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THE PENNIMAN MEMORIAL LIBRARY OF EDUCATION
OF YALE UNIVERSITY
ESTABLISHED BY JAMES HOSMER PENNIMAN.YALE 1884
IN MEMORY OF MIS PARENTS
JAMES LANMAN PENNIMAN. YALE 1853
MARIA DAVIS HOSMER

mi

HOW A MAN GROWS

BY
JOHN R. T. LATHKOP, D. D.

CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM
NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS

oofybi&ht, 1906, bt
Jennings and Graham

L3 4-

"The question, whether the world has a begin
ning, and any limit of its extension in space ; whether
there is anywhere, and, it may be, in my opinion,
thinking self, an indivisible and indestructible unity ;
or whether there exists nothing but what is divisiblo
and perishable ; whether in my acts I am free, or like
other beings led by the hand of nature and of fate ;
whether, finally, there exists a supreme cause of the
world, or whether the objects of nature and their
order form the last object which we can reach in all
our speculation, — these are questions for the solu-
. tion of which the mathematician would gladly sac
rifice the whole of his science which can not give
him any satisfaction with regard to the highest and
dearest aspirations of mankind." — "Kant : "Critique
of Pure Beason."

CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. The Peoblem Stated, 9
II. The Data of Philosophy, - 26
III. Cosmic Ethics,  42
IV. Christian Ethics, .... 48
V. Cosmic Regeneration, 74
VI. Christian Regeneration, - - 92
VII. Forces in Man's Becoming, - 110
VIII. Certainties in Religion, - 136
IX. Religion,  153
X. The Religion of the Future, - 171
XI. The Coronation of Man, - - - 203

HOW A MAN GROWS.

OHAPTEE I.
THE PROBLEM STATED.
The Philosophy of the In- and Out-door will Dominate
the Future.
Heraclittts of Ephesus, 500 years B. C, was
the father of the Philosophy of the Becoming. He
was called the Biddler. The riddle he propounded
was this: What is the fundamental form of exist
ence? None could guess. He answered: Eternal
fire. Not that fire is the fundamental element, but
the fundamental form. The answer was a riddle, and
required answer; so he said: Water and earth are
modes of fire. He speaks of downward fire, meaning
thereby the coarser materialities; upward fire, by;
which he means the subtler forms, such as vapor;
spirit fire, meaning the soul. He characterizes the
fire out from which all things come as God, or the
Good ; this is the purist fire. All this called for ex
planation, so he said: Eire flowed, that in it is the
spirit of strife, and the spirit of strife gave origin
to all things. In modern language we speak of the
same thing as the eternal war of the atoms, the con
tinuous struggle for equilibrium among, the mole
cules, or_the principle of cosmic unrest.
9

10 How a Man Grows.
To illustrate his meaning, Heraclitus conceived
the world to be like an elastic bow, which tends to
fly apart and to come together again; everything is
pulling from, and backward to, the same center.
Changing the figure, he declared the whole universe
to be an elemental fire, now extinguished, and anon
rekindled. Thus the whole is in constant flux. He
found great difficulty in making clear his conception,
so he said: "Into the same stream we descend, and
at the same time we do not descend; for, into the
same stream we can not possibly descend twice, since
it is always scattering and collecting itself again, or
rather, at the same time flows to us and from us."
Out of all, all comes. When asked about reality, in
what it consisted, he ascribed it to fire, or that which
fire symbolized (but just what this last was he knew
not). So it came to pass that the profound Greek
only knew reality under the Becoming. "All per
manence," he declared, "is illusory." The Law of
Being is the Becoming.
From Heraclitus to this time is 2,400 years. An
illustrious guild of thinkers has sought and still seeks
to unravel the mystery. In 1901 Professor Ernest
Haeckle, of the University of Jena, wrote his pro
digious work, "The Kiddle of the Universe." Science
glows with the brilliant results of scholarly research,
but the fact that the riddle of Heraclitus awaits final
answer is evidence that it is world-wide, and likely
time-wide. It embodies Being, Life, Cause, Motion,
Mind, Immortality; indeed, all the questions grow
ing out of Being.

The Problem Stated. 11
Heraclitus, practically, reached the same conclu
sion as does Haeckle. With the former, Strife,
Change, or the Becoming, was the real; with the
latter, the Law of Substance. Both believed in a
reality the basis of the Becoming, but that reality is
illusive, and of it they know nothing. With the
Greek the basis of all things was fire ; with the Ger
man, Substance. Heraclitus was uncertain whether
fire was first or symbolized somewhat which was first
and eternal. Haeckle postulates Substance. Erom
the modes of its action he constructs Law; and on
this Law of Substance he builds his Monistic Phi
losophy. Both the Greek and German are essentially mate
rialistic. Haeckle boasts himself an atheist, for no
where in his monism is a Personal, Supervising Mind
counted in, and with a suavity little short of audac
ity he constructs a universe without a God. With
him the universe carries its own explanation. Hera
clitus was, however, agnostic. Living at a time
when teleology and all phases of philosophy were in
incipiency, when every thinker was pioneer, he was
nevertheless a believer in an animated universe; in
the purist fire, which was God. It has been well said
of him, that he was a monist, believing that Eternal
Keason was immanent in the world of individuality
and change, but a hylozoist inasmuch as he conceived
all matter to be animated.1
Whatever the theory explicatory of the universe,
1 " History of Philosophy," Ueberweg. Vol., I, p. 42.

12 How a Man Grows.
science has advanced beyond the atheistic into the
theistic conception. The march of human thought
up to a scientific conviction that there is not only an
Unknowable Some-What, but an Unknowable Some-
One, who persists and controls, is one of the most
substantial truths of modern scholarship. The re
ligious sentiment has always postulated a God, but it
is of consequence that science (whose sole duty is to
study relations and phenomena and tabulate data),
and philosophy (whose mission it is to construct the
findings of science into generalizations), have volun
tarily written that which the Hebrew Scriptures cen
turies ago announced: "In the beginning, God."
In the long run, any theory can be trusted
to come out right that begins and ends with
God. In his "Cosmic Philosophy," Dr. John
Fiske has, in unambiguous terms, declared the
Unknowable to be immanent, absolute, infinite.
It is not for us to quarrel with him and
Herbert Spencer for saying no more, but rather to
inquire how much that admission means. Immanent,
Absolute, Infinite! Whatever other attributes God
may have, these are essential to his Being. Theology
has great reason to rejoice that philosophy postulates
the Persistent Eorce. Spencer characterized this the
Unknowable, and declared that it had persisted Eter
nally. The cosmos, then, had its origin in the Un
knowable, who is Immanent, Absolute, Infinite. Let
us hold fast to that. Science can not fathom the
question of origins, and does not have that as its

The Problem Stated. 13
mission. We are too far removed from primordial
conditions to come nearer than a probability as to
the nature of primitive substance. Science is hum
ble enough to say with Paul: "By faith we under
stand that the worlds have been framed by the Word
of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out
of things which do appear." So far as origins are
concerned, the phrase, "by the word of God," contains
at once the most rational explanation. "He spake
and it was done, he commanded and it stood fast."
"By the word of the Lord were the heavens made;
and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth."
The Scriptures are unique in this form of statement.
The first chapter of Genesis, before each day's work,
has the phrase, "And God said." In his great work
recently published, "The Conflict of Truth," E. Hugh
Capron has a chapter in which he concludes that the
phrase, "And God said," is intended to mean no
more than that the Infinite Mind established a Law,
announced His Will, set His Decree. This view
coincides with the scientific. The whole of the cos
mos is under the positive dominance of law, and law
can have no significance outside of a Lawgiver. One
of the remarkable facts about the Scriptures is, the
existence of God is nowhere argued, but everywhere
assumed. That the author of the first chapter of
Genesis announced God as Eirst Cause, both imma
nent and persistent in the cosmos, is a very great
matter. Dr. John Watson has well said that "Jesus
began his ministry with the assumption of God. He

14 How a Man Grows.
never fell into the banality of theology, and set him
self to do the impossible, to prove the existence of
God, which is as if a geologist should introduce his
science with an argument for the reality of tho
world." Immanuel Kant has said, "Atheism is the
despair of reason." In his "Critique," he has shown
that the universe has a rational and a moral basis.
Our faith, then, in the Fact of God is rational and
upon immovable foundations. Dr. John Fiske has
told us that the word "intelligence," as applied to
Deity, means too little. The Unknowable is more
than intelligent. He considers the term too anthro
pomorphic. He has offered the same criticism upon
the word "personality," when applied to the Infinite.
It is well for us not to be influenced too far by these
Criticisms, but appreciate the spirit of reverence
which prompts them. He means to say that God is
too great for definition. He considers "personality"
applicable only to man. The Infinite can not be re
duced to finite conceptions.
We readily grant the aptness of the criticism, and
feel justified in saying that the Church has always
so taught. Nevertheless, a deeper insight leads to
this further conclusion: Human personality is not
ultimate personality. Man is but a shadow of God,
an imperfect image. The personality of man is finite,
and must not be interpreted as full.2 Infinite Per
sonality we have no means of defining. Indeed, we
have yet to discover the law of true personality. The
'"The Crises of the Christ," Morgan.

The Problem Stated. 15
anthropomorphic conception of God results from our
mental limitations. The remark of Dr. Joseph Par
ker is apropos: "God is a Person, and what more
He is we may never know." The whole cosmic plan,
human life, the Ultimate Purpose, Infinite Love,
sanction the word of the London preacher.8 "Our
Father" is the word of Jesus Christ. We make our
prayers to a Whom. Human Love will be forgiven
if, in reaching out to Divine Love, it thinks in an
thropomorphic terms.
The Scriptures have been criticised adversely be
cause the Infinite is at times presented in anthropo
morphic terms. The presentation of the God-Idea
is a prodigious task, and primitive man could best
understand through picture-phrases, such as, "And
God said," and "Let Us make man." Also by the
analogous method, such as "Sit thou on My right
hand." It was left to man to discover the real mean
ing. Yet there are many Scriptures of so pure and
exalted a conception that the attentive student of the
sacred writings will find himself delivered from all
anthropomorphic conception. The mind is capable
of adoring an indescribable and undefinable Al
mighty Father. If the human mind, in its passion to
come into the secret of God's Being, accommodates
itself to conceptions too finite, satisfaction is
found in the fact that Infinite Love takes no account
of that, and also that the effort to come to God is
made possible more through our longing for, than our

»" Personality, Human, and Divine," Hllngworth.

16 How a Man Grows.
thinking after. "Blessed are they which do hunger
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be
filled." Man in his instinctive life longs for a nearer
approach than that which can be gotten from the de
ductions of science and philosophy. It is just here
where is found the strongest apology for religion,
the mission of which is to bring the finite mind into
loving fellowship with the Infinite. The Scriptures
are not scientifically written, nor were they written
to teach science, but to unfold a life, to present an ex
perience, and to bring the human creature and his
Creator face to face, and conform the one to the holi
ness of the other. When we read, "God is a Spirit,"
we do not know the meaning, nor do we feel any
impulsive drawings to Him, but when we read, "God
is Love," our whole being pulsates with emotion.
When we hear Jesus Christ saying to us, "When ye
pray say, Our Father," we can not be unmoved. We
understand fatherhood and love, and Jesus Christ
has elevated and purified our conceptions of the In
finite by speaking on the plane of human experience.
Returning, then, let us fix firmly in our thought
these necessary postulates : 1. An Immanent, Abso
lute, Infinite, Unknowable; 2. This Unknowable is,
because He is Immanent, too majestic and all-com
prehensive to be accurately described by the term
personality as applied to man; 3. That the fullness
of Himself is not so all-embracing but to permit, on
the one hand, the ascription of "Father," "Crea
tor," and on the other that of Person, Savior, Pro-

The Problem Stated. 17
tector; and not anything other will satisfy the racial
instinct. Happy is he who can retain all these in
the embrace of his faith.
You have stood on the bank of a river. What
was the most impressive phenomenon as you gazed
upon it % Was it not its flow ? It goes on forever !
But why ? how ? Immediately you think of the sun,
of evaporation, of oxygen, hydrogen, of heat, of con
densation, precipitation, gravitation. What have you
in such a conception ? Vastly more than the flow of
the river. You have seen the flow, round and round,
completing again and again the circuit, downward,
onward, upward, and thus forever. This is what the
river flow means. It is coming to the word of Paul,
"While we look not on the things which are seen."
This is a very great matter, and the ability to see the
unseen ennobles thought. Some months since I en
tered one of our State universities. We were taken
to the biological department. A number of young
men were intent in the microscopic examination of a
chick in the various stages of its development. One
was gazing upon the first pulsations of what was
to be the heart. There it was, moving! I said
to him, "What started it ?" The question suggested
electricity, the conservation of energy and persistency
of force, the round and round, and we were brought
square up against the flow. Somehow we think of
the river again. We are back to Heraclitus. The
cosmos is never static. Let us keep in mind that it
is dynamic. The Whole is in eternal flux. In this
2

18 How a Man Grows.
flux is man himself. He knows neither his origin nor
his end. He knows only that he is, and that he
passes. One of the most overwhelming facts which
confronts him is the development of his being to its
highest vigor and beauty, followed by its sure disso
lution and dissipation. The river goes round and
round. Does man ? How much of him abides ? What
is there built up in him the flow of the cosmos can
not dissipate? It was just at this point Haeckle
broke down, and his words, his last pathetic words in
"The Riddle of the Universe," are:
" By eternal laws
Of iron ruled,
Must all fulfill
The cycle of
Their destiny."
Haeckle's gaze was too intent on Law. He needed
the deeper perception of Mind. Law is nothing.
Only in Mind has it potentiality. Continuing his
philosophic system in atheism, he ended, where every
rational mind can but end who pursues the same
course, in intellectual despair.' Had Haeckle been
able to have maintained a due balance and counted
in the Eternal Unit, God, and held fast to Him, he
had been anchored amid all the confusion of thought
and multiplied mysteries. In contrast with him is
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who, in the melancholy
poem "De Profundis," writes :

The Problem Stated. 19
" God's voice, not Nature's — night and noon
He sits upon the great white throne,
And listens for the creature's praise :
What babble we of days and days?
The Dayspring He, whose days go on.
He reigns above, He reigns alone :
Systems burn out and leave His throne ;
Fair mists of seraphs melt and fall
Around Him, changeless amid all —
Ancient of Days, whose days go on I"
" I praise Thee while my days go on,
I love Thee while my days go on ;
Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost
With emptied arms and treasure lost,
I thank Thee while my days go on."
Here is the rapture of faith amid the swirl of the
cosmos, and the perplexity of unfathomable mystery.
Unless God be established in human thought, our
little thinking goes but round and round, forever
moving, but never resting. Theism alone holds
thought to a center, and gives a guarantee of perma
nency to man himself. Wherein is man like the
river ? Wherein is he like the Unknowable, the Per
sistent Force, God ?
So far as answer to the first is concerned, consid
ering man wholly from a physical view-point, science
makes quick answer, and says, just what religion says,
"Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return."
Regarding the second, science and religion both an
swer, "Man is not immanent, but local ; not absolute,
but dependent; not infinite, but finite." But does

20 How a Man Grows.
his case rest there ? Not at all. Neither science nor
religion is content that it shall. The principle
which runs through all life types, that Like comes
from Like, is as deep set in religion as in science.
The logic of both is, Man is intellectual and moral,
and must find his origin in an Intellect that is Moral.
Otherwise intelligence and morality in man and the
universe are unaccounted for. No finer statement of
this can be found than the word, "And God breathed
into him the spirit of life, and man became a living
soul." The Genetic record makes man both a crea
tion and an inspiration. It has the twofold truth
that man is from beneath, and from above, and thus
makes him akin to two worlds, the one material and
constituted of the elements, the other spiritual and
like unto God. The material man finds his existence
in the unceasing cosmic flux, while the spiritual man
finds his persistent life amid the spiritual realities.
Science starts with the proposition: There is
an Immanent, Absolute, Infinite, Unknowable=
God; and there is a local, dependent, finite, think-
ing=MAN. The latter is creature to the former; a
child if you please, an offspring ; and because of that
kinship he will persist. This inference is agreeable
to science, and is the very word of religion: "And
God said, Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness." The Unknowable was never in the Becoming, and
no part of Him has ever been or can be in the Be
coming. He is Absolute. His eternal Name is "I

The Problem Stated. 21
Am." Because He is Immanent, not anything has
taken place without His presence. Being Infinite,
He has been, and shall ever be, coexistent with every
moment of time. Time with Him is an eternal
NOW. Man from infinite time has been in the Be
coming. From the beginning of the cosmic flow
he has been on his way. The elements which
make up his physical part are cycles old, and
in that sense it can be said he is from the womb of
the cosmos. Out of the womb of the cosmos, yet
made of God. We are His creation whatever be the
process. How long God was 'in the making of man
the Bible does not declare, and it is impossible to
know. Science is too wise to say. Man is of infinite
worth, made at infinite cost, and that is the best guar
antee that he was not made to be lightly considered
or ruthlessly thrown aside. Science recognizes man
a sacred personality, and thus stands even-shouldered
with the Genetic record. "In our image," is a most
tremendous word. At once it sanctifies man in all
his being. He is the one creature above all others of
infinite pains, the last to appear, the highest and the
best. Physically, man has arrived, and in him Nature
has her coronation. In all organism there is not any
thing so splendid as he. He is the priceless product
of all Nature's art in organic perfection and beauty.
Whether the head, the hand, the trunk is considered,
there is a symmetry, an impressiveness, which be-

22 How a Man Grows.
long to him as the supreme mechanism, fearfully and
wonderfully made. It is impossible that Nature shall
ever produce a more matchless product than the
human body. No one who has ever studied the or
ganisms of Nature will deny the mysterious and
powerful constructive processes which she carries on
in weaving the manifold and inconceivable forms of
organic life of sea and land. To be told that man is
akin to all organism, and is himself an ascent from
the depths by slow and unknown processes, is amaz
ing to him who is a novice in Nature's laboratory and
understands not the- intricate and gigantic forces
which drive on from age to age in the development of
life forms. But to him who sees that Nature is the
unfolding of an infinite Purpose, not of it but in it,
and that in the fulfillment of that Purpose she neither
slumbers nor sleeps, but is eternally vigilant and dili
gent, and that the manifoldness of her art is in the
ribbed rocks, the creatures and plants of sea and
land, he is forced to admit that it would be no im
possible task for her to weave even the human frame
at the behest of Him whose creature she is. Whether
or not one is able to go so far as Darwin and say,
Here is the path over which man has come, the su
preme fact which science brings to us, is that the
whole body of the swirling cosmos, as expressed in
what we call Nature, is under the dominancy of the
Infinite Unknowable, God, our Heavenly Father.
The seven so-called insoluble problems of science,
— (a) The nature of matter and force; (b) The.

The Problem Stated. 23
origin of motion; (c) The origin of life; (d) The
(apparently preordained) orderly arrangement of
nature; (e) The origin of single sensation and con
sciousness; (f) Rational thought, and the cognate
faculty, speech ; (g) The question of the freedom of
the will,4 — these all centralize themselves in man,
and it is he who seeks their solution. Whatever be
the method of his investigations, his conclusions must
be essentially constructive so long as he remains The
istic. If in his thought God holds chief place, he
can not drift far. The old philosophers conceived the
universe as a circle, with God in the center. Dr. W.
A. Quayle has given us an essay on the "Centrality of
God."5 Man is in the circumference. It is a ma
jestic truth that God abides. Whatsoever be the path
we take we will find Him, unless it be the Haeckelian,
for in that God is missed, and man is lost. That
fearful fact is its own condemnation. Theism
takes fast hold of God. With what result?
Man is ascendant, transcendent, permanent.
Science will not permit us to conclude less than
this. The logical inference is, that the pan
theism set forth in the Genetic record, where God is
before all, and in all, is the pantheism of advanced
philosophy, Christian pantheism, if you please. The
First Cause of science is the God of Genesis. In
that ancient record ,is a serial order of unfolding from
« In 1880, at the Leibnitz session of the Berlin Academy of Sci
ence, Emil du Boise-Raymond named these as the seven problems
of science. 6 "The Blessed Life."

24 How a Man Grows.
cosmic conditions to life forms. In both Science and
Genesis, God is first and man last.
In the present status of scientific and philosophic
thought there is no need of alarm. Herbert Spencer,
in "First Principles," has himself remarked:
"Science must be judged by itself. . . . To re
gard with alienation that which has such high cre
dentials is folly. . . . It is an incredible hypoth
esis that there are two orders of truth in absolute
and everlasting opposition." Science has her own
revelations, and she promulgates them in her own
way. Many who look upon the universe from a
purely religious standpoint, fail to take into account
the larger truth that the method of approach to truth
by science necessarily differs from the method of
religion. The problems of science are the assumptions
of religion. The Genetic record implies the persist
ence of force, the conservation of energy, the serial
order, an ultimate purpose, and distinctly teaches
that God is, and that all things are by Him, and that
man is a moral agent, amenable to a Moral Mind, in
a Moral and Rational Universe.
In this time, when the average mind is, like the
ancient Greek, asking, "Is there anything new ?" we
can not too clearly understand the bearing of these
profoundly interesting matters upon our belief in
God, the Infinite Person.
A recent editorial in the Western Christian Ad
vocate upon "The Riddle of Life," is as suggestive
as it is sane. Speaking of Dr. H. Charlton Bastian,

The Problem Stated. 25
one of the earliest and most learned champions of
spontaneous generation, who belongs to that guild of
thinkers who claims that the evolutionary hypothesis
has supplanted anything like Divine, miraculous in
tervention, after showing that President Jordan, of
Leland Stanford, Jr., University; Professor Reig-
hard, of the University of Michigan ; Professor Mat
thews, of the University of Chicago ; Professor Wil
son, of Columbia University, — all agree that spon
taneous generation is mest improbable, not one case
being known, the editorial contains this pungent
comment :
"For our own part we can not see how, even if
the spontaneous generation of life from the inorganic
should some time be demonstrated, the marvel and
miracle, the supernatural in the natural, are done
away with. -It simply removes the mystery one step
backward, and makes the forces resident in non-living
matter, and put there by a Divine Creator, only the
more wonderful and inexplicable. It is not simply
living matter whose creation is miraculous. The
enigma which defies all naturalistic explanation, and
which seems inscrutable, is, how anything at all came
to be. The universe itself is the miracle."6

• Issue of March 7, 1906.

CHAPTER II.
THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY.
The Primary Source of Knowledge lies not without, but
within Consciousness.
The Synthetic Philosophy excites the profound-
est interest and suggests the gravest questions. At
first one is overwhelmed, for it trespasses upon tra
ditional teaching. It is a constructive system com
mitted to the evolutionary process. At the present
time it holds a strong place in popular thought, espe
cially as it is embellished by Dr. John Fiske in his
"Cosmic Philosophy."
It is safe to say that the whole truth lies neither
in the Synthetic nor in the Intuitional Philosophy,
but rather in the blending of the best of the
two. Many ultra-conservatives have become un
necessarily alarmed. We must come to under
stand that science inquires into the construct
ive processes, and has arrived at the convic
tion that the Law of Evolution has been operative
in the cosmos from the beginning, and that this same
Law is dominant in the production of life-forms, but
not of life itself. It is a question of method, not of
origins. Man is central in the cosmic process. "All
26

The Data of Philosophy. 27
creation is on the march. The stars are revolving.
The dead crust of the earth feels the necessity of mov
ing. The whole vegetable kingdom is moving on
ward and upward. The animal kingdom, too, keeps
step, unconscious of the impelling cause. Man, as if
he heard the music drowsily and afar off, joins the
strange procession, and struggles on and upward also.
It is a strange march of creation, moving to unheard
music, with unseen banners, to some great enter
prise."1 Whatever be the merits of the Synthetic Philoso
phy, we are more concerned with the stupendous
thought of the evolutionary process, the most pon
derous which philosophy and science have yet sug
gested. The Genetic record is filled with the twofold
fact of creation and unfolding. First, we have the
cosmic unfolding ; second, the creation of life and its
unfolding from the simple to the complex forms, man
last appearing. And, as the whole discussion is amply
and most ably presented by those whose entire time is
given to investigation and discovery, it is unnecessary
to enter into any argument here, further than to say,
granting that the evolutionary theory of the cosmos
and of life-forms is correct, both Genesis and science
agree in the recognition of four gaps, which call for a
Supervising Mind to connect: that between Inor
ganic and the Organic; between the Organic and
Life; Life and Consciousness; Consciousness and
Spirituality. That is to say, here are four necessities
i Henry Ward Beecher.

28 How a Man Grows.
for miraculous interference. Science recognizes
those gaps, and has no power to bridge them. Re
ligion finds no difficulty. God is always on tho
ground, and this is the sublime teaching of Genesis.
Capron, in "The Conflict of Truth," most profoundly
discusses this and correlative facts. The design of
these essays is to assist the reader to the recognition
and appreciation of the Harmony of Truth. If tho
reader shall be given a broader outlook, and, at tho
same time, a more satisfactory faith in the validity
and power of Evangelical Christianity, it will be
matter of great congratulation. God is a necessity
in the cosmos. Jesus Christ is a necessity in the re
demptive plan. As God is needed in the creation
and unfolding, so is Christ needed in the progress of
the race. Whatever the system of philosophy, if God
and Christ remain, the Christian thinker need not
be perturbed. There are three attitudes which the religious
teacher can take to the Synthetic Philosophy: (a)
He can cast it aside ; (b) He can accept it ; (c) He
can sustain to it a sympathetic and conservative at
titude. The last is scientific. Whatever be our atti
tude, simple fairness demands that we examine its
right to live. Meanwhile, any unnecessary alarm
will be removed from the mind if we notice a few
facts. First. The Synthetic Philosophy considers the
universe as it is; matter and force as it finds them.
The cosmos is in process of making. In some parts

The Data of Philosophy. 29
it has likely reached perfection. Contraction and ex
pansion; aggregation and dissipation; evolution and
devolution, — these are the antagonistic forces forever
operating. Second. It considers life forms as they are. Bio
logically it seeks to indicate the path over which
they have come. In the study of consciousness the
Synthetic Philosophy has given us a new interpreta
tion. It postulates the psychical unity as well as the
physiological unity of the world. This is revolution
ary. The Intuitional school is confronted, not with a
denial of the intuitions (mark that), but with an
other interpretation of them. They are the product
of long experience, extending through the whole his
tory of consciousness, and are found in a lesser de
gree in the lower animals. Whatever the merit of
this (and we leave the schools to settle it) we must
not forget that the mind content remains identically
the same. In either case but a theory is affected, not
the thing itself. The student is free to choose either
horn of the dilemma. Philosophy deals with actual
conditions, generalizes the conclusions of science, and
constructs its theory of life-development.
Third. Man remains as he is. The Synthetic
Philosophy does not make him less, nor more. Man
is rational, volitional, emotional, moral. He is that,
philosophy or no philosophy. Neither science nor
philosophy nor theology has been able to destroy
him! We fail to dissociate him from theory. All
things aside, that philosophy which most fully recog-

30 • How a Man Grows.
nizes who he is and what is the purpose of his being,
will prove to him the greatest help.
With this before us, let us now examine his Mind
content2 Granting all that the Synthetic Philosophy
claims, that man is physiologically and mentally a
product of evolutionary forces, it is this being, man,
with whom we deal at last. The Man of the Bible is
the Man of Science ; no more and no less. All the
qualities of the Man of Science are in the Man of
Genesis. Not anything has been added to him or
taken from him since that time when God called to
him in the cool of the day.
We are now ready to examine the Mind content.
The intuitions have been mentioned. They are es
sential to thought, as the thought form seems to be
given by them.3 Yet they constitute but a small part
of the Mind content. In addition we discover the
following :
(a) The Mind includes the Power of Initiative.
It is a Thought manufactory. Not only does it gen
erate thought, but it can expel, and choose the par
ticular thought. It has the power of clearing the
room and refilling it with congenial guests. This
selective function is as wonderful as its generative.
The mind is endowed with supremacy over itself.
Education strengthens this function, but does not

! For the understanding of Consciousness the reader is referred
to the works of Wundt, Stout, Ladd, James, Miinsterberg, Bowne.
The attempt here is to present briefly some of the dynamic mani
festations of the Mind content.
• "Theory of Thought and Knowledge," Bowne, Chapter IV.

The Data of Philosophy. 31
create it. It is as much a part of the Mind content
as is memory.
(b) The Power of Continuity. Attention and re
tention have memory as an ingredient, but they are
more than memory, and more than will; they aro
states of consciousness. The mind has persistency
along the line of desire. In its cogitations there is
unity as well as fixedness of purpose. It has perti
nacity. The ability to prosecute consecutively and
for years a scheme, and to develop it, and to adjust
it to new conditions, as exhibited in the inventions,
in scientific research, in mathematical compilations
is astounding. Besides, the mind can stand itself
aside and scrutinize itself, track down the origin of
impulse, dissect its own cogitations, and see of what
stuff they are.
(c) The Formative or Creative Power. Some
times called imagination. #This is a complex func
tion, having somewhat of memory, reason, and the
esthetic instinct. It is mind in the constructive
mood. From which come all the arts and handi
crafts. It is involution before evolution; idealism,
in order that there may be realism. All that man
has added to the world was first builded in his own
mind. (d) The Power of Projection. This is the power
of the orator. The able jurist employs this in ad
dressing the court or the jury. The wise minister
studies to project his personality. The mind is po
tential, and essentially dynamic. A passive per-

32 How a Man Grows.
sonality is never interesting. Dominancy centers in
this mental power. It is the central principle in
hypnotism. The so-called "demonstrations" of Chris
tian science find their merit in this. The subject
becomes passive, and, for the time, thinks himself
helped. The legitimate use of this power is of great
advantage to the minister. The message is never sep
arated from his personality. To make that effective
he must project himself with his message. His per
sonality must be felt throughout the whole congrega
tion. He can not expect results unless he himself is
intense. Profound conviction is necessary to him.
The word zeal is from a root meaning fire. Fervent
means to be on fire. Enthusiasm implies a heated,
holy state of mind, and is somewhat akin to inspira
tion. Our word in-fluence — a flowing from and into
— conveys the thought. These are kindred words,
suggesting the filling-full of the mind to over-flow;
and, it is this over-flow that makes the orator for the
time being over-whelming, and the minister irresisti
ble. It is as holy as prayer.
(e) The Power of Retro-action. This is the re
verse of the former, and means that the mind can, so
to speak, double back on itself. The will is the most
prominent power in this. We know the mind can
force itself from one state of consciousness to another.
It can say to itself: "I know it is not that way, but
it shall be. I am aware it is that* way, but it shall
not be." It is this power that constitutes the stock in
trade of Christian science. The psychological fact

The Data of Philosophy. 33
has long been known. The principle has its limita
tions, as the mind can not impose upon itself self-de
ception and maintain its integrity, and any loss of
conscious integrity is loss of actual power. But un
der legitimate use it is to be recognized and com
mended. Christian Science is to be credited with
both the use and the abuse of it It has claimed a
monopoly of it, which is a false pretense. It has been
recognized by physicians and the Psychical Society
for many years. We are censurable in the too great
neglect of its use ; yet ministers have frequently, and
long before Christian Science was known, appealed to
the imbecile and the discouraged for the exercise of
this power ; not for self-deception, but self-help.
In an old autograph album I find this from a fel
low-student: "The secret of happiness is to believe
you are happy." It is a half-truth, and means that
the mind can enforce contentment upon itself. It
has again and again been shown how certain nervous
states have been cured by stimulating the mind to
think of and feel after health. It is not meant here
so much as to intimate that sickness and pain are un
real, nor that physicians and medicines should be
ignored, but only to enforce upon ourselves the habit
of thinking against feeling; compelling one's self to
live on Sunny Street, and to open the windows of the
soul to the south winds. "Think on these things," is
the injunction of Paul, and many a soul is invig
orated with hope and health by so doing.
I dwell upon this for three reasons. That we
S

34 How a Man Grows.
may see how it is that the Lord puts within our own
possession a power capable of vast benefits to our
selves and others did we legitimately exercise it. He
who said he had many troubles in life, most of which
never happened, spoke wisely. There are those who
have many afflictions which are no afflictions. All
such the mind itself can cure. Then, many others
(good people, who pray earnestly and study their
Bibles) go pining for a peace which never comes to
them. Would they but exercise this power, they
would realize that peace is already theirs. It is thus
we take hold of the promises, and hold to them against
everything to the contrary. Abraham believed the
promise. Faith is the appropriating faculty, and it
lies close by this power of which we are thinking.
There are moments when the mind must make itself
believe. Professor Wm. James has a book the sug
gestive title of which is, "The Will to .Believe." The
mind can compel itself to recognize and appreciate
truth of every kind. Lastly, did we emphasize this
power there would not be so many attributing to a
pseudo-religious system, which is, in its last analysis,
neither Christian nor scientific; but a system per
verted, filled with mysticism, erroneous conceptions
of God and of the world, — there would not, I repeat,
be so many attributing to that pseudo-religious sys
tem, merits beyond its capacity to justify.
The mind was not endowed with these marvelous
powers to lead to error, and into fanaticism, nor away
from the atonement in Jesus Christ. Any system

The Data of Philosophy. 35
which denies the awful fact of sin and actual suffer
ing of which the world is full, is unworthy the cre
dence of rational beings. Sickness and death are as
real as life. They are positive realities, and no
amount of thinking will remove them from among
men. It is not the getting rid of them, but triumph
ing in spite of them. To this end the mind is
endowed with supremacy. Its constitution gives it
dominion over itself. The overcoming soul is to re
member the first step to victory is within itself, and
at the end of its strength the Spirit helpeth. The
word of Christ, that He would send the Comforter,
is made the clearer by knowing that the true meaning
is Helper. The Helper comes to the self-exercising
soul. The man who wills to believe will soon find
himself believing. The man who compels himself
to appropriate Christ becomes Christ-like. Such
mental functioning is fundamental to soul-culture
and to soul-health. The remedial virtue of the mind
should be given. due recognition by the representa
tives of sound philosophy.
It is necessary to mention but one other, the Eth
ical Content. It is left to the last for the very reason
that it may be characterized as the vitalizing power.
Consciousness is filled with the fear of judgment.
It is the sense of moral merit or demerit. There is
that which scrutinizes behavior. Conscience makes
cowards of us all. The moral quality of conduct is
imperative. The mind demands rectitude. Educa
tion can not eradicate nor bestiality destroy this.

36 How a Man Grows.
The Ethical Content is the conscious sense of respon
sibility and accountability. The normal mind gravi
tates to moral standards. This is wonderful and uni
versal. The race interprets itself by what it does and
purposes. It rises and falls at the moral point.
Thus we have sought to make clear why philos
ophy must consider man as he is. It recognizes him
a unique personality. No one philosophy has suc
ceeded in defining him. Religion alone can do that.
For, howsoever it be explained, there is in him the
God-idea — so that he is a creature of worship as well
as of thought, and feeling. In some sense philosophy
believes him still becoming, and philosophy itself
broadens as the greater man appears. The processes
of his consciousness are in sensation and affection.4
Granting that man is a biological as well as a rational
being, his psychological life reflects vastly more than
either implies.5
Accepting this analysis of his Mind content as ap
proximately correct, then it may be suggested that
the manifestation of his power has just begun. What
are the laws which will determine his ascent in the
further process of his becoming? The question is
both profound and practical. A brief attempt will be
made to answer it. The laws are three. They are
not new, and do not belong to this age. From the
first they have operated. They will be found in the
lowest and highest type of man. Just to the extent

* " Talks to Teachers," James.
6 Art. • : Psychology," Ency. Americana

The Data of Philosophy. 37
that individuals or tribes or nations observe these
laws will they ascend in intelligence and moral power.
First. The Law of Expectancy. It is a deep
truth that man is saved by hope. He has gone every
where searching for a better land, a bigger chance.
He is learning that he who looks up is lifted up. If
satisfied with the good, he rises not so high as he who
is content only with the better. Whereas he who
stops with the better can not hope to excel as does
he who strives for the best "Excelsior !" That is it.
Not to climb merely, but to attain. This is a law of
his being. The law is, in the best sense, expulsive
and creative, leading him out of a lesser into a greater
selfhood. It is the upreach, the tiptoe aspiration.
God made him so. Let him but follow on; indeed
follow he must, for progress is essential to growth.
Second. The Law of Habit. Well-tempered habit
enforces patience. It steadies impulse and tends to
fixedness. It develops caution and affords time for
self-examination. Progress is not a pell-mell rush.
The ascent of man is a climb by slow steps. The
race has come by a circuitous but long route, and good
climbing is still ahead. If perchance, habit fixes the
fe^et in the path of destruction; if, by it, multitudes
fall into the crevasses of death, — that awful fact but
emphasizes its power. Just as certainly does habit
establish the race in the way of blessing.
And this suggests what is always involved in the
law; viz., Ethical influence. I was about to say
polarity; for man ever and anon finds himself at-

38 How a Man Grows.
tracted to, or repelled from, the good or the evil. The
soul has no alchemy by which evil can be made good.
Forever good and evil are diametrically opposite.
Like a pendulum, man has moved between them. He
discovers that he is either made or unmade at the
moral point. Life is ethics. Habit is never non-
moral. It is, therefore, all consequential what the
moral complexion of his appetencies shall be ; for on
that hangs his destiny. Jesus cut deep into the phi
losophy of soul-culture always, and he did it by
thrusting in the ethical blade. His self-denial propo
sition;6 that one about losing one's life to find it;7
the conduct of the elder brother,8 the incident of the
rich young man.9 In all these Jesus is seeking to
create the habit of moral supremacy. The law of
habit is terrible. It is insidious and incisive,
and determinative. The race rises or falls in
its habits. Pre-eminently it needs constantly to
aspire to the strong, the beautiful, and the good.
Thus the law so terrible to the wicked, will prove
glorious to the righteous. Herein is seen the match
less opportunity of the Church of Christ.
Third. The Law of Liberty. The one dream of
the centuries has been of freedom. Man has fought,
and struggled, studied, and worshiped, to be free.
He hates bondage. One of the most wonderful
manifestations of his psychological life is that he
thinks himself endowed with an inalienable right to
be free. It is an instinct, and in his soul he spurns
6 Mark viii, 84. i Matt, xvi, 25. sLukexv, 25. » Matt, xix
16, 22.

The Data of Philosophy. 39
any doctrine of necessity. Fatality he will have none
of. Whenever man and fate have met, man has wpn.
Against adverse circumstance and fate he has sworn
vengeance. His bitterest enemies have not been
without, but within: ignorance, superstition, preju
dice, ancestral habit. He has overthrown gov
ernments and created new ones; he has turned
anarchist only to discover that no-government
is the worst of governments. At this hour the battle
wages hot in all the earth. Apparently he has come
to a consciousness that liberty can be realized.
The impulse for liberty is so powerful that it
rises to the dignity of a law. No religion teaches
this but Christianity; therein lies its world-mission.
That is a profound word: "Whoso looketh into the
perfect law of liberty."10 A weighty responsibility
is upon all teachers to show the true character of lib
erty. Mankind is predisposed to seek liberty from
without. Legislation can not make a people free.
Physical freedom alone can easily prove a curse.
Liberty must first be found within a people.
A lawless liberty is anarchy, oppression four
fold. Liberty .unbridled is as a wild horse
amid the multitude. Liberty of mere private in
terpretation is dangerous individualism; for when
every man does what is right in his own eyes, pande
monium is begun. Centralized authority, to be
effectual, must spring from affection or a desire for
the general welfare. But no less does it demand af
fectionate obedience. This makes freedom. Law-
w
io James 1, 25.

40 How a Man Grows.
less liberty is but another way of spelling bondage.
The Gospel of Law is to the Gospel of Liberty as is
the sun to the harvest. This is a message for tho
world. Did we live true to the perfect Law of Liberty,
then were the race free. The word Law is good.11
It is scientific. There can be no progress in real
liberty until this law is attended to in earnest. By
every means we should educate the populations into
the recognition of this deep truth.
A simple illustration will give us the meaning.
A boy is flying a kite. What makes the kite fly?
"The wind," says one. "The shape of the kite," says
another. "Both," says a third. The scientist an
swers, "The string held at tension." Is the kite free ?
Surely? See how it sits majestic. Behold it rise!
The fact that the string makes it fly -is interesting.
The string snaps and the floundering, ungraceful
kite, helpless, subject to the caprices of the wind,
pitches hard to the earth. The string is law. Held
by the lad the kite, under proper conditions, rests
majestic. Just so is it with man and mankind. God
holds the law. Man is fastened to it. By obedience
to the law of righteousness, he finds himself free.
His liberty is a majestic experience. The breath of
God bloweth upon him, and he lives. The law holds
him, if he permit, in happy relations to duty. He
finds himself full of light and good. In him flows a
" If the words Law and Aoyos are from the same root, as some
claim, then there is implied an order established in wisdom. An
order decreed by an Infinite Person. "In the beginning was the
AoytK." Nine times in Gen. i, is used the phrase, "And God said."
In Aoyos is Law.

The Data of Philosophy. 41
power which makes him rise above the sordid and
mean. He is supreme. Never is a man or a nation
so great as when the ten words of the Decalogue con
trol. Perfect liberty is moral, and exists only when
the Lawgiver is revered and His law honored. Given
this liberty within, as a very part of himself, it
creates liberty without. Feudalism, and much. that
is oppressive, give place to larger social privileges.
It is thus that the Utopian day will be reached. There
is no other way. Again we fall at the feet of the
Nazarene. Once more we see the world-wide mission
of the Church of Christ.
These are some of the psychological data upon
which the present-day philosophy of man is con
structed. He is both the redemptive agent and sub
ject. He is not yet awake to the majesty of his self
hood. To awaken him is our task. Christianity is
the most powerful stimulus to that end. He is in
trenched in the sensuous, in tradition, ancient cus
tom, caste, and carnality. He is greater than his
environment, though ofttimes in it he has perished.
He longs for that which he understands not. Never
had the Church a more splendid chance. Man's en-
thrallment in sin is apology sufficient for all educa
tional and spiritual propaganda. His insatiate
hunger for something other than he is and has, is a
call from out his own breast to administer unto him.
As he is of God, he can be good. Christianity must
show him how. The job is prodigious. In the doing
of it will be found the "Holy Grail."

CHAPTER III.
COSMIC ETHICS.
Philosophy does not deduct its Generalizations from
Theology but from History and Science.
Herbert Spencer was the Apostle of Ethics in
evolutionary philosophy. He wrote "The Data of
Ethics," with the conviction that the "establishment
of rules of right conduct on a scientific basis is a
pressing need." Justice demands commendation of
his motive. His metaphysics has been severely at
tacked by the intuitional school, and his deductions
by many religious thinkers. Without question his
system is open to the charge of vagueness, indefinite-
ness, and lack of authority. The student is ever look
ing for some further word, only to be disappointed.
Spencer is too agnostic. One feels, in reading him,
that he has succeeded in launching into the unknown
and fathomless, but has been caught in the fog, and,
after an heroic effort to find his way out, is in a swirl
that sweeps round rather than onward. This is the
weakness of the system.
Spencer sought to keep within the bounds of nat
uralism. His philosophy is mundane. He had a
dread of the supernatural. He endeavored to handle
the world from the standpoint of matter and force.
42

Cosmic Ethics. 43
us his system lacks the satisfactory assurances of
wider philosophy. Dr. John Fiske realized this
akness, and courageously announced himself as a
impion of Spencerianism with the Theistic con-
ition. His "Cosmic Philosophy" is a bold effort
reconcile evolution with Theism. His conception
not anything other than what might be called
ristian pantheism.
Yet, whatever may be our predilection, we will do
rselves much harm and these great minds an in-
stice unless we turn to profit the real results of
jir investigations. Ruskin has taught us how to
> truth in stones, gems, soot, industry, literature,
;. What we need is light from many minds. Paul
jaks of the "variegated wisdom of God."1
The supreme merit of the Synthetic Philosophy
the effort to find out what is permanent That is
rth while. The key-word to the system is "Evolu-
n." In that Mr. Spencer finds worlds, life-forms,
;, society, government, man. While it is impossible
escape the inference that the word is overworked,
-j we should remember "evolution" means less or
ire according to what is put into it Darwin was
•ist, Haeckle atheist, Spencer agnostic, Fiske Theist,
¦ummond a believer in Christian supernaturalism.
¦ummond is one step ahead of Fiske, for the latter
d a morbid fear of supernatural interference. Thus
i enlarging of that word is one of the psychological
itures of the time." If Fiske has taught us how to

i Eph. Ill, 10.

44 How a Man Grows.
think of Theistic evolution, Drummond has taught
us how to think of Christian evolution. That is to
say, we are now well aware that man can not be ac
counted for upon the single basis of naturalism.
Nevertheless there is a world of fact into which
the Synthetic Philosophy seeks to introduce us. It
is not a system of denial so much as of affirmation.
Granting its weakness, plain fairness insists that we
examine its pillars of strength.
In his "Data of Ethics," Mr. Spencer has estab
lished the persistence of the ethical principle. Hith
erto prejudice (many times ill founded) has neutral
ized the force of his argument. His ethical theory is
historically and scientifically presented. The pur
pose of this essay is to assist the reader to gather the
wheat and put it into the market.
Mr. Spencer postulates a threefold developmental
process in constructing his theory of Ethics: (a)
Evolution of structure throughout the ascending
types of animals. This is physiological, (b) Evo
lution of functions, which has gone on pari passu with
the evolution of structures. This is biological, (c)
Evolution of conduct, which is correlated with struc
tural and functional development This is ethical.
Stated in popular form he means to say : In the
lowest life-forms there is purposeless action. A re
move higher, purpose. Higher still, rationality ad
justs itself to means for an end, and thus moral pur
pose begins. Conduct is a product. The rise of the
ethical is synchronous with the rise of being, and

Cosmic Ethics. 45
first appears as ethical in rational intent. As ascent
is from the lower to the higher, from the simple to
the complex, so the ethical develops along with tho
rational and the social. Man has learned what is
right through his benefits, and what is wrong through
his misfortunes. Ethics began in the individualistic
instinct, self-preservation, and gradually grew into
the altruistic. Thus ethics is builded from cosmic
unfolding. The strength of this theory is that it makes right
eousness to be a part of the constitution of things;
that the Ten Commandments are in Nature, and were
just as true before as after they were written on
tables of stones; that God in the beginning spoke
into the cosmos ethical potentiality. Man, in his
long pilgrimage, has learned this. Whatever may be
the difficulties in accepting the theory just as Mr.
Spencer has presented it, there is in it a most sug
gestive truth. No system of ethics can be permanent
which ignores Nature. It is impossible to believe
that there are two contradictory systems of ethics in
the same world. There is no such thing as Chris
tian ethics contrary to cosmic ethics. Ethics must
have unity. If Mr. Spencer is more content to show
cosmic ethics and seems to ignore Christian ethics,
let us remember he is writing as a philosopher and
not as a theologian. He is making effort to discover
a constitutional basis for ethical principles outside of
religion. To the extent he succeeds, religion is for
tified.

46 How a Man Grows.
It has been urged that his system is rooted in self
ishness — in the egoistic instinct. But it is easy to
rob one's self of the strength of his argument by
dwelling too intently upon that. We must not
forget that Self is a sacred thing. The in
stinct of self-preservation is holy. Selfishness has
a good as well as bad side. Spencer is aiming
to show that the ethical principle is not capricious, to
be ignored at will, but that it is rooted in the cosmos,
and belongs to an order both permanent and per
sistent. Mr. Spencer is not seeking to overthrow
ethics, but to assure us that the universe is con
structed on moral foundations. It stands us in hand
to embrace the double advantage, and admit at once
that an ethical system can not be devised without the
recognition of man as a cosmic factor. There can be
no question that man has, in his struggle, been taught
physiological ethics. Such as: That the quality of
\food and bodily care are prerequisites to strength;
that work is conducive to longevity; that sobriety
and frugality bring pleasure; that self-preservation
is subordinate to the preservation of the species. He
has learned that Nature has no favor itisms, that she
never forgives or forgets, and that man is as ame
nable to her authority as is the meanest brute. There
is, then, such a thing as Cosmic Ethics. The "wages
of sin is death," not because God is an avenger, but
because in the very constitution of things is the sword
of fire which turns to the smiting of the evil doer.
The laws of Nature are ethical. He who conforms

Cosmic Ethics. 47
the most perfectly to her behests gets most of her
virtue. Such a teaching re-enforces a true Christian
philosophy. Dr. Fiske, who was zealous of the Theistic in
terpretation, assures us that it is the intent of the
Synthetic philosophy to insist upon involution first.
This is well worth our attention. Involute means to
roll up with, to infold. What a beautiful conception !
In the very beginning, when the heaven and the earth
were made, when primordial substance was given
being, there was put into it a principle of righteous
ness ; that the ethical is not an after-thought With
such a fundamental is preserved the supernatural
origin of ethics, just as there is preserved in any
theory but the Atheistic, the supernatural origin
of the cosmos; that all of the creative function
from the beginning had regard to man;, that the
whole was given by a Moral Mind ; that the Ten Com
mandments have from the beginning the "Everlast
ing Yea." We readily admit, in order to have the
highest remedial virtue, religion must have more
than the ethics of the cosmos; nevertheless religion
in its best form does not claim, nor need it claim, an
origin so supernatural as to be independent of cos-
mical ethics; and she can well afford to recognize
Nature's contribution to man's ethical knowledge.

CHAPTER IV.
CHRISTIAN ETHICS.
Man's Relation is Fourfold, and he Requires [a Fourfold
Adjustment.
" Hence the moral man is one whose functions — many
and varied in their kinds, as we have seen — are all discharged
in degrees duly adjusted to the conditions of existence." —
Hbebbrt Spencbb,
Ethics is the science of moral adjustments. The
relations of man are fourfold ; consequently there is
required on his part a fourfold adjustment. That
ethics which takes cognizance of these in the fullest.
sense will, on the principle of the survival of the
fittest, prevail and persist. What is this fourfold
relation ? 1st. That which he holds to himself and
to his environment. 2d. That which he holds to Na
ture. 3d. That which he sustains to his fellows. 4th.
That which he has to God. There is no item here
which can be dispensed with. An ethics which recog
nizes, and clearly defines these relations, and at the
same time gives stimuli to the individual or to large
numbers, must be among the greatest possible
blessings to mankind. Is there such an ethics ?
There is, and we believe it to be in Chris
tianity. By the Christian system of ethics we do not
48

Christian Ethics. 49
mean to imply that many of its precepts are not found
otherwhere, nor that some of them were not known
centuries before Christ; but that in the New Testa
ment all essential principles are given, by which if
individuals or nations live they will, in an incredibly
brief time, enjoy this fourfold adjustment which
science insists upon, and which religion makes im
perative. Let us see how nearly correct this claim is.
First. Man's Relation to Himself.1 We have
seen that he is, at least, dual in his being, so that
his relation to himself is twofold, that which he holds
to his body and that which he sustains to his mind.
Whatever may be the worth of cosmic- ethics to
man, he has been slow to recognize himself as a
physical mechanism — fearfully and wonderfully
made — and still slower to come into the gospel of his
body. Hygienic science is not yet any too popular
in Christian lands, and in pagan countries it is dis
tressingly neglected. Sanitation of home and city
can not be said to be any too well attended to any
where, and in most places disease thrives for lack of
intelligent care. The Gospel of the Body is force
fully and peculiarly taught in the New Testament.
After reading the numerous books upon ethics, a
thoughtful student is profoundly convinced that the
New Testament Gospel of the Body is altogether
unique. "Know ye not that your body is the temple
1 The writer recognizes the non-technicality of such expression
as " Man holds to himself," or " Man's relation to himself." It is
difficult to refer to Personality as herein Intended, and the popu
lar form is preferred to the technical.
4

50 How a Man Grows.
of the Holy Ghost?" There it is. Where is there
such a conception as that ? "Your body," "the tem
ple," "of the Holy Ghost ;" the body a place of God's
tabernacling! Now, we know that a temple is holy,
and is for the abiding of the Holy Ghost, the Holy
Guest, the Holy Spirit. There can be no question as
to Paul's meaning. "Now the body is not for forni
cation, but for the Lord ; and the Lord for the body."
"Know ye not that your bodies are the members of
Christ ? Shall I, then, take the members c*f Christ
and make them the members of an harlot?" Paul
himself answers, "God forbid !" Should any deny
the Pauline teaching, he would, at least, be compelled
to admit that Paul teaches a most positive and re
markable gospel for the body. Let any one believe
his body to be a temple for the indwelling of the
Holy Spirit, and therewith begins a life which, for
purity and conscientious regard of the body, can not
be excelled. Dissipation, concupiscence, fornication,
filthy communication, and all conduct which con
taminates, ceases. Conjoined with this high doc
trine is an impending judgment. "If any man defile
the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the
temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. Let no
man deceive himself." Here is the double teaching
that the body of the individual believer is God's tem
ple; and that the whole body of believers (the true
Church) is His temple. That both are under the
same metaphor is evidence how transcendent is this
Gospel of the Body. No man can maintain his per-

Christian Ethics. 51
sonal purity, his honor, the vigor of manhood,
who abuses his bodily functions. Christian ethics
does, therefore, insist upon the scrupulous observance
of the highest possible conception of one's relations
to himself; and he who observes that gospel will dis
cover an harmonious adjustment of his functional life
to his physical being. Less than this could not be
said and more need not be, for any one familiar with
comparative ethics, who has at all the scientific spirit,
must admit this Pauline Gospel of the Body is unique
and powerful.
Man holds to himself an intellectual relation. lie
is mind as well as body. There is in the New Testa
ment that which forbids man abusing any part
of his being. The clause in the Lord's Prayer,
"Give us this day our daily bread," which had better
be read, "Give us this day bread for our being," im
plies that the body is not all, that physical meats do
not satisfy the whole being, that there is a bread for
the higher man. It matters not whether man be con
sidered trichotomic or dual, one can not intelligently
study the New Testament without knowing that all
of the Gospels and the Epistles condemn any neglect
or abuse of the intellectual or spiritual man. "Think
on these things." "Think !" Christianity is not to be
condemned because many of its devotees have been,
and are, ignorant. It is the merit of Christianity that
learning is no guarantee of one's acceptance with
God. Yet those who are familiar with the Christian
teachings know that there is in them that which

52 How a Man Grows.
quickens intellect and inspires to knowledge. As
profound as was the learning of Paul he soon discov
ered that Christian ethics was in advance of his eth
ical teaching in the Sanhedrin. It was he who wrote,
"I keep under my body, and bring it into subjec
tion." That is, he kept reason supreme ; his soul he
kept on top. It is the whole spirit of Christianity
that a man has not a right to do what he will with
his own. He has not a right to do so were there no
other than himself. The obligation which he owes
to his own person is everywhere recognized. No
teacher ever emphasized and insisted upon the moral
ities as did Jesus Christ. "As a man thinketh in his
heart, so is he;" "Out of the heart proceed evil
thoughts." "Blessed are the pure in heart, for
they shall see God." The individualistic tendency is
to mental and moral dissipation. The gospel of
Christianity is, "Be true at any cost." Thus the
proposition of Herbert Spencer that "the moral man
is one whose functions — many and varied in their
kinds — are all discharged in degrees duly adjusted
to the conditions of existence," finds a complete cor
roboration in the application of man's highest obli
gations to himself; and those obligations are no
where so' explicitly and emphatically enjoined as in
the words of Christ and the Pauline Epistles. Self-
culture is in mental application. Jesus was found
among the doctors at the age of twelve asking and
answering questions. The central thought of Chris
tian Ethics is preparation for life's responsibilities.

Christian Ethics. 53
The best possible preparation is demanded. This
calls for strenuous mental culture. Christian educa
tion should be considered a necessary adjunct to re
generation. Second. Man's Relation to Nature. Nature is
defined as the present material universe, with all its
forces, physical and spiritual, controlled by the prin
ciple of sequence or the law of cause and effect; a
system of orderly onflowing, whose forces are phys
ical, chemical, vital, and psychical; a system which
persists in a marvelous unity and harmony, domi
nated by laws which seem to be fixed. In this system
is man, and he is altogether in the system. No part
of him but is dominated by Nature. He can not ex
tricate himself from her power. So intimately is he
a part of her that her moods affect him. He is help
less in her grasp. She deals with him as she deals
with the atom, the molecule, the tree, the mountain,
the star. When she says to him "Go," if he goes
not, he is punished; and when she says "Come," if he
comes not, he lives to regret it. Her favorite sons
are those who do her bidding. Her will is in what
we call her laws. These laws are holy ; those of the
Decalogue are not more so. Any theory that man
ever gets above Nature is false. Any notion that he
can live contrary to her without loss is irrational. A
fruitful cause of misery is just here. Many seem to
think to sin against God is one thing, while to sin
against Nature is another. Each is part of one and
the same thing. He who sins against Nature sins

54 How a Man Grows.
against God, and vice versa. God and Nature can
not be separated except in thought. Nature is full
of God. Thousands live in direct antagonism to
Nature and are reaping the sure results. The aver
age life of the harlot is five years; the drunkard is
soon under the ground ; the libertine rots ; the mental
imbecile often harvests the effects of unnamed sin.
The idler, the deceiver, the liar, the robber, the glut
ton, the inconstant, the Sabbath-breaker, the gambler,
the riotous, all are witnesses to the ravages of
antagonism to Natura She makes of them chaff,
and her winds blow them away. Shakespeare
is the one poet, more than any other, who constantly
assures us that Nature can not be trespassed upon
without penalty both here and now. "The stars in
their courses fought against Sisera?" Why? Be
cause Nature is moral. It is the Bible which tells
us that the stars fight against that one who erects
himself against God. The stars are on God's side
because He made them and orders them; He knows
them by name.' "He calls the earth from the rising
of the sun unto the going down of the same." He
is the Shepherd of the stars and of the earth. When
He calls, they come ! That is Biblical Moral Astron
omy ! Nature is holy. Let us cling to that. It is ap
parent that Christian ethics will not excuse us for
neglect of her laws. The very soul of Christianity
is respect to the laws which control the world. Any
disrespect to Nature is insult to God. If one would
come to his best, let him obey Nature. The right-

Christian Ethics. 55
eous flourish like the palm-tree, when, like the
palm, there is quick response to Nature's mandates.
We have all seen righteous who did not flourish. They
lacked, care to Nature's requirements, or some one or
more before them had lacked care, and Nature, who
never forgets, had balanced the account with them.
The sin of the fathers is visited upon children to
the third and fourth generation, even of them that
fear Him and keep His commandments. This is a
fearful truth. The children of the righteous must
suffer for the sins of their ancestors. Why? Na
ture never forgets and she balances all accounts. She
does this, not capriciously, but by direction; that is
to say, at the last, from the view-point of Christian
philosophy, Nature is an incarnated thought of God,
and the laws of Nature are the expression of the
.Divine Will, and they persist because the Divine
Will persists. I say that is the Christian conception.
A Christianity, therefore, which shuts its eyes to the
violation of natural law, and counts it a small thing,
is a pseudo-Christianity, and itself stands condemned.
Nature demands a rest-day from labor. The written
Word of God demands a rest-day. Nature is not ex
plicit as to the proportion of time, but the Bible re
quires a seventh. Nature blesses this in every man
or nation who observes it. The sanction of Nature is
strong evidence that both Nature and the command
are from the same source. Nature hates drunken
ness; the Word anathematizes the drunkard. Na
ture is against the thief ; the Word says, "Thou shalt

56 How a Man Grows.
not steal." Nature curses the libertine; the Word
says he shall be cursed. Thus the awful truth is dis
covered that he who sins against Nature, sins against
himself and against God ; while he who observes Na
ture's laws blesses himself and honors God. Chris
tian ethics began to be taught by the Saviour under
the canopy of the skies, in the midst of the lilies and
flying sparrows. The Sermon on the Mount was
fittingly spoken from the hillside. Jesus Christ him
self was under Nature's laws, and granting that he
was God in the flesh, it is the wonder of the ages
that he became subject, not only to his parents, but tc
Nature; He grew in stature and in wisdom, day by
day; and as a child of Nature He announced under
Nature's sky, to mankind, His Moral System, which
because of its complete harmony with Nature is
itself most natural; a system for man's natural life
in this universe of law and order.
Third. Man's Relation to His Neighbor. "Am
I my brother's keeper?" was asked by a murderer.
It is a question of the sinful, selfish heart. It is
the egoistic spirit pressed to extremest limit. It is
individualism against the world. To that Chris
tianity has but one answer. Any religious system
which is not explicit in its ethical teaching upon that
matter, the race will outgrow, and reject as it does
its old clothes. Christian ethics is both emphatic and
insistent upon the love of one's neighbor, and one's
neighbor is he most in need, whether near or far. It
allows no caste system, no color of skin, no prejudice

Christian Ethics 57
to debar one from the full exercise of mercy, courtesy,
justice to another. Jesus Christ compels the recog
nition of the rights and privileges of the other man.
"The social law of service" is love. Nothing more,
nor anything less. It is enough.
The adjustment of man to man, of the individual
to the commonwealth, of the capital to the so-called
laboring classes, of the master to the servant, of the
weak to the strong, is amply provided for in the eth
ical code of Christianity. Theoretically it is com
plete. The principles are rational, comprehensive,
final. No word can be added to make the system
more perfect. The Parable of the Good Samaritan
contains it all. It is impracticable because, it is not
worked, not because it can not be. In one of the
great cities, in a large and prosperous manufactur
ing establishment, hangs from the ceiling of all the
rooms a placard: "It is Right/'' "What is Right?"
was asked the guide. "The Golden Rule, as we in
terpret it." "And how do you interpret it ?" "Jus
tice to every employee; reward where reward is due
above the wage ; the exercise of mercy, the supply of
convenience^, etc." That is Christian ethics. There
were toilets, rest-rooms for the women, commodious
dining-rooms for lunch, a piano, a culinary depart
ment. Science teaches that the altruistic instinct has
arisen out of the egoistic, from the individual to the
social, from the simple to the complex. Christian
ethics is scientifically based, then; for the law is,
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Thyself

58 How a Man Grows.
is the starting point. Love is expulsive from an indi
vidualistic center. The measure of thy love to others
is thy love for thyself. It has been suggested that
one should love his neighbor as much as he deserves.
But who shall determine that? What thy neighbor
deserves it may be impossible to know. That would
subject the neighbor to caprice, to prejudice, and
many a Levite, and many not Levites, would pass by
the fallen, the unfortunate, the miserable, and count
him unworthy of more than a look. Jesus Christ
glorified His ethics when He put the measure within
each man — "as thyself." Henry Drummond discov
ered that the Darwinian ethics limited too much the
struggle of life to the principle of self-struggle.
Hence he tells us, in his "Ascent of Man," that the
true principle is "struggle for the life of others."
He is right. The individualistic instinct must be
come expulsive and comprehensive. He had better
written, "Struggle for the life of all others," for
there is a real sense in which the individual lives,
not only for his species, but for all life. Especially
is this the case with man, whose life is rational. The
preservation of the race is in the altruistic sense, and
this Christian ethics strengthens. "Go, and do
thou likewise," said Christ to the lawyer in the
Parable of the Good Samaritan. The Jewish race
lost its opportunity in national exclusiveness. We
are told that conscience is multifarious. There is
the social conscience, the patriotic conscience, the
benevolent conscience, the sesthetic conscience, and

Christian Ethics. 59
the religious conscience, but it must be observed that
all these arise from the ethical instinct. Christian
ethics is based upon the instincts. "Do unto others
as ye would they should do unto you" is, like "Love
thy neighbor as thyself," individualistic first, and al
truistic last And there is in the principle the pro
found fact which is everywhere taught by science,
that the individualistic has, as its final development,
the altruistic; and that while at first the individual
istic instinct is strongest, it comes to be the weakest
of all the instincts. Thus Christian ethics strengthens
the world impulses, and creates in the individual a
world love. The whole missionary passion is in this.
To discover that the ethics of Christianity is thus
scientifically based, and in harmony with the most
advanced teaching of philosophy, is a matter of great
worth to the thoughtful student. It indicates that
the teaching was not that of an enthusiast, a mere
peripatetic, or of a few zealots, ignorant and un
trustworthy, but that the system is rooted in a knowl
edge of Nature and of mankind, of the laws of one
and the impulses and ultimate purposes of the other.
Fourth. Man's Relation to Cod. The centrality
of Christian ethics is Jesus Christ, whose doctrine of
God is that of Eternal Father. The God-idea ap
pears in the development of the instincts. Biological
science is now teaching that the instincts have come
in serial order, and that the God-idea, along with the
others, is historic, reaching far back into ages of pre
historic man, and therefore has a rootage in con-

60 How a Man Grows.
sciousness, innate and permanent. In the cultivation
of the instincts it matters not whether they were de
veloped by an evolutionary process, or were from
the first. Take, for instance, the sexual instinct
Granting that it is a racial development, we deal
with it now as real and permanent. Howsoever
it came we now know it as individualistic and
altruistic. . As such we deal with it. The re-,
ligious instinct, we know, is as real and permanent as
the sexual or the Eesthetic. We can no more ignore
it without serious loss than we can any of the others.
It is the fact we want. The method of the fact is
lost in the complexities of race development, and will
remain more or less hypothetical. Christianity is
not concerned as to the origin of the God-idea. The
Old Testament nowhere discusses the existence of
God, nor does it tell how the idea came into the race.
It postulates Him in the stately words, "In the begin
ning God created the heaven and the earth." Every
where in the Scriptures He is assumed as a certainty.
The old Hebraic conception held Him Almighty,
Eternal, Creator, while Jesus Christ made most
prominent the All-Fatherhood.
An atheistic ethics is impossible. Any conception
of the universe which denies to the cosmos Eternal
Rationality and Moral Personality or a Moral Un
knowable, or a Moral Absolute, will be rejected ; for
the reason that it fails to account for rationality in
the cosmos and rationality in man, as it also fails to
account for the morality of the cosmos and the moral

Christian Ethics. 61
faculty of man. A non-rational cosmos can not ac
count for rational and moral man. Rationality points
backward to an All-rational, and morality to an All-
moral. The ethical codes which most emphatically insist
upon a God of some kind as the Authoritative Unit
in conduct, do most for man. Indeed, it is every
where true that the conception of the Person and
Character of this God determines altogether the char
acter of the ethics. Christian ethics has, as funda
mental, a Holy, Eternal Spirit of Absolute Love and
Justice, requiring of all the practice of justice and
mercy, and insisting upon love and obedience to Him,
with the explicit teaching of judgment after death
for the deeds done in the body.
It is universally admitted that man knows him
self to be out of adjustment with God. Especially
does he know himself to need heavenly clemency and
forgiveness. Every form of religious teaching is
based upon the ethical principle that man is unworthy
of the fellowship of God. The fact of disadjustment
is universal. It remains true, therefore, that any
ethical system which ignores the fact of sin, or sep
aration, is impotent to adjust man's moral life; for
adjustment means, in its deepest analysis, recon
struction, regeneration. In the second instance,
Christian ethics, it will be readily conceded, presents
not only the most exalted and rational conception of
God, the highest ideal of life, but also the most ra
tional and feasible method of adjustment of man to

62 How a Man Grows.
the moral requirements. The highest rule of life and
practice yet conceived is in the New Testament. But
we need also to recognize that the New Testament
presents a method. It will not be denied that the
whole mission of Jesus Christ is one of moral or spir
itual adjustment. The New Testament has no place
nor purpose if it be not to reveal a plan of moral ad
justment of the race to God. We thus see that Chris
tian ethics not only recognizes man's fourfold disad
justment, but insists upon his fourfold readjustment,
and presents a completed plan by which that fourfold
readjustment may be realized both by the individual
and the race. We have, then, shown that Christian
ethics satisfactorily complies with all the conditions
suggested by Mr. Spencer when he says : "The moral
man is one whose functions — many and varied in
'their kinds, as we have seen — are all discharged in
degrees duly adjusted to the conditions of existence."
The Platonic and Aristotelian ethics emphasized
wisdom, valor, temperance, justice; but with each,
these virtues were individualistic and possible only
to the learned or ruling classes. Slavery was the
basis of their State. There was no idea of brother
hood of race, and their ethics was altogether national.
Outside the Greeks, human life was of no worth. It
has been shown that Stoicism was barely above the
suicide mark. Buddhism, which is a reformation of
Brahminism, knows nothing of social solidarity ; has
no doctrine of brotherhood save that of caste, and
¦ knows no heaven but personal annihilation into Nir-

Christian Ethics. 63
vana. Tested by the broadest and best established
teachings of science, such ethics as any one of these
fails at every point. Nationalism, caste, individual-
ish, annihilation, are repugnant to mankind. To see
wherein the religious teachings of Jesus the Christ
meet the requirements of the race is time well spent.
Let us now put Christian Ethics to another test.
Mr. Spencer has established four propositions by
which any ethics must stand or fall. He does this by a
psychological study of the race, by tracing the evolu
tion of knowledge, and the unfolding of the social life.
These propositions carry with them the weight of
science, and can not be ignored. If Christianity can
endure the test of these, its right of place is estab
lished for all time. Having shown how Christian
ethics meets man's fourfold need of adjustment, let
us examine the further demands of Mr. Spencer.
What are these four propositions and how does Chris
tianity fare before them ?
1. "That which is good accomplishes the end of
being." The only question to be asked in the light of
this is, "What is the end of being?" Mr. Spencer
answers by telling us that the end of being is the
greatest happiness to the greatest number. Surely
we are ready to admit that that which gives the great
est happiness to the greatest number is good — good
without question. That Christianity stands for such
a consummation can not be denied. Its method' of at
taining it is unique, but that Christianity exists for
a universal highest good to the race can not be ques-

64 How a Man Grows.
tioned. His ways are ways of pleasantness and all
His paths are peace. "Come unto Me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take
My yoke upon you, and learn of Me ; for I am meek
and lowly in heart ; and ye shall find rest unto your
souls." One of the inducements set forth for belief
in Jesus Christ and obedience to the will of God, is
peace and joy. "The kingdom of God is not in meats
and drinks, but in righteousness, and joy, and peace
in the Holy Ghost." Of the city of Sychar it is
written, after Christ had been accepted, "There was
great joy in that city." The fundamental principles
of the Christian faith are such as to create peace and
joy. The greatest happiness principle to the great
est number is consonant with the whole import of the
mission of Jesus Christ. We therefore claim this
first proposition is fully met in Christian ethics. For
Christianity's highest good is moral and spiritual —
is one of character, along with which comes, in time,
every other good.
2. "Acts are good or bad according as their ag
gregate effects increase men's happiness or increase
their misery." Test by this any one of the Ten
Commandments, especially the two which Jesus gave
as the sum of them all : "Thou shalt love God with
all the heart, mind, soul, and strength, and thy neigh
bor as thyself." The whole aggregate effect of the ob
servance of that word is to increase the happiness of
men; and, conversely, the whole aggregate effect of
the non-observance of these is to increase the misery

Christian Ethics. 65
of men. Any individual, any community, any na
tion, demonstrates the fact. I write in a great city,
and all around me is the truth of this. So Christian
ethics gains by the second test.
3. "Cosmical righteousness tends to the universal
good, or has in view the good of the whole." I have
shown how Christian ethics helps man to his fourfold
adjustment Cosmical righteousness does tend to the
universal good. It has in view the good of the whole.
No word of the Old or the New Testament will con-
.tradict that. Jesus Christ saw the glory of God in
the lily, the sky, the bird, the grain, the mustard-
seed. His Heavenly Father was immanent in Na
ture. Himself is called the "Sun of Righteousness,"
the "Water of Life," "the Bread which came down
from heaven," which metaphors find their homo-
logues in Nature. All law is good and holy and spir
itual, whether announced from His lips or operative
in Nature. There is no deeper implication in the
Scriptures than that the cosmos is righteous. "The
heavens declare the glory of God." There is not sa
much as a hint in Christian ethics that the ethics of
the cosmos anywise contravenes Christianity. Cos
mical righteousness tends to the universal good ;
Christianity works with Nature to that end. Each is
counterpart of the other. Nature is a work; Chris
tianity is a word. The ultimate purpose of both is
the same.
4. "Evolution works toward the highest life."
There can be no evolution without progress. The
5

66 How a Man Grows.
tendency of life is upward. Whatever may be one's
predilections it is admitted that evolution means
development toward perfection of life-types; from
the simple to the complex, the low to the high.
Everything flows among the living forms to
higher forms. Not only is all the cosmic flow
toward order, but life progresses upward until the
perfect type is reached. Any ethics which finds its
limitations either in the lower forms or in the aver
age type, is marked for oblivion. It can not survive,
and will be displaced by the types which' stand above
the average. Repeatedly the race has outgrown eth
ical codes. Plato and Aristotle and the Stoic and
the Buddhist have all been passed by the
strongest nations and are becoming each year
more inadequate. The ethical feeling which
permeates society, not only becomes quickened,
but broader ethical principles are accepted and thus
society progresses. It has been well said that public
opinion interprets constitutions. That which is un
constitutional in one generation is constitutional in
the next. The test of ethics is progress. If the ethics
which underlies Christianity shall at any time be out
grown, then Christianity will pass. If Christian
ethics can endure the test of continuous upward
progress and be adapted to the highest life possible
to man, then Christianity will abide.
There is no indication at this time that man will
outgrow the ethics of Christ. Not anything is
plainer than the fact that the highest and best type

Christian Ethics. 67
of the individual man is yet far below the standard ;
and when the genus Man is considered we are scarcely
more than in sight of Christianity, so far behind it is
the race. The highest rule of conduct and life ever
conceived is in the New Testament. Its ethics for
the individual, the family, the business world, the
national life, the race, are the same which entered
into the life and conduct of Jesus Christ The New
Testament not only stands for the highest possible
type of the individual, but of the State. Further
more it is antagonistic to all immoralities and op
pression. The word of Christ, that He brought not
peace but a sword, making direct onslaught upon the
forces of evil always and everywhere, has been re-
; peatedly demonstrated. Moral perception is quick
ened; righteousness is strengthened. As Paul before
Felix, so has Christianity before the nations, rea
soned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to
come. And the nations have trembled.
But Christianity, while iconoclastic, is construct
ive. If it demolishes ancient systems it leaves a
better; if customs are changed, new ones are given;
if barbarism is driven away, a New Renaissance of
Learning and of Religion is builded-. The dynamics
of Christian ethics has thus proved rational and po
tent. The Synthetic Philosophy, high as are its de
mands, finds in the ethics of the Nazarene that which
is more than adequate. \
What have we? A most remarkable fact
It is twenty centuries since the Nazarene spake. His

68 How a Man Grows.
system has met every form of social evil. In these lat
ter days aggregated wealth as the world has never
known it, stupendous trusts, international problems,
have come upon the civilized world. Where is our
hope if it be not in the Nazarene ?
Recently the scientific test has been intensified by
a vigorous discussion in the ponderous book, "Instinct
and Reason," by Henry Rutgers Marshall. By all
odds this is the ablest presentation of the Darwinian
and Spencerian theory of development. It is a mas
terpiece of strength in its research and grasp. Tech
nical as is most of the book, the author has so clearly
seen the bearing of the discussion of the theory upon
the practical problems of life that he has rendered
more than an ordinary service by the attention which
he has given ethical codes and their relation to re
ligion. His whole aim is to discover, through scien
tific comparative study, the ultimate rule of conduct.
His conclusion is worthy of the most careful study.
In the first place, he rejects egoistic Hedonism as
inadequate. It is that ancient ethics of certain Greek
philosophers , which regards pleasure, self -gratifica
tion, or self-interest, as the only conceivable object in
life. This he declares is too individualistic, in other
words, too narrow, and is destructive of moral values.
His conclusion is worth something, though egoistic
hedonism has often been condemned by philoso
phers. The reader will call to mind that no one con
demned this theory of life more vigorously than did
Jesus. Self-love, as a measure of love to the other-

Christian Ethics. 69
man, is a very different thing in the eyes of Jesus to
self-ish-ness. Dr. Marshall rejects universal Hedonism. This
is a modern formula, and is the same thing as the
happiness of the greatest number. It is the central
principle in utilitarianism as advocated by John
Stuart Mill. Technically stated: "Act to gain that
end which, as an idea, has attached to it for himself
and for all the rest of mankind, the greatest number
of associated ideas that are called pleasures."
Dr. Marshall considers the principle impractica
ble, and, in its last analysis, little better than indi
vidualistic Hedonism. He claims that the great
est happiness for the greatest number, or for all
the rest of mankind, which is good as a sentiment or
an impulse, practically falls into groups greater or less
in number, according to the taste and education of
the individual. He is favorable to the racial impulse,
but claims did we extend "our vision to include the
happiness of the whole race, then it becomes evident
that our action thus determined could never satisfy
conscience." By which he means to tell us that uni
versal Hedonism is impracticable because we can not
in relation to it so act that "the remembrance of our
act will be harmonious with our ethical ideal."
This discussion is very acute and interesting.
But, it is plain to this writer, that Dr. Marshall has
unwittingly fallen into a fallacy. He fails appar
ently to distinguish between an adequate impulse and
a practical impulse ; an adequate ideal and a practical

70 How a Man Grows.
ideal. Our ideas or impulses as individuals must,
because of our limitations, in some sense be imprac
ticable. Humanity is immeasurably bigger than the
individual, and our ideals must be humanity wide,
even though the execution of them fail in humanity
itself. On the condition that humanity is too big
for its own realization, nevertheless our ideal, our
ethics, our religion, our impulse, must be race wide.
Jesus Christ fills the whole circumference of need
just here. "Go ye into all the world, and preach My
Gospel to every creature." That is universal Hedon
ism. Suppose that the individual can only think of
groups and administer to them; suppose that these
groups in turn can only administer to larger groups ;
suppose impracticability to be a necessary feature in
the commission, anything less would be inadequate.
Suppose that the Church, after seeking, as she has
sought and is seeking, to fulfill to the letter the com
mission, finds it impracticable, and her conscience is
perturbed — the principle must not be less, and it
can not be more. The task may be too great but
the very stupendousness of it is its perennial glory.
But all that aside, it is the ultimate conclusion of
this great scholar we want. This is the ultimate eth
ical formula, which he submits : "Act to restrain the
impulses which demand immediate reaction, in order
that the impulse determined by the existence of im
pulses of less strength, but wider significance, may
have full weight in the guidance of your life." I
would call this Dr. Marshall's Doctrine of Restraint.

Christian Ethics. 71
This he considers practical. Put in simple form it
means the individualistic instincts, which at first,
as we have seen, are strongest, must be intelligently
restrained until the altruistic instincts, which at the
first are weakest, become strongest. So that the in
dividual will act, not for himself, but for the whole.
Now, that is good gospel. The delightful fact is, that
he reaches this rule after a most critical analysis of
man as a biological product, after examining his
whole functional and psychological life. From no
intention to do other than science will permit him
to do, nevertheless he announces the very principle of
restraint taught by Christ and advocated in the Epis
tles of Paul. Theoretically, the ethics of Christian
ity meet the last demand of science.
In his baccalaureate at Princeton, in June, 1901,
President Patton claimed that the sense of right was
decadent. "There is a gradual decadence of the
sense of sin and belief in it." He claimed as a peo
ple we are becoming calloused, so that much which
should startle, received scarcely passing comment.
"There is at present a larger measure of emotional
morality and a smaller measure of intellectual moral
ity than formerly. Men more fully recognize the law
of love, but they less generously heed the law of
right." He instanced Sabbath desecration, which,
for years, has been increasing.
No one who is conversant with the alarming reve
lations of corruption through the recent investiga
tions of the government; of the astonishing

72 How a Man Grows.
spread of "graft;" of the divorce and kin
dred evils, — but must confess there is much
ground for Dr. Patton's charge. In the face of all the
forces of righteousness the liquor evil has grown
apace. It is questionable if the gambling passion
has been lessened. The war is as bitter as ever, and
the giants of crime boast of their power. The pas
sion for money seems to be eating out our manhood.
Dr. Patton is quoted as having said in addition:
"Life is going to be hard. Those not born with for
tunes will find it very difficult to make them, and
those who succeed will be few. Let us not set our
hearts on wealth, because we will be disappointed."
Count Tolstoi has declared that society is not on
a Christian basis. Individualism is too conspicuous
in the daily effort. Certain is it that present social
conditions strike alarm. Yet it is easy to overesti
mate the power of evil. It has always been in the
world, and in every century it has been gigantic. It
is the everlasting struggle. "The whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."
Christianity's impotency does not inhere in the sys
tem, but results from the passivity of its believers;
not only from their passivity, but from the actual in
fraction of its injunctions by multitudes who are
thoroughly convinced of its truth. Medicine may be
ever so healing, and the patient die for lack of its
use. If Christian civilization shall at last be over
thrown (which God forbid), if sensuality and pas
sion for power shall finally submerge us — awful as is

Christian Ethics. 73
the reflection — we must never allow the multitudes
to forget that Christ is adequate only when believed
in with the heart. Intellectual assent can never de
liver us. In the Parable of the Marriage Supper
of the King's Son, Jesus has said the final word.2 We
shall never escape enthrallment in the vortices of evil,
if we neglect so great salvation. Christianity is ade
quate if consented unto. Its efficacy is in its use.
Its neglect means but certain death. Christ points the
only sure path to the world's life. "This do, and thou
shalt live," is the eternal word. Thus Christian
Ethics satisfactorily meets the test.
' Matt, xxii, 1-14.

CHAPTER V.
COSMIC REGENERATION.
No system of ethics need hope for acceptance which does
not recognize Man amenable to Cosmic Law.
Every system of philosophy recognizes man's
moral incompleteness. This is not always because of
his moral incapacity, nor of moral impotency. The
South Sea islander in moral capacity differs from his
Anglo-Saxon brother as much as he differs in intel
lectual capacity. The standard of conduct is the
measure of light. Yet it is likely that the conduct
of either is below his information. Moral incom
pleteness is universal. Whether man has degenerated
from a high moral state, or evolved from the lowest
life-types, the fact of his moral incompleteness re
mains. And it may be said the problem of his re
generation remains the same whichever theory be
true. In either case three factors will control in his
ascendency: 1. That of Choice; 2. That of Faith;
3. That of Struggle.
It is impossible to conceive a regenerative force
without a degenerative. In chemistry there is antag
onism and affinity. Everywhere is devolution and
evolution. "In the midst of life we are in death."
But while men die, the race persists. The push is
74

Cosmic Regeneration. 75
forward to stronger types. The race is in the as
cendency. The regenerative process is going on.
In order to arrive at a just estimate of these forces
it will help us to consider them in the following or
der: First The Cosmic Process. According to this,
man must be viewed as a product. In his production
there was a "conspiracy of circumstances which'
neither birds nor animal fell heir to. It was a chance
in a million that the multitudes of co-operating con
ditions which pushed man onward were fulfilled."
These are the words of Drummond.1 They deal with
the cosmic process. Let us consider them.
In the first place, he assumes that the conspiracy
of circumstances was unique in the case of man —
being a "conspiracy which neither birds nor animal
fell heir to." In the second place, his was a chance
in a million. In the third place, there was a "con
spiracy." Now conspiracy implies personality. The
"conspiracy of circumstances" does not, then, mean
chance. There were a million probabilities to one;
but the one came, pregnant with human life ! What
is the lesson ? This : The cosmic unfolding, has, as
its ultimate intent, the production of man. That in
tent is unerring, and can not be subverted by cosmic
processes, though a million be against one. The
deep fact to be borne in upon us is, the ascent of man
was determined upon from the foundation of the
world. Here, then, is solid support for our faith.
l "Ascent of Man.' '

76 How a Man Grows.
Man is not an after-thought He is not an interjec
tion — something thrown into the system. He is part
of a plan.
Hitherto we have shrunk from this formidable
teaching for fear of fatalism. But a sounder phi
losophy and better theology are teaching us that the
forethought and fore-intent of God do not anywise
bind man to the wheel of fate. Nowhere is the cos
mic process more forcefully presented than in Psalm
cxxxix. " For Thou, Thou hast formed my reins ;
Thou hast woven me together in my mother's womb.
I will thank Thee for that in dread fashion I am won-
drously made.
Wondrous are thy works,
And my soul knows it well.
My bones were not hid from Thee,
"When I was made in secret,
And wrought like embroidery in the depths of the earth.
Thine eyes saw my shapeless mass,
And in Thy book were they all written,
The days were fashioned,
And yet there was not one among them.
And to me how precious are Thy thoughts, O God,
How great is their sum !
Would I reckon them, they outnumber the sand ;
I awake — and am still with Thee."
In this sense man has come out of the womb of
the cosmos, and shall pass back into it. The elements
which constitute his physical frame are the same as
those which enter into the majestic sequoia, the dull
clod, the growing grain, the sands of the sea. To

Cosmic Regeneration. 77
view him as a physical organism built up through
physical processes is to enter into the secret work
ings of the powerful forces of Nature, and to stand
with uncovered head before her matchless workings.
I say her workings, not her works ; for, according to
the higher thought, Nature is herself a servant. To
build his body out of earth and to fashion it so won-
drously is the crowning glory of the cosmos. Nature
has lavished upon him every art, exhausted her rich
est treasure to produce his body. But the cosmic
process, powerful as it is and has been, can not ac
count for man. There are factors which enter into
the problem we are compelled to recognize as supreme
even over the cosmos. Among these are :
Second. The Formative Power of Choice. In
the plant and the brute kingdoms natural selection
is a principle which enters into the determination of
types and varieties, but in the world of mankind there
is selection by intelligent choice. Both a regulative
and a determinative factor is the will. The brute
may act toward a final purpose unconsciously, but
man has the quality of futurity in his act He de
liberately chooses with intent afore-thought. Intelli
gent choice supplements the cosmic process, and cor
rects baneful cosmic tendencies. It is, for instance,
in his power to work out of his tribe or family, tuber
culosis ; not by killing off the sick or the infected, but
by intermarriage with the strong, and by observance
of hygienic principles. Nature will see that the fit
test survive. Man, by intelligent and deliberate

78 How a Man Grows.
choice, must take advantage of Nature's method and
choose to be lifted up by her. The weak in body and
in intellect sooner or later must succumb. This is
a merciful law. It is the effort of Nature to do two
things: 1st. To push the race to strength, by com
pelling recognition of the fact that persistence of the
species is only assured by observing the laws of God.
2d. To rid the world of those who persist in the in
fraction of law, and the dishonoring of God by self-
abuse. Nature is God's best police. She first warns
by giving pain for trespass, next disease, then her
ultimatum. Death to the rebellious. The extinct
races are her warnings to all races ; fallen nations to
all nations ; wrecked families to all families ; ruined
lives to every individual of the race. Her danger
signals are plain enough, so that he who runs may
read. She holds in her possession gifts, and lavishly
bestows them on those who heed her voice. Much
fault has been found with the principle of the sur
vival of the fittest. It means, we are told, the sur
vival of the strongest Even so. Christianity, wo
are told, stands for the weak, even the weakest This
objection is fair and deserves an answer. If it be
true that Nature stands for the strong against the
weak, and Christianity stands for the weak, then
there is lack of unity, and disharmony reigns between
Nature and Christianity. What, then, is the truth ?
It is found in the following proposition : Christianity
stands for the weak in exactly the same way that Na
ture does. Christ did not stand for the weak in pref-

Cosmic Regeneration. 79
erence to the strong, nor does Nature stand for the
strong in preference to the weak. What is the larger
truth. It is this : Neither Christianity nor Nature
stands for the weak or the strong only under a very
specific condition. What is that condition ? This :
Nature says to the weak, "Take hold of me; come
this way ; I will make you strong." She says to the
strong: "Do this, and you shall keep strong; fail to
do this, and your strength will depart." Christian
ity says to the weak: "Follow me, I am the Way,
the Truth, and the Life ; I '11 make you strong." She
says to the strong: "Take heed to the things which
ye have heard lest at any time you slip away from
them. For if you depart from virtue, temperance,
faith, hope, righteousness, mercy, your glory will de
part. The wages of sin is death." Here is perfect
harmony. It is impossible for either Nature or
Christianity to help the weak unless the weak shall
choose to follow them. The morally incapacitated
can, in time, become the morally strong, but only by
persistently choosing the moral path. It is within
the power of the under-man to become the supreme
man, and both Nature and Christianity wait to make
him such. Man's own intelligent, moral volition is
the first factor in his physical or moral regeneration.
Third. Faith. Man must not permit himself to
fall into despair. Pessimism is not a factor in his
upward march. The discouraged man breaks. The
tribe which loses grip on itself perishes, (a) The
race must first preserve its faith in the righteousness

80 How a Man Grows.
of the cosmic flow. Whatever seems to portend de
struction, whatever fears the race may at times en
tertain, it must keep fast hold upon God and His
righteousness as the Creator and the Preserver.
This is the first element of true faith and it is the
most vital, (b) The race must preserve faith in
itself. As Dr. Nast has taught us, the race is a Per
son,2 and as such all its members are sacred; its
plans, impulses, and hopes must be treated as if they
were those of a Person. It must never lose faith in
itself, and the divineness of its mission. That would
be fatal and race extinction would certainly follow.
Racial faith can only be preserved by the individual
members believing that the race has a Divine mission
and that it moves to that end. There must be kept
in the race-thought the vital truth that sobriety, in
dustry, economy, righteousness, benevolence, brotherly
love alone incorporated in its laws and customs, will
cause it to win. To this it must anchor itself, and
faith is that anchor, sure and steadfast, reaching to
that within the veil.
Fourth. Struggle. The law of strife runs
through all being; In the generation of the heavens,
when primordial matter strove with force, until now,
everything has been in a state of unrest. The uni
verse is still becoming. The new and larger doctrine
is, that the world is not made, but is in the making.
The potent force operating through all and in all
moves the whole onward to perfection. This is domi-
' " Genesis of the Social Conscience."

Cosmic Regeneration. 81
nant in the kingdom of life as well. Every living
thing is confronted with the problem of self-preserva
tion. The labor question lies down among the amoeba,
as well as in the world of man. It has never been
settled in Nature, and it is difficult to see how it will
ever be settled in man's enlarging social world. All
we can hope for is progress. The larger man will
have additional needs, in his greater social world,
and thus will demand multiplied resources; and
so it will ever be. Progress is but another word for
strife. Strife implies struggle. Conquest is neces
sary to well-being, and especially to better being.
"Strive to enter in at the strait gate." Heaven is to
be won through strife. We struggle upward. Tho
path to the stars is the old path, through difficulties.
That part of the race which refuses to awaken will
be supplanted by the alert, and the alert will survive
only as they adjust themselves to the ideals of right
eousness. The redemption of the race is at this time
the most virile thought in the consciousness of tbe
race. Slowly we are coming to the stupendous fact
that the race is one in its struggle, and that it must
be dealt with as a unit, and that all schemes for man's
regeneration must have deep concern for universal
man. This revolutionary truth is rooted in Chris
tianity, the only religion which has ever championed
the cause of universal man.
While Cosmic Regeneration places emphasis upon
N ature and her laws, and upon the absolute necessity
of man's harmony with those laws for his ascendency,
6

82 How a Man Grows.
it will also be seen that the gospel of cosmic regenera
tion has its personal element, and that the extent of
this regeneration is dependent upon the inner life
and choice. Thus individual responsibility is very
great. Each man's choice, faith, or struggle
adds or subtracts from the race-life. There is no
escape from this responsibility, and for any light con
sideration or neglect of it Nature has no forgiveness.
We can not sufficiently enforce these sound doctrines.
The average Christian teacher has neglected an op
portunity to honor God and capture strong-minded
men by not patiently setting forth this Gospel of the
Cosmos, which is not anything less than a part of
the Gospel of Salvation for the regeneration of man
kind. We are emphatically told by the great social
scientists that society can be regenerated only by a
united effort to maintain cosmic conditions. Exactly.
But such a statement throws us back upon the
fundamental need of a deeper insight into all that
is implied by that When society becomes har
monious with cosmic forces, the whole body
compacted in righteousness, society will breathe
that larger, richer, purer breath of peace and
good-will, and practice charity towards all men. At
this hour the race is more passionate than thoughtful,
more revengeful than merciful, more selfish than al
truistic, more fretful than patient, more contentious
than compassionate. It believes in caste, war, self-
gratification, dissipation. It seeks the things of sense.
It knows little of race-love. The steady march of

Cosmic Regeneration. 83
the nations to the recognition of racial unity and of
a Divine racial purpose is bound to break down many
barriers which now seem informidable. The race is
in the process of being saved.
We have seen the nature of Cosmic Regeneration,
what may be expected of it, and what are its limita
tions ? A larger intellectual and moral man has con
tinued to appear through the struggle which man
has had with himself and the forces of Nature. He
has, in following his instincts, built for himself much
that is permanent. His aesthetic instinct has led him
to the fine arts ; his individualistic to the family ; his
love of his own species to the altruistic ; and his re
ligious instinct (which Henry Rutgers Marshall calls
the hierarchical) to the building of religions. His
desire to know has brought him his philosophies and
educational systems, and his ethical instinct his gov
ernments. Here, then, is a program not to be de
spised. It is plain, if man is to attain to the full measure
of his being, that he needs a power not himself, which
works for righteousness. Whatever that power, it
must be in absolute harmony with his own instinctive
and intellectual being, and also with Nature or the
"constitution of things." It must supplement his
effort by inspiring him with hope, satisfy the suffi
cient reason, intensify and elevate his loves, broaden
and strengthen his altruistic instinct. It must in
demnify and illuminate his religious instinct,
whether in the barbaric or civilized state, and

84 How a Man Grows.
have within it a plentitude of reason and hope and
assurance impossible for him to outgrow. Sueh a
power is in Christianity, which brings to him as the
very first assurance the possibility of regeneration,
both for the lowest and the highest type man — a
regeneration which is in harmony with the purpose
of the cosmic process, and overlaps it and per
fects it. Reverting to the personal factors,
which we found were in the cosmic process — choice,
faith, struggle — factors which lie deep in human na
ture, and upon which, we have seen, man is de
pendent for any progress in his regeneration, we are
now ready to ask the question, What religion will the
most satisfactorily and quickly stimulate and direct
his choice, faith, and struggle? There is just one
answer : The religion of Jesus Christ. Take his in
stincts, what religion will exalt them, preserve their
functioning toward the highest purity? There is
but one answer : The religion of Jesus Christ. Why ?
Because it is the only religion which brings to him in
written word that which is written in his nature and
in the cosmos concerning him. It gives to him the
Ten Commandments ; it gives to him the Moral Con
stitution of Society, the Sermon on the Mount It
gives to him the sum of them all, the love of God with
all the heart, and one's neighbor as himself. It does
more : it gives to him a Person, Jesus Christ, in whom
all ethical and religious truths are perfected, and
from Him we have the promise of the constant pres
ence of the Holy Spirit. Man longs not only for
principles, but for fellowship.

Cosmic Regeneration. 85
A careful study of the whole problem leads to
these generalizations. Take the aesthetic instinct. It
is known that the cities noted for their art are not
models in morals. Art is, in itself, in need of a puri
fying and elevating impulse. Paris is an illustration
that literary taste is no guarantee for social purity.
It is an old story needing still to be told, that royalty
has in it no assurance that the throne will be conse
crated to equity, and that the personal life of the king
will be a model to youth.
It has been suggested that a nation's ideals regen
erate the people. In America, for instance, the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
have been powerful factors in uplifting the people.
No one will deny that such documents as these arouse
patriotism of a high order, and create popular senti
ments and ideas which transform a nation. But
there is a deeper question. It will be discovered that
those and similar documents did not originate in
commercialism, from a love of art or learning, but
from a desire for that personal and national liberty
which is the inalienable right of the individual and
of the nation. Whence did such a notion come ? It
sprang from the Reformation, and has as its central
proposition the right of life, liberty, and happiness,
guaranteed to mankind by Almighty God. It is the
result of that individualism which Christianity from
the first has created and inspired, and upon which all
healthful evangelism, either in State or Church, must
be based.

86 How a Man Grows.
Again, these great and precious documents do not
guarantee to the State or the individual, permanence.
There is needed to execute these very documents, and
to perpetuate them, a larger program. Human na
ture left to itself is too self-centered, carnal, degen
erate, for the preservation of high ideals or the in
corporation of them in personal life, home, and the
nation. Stimuli from a higher and purer source
must be imparted.
Those who are familiar with the~present world
conditions know that a New Man is appearing in
Japan. Whatever may be the intellectual, moral,
or religious status of this so-called New Man, we
should not forget that he will continue to appear in
all the nations in renewed editions of himself until
the highest possible type of man has come. That is
the Philosophy of the Becoming. But in the heart-
life and the education of this New Man will be found
the religion of Jesus Christ.
Christianity is essentially altruistic, so that it com
prehends all that is meant by the cosmic principle,
"Struggle for the life of others." How shall society
be induced to incorporate this as a working princi
ple? Plainly there must be interjected a power
which will lead us to conform to the principle and to
adopt it. That power is Love.
In these days we hear much of self-redemption.
Is there such a thing?- Yes. The character and ex
tent of that very thing we are here seeking to show.
But we need more faithfully to insist upon the fact,

Cosmic Regeneration. 87
pathetic as it is, that there is no redemption which
leaves the individual or the race in sin and sinning.
Redemption of the high sort must be inbreathed.
The limitations of the cosmic regenerative process
calls for careful study. What we must guard is, a
sense of fairness, while giving the cosmic process full
credit. It has its limitations.3
Wherein, then, is the theory of cosmic regenera
tion meritorious ? 1st. In that the laws of nature are
emphasized ; 2d. In that a true ethics is shown to be
impossible without the observance of these laws ; 3d.
That society can not trespass upon the cosmic forces
without loss.
Wherein is its demerit? First. It assumes that
the ethical flow in the cosmos is as apparent as is the
physical law of gravitation, or any other physical
law. This is an error. There is no question but the
universe gravitates toward moral ends, but that fact
is many times obscured by awful calamities, such as
floods, cyclones, assassinations, earthquakes, fire, and
many dire providences. The ancients had gods many ;
the Persians the principle of good and evil ; and thus
confusion has filled the earth.
The whole meaning of the Scriptures and of the
Advent of Jesus is that the cosmic process is incom
plete. It lacks illumination. The mythologies are
man's attempt to interpret the cosmic processes.

aQ. H. Howison, LL. D., of the University of California, in 1901,
issued a hook, " The Limits of Evolution." While it contains some
dangerous speculations, it has, nevertheless, a great truth sug
gested in Its title.

88 How a Man Grows.
Plainly the highest type of pagan man never discov
ered the path. Phallic religion, that strange wor
ship of the generative functions, symbolizing the sex
ual which he believed to lie deep in the womb of tho
cosmos, — all this is pitiful.
We do serious violence to the full truth when, for
any reason, we refuse right of way to the sweeping
fact that man, left alone, has never risen, and had
no power wherewith to rise, to the light of the re
demption which, under grace, is his.
The teaching that righteousness is always best
for man and the race is not made plain in Nature, and
has confused the brightest minds that ever sought to
know. The tragedy of Prometheus is the tragedy of
service. So good a deed as giving to mankind light
and warmth has repeatedly been visited with torture.
Jesus Christ died on the cross. Hamlet, "the great
est creation of the greatest mind the world ever
saw,"4 was not able to fathom the mystery of unre
quited evil in the earth. Browning seeks to solve
the problem in the "Ring and the Book," and, indeed^
in most of his matchless poems, such as in "Pippa
Passes." The psalmist understood not these things
until he went into the house of the Lord. There a
Voice above the cosmos revealed to him that the way
of the transgressor always, and in every place, is the
way of death. Likewise to Paul, than whom there is
no greater mind. His Epistle to the Romans is the
masterpiece of Christian philosophy upon redemptive
* Dr. Wm. A. Quayle, Lecture, " Hamlet."

Cosmic Regeneration. 89
processes ; and in the seventh chapter he tells us that
heredity, education, religious ceremonialism, self-de
termination to attain in righteousness, all failed;
the Law needed the Gospel; Moses is completed in
Christ. Precepts are dead' aside from Loving Per
sonality. This is the story of Zinzendorf, Wesley,
Luther, and the host of giants whom God has raised
up in His kingdom.
Morality is not synonymous with regeneration.
Nicodemus had to learn that. We are at a time in
our social life when, again and again, do we need to
repeat the fact that even so good a thing as ethical
Christianity is not regenerative in the highest sense.
There is no regeneration without ethical life, and
while the Church, as never hitherto, must turn
. her attention to the enforcement of Christian
ethics in common, every-day life; yet regenera
tion is not the adoption of precepts, but the in
corporation of them through a new life-impulse im
parted to the individual. A student in one of the
greatest post-graduate schools of this land cried out
to the writer, "How can I do right?" He had lis
tened to scholarly lectures upon Ethical Christianity,
the central injunction of which was, "Do right, young
man, do right." The question of the student gathers
significance when it is known that among his class
mates he was most exemplary. The universal testi
mony of the human heart is, that the cosmic process
is incomplete. This is not a deduction of theology,
but the voice of humanity.

90 How a Man Grows.
Second. It lacks Personal Authority. Rational
ity demands Personal Authority. Ethics calls for
Personality in Authority. The whirling cosmos, like
the buzz-saw, may teach humanity to desist from this
and do the opposite, but court dockets constantly re
mind us that it is not the law, but the personality be
hind the law, which the criminal fears. If the gov
ernment could execute law for crimes committed,
without an executor back of the law, evil doers would
multiply. Personality is what men fear. It is God
back of, as well as within, the cosmos. Humanity
loudly cries out for Him. God, at last, is more de
terrent to criminals, and more assuring to the right
eous-seeking, than all else besides.
Third. The Cosmic Regenerative Process lacks
Purgation. The psalmist's prayer in the fifty-first
Psalm, one of the profoundest in religious literature,
is more than the travail of soul in the consciousness of
blood-guiltiness. In it is the throe of despair which
the race has realized in its moral conquest: "Have
mercy upon me, O God !" "Purge me with hyssop,
and I shall be clean ; wash me, and I shall be whiter
thansnow." It was seen by John the Baptizer, that the
pollution of humanity was deadly, and ineradicable
by any ordinary process. So he said of Christ two
things : "He shall baptize with the Holy Ghost and
with fire ;" and, "Whose fan is in His hand, and He
will thoroughly purge His floor."5 Christ, Him
self, pronounced the Parable of the Vine.6 It
was not sufficient that the branch should be

Olatt., 12 Ui. » John xv.

Cosmic Regeneration. 91
united to the vine. Such has been the thought of
mere philosophy. Man is on the cosmic tree. But
said Jesus, "He purgeth it that it may bring forth
more fruit." Teaching could not be more explicit
than this. Mark the words : "He purgeth it." Jesus
is the Announcer of that which alone makes cosmic
regeneration complete.

CHAPTER VI.
CHRISTIAN REGENERATION.
" The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest
the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh and
whither it goeth ; so is every one that is born of the Spirit."
— Jesus. Jesus Christ taught Spirit Regeneration. This
He characterized as the birth from above.1 In
theology it is known as the doctrine of the New Birth.
It is founded upon the universal need of humanity.
The carnal nature is more than an infirmity,
it is a malady. Man is prone to do evil
as the sparks fly upward. The testimony of every
individual of the race is, "In sin did my mother con
ceive me." This homely and old-fashioned . fact re
fuses to be argued away, and each generation is face
to face with its own evil appetencies, its gross im
moralities, its crimes, its guilt, its prayer for help,
its self-invented methods of redemption, its philoso
phies, its religions. The regeneration taught by
Jesus Christ is not putting into the soul a new life,
so much as it is a quickening of the life already there.
Man has within him a spiritual life, misdirected, neg
lected, abused, deadened, just as he has an intellectual
i John in, 7. 92

Christian Regeneration. 93
or ethical life. We see this in every pagan temple,
in calamities of all kinds when fear takes hold upon
men; in the mythologies, and all religions. It is
the heart reaching after God.2 There is no better
word to convey the teaching of Christ than the word
quicken, used by Paul and Peter in their Epistles.
It means to re-vitalize. The intellectual life
must be quickened into activity before it
comes to perfection. This quickening is not
self-induced, but imparted by some extraneous in
fluence. Every scholar has, sometime, somewhere,
experienced that quickening. So with the spiritual.
Christianity is not so much a light-giver as a life-
giver. The end of light is life. "In Him was life,
and the life was light." Jesus Christ is spoken of as
a "quickening Spirit"3 We have also the saying
"The Spirit quickeneth."4 Drummond shows
how regeneration is illustrated in Nature. The seed
planted in the earth is regenerated when it is quick
ened by the light and the warmth, and lifted up into
the growing state, and sent on its way to maturity.
The proposition that a superior life must take
hold of the feebler is the very one implied by Jesus
Christ in the phrase, "Ye must be born from above."
Spiritual regeneration begins in feeling after God,
with a sincere desire to find Him. "If ye seek Me,
ye shall find Me when ye shall have sought for Me
with all the heart." Here is the feeling process in
2Psa. xiii, 1: "As the hart panteth after the water-hrooks, so
panteth my soul after Thee, O God."
8 1 Cor. xv, 45. * John vi, 63.

94 How a Man Grows.
its incipiency, and if continued in, the soul comes to
full consciousness of the Divine Presence. There
should not be in such a declaration anything to puzzle
one who is at all familiar with the unfolding of other
life and other functions. We are told that the human
eye is a sensitized hair, brought to clear vision
through feeling after light This fact is astounding
to the student when he first is caused to face it. What
we call spiritual perception comes in the same way.
The soul that feels after God, and longs for purity
will come to vision. "The pure in heart shall see
God."5 This functioning of the spiritual life comes
through spiritual adjustment Paul indicates the
same when he declares: "The law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law
of sin and death."6 It is not an experience gotten ir
regularly, by some lawless process, but by the "law of
the Spirit." Under the cosmic process we saw the
personal elements of choice, faith, struggle : these ele
ments are not supplanted by the Christian system,
but enthroned, intensified, directed. When the Spirit
quickens the soul into new life, prayer becomes sweet,
the Word of God becomes bread, Christ's messages
are as living water.
It has been urged that the twofold power of the
mind, self-induction and retroaction, will account
for the spiritual life. Religious truth being pre
sented to the mind, the mind can take it into itself
and compel assent and acceptance. In reply we
6 Matt, v, 8. 6 Rom. vlll, 2.

Christian Regeneration. 95
answer : 1st. That the self-induction power is appar
ent in all reasoning, and we do not ignore it in this
discussion nor underestimate it. It is within the
power of the mind to take hold of any set of argu
ments and draw its own inferences. Those infer
ences become to it truth at the time. Were it not for
that power we could never arrive. Surely the exer
cise of that power is not to be denied in matters of
religion. Is it not just as legitimate there as it is in
philosophy or science or the arts ? Certainly. It is
granted that unwarranted inferences will, at times,
be drawn. That is always possible, and has happened
in every department of learning. Those who are
familiar with the history of philosophy and with
the blunders of science will not deny the right of in
duction in matters of religion, for fear of error. We
come to certainty at last, not so much through logic
as experience. If our inferences are invalid, experi
ence will soon prove them so. The spiritual life is
a life, and must be tested at last, not by a theory, but
by experience. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance."7 Wherever these exist, they
will be known ; in whomsoever they exist, the Spirit
has done His work. Against fruit there is no ar
gument. Regarding the retroactive power of the mind, or
the power which the mind has to turn upon itself
and compel assent, there is every reason to suppose
i Gal. v, 22.

98 How a Man Grows.
it is very great. We must admit that the mind can
force upon itself an experience, and substitute one
state for another.8 This power is not new to scholars.
Theology has, in its own way, always recognized
this power, yet we have but recently come to
appreciate the full significance of it. Because
the power is actual, it is as holy as any other, and
should be exercised. Regeneration is a new life.
Not a life just assumed, but given. This is funda
mental. Let us suppose one conscious of a bad life,
a low, carnal life, a life of sin, of deception, of du
plicity, of dishonor, of guiltiness; that such an one
under some stimulus, a sermon, a song, a prayer, a
solemn promise, an accident, a serious affliction, or
from reading the Word, suddenly determines, in his
deepest thinking, that no more will he sin, no longer
will he foster a life out of harmony with God and the
good, but that he resolves to turn away from all such
forever, and that he does it; in other words, he, in
every deepest and truest sense, to use a figure, walks
off and leaves his sins, his mean old self never again
to be like that, — what effect will such a re-enforce
ment of his mind have upon him ? There can be but
one answer. The Parable of the Prodigal comes in
as answer. "I will arise and go to my father, and I
will say, Father, I have sinned against heaven and
in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy
son; make me one of thy hired servants."9 What
will the father do ? The parable itself gives answer.
s This is discussed in another place, and is reverted to in order
to answer a difficulty to some In spiritual experience.
"Luke xv, 21.

Christian Regeneration. 97
Now, it can not be denied that such an one truly
repents, and enforces upon himself the Ten Com
mandments, and by so doing puts himself at the vital
point where God can take hold of him. It is the soul
seeking adjustment Jesus gives a similar illustra
tion of this law in the case of him who would not
look so much as up to heaven, but smote upon his
breast and said, "God be merciful to me, a sinner."
The case is interesting also because of the other who,
standing near the altar, received not the Divine for
giveness. "I tell you," said Jesus, "this man went
down to his house justified, rather than the other."10
Strange that any should fail to see that the Master
is calling attention to a fixed law of the Spiritual
Kingdom. A law which we have met in every other
kingdom; viz., of proper adjustment. The publican
did his part
The retroactive power is essential to all healthful
action. Jesus uttered the same profound truth when
He said: "As many as received Him, to them gave
He power to become the sons of God."11 And again :
"How oft would I have gathered you together as a
hen gathereth her brood under her wings, but ye
would not" The whole philosophy of personal re
demption is dependent upon the exercise of this
power of the mind. It can not be eliminated. We
are, therefore, to emphasize it for all it is worth.
It is the one power by which the mind brings itself
into adjustment for spiritual quickening. It is the
10 Luke xviii, 14. " John 1, 12.
7

98 How a Man Grows.
occasion, but not the cause. One word in addi
tion. While the mind has the power, experience
shows it does not act until it is quickened by some
influence external to itself. Spiritual quickening is
an inspiraton12 and an impartation.
"Ye must be bom again." Or, ye must be gen
erated from above. This word of Christ is deeply
scientific in that — (a) Spirit life must be Spirit-
given ; (b) Life and all quickening must come from
above; (c) It is based upon the universal race need;
(d) The race hath naught wherewith to regenerate
itself. "And I — O miserable ! —
Who did devise for mortals all these arts,
Have no device left now to save myself
From the woe I suffer." (Prometheus.)
The nymphs reply: "Most seemly woe
Thou sufferest, and dost stagger from the sense,
Bewildered ! Like a bad leech falling sick,
Thou art faint of soul, and canst not find the drugs
Required to save thyself."
(The " Tragedy of Prometheus" by ^Eschylus.)
Such is the awful helplessness of the race. Having
done all, its hands are empty wherewith to save itself.
Upon this is based the doctrine of Spiritual Regen
eration as taught by Jesus Christ.
Objection is made that this interpretation is mys-
ua John ill, 8.

Christian Regeneration. 99
tical. But our reply is, Any psychological phenome
non is mystical. Take the simple one of thought.
Whence come our thoughts ? One answers they are
self-generated; another that they are suggested
through the presentative faculty, and that every
thought is associated with antecedent feeling; an
other that thought is manufactured from nervous en
ergy and comes by way of the physical organism.
Consider, for a moment, how it is that thought can be
projected and manifest itself in the varied ways
with which we are familiar. Reflect upon the mys
tical theories regarding the will, what it is, upon
what it depends, how it gets supremacy, or what is
the limitation and quality of that supremacy. Now,
we question none of these. If reply be made that
science has catalogued the psychological laws, we
answer, That is true only in part, for the mind still
remains a world of mystery ; and in the second place,
we answer, Science has also catalogued much regard
ing conversion,13 and will, we doubt not, render great
service to theology by further investigations.
Yet we must remember that the regeneration-life
is a spiritual life, and fair-play insists only on those
tests which create, develop, and perfect it Mental
life can not be explained by the physical, nor can the
spiritual by the mental. Each is a life after its kind.
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that
which is born of the Spirit is spirit."
is " Psychology of Religion," Starbuek. " The Spiritual Life,"
Coe. " Natural Law in the Spiritual World," Drummond. " The
Conflict of Truth;" chapter "The Spiritual Universe," Capron.

100 How a Man Grows.
Science has no longer right to ignore the phenom
ena of spiritual life and leave it to theology. Theo
logical science is able to take care of it, but we insist
that the Bible is the one supreme text upon the origin,
the nature, the purpose, and the end of spiritual life ;
that it is consistent in its teaching, and from it can
be formulated the laws of spiritual being. Science
does us a service in pointing out the dominant in
fluences in adolescence, but the spiritual life can not
be explained- altogether by adolescent susceptibility,
ambitions, fears, hopes. These are favorable condi
tions, advantage of which should be taken to win
the subject toward the life ; but they are no more than
conditions, temperamental and social. The Scrip
tures make prominent prayer, repentance, commit
ment; which, if properly observed, are followed
by conscious acceptance, the remission of sins, a new
life. The functioning of this new life is spiritual,
just as the functioning of the bodily life is physical,
and the mental life is mental. It is not a high moral
ity only, but spirituality. One does not rest content
with doing to others as he wishes to be done by —
which is morality — but, in addition, rendering unto
God the things which are God's. It is characterized
by prayer, the love of the Word, love of God as
Father, and a conscientious solicitude of duty to be
done, to God and men. Here, then, is a genuine life,
substantial as is any other kind of life ; distinct and
after its own kind ; spiritual, born of the Spirit. It
is a life realized, enjoyed, subject to growth or death,

Christian Regeneration. 101
as is all life, but to be continued by its own laws.
Indeed it is all natural enough. "By their fruits
ye shall know them." This life sets its affections on
things above, and not on things on the earth. It is
not a dreamy, impracticable, intangible life, but a
vigorous, stalwart, righteous, rational, present-day,
compassionate, consecrated life of Christly love and
service. This experience has by no one been more vividly
described than by the author of the fortieth Psalm :
" He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the
miry clay ;
And He set my feet upon a rock ; and established my goings ;
And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise
unto our God."
"He brought me up ; He set my feet upon a rock ;
He hath put a new song in my mouth." The super
natural meets the natural. The Spirit takes hold of
sinking, floundering man and exalts him, gives a
worthy purpose, fills his heart with praises. It is all
explained by the phrase : "He brought me up." God
is always doing this to the willing. The meeting
of a soul in its dire need, and bringing it into a life
for which it is seeking, is just what might be ex
pected of a God who, in the Kingdom of Grace, be
comes a Father. It is this teaching of Jesus Christ
introducing into the regenerative scheme the Divine
Person, which distinguishes Christianity. Jesus
Christ, approaching the tomb of his friend Lazarus,
and speaking life-words, prefigured His Divine mis-

102 How a Man Grows.
sion to the race, locked, as it is, in the grave of sen
suality, selfishness, corrupt by its own foul deeds,
and filled with the virus of evil intent. "I am the
Resurrection and the Life !" is His message. Among
His last words were those promising the Holy Spirit
whom He would send in His name. Pentecost was
the hour of the true resurrection of the apostles and
the disciples. Up to that time they had been scholars,
companions, but it required more than principles,
than fellowship, than example; more than a desire
on their part to imitate His life, — a birth was needed,
a Spirit baptism, a Spirit quickening and filling.
After Pentecost they lived.
Jesus Christ fitly characterized this as a"birth — a
generation. The soul passes through many kinds of
births. The artist comes to an aesthetic birth; the
student to an intellectual; the statesman to a polit-,
ical ; and in every instance it has been under the in
spiration ijf some personality. The spiritual birth is
not unlike those soul-births save in this: the Spirit
of God has touched the soul, and a new life of prayer
and praise and service has begun. After birth, one
is in process of salvation. Some one has said we are
always in process of being saved. Birth is not the
beginning of being, it is the coming out into a larger
life-world. Spirit regeneration is the introduction
of one into a larger soul-world, in which he begins
to see the goodness, the mercy, the forgiveness, the
Fatherhood of God and to understand His mission in
the earth.

Christian Regeneration. 103
In the study of regeneration we often forget that
birth is the true beginning of conscious life. Life
is an unfolding, a going on to strength, to wisdom, to
power — a Becoming. In this sense we are to view
all forces of Nature, and all influences of society, the
home, the school, the State, as agencies to lead us on
to the birth hour. And we are to enlarge the signifi
cance of that birth hour, and view it as the moment
when life and eternal life begin. The babe in the
cradle has body-life, but it in no sense is prepared to
live. When we are regenerated by the Spirit we be
gin to live, and are in the way to Become. A true
understanding of the mission of the Christian will
not permit one to neglect his intellect, his gifts, his
opportunities; be careless of his future, thoughtless
of his mission, or of his influence. There will al
ways be "somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become,"
— ignorance, prejudice, homeliness of character, un-
couthness of manner, and of every conscious infirm
ity ; the putting on of learning, beauty, courtesy, pa
tience, honor, and every virtue whereby one may
become strong and winsome, — this is what regenera
tion means, and toward which it points. It is the
beginning proper of the spiritual life. It is the soul
coming for the first time in conscious touch and sym
pathy with the spiritual world, which is as actual and
as much a part of this present life as is the intellec
tual, or the aesthetic, or the ethical. Man is intended
to be a citizen of them all. He is born into this
world for a«n increasingly higher life, and he who

104 How a Man Grows.
stops with the aesthetic, or with the mental, or with
the ethical, is committing a more serious blunder
than is he who takes the spiritual but neglects the
aesthetic or the mental, though the neglect of these is
an offense both to himself and to his God.
In this day of larger illumination, we are coming
to understand that the life of man is intended to be
broad and permanent, and that the spiritual has in
it the establishing of the whole man, and of the race,
in morals. Morality, quickened by spirituality, is
like unto living stones in a foundation — upon such, a
great structure can be builded. The morality of the
Jewish Church, for the want of spiritual quickening,
was as a foundation of crumbling stones. Pagan
morality is, and always has been gross, mixed, uncer
tain, in decay, and the nations building upon it per
ish. In the Jewish community was a remarkable
personality, of splendid type, who forever stands
as an example of legality, rigid, merciless, posi
tive, blind, zealous, conscientious ; nevertheless bring
ing forth death. That man was Saul of Tarsus.
Physically he was a product of a great race. His
birth and home environment were those of a high-
easte Jewish lad. His people observed sanitary law,
dignified worship, had a zeal for the Ten Command
ments. He was born in Tarsus, a city of the finest
Greek culture; educated at the feet of Gamaliel;
was known and trusted by the learned ; a hater of the
new religion; a persecutor of the Christians; held
the clothes of the witnesses who stoned to death

Christian Regeneration. 105
Stephen. In the seventh chapter of Romans is the
heart-sob of this man. He describes how far. away
from God he was. His words burn with awful poig
nancy as he reveals his actual condition. In read
ing that chapter every unregenerate person can but
see himself. From "the body of sin," birth, education,
culture, ceremonial worship and legalism, — all had
failed to deliver him. At last a Physician was found.
Saul the Jew was quickened, delivered, healed, and
became Paul the Christian. He can not withhold
the joy, so he declares his Deliverer's name, "Jesus
Christ." It is this philosopher, logician, learned
Christian commentator, who, more than any other
New Testament writer, discourses upon the impo
tency of the law as a regenerative influence, and sets
forth the Spirit as the Agent. "The love of God is
shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given
unto us," is the precious word which stands for the
declaration of the same truth, made by him in a
manifold number of ways. He is the apostle of the
Spirit In his Epistles are presented the laws, the
nature, and the fullness of Spirit-regeneration from
the standpoint of an experimenter and a philosopher.
These pages could easily be filled with similar ex
periences. That of Justin Martyr, "the first Chris
tian historically eminent at Rome, after the apostles ;
not a bishop, but a layman ; Justin, the philosopher,
apologist, and martyr," educated in the finest Greek
culture, a searcher after truth, longing for God and
the waters of life, — how should he come to rest ? "A

106 How a Man Grows.
Platonist charmed him by telling him to think and
think, and do nothing else, until his mind should
soar to the Deity. Be saved by thinking!" Going
to the seashore he waited for the vision. One day,
while listening to the song of the sea, he found before
him an old man, who asked him, "Do you know me
that you gaze upon me so earnestly?" Justin told
him he was in search of Truth. This obscure old
man led him to the Divine Word. He was charmed
with the Scriptures and the lives of Christians. He
has been called the Christian Socrates, for he went
everywhere teaching, wandering through cities. At
Rome he stationed himself near the baths, and in his
philosopher's robes taught the people. He wrote
learnedly to Marcus Aurelius, and became a martyr
to the faith. Stoicism, the Pythagorean philosophy,
and Platonism, had all failed. Christ gave him his
heart's desire, and Christianity furnished him a liv
ing message.
In modern times there are no more wonderful
demonstrations of this Spirit regeneration than those
of Martin Luther and John Wesley. Both were
ascetic, both were legalists, but both came to know
that the regeneration life by faith, was an imparta-
tion, not a growing into. They agreed with Paul : "By
grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of your
selves; it is the gift of God." Charles Spurgeon is
another instance, and Mr. Moody, whose marvelous
career is still fresh in the popular mind, as well as
that most remarkable man. Bishop William Taylor.

Christian Regeneration. 107
The inspirational power which came to them was
from above, 'and corresponded to that experience set
forth in the words of Jesus Christ to Nicodemus, a
man of high culture, strict morality, a ruler of the
synagogue, a member of the Sanhedrin — neverthe
less, in need of Spirit regeneration. We discover in
all these cases how the Spirit supplements the cosmic
process and completes it.
This Spirit regeneration, if it begins with the in
dividual, is intended for all. We have been talking
about social and race regeneration, and have endeav
ored to show how the cosmic process takes hold of
the race. There are many instances in history illus
trative of the work of the Spirit, both in regeneration
and transformation of peoples. The Hebrew race
were slaves. For them there was no deliverance un
til Moses came. But Moses had come under the Di
vine Presence, and had been given his commission.
The court of Pharaoh, in which Moses had been
raised and educated, did not furnish him his inspira
tion or his convictions. It was contact with the living
God that transformed the keeper of sheep into the
greatest lawgiver of history.
Modern instances are numerous. The Negro was
a barbarian ; then he was a slave. His genealogy and
environment could not have been worse. No help
could possibly come from within his race. We have
witnessed the marvelous administrations of help and
mercy brought to him from the Anglo-Saxon; the
strongest helping the weakest ; the whitest lifting the

108 How a Man Grows.
blackest. How ? By State legislation ? Yes. But,
best of all, by bringing to them the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. Christianity has lifted the Negro. Ask him.
Who are the great Negro leaders ? Search them out,
and behold them Christian men, educated by tho
Church. They have undergone what Wesley under
went, and Luther, Justin Martyr, and Paul. It i3
the same story of Spirit regeneration. And who are
the Anglo-Saxons? Whence came they? Pagans,
bloodthirsty, fearless warriors of the forests ; touched,
inspired, lifted up by Christian missionaries of that
far-away time; domesticated, made compassionate
and ambitious to excel in goodness. Jesus Christ's
ambassadors found them in a deep pit. They brought
to our pagan ancestors a God of whom they had never
heard ; a story of love, a light from the spiritual skies,
a life from the Spirit. Anglo-Saxon ascendency has
been by the way of the cross. Shall we ever forget
that? . The whole Oriental world is to feel the regenera
tive power of this religion. The New Man of Japan
is the Christian native, led into the life of Christ
by the missionary of the cross. Thus China has al
ready its New Man, as have the Philippines. We
can not pay to the Church the debt we owe. Her
light-bearers have been her life-givers. It is easy
to see that these old, dead civilizations had come to
a stagnant life. The heralds. of Jesus Christ took to
them ideals, and customs, and hopes, and truths, and
experiences of the New Testament, and hope has
•prung up and a new life.

Christian Regeneration. 109
Some one has said that the breath of God on the
world of dead men makes them to live. Ezekiel be
held that the Divine breath caused the bones to move,
and the teaching of God's servant fitted bone to bone.
Flesh came upon them and an army stood before the
prophet Spirit regeneration is of God. The resusci
tation of the race is in Him. Whatever may be our
notion of the story of Jonah, the profound spiritual
truth filling the narrative must not escape us, that
Jonah, though alive, found no true relief and liberty
until he cried, in his agony, "Salvation is of the
Lord." Christ's message is : "I came that ye might
have life, and that ye might have it more abun
dantly." "He that hath the Son hath life."
Spirit regeneration is the quickening of our spir
itual nature into life, the clearing of our spiritual
perception, the period at which the "expulsive power
of a new affection" begins to control us, the moral '
sense is made acute, and there begins the process of
transforming the human life into the likeness of
Jesus the Christ.

CHAPTER VII.
FORCES IN MAN'S BECOMING.
From the Fecundation of the Qell until the child attains
youth, the Cosmic Force is absolute.
What are the forces which will most help man
to the realization of the prophecy within him ? We
have seen that he is the Becoming, and it is of first
importance that we understand the forces which
work to that end. They are five in number, and have
to do with him as a unit. Four of these are peculiar
to him, for the reason that man is unique in Nature.
Each force in some measure appears from the dawn
ing of consciousness, and one is present from the be-
gining. The forces, operate with greater effect at
certain periods, but they are those which in all gen
erations have molded him and will continue to do so
until the end of the ages.
First The Cosmic. This deals with him as a
cell. It takes charge of the ciliated spermatozoon as
il swims in the seminal fluid, and by cellular attrac
tion leads it to the ovum, the "favored suitor" among
the millions of spermatozoa. The cause of this cel
lular attraction is supposed to be chemical, but lying
back of. any chemical influence is the fact that the
cell is a living cell. It is burdened with life. What
UO

Forces in Man's Becoming. Ill
a profound mystery ! It is not only freighted with
life, but with a particular type of life, which in its
unfolding produces a human being. But, mystery
as it is, the cosmic force has charge. From the fecun
dated ovum develops the foetus, and, the process of
gestation complete, the living human person — mark
that, person — is ushered into this world from the
mother-world. Separate from the mother, it begins its career as
an individual unit, slowly maturing according to cer
tain well-known laws of growth. Consciousness rap
idly coming to full awakeness the child recog
nizes itself as separate from all else, and the spirit
of independence manifests itself. The cosmic force
dominates the child throughout early adolescence.
Heredity is that which has given the physical,
psychical, and moral type to the child. Indeed the
child, in every part, is a product of the irrevocable
and merciless law, "Like produces like." The child
is first a human being for no other reason than that
his forbears were. It is Caucasian for no other
reason. It is Anglo-Saxon for no other reason. It
could not be otherwise, its forbears being what they
were. This law is cosmic. It has to do with all life. It
is the gospel of the cosmos concerning living beings,
plants, or animals. The individual, then, is a mold.
He begins his existence without his consent and with
out a choice. He discovers himself limited as to type.
He can not choose parents, place of birth, complexion,
stature, weight, nationality, sex, nor his external en-

112 How a Man Grows.
vironment The cosmic force is without partiality,
though some are born to honor and some to shame,
some to genius and others to imbecility. From the
fecundation of the cell until the child attains youth
the cosmic force is absolute.
While this is true, an explanatory word is neces
sary. The result is not wholly cosmic. Back of the
cosmic process are the deliberate choices of the par
ents, foolish or otherwise. Thus personality is a fac
tor. Had their choices been wiser, heredity had done
better. It is they who determined the character of
the cosmic force, or rather the type of the child. In
the intellectual travel backward to discover cause,
there is no way to escape the part which the parents
had in the selection of the type. Here is the law of
selection. Heredity is therefore cosmic; but in the
case of the human being, personality is involved.
The evolution of type by the cosmos always adverts
to the involution of that particular type by responsi
ble parents. The mill grinds just what is put into
it. This awful law works life or death, fortune or
disgrace; it is through it that many get the push
downward, and other millions a stout push upward.
It would be impossible to emphasize this law too vig
orously. While evolution has become the magic word
(perhaps because human nature is optimistic), yet
devolution is as surely a force in the race, daily work
ing out destruction to millions. Dr. J. Sanderson
Christison has, in a small but scholarly book, entitled
"Brain in Relation to Mind," on page 135, compiled

Forces in Man's Becoming. 113
a chart upon the Philosophy of Degeneration. It is
rigidly scientific, and, from a biological standpoint,
shows the effect of the physical passions on the men
tal and physical life. His premise is : "The power
of discernment with the power of choice, implies
commensurate personal responsibility; therefore
degradation has primarily a moral cause and finally
a mental result,' or reduced capacity for enjoyments."
Without question the devolution of a tribe, or
of an individual, results from the breaking
down of the moral impulse first ; finally the collapse
of the entire being, and it may be extinction. An
old form of the law in the Book which stands for
righteousness is : "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children, and upon the children's children,
unto the third and to the fourth generation."1 The
repeated setting forth in the Old Testament of tho
warning to Israel, that their sins would be their un
doing, has again and again been proven true in fami
lies and nations and individuals, and will continue
to be until the end of time. It is the working of
heredity downward that causes thousands to halt and
inquire whether man has not gone down in the scale
to the level o£ the brute rather than come up to the
level of a man ? The law of heredity is not an enemy,
but a friend to man. It is actual, and can not be
eliminated. The shaping of the child is a serious
responsibility to which we are just awakening. The
cosmos will do better for us if we will do better for

1 Exod. xxxiv, 7.
8

114 How a Man Grows.
ourselves. It becomes man to make high and wise
alliances and to pursue the path which makes for
strength. Natural selection, which operates in the
plant and animal kingdoms, becomes responsible se
lection in man for accountability begins with ration
ality. Environment has to do with the external con
ditions. At first these are chosen for us. The cosmic
law takes us with our environment, and does the best
it can. If the environment be low and full of moral
fetidity, the child will likely partake of it and be
molded by it, and start early on a career of terrible
consequences. Everything in that case is against the
child. The cosmos uses what it gets, as it gets it. It
is God's mill, and grinds exceeding small. The mod
ern movement for civic righteousness is taking full
account of this. A child born in the "tenderloin dis
trict" is cursed before it is born, and its curse is ex
ceedingly bitter soon afterward. We have long since
learned that the "bee-hive" in the overcrowded sec
tion is a place of putrefaction, and until local condi
tions can be made to conform to the true nature of the
child, reformatory methods are impotent. The en
vironment creates an atmosphere, a soil, in which
human life takes upon itself the color of its surround
ings. The under tenth is one extreme and the under
fed, overburdened, miserably poor just above them
are little better. The affluent and exceedingly pros
perous, upon whom fortune has smiled again and
again, who in prosperity have f orgetten the pit from

Forces in Man's Becoming. 115
which they were digged, and turned from moral rec
titude, and have precipitated into extravagance,
worldliness, dissipation, recklessness, and oftentimes
sensuality, are at the other extreme. Children born
in the midst of great abundance, where every whim
is gratified and splendor meets the eye at all hours,
have proved that palaces furnish an environment not
conducive to bodily vigor, mental acumen, or master
ful purpose. The environment, whether in affluence
or poverty, in which manhood and womanhood are the
ideals, and sturdy convictions are praised, and the
strenuous life is lived for noble ends, with abundance
of pure food and fresh air, where healthful compan
ionships are sought, — it is there where the soil is
found to make men and women, and in the precincts
of such homes are born the children who in maturity
rule the land. Sueh is the power of environment.
The naturalist has shown how the law affects
flowers, plants, and all life. The great fir-tree, lift
ing its stately form two hundred and fifty feet into
the air, has had the congeniality of climate and soil,
and the mighty life forces have drawn up into it the
strength of earth and sky, until one stands amazed
at its beauty and power. The conditions which pro
duced the mighty mastodon have disappeared,
and with them the huge animals of the time.
Geology is a revelation of passing life and
changing conditions. While all this is strikingly true
in the consideration of environmental influence, the
fact may be easily overworked. Dr. Sayce has in-

116 How a Man Grows.
dicated this when he remarks in his book, "The Races
of the Old Testament :" "It is startling to see how
unchangeably the same type of skull is reproduced,
generation after generation, in the same race." He
concludes that the shape of the skull, the amount of
hair upon the body, the size and position of the jaws,
the color of the skin, are racial characteristics and
persist from generation to generation. But stature
is the result, largely of pure food and nourishment.
Stunted growth he considers a consequence of being
under-fed, overburdened, remarking that "Savage
tribes which have been remarkable for their short
stature before their contact with European civiliza
tion, have increased in height and general size when
in receipt of a regular supply of plentiful food."
Ethnological study is a fertile field for the discovery
of principles which extend through the race in spite
of all change in climate or condition. The Jew speaks
the language of the people among whom he is, but
remains a Jew. The Negro of the United States has
remained as much a Negro as if he had lived always
in Africa. Dr. Sayce remarks that the mixture of
blood does not result in a new race ; that the mixture
of the Negroes with the Europeans in America re
sults, after two or three generations, in sterility, and
where that is not the case the children revert to the
dominant type of the parents, "generally to the one
who, for some reason, represents the stronger or more
enduring race." In the study of environment it is
easy, therefore, to attribute to it more than it will
bear.

Forces in Man's Becoming. 117
There coines a time when every soul discovers its
environment If the will-power be feeble, appetites
depraved, ideals low, there will likely be indifference
whatever the environment That moment is crucial.
The cosmos will work with the child just as the child
determines. This is placing upon the child very
grave responsibility, but no more than the fact will
show. There are multitudes who can testify to* the
moment when they determined that their environment
should be changed for the better. Their whole life
has been an overcoming. This is sublime. They are
a demonstration of supremacy over circumstances.
"Ye would not," is the complaint of Jesus. There is
occasion for the same complaint again and again.
The Indian has had his chance. Repeatedly has the
government sought to inspire in him the ambition to
win for himself. A few have embraced the chance;
but the Indian as a race has refused the upward life,
and preferred his old life and habits. He sits solemn
and morose, and filled with murmurings and hatred
to that which would have as certainly lifted him up
as it has lifted up the Saxon from his fierceness and
idolatry. Now, on exactly that basis does every soul
finally come, to choose for itself its environment.
For this purpose the government, at vast cost, fur
nishes the free-school system that the child may be
•brought in touch with men and measures, and have
born within him the desire to excel. But the child
must determine. In the presence of that choice the
cosmos stands, merciless if the choice be bad ; or with
blessings if the choice be wise.

118 How a Man Grows.
Dr. Coe, in his valuable book, "The Spirit
ual Life,"2 discusses the temperaments at some
length. Now, the temperament is a birth con
dition, an hereditary transmission. The San
guine is impulsive, and impressionable. The
Melancholic is introspective, sentimental, and deep
of feeling. The Choleric is one of action; it is
prompt, intense, looks without, and values the pres
ent. The Phlegmatic is sluggish, lacMng feeling.
These are never, perhaps, found in purity, but in each
person some particular temperament predominates.
Let us understand that temperament is the gift of
the cosmos. Our environment at birth may or may
not be in harmony with the temperament. Particu
lar attention is called to this frequently overlooked
fact. If the birth-environment is uncongenial to the
temperament, quite likely there is given to the child
a twist This is calamitous. It begins life under
a wrench. If the temperament is active and the
environment sluggish, or the temperament is intro
spective and the environment choleric — whatever
may be the cause of the incompatibility — the child is
injured, and that without its knowledge. This is a
most serious matter, and is involved in the adjust
ment of the environment to the true child-nature, a
subject now being studied as never before. The child
is very sensitive and receptive in its first years. The
effect of environment must be decisive in shaping
the temperamental type, changing, it may be, the
birth-temperament to another. But whether the tem-
« Page 207.

Forces in Man's Becoming. 119
perament is changed or not, the child soon comes to
a period when he accepts his environment, or seeks
to improve it or to debase it. This going up or down
of human souls is the most pathetic tragedy in the
world. I must advert to the public-school influence,
and refer to the Sunday-school and the parochial
school. These work for the betterment of the child,
that he may be inspired with a love of the beautiful,
the strong, and the good. It is quite common to meet
those who condemn the cosmos. But it can be seen
that there either must or must not be a process of
unfolding, and, if a process, then it must be taken at
its worth. No better system for the making of stal
wart manhood and womanhood could be conceived
than that which is set forth in the cosmic process
when the process is taken heed to, and when those
who have to do with life and its unfolding see that
the life to be unfolded is placed in harmony with the
cosmic process. One can not do any way, think any
way, take any course. The Indian will receive no
mercy from the cosmos, though he sing on the moun
tain-tops to the Spirit, and cry for relief, until he
takes the relief which the Good Spirit has sent, a
relief which will make the Indian in time a noble
race. Those tribes which have yielded most to the in
evitable advance of civilization, and adopted new
methods, have been rewarded in proportion to their
wisdom. Among these the Pueblos and the Navajos
perhaps are first. They have shown some spirit of
industry and appreciation of cleanliness ; whereas the

120 How a Man Grows.
Alaska Indians have been unyielding, have refused
to learn from their Anglo-Saxon neighbor, and, ex
cepting in a few individual instances, no progress has
been made. On the other hand,, the Negro, debased
by a feudal system, a slave, tod saturated with gross
superstitions and almost impenetrable ignorance, has
welcomed the light and advantage which have come
to him, and a marvelous advance has been made in a
third of a century, so that it is not now difficult to
find among them typical gentlemen and scholarly
leaders, who are to be increasingly powerful in con
forming their race to the renaissance which surely
is coming to them. Perhaps no people have demon
strated the power of environment in the molding of
race-characteristics as has the Jew. He is the unique
personage in all history. For over twenty centuries
he has not been a nation, but in every land has pre
served his ideas, his habits, his faith; and, as was
pointed out by a facile writer a few years since in the
Review of Reviews, when driven to self-defense, not
being a man of war, nor of physical force, the Jew
sought the power of wealth and of learning, and
has attracted universal attention; and though perse
cuted without mercy in many lands, he to-day is com
manding respect because of his power in commerce,
in the arts (especially music), in literature, and state
craft. But more ancient than the Jew is the China
man. The most stagnant and conservative people of
history, clinging to worn-out customs, religions,
methods, despising Western learning and progress, —

Forces in Man's Becoming. 121
this man of the centuries, the sleeping giant among
the nations, is beginning to arouse himself to the
frightful fact that both himself and his country will
go, unless Western ideas are adopted. With change
of environment will come a new China, powerful, ag
gressive, full on its feet, facing the Western world.
The type of religion which is to mold China, whether
that of the Greek Church of Russia, or the Roman
Church, or Protestantism, is a matter of all conse
quence to the Flowery Kingdom; for the environ
ment in which China is to have her resurrection will
largely be determined by the religious power which
shall dominate her. How great is the responsibility
of Protestant Christianity!
On the other hand, look for a moment at
the irrepressible Irishman. For eight centuries
he has not been a nation, but heroically has he
fought for freedom. Amid the green of his
beautiful isle filling him with cheer and gladness,
he has gone on his way, vowing to himself that con
tention should never cease until Ireland is free. Tho
wit and fiery temperament and hope of this Celtic
people have filled the world with laughter and pride ;
and wherever one goes, let it be known that if in his
veins flows the blood of a Son of Erin, victory pre
sages his ongoing. The deliverance of the Irish ten
ant from the feudalism of the landlord is to bring him
into a more congenial environment, and the world
may expect from him even a more abounding service ;
for a larger man will appear, a freer, a gladder.

122 How a Man Grows.
Nowhere has the power of environment been more
satisfactorily demonstrated than in this fair land.
Here have grown up a people of 85,000,000; free
men indeed, prosperous, with an individualism un
known to history. What environment does for a peo
ple, it does for an individual. It is almost impossi
ble for a people not to take the color of their environ
ment. A citizen of the United States is recognized
the world around. The Declaration of Independence
is in his blood. The unconventional life of his native
land has made him unique among the nations. What
we call "national spirit" is a composite, the product
of national environment. Thus in every land the
type of person met reflects quite perfectly, though
unconsciously, the type of religion and the degree of
his personal freedom. More in illustration of en
vironmental influence need not be said. On every
page of history its power is seen, and every individ
ual carries the effects of the atmosphere in which he
has lived.
While all of the foregoing is true to fact, never
theless many individuals are constantly throwing
back upon some other, or the cosmos, their failure to
attain. 'T is but a subterfuge. A nation can easily
blame its enemies, its day of ill-fate. We know well
that the Japanese were not to blame for China's de
feat, but China herself. Thus instances could be
multiplied. The old adage that man is a crea
ture of circumstances is still harped upon by
those who will not recognize the supremacy of a law

Forces in Man's Becoming. 123
which all must recognize and obey, quite as much
as one must recognize heredity and environment.
There is a law dominant over them both. It is the
law of Choice, and to that attention will be given
presently. Heredity and environment are in the
cosmic process.
Second. Reason. The Rationalistic Movement,
which began many years ago in Germany, has under
lying it the desire for the Sufficient Reason. This
is innate. It can not be suppressed. It is as holy as
Conscience. Like every desire, it is subject to gross
abuse. But better abuse than non-use. Thomas, the
doubting apostle, is Reason asking questions. He
may put too much stress upon the senses as sources of
knowledge, and recognize too little an inner sense;
but Thomas's rationalism has its place as surely as
John's unquestioning trust. Man is a thinker.
Thought crowns him as well as Love. His thought
has lifted him. The ladder of his thought has had the
following rungs: 1. Can I know? 2. What can I
know ? 3. What do I know ? 4. Is certitude in knowl
edge possible ? 5. Then what I know is different from
myself who knows. 6. What I know is Truth. 7. I
must know error before I can know the Truth. 8. I
know I desire the Truth and love it. 9. I know that
I hate error. This is high-minded, right-minded ra
tionalism, and he who is on that ladder must ascend.
Consequently we have the syllogism, scientific experi
mentation and comparative philosophy. The debt the
world owes to those who have asked questions, and

124 How a Man Grows.
would not sit down until given a sufficient reason, is
beyond calculation. The Church has not always ap
preciated these great souls, and sometimes has ex
communicated them. It is impossible to chain
thought. The knowledge of Truth comes by experi
mentation, which is the scientific method. We have
come to believe that Reason is as acceptable in God's
temple as Faith. Each needs the other. Theology
is what it is, because of an honest attempt to put spir
itual experience upon a rational basis. The greatest
theologies are those which, in profound analysis,
critical exposition, scholarly exegesis, and phil
osophical argumentation, appeal to the law of
the Sufficient Reason. The influence of rational
ism, even of the destructive kind, has been very great ;
and, in the long run, has done us no harm. Truth can
not be demolished, though it may, for a time, bo
crushed to earth. John Calvin's incisive philosophic
mind has continued to make a profound impression
upon theology, and his great son in the faith, Jona
than Edwards, added to that influence. In contrast
with these, Richard Watson, because of his philo
sophical presentation of Arminianism, and Daniel
Whedon, through his masterful treatise on the
Human Will (Kantian in style as it is), have molded
the theologic thought of many millions. The power
of the syllogism is unspeakably great. Aristotle
taught us that the mind must rest in certitude, and
the path of reason is the shortest and surest. Faith
has its place at the beginning as at the end of all ar-

Forces in Man's Becoming. 125
gument. We must give it first place at last. But
Reason must not be depreciated. A positive and
sure way to strength is to put all data under
the test of the rational method. A gospel which
has reason in it will not soon perish from the
earth; and if that gospel be firmly committed
to the helping of men to the. Sufficient Reason,
it will never perish. There are a few types of Chris
tianity which persist wholly because they pretend to
superior rationalism. The unsophisticated are mis
led, and fall into error from which it is almost im
possible to extricate them, and they are influenced at
the first into those ways by the emphasis which the
leaders place upon rationalism. Most minds love the
scientific method, and the argumentative habit which'
has grown up in this free American atmosphere has
not hurt the spread nor the power of Christianity.
The mind demands the Sufficient Reason. The syl
logism may mislead, as in the extreme Calvinistic in
terpretation, but a Christianity which encourages in
vestigation is thrown wide open to the new methods
and discoveries and changing conditions, and seeks
adaptation and recognition wholly on the basis of
merit and its own capacity to elevate and bless, and
not merely because it claims to be supernatural or in
spired, — such a Christianity can not but prevail. In
the period of adolescence, from the ages of fourteen
to eighteen, the supremacy of the supersensuous
over the sensuous, reveals the desire for rational
bases, and as the mind begins, clumsily of course, but

126 How a Man Grows.
\
really, to use the rational method, very great wisdom
is needed on the part of parents and teachers. It is
then interrogation is prominent; denial of fa
miliar truths ; opposition to dogmatisms. It is the
mind struggling (a) to be free, (b) to find equipoise,
and (c) to come to an understanding of itself. In
this period, and later, Reason becomes increasingly
prominent. It must be recognized, administered to
wisely, and a sufficient reason must be given if pos
sible; if no sufficient reason is at hand, then the in
quirer must be shown the actual limitations of human
knowledge, and the vastness of the field of inquiry,
and taught that assumption (which is the same as say
ing that faith) is the beginning of knowledge and
faith the end; and this, in science, philos
ophy, theology, and religion. So Reason is in
the cosmic process. Had this been recognized more
by the Church, there had been fewer schisms and
larger progress in practical Christianity, which, after
all, is the only kind of Christianity. It must be
frankly admitted that all knowledge is not in pos
session of the Church, nor can it be; that mysteries
surround religion and must forever ; but that, on the
other hand, all knowledge is not with science or phi
losophy, neither indeed can be; and that mysteries
surround them, and must forever. The universe is
bigger than any system of thought and can not be
measured by it alone. The Church of the Middle
Ages fought the light of Reason, and made an unen
viable record for herself; and to this day Roman

Forces in Man's Becoming. 127
Catholicism is compelled to face the results of her
then unreasonable attitude. Christianity in Cathol
icism had not anything to fear from Luther, or
Zwingli, or Huss, or Tyndale. It was her incum
brances which were threatened, and these the eccle
siastics loved and clung to. Nor must we forget that
Christianity in Protestantism has not anything to
fear from rationalism; for Christianity can not be
overthrown wherein it is true ; but wherein it is tra
ditional, artificial, it will perish. We must adjust
ourselves to the fact that the Sufficient Reason seeks
conformity in the whole body of Truth. It is in
the cosmic process, and will do its work well.
Third. The Social Force. A thorough discus
sion of the social forces would be incomplete without
a careful examination of the instincts: 1. The in
dividualistic instinct of self-preservation. This is
attentive to hunger, thirst, weariness, danger, self-
improvement. 2. The socialistic instinct. It
arises, perhaps, first out of the sexual instinct.
The sexual instinct exists for the perpetua
tion of the species. It is a powerful incentive to com
munity life. Among many of the animals it leads to
promiscuous communism. Man himself has many
times been a polygamist. The pairing of individuals
is one of 'the most interesting phenomena in nature.
In the case of man it is fraught with an eternal in
terest. The sexual instinct forces the individual from
the mere exercise of the individualistic instinct for
self-gratification to the submergence of self into the

128 How a Man Grows.
common good. 3. The altruistic instinct is the high
est and the last It submerges the tribe interest into
the national good ; and finds its largest manifestation
in concern for the race.
The development of these instincts in the race is
prophetic of man's future dominion. The sense of
dependence, without question, has much to do with
social life, for the communal instinct is that which
comes through the tribal habit, the building up of
the clan ; but the clan and the tribe are primarily for
the protection of the weak, the women and the chil
dren. Altruism is a long step forward, and can not
even yet be said to be anywise universally practiced.
Still it is not uncommon to see the individual losing
himself for the commonwealth.
The social forces so prominent in man's develop
ment are: (a) The Domestic, which needs only the
mentioning. The influence of home on man is be
yond estimate, (b) The Political, which creates gov
ernment, international law, and an extensive judi
ciary, (c) Economics, which, though new, is destined
to be such a mighty force in the future in the adjust
ment of trusts, corporations, government ownership,
and all co-related matters, (d) Sanitation, which has
to do, not merely with the scientific disposition of
refuse and cleanliness of municipalities, but with
pure water and foods. These all exist for the pro
longation of life, reduction of suffering, moderation
in living expenses, so that the individual may not be
crushed in the combination, but that in the preserva-

Forces in Man's Becoming. 129
tion of the individual the nation may find its life and
power. These forces are gigantic and complicated
and necessary. The average citizen has come to
know these can not be dispensed with without in
jury. Man has become a creative factor, and
the individual has for several decades been
looked upon as an integer which must be re
spected; while, at the same time, aggregations of
wealth, and expansion in territory, and the increased
food supply needed for the world, and the shortening
of distances by increase of locomotion and conven
iences of travel, have laid upon the whole people a
problem which in its character is cosmopolitan. As
man shall become more creative, these forces will be
come more gigantic. The government will become
more centralized, and the system of education less
theoretic and more practical, and, withal, it will re
quire vast energy and wisdom to direct the com
munal and national life. The social instincts will
play a very large part in the solution of all these
matters, as they have in the fixing of treaties between
the nations, the arbitration of international difficul
ties, the regulation of duties, the overcoming of
prejudices. Whatever may be said to the contrary,
international marriages should have a tendency to
unite in closer bonds the nations ; and if that social
habit continues, the spirit of peace must naturally
increase. Consanguinity is a barrier to war. We
may, therefore, rightly expect the social instincts to
continue increasingly powerful.
9

130 How a Man Grows.
Fourth. The Esthetic. Man is a lover of the
beautiful. It can not be conceived how with richer
splendor the God who made him could have sur
rounded him. Wherever the eye looks, beauty speaks.
The rugged majesty of the mountain, hoary with the
snows of ages, stands in sublime contrast to the peace
ful, matchless blue of the sky. The green and
yellow of the fertile valley, stretching far yon
der, miles and miles to the sea; the circuitous river
of matchless beauty, bearing its millions of tons of
burden to the blue ocean ! O what hath God made !
And how man hath been moved by it ! The children
of nature are color-lovers. See how they bedeck
themselves! Can not get enough of color. That is
evidence there is hope for them. In the centuries
agone man worshiped the glorious sun, and what
wonder? Forgive him. Nature is entrancing.
Whenever Ruskin visited the Alps he prayed. But
who can go unmoved before Nature, God's Cathedral
for man ? God hath set the love of the world in the
heart. The soul never craved the beautiful as now.
Thanks to the artists, we are learning to put art in
home, school, in plaza, public buildings, books,
church, everywhere. 'T is well. In every form —
sculpture, music, architecture, literature, poetry,
painting. Why? Because art administers to the
best there is in man. In it every soul reads his bet
ter self. These four forces have entered potentially into
the ascent of man. It would be impossible to write

Forces in Man's Becoming. 131
his history without taking note of their character and
influence. Chaldean and Babylonian, as well as
Greek and Roman life, reveal how steadily and pow
erfully they have molded civilization. Yet it re
mains true that these very forces, gigantic though
they are, like Og, King of Bashan, are themselves in
need of some vitalizing force.
The cosmic forces of heredity and environment
must be supplemented by a force which shall correct
any destructive tendency they may have (and that
they have such tendencies all admit) . Reason, much
as it is to be commended and encouraged, itself can
not do for man that for which he longs. The dead
civilizations of Egypt and Greece and Rome witness
eloquently to that fact. The law of the Sufficient
Reason pushes man upward, but the temptation to
eccentricities of thought, the difficulty of mental equi
poise (the conservative is usually right), is seen in
irrational rationalism — a kind of so-called rational
ism which throws overboard life-preserver and' re
fuses life-boat. That so-called rationalism which of
fers stones for bread, scorpions for eggs ; which gbol-
ishes a principle in religion, and uses that same prin
ciple in science, — such a rationalism is destructive,
not only of truth, but violative of the scientific
method, and is self -condemned. To prevent such a
tendency, another influence is needed to hold Reason
conscientiously to its function, or rather to hold the
man who is doing the reasoning.
The sexual instinct is like a wild horse, and,

132 How a Man Grows.
when unchecked, throws down all barriers, destroys
the most holy relations, runs riot. The passional na
ture must be repressed (not destroyed) ; suppressed,
the soul kept supreme ; and to direct and to restrain
that, a powerful incentive is needed from a higher
source. The social instinct needs an interjection of power
to push it beyond caste, class, tribe, and to give it an
altruistic impulse. Most emphatically is this the case
when love of the race or passion for humanity is de
manded. The political life of any people would not rise
above the selfish point at any time without some
mighty force to give it inspiration. As it is, so rarely
does it do so, that the manifestation of it brings dis
trust among all nations. The Spanish and American
War was, so far as the United States was concerned,
altruistic. On the Continent this could not be un
derstood. Political militarism, conquest for ter
ritory these hundreds of years, have saturated all
the Continental peoples with distrust of a national
purpose purely altruistic. Even in the United
States there is, at times, very great difficulty to sup
press race prejudice. True altruism is cosmopoli
tan. Race-love is different from nation-love. The
Negro, in certain sections of this Republic, suf
fers calumny for no other reason, many times, than
that he is a Negro. True patriotism needs more to
make it than that which is commonly called patriot
ism. The political life of any people over and again

Forces in Man's Becoming. 133
demonstrates the absolute necessity of some dominat
ing and conserving influence which will commit and
hold the nation to the largest things. This is seen
when race-interest is at the door ; when a world ques
tion rises to the surface. To do a worthy thing for
no reason other than it is right. But to refuse to
curse with opium or any other evil a for
eign people is, not yet in the policy of any
nation. Selfishness still dominates the world-powers,
and the nations are clamorous after the spoils. What
is it that can take hold of the nations and conserve
true world interests ? ,
In the regulation of corporations, commerce,
trusts, we well understand that some power unlike
and outside any of the forces hitherto named is ab
solutely needed. The great combinations of capital
are the expression of the individualistic instincts, and
unless these be surcharged with a spirit inspiring
the altruistic motive, the Government will continue
to have much concern for the welfare of the common
wealth. The regulation and the adjustment of the so-
called laboring classes to the interests of capital, and
the interests of capital to the welfare of the employee,
call for some force which has not yet become domi
nant. Legislation will effect good, but police and
law can not purge away the evil intent and the com
bining of the evil-minded for ill purpose. What will
bring the commonwealth to absolute security?
The aesthetic instinct, powerful as it has been iri
bringing man to an appreciation of the beautiful,

134 How a Man Grows.
can not be said to have inwrought a like appreciation
of the good and the true. The Children of Nature
are long removes from the virtues which make life
worth the living. They are cunning, vicious, sus
picious, untrustworthy, unspeakably filthy, and their
hands full of bloody crimes. From Babylon to pres
ent-day conditions the cities of the fine arts are not
conspicuous for morality, but sometimes are odious
because of immorality. Artists are not always
models of morality. Some of them have had irasci
ble tempers and debasing habits. "Art for art's sake,"
is a familiar apothegm, which itself indicates the
narrowness of art, — that it seldom leads beyond
itself. There is, however, somewhat beyond art
which the artist must not only recognize, but possess.
That which fills him with the glory of the "Ineffable
Name" and lifts him above the C major of this life.*
What, then, is the force which, viewed from any
point, is of such primary consequence that every
other instinct is so incomplete without it, that it fails
to accomplish the end for which it exists? Cer
tainly such a force is inestimable to hold so abso
lute a place in the ascent of man; a force which,
though he had all the others, failing to have this, his
life is incomplete; a force which has to do with all
his hopes, ambitions, purposes, associations, alliances,
thoughts, deeds, destiny. What is this force? It is
the fifth and the chief: RELIGION.
The foregoing analysis of the forces in man's
*_Abt. Vogler.

Forces in Man's Becoming. 135
making being correct, it stands us in hand to have a
full understanding of Religion, and what its proper
functioning means to the individual and the race.
The struggle to convince the scientific thought that re
ligion is a necessity in the proper growth of man has
been strenuous. Science takes her stand alongside
Theology in this matter. Though it often so ap
pears, the age in which we live is not one in
which all questions have to be fought over, and
this is one which is settled, viz. : Religion is a neces
sity. We need to appreciate how much it means to
be assured that Science speaks with loud and uniform
emphasis as to the necessity of Religion, and pro
nounces it among the instincts. Even Haeckle, as
we have seen, did not presume to leave man without
a religion of some kind, but attempted to invent
what he called the religion of monism. We will now
examine Religion from the scientific basis.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE CERTAINTIES IN RELIGION.
" God is the Goal of Hope, and the Point of its
Departure too-."
There are certainties in religion. Because there
are, such a thing as a Science of Religion is possible.
These certainties are basal, and upon them has been
constructed the theologies, speculative and practical.
One of the assuring facts is that religion itself is a
certainty. There could be no certainties in religion
were this not so, just as there could be no furniture in
a room were the building not a fact, no boats upon
the river were the river not real. The fact of relig
ion is assumed. Religion is historically transcendent.
It finds its place, in one form or another, among all
peoples. It is, apparently, even more necessary to the
civilized than the barbarous, though necessary to all.
Because religion is a universal necessity therein is
suggested a probability that the race may reach a
unity of thought as to what constitutes religion. Re
ligion is a world-thought, consequently it is difficult
of definition. Like mathematics it has unity and
manifoldness. All we can do is to point out some of
the certainties, and in them find the assurances of
136

Certainties in Religion. 137
faith. In physical science we call such certain
ties fundamentals; in mathematics, axioms; in
philosophy, intuitive ideas. These certainties
are universal, and only need the mentioning to assure
assent. In pointing out these universal fundamentals*
it will occur to the thoughtful student as a most mar
velous fact that the world-sense, without previous in
tent, has settled upon certain truths as beyond dis
pute, and has come to postulate them as certainties, —
either because they are patent to the world conscious
ness and are intuitively perceived, or because uni
versal reason has discovered them. The only
matter with which we need to concern ourselves here
is, that the world consciousness cognizes them and
postulates them as certainties. The line between the
certain and the uncertain is not always plain, just as
in metaphysics it is not always clear what is an em
pirical and what an intuitive idea. In order to arrive
at these certainties, let us first analyze the best defi
nitions of religion. I have examined twenty, and
without giving them, the following ideas are com
prehended in them :x
(a) Knowledge of God. (b) Imitation of God.
(c) Duties to Divine commands, (d) Morality
touched by emotion, (e) A sentiment constituted by
emotion, fear, sublimity, (f) Man's whole conscious
ness of things, (g) Perfect freedom, (h) An ethical
ideal, (i) Sense of responsibility to the Power that
made us. (j) The thing a man does practically be-
i " Social Evolution," Kidd.

138 How a Man Grows.
lieve, lay to heart, know for certain concerning his
duty or destiny, (k) Belief in an Everlasting God.
(1) Reverence for what is above, around, beneath.
(m) A conscious morality, which is mindful of its
origin from God. (n) Surrender of the finite will to
the Infinite, (o) Primarily our relation to the Su
preme God himself.
Here are fifteen ideas expressed by scholars in
their attempt to define this world-concept, and, tak
ing them together, what is the composite conception
gotten therefrom ? Simply this threefold conception,
and around it the whole philosophy of religion
moves : 1. God ; 2. The Universe ; 3. Man.
The universe, or, more particularly for our im
mediate use, this world, is the plane upon which the
relations between the two personalities, God and
man, are demonstrated. Through the cosmos are re
flected moral principles such as, Given a God, the
Creator of man, then His responsibility would
be to make Himself known to His creature,
and to make known also His will or purpose
concerning that creature. This proposition arises in
reason, which, as has been seen, is in the cosmic proc
ess. In the second place, given such a God, and such
a creature man, it follows that His purpose being
known, it becomes the creature to give allegiance to
his Creator. And, in the third place, because man is
a parent demanding filial affection, he very reason
ably infers that he owes filial affection to God, the
All-Father. These principles flow naturally out of

Certainties in Religion. 139
relations and belong to the cosmic moralities. More
over, as before remarked, whatever religion is, it con
sists in man's conforming himself to Nature, and ob
serving what we call her laws. Here, then, is a
threefold sense in which the cosmos brings to man's
attention a certain set of moralities. This might
be called Cosmic Religion. It is a revelation (if you
please) which comes through the Book of Nature, for
the moralities therein enjoined are no less Divine
than the Commandments which Moses received from
God on the mount. The Book of Nature is corrobo
rative of the Book of Revelation.
Having said so much, let us now notice the first
certainty in religion. It is the Fact of God. I say
the Fact of God. The first essential to any form of
religion is God. That is the starting point. There
might be a religion of humanity, from which God
would be eliminated ; but that type of religion would
never be generally received, for the reason that hu
manity, while more perfect in all respects than the
individual, can not, in the total of all its virtues and
knowledge, approach that ideal of perfection em
bodied in the conception of a God. Comte, the
founder of Positivism or the Religion of Humanity,
tried that. The Comteian philosophy is a philosophy
(not a religion), and, as such is not longer seriously
considered. The Genetic record begins philosophic
ally, "In the beginning, God."
God IS. That fact is central. Who or What
He is, whether One or Many, the religions do

140 How a Man Grows.
not agree. The Hebraic conception that God is One,
and that besides Him there is none other, must prove
persistent and controlling.
All any religion is, the character of its God de
termines. The more complete the conception the
more creative the religion. The Hebraic conception
is beautifully presented in the 145th Psalm. Great
ness, Righteousness, Majesty, Fullness of Compas
sion, Eternity, Omnipotence, are all predicated of
Him. Putting aside much that might be said to profit,
it is in religion we find the first hints how the heaven
and the earth were made. I say the first hint is there.
It may be myth, or fable, or tradition ; but it is there.
We are thus led to remark that religion, even in its
weaker forms, points to a central Power, God, as a
Being of majesty and law. In the nobler religions,
particularly the Hebrew (which is the basis of the
Christian), God is announced as Creator, and
tthroughout the record He is presented as a God of
law. If God were without law, then religion would
be lawless. Religion then implies moral unity and
order. So far as the cosmos is concerned, it is moral and
intelligent in its workings, not because morality and
intelligence are in and of the cosmos, but because God
is intelligent and moral, and the cosmos does His
bidding. Through it intelligence shines and a moral
intent is revealed. "The heavens declare the glory of
. God, and the firmament sheweth His handywork."

Certainties in Religion. 141
" The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.
The unwearied sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator's power display,
And publishes to every land,
The work of an Almighty Hand."
Whenever it is said that man must conform to Na
ture before he can be religious in the highest degree,
it is but another way of saying that he must conform
to the will of Him in whom Nature herself finds con
tinual being. I say this is the last analysis of the
whole matter from a cosmic standpoint. But God is
central in religion, and is a Being of law and order.
The words law and order are synonymous with the
broader and stronger word, harmony. The latter
suggests rhythm, proportion, adjustment, evenness.
Harmony is not peculiar to the physical, but likewise
characteristic of the moral ongoing of the cosmos.
We therefore conclude the first certainty is : God, the
Being of Moral Harmonies.
The second personality is Man. Much attention
has been given him in this whole discussion. The
remaining chapters will seek to emphasize the plen
itude of his personality. In this particular discus
sion we take man just as we find him and as we know
him. Whatever else he is, there are three manifes
tations of his personality which are world-wide : 1st.
His rationality. 2d. His affectional life. 3d. Con
science. That is to say, in every tribe and clime, so

142 How a Man Grows.
far back as history can speak, man has moved along
the path of reason, affection, and of ethics. Many
times these were feeble and distorted, but they are al
ways and everywhere present. In the completer man
they are not more apparent but more perfect. It is
not necessary here to discuss the rational and the af
fectional, as they are prominent in this discussion,
and are so well known ; but we will confine ourselves
in this chapter largely to the ethical. It will be
shown in the next chapter that the religious instinct
is hierarchical, and dominates his reason and his af
fections when it is given its rightful place.
In his ethical nature man has continually and uni
versally felt a sense of responsibility resting upon him
to the gods or God. He has feared the wrath of God,
courted His mercy and forgiveness. Find man where
you may, there is in his consciousness some appre
ciation of a positive relation existing between himself
and God. He can not absolve himself from the be
lief that God requires somewhat of him, and, under
the purer religions, very much of him. This sense of
responsibility is instinctive. God demands obedience:
That is it. Here, then, is a second fact, revealed in
the world-consciousness, that God is related to man
and holds him in subordination to moral law. With
this fact in our possession, and without wrenching
or twisting the facts, we note that man, in his con
duct and lack of fidelity to his own moral sense, is a
being of moral disharmonies. This he well under
stands. He believes himself in disorder, demerit,

Certainties in Religion. 143
lawless, out of tune, disad justed. As truly as God
is a Being of Moral Harmonies, Man is a Being of
Moral Disharmonies. This creates antagonisms, dis
cord, mental pain, constant fear of impending judg
ment. We are thus brought to the Fact of Sin. It is not
necessary to speculate as to its origin, the fact we
know too well. Whether it be conceived as a "miss
ing of the mark," a "stepping over the line," a
"wrenching of the life," the fact abides. Every
where man recognizes himself a trespasser. The
sense of demerit has taken fast hold of the race. By
every people sin is conceived to be hurtful, out of or
der, without excuse, deserving of penalty, and some
thing which must be gotten rid of. It is marvelous
how the fact has filled, not only all religions, but all
literatures. The great tragedies and dramas and
poems bear out with uniform emphasis the awfulness
of sin, and pages could be filled with references and
quotations from every people. It shows how hier
archical these cardinal facts of religion are. I am
not maintaining that there is a world-conscious
ness as to what constitutes sin in any given
case; there is no such consciousness; the judi
ciary of the world illustrates how such a con
sciousness can not and never will exist ; but the Fact
of Sin is quite another matter. Man views himself a
sinner, in rebellion against moral authority, "a
wretch undone," vile, and a sense of fear possesses
him. Conscience not only makes cowards of us all,

144 How a Man Grows.
but of all who have ever lived or shall live. We then
conclude that another certainty is the sense of de
merit or the Fact of Sin.
Let us now get a clear understanding of the bear
ing of these inferences. Keep in mind we are argu
ing, not from the view-point of Divine Revelation
(the Bible), but independently of it. We are seek
ing to discover what is actually revealed through, and
in, the world-consciousness or the race-sense; that
sense in and through which are reflected the fears,
hopes, beliefs of the race ; not the cultured only but
cultured and barbarous, regardless of condition or
previous condition.
The method of inquiry is purely scientific. We
are not reading into the race-mind certain things, and
holding them up as belonging Jo the race ; but we
are noting in the race-consciousness some things
which from, the first have been there, and universally
there, and which no amount of education or culture
can extract. It is matter of very considerable pride
that scholarship has reached the place where this can
be done with such assurance. We know the race-
mind, its content, and the method of its unfolding;
not all about it, but enough to speak with confidence.
The religions of the race are known, the mythologies,
the earliest literatures, the primitive customs, the
symbols, the traditions, the earliest philosophies,
hymns and forms of worship. It is from a compara
tive study of all these we are able to speak with
scientific confidence.

Certainties in Religion. 145
We have established from the race-sense the fact
of God; the fact of moral government; the fact of
man a moral being; the fact of Sin. Overtake man
where you will, these lie deep in his consciousness.
He may be mistaken ; there may be no God ; but
he thinks there is.
He may be mistaken : there may be no moral gov
ernment ; but he thinks there is.
He may be mistaken : there may be no such thing
as sin ; but he thinks there is.
He may be mistaken: he may not be a sinner;
but he thinks he is.
These things are written indelibly within him,
and to him they are, universally, among the certain
ties. How is it these fill the race-sense ? There can
be but one conclusion, either man is a stupendous lie
to himself, and is mercilessly mocked ; so constituted,
and the cosmos is so constituted as to cause him uni
versally to believe a lie, and that about the most
serious of all matters possible to him; or, these are
certainties upon which, without the least fear of de
ception, he may build his destiny. To believe the
first is inconceivable ; to believe the second is rational.
We build our conclusions, therefore, upon these
certainties, and discover that in the reception of them
man is blessed and equipped for progress, and can
hope for that for which he has universally longed:
Liberty. We have seen that man has always believed there
was a relation more or less positive between himself
10

146 How a Man Grows.
and God or the gods; that the attitude on the part
of himself, becoming and binding, is that of subor
dination. But it is clear that a relation implies some
kind of fellowship or communion, and, moreover, it
enjoins not- only upon the creature responsibility, but
upon the Creator. Universal man has believed that
God or the gods, for one reason or another, could be
approached, mollified, consulted. Hence we find
everywhere what we call Prayer. Prayer is the ex
pression of a world-sense growing out of universal
need. Dr. Boyd Carpenter has characterized it as
the sense of dependence. It might be viewed as a
universal race-conviction that there is such a thing
as an innate and inalienable right of petition. But,
by whatever term it be characterized, it is there.
In conjunction with this universal sense of need
and right of petition, is the equally universal long
ing (approaching a passion) to know more about God.
What He requires of man, what He desires man to
be ; what He purposes to do for man. It is a cry for
light, whether it come from the polytheist or the
monotheist. The desire for some word, some message,
is deep and abiding. I am not saying whether a word
has been spoken, but merely indicating the universal
longing. It can, however, be said, study man under
whatsoever conditions, he believes his petitions are
heard, and that some sort of a revelation has been
given. In every age he has so believed. The race
is a unit upon these matters. Thus we establish as
certainties prayer, or the sense of dependence and

Certainties in Religion. 147
the desire for a revelation, and belief that some stfch
has been given.
From this view-point, please recall the deduction
as to the Fact of Sin. The consciousness of sin, lying
deep as it does in the race, is found, notwithstanding
the blight and the curse and the havoc it has brought,
to have running parallel with it a universal race-
desire for betterment. The race has struggled and
prayed and suffered, to be morally perfect and free.
Perhaps the fewest individuals have ever lived who
have not hoped for a nobler life and waited for de
liverance from one source or another. In this strug
gle the race has, universally, expressed what we call
the atonement idea. Humanity has been, and still is,
in travail. This world-wide idea rises to a passion
ate hope. It has been well said that a cardinal thread
runs through all history. It is expressed in the sac
rificial rites, altar service, priesthood. It matters not
what form it has taken, it is there. Universal man
has written deep in his religion the necessity of atone
ment for sin. Somehow (I shall not attempt to say
how) he has universally thought that sin meant the
loss of life to the sinner, unless an adequate atone
ment were made ; and that atonement, to be effectual,
necessitated the giving up, or the taking of, life,
either of beast, or of bird, or of human being. This
is a most marvelous fact. He has recognized the
penal effect of sin and the necessity of expiatory
atonement. A tracing of this idea in the religions and
mythologies reveals many interesting illustrations.

148 How a Man Grows.
For instance, transmigration is a doctrine, which has
underlying it — (a) The Fact of Sin ; (b) Penalty for
sin; (c) Deliverance from sin and its power in time
through age-long and dreadful incarnations. The
tragedy of "Prometheus" by iEschylus, teaches — (a)
The Fact of Sin ; (b) The supremacy of Zeus and of
moral government; (c) Penalty of sin; (d) Deliv
erance. Thus, from the most ancient traditions and
customs of any people to the Christian, the atone
ment idea is never absent. Hence from the world-
consciousness we postulate atonement for sin another
certainty in religion.
There remains but one other certainty to be men
tioned : The universal desire for future life. This
appears in a twofold form in the world-consciousness :
that of judgment for sin and reward for righteous
ness. Desire for the future life will be the dream
of the race to the end of time. Love of life is in
stinctive, and the desire may arise out of that In
these last days this desire is emphasized by a
growing sense, among the earnest and busy,
that present time is entirely inadequate for the de
velopment of our being. We scarcely touch life with
the finger-tip ere we depart, surrendering our cher
ished purposes and loves. Man has universally be
lieved that death is only a departing. It has never
been written by the instinct of the race, "Death ends
all." It is matter of joy that the race through its
consciousness has written, "Man lives forever." That
fact is to be taken note of. It is one of the most

Certainties in Religion. 149
wonderful and beautiful things about the race. In
every form to suit his fancy man has incorporated his
dreams, his imaginings, his hopes, in his religion. I
am not arguing whether there is a future life, but
merely indicating the universal belief that there
is. The atheist is an abnormal product. It
should be noticed, in this connection, that man, in
his thought of the future life, has instinctively pos
tulated a judgment of some kind. He has colored his
hope with fear. He has everywhere believed that his
God or gods will bring him to account. The awful
and most revolting doctrine of transmigration, — that
demerit must be punished by repeated incarnations
in spider, bug, dog, snake, hyena, wolf, etc., — is
not anything other than judgment for sin. On the
other hand is taught rewards for meritorious living,
— for virtue, mercy, veracity, purity.
Here, then, is a catalogue of certainties. In the
former part of this chapter it was stated that the
manifestation of man's being had been along three
lines, the rational, the affectional, the ethical. We
have indicated the ethical as manifested in the
racial consciousness. A word should be added to
show how this particular manifestation is supported
by the rational and the affectional.
Reason at once suggests : Given a God, then that
God is not without responsibility regarding man.
Creatorship means, among other things, a burden for
the Creator. That is, responsibility attaches to the
act of bringing into existence a creature. It also sug-

150 How a Man Grows.
gests that God, being Good, would hold some kind of
loving supervision over his works. This being true,
should man fall into misfortune or trouble, rea
son suggests there would be extended to him Divine
help. It also suggests that sin, or the act of willful
transgression in man is worthy of penalty, and, if
persisted in, a death-penalty; that an act of willful
transgression calls for adjustment, and, if possible
the trespasser shall be brought back to Divine favor.
Reason also has emphasized the necessity and justice
of a future life, because the average human life is too
brief for any maturity of purpose, is incomplete;
that justice often not gotten here demands a hearing
beyond the grave if the universe be moral ; and if life
is worth the living, it is worth the extending. Thus
the rational buttresses the ethical.
The affectional seeks communion and fellowship.
Love seeks love. The heart of the race cries out for
Infinite Love. It wants fellowship. Love is instinct
ive, and it can not but look around and above, hop
ing perchance Infinite Love, may speak to it.
In that most wonderful of all poems, "The Ring
and the Book," poor Pompilia declares her sor
row, sobs inconsolably from a heart already broken.
Over and over again she appeals to God. She can
not get away from God. Indeed she longs to get to
Him ! She must have love, compassion, a mighty for
giveness, a kiss from God. That is what she wants.
Ah ! that is what poor, ignorant, fallen, blighted hu
manity wants, and has wanted. The heart burns for
pity, tenderness, clemency.

Certainties in Religion. 151
These certainties are seven in number: 1.
God a Moral Governor in a moral universe ; •
2. Man a moral being amenable to the will of
God; 3. The Fact of Sin; 4. Prayer; 5. De
sire for Revelation, and belief among all people
that somewhat has been revealed; 6. Atonement; 7.
Life beyond the grave, in which there is reward for
righteousness and judgment for sin.
Any one who faces these ponderous ideas which
lie deep in the race-consciousness, and are always
and everywhere expressed, can not be unmoved. That
such a comprehensive and basal set of truths has been
revealed, not through the Bible only, but in the con
sciousness of the race, may be, to many, matter of
very great surprise. But they are there.
Get with all its force and, at the same time,
blessed significance, what a world-consciousness
means. To gather from all the tribes of men a set
of facts which all have entertained regarding them
selves, and to discover that all men in all time have
thought some things, and have, in their conduct and
consciousness and civilizations, fixed them as cer
tainties, is a most astounding discovery. It carries
us well Up to the conclusion that, from a comparative
study of religions alone, a system of theologic truth
might be constructed for world propaganda aside
from any revelation, so far as these certainties are
concerned. But such a propaganda would lack just what
is supplied in the Christian religion. The. religion

152 How a Man Grows.
of Christ is explicit in its moral law, duties of man
to man, the requirements of God, the purpose of life,
the monogamic relation, prayer, repentance, regen
eration, penalty for sin, judgment beyond the grave,
reward of the righteous, and the cure of sin, an ade
quate atonement, and, in fact, a complete redemptive
scheme. It is well, however, for us who are the receivers
of this religion to ask how it comes that the world-
consciousness demands nothing not recorded in the
Bible, and has no hope which transcends the hopes
encouraged by its pages, and no purity more exalted
than it promises to the faithful, and no brotherhood
richer than the Brotherhood of Jesus Christ. How
is it that, without any conspiracy or confluence pre
meditated, here is a Book, not only sanctioning the
world-consciousness in every part, but leading it to
the fullness of desire which grows out of such a con
sciousness ? Such a fact helps us to understand how
great a religion we have, and to appreciate our full
privilege before all the world.

CHAPTER IX.
RELIGION.
The virtue of the Spiritual Life is that it gives to Man a new
and upward tendency.
There is a hierarchy in the religious instinct
which has been commented upon by those who have
studied its nature and history. It is of the greatest
consequence to know that this instinct appears in
man only. That it is sax instinct, science declares.
The two infallible marks of an instinct are spon
taneity and universality. Remarking upon the uni
versality characteristic, one of the most able and re
cent writers has said: "As a matter of fact, the
mark of the existence of an instinct within us is not
the appearance in all men of certain activities, but
rather the aptitude for the production of certain co
ordinating actions, of certain trends of action, if the
appropriate stimulus be given. And if we accept
such a view, the instinctive nature of the religious
force within us must surely be granted ; for certainly
one will scarcely deny that civilized man has a nat
ural aptitude towards religious functioning, which
is brought out under the most unexpected circum
stances, upon the occurrence of the most subtile
stimuli."1 i " Instinct and Reason," Marshall. 158

154 How a Man Grows.
The importance of this discriminating definition
lies in the distinction drawn between "activities" and
"aptitudes." Religious activities refer to methods
which embody reason, judgment, imagination, and
are expressed in ritualistic forms, etc. Aptitudes
are purely instinctive drawings, or inclinations, and
are expressed in "certain trends of action," when
the appropriate stimuli are given.
The religious instinct is hierarchical in the sense
that it dominates all the others and influences all the
faculties. It is not so much to be considered apart
from the other instincts as an essential element in
the mental constitution. Prayer comes from the sense
of dependence. The soul thirsts and hungers for the
spiritual. "My soul Iongeth, yea, even fainteth for
the courts of the Lord ; my heart and my flesh crieth
out for the Living God." There is that in us insa
tiate for God. Marshall has characterized this as
the hierarchical instinct It is educable, as are all
the instincts. Upon this fact is based religious propa
ganda of every kind, and in it rests the wise insist
ence of the Church that childhood should be taught
early the nature and obligations of the religious life.
The spiritual perception manifests itself early. When
left to Nature alone, the child will have the crudest
conceptions of life and duty.
In Christian nations the child is taken in charge
by five teachers. Nations and Christian civilizations
can be perpetuated only upon an intelligent concep
tion of truth in its relations to personal accounta-

Religion. 155
bility and service. These five teachers are dissimilar
in method but one in aim. The child must be disil
lusionized, and have built up within it a few funda
mental ideas and principles. 1. The child is taken
in charge by its. parents; 2. The school; 3. The
Church ; 4. The State. These teachers are provided
for the child without its consent or knowledge. They
all aim at character.
Attention has been given in a previous essay to
the large part Nature, the fifth teacher, has in de
velopment. But it is necessary to remember that
Nature needs the supplementary influence of addi
tional teachers. Personality is essential to the crea
tion of robust and intelligent and well-adjusted char
acter. It is of first consequence that these four
teachers who are to assist Nature should be alert to
the full significance of the unfolding of the child-
life. Nature never takes her hand off any one of us.
She knits together bones, tissues, constructs heart-
valves, sends the corpuscles on their way; but Na
ture is so constituted that she has a larger mission
to us than merely physical. These extra teachers are
both to reveal and to assist us into her true purpose.
There are at least three laws which Nature enforces
upon us all. These very laws are also those which lie
deep in the philosophy of true religion. That we may
appreciate them, teachers are a necessity. What are
they? First. The Law of Equipoise. It is the law of
balances. It is a universal law, and not anything

156 How a Man Grows.
would go on orderly without it. Whatever else re
ligion is, it is proper adjustment to the spiritual.
For instance, there must be balance among the forces
to hold the worlds in their places. The chemist un
derstands upon how delicate a matter hangs the con
tinuance of our earth. The stability of all things is
dependent upon this law. But it has just as truly
its application in psychical matters. It is now ad
mitted that the ability to maintain equipoise on the
bicycle is a psychical art. When the will is in equi
poise the wheel is. Not until the novice learns tho
mental balance can he ride with skill the wheel. The
problem is a psychical one altogether. At first he
thinks it physical. It is the mental supremacy of
which he must come into possession. We little real
ize how great is the adjustment which must take place
in ourselves before we truly learn the art of living.
How few ever learn it! That which we call the
adolescent period illustrates well the difficulty. The
child is getting physiological adjustment to the outer
world, while at the same time is thrust upon him the
necessity of adjustment of his physiological system
to his mental, and of both to his moral, and of all to
the spiritual. It is an immense proposition which
the child must meet His effort to walk is one of
equipoise. He must learn both how to fall and to
stand at the same time, for walking is a falling mo
tion. Good habits are nothing other than moral ad
justments to inner principles. It is a life task
to learn how to behave. The control of temper, of the

Religion. 157
passional nature, of reason and judgment: a study
of folks reveals how few maintain equipoise. So the
Law of Equipoise is fundamental, having to do with
our whole being.
Religion has a direct mission to the race just
here. There is an application of this law far more
delicate than even the psychical and the moral. Soul-
adjustment to God and His purpose is the finest of
the arts; it is the art of true living. No soul will
ever come to masterful strength who has not learned
the art of practicing mercy, loving justice, and walk
ing humbly with God.2 The whole duty of man is to
fear God and keep His commandments.3 So great is
this lesson of Spiritual Equipoise the race has
scarcely got to A ; but God has set it the task of learn
ing the alphabet of His will. That makes life glo
rious. "But they that wait upon the Lord shall re
new their strength ; they shall mount up with wings
as eagles ; they shall run and not be weary ; they shall
walk and not faint."* That is Spiritual Equipoise
worth the telling ! The same idea is conveyed in the
word, "Enoch walked with God," and m our word
"rest." It takes a lifetime for some of us to learn
this gracious fact. When the psalmist was broken
with grief he uttered no complaint because God did
it. To be silent before Him when the heart is broken,
courageous in service when all seems lost, and trust
ful, as was Job, in the time of fear, this is what the
law means.

sMloahvl, 8. aEccle. xll, 13. *lsa. xl,81.

158 How a Man Grows.
Second. The Law of Limitation. God only is
the Unlimited and the Unconditioned. The universe
exists and persists because of Him. Omnipotence
can not be written of the cosmic forces. The uni
verse, therefore, has its limitations. How much
more man.
We speak of the freedom of the will — and we do
well. But who does not know that the will is under
limitations ? I may will to fly, but fly I never will.
Call the limitation physical; nevertheless it is real.
Man begins life insatiate for power. He is Paracel
sus over again. Nature humiliates him; his own de
fects mock him. "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no
further." The moral world puts upon him the limi
tations of expedience and moral privilege. He who
understands, constantly is aware that human frailty
at last must bow to law. It is only the audacious and
the most presumptuous who refuse to kneel in rever
ence to the Power that makes for righteousness. The
'great apostle perceived clearly humanity's limita
tions, when, seeing the multitudinous mercies of
God, he declared submission to Him among the rea
sonable duties.
" Make me, Jehovah, to know my end,
And the measure of my days, what it is ;
Let me know how fleeting I am.
Behold, as handbreadths hast Thou made my days,
And my lifetime is as nothing before Thee :
Surely nothing but a breath is every man, stand he ever
so firm."6

6 Expositor's Bible: Psa. xxxlx.

Religion. 159
There is no utterance finer than that It sums up
the whole meaning of this law. To be moved by it to
prayer as was the psalmist is as wholesome as the
mountain air. "So teach us to number our days that
we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." Some things
we can not do nor be. Some things we could do, but
must not. Thus we are prevented by incapacity on
the one hand, and restrained by righteousness on the
other. God alone is great. This Law of Limitation
is upon all created being.
Third. The Law of Relations. No man lives to
himself. He has rights, but they shade into duties.
He can not say, "This will I do, and this." No man
has absolute right to do what he wills with his own.
When Moses came from the mount with the Com
mandments, it is not without significance that six
referred him to his neighbor, and only four to God.
Jesus said, "Render unto Csesar the things that are
Caesar's; but unto God the things that are God's."
Thus man is hedged about, and the more clearly he
recognizes this Law of Relations and adjusts himself
thereto, the easier and the more acceptably will he
perform his tasks.
This educative process, while it develops the re
ligious sense and gives it powerful expression, and
makes it in every respect hierarchical within the best
of men, it likewise deals with the whole man. It
leaves the individual, after the process, on exactly
the same basis as he finds himself before the process,
except that his first state is purely instinctive, while

160 How a Man Grows.
the latter is instinctive and rational. There is no
war between Instinct and Reason. Both are natural,
and each is intended to support the other.
The process above indicated is virtually that sug
gested in the Hebrew Scriptures. The religious in
stinct is taken hold of by the Church, the State, the
parent, the school, and of course by Nature. At first
the Church and the State were conjoined, but
whether by the voice of Lawgiver or Prophet, under
Theocracy or Monarchy, the educative process was
prosecuted. The effort was to bring the worshipper
to a rational apprehension of God and an understand
ing of duty. This process is as necessary as is the
instinct, to begin with.
We have been slow to recognize the Law of Rela
tions. In the physical we see its necessity, but it has
required a conflict between capital and labor to show
the national mind how essential it is that the indi
vidual shall preserve his mental and moral bearings
in the midst of social and economical complications.
Unless one keeps in mind the personal relation which
he sustains to the community life, it needs no prophet
to predict that perplexity and trouble await him.
The sexual instinct, if left without a quickened moral
perception and a sound appreciation of just relations,
will prove a curse. It is true with all the instincts,
even the religious. This matter is coming with force
to teachers, and the methods which are now used to
create the proper view of life are based upon a desire
to reveal to the individual this Law of Relations.

Religion. 161
Psychic biology has begun to attract attention,
and in this the child-mind is receiving scientific con
sideration. Two decades ago little was known of the
laws of adolescence. In the study of the child-mind
is seen the unfolding of the race-mind. We now
know that the period of adolescence is creative of a
larger self, and thai the child-mind, as does the race-
mind, travels along the three paths, the ethical, the
intellectual, and the aesthetic. The method of train
ing which is to prevail and become permanent will
be that which will best adapt itself to these three
laws, and which will hold in proper balance the whole
being of the child, and, indeed, the race.
Spiritual biology is the newest phase of biological
science. It has respect to the ethical nature and the
religious instinct and their mutual development. The
so-called spiritual nature is not something separate
from the intellectual life of the child, or of the race,
but is that manifestation of being which reveals the
religious tendency. It is to be administered unto
through the reason, the aesthetic instinct, the ethical.
It is no more a supernatural part of the child than
is intellect or the body itself. Every part of our be
ing is sacred, and no one part is more sacred than
another. The new education contends for that. And
as a fundamental in this new education, methods per
fectly natural, and based upon well-known laws of
life and of mind are being adopted. We have
too long succored the error that the spiritual
life was something which, to be developed,
11

162 How a Man Grows.
must be administered unto in unnatural ways,
and along paths superior to Nature ; whereas the en
tire method of Jesus is simple, rational, practicable,
and rests upon the constitutional needs of the race.
He reasoned with men, and always presented truth,
not as something contrary to, but in harmony with,
Nature. Recently two most valuable books have come from
ihe American press, which are destined to throw
much light upon the principles which underlie the
human life, especially the ethical and spiritual
phases of it — "Psychology of Religion," by Dr. Star-
buck, and "The Spiritual Life," by Dr. Coe. What
we desira is to keep before us the fundamental truth
that the mind, like the body, is made to fit into the
constitution of things. The mind is no more intended
to work without respect to the laws which control it
than can the body be expected to reverse or ignore the
laws which control it. In considering what we call
the spiritual life, it must not for a moment be enter
tained that it can be developed regardless of law ; that
any kind of a method can be used ; but that it is so
delicate it can be quickly and permanently
abused. The scientific method is rendering the wise
religious teacher valuable service here, and we are
now understanding that as the mind is more sensi
tive than the body and must be influenced by subtler
methods, so the religious life is still more delicate,
and to preserve it from abnormal development and
giveto it healthful growth, superior wisdom ia needed.

Religion. 163
The end of all development is character, and charac
ter is that which expresses the full recognition of
these three Laws of Equipoise, Limitation, and Re
lation. It is matter of joy that science has come boldly
to recognize the fact of the spiritual life. The scien
tist has undertaken, from the gathering of data, to
express its reality and importance in his own way.
It is well to remark that the Scriptures have, as their
central purpose, the setting forth of the laws upon
which this spiritual life is to be unfolded. No one had
a more appreciative understanding of this fact than
did St. Paul. It is not amiss in this discussion to re
mind ourselves of the scientific setting which he gives
the doctrine in the third chapter of Colossians. It
reads as though it were written but yesterday. An
analysis of that chapter from the biological stand
point and the purely scientific basis, will result in
the following fundamental propositions : 1. The spir
itual life a fact; 2. All life from previous life of
its own type; 3. All life under the reign of law; 4.
Tendency to the reversion to type. Here are clearly
set forth the very laws revealed by biological science
as controlling all life. The marvelous fact is, they
were known, and set forth twenty centuries ago.
Biological science has recently declared that there are
three laws which deal with life of every form: 1.
Heredity; 2. Environment; 3. Conformity to tend
ency. It remains to see how the spiritual life, or the
religious impulse, is affected by all these. In the

164 How a Man Grows.
study of Christ's sermons it is not difficult to point
out each one of these laws. Without going into a full
discussion, Christ and Paul both contended that the
spiritual life is an above life, an impartation by the
Spirit, a quickening of the Spirit. All life is from
above. In another part of this discussion heredity
has been given sufficient attention, -but this one re
mark remains to be made: There must pass into
man an influence which can counteract the depraved
tendencies of heredity. There is such a sufficient
force wherewith strength is given to excel in spite of
hereditary impediments. This has been repeatedly
demonstrated. The Law of Environment needs but little further
explication. Max Miiller has spoken a wise word
upon the subject as it affected himself. In his "Au
tobiography," he tells us : "Even with respect to en
vironment I could not go quite so far as certain of
our Darwinian friends, who maintain that everything
is the result of environment, or, translated into
biological language, that, everybody is a creature of
circumstances. No; I could not go so far as that.
Environment may shape us, but there must be some
thing that is shaped, and allows itself to be shaped."
In illustration he says, there must be some kind of
a dog before there could have been a spaniel or a
Newfoundland. So there must have been the "first
man before he could have been modified by his sur
roundings." This puts tersely the argument. Life
must precede environment before life can be in-

Religion. 165
fluenced by environment. If the environment be un
congenial to the life, it must be changed or the life
must be placed under congenial environment. Paul
means that exactly when he says, "If ye then be risen
with Christ, seek those things which are above."
That is, an above life must be nourished upon above
things ; or, putting it another way, the spiritual life
must have spiritual environment and spiritual nour
ishment. It is the recognition of this law which leads
the Church to insist that all who desire a large and
vigorous and helpful spiritual life shall cease to in
dulge in questionable and worldly amusements. It is
not that the Church wishes to be ascetic, or peculiar,
or tyrannical, or selfish, but the contrary. The spirit
ual .flower gets its beauty from spiritual atmosphere,
soil, associations, and there can be no other law than
this. In this discussion we are to remember that we
are dealing with a rational being, and not a mere
plant. Man can change his environment; but we
meet a very grave difficulty here. Multitudes in vo
litional power are weak; they are susceptible, need
ambition, are temperamentally indolent. Now, it is
the very character of the spiritual life, when quick
ened, to give assertiveness, activity, ambition, vigor.
On the other hand, some are too self-assertive, quick
to wrath, overzealous, fond of display. Now, it is the
very nature of the spiritual life to create modesty,
patience, moderation. Some are exceedingly sinful,
hereditarily and environmentally debased. "Is there

166 How a Man Grows.
no balm in Gilead, is there no Physician there?"
This brings us to the vital matter. What shall give
the upward push to the passional nature? From
what source shall help and healing come? What
shall impart energy to the mental life ? In the Book
of Ephesians ii, 1-5, the great apostle gives answer,
"And you hath He quickened who were dead in tres
passes and sins." There is no better answer. "You
hath He quickened." Personality is back of all life.
God is the giver of all life. It is scientific, therefore,
that He should be the author of the spiritual quick
ening. The spiritual life is antidote to sin and re-
enforces every noble impulse. Life pushes upward,
and the spiritual life is no exception. It is a regen
eration, and the new life manifests itself in new con
duct and sound moral influence.
But while in the body, at least, there can be no
escape from influences which seek to kill life of every
kind, and to this the spiritual is no exception. Jesus
Christ himself met and contended with the death
forces, and this is the whole meaning of the days of
temptation. If he could not escape, vain is it to sup
pose that any others shall. The death forces have
always been here. Spiritual life, the moral nature,
it is expected, must meet and contend with its oppo
site. It matters not to us in what form or under
what guise they come, death-influences sooner or
later will attack man in every walk of life. We need
not search long for the name of the law with which
each must contend. It is a sublime tragedy, and can

Religion. 167
only be escaped by conflict. Jesus Christ had so to
escape it, and so will we all. In the Temptation,
Jesus Christ recognized the three Laws of Equipoise,
Limitation, and Relation. The same laws control
spiritual life anywhere, and it is by keeping in mind
the three laws which controlled Him that we will
overcome. There can be no overcoming otherwise.
It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that these
laws be understood. But to understand them we must
have a clear comprehension of an opposing law. We
say opposing law, not that it is so much a law, but lan
guage is inadequate to convey the idea. There is an
opposing principle, and that principle is contrariwise
in its operations to the three laws indicated, and be
cause it is always operating and everywhere, it is
spoken of as a law. This is the Law of Reversion to
Type, or the Law of Tendency.
Mr. Drummond has beautifully stated this law in
his chapter upon "Degeneration," in his book "Nat
ural Law in the Spiritual World." In the biology of
birds and plants it has repeatedly been remarked how,
if left to themselves, the law of the backward tendency
has operated. Whatever has been the method of evo
lution in bringing the bird or the plant or the flower
to such perfection, the process must be continued or
reversion sets in, and the original type becomes domi
nant. In the case of man this same law works as in
exorably. There is in every man the carnal nature,
which, if he ever attains to superior excellence, must
be suppressed, or repressed ; it can not be eradicated

168 How a Man Grows.
or annihilated, as some foolishly teach. To destroy
the passional nature it would be necessary to destroy
man. The tendency of this carnal nature is to assert
itself, and come into the ascendency. Hence watch
fulness is constantly required to see that the spiritual
life is kept supreme. The glory of the spiritual is
not that the carnal is destroyed, but that the spiritual
life can be increasingly powerful, until the man
comes to a supremacy so complete that we character
ize him as one who is filled with the spiritual life,
and more and more does the flow, or tendency, of his
whole life go in the direction of the spiritual, until
it is given right of way. But man can never be free
from the "backward pull," the carnal is present and
more or less (stronger at times) makes itself felt. It
is to this that the Apostle Paul so graphically and
philosophically refers in Romans vii : "I find then a
law [he calls it a law], that when I would do good,
evil is present with me." "But I see another law in
my members [it was constitutional, in the passional
nature] warring again the law of my mind." The
great Apostle thus directs our attention to the Law
of Reversion to Type.
He cries, "Who shall deliver me from the body
of this death?" and answers: "Jesus Christ."
And Jesus Christ did. But we are not to sup
pose that from that time forward Paul never
had within him any movings of the "Old
Adam," no impulses to a backward tendency ; that
his passional nature gave him no hints of its

Religion. 169
presence; for we know from his own Epistles that
he was, by the spiritual victory which he got through
Jesus Christ, neither trans-humanized nor de-human
ized, but a redeemed man, and this was his glory.
Christians need not be alarmed when awak
ened to the fact that the carnal tendency is never
eradicated. What man needs, and what he
must have, is stimuli which will enable him to coun
teract the tendency and live supreme. These stimuli
are found only in religion, and, as the carnal nature
strikes downward, the spiritual life attracts upward,
it remains with the individual which shall become
supreme over the other ; for to him who hungers and
thirsts after righteousness there is promise of abun
dance. This last reveals the profound truth that
the Law of Tendency in the spiritual man works
toward the type of Him who is the Giver of spiritual
life. The one requirement for him who possesses the
spiritual life is to nurture it, and see that in every
way its nourishment and environment are congenial.
This is the secret of a great Christian life.
We have thus come by several paths to the fol
lowing conclusions : 1. There must be a vicegerency
in man dominating and bringing into subjection and
under direction all his instincts and faculties, so that
their functioning shall be for his present and future
welfare. 2. That such vicegerency is committed to
religion. It is not in vain to have come by these several
paths to realize the sure truth of these conclusions.

170 How a Man Grows.
Wehave reached them purely by the scientific method.
They are among the certainties, and have beneath
them the Sufficient Reason. We are now at the point
where the logical question is : To what religion shall
this vicegerency be committed ?

CHAPTER X.
THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE.
Christ does not fill Christianity to Overplus
In 1887, W. Boyd Carpenter, D. D., Bishop of
Ripon, delivered on the Bampton Foundation eight
lectures before the University of Oxford, in which
he predicted that the religion of the future would be
that religion which would the most rationally take
account of the following four laws : 1. The Law of
Environment ; 2. The Law of Organism ; 3. The Law
of Sacrifice; 4. The Law of Indirectness.1 After
the foregoing argument we are prepared to appre
ciate this summary. The general proposition that re
ligion is hierarchical among the instincts, and that
all the interests of man are comprehended in the true
religion, is overlapped only by another proposition,
that religion is a necessity to man's proper unfolding,
and that there can be but one best religion. For that
he is constitutionally fitted. It is easy to find so-
called religions which will immolate man. From
them we turn away. There are also those which con
tain a modicum of truth, but exalt the sensual, blur
the moral sense, and are impotent to lift him out of a
l " The Permanent Elements of Religion," Carpenter.
171

172 How a Man Grows.
debased environment. The question will crowd itself :
Is there open to us a short path, thoroughly scientific,
by which we may discover the, religion which, in
every respect and everywhere, will be the friend cf
the individual, bringing him to his best, and an in
spiration to the race, pushing it forward in those
lines over which it must travel in order that it may
realize the highest good ? If such a religion can be
found, the value of the discovery will be beyond esti
mate. The method is simple and scientific ; namely :
Man is the being to be benefited. Before any
clear conception of the religion which he needs can
be had, we must have a true conception of him. We
know that he is a body. Hence a religion which takes
cognizance of his physical organism, is what he needs ;
and the religion which does this the most perfectly is
the best. That is the first step.
But science informs us that man is more than
body. Then we reply, he needs a religion which will
administer to the More. When science is asked the
content of the More, she answers: Intellect, Emo
tion, Will, Moral or Spiritual capacity. The stu
pendous fact that he longs to find and to know God,
and to be at peace with Him ; that he is insatiate for
a more abundant life, even eternal life, has compelled
a new definition of man, which is conveyed in the
statement that "man is a soul having a body."*
Granting the accuracy of this definition, we conclude

* A definition of the late Bishop Randolph S. Foster in his great
sermon " What Is man that Thou art mindful of him?

The Religion of the Future. 173
that the religion which is to be a constant benedietion
to him, must have the following ingredients in proper
proportion: (a) It must be rational, to satisfy the in
tellect, (b) Full of tenderness and hope, to meet the
emotions. (c) Replete with lofty stimuli, to
strengthen and direct the will, (d) It must present
a God who is rational, merciful, omnipresent, eternal,
omnipotent, omniscient ; Who is committed to loving
man and guiding him in the path of duty, and who
promises, on the basis of righteousness, personal im
mortality. Dr. Boyd Carpenter, in his book, "The Perma
nent Elements in Religion," virtually reaches the
same conclusion when he says that the religion of the
future must be characterized by the three elements:
Dependence, Fellowship, and Progress. The first be
cause, if man does not recognize a Personality to
whom he owes worship, he will become egoistic, arro
gant, revolutionary. The second, because companion
ship is conducive to consideration and affords in tho
development of the social life ample exercise of the
moral faculty. The third, because man to realize him
self, must achieve along high lines. In other words,
the religion which man must have must be consonant
with his whole being, and the cosmos in which he
finds his plane of action.
Science is to be credited with bringing us into this
large view where all are compelled to admit that re
ligion is not only a necessity, but the one religion
which at last must bless him is that which, in its

174 How a Man Grows.
functioning will conform him to the law of righteous
ness, the social law of service, and the law of progress.
Religion being a necessity, and a particular kind
of religion, then science has herself come to the point
where it must soon pronounce an emphatic opinion
as to what that particular religion is. The best pos
sible religion will alone be adequate to his complete
development It is now well established that man
and the cosmos (Nature) are intended to be har
monious each with the other. The religion which is to
dominate him, therefore, must have respect to the
two; and that religion which is the most inclusive
of the nature of both will be the religion of the fu
ture. If there is no adequate religion in exist
ence, then, in time, all present religions will be dis
placed by the religion which is Becoming, for such a
religion will appear through the survival of the
fittest and natural selection. The only question,
therefore, is : Is there not now a religion upon which
man will never be able to improve ; a religion so all-
comprehensive of man, and all-inclusive of his inter
ests, present and future, that not anything can be
added to it, or taken from it ? This is a far-reaching
and living question. Science, philosophy, theology
are face to face with it. , To that we now give our
attention. The present writer is profoundly con
vinced that Christianity is such a religion, and in
support of his conviction submits the following suc
cinct and, as he believes, scientific analysis of the
contents of that religion which is called Christianity.

The Religion of the Future. 175
Man may have a religion in the remote future
more perfect than Christianity. But he will never
need that until he has, as an individual and as a
race, outgrown Christianity. When the boy fills hia
coat, or when the coat is worn out, then he needs an
other. It is pertinent, then, to ask: How nearly
has the best man come to filling Christianity ? I say
the best man — the most noble-minded, conscientious,
prayerful, studious man ! There is no use talking of
the worst or the better — Christianity is too far ahead
of them — but the very best. Many have abandoned
Christianity. But why? Had they filled it? Do
they now, having turned otherwhere ? That we may
clearly understand the merit and bearing of these in
terrogations, let us look at the measure of Chris
tianity. This will be done by taking three illustrations
and carefully weighing their significance:
1. The Sermon on the Mount as given in Mat
thew, chapters v to vii, inclusive. This sermon
may be characterized as the Constitution of Chris
tianity. What is the measure of it? Has any liv
ing best man filled it ? Has any living or departed
man filled it to overplus ? If the individual best man
has not, how nearly has the race come to it? Is
there any sign upon the moral horizon that the
race is anywise outgrowing it? Is it not nearer
the truth that the race has scarcely as yet entered
upon the threshold of His teachings? The Beati
tudes alone humble us. 'T is the rarest man in his-

176 How a Man Grows.
tory who has rejoiced when reviled, and been exceed
ing glad when all manner of evil has been spoken
against him falsely. How many are agreeing with
their adversary quickly, and how often have you
known those who loved their enemies, and prayed for
those who despitefully used them, and who forgave as
they wished to be forgiven? Where are the people
abandoned to the laying up of treasure in heaven, and
are not concerned most about the laying up of treas
ure upon the earth ? To say there are none would
be dishonoring God and sincere men, but to say there
is any considerable proportion of the Christian world
who fill the beatitudes would be a wrenching of the
facts. If here and there are those who seek to fulfill
all the law, we rejoice and take courage ; but the race
as such is still declaring that Christianity's standards
are too high, and that they are impracticable. That
is self-condemnation enough.
2. The thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians is
Christianity's Love-chapter. It is as sweet as a
field of fragrant clover. It is as gorgeous for
its heavenly colors as is the rainbow. One can saun
ter through it as if he were in a forest with verdant
trees all bursting into bloom, and in the stillness of
his soul he can feel the breath of truth, refreshing and
pure. O, the thirteenth of First Corinthians ! How
immeasurable! Has the reader ever known any one
who so filled it that further growth was impossible ?
The question carries its own answer. There are who
have love ? Yes. But are they over-full of this al-

The Religion of the Future. 177
ways? "Love is not provoked." Ah, there is the
rub ! There is just one name that can be substituted
for Love : Christ is not provoked. Christ suf
fereth long and is kind. Christ vaunteth not Him
self. Christ envieth not. Christ is not puffed up.
Christ beareth all things. Love never faileth in
Christ. Put thy name there, dear reader. Put the
best man up by the side of this Love-chapter and ask
him to speak the truth. 'T is the glory of it that
many taste the sweetness of this love, and know of its
power. Tasting and being filled always, are very
different. To have the thirteenth chapter of First
Corinthians incarnated in one twelve months in the
year and all the years — Christ only did that. The
best known man struggles and fails and hopes. Turn
from this best man, and look at the race. Is there any
very remote indication that the race will outgrow
that? How can the race outgrow it? Can one out
grow love in perfection ? No word can be added to
that chapter to perfect it. Should the race to-morrow
fill it to fullness, what could be added further ?
3. The Good Samaritan. This parable is the
very essence of love to neighbor, and a man's neigh
bor is he who is in need, and his nearest neighbor
he who is in the greatest and most immediate need.
There are who give all they have. The Good
Samaritan, perhaps, has never been out of the world.
This man gave attention, time, medicine, his beast,
made himself (in the eyes of his people) unclean,
furnished lodging, and promised to pay all the bill,
12

178 How a Man Grows.
and that for one who despised him, persecuted him.
Could one do more ? How many are found in any
community who do these things ? Some ? For them
let us bless God. Do you know of any ? Then write
his name large and alongside of it, "This man is a
Christ-man." But how about the vast majority?
How about the race? Is there any evidence that
humanity is outgrowing the parable? So far be
low its requirements do most of us live that it has
become the fashion to speak of Christianity as ideal
ism, the impracticable religion, the religion of
heaven, all of which sustains the claim that here at
last is a religion that puts man out of breath
to keep even a fair pace with its require
ments. It is well for us te bow our heads
here. God is near. We feel His Holy Presence.
Christ is Christianity. Christ fills it. But even
Christ is no more than it : He does not fill it to over
plus. He FILLS it That is God. None other but
God could do so, always. Hence it is written of
Christ : "He counted it not a prize to be equal with
God." It is not difficult to find those who fill to overplus
Mohammedanism, Buddhism, or the religion of the
Brahmo-Somajas. But Christianity no man fills.
The average life of the race is so far below it that
pessimism were easy were not God's promises so
many. Christianity only is worthy of man, for it
alone understands him. Under that he has become
and is yet becoming. Its doctrine of regeneration

The Religion of the Future. 179
gives him new vision, and the resurrection and ascen
sion of Jesus give him some hint of the plenitude
of his own being, and an answer to the oft asked
question, "Wherefore was I born ?"
It is fundamental in biology that every kind of
life develops best in its particular environment. His
congenial environment is Thought, Love, Fellowship.
Christianity supplies these in richness and fullness.
Considering the completeness of Jesus Christ and
the moral incompleteness of mankind, there is a sense
in which man is always in process of being saved. The
race gravitates toward Him. It is in His likeness
we hope to come. The image defaced, in Him will
be restored. He who is the always becoming is the
genuinely saved. Such is the plenitude of Christ,
the matchless completeness of His character, that the
best need continually to grow in grace and in knowl
edge. This is a very great matter, and shows how
great is the need of man for that inspiration and il
lumination that comes by the way of Bethlehem.
Any thought which puts Jesus on the ordinary plane,
or Christianity among the nature-made or man-made
religions, fails, and will continue to fail. Even the
claim that it is extraordinary is not sufficient. It
must be classed as transcendent. For, test it as one
will, Christianity is all-comprehensive and all-inclu
sive of man.
First. As to Its Comprehensiveness. Man is of
a mental type. He is the thinker. Christianity
challenges thought. It is a thought-provoker and a

180 How a Man Geows.
thought-promoter. It deals in such ponderous ideas
as God, Man, Immortality, Duty, Destiny. It is im
possible for it not to arouse the intellect and stimu
late discussions of a profound and vital sort. But
man is after an emotional type. The most refined
quality of which he is conscious is feeling. Feeling
is initiatory in him. It is the evangel, going before
and along with all his intellections and volitions.
The arts are his own creation, but they are regnant
with feeling. Literature and poetry abound with it.
It is the very life of the imagination. Christianity
is an inspirer, director, refiner, of this exalted feel
ing quality of the mind. It would be impossible that
it should be otherwise. Its message is the gladdest
tidings that ever earth has heard ; its fellowship and
communion the highest and sweetest; its hopes are
the most precious.
In the emotional nature lie the passions ; for man
is after a passional type. Passion is the most pow
erful manifestation of the emotional nature. No
function is at the same time such a bane and blessing.
In excess, the passional nature is his Nemesis; in
subjection, his Hercules. Love is a passion. Hate
is a passion.- Man is the world's best and greatest
lover. He alone loves. His love is consuming. His
hate, at times, burns seven times hot against his ene
mies. He is the world's best and greatest hater. He
alone of all the earth hates. Clearly, a stimulus,
powerful and penetrating, must possess him, so that
he may from the latter be restrained, and in the

The Religion of the Future. 181
former wisely directed. Christianity, as we have
seen, administers to both these impulses. Christ's
summary of the Ten Commandments, love to God
and neighbor, is all-comprehensive. To attain, man
must be the right kind of a lover. This principle of
love in Christianity is analogous to the law of con
servation in physics. It is the most powerful pre
servative force in the race. It serves the same pur
pose in the race (changing the figure) as the centrip
etal force does in matter. Love always conserves.
It is the only power needed to hold together families
and nations. It keeps the race from flying apart,
as the race constantly tends to do. Christianity seeks
not only to create and maintain proper conjugal and
nation love, but to do that phenomenal and exceed
ingly difficult thing, create and maintain race love.
A passion for humanity is not innate with the race.
It must be born. It is the purpose of Christianity
to create this. In other words, there is a universal
sense in which man must come to recognize humanity
as a person ; when, so far as possible, each man shall
act toward the race as he would have every other man
in the race act toward him. This is catholicity in
love. If Christianity can not produce that in hu
manity then it can not be produced. Christianity
can produce it in plenitude, but on one condition
only, a condition which is rational, or, if you prefer,
scientific, viz.: That every individual in the race
practice its precepts. Toward this happy consum
mation man is becoming.

182 How a Man Grows.
Second. The Christian Religion is All-inclusive.
Inclusiveness is quite another matter from compre
hensiveness. Comprehensiveness calls for a defini
tion of man ; inclusiveness for a definition of religion.
The all-inclusiveness of religion can best be re
vealed in answer to this question: What are some
of the positive helps immediately needed by man;
helps which will be stout enough to move him along
the surest and speediest way, that he may in the best
possible trim attain unto the highest ideal of which
his wonderful being is a prophecy ?
This profound question should not frighten us.
It enters into the problem. We know man sufficiently
well — not all in all, but well. Science may be said
to know him. We know religion. Christianity we
certainly know. Besides we know this: Man's ex
panding needs, be they ever so many, have all been
provided for in the constitution of things ; or will be
provided for by a loving Heavenly Father.
Man's deepest needs are psychic and spiritual.
His psychic needs he himself can supply, and is sup
plying. His spiritual needs he has sought to satisfy,
and in evidence are all the religions and mythologies,
rites^ and symbols. It is our contention that all his
spiritual needs are met in plenitude in the religion
of Christ. By this is not meant that all questions
are answered which he has asked; that Christianity
does not leave him with some longings which are nat
ural to him and upon which it throws little light, if
any. We admit that it would be impossible to answer

The Religion of the Future. 183
all the questions man can ask, and perhaps impos
sible that he should understand all answers which
might be given. It is merely claimed, that, for the
purpose of spiritual development along normal lines,
Christianity supplies help in plenitude. And that
this is so, may be reached by a further study of its
all-inclusiveness as a system. Few will question the
statement, likely none, that man's immediate need is
healthful and symmetrical growth — a growth per
fectly in harmony with his physical and psychical
functioning. That need is supplied in Christianity.
The laws of growth are well known. It has been
remarked by a present-day writer1 that in all health
ful growth there are three features.
(a) The surgical or the suicidal. That is, some
thing must be made to die. There is no growth with
out death. This is simple enough in the physical
world; strange that it should not be understood of
all life! The student soon discovers that mental
growth is gotten by the death of indolence, imitation,
and of every habit which hinders / vigorous, inde
pendent thought. The body can not grow if cramped,
overburdened, underfed. So mental growth must be
free, and according to the laws, of psychical life.
This we understand. Shall we refuse to believe that,
for spiritual growth, the surgical method is needed ?
Certainly not. And wherein is it needed? In this

i " Genesis of the Soelel Conscience," Nash. This is a most sug
gestive book, and the present^writer acknowledges his Indebtedness
thereto. The reader Is referred to it.

184 How a Man Grows.
connection a most remarkable truth fell from the lips
of Jesus : If thy right eye or thy right hand offend
thee (so that death is inevitable with them), then it is
better that they be taken away. The profound philos
ophy in that remark lies in the fact that evil will seek
means to accomplish its ends, and this evil must be re
moved by some process of surgery, or death, so that
the offending member will be rightly used — not for
offense but blessing. Christianity goes deeper than
the offending eye or hand. If there were no other
way to cure the soul, these had better be removed. It
is a way the Master has of telling us that sin is a
most virulent and heinous thing, and a surgical proc
ess is needed that the functioning of the soul may be
natural, healthful, and unhindered. Jesus announced
the same truth when he said : "I am the Vine, ye are
the branches. . . . Every branch in Me that bear
eth not fruit, He taketh away; and every branch that
beareth fruit He purgeth it that it may bring forth'
more fruit." Now, the conclusion is, the surgical
process being essential to growth, Christianity re
quires this for the spiritual development of man.
There can be little doubt but this fact, not under
stood in its scientific bearing, has caused a hesitancy
on the part of some to embrace Christianity. Surgery
is painful. Mankind seeks painless paths ; and this is
all well enough if such paths lead to life; but if, in
any case, the avoidance of surgery means certain
death, the painless path is devoid of wisdom and
profit. Thus is it the spiritual life is subject to the

The Religion of the Future. 185
first requirement of growth. Jesus Christ has set
forth the surgical method which is a necessity in the
removal of evil; but with the method is the promise
of more abundant life.
(b) Mortification is the second feature. Some
things must be ejected and rejected. Suppuration
must set in against all that is infectious and poison
ous. There must be the subjection of the members.
Now, we understand this in the physical world, and
we have learned that for great mental power and effi
ciency in any line, certain things must be gotten rid
of. Shall we make an exception when spiritual
growth is considered ? Bunyan never declared a
more scientific spiritual truth than when he repre
sented Christian as knowing that his sin must be got
ten rid of ; for as a bundle on the back to a wayworn
traveler, so is sin. This putting off and getting rid
of, and taking up of, is forcibly set forth in the
words : "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make
not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof."2
"Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is
without the body; but he that committeth fornica
tion sinneth against his own body."3 "Having there
fore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse
ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,
perfecting holiness in the fear of God."4 "Mortify
therefore your members which are upon the earth;
fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil
concupiscence and covetousness, which is idolatry:
2Rom.xlil,U. »1 Cor. vl, 18. *2Cor.vll,I.

186 How a Man Grows.
for which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on
the children of disobedience."5
The above suggests how well adapted is the Word
for instruction in righteousness. The spiritual life
to develop normally must be rid of excrescences and
burden. As a principle it could not be presented in
more scientific language. The injunctions are all
based upon a necessary principle in growth.
(c) The third feature is limitation, or restraint.
Some things must be held in check. The principle
of repression must operate; otherwise legitimate de
sire will become avarice, temper may become uncon
trollable, ambition inordinate. No passional tend
ency must be permitted to run unbridled. Thus it
is seen that Christianity puts bridle and bit on the
whole life. It is a restrainer and a director. It
superinduces caution to inner state and outer en
vironment. The soul-life can not but grow under its
healthful influence. It is all-inclusive of man's in
terests. Assuming that the three features of growth
are according to the best scientific light, it is im
possible to find a system of religion that enjoins these
upon man as does the religion of Jesus Christ And
this is by no accident or guess, but from a knowledge
of what man is and what the unfolding of his nature
must be before he can realize his best self. That is a
pungent and beautiful word regarding Jesus : "But
Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because
He knew all, and needed not that any should testify
BOol.111,6,0.

The Religion of the Future. 187
of man; for He knew what was in man."8 That
word is explanatory of the all-comprehensiveness and
all-inclusiveness of Christianity.
Thus far the argument has proceeded, either from
the definition of man or of religion. We have discov
ered that Christianity is sufficiently comprehensive
and inclusive to take in the whole man and all his
interests for all time, so far as we are able to antici
pate his interests.
It remains for us to inquire somewhat further
into his nature, and discover within him a deeper,
but nevertheless a very real self, which must be pro
vided for in Christianity, or that religion will not be
the religion of man's future.
What is this deeper, hidden self? And does
Christianity provide for it? First, whatever else it
may be, it is that self which is insatiate for endless
time in which to do its task. Dr. John Watson would,
perhaps, describe it as the longing for the "ageless
life" — eternity. Eternity! That is it!
It is that deeper self which is passionate to know
duty, and to know it done. It is that self hidden
away, that asks not only for time and task, but for
place. The earth is small — too small, as earth-time
is too brief.
It is that self which insists on totality and unity.
Thus we fathom man at last. And as we sink the
plummet and gather up his longing desire for time,
and task, and place, and totality, there comes with
• John 11, 24, 25.

188 How a Man Grows.
them the sweetest and richest and purest, and it may
be deepest, desire of all, without which the others
being given, eternal life would be a mockery, viz. :
the passion for fellowship with human and kindred
spirits forever.
Any religion which offers transmigration of soul
to this mighty man, this being fit only to be called a
son of God, mocks him. Any religion which robs
him of personality and at the last sinks him away
into unconscious Nirvana, dethrones him. We do
not believe that "man is the measure of all things,"
but that other aphorism, "God is the measure of all
things." Man, however, is but a little "lower than
God," and no book has understood man save that
one which has so characterized him.
Does Christianity adequately provide for this
deeper self ? In a few words I wish to show that it
does. Given this deeper self, it is not difficult to dis
cover whether it does or not. The content of Chris
tianity is much fuller than at first believed. It is
God's Love Ocean of Truth. Though enough
has been said to establish it as the first and
best of known religions, it has other stimuli for
this deeper man that those previously named. A re-
* ligion to be adequate must do more than recognize the
instinctive racial longings ; it must supply the needed
stimuli. We submit the following reasons to prove
Christianity all sufficient:
1. The Time-sense. Eternity. I do not mean
to say that the time-sense originates in religion. Ib

The Religion of the Future. 189
is an intuition, and, according to Kant, is not pro
duced by experience. But experience has deepened
in consciousness a conviction that he will be given
ample time in which to perform his task. His busi
ness is to Become. Sufficient time will be allotted.
Man has always wanted to do something which would
last forever. His first efforts at monument building
hint of immortality. Whatever fear he had of pass
ing into nothingness, he sought to build imperishablo
works. There seems to have come with experience,
more than a hope, a dawning certainty, that the out
put of his life here might be continued there. Plainly
his hope is that he who fails to attain here may at
tain yonder. This larger time-sense has been culti
vated by religion, especially the Christian religion.
Man needs this larger time-sense. Universal man
needs it. Wherever Christianity goes, this larger
time-sense becomes dominant. The worth of man
tilts the beam. The supreme right of life appears.
Soul-development becomes the most precious art.
Character becomes the one priceless treasure, and
eternity no longer lingers about as the shall-be, but
as the IS. Present life is thought more of, because
of the forever life. Eternity is NOW. Eternity has
always been upon us, and will forever be. Present
duty is hitched on to duty seons hence. Everything
is of consequence, because everything is part of a
continuous and continuing time. This is a wondrous
conception. We have been long coming to it. Many
things it takes man long to catch. But Christianity

190 How a Man Grows.
is aflame with this holy conception. Good that we have
come up to it at last. There is a holiness in all liv
ing, and living is worth while. Not anything satis
fies this time-sense as does this conception. It is the
Christian conception. "God is not the God of the
dead, but of the living. He is the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob."
"Before Abraham was, I am," said Christ "I
am the Resurrection and the Life : he that believeth
in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and
whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die."
That which the average man desires most when dying
is life. Christianity meets that need. That which he
hopes for is eternity, and Christianity declares, he
that believeth on Christ Jesus hath eternal life abid
ing in him.
2. The Ought-to-Be Sense. The one word which
has slowly made its way into consciousness is ought.
It has come slowly because it is a word of weight
It outweighs the worlds. As the sin-sense has be
come emphatic in our thinking, conscience has be
come increasingly imperial. This Ought-to-Be has
an infinite God in it. It has the music and rum
blings of an eternity in it. It can not be gotten rid
of. Only the wicked desire to be rid of it The
question, What Ought to Be ? destroys the stratifica
tion of society enforced by Buddhism ; the pollution
of the domestic sense encouraged by Mohammedan
ism and Mormonism; and it raises into glorious ef
fulgence every noble thing. Let it be written to the

The Religion of the Future. 191
credit of man that he is no longer content with what
is. That we tolerate some things is our shame. If
from no other, at least from the "Chambered Nauti
lus," man learns to build for himself "more stately
mansions as the swift seasons roll." He says of his
nation, "This ought to be." The circumference of his
powers has enlarged under the talismanic word. Re
ligion has bathed him with light. He discovers that
now he serves God, whereas in ancient times the gods
served him. He is more and more coming to believe
himself under Divine orders. The Ought-to-Be puts
him on the firing line where it put Lawton ; or in the
White-Cross work. Ought has but one sentence:
"Anywhere we Ought-to-Be is our place." "Anything
which ought to be is right." This is the new gospel
of religion; or this is ^ the old and only gospel of
Christianity. 3. The Political Sense. Under the Divine spell
of Ought the world is coming into a sound political
sense. Human government is the science of political
righteousness. Politics is holy. It has no mission
but that which is as pure as religion. The Augean
stables have no business to pile up with filth, which in
human government is an offense to God and all good
men. We are coming to realize what government
means — what it should stand for. There is a theoc
racy which must be realized before man can realize
himself. God in government and the government for
God, — that is the watchword of the Becoming.
Hercules may perform his labors, but unless the

192 How a Man Grows.
vipers of corruption and low ambition for place per
ish from among men, a new Hercules will be needed
in every generation. Christ came once. He left a
message. That message was not one of reformation
for the world, but the regeneration of it. No less
will do. It is no longer charged that Christianity is
feminine. We have come to know that its tender
ness is that of a refined woman, but its robustness is
that of Joshua. The apostles were stalwart. The
Reformers were Reformers because they themselves
were regenerated. The Reformation they preached
was a Reformation in Regeneration. Kings and all
who are in authority will lead peaceable and godly
lives when the Christ-life fills them. The cure of
the government is the cure of the king. Christ is
the physician. Political power of the right sort is
coming upon the world. When the righteous rule,
the people rejoice.
There are moments with the race as with the in
dividual, when conscious power is upon it. The or
dinary man never felt so conscious of power as now.
He seems to be girding himself for some mighty
task. The race seems to be getting on its feet, tiptoe
ing, with hand to ear listening for a voice to speak
from beyond the horizon. The Political Sense is
world-wide. Man's task is cosmopolitan. The whole
earth is a news-box, and unless the race hears several
times every twenty-four hours from itself, it is rest
less. The Political Sense is all alert. Expectancy is
everywhere. The world goes with a driving-power

The Religion of the Future. 193
amazing. If ever the sense of the Becoming was on
the race, it is now. Everything is dynamic, creative,
missionary. Christianity is our hope, and every peo
ple of earth is feeling the throe of its power as never
before. 4. The Totality Sense. The wholeness and one
ness of things. There must be a Whole. There are
worlds and systems and suns, but one universe. There
is a totality, and God and totality are all things. It
is said the Greeks had no word synonymous with
"Humanity." Christianity brought that in. Great
word it is. Too big for most of us. There is such a
thing as the solidarity of the race, as there is such a
thing as totality of worlds and all things. Onto this
solemn truth the race seems now to be coming. It is
not a new truth, but new in the cogitations and be
liefs of men. To man it is unpalatable. Religion
thrusts the totality of the race upon him, and com
pels him to admit it. In the presence of it he has
been, and yet is, obstinate. If he nods his head, it
is as when Zeus at times nodded his. There is lack
of sincerity, or a desire for patrimony. He will some
day nod his head and mean it. The race is one. It
must be treated as a Person. All men are Brothers.
One blood flows in all. We will never attain until
this God-inbreathed, ponderous, and vital fact inocu
lates us.
This is inclusive of the equality-sense, the free
dom sense, which so conspicuously figures in modern
citizenship. Involved with it is the moral sense,
13

194 How a Man Grows.
which is not only sensitive regarding rights, but privi
leges; a sense so acute that men will, when fully
awake, talk not alone of duties, but practice cour
tesies; so that men, in the presence of one another
will be, as they are in the presence of- women, re
fined, considerate, magnanimous. For it can truly
be said, whenever a man has a less regard for his
brother man than he has for woman, or when a
woman has a less regard for her sister woman than
she has for man, neither has yet attained. And that
the race has attained in this particular the most ex
treme optimist will not admit But that the race is
attaining we all know. A quickening of the moral
sense will speed the brighter ,day when between the
different races will be observed brotherly kindness.
5. The Domestic Sense. It has been well said
that De Foe found an island, and upon that island he
put a man, and called him Robinson Crusoe ; that he
came to nothing, and got nowhere. The reason as
signed is, De Foe forgot to put on the other end of
the island a woman.7 To be sure each would have
found the other. The law of affinity would have
seen to that. Had De Foe so wrought the story, then
our youth would have had an inspiration greater in
the book. How much more charming is the book,
"The Swiss Family Robinson!" There you have a
family; marrying and giving in marriage; a real
human world. When God made man, He gave him
a sweetheart, and you may be sure if Adam sinned
i Nast: " Genesis of the Social Conscience."

The Religion of the Future. 195
with Eve, it is also true that he showed some
chivalry, because he sinned for her. But whether
he sinned with her or for her, or both, probably
he would have more grossly sinned without her ! God
meant much more than mere loneliness when he said,
"It is not good for man to be alone."
The Domestic Sense intensifies our interest in all
things. If at the last he is my father, and mother,
and sister, and brother, who doeth the will of my
Father in heaven, it can not be otherwise that father
hood and motherhood, sisterhood and brotherhood
add to the probability of the race coming into fuller
race-love. Every sweetheart and lover, husband and
wife, has a taste of the boundless fruition of infinite
love. The world is built up by families, and ce
mented by the domestic tie. While religion is not
the originator of the domestic sense (it is part of the
social instinct) it is the sanctifier of it and the sanc-
tioner of it. When we get older and sounder in our
thinking, we will enter more deeply into the signifi
cance of the beautiful fact that the first miracle the
Christ wrought was at a marriage feast. Concomi
tant with this domestic sense is the larger sense of
fellowship. Man longs for friends. He looks be
yond to other souls congenial to himself, and
these are as kindred to him. He is a friend-
maker and a friend-keeper. He can not exist with
out them. So insatiate is this desire for fellowship
that through all his history he has sought fellowship
with the gods. Mythology is replete with the story of

196 How a Man Grows.
his struggle to have the gods to be his friends. Most
profoundly he believes in a supervising and all-pre
serving Mind, and that Mind he will think of in no
less relation than as his Heavenly Father. Chris
tianity is perfected in the filial relation which it
so poetically and philosophically reveals as existing
between the truly good and God. When ye pray say,
"Our Father." "And because ye are sons, God hath
sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father." "Wherefore thou art no
more a servant, but a son ; and if a son, then an heir
of God through Christ"8
Communion as expressed in prayer has the
thought of fellowship underlying it. All Christian
assemblies are dismissed with the Apostolic Benedic
tion, which embodies the same precious thought of
fellowship. The Christian Church is a Fellowship
Society. Thus Christianity is replete in the fellow
ship-sense, or the purest expression of the social in
stinct. 6. The Place Sense. Man is characteristically a
place-seeker. He outdoes all other creatures in his
migratory habit. From beneath blazing Polaris to
the effulgent glory of the Southern Cross; from the
farthest edge of the Orient to the remotest point of
the Occident, he is found. All climes and lands be
come his habitat as if forever he had dwelt there.
He is cosmopolitan. He abandons home and kindred,
and, like Abraham, goes whither he knows not, seek-
8Qal.lv, 6,7.

The Religion of the Future. 197
ing fairer climes and richer soil. He lives amid the
fastnesses of mountains, alone or with few, a child of
nature; or in the seething masses of humanity in
city; restless, he tries the booth, the hut, the capa
cious house, the palace. Every man, like Napoleon
I, is seeking new lands to conquer. He sails all seas
in search of place. In the North, prosperous, he
wishes for the Southland. Larger than the palace,
and broader in measure than any zone, he fills the
earth with his restless self. Nations make laws to
exclude him. There are not ships sufficient on the
seas to carry him. He waits by the million to hurry,
now here, then there. He dares the frozen regions
of the North Pole, and turns back anxious to return
again and again. He defies cold, and suffering, and
death. He swears to himself that no spot of earth
'shall there be where his foot shall not tread. He
will yet sail the seas of the North and of the South.
From the earth he looks through the great eye
which himself has made, and sitting hour after hour,
he gazes far away — so far that his calculations make
the mind dizzy, and he sees ! He sees — worlds, and
suns, and systems! He wishes himself standing
yonder on that most remote world, and wonders what
he would do and see. This is man. Just a "little
lower than God." Think you that he is content, or
could be content, without a place ? To live ! To live
— forevei* — somewhere! That is his longing! What
ehall we say of that religion which tells him, when li6
is at his best, that unconsciousness is his final state —

198 How a Man Grows.
to sleep, to exist in unthinking repose ? No greater
misery could befall him. Men half awake, already
buried mentally and morally, that know not what it
is to live, may endure such doctrine, but not the wide
awake, full-on-his-feet Man! No state for such a
man is as congenial as to be wide awake, gazing open-
eyed, listening, feeling with every sense, for the prin
cipalities and powers around and above; and reach
ing after God and all Good; searching for the True
and the Beautiful; playing with life and living a
great, deep, mighty life every day ! Ah ! this is man
at his best. There is not anything so sublime as to
see such an individual sitting on the edge of this life,
looking outward into the abyss which is immeasura
ble, and wondering where he will be to-morrow. For
he knows he must sail that sea! This life he has
lived. Ten thousand times he has asked, Whence ?
To-day he is asking, Whither? Nor does it matter
with him that the world rumbles and goes hurriedly
by, rushing for gold, and honor, and pleasure. Once
he did care. Now life's forces have ebbed. The tide
pours never more back. To-morrow he must sail!
Whither? If you silently slip up to this man you
may perchance catch the prayer of his throbbing
spirit. He is saying :
" I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
Shouldst lead me on ;
I loved to choose and see my path ; but now
Lead Thou me on I
J loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years !

The Religion of the Future. 199
So long Thy power hath blessed me, sure it still
Will lead me on
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile."
Jesus Christ knew this. That day when filled
with sorrow because He had said to them, "Yet a
little while, and ye shall see My face no more," and
observing them downcast, He announced his ultimate
purpose and hope for them. John xiv has made many
a bed "soft as downy pillows are." "I go to prepare
a place for you." "Where I am, there ye may be
also." There is not only a rest for, but a Place for,
the people of God. "In my Father's house are many
mansions." It was this that cheered Paul when he
told Timothy that the time of his setting sail was at
hand. This grand apostle had been on the deep. He
had seen the ship lift anchor and push away for other
shores. He himself had been for two-thirds of a
century on life's sea. Its billows had well-nigh sub
merged him, but Jesus had stood with him. Now he
was waiting Caesar's executioner. The cruel axman
was to cut the cord of life which tied him to earth's
shore. Then whither? "The time of my setting
sail is at hand." He who sets sail does so for An
other Land. "Henceforth there is laid up for me a
crown of righteousness which the Lord, the right
eous Judge, shall give to me, and not to me only, but
to all those who love His appearing." Thus Chris
tianity satisfies the Place Sense.

200 How a Man Grows.
Browning, in that wonderful poem "Paracelsus,"
tells us that Paracelsus never attained. He aspired,
but roamed, boasted, pretended, deceived, was sen
sual, proud, unmerciful. Because he did these things
he failed. Paracelsus thought it was because he as
pired to know rather than to know and to love, for
so an Italian poet had told him. The Italian had
failed because he had aspired to love without knowl
edge. Festus, his faithful friend, had told him other
wise. Poor Paracelsus ! delirious and dying in St.
Stephen's Hospital at Salzburg! Festus is beside
him, praying for one word of recognition. Con
sciousness returning; — what words of death, and re
gret ! — reaching for the fancied hand of the Italian
poet and the hand of Festus, Paracelsus at last
passes. It is thus that multitudes never Become.
Napoleon I, great as he was, never truly Became. A
destructionist he lived and died. He loved Napoleon
Bonaparte I, and in that he lost his nobler self,
which might have forever blessed the earth. In con
trast to Paracelsus and to the mighty French em
peror, Browning draws the picture of the Gram
marian carried to the highest mountain-peak to be
buried because he lived so great a life. While these
words are being written, there is handed the writer
a card bearing the words : "Father passed away this
afternoon."9 And who was this? None other than
the very sort of man described by Browning in the

'The Rev. Thomas Harrison, D. D., who died April 18, 1903. A
most remarkable man.

The Religion of the Future. 201
Grammarian. He was scholar, gentleman, Christian,
editor, preacher — quite everything which a great soul
could be. There are some who need to be buried
near the sky. Such are they who truly attain. "Rabbi
Ben Ezra," old and waiting for the angels says to us :
" Grow old along with me !
The best is yet to be,
The last of life for which the first was made."
Nor need we the poet's graphic pen to stir our
breasts. Life is rich in those who have attained.
For let it be known that he truly attains who, out of
love, for purposes larger than self-interest, does that
which, if all were to do, the race would be delivered
from every evil thing. And, lest we get discouraged,
we need to know that such a privilege lies closer to
the average man than at first appears. Savonarola,
contending for the purity and liberty of Florence,
though strangled and burned, nevertheless attained.
Martin Luther, going up to the Diet of Worms in a
farmer's wagon, hailed by the thousands and cheered
on his way, warned by a faithful friend to go no
further unless he would have his fate to be as the
fate of Huss, never was more a hero and a saint than
when he said: "Huss has been burned, though not
the truth with him. I will go in though as many
devils are aiming at me as there are tiles on the roof."
Later, five thousand persons gathered in and aboui
the hall; it was the fearless Luther who rose to the
supreme place of brother to all the race when he said :

202 How a Man Grows.
"Here I stand; I can not do otherwise. God help
me. Amen." And God did help him ; and there he
stood, and through him Protestantism and liberty and
a free State. * So might the instances be multiplied.
Such souls bear to the race a prophecy of matchless
beauty and worth. They attained against many odds,
and through the power of the one all-comprehensive
religion. That religion is ours. It is the religion
of the To-morrow in a sense that it is not the religion
of To-day. In it is the world's hope. Thus man
goes marching on.

CHAPTER XI.
THE CORONATION OF MAN.
Man Crowns the Cosmos, and Christianity Crowns Man.
Nature has her coronation in Man, and Man
has his in Christianity. It is this which makes the
Person of Christ the highest expression of Divine
Thought and Love. Christ is a Creation. His Im
maculate Conception stands counterpart with the
creation of the heaven and the earth. But He is a
Generation, and in that sense is alone and apart,
though on His human side He came by the way of
David and Abraham.1 Language can not define
Him. For Creation and Generation both imply a
beginning and an unfolding, but Christ Jesus is an
Eternal Generation. "Before Abraham was, I am."
"In the beginning [before the cosmos] was the Logos,
and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was
God.'''2 He had a "glory with the Father before the
world was."8
He is a class to Himself. He is above and be
yond any serial process, and overlaps Nature. Be
cause He is this, Nature was His servant and He
did whatsoever He pleased. Christ is too large for
Nature; too big for Philosophy. Science knows

i Matt. 1, 1. s John 1, 1. 'John xvii, 5.
203

204 How a Man Grows.
nothing about Him, and can not define Him. Ordi
nary criteria fail in His measure. He is the world's
Mountain Man. His birth, His death, His resur
rection, His ascension, do not amaze us. When we
know Him, we cease to be amazed. We cry aloud,
"My Lord and my God !" It is Himself that over
whelms us ! Athanasius was right : "Very God, of
Very God." He crowns the cosmos. All Nature is
glorious in Him and because of Him.
The Christian student needs more and more to
understand, and to herald it everywhere, that there
are some things too big to be handled through the
ordinary processes of Nature. They must come over
a path unusual and hidden from reason. The Plan
of Salvation through Jesus Christ, God incarnate, is
one of them. There is nothing usual in His whole
career. It is all lofty, unique, sublime, confusing,
glorious. The glory of man is of a twofold kind. He was
made in the likeness of God. That is first. Let that
likeness be psychological and spiritual. That js
enough. The mystery is top great for our under
standing. We can not penetjate into the Holy of
Holies, and look upon the Shekinah whose effulgence
fills the Temple of his being. The glory is too great !
It is our unspeakable privilege to know of its shining,
and to be sanctified to life's awful meaning, by medi
tating upon his Person and his mission. It awakens
us to thought, to penitence, to action.
The second is, that Jesus Christ was made in our

The Coronation of Man. 205
likeness. Unfathomable mystery! That He who
was the very Image of God,4 should take upon Him
self the likeness of man! Renan thought Him so
much a Man that He believed manhood to be His
measure. What a Man He was ! God's World Man.
Indeed, so much has man lost in the run, or so little
has he gained, whichever way we view it, Jesus is
the only full measure of manhood known to history.
He was a Man ! When I think that well through, I
pray God to help me remember what by Him I am
intended to be! But there is a vast difference be
tween Jesus being the full measure of mature man
hood, and mature manhood being the full measure of
Jesus. Without doctrinal dissertation, Jesus Christ
is Man's Coronation.
The Genetic record is a very pathetic and tragic
one, but most human. Ah! it is awful in its por
trayal of lost power. Eden lost ! Man lost ! Moral
government broken. The creature assuming author
ity. God displaced. That is the first part.
God, the Merciful, calling man. Man cringing,
affrighted, hiding, but found at last. The Law turn
ing like a sword of fire, guarding the Tree of Life —
until that time when man should approach it by sac
rifice, petition, penitence. Man, cursed in his deed,
but given a Promise, that out of his own loins should
come One like unto himself, who should redeem the
race. That is the second part. It is marvelous
beyond compare that the infractor of law should be
* Heb. 1,8.

206 How a Man Grows.
given the distinguished and imperishable honor of
being the second party in bringing in the Restorer.
Thus man is crowned.
Science has no more encouraging word than the
Supremacy of Man in Nature. He is getting back
his mastery. Let us see.
1. Labor was pronounced as a curse, an indig
nity. The sinful must work. He must sweat He
would find in his path thorns, stubborn to dig.
Briers would hedge him about. The very earth
would refuse response without the hardest struggle.
Is not that historic ? How man has hated work !
Harassed, fretted into rage, he has dug his way
through history. Sin and thorns and briers and
sweat and unrewarded toil have kept company to
gether. The lesson is as awful as it is plains
But, under Christianity, labor is becoming a dig
nity and a glory. Men sweat less as Christ comes.
Briers give way before the Gospel. The restoration
of Nature is one of the first evidences of Christ's
triumphal entry into the lands. Where Christ is
not, how men and women sweat! Behold Africa.
The Congo Free State. Look at India, with her
300,000,000. Why stop to enumerate? The fact is
appalling! But Labor was crowned at the Carpen
ter's bench in Nazareth. The efficacy of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ is in the fact that the curse of
the Law is turned into a blessing unspeakable
through the transmuting touch of Jesus. Virtue hath
gone from Him. The first Adam sweat after he had

The Coronation of Man. 207
sinned, and in his sin. The last Adam sweat at the
bench. of honest toil, and crowned the brow of Labor.
Then mastery was lost in sin. Power slipped
from Adam in the transgression. 'T is ever so. There
is reason for the inference that, previous to his
sin, Adam was close to Nature. She responded to
him. But the sword of fire swung at the gate after
ward. Nature carries no sword for the righteous,
but to him who despises law she thrusts forth her
bayonets of wrath. Thus man becamo afraid of Na
ture. Her forces he called gods. He bowed down
to them, and made offering, At her lightning and
thunderings he trembled. He has considered her his
enemy. Sin distorts the reason, and makes us to
see dragons, and demons where none are. Heathen
ism is demonstration of this.
But Jesus in the Mountain of Trial, through His
matehless self-mastery, commanded even Nature's
allegiance. Thrusting her aside in His hunger, He
walked the royal path of righteousness, so that ever
after He needed but to speak and she obeyed. Wanted
He money, it could at His will be found in a fish's
mouth.0 Were the seas angry, they were stilled at
His command.6 Was the bread meager, it multiplied
under his benediction.7
Thus Christ has crowned man with restored do
minion. Nature is altogether different to the Chris
tian thinker. It is the Christian nation that wrests
from Nature age-kept secrets.
6 Matt, xvii, 2T. • Mark lv, 89. ' John vl, 6-18.

208 How a Man Grows.
In his sin man lost that loving confidence which
he had with the animal creation. He became a
hunter of beasts. Murder surged in his blood. He
was rapacious for the taking of life. The beasts,
terrorized, have fled from his face.
Under the Gospel, his love and care of the ani
mal creation is returning. He feels himself akin to
them. Protective societies are multiplying, and the
animals know something has happened. It is said
that the mountain beasts know the very moment they
step within the precincts of Yellowstone Park. There
they are loved. No murderous gun can strike them
there. The writer has been in the mountains filled
with bear and mountain cougar, and has known many
who have traveled extensively through the vast for
ests. The universal testimony is, that the animals
do not molest man unless attacked, or hungry, or
some mother beast believes her cubs are in danger.
We have come to know that the beasts are not vicious
but gentle. Man has made them vicious. Christian
ity is restoring gentleness to man and beast. It is »
wonderful fact that true mastery is in gentleness.
Jesus Christ crowns the gentle-man.
In the garden, oppression soon ripened into mur
der. "Thou shalt not kill," is a terrible comment
upon man's bestial tendency. Himself has been
most unmerciful to his kind. "Love thy neighbor as
thyself," is the hardest of all injunctions. Fearful
is the oppression yet exhibited in Christian lands.
But Christ has come, and the world is better. The

The Coronation of Man. 209
governments of the world are softening. Human
life is of greater worth. Christ's question to the in
dustrial world and to rulers of every age is, "How
much, then, is a man better than a sheep ?"8 A sheep
stands for stocks, and lands, and bonds. Christian
ity will not permit any estimate of man lower than
"made in the image of God." So long as man bears
that superscription he is sacred. Nations will go
down, change, and expand, as man is despised or es
teemed. Christ stood for the world of men in all
generations, and died for them. In that He sealed
them as His own, He will not permit wholesale op
pression without bringing to judgment those who
permit it. Spain, Russia — no power of earth can
forever go on in oppression and miss the wrath of
God. This is terrible, and in it is a message. Corpora
tions should take heed. For the rich in this world's
goods Christ has a word. It is Man He is after.
That obscure man and woman. That child. Yonder
multitude now crossing Brooklyn bridge ! Ah, Man
anywhere, everywhere ! The race is his by purchase.
Thus, the Christian world has a mission to all tho
nations. As Calvary becomes conspicuous and its
meaning plain, the race will more and more bask in
the light of human love. Man is bound to be ascend
ant under the Gospel of Christ. It was fine advice
given by an aged physician to an outgoing class of
young doctors, for them always to remember they
8 Matt, xii, 12.
14

210 How a Man Grows.
were dealing with souls. Christ made conspicuous
that the world of men was a world of souls.
This it is that makes world evangelism so con
sequential. He who aids not the Church in that, sees
not the day of his opportunity. Along with our Gos
pel goes commerce, science, and individual worth.
Christ leads the van of holy enterprise. When those
in darkness see a great light, no longer are they con
tent with a dead nationalism and stagnant existence.
Life is what they want and will have. Christianity
is precursor to that true and larger freedom of soul
announced by Christ: "If the Son, therefore, shall
make you free, ye shall be free indeed."8 Man's
Golden Ag»*is in the Christ.
"For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God,"
Jesus Christ sustained such a natural familiarity
with God, that we well understand the appropriate
ness of the words of the apostle, "Who, being in the
form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equal
ity with God."10 The Revised Version in the margin
has it "Not a thing to be grasped." Jesus Christ was
filled with "all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,"11
and that is reason why He needed not to grasp after
equality with God. These comments by the apostle
are very rich and wonderful. It matters little that
so many of the leaders of the Jewish Church saw
not in Him anything more than the son of Joseph,
» John viii, 86. ioPhll.n, 6. "Col.11,8.

The Coronation of Man. 211
or a teacher; for in every age it has been true the
men greater than their generation have been either
misunderstood or unappreciated. How could mortal
eyes, used to earth and human kind, grasp the awful
but glorious fact that Christ was Immanuel? But,
as Immanuel, there centered in Him the generations
past and to come. He is the Prince of Peace. In
His personality is a prophecy of that time when war
shall be no more.
"Peace beginning to be,
Deep as the sleep of the sea.
Love, which is sunlight of peace,
Age by age to increase,
Till anger and hatred are dead
And sorrow and death shall cease ;
' Peace on earth and good-will.' "n
This it is that cheers the hearts of men to strug
gle on for the mastery. The physical world has
shown evidences of submitting to the conquering
march of man, but in the sociological and psycholog
ical and spiritual world, he has yet to prove himself
sovereign. 'T is himself he must conquer. Those
gigantic forces which are builded up because of his
energy and his frugality : capital and the industries ;
governments and the arts, and systems of education;
home with all that it stands for ; it is these which are
to be conserved in his highest development and glory.
It has not fully dawned upon him that the Christ
12 "-Light of the World," Arnold.

'212 How a Man Grows.
embodies the full mission of the race; that man
is in some deepest sense predestined to work out
a plan, and that the consummation of that lies in
the eternities, but always along the spiritual and eth
ical truth announced by Jesus Christ. The program
of Christianity is not some small scheme to be meas
ured by finite mind — something which can be puffed
away by human breath, or made more real by human
attention — but a permanent scheme, the unfolding
and the realization of which is left with mankind as
the race shall listen to, and diligently observe the
sayings of, the "Son of God."
The second Psalm, with its irony and sar
casm to kings who refuse to harmonize them
selves with the Divine decrees, is a message,
Messianic in character, pointing to that distant time
when the Son shall indeed be Lord and King of
the earth. Hence the promise: "Ask of Me, and
I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance,
and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy posses
sion." The far-off Divine event toward which all '
creation moves is that of spiritual oneness. The
race should understand that peace and good-will .
are the real joys of its New Day, foreshadowed in
the words of the Christ: "I am the Light of the
World." It little matters who goes down, what govern
ments abide, so the Golden Age comes at last — a day >
wherein man shall love man for his own sake, and
virtue and holiness shall be supreme, and the race

The Coronation of Man. 213
shall be one in Christ Jesus. Faith staggers with
the hope, so freighted is it with all that is good;
time is lost in eternity ; and God, who is the Ultimate
Good, is All in All.
" Hail, to the Lord's anointed,
Great David's greater Son !
Hail, in the time appointed,
His reign on earth begun I
He comes to break oppression,
To set the captive free ;
To take away transgression,
And rule in equity."13
Thus Man has his Coronation in Christ, the King.

13 Benjamin Francis.

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