their good manners for their casual acquaintances, and visit their bad ones upon those whom really 112 THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. they regard and love. Everybody knows the lack of courtesy between husbands and wives, and between parents and children. It is no wonder that many children fail in courtesy, having such daily examples set them. Parents expect their children to be courteous and polite to them, who never think of being courteous and polite to their children. Jesus Christ began our life at the beginning ; and he said, "Inasmuch" — you remember the rest of it. The treatment given to little children he accounts as if it were bestowed on him. The little scolded child, upon whom is visited the impatience, the weariness, the various discom forts, of his father and mother, is none less than the disguised Christ-child. Write "Inasmuch" over the door of the nursery ; it is an excellent word. The trouble is, as Sir Arthur Helps has said, that we let familiarity swallow up courtesy. One of the duties of the Christian in the family is to be on the watch against that misadventure. Another characteristic of the Christian home is the spirit of forbearance. The Christian bears and forbears. The Christian listens many times in silence, and is busy making just and fraternal allowance. THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 113 The Christian forbears many a hasty judgment, keeps back even the thought of criticism, and thereby abstains from many a hastily spoken word wliich would invite ill-feeling. Nothing more friendly can be given by one friend to another than honest and wholesome and well- considered criticism — when it is necessary. But criticism ought never to touch anything unnecessary. Especially in two cases the Christian will keep his disapproval to himself, — in the case where that which is done is not likely to occur again, and disapproval is therefore needless ; and in the case where that of which he disap proves is so deep-rooted in the temperament of the offender that no criticism can possibly avail. In this case the Christian will remember that people are different. That is one of the most salutary and one of the most easily forgotten of all truths. People are different. They do not either think alike, nor look alike. And they are made different by the Lord God Almighty. Our friends who differ from us are probably as good as we are ; often better. They do not like what we like, but that is not to their dis credit. They have their opinions, and we have ours. So let it be. We have not learned that 114 THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. lesson in the church yet, and we have our unhappy divisions on account of it. It is quite beyond our understanding how people can be satisfied with a service consisting of a few hymns, a sermon, and a long extemporary prayer. We find it difficult to believe that there can be any real spiritual religion in a congregation which rejoices in genuflections and altar lights and incense ; if people are not exactly like us, something is the matter with them. The lesson of the largeness and blessed variety of life may well begin in the family. To agree in fundamentals, and to disagree in details, ought to be recognized as essential to any interesting intercourse. Many a discussion would lose its unhappy bitterness if the dis putants did but perceive the fact of tempera mental difference. The Christian in the family is further charac terized by the spirit of unselfishness. Unselfishness is the very heart of the Chris tian religion. It is not possible for one to be a good Christian and to be selfish at the same time. We are Christians in proportion as we are like Jesus Christ, and we do not begin to be like him until we begin to be unselfish, to think of others first. THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 115 The ideal Christian in the family is recog nized by his constant solicitude for others ; by his constant desire to be of service, to give pleasure, and in any way to contribute to the happiness of the household. So many people think that they were born that they might be waited upon ! Everybody must all the time be considering them ! But the Son of man came not to be ministered to, but to minister ; and he would see that spirit in our hearts. The Christian is still recognized, as he was in the streets of pagan cities, by his serene face, by the happiness that shines in his eyes. The Christian never grumbles, never comes frown ing down to breakfast, never forgets in his dealings with the servants how his Master served once at a supper-table when a company of fishermen and peasants sat at meat, and never distresses himself grievously because all things are not precisely to his liking. The supreme achievement of the Christian life is not to have things to our liking, but to see that our neighbor is attentively considered. One of the Essays of a Country Parson has for its title, " Concerning the Advantages of Being a Cantankerous Fool." The advantages consist in that prompt attention which is given 116 THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. to the wants of one who is known to complain vigorously if he is not pleased. But everybody hates the cantankerous fool, and, worst of all, he misses of approval where alone approval really counts for much, — up above where Christ sits looking into the hearts of men. Finally, the Christian — courteous, forbear ing, and unselfish — lives this Christian life for the sake of Jesus Christ, and in the name of Jesus Christ, and in the strength of God. The Christian family, recognizing both the im portance and the difficulty of ideal domestic life, makes use of all spiritual assistance. Every day the word of prayer is said by all the family together, so that the little children learn from the beginning of their lives that religion is a real element in daily life, and that the thought of it is not locked up be tween Sundays in an empty church; and the message of God is heard, and the benediction of God is asked, and the presence of God in the midst of the family is recognized. The Christian tests his life in the family by this one question. What kind of life, he asks himself, would the Lord Jesus Christ live if he were in my position, in my family ? SAINTS IN SOCIETY. The Christian ought to go into society. Do I mean theatre parties, and afternoon teas, and formal calls, and balls and banquets ? Yes ; why not ? There is no reason why a woman should not be a society woman and a good Christian at the same time. There is no rea- son why a man should not be as religious in a dress coat as in a surplice. I know very well that to some people this would seem a doctrine of the pit. They be lieve that if the devil was to turn preacher, he would preach just that sort of sermon. He would try to persuade all the Christians to go into society, and then he would confidently rely upon the influences of society to convert most of them out of Christianity. And evi- dently there is danger in that direction. Nevertheless, I am sure that there is nothing that would please the devil better than to have a high stone wall built up between the church and the world ; with neither door nor window, 117 118 SAINTS IN SOCIETY. so that nobody could get from one side to the other; and sprinkled all along the top with broken glass, so that nobody could climb over. That would be pernicious both for society and for the church. It would not only be the end of progress ; it would not only, as one has said, be like putting all the dough in one dish and all the yeast in another, and expecting bread ; but it would be demoralizing both to the church and to society. It would deprive Christians of the pleasures of society, and it would deprive society of the presence of Christians. Christians ought not to be deprived of the pleasures of society. God has put into our hearts that social instinct which gives us hap piness in one another's company. God does not wish us to spend half our time in hard working and the other half in hard praying. If he had intended that we should live that sort of life, he would have put us in a world that would have corresponded with it. The soil of the earth would have produced noth ing but the most wholesome kind of vege tables useful for daily food. There would have been no flowers in it. What are flowers good for? For no practical purpose whatso ever, — for beauty, for adornment, for pleasure SAINTS IN SOCIETY. 119 only. And God would have stretched out over the earth a sky which would somehow have fulfilled its useful purpose of dissemi nating the rays of the sun, and giving us rain for drinking and for washing ; but there would have been no rainbow in it, and the sun would have retired soberly to rest behind drab curtains. For these bright colors are of small practical value. We cannot eat them or drink them or wear them. They are to look at, for our pleasure. God has made the world beautiful, that it may minister to our delight. He intends us to be happy in it. God is our Father. This is the supreme truth that we know about him. Jesus Christ came to make us sure of it. And the inference is easy. What is there that a father desires more for his children than that they shall be happy ? It is a mistake to think that he would have us write over the church door, "All joy abandon, ye who enter here." They used to think that sanctity and misery were syn onyms, and believed that in order to be a saint a man must put his body to all manner of unnecessary discomfort. He must starve himself ; he must lacerate his back with a stout whip ; he must absent himself from human hab- 120 SAINTS IN SOCIETY. itations, and take up his residence in a hole in the ground ; he must shun the sight of pleas ant faces. We do not any longer hold that. Yet so strongly has the old tradition impressed itself upon our thoughts, that it is hard for some people even to-day to believe that a man or woman can be perfectly happy and at the same time be perfectly holy. But the psalmist crying, " This is the day that the Lord hath made," is not ashamed to go on and invite us to "be glad and rejoice in it." And the in vitation opens the door into all the days that the Lord hath made, from January around the year to January; this is the world that the Lord hath made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. The Christian ought to have the privilege of all the pleasures of society. The Christian religion was not brought into the world to take a single honest pleasure out of it, but to bring a great deal of pleasure into it. And society ought to have the privilege of the presence of Christians. What would be come of society if the Christians were all taken out of it ? What would become of the theatre if none of the actors, and none of the managers or owners, and none of the audience, were reli gious people ? Of what character would be the SAINTS IN SOCIETY. 121 balls and the banquets if the host were not a Christian, and the guests were none of them Christians ? Society would be degraded. What society needs more than anything else is the presence of more Christians. We want a ma jority on our side in every department of life. The Christian ought to go into society. But he ought to take his Christianity with him. Some people have a very narrow notion of religion. They seem to think that it is meant for Sunday and the churches, whereas it is meant for Monday and Tuesday and Wednes day and Thursday and Friday and Saturday, and for all the parlors and all the kitchens and all the stores and all the mills and all the offices of Christendom. God is not blind. They are altogether mistaken who imagine that he can see only in the dim religious light of conse crated buildings. God sees us everywhere. God is here at other times than Sundays. God is with us all the time; and is as much con cerned in our work as in our prayers. We need to realize that religion is meant to touch our whole life, every hour of it, every minute of it, every act and thought of it. It is believed, even to-day, that the Christian reli gion is a matter of ritual or of dogma. Some 122 SAINTS IN SOCIETY. people imagine that they have abandoned Chris tianity when they have only put away some metaphysical belief which they have been in the habit of associating with it. Ritual and dogma belong altogether to the outside of religion ; they are but the merest fringe of the border of the garment of Christ. Christianity is a life. And the real Christian is one who all the day long, and wherever he is and whatever he does, tries to live as the Lord Jesus Christ would have him live. We make a great mis take if we imagine that religion can be put on and off with our Sunday dress, or that it can in any way be separated from any portion of our common life. Religion, too, when it is rightly understood, is a vital, directive, and aggressive element in character. A Christian can no more be a real Christian without making his Christianity tell and count wherever he goes, than a soldier can be a good soldier without fighting. That would be a remarkable army in which the idea should prevail that the chief purpose of a soldier is to dress himself in bullet-proof clothes so that the fire of the enemy could not hit him. The chief purpose of the soldier is to hit somebody else. Nobody is a good soldier who is afraid to fight. SAINTS IN SOCIETY. 123 The great purpose of a Christian should be to make somebody else Christian, and eventually to turn the whole world as a captured province into the possession of the Lord Jesus Christ. And to that end the Christian must invade the country of the enemy. If the devil is in the theatre or in the ballroom, we must go in and drive him out. The trouble is that we lose courage. That old scene of Peter in the guardroom, trembling for his life, afraid of what the women might say and of what the men might do, if he avowed himself a Christian, and so with fear denying his Master — that old, miserable, piti ful, and shameful scene is enacted everywhere. Simon Peter lives in our neighborhood ; very likely in our house ! If the Christian goes into society, and takes his Christianity along with him, we may look for changes in society. There will be a lessening of the social sin of extravagance. Nobody will deny that there is too much money spent in the social world foolishly, ex travagantly. Extravagance is difficult to define by illustration, for there are such differences in the conditions. But we approach to a definition 124 SAINTS IN SOCIETY. when we say that an extravagant investment is one which brings in no adequate return ; and that an extravagant purchase is one in which the thing purchased bears no proper relation to the amount expended for it. Extravagant liv ing is that in which one's dress or house or table is furnished beyond the degree which is accordant with one's income, or beyond the measure which is consistent with the general condition of society. People who live in need less luxury while their neighbors have not enough to eat are justly exposed to the accusa tion of extravagance. One of the perils of extravagance, whereby it sets society in danger, is the sinister emphasis which it puts upon the differences in our human lot. That was a singular coincidence, a few years ago, which set side by side at the same time in all the bookstores those two startlingly different volumes, — one written by Mr. McAl lister, describing society as he had found it, and the other written by General Booth, describing society as he had found it. When men and women, out of work, and without prospect of getting any, with no bread in the cupboard, and no credit at the baker's, hungry themselves, and with little hungry children about them, SAINTS IN SOCIETY. 125 read in the papers of the events that take place in Mr. McAllister's kind of society, of the wines and the roses, of the. array of courses and the army of servants, of the money spent upon one evening's foolish pleasure, it gives them strange, wild feelings in their hearts. I do not wonder that the man in the tenement house hates the man in the palace. As for the idle notion that the extravagance of the rich really helps the poor by giving them employment, it is the most convenient, the most comfortable, and the most mistaken of fallacies. The money which is spent for pass ing pleasure stops with the spending. The same money spent in wise and profitable ways does good and goes on doing good. Set in comparison a thousand dollars expended in a dinner, and a thousand dollars used in the erection of a block of habitable houses. These lines, homely enough, and bitter enough, touch the heart of the matter: — "Now, Dives daily feasted and was gorgeously arrayed, Not at all because he liked it, but because 'twas good for trade ; That the people might have calico, he clothed himself in silk, And surfeited himself with cream that they might have more milk. 126 SAINTS IN SOCIETY. He fed five hundred servants, that the poor might not lack bread, And had his vessels made of gold that they might have more lead; And e'en to show his sympathy with the deserving poor, He did no useful work himself that they might do the more." Not only does extravagance set this false ideal of life, and emphasize this portentous dif ference between the extremes of society, but it is such a waste of opportunity. Money is opportunity ! At a certain election of the Lon don County Council (a body of men who have for the last few years been bringing heaven down to earth in that great city) there were sermons preached by ministers who desired to have that good work go on and grow, and who believed that the church has a vital interest in every political question which concerns the welfare of society ; and some of these sermons pointed out the good things which the council had already accomplished, — the better housing of the poor, the demolition of poisonous tene ments, the providing of parks and open spaces in thickly peopled districts, the regulation of in iquitous wages, and other like increase of light in dark places ; and in one sermon the preacher stopped at the end of a long list of these bene- SAINTS IN SOCIETY. 127 fits and said, "And how much did all this cost? Just the price of one Lord Mayor's banquet." Evidently there is a need of Christians in society, to set the example of spending money in ways that would be approved by the Lord Jesus Christ. Another sin which will be lessened when there are more Christians in society, bringing their Christian principles with them, is the sin of Pharisaism. It is a mistake to imagine that all the Pharisees are professors of religion. There are more Pharisees in ballrooms than there are in churches. For the Pharisee is simply a sepa ratist; that is the meaning of his name. He sets himself apart from other people, saying secretly, " I am better than thou." And that is just as obnoxious in society and as unchristian as it is anywhere else. Of course there is such a fact in human nature as congeniality. Even in the world to come we are not all to live in one great monas tery, eating at the same table. There is to be a land of " many mansions ; " people are to be gathered into natural groups. The spirit of congeniality is still to prevail amongst us. It is not unchristian to have particular friends. 128 SAINTS IN SOCIETY. But to despise our neighbor is unchristian; to set up narrow, foolish, pagan barriers in society is unchristian ; to gauge our behavior towards those whom we meet by the amount of their income, or by the length of their ancestry, or by the street upon which they live, or by the material or social advantage which will come to us from our acquaintance with them, is un christian. There is about as much caste in America as there is in India ; and it is a kind of caste which is distinctly worse, being based upon the possession of money. It is not so hopeless as the social barriers of India, for one may gain the charm which will open the door in the great wall ; but it is as foolish, as detrimental, and more wicked. The Christian in society is there for the pur pose of making society pleasant for everybody else. He is forever seeking out those who seem not to be enjoying themselves, and making some sort of contribution to their pleasure. You can always tell the Christians in any social gathering. They do not need a uniform or badge. They are the people who are not think ing about themselves, but are busied in the happiness of others. They value those whom they meet as Jesus valued them, by character, for their own sake. SAINTS IN SOCIETY. 129 By and by, when all the Christians in society are real Christians, and not scared Christians, there will be a distinction made which is not made to-day. The man who goes into society with a bad character behind him will be treated as one would be to-day who should go into an evening party with a ragged coat upon his back. The man who lives an unclean life will have the same sort of avoidance that one would have who should go out to dinner with an unclean face. Another kindred sin will begin to disappear when more Christians enter into society, bring ing their Christian principles with them. It includes both the others. It is the sin of worldliness. We must not allow ourselves to think that to be worldly means to go to parties or to the playhouses. One may do these things and not be worldly. We cannot tell concerning people whom we do not know very well whether they are worldly or not. It is false to say that all society people are worldly. A good many of them are, but a good many of them are not. Worldliness is a temper, a spirit, a disposition of the mind. The poor may be as worldly as the rich. He is worldly 130 SAINTS IN SOCIETY. who accounts eating and drinking and dress ing and various other minor and petty things as of supreme importance. Worldliness is the putting of the less before the greater. It is to care a great deal for those things for which Jesus said we should care not at all. Is society making us blind to the right perspective, so that we set the less above the greater? Is it making us care much more for the things which will presently perish, than for that which is to last on into eternity? These are the questions which put us to the test. Worldliness shows itself in the blind follow ing of foolish or extravagant or immodest fash ions. Religion touches life so closely that it is concerned even with the kind of clothes that people wear. Worldliness utters its voice in foolish or uncharitable or scandalous con versation. .The Lord Christ sits at the table. The Lord Christ stands in the ballroom as he stood amidst the festivities of the wedding- feast at Cana in Galilee. The Lord Christ knows what we say. And he looks about him here as he looked about in old Jerusalem, seeing sights which make him weep. Yet society is growing better. It is more interested than it has ever been before in SAINTS IN SOCIETY. 131 higher thinking and better living, and is more conscious of its duties and of its responsibilities. It is learning a new language, and is able to translate noblesse oblige. It is surprisingly stirred with an enthusiasm for personal service. That is because there are so many Christians in it. By and by when all the Christians are in society, and all the people in society are Christians of the right kind, we may begin to think of leaving out one of the petitions in the Lord's Prayer ; for that kingdom of heaven for whose coming we pray will then be very close at hand. ETHICS OF THE PARISH. Every Christian ought to be a member of a parish. All good people ought to have a church which they may call their own, at which they attend service two times every Sunday, and with which they are thoroughly identified. Any other condition of living is quite abnormal. It is true that there are many Christians who are not recorded upon the communicant list of any parish. It is true, also, that there are many Christians who live apart from the pleasures and privileges of family life : some people live in hotels, some in lodging-houses, some in the street. Never theless, the ideal social life is lived in the family, and the ideal religious life is lived in that larger family which we call the parish. Every Christian ought to be in a parish. Wherever a Christian is found who is not in a parish, something is probably the matter either with the parish or with the Christian. Sometimes the fault is in the parish. There 132 ETHICS OF THE PARISH. 133 are parishes with inhospitable doors, so con structed as to admit only a few people of a certain kind. The front door is built so low that only the very short people can get in, or so exceeding narrow that only the thin people can squeeze in, or so high up in the wall that only the tallest people can climb over the threshold. That is, there are some churches which appear to be administered upon the principle of keeping out as many persons as is possible. None but the most rigidly orthodox, or the most devotedly ritualistic, or the most severely simple, or the most in tellectual, or the most aristocratic, are desired. The church building is a club-house, meant only for those who are in social or theologi cal agreement. It is managed upon partisan principles, and so contrived as to be uncom fortable for those who do not belong to the party. Whereas, the ideal church ought to be large enough to take in all the people ; and the parish priest should try, after the good example of St. Paul, to be all things to all men. Every Christian ought to be able to find at the parish church that which his soul needs. There ought to be room in the parish church for all honest people. 134 ETHICS OF THE PARISH. Sometimes, however, the fault is in the man. The Christian may not be a genuine Christian. He may be selfish, thinking of nobody save him self, and having no religious aspiration except to get what good he can for his own soul. If he can get that by himself, without the church, so much the better. He has no interest in any Christian plans which would set people at work together for the betterment of their neighbors. Or the Christian may be ashamed or afraid. He may be living a life which he rightly recognizes as inconsistent with his Christian profession ; he does not dare to go into the parish. In either of which cases the Christian needs to be converted before he deserves the name of Chris tian. Or the Christian may be ignorant — ignorant of Christianity. Many people have curiously mistaken ideas about religion. They imagine that they have departed from Christianity, when they have but departed from some sort of ritual which is in use among some of their Christian neighbors, or from some metaphysical statement which some people declare to be an essential Christian doctrine. But, in truth, no good man or woman has ever rejected Christianity from the beginning even to this present. There are ETHICS OF THE PARISH. 135 many who have turned away from some car icature of Christ, from some representation of him which is no more like the blessed Christ of Galilee than the glass Christ of a chancel win dow. He only turns away from Christ who calls darkness light, and light darkness. He who really forsakes Christ, forsakes God and goodness. Whoever even desires to know the truth about God, or even desires to live the life which God would have him live, though he be far away in the midst of doubt and sin, having but his face turned toward the light, there is a place for him in a Christian parish. My concern, however, at present is not so much with the Christian who is not in a parish, as with the Christian who is in a parish already. What shall the Christian in the parish do ? The Christian in the parish will take his share in the parish worship and in the parish work. It will not do to preach many sermons about the duty of church attendance. Such teaching endangers the real purpose of Christianity. It would be a great mistake for any one to think that going to church is an act which of itself is of supreme religious consequence. In the New Testament, with but one possible exception, 136 ETHICS OF THE PARISH. there is no command laid upon the Christian to attend church at all. The writers of the New Testament occupy the space which might have been filled with exhortations upon attend ance at services, with persuasions to righteous and fraternal living. Church attendance is the least part of the Christian religion. Christianity is conduct. Moreover, the best way to get people into the churches is not to tell them that they ought to go, but to make the churches so attractive that they will themselves desire to go. What does that mean ? Does it signify operatic singing in the choir, and sensational preaching in the pulpit ? Perhaps so, for a few. But for most people there is a higher standard of attraction. Men and women want to be bet ter. Wherever there is a parish which ear nestly exerts itself, minister and people, Sunday and Monday, to teach the truth, to raise up those who are down, to influence the community in practical ways for good, there will be found the largest congregations. The parish whose services are of spiritual help will have no need to send out tithing-men with sharp sticks to drive the reluctant people within the doors of the sanctuary. The good Christian, however, will go to ETHICS OF THE PARISH. 137 church although he is not interested and the services do not especially attract him. A dull sermon will not drive him away. Because the Christian will realize that, though he may not himself be greatly helped, he may give help by his presence. We do not sufficiently consider the helpfulness of being present. It helps the preacher, and it helps the people. Every empty seat is a discouragement ; every place that is occupied counts on the right side. It is not likely that the congregation knows how much part it has in the sermon. Half of the success of the best sermon, half of its efficiency, de pends upon the hearers. The most earnest sermon that could be preached by the most effective speaker would fail of its purpose, and fall flat and fruitless, before an inattentive con gregation. " We used to have great preachers in this part of the country forty or fifty years ago," said one who praised the good old times. "Yes," answered the exasperated preacher, "and great hearers." That accounted for the great preaching. The presence of the congregation also helps the people. There is enthusiasm in numbers. Our social instinct asserts itself. Your reverence, your attention, your devotion, are subtly communicated to your neighbor. It 138 ETHICS OF THE PARISH. is a trait of human nature, which we at once recognize, to desire to get into the place where nothing is left but standing-room. The small congregation tends to grow smaller. Every body who by his persistent presence gives it a turn in the other direction attracts another. So that everybody who comes helps. The Christian is not content to take his part only in the parish worship. He does not con sider himself an especially good Christian be cause he merely goes to church two times on Sunday. He does his share of the parish work. Partly by the giving of his means in the regu lar offerings of the congregation. For money, when it is honestly earned, is condensed work. A day's wages, devoutly given to God, means a day's work done in his service. Few tests give a more accurate measure of Christian earnest ness than the test of the alms-basin. A most interesting sociological study is in the examina tion of the Sunday offerings. Somebody said that sometimes as he looked over the congrega tion he said to himself, " Where are the poor? " but when he came to count the offering he won dered, "Where are the rich?" One cannot tell, of course, how much the particular coins are worth in the treasury of God. Here is a ETHICS OF THE PARISH. 139 Sunday collection taken for the poor, and con taining several hundred five-cent pieces. The number of five-cent pieces in any offering is singularly out of proportion to the number of dollars. But some of these bits of nickel may be of considerable value. Some may be set down as five-dollar gold-pieces in the book of heaven. No doubt many of them mean more than five paltry pennies. Yet it is equally evi dent that many of them do not mean so much as that, and get no credit whatsoever in the celestial ledgers. Who said, as the plate came down the aisle, " Here, now, is a chance for me to do something for the poor; how much con densed work can I put into the alms-basin for that good purpose ? " and then gave a five-cent piece? Most of the people who put in these petty sums gave something only because they were ashamed to refuse. The Christian's money ought to represent thoughtfulness, consecration, self-sacrifice, the offering of the equivalent of work. The Christian will also work in the parish industries. He will ask, as St. Paul did in the moment of his conversion, proving by his ques tion that he is converted, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? " Every good man wants 140 ETHICS OF THE PARISH. to do something for God, and every good parish ought to provide something for every willing hand to do. People must not think that the parochial appointments are set down in the church calendar to fill up space, or even that they are invented for the purpose of giving em ployment to those who might otherwise be doing something worse. In the good Christian parish the parochial societies are designed to accom plish service for the cause of righteousness, and in every case they depend for the amount of service which they can accomplish entirely upon the efforts of the people who take part in them. So that everybod}'- who stays away from the meetings at which this work is done sub tracts just so much from the beneficent result. It is plain, however, that all the people in the parish cannot take part in the organized paro chial industries. Some of them have nearer duties. It is well to remember, therefore, that besides the giving of money and the giving of direct service, there is another sort of parish work which is possible under all conditions. Whoever is a Christian all the week is doing parish work of the best kind. The man who is a Christian in his business, the woman who is a Christian in her household and in society, ETHICS OF THE PARISH. 141 these, after all, are the best workers in the par ish. No amount of zeal in the sewing-society can make up for the church work of this sort, nor be compared with it in its genuine im portance. And such as this is within reach of the busiest Christian. The good Christian, in all his relations to the worship and the work of the parish, will keep in careful remembrance the fact that he is not the only person in the parish; a great many other people there are in the same church who have their needs, their ideas, and their desires. Some people seem to imagine that the parish exists entirely for themselves, and that its su preme purpose is to minister to them. There are parishes here and there made up of Chris- ' tians of that kind. The proper symbol for the coat-of-arms of such a church would be a wagon- ful of idle and indifferent people tugged along the Jordan road into the kingdom of heaven by the clergy. Whereas the symbol of the good parish is a company of men at a life-saving station beside a dangerous reef, that they may save those who are sinking into the fatal waves. They are giving thought not to their own comfort, but to the safety of their imperilled neighbors. 142 ETHICS OF THE PARISH. The good Christian will keep in mind the other Christians in the parish, and will be in spired with the spirit of neighborliness and the spirit of tolerance. The good Christian will be a good neighbor to all the people in the church. The old idea was that a Christian ought to enter the front door of the church with his eyes straight before him, and march immediately to his pew, look ing not to right nor left, and there attend to his devotions, and after the final benediction depart silent as he came, as if he were the only Christian at the service. But far more sacred than any sanctity which God can attach to the material edifice which is called his house, is the supreme sacredness of fraternal love. That is the best part of our religion. Into that, faith flowers and fruits. Our love for God is mani fested by our affection for our brother. The sacrament of the right hand of friendly fellow ship ought to be recognized in the church. The good Christian is a good Christian in his place in the church. He extends all pos sible courtesies to the strangers who sit in his pew. He makes it a point to know those who sit in his neighborhood, and to be so hospitable that the most casual visitor shall feel that he is really in a church, not in a Sunday club. ETHICS OF THE PARISH. 143 The same fine neighborliness will extend outside the church into the community. The Christian will call upon the people who belong to his parish. They may be very poor people, they may be rather ignorant people ; it will make no difference. And the call will not be a visit evidently suggested by conscience, nor by the urgings of conventional charity. It will be free from condescension, full of cordial and fraternal interest. The Christian is inter ested in human beings of all kinds, knows him self to be akin to all of them, cares little for the quality of the clothes in which they attire themselves, and rather prefers the society of those whose knowledge is of a different kind from their own. The Christian who is ac quainted with the contents of many books will converse with fresh satisfaction with his neigh bor who knows a great deal about life in a tenement house from personal experience. If there is ever to be a brotherhood here such as we pray for in the Lord's Prayer, wherein we shall all look up to one heavenly Father, and realize that we are all brothers and sisters, where shall it begin if not just here, in the Christian parish? The good Christian will also be ruled by 144 ETHICS OF THE PARISH. the spirit of tolerance. He will recognize the fact that it is possible for other people to be quite different from himself and yet be right. God has made us different, and different in our religious temperament as in our other disposi tions. To some the emphatic word in religion is worship — they look up to God; they get great help from a beautiful, enriched, elabo rate service, with colors and candles and in cense and banners. To others the emphatic word in religion is salvation — they look in at their own souls. Their test of what may best be done in church is the test of spiritual utility measured by their own experience ; the most important part of the service is the sermon. While with others the most emphatic word is work — they look out toward their brothers ; they are chiefly interested in commending the ology to the reason of men, and in employing the energies of the church for the mental and physical, as well as spiritual, improvement of the community. And, accordingly, there are High Churchmen and Low Churchmen and Broad Churchmen, and always have been, and always will be, and always ought to be. There is room in a right Christian parish for all kinds of religious temperaments. The Christian who ETHICS OF THE PARISH. 145 sees some things in the conduct of the par ish which do not especially minister to him will reflect that they are probably meant for somebody else. He will desire to have in the parish everything that can help anybody. Finally, the Christian will be loyal to the parish. He will praise everything which it is possible to praise, and praise it at all possible times and to all possible people, understanding well that even a parish grows better in the sun shine. There are, indeed, conditions under which a parish may need something quite dif ferent from sunshine, when it may invite a ministration of hailstones and coals of fire — like the parishes of Sodom and Gomorrah. But the ordinary parish needs nothing so urgently as sunshine. The loyal Christian makes the best of everything, knowing that that kind of conduct, persistently maintained, will in course of time make everything the best. THE CHURCH AT WORK. " To every man his work." — St. Mark xiii. 34. Yes, and also to every woman. " To each one his work ; " so it reads in the Revised Version. There is no excuse for idleness in the king dom of God. So much is to be done that every hand is needed ; and so various are the kinds of work that every sort of ability can find full occupation. The cry of the unemployed comes up in these days out of the market-places, where men stand with no man to hire them; but there is no lack of religious opportunity: God has work for all. Every Christian in the parish ought to be doing something. There ought not to be any unemployed Christians. Sometimes we fail to recognize the divine character of the task. We do not see that it is something which we do for God. Thus, the very hardest task that God gives a human soul may be just to lie still and do nothing. Apparently the time is wasted ; the 148 THE CHURCH AT WORK. 147 empty days go by without accomplishment. The soul, eager to be of service, is fast bound by the chain of the body and imprisoned in the dungeon of the sick-room. Under such difficult conditions people regret their useless ness, account themselves as good for nothing, and fret and grieve because they are not able to do anything. But we may not choose among tasks. It is God who apportions the labor, "to each one his work ; " and what we are to do is just that, and nothing else. If God wished you to move mountains, he would put a lever in your hand and set you down at the foot of the hill. Just now he wishes you to undertake this other burden, — to carry a great load of pain ; to be sick patiently for his sake. That is your work. Take the day exactly as it is, as God's own wise assignment of duty, and meet it in that spirit. Some people think that they are not doing any work for God because they are simply attending to their own business. They are occupied every day, and every minute of the day, with those industrial tasks which have to do with human livelihood. One goes to the shop, another to the nursery, another to the kitchen, another to the mill. It may be 148 THE CHURCH AT WORK. that these suspicions are well-founded. Not all work is work for God. It may be done for self; it may be done for the devil. But all work may be done for God. " Whether we eat or drink," the apostle says, mentioning our commonest occupation, the remotest from the sphere of conventional religion — " Whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do," we may "do all to the glory of God." Service is described as a duty owed not alone to an em ployer, but to God himself : " not with eye- service, as men please, but as the servants of God." That is what we ought to be in all our tasks — the servants of God. Accordingly, the honest fulfilment of any duty, however humble, may be as genuine an act of religion as the offering of prayer. To sell a yard of cloth, to sweep a room, to cook a dinner, ^o build a house, to keep a ledger, to work in a factory, and to do the duty well, with diligence, with carefulness, and with a conscience, is to do that which God desires of us. It is just that which he expects from us. For the present, for to-day, that is our mission ; and when we fulfil it we serve God as accept ably as ever Paul did when he preached on Mars Hill. THE CHURCH AT WORK. 149 It is a mistake to think that all religious work is done in direct connection with the church. The purpose of the church is not to persuade people into loyalty to her institutions, to induce them to build and support and attend her sanctuaries, to enroll their names upon the lists of her parochial societies, but to get them to try to serve God everywhere, and every day, and in every occupation in life. That church is most genuinely at work which can point to the largest number of members engaged in honest industry, giving a full day's work for a day's wage, — ¦ faithful physicians, honorable lawyers, good housekeepers, good citizens, men and women whose lives are of value to the neighborhood. All good work is, in the best sense, church work. My present concern, however, is especially with that kind of service which is undertaken with the parish house for a workshop. The wheels of parochial industry revolve ; the par ish rooms are filled with diligent companies of busy people. Societies meet; committees con fer ; the drayman hauls out heavy boxes packed with many comforts and addressed to far-off missionaries ; the petitions of the hospitals get generous answers; the needs of the poor are 150 THE CHURCH AT WORK. abundantly and fraternally supplied ; the days are full of errands of beneficence. The church has never been so busy. It is worth thinking about. It implies most serious responsibilities. The Christian who is sick, the Christian whose full strength and time must go into the other tasks of the day, may be excused from parish work. God has already set those servants their sufficient duties. To neglect them, to evade them, to put some other duties in their place, would be a disobedience to him. Nobody who is sick or weak, or who needs to guard against the perils of over-burdening the body, is called upon to do church work. The laws of. the body are the laws of God, and are not to be broken unless some higher law of God comes evidently in conflict with them. Over worked, tired people are not wanted at the missionary, society. Tired people ought to be at home getting rested for the next duty. Mothers with the care of households have usu ally enough to do without adding to their work. What they need is recreation, that they may be refreshed for their delicate and difficult service. Unless they find such recreation in church work they have no call from that direction. The same division of service applies also to THE CHURCH AT WORK. 151 a great many men. It is sometimes remarked that church work is mostly done by women. And that is true. Partly because the kind of work that is needed is such as can best be done by women ; and partly because many women are not so busy with other imperative duties. The best church work that a man can do is to be a good man. If he loves his wife and his children, if he conducts a diligent, just, and honest business, if he behaves himself like a good citizen, if he holds out a fraternal hand of help to his brother, if he remembers that he is responsible for his influence, if he tries, as Jesus did, to make somebody better, I would excuse him even from the mid-week service. He has been doing church work all day long : he has a right to rest. This applies, however, only when the man comes home genuinely tired. When there is a choice between religious duty and idle pleasure, between the higher and the lower, then the man's decision is a revelation of the man. The whole question of church work rests with the individual Christian conscience ; and to that there are these three appeals, — the appeal of opportunity, the appeal of responsibility, and the appeal of the Divine Example. We ought 152 THE CHURCH AT WORK. to work because there is so much that needs to be done, and because God has given us so much ability with which to do it, and because he calls us to use our ability in this work by the voice and by the life of Jesus Christ. Here is the work. To begin with the remo test part of it, there are missionaries who are fighting our battles on the frontier, trying to extend the borders of the kingdom of heaven, obeying the marching orders of the Captain of Salvation, doing service not only for the present, but for the future, and doing it not only for the cause of the church in its narrower meaning, but for the advancement of that wider church which takes in all that is best in our Christian civilization. The destinies of the race depend greatly upon the work that is being done out of our sight, almost out of our knowledge, by these good-men. We are bound as loyal Chris tians to stand behind these men, and give them every help and encouragement we can. Noth ing less is right nor fair. They must be made to feel that the heart of the church is with them. Shame to the church which sends its ministers into destitute regions and then for sakes them ! Thus the work which goes on week by week THE CHURCH AT WORK. 153 in the parish societies, the preparing of boxes of comforts and necessaries to send to these good people, is no foolish work, no dilettante trifling, no pretence of occupation: it is work that must be done. It is like the task which the women took upon themselves in the years of the Civil War, when they sent clothing to the front: if it is not done, somebody must suffer. Then there is the response to the continual calls of the hospitals, the homes, the various charities. These calls must be answered, these needs must be met. And what reply shall be returned to them depends upon the number of workers who take part in the church's week day work. No amount of devout attendance at the Sunday services will provide clothing for the poor, or alleviate the sufferings of the sick. Neither will the individual kindness of good people answer these needs. There must be united effort. The workers must make them selves acquainted with the situation, lay their plans to solve it, and do their work together. The parish societies are altogether necessary. In no other way can the tasks be undertaken that are laid upon us. In addition to these unfailing and imperative 154 THE CHURCH AT WORK. calls from without, are others which reach forth hands of petition nearer home. The parish has its duties to the community. I hope that no body believes to-day that the purpose of a parish is simply the spiritual culture of the parishioners. That would be as foolish as to think that the purpose of an army is the drill of the soldiers. As a matter of fact, the minis ter is often so occupied in caring for the sick and wounded, and bringing in the stragglers of his regiment, that there is no time left for war ; the parish ought to be making a great fight for Christ and against the devil, but it never gets into fighting condition. The church is set down in the neighborhood to be an influence for good, a force for the betterment of men, a manifesta tion in the sight of all the people of the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. It has for its direct business the'attacking of the evils which touch the life of the district. It is for the purpose of educating the ignorant and of training the chil dren ; it is meant to attract the growing boys and girls, to bring more light and joy into the habitations of the unprivileged, to be the friend of the friendless. It is plain that something more must go to the fulfilling of the mission than the presence of the faithful in the church THE CHURCH AT WORK. 155 on Sunday. That helps the faithful ; that ought to give them strength from God to do the work of the week. But in itself it is only the preparation for work. We must show on Monday and Tuesday what we have gained on Sunday. The more workers, the more work; and the more work, the more of the kingdom of God shining amongst the shadows. I would impress upon you the necessity, the seriousness, and the Christian value, of the par ish work. It is worth doing. It cannot be done unless there are faithful people willing to do it. Here, then, is the work ; and here are we. The symbol of the work is the wounded man who lay by the side of the road between Jeru salem and Jericho. And we are the priest, or the levite, or the good Samaritan. We either pass by or help. Or the work is represented by that great hungry multitude who sat by the Lake of Gal ilee waiting for the loaves and fishes. All the loaves and fishes in that part of the country were in the possession of the twelve apostles. How plain it is that the loaves and fishes were meant to be distributed ! The apostles had them not for their own supper, not to sit down 156 THE CHURCH AT WORK. on the grass and eat them while their neigh bors went home hungry, but to give them out to others. Our ability for service, our spirit ual and temporal possessions, are as evidently given for purposes of ministry as were ever the possessions of the apostles. God intends us to use them. Their best significance lies in that intention. True, they are but meagre. We hesitate to go with them to our brethren, because we see the enormous difference be tween their needs and our own scant supply. We can say so little, and that but stammer- ingly ; we can do so little ; we can give so little. But that we must simply leave to God as the apostles did. He knows how to feed a multitude with a loaf or two of bread and a few small fishes ; and he will take that which we have, scanty as it seems, and work wonders with it. There is no end to the transformation that would be effected in this hungry world if all the people who can do only a little would simply do that little. Much or little, whatever we have belongs to God for the betterment of our brethren, and we are personally responsible for it. What are you doing with it ? he asks — with the time and strength that I have given you, THE CHURCH AT WORK. 157 with your means, with your privileges, with your opportunities for doing good? And we will do well to remember that that searching question was put not to the rich only, not only to the man who had five talents, but to the man who had but two, to the man who had but one. The doors of the parish house stand open every day. Within are the few workers ; without are the many who might work, but who, for one insufficient reason or another, do not come to help. These are the doors of opportunity, and the doors of opportunity are the gates of judgment. To every one of us, whether we are busy in the Master's work or not, comes the personal call of Jesus Christ. If we are standing idle, he summons us into his service; if we are already occupied with tasks, active and inter ested, he quickens and inspires us by his own example. God comes among us to teach us how to live. And the essential characteristic of that life is unselfishness. Jesus Christ comes not to be ministered unto, but to minister. Yes, to give even his life to save our lives. What a distance between him and even the best of 158 THE CHURCH AT WORK. us ! He goes about doing good ; he has com passion upon the sick, the ignorant, the poor, even the sinful, and consults not his own comfort in serving them. Hostility, misun derstanding, ingratitude, he faces every day. The work is not a pleasant work, and the rewards are small enough, weighed in our common scales ; but his deep and blessed love urges, inspires, and strengthens him. Thus he goes on even to the cross. Here is the ideal life — the life of unceasing and unselfish fraternal service. No other life will find acceptance in the sight of God. He who lived it for our sake speaks in the op portunities of parish work as surely as he ever spoke to any passer-by in the streets of the Syrian cities. When the notice of the mis sionary society is given out on Sunday, Jesus Christ calls, the women of the parish as truly as he ever called the names of Mary or of Martha ; and they who answer minister to him as really as did ever any holy woman of old time in the town of Galilee. ELEVEN LAYMEN. " Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Al pheus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the brother of James." — Acts i. 13. These men looked one day out of the win dows of an upper room, and behold, in the street below there passed a funeral procession, the funeral procession of religion. Faith was dead. And Roman, Greek, and Jew walked together in the place of the mourners. For the Romans and the Greeks the ancient creeds had long since lost their charm. The Gentiles believed nothing but the absurd, the grotesque, and the incredible. Worship had turned to witchcraft. The old divinities had at least been stately and dignified and beautiful. They had symbolized great truths. They had met in some measure that deep longing in the heart of man to draw near to God, and to have God draw near to him, which is satisfied for us in Jesus Christ. But now they were all dead. Great Pan was dead; and all the household of 159 160 ELEVEN LAYMEN. the Pantheon lay cold beside him. A plague of doubt had slain the gods. There was some faith, indeed, among the Jews ; but even here the air was pestilential. Of the two classes of men who led the religious thought of Judea, one of them — the Sadducees — had lost faith in the supernatural ; while the Pharisees, their neighbors and opponents, were given over almost altogether to the study of dress and posture ; of mint, anise, and cummin ; of the petty, the inconsequential, and the im pertinent. When Jesus came, looking for reli gion, he was rarely able to find any — except among the irreligious. He had some hope of publicans and sinners ; but there seemed to be nothing whatever in common between the Son of God and the representatives of devotion and of orthodoxy in the day and land in which he came. He said distinctly that they were the children of the devil. The disciples looked down from the windows of the upper room, and the streets were full of mourners. Some of them were sad enough ; others were foolish and indifferent and frivo lous — like the people in the carriages at any funeral. But on they went with empty hearts. For faith was dead. ELEVEN LAYMEN. 161 And then this little company hurried down out of the upper room into the street, and stopped the funeral procession, and brought the dead to life. Faith rose up and began to speak. From that day forth Christianity has been the gospel of the resurrection. It began with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it will never end its work until it has accomplished the resurrection of the race. The old, dead religion of the world began, that morning in Jerusalem, to live again, and to live a new life, different and better. Light and hope and faith and joy and love began once more to stir the hearts of men. The Christianity and the civilization in which we live to-day go back for their origin to that scene in old Jerusalem. All that is best in life dates, like the century in which we live, to the advent of Jesus Christ, and after him to Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the brother of James. One of the remarkable things about these men is that they were all laymen. There was not a priest among them. It is true that they had received the highest and holiest of all ordi nations ; they had been commissioned to their 162 ELEVEN LAYMEN. office by the Lord Christ himself. Neverthe less, it is plain enough that they had no valid orders, as theologians in those days measured validity. They were simply laymen. Presently we learn that a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. Where did they learn the faith? Why, from these devout, enthusiastic laymen, who had a better understanding of the truth of God than the priests had, and were an example and an in spiration to the priests, as good laymen have been upon ten thousand occasions since that day. Everything that grows needs revival. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter are the stages of the journey of life not only in nature but in the experience and history of man. Winter is in evitable. The fruit comes to maturity, and is harvested, and the boughs are bare. By and by even the leaves blow off. The frosts fall. The white of the snow covers the green of the grass. The brooks are frozen over. Life ap pears to stop. That is true also in religion. They were living in the winter-time when Christ came. It is significant that he was born in the chill December. And the winter has returned a great many times since then, and, I ELEVEN LAYMEN. 163 suppose, must come again. But spring comes also. The miracle of the resurrection is re- enacted. Life goes on, stronger and richer than before. Thank God, spring is as sure as winter ! What is it that brings about this glorious spring-time ? Plainly, the sun, shining clearer than before and nearer than before. When the sun shines like that in the sky, there is an end to winter. And when the Sun of righteousness shines like that in the hearts of men there is an end to another kind of winter. Hate and selfishness melt into love, truth shows signs of life, and presently all spiritual nature is awake. It has proved true, again and again, that this reviving sunshine has glowed the brightest and the warmest in the hearts not of the priests but of the people. The laity have saved the church. There was the thirteenth century. At the beginning of it the whole world lay frozen in the depths of polar winter. There seemed to be no life in religion. It was next to impos sible to find any company of the priests who were obedient unto the faith. And then the sun began to shine in the heart of St. Francis of Assisi, and out of his heart into the hearts 164 ELEVEN LAYMEN. of hundreds of earnest men, laymen like him self ; and they went everywhere, carrying sun shine, preaching the gospel, the blessed gospel of the resurrection. And spring came. There was the eighteenth century. Religion never seemed nearer to death in the church of England than at that time. The Puritan Revo lution had ended in defeat. The Restoration had followed. The leaders of the dominant party in the church had taken advantage of their power, and had expelled their opponents. They had succeeded in accomplishing that which short-sighted enthusiasts in the church are forever desiring to accomplish, — they had put the other party out. Nobody was left who did not agree with them. The church was made sectarian. And then came winter, fast and hard. Religion fell into the cold grip of formalism^ and was frozen over solid with the ice of orthodoxy. Then what happened ? Then began the blessed sun to shine again in the heart of St. John of Epworth. And he went about preach ing the word of God and distributing sunshine. And the priests who were not obedient to the faith stood as far away from him as they could, and held up their prayer-books between him and ELEVEN LAYMEN. 165 them to keep the bright light out of their eyes. And the consequence was that John Wesley had to get laymen to do the clergy's work, and right valiantly they did it. The service that was done in the Middle Ages by those good lay- people, the Franciscans, was done again, and done better, five hundred years after, by those excellent Christian men and women, the Wes- leyans. The marvellous growth of the Metho dist Church is the natural result of a movement which set the laity at work. The Christian religion cannot get along with out the labors of the Christian laity. The Lord never meant that there should be only one min ister in a parish. He meant that there should be as many ministers as there are Christian men and women. There must be pastors, priests, and preachers, men who shall be the national leaders of the people, so commissioned and ac cepted. There must be generals and captains in the militant army of the church, as there are in any other army, to decide, to represent, to direct, to lead. Responsibility must be set upon certain individual designated shoulders. But no work goes on as it ought unless every worker shares the consciousness of responsibil ity. No regiment ever won a battle in which 166 ELEVEN LAYMEN. the captain did all the fighting. The finest army that ever entered into war, the army that never lost a field, was made up of men who were just as much interested in the purpose of the fight ing, in the great cause, every man of them, as Oliver Cromwell was who led them. Peter is not enough, nor even John and Peter. The church needs Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the brother of James. There is no more hopeful feature of the life of the church to-day than the emphasis which is being put upon the work of the laity. On all sides men and women are recognizing that they are called to do church work. Member ship in the Christian church is coming to be un derstood te carry with it an obligation to do something for Jesus Christ. There are still, no doubt, a good many Christians — Christians in name — who need to be labored with as if they were pagans. The militant church is still de layed in its march by these laggard soldiers, who must be coaxed and urged and pushed to keep up with the advancing ranks. But the number is smaller than it used to be. ELEVEN LAYMEN. 1G7 This is a day when the builders of a church build also a parish house beside it, as the head quarters of all these parochial industries of the faithful laity. The parish house is the symbol of this new idea of parish life, which is as old as Pentecost. The church exists not for wor ship only, but for work. The church needs not only worshippers, but workers. The first thing is allegiance. The Christian layman must be true to Christ. He must work not for the work's sake, and not for his own sake, but first for Christ's sake. The sole pur pose of all his effort must be to set forward the kingdom of Christ. He is to win the wills of men for Christ. That may be accomplished in the preacher's way, by Christian speech, by the direct appeal of one man to another. It may be accomplished also in a thousand other ways, by every act which commends the church of Christ to the approval of good people. The Christian layman will help to the best of his strength in every endeavor in the church and out of it which looks toward the betterment of men. He will evidence the genuineness of his Christianity by the warmth of his sympathy for all good causes. He will be interested in poli tics, in the promotion of good government, in 168 ELEVEN LAYMEN. the right ruling of the city, in sanitation, in the reform of tenements, in the abolition of drunk enness, in the problem of poverty, in the assist ance of the unemployed, in the bringing in of brotherhood, in the advancing of the efficient missions of art, of music, and of books. He will realize that it is his duty as a disciple of Jesus Christ to do something to make this world nearer to Christ's ideal of a Christian world. The next thing is opportunity. The Chris tian layman will discover his own opportunities. He will not wait in idleness till somebody else invents an opportunity. He will not tarry for the formal organization of a new chapter of the parish guild. Surely, it does not need a long look, nor even a particularly keen look, into the world we live in, to see that it is not an ideal world. The kingdom of God for which we pray, and whose citizens we are already, has not yet gained universal allegiance. Nobody who reads the newspapers, or who even walks along the streets, will imagine that we are living in the millennium. There is no lack of need of betterment. But the name of betterment is only another name for opportunity. Here are all these evils in the society about us ; and here are we, pledged to resist evil, to be the enemy ELEVEN LAYMEN. 169 of it, to hate it with all the zeal and fervor of hatred that is voiced in the old psalms. Plainly, there is enough to do. Do not wait to be invited. Do not wait to have some work assigned you. Go work in your own way, find your own task. No one knows so well as you what you can do best. Peter and James and John and Andrew and the rest of them were men of different ideas and dif ferent abilities. They were agreed only in their allegiance to Jesus Christ. It would have been folly for the others to have delayed till Peter should have set them each at work. Peter knew what task fitted his hand closest, and he proceeded to undertake it ; but he could hardly know what was the ideal service of Simon the Zealot, or of Judas the brother of James. Simon and Judas must use their own minds and their own hands They must enter each in his own way into his own opportunity. The Christian layman has consecrated all that is good in him to the service of Jesus Christ, and he looks about in the spirit of this Master to see what he can do for those who are worse off than he is. How can he spend his money for the best benefit of the neighborhood ? or, if he has influence, how can he exercise it most 170 ELEVEN LAYMEN. fruitfully ? All about us are those whose lives are full of sadness ; they are sick, afflicted, ig norant, imprisoned by poverty. At best, they lack the inspiration of those interests which make up so much of the best of life for us. It would help them if we were only to make friends with them. Social opportunity ? social service ? — there is no end to it. Who, in such days as these, can sit idly in his pew on Sunday, and fancy that he is thereby discharging his religious duty? Who can hon estly answer at the last great day, "I had no chance to help"? Every soul to whom these words may come can be of the most blessed and efficient help to somebody to-morrow. There is plenty of work even in the narrowest neighbor hood for Peter, and James, and John, and An drew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the brother of James. OUR DUTY TO CAESAR. " Render, therefore, unto Caesar the things which are CsBsar's." — St. Matt. xxii. 21. Our duty to Caesar. Thus did Jesus Christ define it. Being urgently invited by members of the two chief political parties of his day to speak his mind upon the question which they had under discussion — thus he answered. These two parties, the Herodians and the Pharisees, were set the one against the other with more than the usual partisan blindness and bitterness. The conditions were peculiar. There had never been much separation in Judea between politics and religion. The Jewish church was the Jewish nation. The prophets were patriot orators who preached politics with vehemence, and entered might and main into public life. It is impossible to think of Isaiah as a quiet parish priest, living at the centre of a narrow circle, letting the great world outside go uninterrupted on its own mistaken way. In New York, in Boston, Isaiah would have been 171 172 OUR DUTY TO CJESAR. the heart and soul of a great, outspoken, radi cal, independent, righteous newspaper. Amos and Hosea would have put themselves in peril of the police by inflammatory speeches on the street-corners and in the parks. All these men were interested in public questions, profoundly and supremely. The saints of that old time were the national' heroes. They were the men who had done con spicuous service for the country. St. Abraham, the founder of the nation ; St. Moses, the leader of the revolution in Egypt, who had brought the people into the blessings of independence ; St. Joshua, who had fought their battles and won splendid victories ; St. David, who had ruled them prudently with all his power. These were the sacred names upon their church calendar. The leaders of the synagogue had been the guides of tfie national councils ; and their sons who sat upon the front seats in their fathers' places were eager to emulate their patriotism and their valor. There was no difference be tween a parliament and a prayer-meeting. Any political question was also a religious ques tion ; into which excellent condition, though in a more Christian spirit, may we come, our selves. OUR DUTY TO CAESAR. 173 The point which was just then at issue was the sovereignty of Csesar. The Herodians were the party of the government ; the Pharisees were the party of the opposition. To the Phari sees it was so grievous a matter that a Gentile conqueror should sit upon the sacred throne of Israel, and a heathen reign over the chosen people, that it seemed an insult to Almighty God. It was as if a Mohammedan were to be brought into the place of the Archbishop of Canterbury. They prayed for revolution. They hated both Ceesar and his viceroy Herod with a fierce religious hatred. Choose, they cried, between us and the Herodians, between God and Caesar. These were the men who came together to listen to a sermon upon the political situation. In one point only they agreed ; they were alike in opposition to the Teacher whom they came to question. Instinctively they felt that he belonged to neither side, that he somehow stood off by himself, alone, independent, a third party of one, looking at the whole matter from a point of view different from theirs. His kingdom was not of this world; his poli tics were neither Herodian nor Pharisaic, but of a new sort, celestial, Christian, and they hated 174 OUR DUTY TO CAESAR. him for it, as the partisan instinctively detests the man who stands upon a plane above his head. They introduced themselves, however, in as polite a fashion as they could, beginning with a compliment. " Master," they said, " we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man, for thou regardest not the person of men." This was a tribute to the absolute frankness of Jesus. They were quite right when they said that what he cared for was the honest truth alone, and that his utterance was not in any way affected by the standing, the influence, or the money of those from whom he differed. But this was altogether for the purpose of tempting him — in that subtle and commonly successful manner of the devil with which we are most of us acquainted to our cost — into some rash speech of unusual and dangerous boldness. " Tell us, therefore, what thinkest thou ? Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? To this question Jesus returned his wonder fully wise answer. He replied neither yes nor no. How, indeed, could he ? For every partisan has a certain amount of OUR DUTY TO CAESAR. 175 truth and right upon his side. No man goes heartily into a cause which does not somehow commend itself to his good judgment. There was a great deal to be said for the Herodians, and there was a great deal to be said for the Pharisees. A categorical settlement of the dis cussion could not fail to be mistaken. Yes, or no; either would be false. Qualifications, ex planations, must precede any adequate reply. There is always a deal of preaching upon mat ters which are under present partisan discussion. The parson will have his say in the debate be tween the scientists and the religionists, be tween labor and capital, between the reformers and the rings ters. And why not? So he speaks the will of God, and in the spirit of Jesus, the Holy Ghost teaching by his voice — why not? Politics in the pulpit? Any thing in the pulpit that will help men, uplift the neighborhood, defeat the devil, save souls, bring earth and heaven nearer together. One difficulty with such preaching is that it is often ignorant. The teacher does not kuow what he is talking about. The details are so many, the need of technical information is so great, the actual conditions and the real rights and wrongs are so hard to get at, that 176 OUR DUTY TO CESAR. the preacher sitting in his study, looking at the world out of a dusty window, is in great danger of mistake. And these mistakes make a bad matter worse. I have known, and so have you, of foolish sermons, mischievous ser mons, which have brought the whole fraternity of preachers into discredit, have disgusted all intelligent and sensible people, and have proved more pernicious than a score of old anathe matized heresies. The preachers of these ser mons were solemn busybodies, intermeddling in other men's matters. They have proved the wise proverb that no knave can do such damage as a mistaken saint. But even when the preacher has some ade quate knowledge of his subject, and is able to preach politics as wisely as a statesman, even then his difficulties are but multiplied ; the more he knows, the more difficult he finds the choice between two sides. What can he say? The matter is a hundred times more compli cated than he thought. Science, politics, eco nomics — these are not plain themes, easy to understand, easy to adjust and to determine. When he stood up in his first rashness to demolish in twenty minutes what Darwin had pondered in silence twenty years before he OUR DUTY TO CiESAR. 177 allowed himself to frame his theory, the case seemed very simple. When he called the tragedy of the industrial situation into his court, and passed sentence with such astonish ing celerity, having for witnesses only the columns of the morning paper, there were no disturbing questions in his mind. But the simplicity was the foolish simplicity of igno rance. After a space of careful study the thing does not seem so plain. Thus he begins to see both sides. He finds out little by little that the Pharisees have somewhat to say for themselves, and that, on the other hand, the Herodians are not so com pletely in the wrong. And gradually, as he goes on, learning wisdom by his manifold blunders, he comes to recognize the divine prudence of Jesus Christ. He begins to deal with these hard questions as Jesus Christ dealt with them. Jesus never entered into the details of any partisan dispute. Neither did he ever attempt to settle any discussion by his own decision. That he distinctly declined to do. He knew very well that no result will ever be reached by adding up all the rights of one side and all the rights of the other side, and subtracting one from the 178 OUR DUTY TO CAESAR. other. And he knew, also, that no third party will ever really bring about of his own voice a final and satisfactory settlement. The dis putants must decide their own discussion. The part of the religious teacher in the mat ter is to lift up the whole debate into clearer air. He must deal with the everlasting veri ties. He must bring the light of eternal principles to shine into this darkness, to show the path. These principles, insisted upon over and over, preached and preached and preached, will by and by bring peace. Caesar's things to Caesar ; God's to God. The Pharisees cannot quarrel with that; the Herodians cannot dispute that. Let them go home and think that over, and follow the wise counsel. That will be the end of partisanship ; that will be the beginning of brotherhood. When they heard these words they marvelled, and left him and went their way ; they had been given the political sermon that they asked for, and it had amazed them into silence. The Herodian's share in our Lord's answer is emphasized every Sunday. We are warned unceasingly to render unto God that which is God's. That, indeed, is supposed by some to be the whole purpose of religion, — to get people OUR DUTY TO CAESAR. 179 to discharge their ecclesiastical and their theo logical duties. But the Pharisees, the care ful observers of these duties, the orthodox church-members, have their share also in the answer. They are to pay due allegiance unto Caesar. Caesar is a short name for the world we live in, for the conditions that surround us, for the society in which we move. Caesar, in his Roman palace, was not an especially admirable person, not a moral pattern for good children; any number of hard things could be said about him truthfully. And Caesar to-day, though he has wonderfully improved, is not a saint. If we are to believe half that the newspapers tell us about political life in this country, we will see that the New Jerusalem has not yet de scended out of heaven into any discovered municipal boundaries. And we know more or less ourselves regarding the social and the com mercial situation. The Christian has sometimes been tempted to turn his face toward the sunset, and to put the world behind him as lying in wickedness, and to wait for night to bury it, and for a new day to dawn in a world to come. He has shut him self up in a monastery, or else, that kind of 180 OUR DUTY TO CAESAR. seclusion falling into disrepute, he has kept his door close shut upon the world outside. He has stayed out of politics, and abstained from society, and taken but slight interest in the world. His conversation is in heaven ; his thoughts and hopes are there rather than here. He has refused to pay tribute to Caesar. But Jesus teaches that there is a tribute which belongs to Caesar. The first duty of a man is not to his own soul ; it is to God for love of God, and then to our brother for love of our brother, and after that to our own selves. We are not brought into being here that we may nurse our souls, but that we may take our part in the life about us, be interested in its interests, share in its responsibilities, and do our best to make it better. Indeed, it is not possible for us to develop our own spiritual life aright, so long as we attend chiefly to ourselves. Some one has said that only God and one man are necessary in any religion except ours, but that God and two men are necessary for even a beginning of the Christian religion. Christian ity is a social religion. Its virtues are social virtues. It is impossible to practise it unless we enter into the company of others. The Christian, accordingly, ought not to be OUR DUTY TO CESAR. 181 so apprehensive of the welfare of his own soul as to avoid these occasions where he may be of help to others. The purpose of the Christian religion is to train up good Christians who will do their duty in every condition of life. Thus the Christian citizen will consider him self called as a Christian to take an active inter est in politics. He will remember that Christ came not to save the church only, but the world ; and he will be religiously concerned in all that in any way influences the world. The wise minister will set a good example to his people by " putting the polls upon his visiting-list." He will belong to the noble army of indepen dent voters. What we need to-day in politics is men of character. We must have the personal interest of more good people. We may discuss reforms forever. Nothing will com'e of it. When good men are in a majority, the reform has come already. Every man who does his civic duty helps toward that end, counts one toward that majority. The Christians in the days of Caesar raised no stand ard of rebellion, made no disturbance in the state, simply paid their tribute, in money, in loyalty to all that was deserving of loyalty, in good citizenship, and tried to be good Chris- 182 OUR DUTY TO CESAR. tians in the difficult political conditions of their time; and the day came when Caesar himself was constrained to be a Christian. They did their duty to Caesar, and it was found to be synonymous with duty to God. WAR AND POLITICS. " And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was hy the gate, and took it, and brought it to David : never theless, he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord." — 2 Sam. xxiii. 16. It is a paragraph from the annals of the wars of Israel. David was fighting the Philistines. David and his men held the rocky hills, and the Philistines were in the green valley. And one day, when the harvest sun was hot and shade was scanty and the battle long and weari some, David grew very thirsty. And he thought, as thirsty people will, of the sweet taste of cool water. He remembered a well at Bethlehem beside the city gate. He had played about it as a boy. He had drunk deep draughts out of the dark depths of it in the hot afternoons. The trees grew green about it ; the fresh winds blew over it ; deep was the clear water in the cool recesses of the rock. David looked out over the tents of the enemy, afar into the green valley, and fancied that he 183 184 WAR AND POLITICS. could almost see the little village, with the well beside the gate. And he said, half to himself, " Oh, that I had a drink of water from the well of Bethlehem ! " And standing by and listen ing were those three stout men. And straight they started for that well. The host of the Philistines lay encamped between. But the men brake through. Down they went, defiant as Goliath, and fought their way by might of arm to the well of Bethlehem and back. And David had his cup of water. The earth has always been a battlefield. Every day men are drawn up somewhere into armed array, and other men, for good cause or for bad, are making their murderous way into their ranks. Men began to fight beside the gate of Eden, and have been fighting ever since. History is divided into chapters by the cam paigns of the wars of nations. The first hero was the man who had a stouter fist than anybody else in the neighborhood. The first king was the iron-armed warrior who was able by his strength and courage to com mand the respect of a considerable number of heroes. The first statesman was he who planned the first successful attack upon a dangerous enemy. The first discoverer ventured into new WAR AND POLITICS. 185 countries that he might kill their inhabitants. The first poet sang his song over heaps of hos tile slain. For ages men were accounted of importance in proportion to their ability to harm their fellow-men. " Saul hath slain his thousands," shouted the people — therefore Saul is a great deal of a man ; " but David his tens of thousands,' rang the answer — therefore David is ten times as much of a man as Saul. The whole world was in the condition of our frontier mining towns before the arrival of the railroad, — every man carried his materials for murder everywhere he went. The priest was set beside the soldier in the estimation of the people only because he was thought to wield invisible weapons, sharper than swords and longer than lances. Women were not considered of much consequence be cause they could not fight. At first men fought like animals for the sheer love of fighting. After that they fought for reputation. They desired the good opinion of their neighbors. And as ideals had not risen then much above mere physical achieve ment, and there was small appreciation yet of wisdom or of sanctity, the man who would win admiration must be strong, fearless of danger, 186 WAR AND POLITICS. ignorant of pity, careless of pain. Naturally the ambitious turned to war. That is what public opinion does. It sets the standard of ambition. It makes a vast dif ference with a nation whether its people have a high or low ideal of excellence. One of the most important definitions in our dictionary is the definition of greatness. What is it to be great ? Is it to dangle at one's waist a string of scalps ? Is it to control a ballot-box of ignorant votes ? Is it to live in a large house and have a bank account running into larger figures ? Is it to bear the name of an honorable family ? Is it to know more than one's neigh bors ? What a difference it makes what answer people in general make to these significant questions ! Or is it to be honest in our deal ings, to be generous, to be considerate of others, to be a learner and a teacher of truths that are worth knowing, to fight for right, to be of some use in the world ? Is that what we account to be the requisite of greatness ? Certain it is that whatever the majority of people find admirable in human life thousands of human beings will strive after. A great part of the mission of the church in the world is to set a standard of appreciation, to teach a true definition of genuine greatness. WAR AND POLITICS. 187 These three heroes, however, fought for neither of these wide reasons, — not for love of fighting, not for desire of reputation. They fought for David. This they did for him. That which uplifted their adventure over all other brave deeds of their day was their loyalty and love. The ideal soldier fights not for himself: he fights for David. His David may be a great leader, or a great cause, or a great country ; but there must be a David. Somewhere behind the soldier, watching his brave onslaught upon the hostile host, ready to applaud as he faces dan ger, ready to welcome and reward his victorious return, his commendation the soldier's greenest laurel — somewhere must stand great David. The day has gone when armies fought like beasts in the black forests for love of murder. The day is passing when nations join in battle, like bullies in back allies, for reputation, in revenge for fancied insults, in vindication of what they are pleased to call their honor, or for the sake of stealing one another's goods or lands. We have driven that sort of fighting out of decent society. It is left now altogether to fools, who make themselves a laughing-stock in duels ; or to ruffians, whom the police carry 188 WAR AND POLITICS. away in patrol wagons. And by virtue of that uplifting of public opinion of which I spoke, by more general learning of the religion of Jesus Christ, we will presently drive it out of the lives of nations. We have not yet quite come to realize that whatever is a crime for an indi vidual is a crime also for a nation. But we are getting nearer to the truth. The day will be a long time coming when all the swords may be beaten into ploughshares, and no man need any longer learn the art of war. Because there will for a long time be ignorant people in the world who cannot per ceive an argument unless it smites them in the face. Nothing but might can teach them right. The just cause will long need to be defended by the stern hands of soldiers. But the day will come when no man will fight unless he fights for a cause, worth fighting for. The heroes of David's army adventured their lives for sake of David. Men in our own time, whom we have in reverent memory, have given their lives because they loved their coun try. They died that we might live. Not for glory, but for liberty ; not for love of battle, but for devotion to a cause, they died. This great united nation, with its just laws, with its secure WAR AND POLITICS. 189 institutions, with its magnificent future, is the heritage of the heroes of the heroes of the Civil- War. Happy the land for whose prosperity her sons are not afraid to die ! Back came the heroes with their cups of water. And what did David do? He would not drink it. He took the battered cup, as if it were the silver chalice of a sacrament, and poured the water reverently upon the ground, like a libation in a sacrifice. But why ? It was the same water of which David had drunk be fore often and carelessly. The look of it, the taste of it, had not been changed. It was a common cup of common water. Again and again at Bethlehem, beside the well, one friend and another had given David the same kind of cup, filled with the same kind of water, and he had never thought of refusing it. It was excel lent water, but he had never thought before that there was anything sacred about it. But now he would not drink it. Now he could but stand, thirsty as he was, and pour it all out upon the ground, with tears in his eyes. Why? Because the cup of water had become the symbol of a splendid deed. The cup meant love. That is what the graves mean where our heroes lie, over which, with words of proud 190 WAR AND POLITICS. remembrance, and voice of prayer, and strains of the old music of the marching army, men scatter flowers. Sacred graves ! Symbols of the love that brave men had for liberty, for union, for our native land. We may not have known the man who lay down thirty years ago in this grave or in that, weary with the fighting of our battles. Even his name may have a strange sound in our ears. But he was a soldier ; he was one of the mighty men who for our sake broke through the host which com passed us about, and brought us the water of natural life out of the beleaguered well of liberty. Honor to him, and gratitude, and reverent remembrance ! Would that men might love their country in the days of peace as some have loved it in the days of war, and be willing to give their lives in its service still, not by dying, but by living for its welfare. Sometimes it seems as if the patriots, having saved the nation, had given over its best interests for safe-keeping to the politicians. There is this difference between a good patriot and a bad politician ; the patriot fights not for himself, but the politician fights for himself, first and last and all the time. It is the bane of this great nation, in our WAR AND POLITICS. 191 chief cities, in the administration of our State governments, in the legislative assemblies that sit in endless and fruitless debate in the Capitol at Washington, that the men are few who serve as David's heroes did, out of enthusiastic loyalty, for love of a leader, of a great cause, of a great country. Self, self, self, and money, money, money — these are the inglorious watchwords of the ignominious contention. Every man in every office whose main pur pose is to get wealth without giving us a full return of useful service for it ; every politician in every party whose feet are swift in the pur suit of plunder, who fights only that he may steal afterwards, is a traitor to the country. He is a rebel. He must be met and whipped as whole armies of stout men, a thousand times better than he is, were sent in swift flight in the Civil War. He is a spy, sneaking in the camp that he may betray our Israel into the hands of the Philistines. He must be fought, not with bullets, but with ballots. It is a fine thing to be a good soldier. It is even finer to be a good citizen. It is a great deed to die for one's country; but it is more glorious, yes, and more difficult, to live for one's country, to love one's land and nation 192 WAR AND POLITICS. with a love so true that when national interests and local interests come into conflict, the per sonal advantage will drop out of sight. Thirty years ago we needed soldiers, and men came forward who counted even the love of home less than the love of country. To-day the great need is for citizens. We have enough men in this nation, counting men as the census- taker counts them ; but what we need is not more men but more man. We want a resolute, undaunted army of manly men, in every station in life, — in the pulpit, in the office, in the study, in the mill, — who are unfeignedly devoted to the interests of the community, to whom the re sponsibility of the ballot is a religious matter, and whom no manner of party allegiance, no bribes nor threats, can induce to follow any leader who proposes to lead them against the welfare of our great nation. Perish the Democratic party ! perish the Re publican party ! — if the leaders of either one put plunder in the place of patriotism, and plan for their own mercenary interests against the advantage of their country, and so turn rebel. Higher than any party is the United States of America, over which may the God of nations, year by year, extend his protecting benediction ! THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CITY. The Bible is the book of the city. It is true that the first heroes of the Bible story lived in a garden; but there was no city at that time for them to live in. It is true, also, that as the history progresses the Bible people are found dwelling in tents, and wandering over the vast plains of the East, and going down on journeys into Egypt, and making long journeys hither and thither in the plains of Sinai ; but we find that they were always in search of a city : that was their continual ambition. They were for ever looking forward to the time when they would possess a city. And by and by, when they did at last come to dwell in a city of their own, how proud they were of it, and how much they loved it, and how loyal they were to it ! In the days of their exile, when they were cast out of the city, and their adversaries had it in possession, they lamented most of all that they were deprived of the sight of those beloved towers. " If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my 193 194 THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CITY. right hand forget her cunning. If I do not re member thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth." They said their prayers, in those days of desolation, turning their faces toward the ruins of the dismantled walls. And still, even to this present, do their descendants make their mournful pilgrimages to that holy city, held by the infidel, that they may pray and grieve beside it. Our Lord when he came was born, it is true, in a village, and was nurtured in a village — an excellent place for the first years of a man's life. But when the time came for him to begin his real work, he did what thousands of young men are doing now, — he moved into the city. And instead of choosing Jerusalem, the town where the temple stood and where the priests and doctors lived, the city of worship, he chose to dwell amidst the brisk streets of Capernaum. By and by when the apostles began their work, they centred their missions in the city. Presently, so strong was the hold of Christian ity upon the cities, that the name of " pagan," or villager, and " heathen," or heath-dweller, came to have their modern meanings. And not only did Christianity begin its work in a city, but in the last book of the Bible, wherein the THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CITY. 195 apostle John beholds his vision of the future, he sees the Golden Age, the ideal life of the race, not under the simile of a holy garden or a holy farm or a holy village, or even a holy temple, — he sees a holy city coming down from God out of heaven. If there is any place in the world where a Christian ought to feel at home, it is the city ; and if there is any place which more than another needs the presence of good Christians, it is the city. The Christian will be remarked among his fellow-citizens by his consciousness of civic re sponsibility. He will be on the side of every thing which looks towards the betterment of the city ; he will be distinctly against anything which hinders the well-being of any citizen. The prosperity of the town depends not so much upon its facilities for making money as upon its facilities for making character. Not mills, but men, mark the progress of the muni cipality. With his means, with his influence, with his time and energy and interest, the Christian helps conscientiously and enthusiasti cally in all good causes. The Christian, that is, in proportion to the earnestness of his Christianity, is a public-spir ited citizen. He is on the side of the town. 196 THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CITY. He believes in supporting its industries and its institutions, in maintaining and extending its good name, in applauding and encouraging its most able and useful inhabitants. When his neighbor writes a book, he reads it ; when his fellow townsman paints a picture, he admires it to the full limit of his taste and conscience, and if he has money enough he buys it ; a speech, a piece of music, an invention, a notable achieve ment brought into being within the city bounds, the good Christian citizen makes the most of. He would not have any man of parts or gifts go away from his native place to find encourage ment. He remembers that Jesus quoted in dis approval that proverb, which is so lamentably true to human nature, " A prophet hath no honor in his own country." The Christian is interested in the public schools, ia glad to serve them if opportunity offers, and is careful as to his vote for members of the board of education. He approves of such a Christian institution in the city as a public library, and of such another Christian institu tion as a public conservatory of flowers ; and would have both of them open to the people seven days in the week. He is interested in public expositions, which give opportunity to THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CITY. 197 all the citizens to see what the city is accom plishing ; he believes in national and civic holi days, and desires to have them kept in such' manner as to emphasize the great truth which they are meant to teach ; he would have a tablet or a stone or a statue set beside every spot of historic consequence in the town, bringing the past into vital and helpful contact with the present; he desires to see the public buildings of the city erected in such manner of architec ture that they shall both please and uplift the minds of all who behold them, and kept in such cleanliness and beauty as shall set a good exam ple to all the citizens ; he would have the parks made beautiful and accessible, and civic bands of musicians playing in them for the delight of the people on the summer evenings ; he would have the attention of the councilmen turned towards provision, not only for the health and protection, but for the pleasure, of the people. The Christian holds, also, that his duty towards the city is not discharged by the pay ment of the tax which supports the policemen and meets the expenses of the county jail. He would have evil prevented rather than pun ished. He is one of those who believe that it is not well to be forever spending money for 198 THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CITY. ambulances and surgeons at the foot of a dan gerous cliff ; better set a stout fence along the top of the cliff to keep people from falling over. Accordingly, the Christian citizen is greatly interested in the moral issues of all civic questions. If there should such a propo sition be made as Mr. Stead supposes, that upon the first day of January an altar should be erected upon a hill east of the town, and dedi cated to Bacchus, and a young man chosen from the youth of the city should be offered as a living sacrifice to that heathen deity, the whole city would be up in arms ; and if upon the first day of July a similar plan should be proposed, that upon another hill to the west, another altar should be raised to Venus, and a young woman should there be made a living sacrifice, there would be another and still more vehement,outcry. People would no longer con sider what party politics they had, or in what church they held their membership, — all the Christian citizens would stand together in unan imous resistance. But that is just what hap pens in every city every day, without much opposition. These unspeakable divinities of the pagan past, these deified courtiers of the devil, are still notoriously worshipped; and day THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CITY. 199 by day, in tens and scores, young men and maidens are sacrificed to them, and no reckoning made of it. The Christian citizen cannot live in comfort while these abominations go on about him. When there is a majority of good Chris tian citizens, there will be an end to such a state of things as this. The Christian recognizes that one of the greatest enemies of Christianity, and one of the strongest provocations to crime, is pov erty. And he knows how to measure poverty. Poverty, unless we set a definition to it, is a most evasive word. He who has one hun dred thousand dollars is poor in comparison with his neighbor who has one million dollars. We are all of us poor compared with certain others. But poverty, accurately defined, is deprivation of all opportunity to enrich one's life. He who has no chance to better himself, who has no encouragement and no outlook, no satisfaction in the present and no hope for the future, is poor. And because the city is all one family, and we are bound together in bonds of Christian kinship, it is not right that any of our brothers and sisters should be lacking in any of those opportunities which belong to every child of God. And although the Chris- 200 THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CITY. tian may not know exactly what to do, his sympathies, at least, are in the right direction, and he desires that all things possible should be done to give opportunity to all who lack. He would have the city see to it that there are clean streets in front of all the tenement houses. He would have sanitary law observed to the uttermost. The Christian citizen, realizing these muni cipal responsibilities, knows, also, that there is need of good officials in the city government to help him, to represent him ; and, accordingly, he takes his share in their selection and elec tion. He wants men who will actually repre sent him, and not some ring or corporation. If he finds that any councilman represents such other influence, he votes next time for some other representative. In electiag the officers of the Christian city, the Christian citizen has no regard to their party membership. The bane of municipal ad ministration in this country is the admixture of national politics. The only requisite of a good official in a city is efficiency. It makes no difference whether he is a Republican or a Democrat, any more than it matters whether he is a Presbyterian or a Roman Catholic. We THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CITY. 201 care no more for his opinion in regard to the tariff, than for his position in respect to the Westminster Confession of Faith. We want a man who will fulfil his duties. For, after all, the city is only a larger office- building, in which the houses take the place of the rooms, and the streets take the place of the halls. There is nO reason why a city should not be managed as well as an office-building. And the city is only another kind of club, to which we all belong, and in which we ought to be served with the common conveniences, re gardless of our income, as men are served in their clubs. The city ought to be conducted on Christian principles. There is no distinction between good business and good religion. That does not mean that there ought to be a prayer- meeting in the council-chamber before every session ; but it does mean that those who have the rule in the city, and those who set them in authority, ought to desire simple efficiency in all municipal administration, and to apply no other test to candidates in city elections. One great difficulty with municipal govern ment, in the opinion of some wise people, is that there is not enough to do which is worth doing. It is the people who live in the little country 202 THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CITY. towns, where all the interests are petty, who fall into miserable gossip and live narrow lives. It is the little narrow country parish in which there are all sorts of parochial fights going on from one end of the year to the other. And it is among those who have obscure and insignifi cant duties that one finds obscure and insig nificant people. Accordingly, on the continent of Europe and in Great Britain, where the best-governed cities upon this planet are to be found, they are pro ceeding upon the principle of giving a great deal of responsibility into the hands of the councilmen. The more they have to do with the great public parks, with the management of libraries, with the water and the gas and the means of transportation, and the natural mo nopolies of the municipality, to be conducted in the interests of all the citizens, the more the great burdens of the town are laid upon them, so much more will they come to feel themselves the servants of the city. And the small men will recognize their inadequate smallness. It will probably be some time before we have an other such company of representatives as we have at present, to our serious cost, in Con gress; for great questions have confronted THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CITY. 203 them, and they have shown themselves unable to give answers. We must have men wise enough to solve our problems. The greater the problems, the plainer the need of the best men we have. The whole desire of the man in the office should be to serve the people to the utmost ; and the purpose of the people should be to get a steady and efficient servant. It would be absurd to put a man in charge of a Bessemer mill who did not know the difference between iron ore and ferro-manganese ; but no more absurd than to put a man into a seat in a city council who has no real knowledge of the ques tions which he is to pass upon, who is not only ignorant, but contentedly and conceitedly ignor ant, of the history of his city, of the principles of municipal government, of the conditions of civic prosperity, of the new teachings of soci ology and political economy. The Christian citizen goes into politics for the good of the city. When there are enough Christians of the right aggressive kind in poli tics the city will begin to be God's city. That was a significant dialogue which took place between Abraham and God concerning the destruction of Sodom. Abraham said, 204 THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CITY. Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city, would you not spare the town for the sake of fifty men. And God said, Yes. But sup pose there should lack five of the fifty, would you destroy the city for lack of five? And God said, No. But should there be but fortjr, or thirty, or twenty, or only ten ? And God said, If there be but ten righteous men in Sodom I will spare the city. It was a fair agreement. For God knew that even ten good, zealous, earnest, righteous citizens, examples of good manners, and missionaries of true religion, could save the wickedest of cities. NEW QUESTS FOR NEW KNIGHTS. "And the Philistines were gathered together into a troop, where was a plot of ground full of lentils ; and the people fled from the Philistines. But he stood in the midst of the plot, and defended it, and slew the Philistines; and the Lord wrought a great victory." — 2 Sam. xxiii. 11, 12. It is evident that chivalry did not begin with the Crusades. There were brave knights even in the days of David. Some think that the name "knight" first meant "a youth," in which case it stands syn onymous with the strength of youth, with the enthusiasm, the zeal, the fire, the hope, and the high purposes of young manhood. Others say that it means " a servant ; " in which case the fittest motto of ideal knighthood is that prince- liest of all heraldic inscriptions, " Ich dien " (" I serve "). And our minds go back to the supreme and consummate flower and pattern of chivalry, the ideal of all knighthood, as of all worthiest manhood, who said, " The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." 205 206 NEW QUESTS FOR NEW KNIGHTS. We may put the two meanings of the word together. To be a knight is to be a strong, enthusiastic, loyal servant. The true knight thinks not of himself, but of another, his master. And who is his master? In feudal days his lord at arms, his prince, his king; but also, then and always, the oppressed, the weak, the down-trodden, the enslaved. He was a true knight who, riding on the way between Jeru salem and Jericho, dismounted when he saw the wounded man fallen by the roadside, and ministered to him, and set him on his own beast, and took him to an inn and cared for him. The Knights Hospitallers lived in Jerusalem centuries before the First Crusade. While the priest and the levite, and all men who, like them, pass by unhelpful on the other side, are the un-knightly. The knight may be called a knight or not ; he may wage his war against the Saracens or the Philistines, or the French or the Americans ; against dishonest politicians, against thieves and liars, against owners of unsanitary tenements, or priests and levites who keep the temples of Bacchus or of Venus, or conspirators against the rights and liberties of their fellow-men — no matter, so he has the true chivalric spirit in his heart. NEW QUESTS FOR NEW KNIGHTS. 207 Here is a fight in a field of lentils, in a garden of beans. The Philistines are gathered together into a troop, and the people flee before them. The people are the men of Israel, the citizens and soldiers of the kingdom of heaven, the rep resentatives of all righteous enterprises. The Philistines stand for all opposers of the right ; they are the army upon whose banners are written the battle-cries of ignorance and bigotry, and selfishness and tyranny, and lust of gain and love of sin. It is the old fight that began in Eden, and has gone on, campaign after campaign, unto this present. The armies of the devil oppose the armies of the living God. Every reformation has been a triumphant battle in this ancient war. Every noble purpose undertaken for the good of man has been a skirmish in this never- ending struggle. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, Moses and Joshua and David, Peter and Paul and John, Godfrey and Richard and Tancred, Bernard and Francis and Dominic, Luther and Cromwell and Wesley, were all soldiers enlisted on the right side of this great fight. Every man who is trying in any sort of way to put light into the place of darkness, and to make the city a city of God, is taking his 208 NEW QUESTS FOR NEW KNIGHTS. part in this righteous battle, and is a knight in the sacred order of the Lord Christ. The Knights Templars of the old time had it for their purpose to secure to every dweller in Jerusalem, and to every visitor thereto, an op portunity to live like a Christian, if he would. We need Knights Templars still who shall discharge that necessary service. The Philistines were gathered together into a troop. They were drawn up in battle order, had some sort of discipline among them, were of one mind about this grim business. They were unanimously resolved to keep possession of the field of beans. The people of Israel, on the other hand, were disorganized, destitute of discipline, and thus able to make but a scatter ing and ineffective fight. And the natural consequence was that the people fled. Under such conditions the people are bound to flee. One of the essentials of success is union. The people of God, the men and women who have a preference for light, if they are ever to accom plish reformation and betterment, must be gath ered together, as the Philistines were, into a troop. Take the bad business which is notorious all over this country, of municipal misgovernment. NEW QUESTS FOR NEW KNIGHTS. 209 It is that old fight in the beanfield over again. The Philistines are gathered together into a ring. The good people who oppose them in the interest of honest administration and of public welfare are without discipline, without organization, without agreement. And the peo ple flee. Of course the people flee ! The beanfield is the city. What is the pur pose of a beanfield? It is to provide hungry people with beans. What is the purpose of a city? It is to provide opportunity and protec tion and the accompaniments of decent living for its citizens. The only rightful errand that men have into a cultivated field is to till the field, or to gather the fruits of it for its owners. The only rightful occupation for the adminis trators of a city is to further in all kinds of ways the well-being of the people. They are the people's stewards. A city is only another form of a great office- building or apartment-house, in which the streets are the halls and stairways, and our dwellings are the rooms. And a city ought to be, and can be, managed as well as any office- building. It can be kept clean. It can be pro tected against disturbances. It can be secured in the possession of good air and good sunlight. 210 NEW QUESTS FOR NEW KNIGHTS. It can be provided with perfect service in the matter of sanitation, of transportation, of light and heat and water. It can be made attractive, adorned with works of art, decked out with flower-beds and fountains, a pleasure to the eye, and an education and a satisfaction to the mind. Whereas, the cities in which this old disgrace ful fight of David's day is being fought over again, with the same result, the people fleeing and leaving the Philistines in possession — who can count their number ? All honor to the brave men of the Crusades ! To Peter the Preacher, to Godfrey the King, to Tancred the Knight, who knew no fear and no reproach, and to their brothers who counted their lives as nothing that they might free the Holy City from the dominion of the infidel ! Where is the holy city of our day ? It is New York; it,is Boston; it is Pittsburg. Every city is the holy city. And the knights of the nine teenth century, like the knights of old, may find in its rescue a field for all their valor, all their chivalry, and all their strength. " And the Philistines were gathered together into a troop, where was a plot of ground full of lentils ; and the people fled from the Philis tines." The people fled because they had no NEW QUESTS FOR NEW KNIGHTS. 211 discipline, no unity, no leader. Even the church is split up into shameful factions. Even in religion Christian people cannot find agreement. They who ought to fight Philis tines fight each other. The Holy City lies under the oppression of the Saracens, while the crusaders quarrel and dispute among them selves. Here is the great, united, magnifi cently officered army of the devil, and here are we fighting in awkward squads, a few in this company, and a few in that, and wondering why the cause of the kingdom of heaven makes so little progress ! One of the good results that followed the formation of the knightly orders of the Middle Ages was the closer unity of Christendom. Men were narrow-minded, shut in by the brief limits of small principalities, having few inter ests outside the walls of their own towns or castles, and despising or hating their brother men, of whom they knew but little. In the language of that time the same word signified " stranger " and " enemy." Two knights who met upon a forest road fell speedily to fight ing. That was the universal custom of the day. Everybody with whom you were not ac quainted was to be taken for a foe. 212 NEW QUESTS FOR NEW KNIGHTS. Then came the great enterprise of the Cru sades. Men were enlisted from all the states of Europe. The knights of Italy, of Germany, of France, of England, looked into each other's faces, learned each other's language, fought side by side against the common enemy, and compacted friendships deep and lasting. The Knights Templars, the Knights Hospitallers, knew no difference of race or nation. Every Christian who would fight the Turk was wel comed as a brother. The knights of the nineteenth century are the men who have that fine chivalric spirit. The day will come when a new knighthood will bring men, regardless of all foolish and petty differences, into a great fraternity where in the supreme test of membership shall be a good strong hatred of the devil, and where every man shall be a brother, heart and soul, to every other man who is willing to join in the great fight. That will be the knighthood of the men and women who believe in Jesus Christ. That will be the great united Christian Church, for which let all good people pray. When that day comes let all Philistines flee ! But how shall that day come ? It is plain that it will begin to come when you and I are NEW QUESTS FOR NEW KNIGHTS. 213 loyal knights of Jesus Christ. And it will keep on getting nearer and nearer in proportion as more and more of the men and women of our acquaintance become more knightly ; that is, more enthusiastic, more zealous in good works, more faithful in the service of the Lord Christ and of our brethren who need our help. It is idle to dream of regenerating society without regenerating the individual. That old fight in the field of beans was turned, after all, into a victory. The people fled; yes, but not all. There stood one hero " in the midst of the plot, and defended it, and slew the Philistines ; and the Lord wrought a great victory." The right arm and the good sword and the valor of a single hero saved the day. I am afraid that the people who fled were not only undisciplined but uninterested, soldiers. They did not care enough for the possession of the field of lentils to run the risk of its defence. They were like a great many other people who are content to let the devil have his way. It would indeed be a great thing, they confess, to have a Christian city. But the devil must first be dispossessed. And that will need as sturdy fighting as ever men in armor knew 214 NEW QUESTS FOR NEW KNIGHTS. about the walls of old Jerusalem. And the un- knightly folk draw back. The Philistines show their strength, and the people flee. They do not really care. But one man cared and dared. And then it was discovered that the Philistines, at whose menace all knees trembled, were but weak and despicable enemies. One man could whip them all. The fact, however, which I desire to empha size is that the man who won the battle stood alone, and won it single-handed. God makes great use of minorities. Every good cause begins in the heart of one good man. Sometimes he goes on unhelped and unbefriended. Nevertheless, though alone, on he goes, and stands up face to face with the Philistines, determined, brave, persistent, sure of the right, and resolved to defend the right even with his life. The people flee ; the Phi listines come on in force : let them come on ! Though their bodies be of furnace flame, and their swords keen as the forked lightning, yet will I stand my ground! That is what the good knight Tancred said. Peter the Hermit waits by the gate of Je rusalem, and the Holy City is in the hands of the Mohammedans, and cruelty and sacri- NEW QUESTS FOR NEW KNIGHTS. 215 lege are going on day after day unhindered. And Peter is but a weary pilgrim, with noth ing but a pilgrim's staff and empty pockets. Everybody is afraid. Every man waits for the next man to do something. The people flee, and Peter stands alone. You know the story. That solitary pilgrim with the cross upon his shoulder aroused all Europe ; and the Crusades began. History is full of amazing victories wherein one man has faced an army. The progress of the world is a record of the prowess of minor ities. Men whose memories go back to the days before the Civil War do not need ex amples from the Middle Ages to prove the truth of this fine knightly story. The peo ple fled, but John Brown did not flee. A whole mad phalanx of Philistines could not scare John Brown. And by and by the mi nority of one grew into an army, and the army freed the slaves. Whoever has learned as he ought the lessons of the past, believes with all his heart in the final triumph of a righteous and resolute mi nority. The true knight of the nineteenth cen tury stands with that minority. The task of the knight of the nineteenth 216 NEW QUESTS FOR NEW KNIGHTS. century is, as of old, the rescue of a city. But our Jerusalem is the city where we live. To make this city clean and Christian, the home of universal opportunity, the abode of brotherly love, where the privileged share with the unprivileged, and the adversity of one is felt to be the adversity of all ; where justice dwells, and honesty and good religion, and the laws of God are kept, and Christ is Mas ter, — that is the purpose of true knighthood and true manhood in this town. And he who aims at such a purpose will begin that refor mation with himself, with a resolute minority of one. THE FAILURE OF THE PHARISEE. " Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee, and the other a Publican." — St. Luke xviii. 10. And the two men, having said their prayers, returned to their homes, one with the blessing of God, and the other without it. Yet the Pharisee was quite unconscious of his failure. No more complacent man walked the streets of Jerusalem. No man went up that day into the temple of God, or came down again, with a better opinion of himself. That is an appalling condition of things, when one considers what it means ; for human nature does not change much with distance of time or space, does not alter much with differ ence of speech or dress. If a citizen of Jerusa lem could go about so blind to his fatal failure, the residents of other towns, closer to us, may walk along familiar streets, and in and out of parish churches, with just as black a shade over their eyes. It will be worth while, therefore, to look somewhat closely into this case, in order 217 218 THE FAILURE OF THE PHARISEE. to discover, if we may, the causes of this Phari see's serene unconsciousness. The Pharisee, we will find, was blinded to his failure by the strong light of two kinds of success. He had attained this desirable success, — his neighbors all thought well of him. There is a temptation which accompanies that most delightful and satisfying approbation, the temp tation to put compliment in the place of con science. " Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you," — because, unless you are upon your guard, you will take that flattering speech as the very voice of God. You will persuade yourself that you are approved of God because you are applauded by your neighbors. You will believe that you are doing your duty because most people think you are. And very likely you and your admirers will be quite mis taken. For success, as we define it, is not always satisfactory to God. His judgment is sometimes startlingly different from ours. The Pharisee had also attained this other de sirable success, — he thought well of himself. He had some excellent reasons for thinking that he was an uncommonly good man. He took himself, accordingly, at his own valuation. But nobody can be trusted to do that. How- THE FAILURE OF THE PHARISEE. 219 ever truthful we may be in general, we will tell lies to ourselves about ourselves. Nothing is so deceptive as self-deceit. The Pharisee does not appear to have doubted for a moment that God's estimate of him would agree entirely with his own. God, he thought, was a magni fied Pharisee. Naturally we argue in that way, making God the superlative of man the posi tive. The bigot believes that God is a divine bigot; the liberal thinks that God does not care much about the things which are not of interest to him. But the only safe ideal of God is that which is based upon the character of Jesus Christ. God is like Christ; and in whatever respect we are unlike Christ, God is unlike us, and values things at a valuation different from purs. The Pharisee was not at all like Jesus Christ; and thus he was quite mistaken about God. He took the approval of God altogether for granted ; and, while he least imagined it, he offended God. There is only one failure which is greatly worth regretting, and that is failure with God. Sometimes failure with one's self is really no failure at all. No man was ever more emphatic in his belief that he had made a failure of his life than was Elijah. He desired to die, that 220 THE FAILURE OF THE PHARISEE. the earth might be no longer encumbered with such an utterly useless and defeated creature. But we know that Elijah was quite mis taken. Sometimes failure with others is no failure at all. No life ever ended amidst cir cumstances more plainly indicative of blank defeat than the life of Jesus Christ. Forsaken by his disciples, deserted by his friends, hated by all the orthodox leaders of established re ligion, condemned for sedition and for blas phemy, for violation of the laws of God and man, and hanging alone upon the ignominious cross, what wonder if the watchers there in the noonday darkness thought in their hearts that that was the failure of failures ! But we know that it was the victory of victories. There is only one fatal failure, and that is failure with God. The Pharisee had failed with God. Yet the* Pharisee had great advantages. Those two eminent successes of his, while they did, indeed, offer strong temptations, yet brought with them, nevertheless, much strength and help. That good opinion of the Pharisee's neigh bors meant appreciation. Whenever this man did a good thing, or said a good word, some body was sure to thank him for it. Apprecia- THE FAILURE OF THE PHARISEE. li-1 tion brings encouragement and inspiration with it always. It does, indeed, minister to self- consciousness ; and thus we are helped to understand that wise word of Goethe, that whenever a man does an excellent deed we all conspire to prevent him from doing it again. But if we are able to overcome this, appreci ation helps us to go on and do better another time. Then, too, this universal appreciation set the Pharisee an ideal of character. He knew what his neighbors expected of him, and that they expected a great deal : that helped him wonderfully to live up to that ideal. As for the Publican, there was no deed that he could do good enough to get any apprecia tion from anybody. There was no motive of his so excellent, so sincere and unselfish, but some one would naturally misinterpret it. As for a character to maintain, nobody expected him to have any character at all — except a bad one. The Publican was like the released convict who complains that he has no chance to make an honest living. His portrait is in the rogues' gallery. Every one who knows him waits to hear that he has committed another offence and earned another term in prison. It is plain enough what influence that malign expecta- 222 THE FAILURE OF THE PHARISEE. tion would have upon a man's career. You can see how he would be most heavily handi capped. It would be easier for him to be a rascal than a righteous man. Even his right eousness would be called hypocrisy. Presently, unless there were something uncommonly good in him, he would live up to the character which people gave him. There was also the Pharisee's good opinion of himself. No doubt his estimate was honest and well-founded. The man had a high degree of self-respect to maintain. And he had the strength which comes from a long course of up right living. His good impulses had been de veloped into natural habits. In a dozen ways he had grown in excellence as the child grows into the trick of walking or of playing upon the piano, so that he did good things and conducted himself commendably without needing to think about it. He was so respectable and virtuous that it was comparatively easy for him to keep on being respectable and virtuous still. It was natural for this man to be good. And the man was good. He was no extor tioner ; he was not unjust ; he was a person of sterling and unveneered morality. Weigh these descriptive phrases, and you will find that they THE FAILURE OF THE PHARISEE. 223 mean much. Here was an upright business man, telling no lies in his trade, paying his debts, keeping his hands out of his neighbors' pockets, dealing fairly with the men in his employ, and, in general, doing business on Jewish principles, — which is the next best thing to doing busi ness on Christian principles — neither unjust nor extortionate. And he was as good a man at home as he was in his shop, a faithful hus band, a model of domestic virtue. The Pharisee's good character went even farther, — he was a religious man. This was by no means his first visit to the temple at the hour of prayer. He was a regular and punctual and devout church-goer. We know from his membership in the party of the Phar isees that he was not only religious, but prom inent among the religious. People pointed to him, as he walked that morning toward the temple, as one of the pillars of the Jerusalem church. Even among the saints he was con spicuous for his strict living, for his literal obedience to all the rubrics of his church : he fasted twice every week. Besides that, he gave tithes of all that he possessed. Regularly and religiously did he set apart one-tenth of his income that he might spend it upon works of charity. 224 THE FAILURE OF THE PHARISEE. There are two kinds of people of whom Jesus Christ especially disapproved, — those who trust in themselves that they are righteous, and those who despise others. The two disastrous charac teristics, as in this instance, often go together, — content and contempt. This excellent gen tleman who thus fell into grievous failure, lost the favor of God because of his content with himself and his contempt for others. For content means neglect of opportunity. No man was ever satisfied with himself who measured his life by the rule of opportunity. Who has done all the good deeds he might have done ? Whoever begins to recite a roll of his excellent actions, or to congratulate himself upon his abstinence from evil, he stands beside this Pharisee, and we perceive that he is the same kind of man. The little child, who does not know much yet, delights to rehearse his bits of knowledge ; the philosopher, who after years of study has caught a glimpse of the vastness of the realm of truth, knows himself to be but a gatherer of shining pebbles upon the beach of the illimitable ocean. Our estimate of our spiritual worth is apt to be curiously in an inverse ratio to our religious attain ments ; it is the indifferent Christian who THE FAILURE OF THE PHARISEE. 225 thinks himself a saint ; the saint is conscious of his sins. And content is a sign of spiritual stagnation. Thorwaldsen carves a statue in which he finds no fault, and he drops his chisel in despair, be' cause he is satisfied. He has gone now as far in his art as he is likely to go. For content dis courages further endeavor ; and when endeavor stops, growth stops, and the end of growth is the end of life. Even to us, with our imperfect and mistaken judgment, the Publican was the more hopeful man of the two. There was some chance of improvement in him. He had at least made that beginning which is just as much needed for progress in spiritual as in scientific knowledge, — the confession of ignor- ance and of need of help. None are so remote from amendment as they who, being blind, de- clare that they see. The Pharisee knew it all ; nobody could teach him. That is a type of perj son whom we all recognize and detest. To be receptive, to be humble, to be desirous of know ing and of growing, is essential if one would increase in the favor of God. To his content with himself the Pharisee added contempt for his neighbor. He thanked God that it had mercifully pleased him to di- 226 THE FAILURE OF THE PHARISEE. vide men into two classes, and to put him into class one, and to relegate " other men," the whole common crowd of them, to class two. " God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are." That is as unchristian as anything can be. It flatly contradicts the whole intention of the Christian gospel. Jesus Christ came to drive contempt out of the world, and to bring brotherly love in. The one virtue upon which he insisted more than any other as essential to the approval of God is the virtue of brotherli ness. The one deadly heresy is the heresy of Cain. No man who asks, " Am I my brother's keeper?" saying "no" in his heart, is within sight of the kingdom of God. Men are not ad mitted into college for their good looks, but for their intellectual attainments ; and no human being will enter heaven upon the credentials of his respectable life : brotherly people are wanted there, and none else. Take, now, a man who is an honest merchant and an upright citizen, an example of domestic virtue and a leader in the church, and who out of every hundred dollars of his income gives ten dollars to the poor, and you have an un commonly good man. And yet Christ said, "Except your righteousness shall exceed the THE FAILURE OF THE PHARISEE. 227 righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." So that one may have all the graces and the sanctities which marked this eminent citizen of Jerusalem, and yet be making spirit ual shipwreck of his life. No man will be saved by respectability. That is worth thinking about. As for the Publican, doubtless he described himself with accuracy when he prayed that God would be merciful to him, a sinner. Any one seeing the two men that day, climbing the tem ple steps together, would have remarked upon the contrast. And had you asked the question, Which of these two is nearer to the kingdom of heaven? you would have been answered, with some natural surprise at your folly in asking, The Pharisee. But Christ said, The Publican ! God's judgment is evidently diverse from ours. God's thoughts, as the wise psalmist phrased it, are as remote from ours as the east is from the west. The sermon sounds in the ears of the hearers, wise and unwise, rich and poor, saints and sinners. But in the sight of God some of the rich are poor, and some of the poor are rich, and some of the wise are foolish. Some who are accounted first by us and by them- 228 THE FAILURE OF THE PHARISEE. selves, God sets among the last ; and we would no doubt be unanimously amazed if the names of the first should be read out here by an angel of God from the pages of the books of God. For no amount of advantage can insure one against spiritual failure ; and no disadvantage, no complication of adverse and hindering cir cumstances, can keep anybody from making a man of himself and winning the benediction of the absolutely impartial Judge. But what was the matter with the Pharisee ? Wherein did he fail ? He failed, our Lord tells us, for a reason, or a combination of reasons, which he puts into a single sentence, — ¦ because he " trusted in him self that he was righteous, and despised others." Contempt is as unreasonable as it is unchris tian. Take intellectual contempt, for example, the spirit which says, " I am wiser than thou." The most learned of scholars has no monopoly of knowledge ; many humble folk know important things of which he is quite ignorant. Some body wrote a great book once in Latin, and entitled it " De Omnibus Rebus," — " Concern ing All Things ; " and then presently added a supplement, which he entitled " Et Ceteris Re- THE FAILURE OF THE PHARISEE. 229 bus," — "And a Few Other Things." But even thus he did not record all that is knowable. Everybody we meet knows more than we do about something. And, after all, the really important thing is to be rather than to know. Character is better than culture. And culture sometimes endangers character by imparting this foolish pharisaical spirit of mistaken superi ority. Take, also, the case of social contempt; the feeling, " I am politer than thou." This is the most unchristian element in society. It puts barriers between " classes," erects walls of caste. Christian courtesy is never guilty of contempt. The essence of good manners is consideration for the feelings of others. Whoever fails in thoughtfulness for the humblest household ser vant betrays vulgarity, and is a social Pharisee. Then there is religious contempt, which says, "I am better than thou." Ah, but are you? That is what this mistaken Pharisee mistakenly imagined And thus we learn our lesson in humility. God rejected the proud and gave his benediction to the humble. DISPOSITION AND DUTY. " A man had two sons ; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to-day in the vineyard. And he answered and said, I will not; but afterward he repented himself, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir; and went not." — St. Matt. xxi. 26. Nothing can take the place of obedience. It is very well to be respectful and good-mannered, like this second son, and to be prompt at prom ising; but if that is all, then it is worse than nothing. The second son, with his polite, def erential "I go, sir," not only disobeyed his father, but also lied to him. The second son is the man who makes hearty and reverent response to the reading of the commandments in church on Sunday, and then breaks five or six of them on Monday. " Thou shalt not steal," says the minister. " Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law," says the man; and then for six days he devotes himself, body, mind, and spirit, to every variety of respectable stealing known to the world of trade. 230 disposition and duty. 231 Or the second son is a daughter ; the second son is a woman. " Thou shalt do no murder," says the minister. " Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law," says the woman ; and all the rest of the week, with words softer than butter, which yet are very swords, she stirs up strife, causes pain, strikes at people's hearts. Jesus had in mind the chief priests and elders of the people. They seemed to be religious. Who could be more attentive than they were to all the externals of religion ? Who could go to church oftener than they did? Who could be more orthodox in creed, more precise in rit ual, more mindful of conventionalities? Every body could hear them saying, "I go, sir." And yet Jesus said to them that even publicans and harlots would precede them into the kingdom of heaven. These eminently respectable citi zens and churchmen Jesus accounted as worse than the avaricious tax-collectors with whom no decent folk would associate ; while there were women of the street in that town whom he declared to stand higher in the esteem of God than some of the ladies who adorned the society of Jerusalem. That is as true to-day as it was then. God 232 disposition and duty. is not deceived by good manners. He is not deluded by smooth phrases. His knowledge of us is not confined to the information that we give him in our prayers. He does not lose sight of us when we go out of the church door. We cannot cheat God by a long face, or by a pious accent, or by a devout attitude. We may say, " I go, sir," in the most humble and obedi ent and filial tone of voice imaginable. God waits to see if we really go. And if we go not, all our pretences count for nothing. I ask your especial attention, however, to the case of the first son. Evidently his whole in clination was against going ; he had no mind to work that day in the vineyard. Afterward he repented himself. But that does not mean that he was seized with a great longing for labor, and that when he went he carried a ready mind and a cheerful. spirit with him. Probably even as he obeyed he moved reluctantly. He had other plans for that morning. His conscience may have troubled him as he reflected upon his dis respectful speech, and thus he finally obeyed. But that was hardly ideal obedience. Under such conditions was this man's obedi ence of any worth ? Having the mind that he had, not really interested in his father's work, DISPOSITION AND DUTY. 233 detesting vineyards, might he not have said to himself, " If I go, I will be playing the hypo crite. I will appear to be a good son when I am not. It will seem to others that I am work ing willingly, while in truth nothing impels me to this task except the pricks of my inconven ient conscience." And, saying this, might he not properly have stayed at home ? We are most of us aware in our own experi ence of this alternative between disposition and duty. We lack the proper disposition; ought we, then, to undertake the duty? This is such a frequent question that we will do well to study it, and see if we can get some sort of serviceable answer. Let me make the question perfectly plain by an illustration. It is the hour at which we are accustomed to say our prayers ; but we are not in the spirit of prayer. We are tired, or it is late, and we are half-asleep, or something has gone wrong; we are perturbed in spirit, in an unchristian temper, possessed of the devil; or doubts beset us, and we ask ourselves whether it is of any use to pray, whether God hears prayer or answers prayer. Somehow, we are not at all in a prayerful mood. Shall we, then, as we have been accustomed at this hour, kneel 234 DISPOSITION AND DUTY. down and recite the phrases of petition? Is not such a proceeding hypocritical or foolish, or even irreverent? Are we not breaking one of the commandments and taking the name of God in vain? Must not such prayers as we would pray be like the idle revolutions of the cylinders of the praying-machines of the moun tains of Thibet? Will God, who cares only for the disposition of the heart, and hears only the voice of the soul, and who cannot be de ceived, as we have just been saying, by mere good manners, or by devout and reverential phrases — will he look with any sort of appro bation upon such an empty prayer as this ? Here, now, is the question plain enough be tween disposition and duty. If we lack the right disposition, shall we undertake the duty ? The son who in his heart is saying, " I will not," can he please the father if he goes ? There can be no doubt as to the emphasis that Jesus put upon the importance of a right disposition. The Sermon on the Mount begins with blessings not upon achievement but upon disposition. He who would be loved of God must be humble, must be meek, must be merci ful. And presently there seems to be pre sented, in the light of a sharp contrast, the very DISPOSITION AND DUTY. 235 case, at least in some of its points, which we are now considering. Here are two men who say their prayers ; one in a right spirit, the other in a wrong spirit. One does little more than to pronounce the words of his prayer, making a street-corner his oratory, that he may be remarked of men. The other really prays. The result is that the man who says his prayers only for the sake of the approbation of men, gets that approbation, but no more. Only the man who prays to God that he may be heard of God is blessed by God. The case is the same with the giving of alms. It would seem from this that a right disposition is absolutely essen tial to give any value in God's estimation to the performance of duty. This emphasis upon the importance of dis position is even plainer in the teachings of St. Paul. He informs us that without faith it is impossible to please God, and that without charity all our doings are nothing worth. And faith and charity are evidently details of a right disposition. If we lack faith or charity, why, then, do anything ? If the essential disposition be wanting, why, then, trouble ourselves about duty? If we are not in the spirit of prayer, is it not lost time to pray? May not even our prayer be turned into sin ? 236 DISPOSITION AND DUTY. Something like this does, indeed, appear to be read in some systems of theology. Thus it is written in one of the Thirty-nine Articles : " Works done before the grace of Christ, and the inspiration of his Spirit, are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ . . . and we doubt not but they have the nature of sin." According to such doctrine, duty without a right disposition is transformed into iniquity ! But what do we mean by the " grace of Christ " ? We mean the shining in the soul of man of that true light that knows no boundaries of sect or creed, but lighteneth every man that cometh into the world. Wherever there is a worthy deed, there is evidence of faith in Jesus Christ. Every good word or act, in any land or any time, in any religion, or outside of all religion, comes into being by the inspiration of his Spirit. What do we mean by a right disposition ? The word includes a wide difference of degrees. Most of our difficulty in adjusting the relation between disposition and duty comes from setting the measure of disposition quite too high. By faith we may mean the faith of St. Paul ; by love we may mean the love of St. John. By DISPOSITION AND DUTY. 237 the desire to serve God we may mean the hunger and thirst after righteousness that is praised in the Sermon on the Mount. If we were to make the doing of duty wait for these high attainments, we would wait a long time. A long time ? we would wait forever ! For faith and love grow only by doing more and more, and better and better, the deeds of duty : at first with but the beginnings of a good in tention, with much admixture of unworthy motive ; but presently with increase of zeal, with higher purpose ; then with all the love of all our heart. That is how the saints them selves grew into sanctity. Thus duty develops disposition. Good deeds, if they are kept in sufficient majority in men's lives, will make good hearts. Let a man accus tom his hands to extend themselves helpfully in the direction of need, and his tongue to shape sentences of charitable and encouraging speech, and his feet to walk in the paths of righteous ness and peace, let him turn away his eyes from beholding vanity and his ears from foolishness and malice, and presently the whole man will be found heart and soul upon the right side. But he who waits to feel right before he acts right, he who expects the fulness of faith first, 238 DISPOSITION AND DUTY. and then the deeds of faith afterwards, is pre paring disappointment for himself. This is one of the manifold applications of that great word of St. Paul : First the natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. So we grow from the obedience of childhood into the willing service of maturity ; from the bondage of the law to the freedom of the gospel. So the hand helps the heart, and the doing of duty changes disposition. The probability is that the son who said in such disrespectful fashion, " I will not," and then presently, but not yet with much love in his heart, repented and went, worked for the first hour in some sullenness of temper. But the second hour the task grew pleasanter. And before the day was over it had happened to him, as to the obedient lepers who were cleansed as they went,, he came into a right disposition as he went. But if he had held back from his duty at the start for lack of an ideal disposition, he would never have attained it, and even his duty would have gone undone. We are not doing well when we measure the worth of our deed by its reward, and refrain from doing it when we are afraid that some de fect in our disposition may prevent us from re- DISPOSITION AND DUTY. 239 ceiving the blessing of God. The purpose of working in a vineyard is not to get praise for working, but to get the work accomplished. That is what the father wants. If it is done enthusiastically, so much the better ; but, in any way, let it be done. God calls us to duty, and the only right answer is obedience. If it can be glad and willing and loving obedience, happy are we ; but in any case, whether we ourselves get enjoyment and blessing from the task or not, the call must be obeyed. The will of God must be done for the sake of God, not for the sake of ourselves. Whether our hearts be right or not, at least let us keep our hands right. What is the minimum of right disposition ? I think that we may take the smallest desire to do our duty as being enough of a right disposi tion to begin with. Undertake the duty, and step by step God will provide the disposition. A plain example of the right relation between disposition and duty is this : The bell rings, and a visitor is announced, arid we are tired or busy, or otherwise provoked, at being called upon. What shall we do? Shall we betray our feelings ? Shall we go in to meet the visi tor with a cross face and an unpleasant manner, without a welcome ? That would be the truest 240 DISPOSITION AND DUTY. sign of our real disposition. But we do not do that. We make the best of the situation. We are well aware of the ideal way in which to receive a guest. We know that we ought to be courteous and hospitable, and pleasant in our look and speech. And we simply do the best we can. The disposition is not at all ideal. If our guest could read our mind the call would probably be made a very brief one. Neverthe less, we do our duty. Who does not know by experience how often the heart follows the lips, how in proportion as we speak pleasantly we think pleasantly ; so that in most cases, after a little, duty and disposition meet. We said "I will not," but we repented ourselves and went, and it came out better than we thought. That is what we ought to do at the call of every duty. We can at least obey. Ideal obe dience includes the whole will and the whole heart. We cannot begin with that. But we can begin with what we have. God calls. It is better to obey blunderingly than not to obey at all. The hour comes, then, at which we are accus tomed to say our prayers, and we are not in the spirit of prayer. Or it is the time at which we are accustomed to look for guidance in the word DISPOSITION AND DUTY. 241 of God, and we are not in a mood for Bible- reading. Or the bells are ringing for service, and we are not in a church-going temper. Or the table of the Lord is spread, and we are bid den, and we are of a mind to turn away. Or the voice of God is heard summoning us to work in the vineyard, to do this or that good deed for him, and we have no good heart for the good deed. We lack the disposition ; shall we then forego the duty ? The answer that is given by the voice of spir itual experience is unhesitating and direct. Never mind the disposition. There is no dispo sition that is spiritually fatal except that of complete self-satisfaction. Do the best you can. If you cannot do the whole of your duty, do a part. If you cannot do it as you would like, do it as you can. Never forget that " the best is often the enemy of the good ; " that the devil makes use of our ideals to discourage us. If you can do no more than to set yourself reso lutely at God's service, and to say words and phrases, say the words and phrases. Presently you will find them changing into real petitions. If we do our duty, God will make the good deed grow into the right disposition. FOREIGN MISSIONS. " The field is the world." — St. Matt. xiii. 38. Whoever would learn the boundaries within which missionary work ought to be done may well begin his studies in religious geography with this descriptive sentence. Hang up a map of both the hemispheres, with all the continents and all the islands and all the oceans upon it, with polar ice at the top and polar ice at the bottom, and the equator across the middle of it ; that is the map of missions. Jesus stands in the midst of that little con tracted, out-of-the-way, provincial Palestine, with an obscure company of fishermen and peasants about him, and looks out into the immeasurable reaches of time and space, and says, "The field is the world." Remember that the locality was Judea, and that the listeners were Hebrews. The place and the people stood for sectarianism and nar rowness. Remember that the time was cen turies ago, in a day when the idea of a universal religion had never even been dreamed of. The 242 FOREIGN MISSIONS. 243 profoundest philosopher, the most radical re former, the most far-seeing and prophetic states man, had not conceived of the desirability, or the possibility, or even the merest visionary outline, of a religion for the race. A hundred and fifty years later the sceptic Celsus ridiculed the notion of a universal religion as a colossal folly. We are so wonted to the wide idea, it so pervades the Christian air we breathe, that it is not easy for us to understand how the words sounded to the little congregation that heard them first. " The field is the world." " Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." "Go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." We have hardly learned the meaning of that message yet. We are forever limiting the field, and asking, Who is my neighbor ? and trying to put narrow duties in the place of broad ones, and questioning the value and the use of foreign missions. But in the days in which he lived, sectarianism was accounted essential to sanctity. 244 FOREIGN MISSIONS. No man was considered orthodox unless he was narrow-minded. Jesus of Nazareth stood by himself, the only man of his time who looked over the tops of the dividing fences into all the world. It is an evidence of the uniqueness and singularity of his character more convincing than a score of miracles. Even to-day, with all the widening-out of thought, with all the brilliant generalization of the philosophers, with all the bands of steel that girdle the planet and bring the continents together, with all the marvels of steam and printing and electricity which make men mas ters of space and conquerors of time, so that we are all citizens of one city, having Central Asia and Central Africa for suburbs, still we are be hind the thought of Jesus Christ. We are not yet as wide-minded as he was. We are still content within the limits of a provincial and parochial Christianity. We still need sermons upon foreign missions. One of the disadvantages of foreign missions is that they are such a long way off. Not many of us have visited Africa or China, or ever expect to. We find it difficult to realize the conditions of life and work in those distant regions. The imagination, always an essential FOREIGN MISSIONS. 245 element in enthusiasm, finds little to build upon. What our missionaries are doing in those remote countries, what their hardships are, what kind of stumbling-blocks they have to change into stepping-stones, and how they are succeeding in that difficult endeavor, we do but vaguely know. This is not the fault of the missionaries. They do their best to keep us posted. They are forever writing letters, and their correspond ence is printed every month in full in our mis sionary magazines. But we do not read the letters. The whole matter is out of sight and out of mind. These good men are doing our work. They represent us. They are in our place, out there on the border, trying where such effort is imperatively needed to make this world a Christian place to live in, and succeed ing wonderfully well, for the most part. But we are not interested. It is said that in some churches the announcement that upon the fol lowing Sunday a missionary from some remote outpost of the church will be the speaker will considerably diminish the size of the congrega tion. We have no special love for missionaries. One of the reasons why we do not read foreign missionary correspondence with more 246 FOREIGN MISSIONS. interest is that we are so far behind in mis sionary history. The letters take for granted, of necessity, a hundred things which we ought to know, but of which we are quite ignorant. It is like taking up a newspaper to-day, after a month's interruption, and reading the latest news of the latest war. It would be unintelli gible. Another reason why the letters do not in terest us is that they are not particularly interesting. They are very quiet, unromantic, commonplace epistles. They tell about plant ing gardens, and building cabins, and teaching arithmetic and theology, and preaching the old gospel to small congregations. The kind of correspondence that would really attract us must read like chapters out of mediaeval his tory. We would like to hear of the conversion of vast multitudes, of the dramatic baptism of pagan warriors and princes, of the tragic mar tyrdom of some of our missionaries. Instead of that, the work goes on for the most part quietly and most undramatically. It is not especially brilliant work. But we have good reason to believe that it is honest, effective, and permanent work, which is far better. There is probably more martyrdom than we hear of ; but FOREIGN MISSIONS. 247 it is that silent, everyday martyrdom of personal self-sacrifice and unsparing service, which does not take up many paragraphs in history, but which has its honorable record, none the less, upon the pages of God's book of remembrance. We are sometimes told — usually by people who do not read missionary reports — that foreign missions are a failure. The Board of Missions does not think so. The statistics of missionary work do not show it. The testimony of intelligent travellers is not to that effect. Even if the work did seem to be a failure, that might not mean that it had actually failed. Any superficial Roman tourist, visiting Jerusa lem during the lifetime of Jesus, would easily note in his journal that the Christian movement was the most evident of failures. God knows what fails and what succeeds ; no one else knows. Often our success has another name with him, and he who in the sight of men has failed wins the crown which God has promised to the victor. It is not easy to measure spiritual accomplish ment. Foreign missions are hard, slow work, like any kind of missions, like any sort of refor mation. The good that is done cannot well be set down in figures, nor estimated in dollars, 248 FOREIGN MISSIONS. nor reported in statistics, nor discovered by the passing traveller. It is safe to multiply most missionary reports by ten. Suppose we say, then, that the first barrier in the way of missionary enthusiasm is ignorance. But if we knew all that anybody can know about the results of foreign missions, and if we multiplied our information even by twenty, would it not still be true that our first duty is just here at home? Would it not be true that the best place to spend missionary money is right here ? Undoubtedly it would. The first and most imperative duty of a man or a nation or a church is the duty that lies nearest. The great work which God has given the Christian Church in this land to do in this day is not the work of foreign missions. With our great heathen cities close beside us ; with the wide West every day growing, and every day having its character determined more and more towards good or towards evil, we have a plain, an unmistakable duty. It is the Chris tianizing of this continent. England may well set foreign missions first. That is the manifest duty and province of that Christian nation. England has no domestic missions. But our duty is other than that. We give to-day twice FOREIGN MISSIONS. 249 as much toward the maintenance of missions at home as we do in support of the missions abroad. We might well give five times as much. There are two ways, however, of doing that. One is to divide foreign missions by five ; the other is to multiply home missions by five. To say that mission work at home is our first duty does not mean that it is our only duty. It would be as wise to say that because the Bible is the most important book that any man can read, therefore he ought to read the Bible and no other book at all. Do the nearest task, but do not let that fill the whole horizon of your interest. Provide for yourself and for your family; that is well. But if you stop there, if you shut everybody else out when you shut the door of your house, you are both in hospitable and selfish. That man will do the nearest duty best who recognizes his remoter duties also. The wider interests a man has, the better he is fulfilling the purpose for which God has put him here, and the better it is for the man. It is interesting to look through a microscope, but not all the time. We cannot conveniently get along without looking-glasses, but windows are better. Narrow interests make 250 FOREIGN MISSIONS. men narrow-minded. Narrow giving makes nar row parishes. Begin at Jerusalem, the Lord said, but reach out to Judea and to Samaria, and to the utter most parts of the earth. When we follow that command, when we realize that the humblest offering in the obscurest church affects the progress of Christ's religion in China, in India, and along the coasts of Africa, we begin to see what the word " catholic " means in the creed; we gain a glimpse of the church unp versal. We live at the centre of a series of widening circles, — the family, the parish, the diocese, the national church, the great church catholic. There must be no hindering of effort. The interests of the family must not obstruct the interests of the parish, nor may the interests of the church at home tempt us to neglect the church abroad. I am afraid, accordingly, that we will have to add a second reason for the absence of many Christians from the honorable roll of missionary helpers. We will have to say that foreign missions are hin dered not only by ignorance, but by narrow ness. But neither enlightenment nor breadth will FOREIGN MISSIONS. 251 breed enthusiasm. Enthusiasm begins at the heart. Our fathers had two arguments for foreign missions which were meant to make men enthusiastic by touching their hearts. It used to be said that foreign missions ought to be maintained because in the absence of the preaching of the word of truth these poor be nighted people are falling moment by moment, score by score, into the everlasting flames of hell. No salvation outside the visible church ! no salvation except to him who has heard the syllables of the name of Jesus ! If that is true we have no right to think of anything else. Who may dare to forget it ! The clock ticks, and second by second, as the hours pass, an im mortal soul plunges into immortal agony. I cannot believe it. Even the Christians who have had it in their creed are trying hard in these days to get it out. We are not told how God will save the heathen. The Bible was not written for the heathen, and so does not under take to answer that question. The spirit of revelation in this and many other like questions is seen in the reply of Jesus to him who asked, " Are there few that be saved ? " when he an swered, " Strive to enter in." Every honest pagan, whether he be Buddhist or Brahmin, 252 FOREIGN MISSIONS. Parsee or Mohammedan, who up to the meas ure of the opportunity which God has given him serves God and his neighbor, surely the| just and loving Father in heaven, who cannot but do right, will save him. Verily, they shall come from the east and from the west, out of the wild forests, out of the shrines of heathen worship, and shall sit down in the kingdom of heaven before some of us. Surely it means something when we are taught that Jesus Christ, the Light, lighteneth every man ; and that there are other sheep outside our narrow fold. Them, also, in his own wise and good way, will God bring. It used to be advanced as a second argument, — and this significant logic has not yet alto gether disappeared from the columns of reli gious papers, — it used to be said that we ought to be zealous for foreign missions because other Christian communions are so active in that field. The motive of competition was brought in. Denominational loyalty was appealed to. Unless we are awake and aggressive these hea then will all be converted into Presbyterian or Methodist or Roman Catholic Christians, rather than into good Protestant Episcopalian Chris tians, as we should desire. The argument needs FOREIGN MISSIONS. 253 only to be thus frankly stated to be proved un worthy. It is one of many strange and unchris tian positions which our unhappy divisions have made possible. What, then, is the motive of missions ? Obe dience and appreciation. To do the will of Jesus Christ, to make the truth of Jesus known in all its blessed meaning ; these are the best reasons. " Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." Jesus said that. He who looked into the future, age after age, into this present, said that. We have inherited this official marching order of the militant church. This is what the church is for. " Unto all the world," " to every creature," — -that means foreign missions. It meant foreign missions in the Middle Ages, when our own heathen and barbarian ancestors were persuaded to change the battle-axe of Odin into the cross of Christ. It meant foreign mis sions a hundred years ago, when a struggling church within these coasts asked help from over the ocean. And it means foreign missions now, when we who, thanks to the care of foreign missionaries, are able to help ourselves, are asked to lend the same good helping hand to some body else. Who will contradict the command of Jesus Christ ? 254 FOREIGN MISSIONS. "The gospel," — the good tidings, — is it worth anything ? Does it make the world bet ter ? Is it true that there is a warmth and light in it which make all good things grow, which little by little change this very unsatisfactory earth into some likeness to heaven, which help men out of sin and sorrow, lift them up and make them glad ? Do we believe it ? Then we cannot be content till we have shared our blessing with every hungry soul under God's sky. It tests us, this call to help in the spread ing of the gospel. It shows our own honest appreciation of the gospel. Foreign missionaries are sent to teach men truth. We know what that truth has done for us. We want that same blessed uplifting influence to get into every corner of the wide earth. We know what that truth is to us. We want to share that benediction, that strength, that divine comfort, with every needy, tempted, sinful, and sorrowful brother of ours the whole world over. The good tidings of the love of God, the good tidings of the clearer revelation of God's truth and of man's duty, the good tidings that in the midst of this blind and guilty race a blessed cross was set up nineteen hundred years ago, whence, as from a great world-pulpit, a FOREIGN MISSIONS. 255 Saviour preached the love of the heavenly Father and the sinfulness of human sin so that everybody could understand it, and nobody could forget it, — this is the message of mis sions. Who will deny that such a message is worth while ? THE CATTLE OF NINEVEH. 'And also much cattle." — Jonah iv. 11. Everybody knows that the Book of Jonah contains a remarkable story about a fish. It is likely that the information of a great many people in regard to this book is altogether con fined to the limits of this story. What is the Book of Jonah about ? It is about a fish which swallowed a man. That would be the answer of a surprising number, even of intelligent people. The truth is, however, that while there are four chapters in this book, the account of the adventure with the fish is contained in three short sentences. The Book of Jonah is one of the most interesting, suggestive, and instructive books in the whole Bible. It is one of the text books of tolerance. It teaches the universal love of God. It does not hesitate to compare the prophet of Israel, to his disadvantage, with the pagan crew of a Mediterranean sailing ves sel. It records the quick answer that God gave to the prayers of pagan Nineveh. One of 256 THE CATTLE OF NINEVEH. 257 the lessons of it is that all promises of punish ment are conditioned upon the penitence of the criminal. The most absolute menace of certain destruction is taken back and changed into benediction when the sinner is sorry for his sin. The Book of Jonah teaches us how to read some hard sentences in the New Testa ment about the damnation of the wicked. It is a book of justice and of mercy, a revelation of the universal fatherhood of God. The least important part of the book is the story of the fish. To fasten upon that, to emphasize that, to bring that into the foreground, and to put all the great religious lessons of this wonderful book into the dim and neglected background, is as if a congregation should seize upon some petty figure of a great sermon, some singular illustration or momentary error of utterance, and think about that, and talk about that, and forget all the helpful words that had been said besides. That, indeed, is human nature. But we need to be on guard against the mistakes of human nature. Take a pencil and mark out those three verses, and then read this wonder ful, wise, uplifting book. If we are to give attention to any animals in 258 THE CATTLE OF NINEVEH. the Book of Jonah, we will do well to leave the fish and take the cattle. Let us stand upon the solid ground. Let us turn our backs upon this mysterious fish, which we see but uncer tainly beneath the shifting waves, and which, it is possible, belongs rather to the world of poetry than to the world of real fishing-smacks, and let us consider the cattle that we know, — the everyday cows and horses of old Nineveh, which Jonah cared so little about, and which the critics and commentators and indifferent readers have cared no more about, but which were of interest and value in the sight of God. For we read that Jonah was disappointed when his fierce sermon failed to come true. He stood out in the suburbs of the city on that fatal fortieth day and watched the sky. He prayed for thunder and lightning, for red-hot shafts of* destruction, for fiery hail and brim stone, for Sodom and Gomorrah over again. And when the sun went on shining, and the day came to an end, and the town still stood, and no torment from the hand of God touched it, Jonah was sore grieved. He felt himself abused. God had dealt unkindly with him. God had sent him to preach punishment, to prophesy hell, and then God had not punished. THE CATTLE OF NINEVEH. 259 Better that all Nineveh should perish, Jonah thought, than that his sermons should be thus discredited. Then God spoke to Jonah. God told Jonah that he loved those children of his in Nineveh ; yes, the most ignorant and the meanest of them ; yes, even the very cows and horses of Nineveh. " Should I not have pity on Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle ? " The lesson that I want to emphasize is that God cares for cattle. God looks down upon this city, and he thinks not only about the good people, and the important people, — as we count importance, — and the rich and influential people, and the poor people crowded together in narrow and unclean dwellings, living in destitu tion physical and intellectual and moral, scarcely knowing the difference between right and left, scarcely knowing the difference between right and wrong ; but God thinks also of all the horses in the city, knows what sort of food they have, and what kind of stables they live in, and the work that is put upon them, and all the treatment that is given them. God has re- 260 THE CATTLE OF NINEVEH. gard for all the cattle, for the horses and the cows, for the cats and the dogs, for the birds, for all the living creatures he has made. God is present not only in the house of prayer, but also in the stockyards. Jonah was willing — yes, and desirous — that the inhabitants of Nineveh, the men and the women and the little children, should all die horribly. He stood by with a certain pleased anticipation, waiting to see the agony begin. There is an unmistakable element of cruelty in human nature. The story of the life of man has fearful chapters in it, chapters written in red, — records of war, of massacres, of murders, of martyrdoms. Jonah has stood exulting a hundred thousand times and watched the vin dication of his doctrine in the torments of his brethren. The whole world over, in savagery and in civilization, in all lands, in the times that are told of in the ancient histories, and in the day that is recorded in this morning's paper, that old inhuman attitude of the prophet by the city is to be seen. Think of the slaughter by the great armies of Assyria and Egypt ! Think of the horrors of the old religions, with their mutilations and their human sacrifices ! Think of the slave life THE CATTLE OF NINEVEH. 261 of Greece and Rome, where the fair ladies of society thrust the long pins that held their hair into the flesh of offending servants ! Think of the vast multitudes of pleasure- seekers who crowded the amphitheatres of the Empire, as gayly as people go now of an even ing to the play, that they might watch the murder of their fellow-men, and study the agonies of violent death ; where the vestal vir gins, the women of religion, held down their thumbs to indicate to the victorious gladiator that he was to hack his victim's head off! Think of all the barbarous punishments, the crucifixions, the martyr fires, the racks and wheels, the black dungeons ! Think of the tortures of the Inquisition, of the woes of Rus sian prisons, and the agonies of Siberian exile ! Think of what is going on to-day in Central Africa at the hands of Arab slave-traders ! Or do but read the daily papers ; study there the fearful story of man's continued inhumanity to man; learn of the injustice, of the oppression, of the real wrong, of the blows and the beatings, of the murders, that day by day take place in every city. Abel's cry has been echoed all along the centuries. 262 THE CATTLE OF NINEVEH. Here is a man who beats a little five-year-old boy with a clothes line, doubling up the rope and using it upon the baby, " all over his body and across his face," until he is a "mass of bruises and lacerated flesh." Another father, not once nor twice, but many times, whips his two motherless children, a girl of seven and a boy of nine, with a whip that was meant for driving mules. Still another fastens a dog-chain about the neck of his ten-year-old son, and beats him with a heavy strap upon his naked body; and the mother, in the same family, "tortures another of their children by holding his hand, first the palm, then the back, upon a hot stove." And yet some people think that we have no need of a Humane Society, without which these fiendish crimes would never have been brought to punishment ! One by one the great and conspicuous cruel ties of man against man are being done away. The conscience of the race is getting more and more awakened. We are no longer content to stand apart like Jonah, willing to watch the sufferings of our fellow-creatures. The cruel ties of the old savagery and the old civilization have almost ceased out of decent society. The THE CATTLE OF NINEVEH. 263 prize fight is the last survival of the murders of the arena. Africa is the last stronghold of slavery. The desire of all good people to-day is to preach at least the need of the deliverance of all those who are held captive even in the bondage of our industrial conditions. The old fierce punishments are mitigated. The whole Christian world reprobates Russia for her toler ation of a form of imprisonment which was once well-nigh universal. The race is growing kinder. Domestic cruelty, the longest to sur vive and the hardest to get at, is being driven out into the light, thrust into the patrol wagon, and brought up at the bar of justice. Public sentiment, which was once as indifferent to suffering as the expectant Jonah, is more ten der-hearted, more indignant against the agents of pain, and more Christian than it has ever been before. Now, we need to carry this tender mercy a little farther on. We need to remember that the Christian spirit of love reaches out and takes in not every human being, but every living creature under heaven. We need to re member that God our Father is the Father also of the cattle. God cares. He cares for all the little birds. 264 THE CATTLE OF NINEVEH. Jesus has reminded us how the heavenly Father feedeth them, and how not even a sparrow falls to the ground without his notice. If the little bird falls to the ground because somebody has shot him, or thrown a stone at him, just for the pleasure of shooting or stoning, God notices that. If the little bird is stoned or shot in order that he may be torn to pieces and made into ornaments for women's bonnets, God knows that. And God cares. God cares for all the horses. Not a horse is overburdened or overdriven or ill-treated without God's notice. It is evident that a good many people think that they know more about horses than God does. God gave the horse an arched neck, but we have improved that with a check-rein. God gave the horse eyes to see with, but we have provided him with blinders. I saw one day in London an exhibition of the instruments of the Arab slave-traders. There were the yokes that were fastened to the necks of the captives, and the manacles that went about their wrists and ankles, and the heavy chains with which they were loaded down, and the stout whips with which they were beaten. It would be possible to arrange a similar exhibition of the imple- THE CATTLE OF NINEVEH. 265 ments of a man's cruelty to his humble slaves, the horses. There would be the check-rein, by which the head is held up in a constrained and unnatural position, and the eyes are brought away from the ground, where they ought to watch the way of the feet, into the blinding face of the sun, — one of the inventions of the devil, and the cause of constant and increasing and absolutely unnecessary pain. There would be the blinders, by which the horse, who sees out of the side of his eyes, is rendered incapable of properly tak ing care of himself, made ready to take fright at sounds which he cannot understand, and has his sight impaired, and learns a new kind of pain in consequence. There would be the sharp bit, which frets and cuts the mouth, and puts the sensitive creature into almost intoler able pain. There would be the whip, with its abundant possibilities of ministering suffering in the hands of hasty, or foolish, or ill-tempered, or ignorant drivers. One of the most remarkable things that will be pointed out concerning this display of instru ments of torture in the museums of the twen tieth century, in the days when religion means so much, that it is concerned with the discom- 266 THE CATTLE OF NINEVEH. fort of the humblest living creature, will be their entire uselessness. They will be seen to serve no purpose whatsoever, save to put one of man's most intelligent and willing and faithful servants into a condition of needless suffering. To do to others as we would have them do to us is a rule so wide and far-reaching that it takes in every creature that the good God has made. It includes the cattle. God looks upon every tortured horse, whether he be tortured in anger by a brute of a driver, or whether he be tortured in ignorance and thoughtlessness for the sake of following a foolish fashion. And God cares. A Hebrew prophet promised long ago, that in the millennium "Holiness to the Lord" should be inscribed upon the bells of all the horses. Yes, and on all their harness — " Holiness to the Lord." on every strap and buckle ! And nothing left in all the harness upon which that sacred phrase could not consistently be set; nothing left which would offend the sight of the righteous and merciful God, who cares even for the cattle. Christian people ought to be more thoughtful, more attentive to the comfort of those dumb creatures who can only look at us and cannot THE CATTLE OF NINEVEH. 267 speak, and who depend so utterly upon us. Another Hebrew prophet, who looked in his time into the golden age of the ideal future, saw a reign of perfect peace, in whose benedic tion even the wildest of the animals shared with man. A little child, he said, shall lead them. And a Christian poet, who likewise in vision dreamed of the blessed world to come, beheld those living creatures joining in the adoration of men and angels before the throne of God. " The earnest expectation of the creature wait- eth for the manifestation of the sons of God." The " creature " is the brute creation, the cows and the horses, the cats and dogs, the sheep and goats, of our fields and streets and homes and stables. And the " sons of God " — that means us, as we ought to be. And the lesson is that God has made these animals dependent upon us for protection, for guidance, for help, for better ment, for inspiration. God has given these animals into our care. He looks to us to min ister to them, to be kind to them, to love them. Every man in a stable has a responsibility which God puts upon him. The whole great brute creation, travailing in pain, too often at the hands of man, waits with " earnest expectation " for that redemption of the creatures which will 268 THE CATTLE OF NINEVEH. begin when we are all better Christians than we are at present. To be tender-hearted ought to be one of the characteristics of the Christian. To make this world a better and happier world to live in for all the men and all the women and all the little children and all the living creatures that are in it, is the mission of religion in which we ought to be missionaries. THE POWER OF PERSUASION. " I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called." — Eph. iv. 1.Three chapters of the Epistle to the Ephe sians are represented by the word " therefore." These chapters are occupied with statements of doctrine. Predestination and redemption, the nature of God and the mission of Jesus Christ, the election of the Jews and the position of the Gentiles, are here considered. The truth taught is that the love of God embraces every inhabitant of the world ; that the blood of Christ was shed for every man who lives; and that all the old walls of partition are cast down by him, all nations brought together, the last made first, the remote made near, the Gentiles recognized as fellow-heirs of all the promises ; " therefore," we are to walk worthy of the vocation where with we are called. The word stands in the right place. The presence of it marks the difference between religion and theology. Religion is theology 269 270 the power of persuasion. with a " therefore." It is doctrine brought into intimate and practical relation with life. When doctrine is stated simply as doctrine, and stops there, appealing to the mind but not to the will, expressing truth, but not applying it to con duct, then it belongs, with other problems of philosophy, to the student. It is a mistake to think that the accepting of it in this shape is a religious act. He who assents to the proposi tions of the creed is no nearer salvation, if he stops there, than he who assents to the theorems of Euclid. It is this " therefore " that is needed to bring the creed into living relations with religion. " I believe in God the Father," therefore I must try to live like a son of God. And so on through the creed. It must be applied, every article of it, to the details of our daily behavior ; else it is spiritually worthless. Set this down for sure, that nothing is believed — in God's sense of belief ¦ — -which is not used. Our creed is as long or as short as our application of it in our words and deeds. God sets absolutely no value whatever upon intellectual orthodoxy. He looks at our lives to find the orthodoxy that he wants. True it is that God loves us, and that Christ has redeemed us, and that we are THE POWER OF PERSUASION. 271 all called and elect, no more strangers and for eigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God, — therefore we are to walk worthy of that high vocation. And the apostle goes on through three chapters more to remind us of what that means. Whereof the text is the beginning. "I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, be seech you." That is the way to persuade men. You and I will be of use in the world accord ing as we work after that pattern. For every good Christian has the same sort of responsibility that Paul had, — the responsi bility of service, the duty of persuasion, the task of the missionary. That is but a narrow and mistaken notion of the ministry which shuts it up to a few men in black coats, who have studied in theological seminaries, and have been ordained and stand in pulpits. We are all ministers. That is but an idle, un worthy, and untrue conception of the Christian life which makes it out to be a passive state in which we only receive the ministration of others. To be persuaded, and exhorted, and taught, and reasoned with, and gone after, and kept up to the mark, and encouraged, and con soled, and strengthened, is, indeed, a part of re- 272 THE POWER OF PERSUASION. ligion, and a blessed part. But the best part is the communication of blessing, the sharing of privilege, the undertaking of service. Even as St. Paul rejoiced that God had comforted him in his trouble, because now he knew how to comfort others ; therein following his Master, who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. That is the Christian spirit. We are set here to do something, to help somebody, to make the neighborhood a better place to live in. The ideal life is that which Jesus lived. And that was a life of ministry. He was not a clergyman. He had never studied in the schools. He had never been ordained, any more than you have. He was a layman, and his life is a pattern for laymen. Who can imagine him content with the saying of prayers, and attendance at service, and attention to ser mons, and. the reading of good books, and the decent shaping of his own life, careless of his neighbor's life? Who can imagine him claim ing the benediction of God — as some of us do — because he broke none of the commandments and harmed nobody ? He went about doing good. That was his supreme reason for living. Every man, every woman, who has his spirit follows his example. THE POWER OF PERSUASION. 273 Now take a lesson in the work of the min istry from these words of St. Paul. His pur pose is the same as ours, — to be of service, to teach what he has learned, to extend the king dom of Jesus Christ. I have already noted the practical meaning which he gave to his instruc tions. The Sunday-school teacher will do well to remember that. It is of small importance that children should be made acquainted with the history of the people of Israel, with the names of the books of the Bible, with the mira cles of Jesus, or the sentences of his sermons, or the acts of the apostles. These things, taught intellectually, with an appeal only to the understanding and the memory, are no bet ter than so much grammar or geography. They must be taught religiously. They must be brought to bear upon the temptations of Mon day and Tuesday, upon the tasks of Wednesday and Thursday. They must be dealt with alto gether for the sake of character. Fathers and mothers will do well to see that this significant word " therefore " is not lacking in their domestic lessons in religion. What is this truth for, that you are teaching ? What is its bearing upon life, in the schoolroom, in the nursery, and in the hours of play ? Therefore — what ? 274 THE POWER OF PERSUASION. I am concerned, however, at present to study rather the attitude of the apostle towards the people to whom he writes, — what kind of feel ing he has for them and about them. For that ought to help us in our own endeavors to be helpful. Notice, then, that he is personally interested in the people with whom he deals. He is ac quainted with them, and they with him. He cares for them. He loves them. Thus he be gins by beseeching them. This is not argu ment, it is not theological abstraction, it is not rhetoric ; it is the direct appeal of the heart of a man to the heart of his brother. It is personal persuasion. There is not much use in any other kind of ministry than this. If we are to be of help, we must look into our brother's face, and know his name, and^ take him by the hand, and be hon estly interested in him. Nothing will take the place of that. How am I to be of use in the world when I have no money, and no influence, and no special ability, and no gifts of speech, and do not know what to do ? A great many people are asking that question. And the an swer is, that everybody who has a heart can help. You can make life pleasanter and richer THE POWER OF PERSUASION. 275 and wider and higher by simply being thought ful every day for the best interests of one per son who has a harder lot than you have. " I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, be seech you." Listen to that tone of personal interest, to that voice of fraternal affection. Only thus can men be helped. And notice, also, how St. Paul brings in his own experience. He is the " prisoner of the Lord." He writes from Rome, and his prison there is no mere figure of speech, but a cold, hard reality of stone and iron. He wears a chain for the Lord's sake. And so he is able to sympa thize with the troubles of these people to whom he sends his letter. He knows what it is to be in trouble. Indeed, he rejoices in tribulation, and is glad to be distressed, because he sees how that brings him closer to his brethren. The untroubled life, the untried life, the be lieving life, into which pain has not come, nor great temptation, nor the darkness of doubt, has no message to the majority of men. Even Jesus must be tempted like as we are in order to help us to the uttermost; he must bear our sick nesses and carry our sorrows, and be made per fect by the things that he suffers, so that he may be able to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. 276 THE POWER OF PERSUASION. Find that light in the midst of the darkness. This grief of yours, this bitter experience, even this spiritual failure, is all a means of ministry. True, you have been in the depths of doubt, but you are the better able to lift up your brother into the sight of the sun. True, you have sinned ; your cheeks are crimson and your eyes are downcast at the memory of it ; but here is your opportunity : you can go with fulness of fellow-feeling to your sinning brother, and per suade him by your own experience. True, you are the prisoner of the Lord, shut up within the walls of a contracted environment and narrow opportunities, with little education and less money, altogether commonplace, you think, and foolish and incapable ; but so you are just on a level with all the rest of us commonplace people, and can so much the better show us an example that we can hope to follow. We will listen to you, for you are one of us. Thus our experi ence, even that part of it of which we are ashamed, is but our preparation for effective service. Now see how St. Paul, having this love of his brethren in his heart, and this sympathetic understanding of them by reason of the experi ences of his life, see how he addresses them. THE POWER OF PERSUASION. 2?7 He reminds them of their vocation, of their high calling, and begs them simply to be worthy of it. Not a word here about their sins. They had sins, plenty of them. They were most imper fect Christians, those early converts. And Paul could rebuke them sharply enough upon occa sion. But here he sets them all aside. He holds up their ideal, tells them what God ex pects of them, suggests the undeveloped possi bilities that are in them. He helps them to be good by taking it for granted that they want to be good, and that they can be. It is remarkable how Jesus, addressing him self for the most part to people who never went to church, who professed no regard for religion, who habitually broke the commandments, igno rant, sinful, outcasts from the respectable society of their time, never used any condescension with them, never talked down to them, never scolded them, but took it always for granted that they were in sympathy with him, and that they were ever so much better than they appeared to be. He told those sunburned, ragged fishermen on the Capernaum wharves, and those sinful women of the Capernaum streets, that they were the sons and the daughters of the Most High God 278 THE POWER OF PERSUASION. And they believed him. And then they began to consider whether they were living the sort of life that would befit the nobility of heaven, the family of God. If we are to help men as Jesus helped them, as Paul helped them, we must begin by believ ing in them ; then they will begin to believe in themselves. We must recognize the men and women of the back alleys as children of the eternal Father, called by him, beloved by him. Unless human nature has greatly changed since Jesus lived here, it is altogether likely that a good many of these people are really better Christians in the sight of God, and nearer to the kingdom of heaven, than we are. It was the respectable people, such as us, amongst whom the Master found no welcome when he came. It will not do to go on missionary jour neys into the lanes and courts as if we alone cared for righteousness and truth, bearing the impudent lantern of Diogenes. We must go very humbly, looking for good, and not doubts ing that we will find it ; as fellow-servants, as brethren of the same household. And our speech must be not so much of sin as of vocation, bringing hope and encouragement and the blessed sunlight with us. Better- THE POWER OF PERSUASION. 279 ment comes when a man turns his face in ex pectation towards the dawn. Not renunciation, but resolution, is the spiritual secret. Let a man once come to realize that good things are expected of him, and that he has that in him which can meet the expectation, and you will not need to reproach him, to drive him with sharp words into the kingdom of heaven. He will go in gladly, of his own accord. You have a high calling, walk worthy of it. That is the message that we need. God is our Father. Beloved, now are we the sons of God. Are we behaving like the sons of God ? Our life last week, was it a noble life, a worthy life, considering our birth, our position, and our pos sibilities ? Was there anything divine in it? And to-morrow, as we take it up again, how are we intending to live it? What have we in mind, we children of God, to do to-morrow? What sort of neighbors, citizens, housekeepers, tradespeople, employers, will we be ? " With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace," — how will that description fit our life ? THE MAN WITH THE MEASURING LINE. " I lifted up mine eyes and saw, and behold a man with u, measuring line in his hand. Then said I, Whither goest thou? And he said, To measure Jerusalem, to see what is tlie breadth thereof, and what is the length thereof."— Zech. ii. 1, 2. The name of the man with the measuring line is Calculation. He goes out carrying his surveyor's chain, to make his accurate estimate of our enthusiastic plans. We have in mind a fine ideal, an inspiring task worth doing. We know that it is right, and for the benefit of the neighborhood, and in line with the purposes of God. But it is hard to do, and we begin to consider it more soberly. And the longer we think, the greater seems the difficulty. We send out the man with the meas uring line, and he comes back and makes his discouraging report, — so many miles, so many years, so many dollars, so many mountain ranges of hindrance. And we lose heart. Evidently there must be calculation. He who would build a tower must count the cost. 280 THE MAN WITH THE MEASURING LINE. 281 Prudence carries the measuring line. But over-calculation has wrecked more hopes than folly. Small is the company of those who have begun and not been able to finish compared with those who have been scared back at the start. "The best," as the proverb says, "is often the enemy of the good." Anxiety about the morrow, desire to see the whole way plain and open to the end before venturing into it, the slow perfecting of theories, the endeavor to arrive at wisdom without undergoing the rough tuition of experience — these hinder progress. The prophet in his vision looks along the road down which the man has gone, and suddenly there hurries after him a messenger of God to stop him. The future of God's people, the com ing of God's kingdom, depends upon the dis charge of the man with the measuring line. The apostles stand, a little company, upon the threshold of their mission. " Go ye into all the world," the Master says, "and preach the gos pel to every creature." A stupendous charge ! This small band of poor men is to convert the world. Listen to the man with the measuring line ! The world, he says, is wider than you think. The undertaking is rash, impertinent, impossible. Here, at the beginning, is Jeru- 282 THE MAN WITH THE MEASURING LINE. salem, crowded with zealous adversaries, men of narrow minds and deaf ears, who refused to listen even to Christ himself, — what can you do in Jerusalem? And outside lies the empire of great pagan Rome, with might of arms, with pomp and pride of universal rule, wholly given over to superstitions and scepticisms, to false faiths and no faiths, to vices and idols, attend ing with impenetrable scorn to all that the most wise and eloquent of you can say, — will you convert Rome ? Evidently the argument is on the side of the man with the measuring line. What he says is plainly true, discouragingly true ; nevertheless, the twelve go on regardless. Day by day, with out theory, without foreboding, trusting in the help of God, they do the meanest, humblest duty. And God goes on beside them. And every valley is exalted, and every mountain and hill made low, and the way runs straight before their feet, and year by year — slowly, indeed, but without retreat or pause — the kingdoms of the world become the kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ. That is the blessed victory they gain who undertake great things for God, knowing well the difficulty of the task, and conscious of their lack of THE MAN WITH THE MEASURING LINE. 283 strength, but, like the climber, looking ever up, not daring to look down, holding the hand of God. We have in mind to build up for ourselves a new character. Immediately the man with the measuring line attacks our courage. He shows the manifold hardships of the task, the weari nesses of the way. The distance between our present life and the ideal of right living which is set for us in the life of Jesus Christ stretches out into telescopic remoteness, like the spaces which lie between the stars. The road is so hopelessly long and endlessly up-hill that it seems hardly worth while to begin the journey. It would be well, indeed, if we were living closer to the right ideal of a good life : we know that. But there seems small use in trying. So many people are reluctant to begin unless they can begin at the end. They would attain perfection at the start. They would commence music with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and Greek with the Dialogues of Plato. If the way is blocked with scales and exercises and conju gations and vocabularies they will not venture. They will not climb the ladder of betterment unless they can first take hold of the top round. 284 THE MAN WITH THE MEASURING LINE. They would be glad enough to live a certain sort of life which they can picture to them selves, and have all the faith of St. Paul, and have all the zeal of St. Peter, and all the love of St. John ; but they lose heart at the weary distance of the way. The man with the meas uring line shows them on the map just how many mountainous miles it is, and they say, " I can never reach it." Some men will not set their names in the roll of the disciples of Jesus until they can give themselves a guaranty that they will never retreat from their allegiance. When they are absolutely sure that they will never swear any more, nor drink any more, nor lie, nor steal, nor do despite to any of the Ten Command ments, when they have no longer any doubt but that they will be better Christians than their neighbors whom they have busily criticised, they then will begin to think of " uniting with the church." When they can somehow be prom ised a perfectly smooth road, without a turn, without a chance of missing the way, straight and plain into the celestial city, then they will set out upon the journey. It was at one time the custom for people to delay baptism until they were told by the physician that they had but an hour or two to live. THE MAN WITH THE MEASURING LINE. 285 But the way to make progress, and to arrive at the heights, is to go on, a step at a time, dealing with obstacles when they present them selves, and not before. And the way to be able to read Plato with one's feet on the fen der is first to master the grammar and the dictionary. And the way to climb a ladder is to begin with the lowest round and climb up. And the way to build a tower is to put one stone upon another, and to keep on repeat ing that setting of stone on stone until the stones become a wall. And the way to build a character is to begin with one good deed, and to put another good deed upon the top of it, with the cement of a good thought in be tween, and to continue little by little, patient, persistent, with a good hope and a good heart, until the good deeds become a habit, and the habit stands for a wall in the holy temple of character. Thus, too, may we meet the larger problems which confront us as a nation. This universal, unending, increasing dissen sion between the employer and the workman, between the brain that plans and the hand that executes — will it ever reach a fair ad justment? The man with the measuring line 286 THE MAN WITH THE MEASURING LINE. says no. He assails our hopes with unanswer able arguments. He calls to our attention the ignorance, the selfishness, the long misunder standing, the vested interests, the complicated bitternesses, which are involved in the dispute. He assures us that the root of the difficulty is planted in the heart of man, set deep in human nature, and that it will grow on as long as the race lives. Cain and Abel began it by the gate of Eden, and nothing will end it but the arbitration of the last great Day of Judgment. Will he believe that who believes in God? Not for a moment ! Yes, he answers, the hin drances are evident enough, and high and appar ently endless. No man can as yet see a clear way ahead. Nevertheless, God is on the side of justice, on the side of brotherhood, on the side of the right. And that side will win. The pillar of cloud and fire moves on over the mountains of hindrance, and the hosts of the living God will follow. There will be peace and the fraternity of heaven yet in this dis ordered battlefield where selfishness and the devil lead the fight, and they who stand under Christ's banner can scarce distinguish friends from foes. THE MAN WITH THE MEASURING LINE. 287 This perplexed problem of Christian unity which forces itself more and more upon the attention of good people in these days of new discernment, this endeavor to bring better Christian spirit into the Christian church — will there be any solution? Will any of the plans amount to anything? The man with the measuring line goes out into the field and comes back with his old answer. The reunion of Christendom, he says, is a dream, which will never be realized this side of the millennium. People are steeped in prejudice. Their eyes are blinded with motes and beams which they have inherited from their ancestors. They are intellectually incapable of fairness. Generation after generation they have shut their eyes to the honesty and truth of those who differ from them until now they cannot see. It is impos sible that they should look upon religion from any other than a sectarian point of view. Each man misapprehends the position of his neighbor, and delights to misapprehend it. He would be glad to be convinced, but he would like to see the man who can convince him. Partisanship, bigotry, narrowness, self-con ceit, orthodoxy of scribes, conscience of Phari sees, stand cudgel in hand beside the path, 288 THE MAN WITH THE MEASURING LINE. inviting the ideal church to run the gantlet. And we are told that if we care much for our ideal we would best keep it carefully out of the reach of these heavy weapons. We may dream of a Christian church which might deserve the name, but we may not attempt to get the vision realized. Who will contradict this most sensible cau tion ? The loyal Protestant maintains that the Roman Catholic Church is the synagogue of Satan ; the loyal Roman Catholic questions whether even the Protestant saints can possibly be saved. The Unitarian accounts his Pres byterian brother a bigot ; the Presbyterian considers the Unitarian a pagan. The Episco palian accuses the Baptist of being slavishly obedient to the mere letter of the Bible ; the Baptist answers that the Episcopal Church is abandoned for the most part to formalism and worldliness and popish mimicry. And behind all stands the wise devil, smiling his satisfied smile, perfectly contented. And over all looks down the Lord Christ, praying that we may be one. Who can see light in this bad business? The man with the measuring line declares that the whole future of this evil is as black as the bottom of the accursed cleft of Gehenna. He THE MAN WITH THE MEASURING LINE. 289 maintains, and he has the facts to prove it, that the unity of Christian people is beyond the bounds of possibility. But we say that this prophet carries his sur veyor's chain for the master of the Nether Pit. The Lord Christ did not pray in vain. Unchristian prejudice shall not be eternal. Molehills shall not forever be magnified into volcanoes. The day will come — yes, and is now approaching — when every man who loves the Lord Jesus Christ will account every other man who loves the Lord Jesus as his Christian brother. That love will be the one essential bond of unity. All the differences will be sub ordinated to it. All orthodoxy will be meas ured by it. Stop the man with the measuring line ! What we need to know is not the diffi culty which lies beyond in the dim future, prob ably seen in exaggeration through the mists of the distance ; show us the opportunity which meets us in this present. On ahead are cliffs and chasms, marshes without bottoms, rivers without bridges — -never mind. When we come upon them we may consider what to do. Here now is a sound place to set one foot before the other. Let us take that step. Let us, our own selves, be as broad-minded, inclusive, brotherly, 290 THE MAN WITH THE MEASURING LINE. and Christian as we know how. That is our part. God will do his part. The man with the measuring line was called back and dis charged. God speed the prophecy ! The Lord Jesus Christ came to level all unrighteous walls of separation, and to make us brethren in word and deed and heart. And he will win. The divisive devil shall not forever have the upper hand. I pray that the time may come when all un christian barriers may lie as low as the old wall that the Romans built in Britain. The grass grows over it. The plough of the farmer runs across the place. The avenues of travel and of traffic traverse it with even wheel. It is known no more. Then will we all be one as the Lord Jesus made petition, and there will be no work for the man with the measuring line. IL 10900 2006 e