WHAT SHALL WE THINK
OF CHRISTIANITY?

WHAT SHALL WE THINK
OF CHRISTIANITY?

THE LEVERING LECTURES BEFORE THE
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
1899

By WILLIAM NEWTON CLARKE, D.D.
Author of
"an outlihk of christian theology."

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK  1899

Copyright, 1899,
By Charles Scribner's Sons.

iSnibetsitji p-ess:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.

STfjese iLaturea,
NOW PUBLISHED A8 THEY WERE DELIVERED,
ARE DEDICATED, IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE,
TO
MR. EUGENE LEVERING,
The Founder of the Course,
AND
TO THE DELIGHTFUL AUDIENCES THAT LISTENED
TO THEM.

CONTENTS.

Pagh
I. The Christian People  1
II. The Christian Doctrine .... 48
HI. The Christian Power  98

The sower went forth to sow his seed:
and as he sowed, some fell by the way side ;
and it was trodden underfoot, and the birds
of the heaven devoured it. And other fell
on the rock; and as soon as it grew, it
withered away, because it had no moisture.
And other fell amidst the thorns ; and the
thorns grew with it, and choked it. And
other fell into the good ground, and grew,
and brought forth fruit a hundredfold. He
that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
So is the kingdom of God, as if a man
should cast seed upon the earth ; and should
sleep and rise night and day, and the seed
should spring up and grow, he knoweth not
how. The earth beareth fruit of herself;
first the blade, then the ear, then the full
corn in the ear.

WHAT SHALL WE THINK
OF CHRISTIANITY?

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
I AM heartily glad to speak, in this
presence, of the things that occupy my
thoughts and make my life, and to speak
with the utmost freedom. I shall be glad
if what I may say fulfils in some degree
the apologetic purpose of this lectureship,
by making some Christian realities in
which I believe more clear and more help
ful to some who listen. I believe in the
greatness and worth of Jesus Christ, and
I have some sense of the preciousness of
his gifts to mankind : and I propose that
in these three lectures we look together at
three great contributions that he has made
to the moral wealth and welfare of hu-
l

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE

manity. These contributions are the
Christian People, the Christian Doctrine,
and the Christian Power.
My reason for selecting these three gifts
of Christ for consideration is, that these
three go far toward making up that great
fact in history and life which we call
Christianity. When Jesus, the founder of
Christianity, left the world, what did he
leave behind him that he did not find
here? What elements had he added to
the life of mankind, and brought in as his
contribution to the future? He left in
the world, at least in vigorous and prom
ising beginnings, a people, a doctrine, and
a power : — a people, few but attentive
and receptive; a doctrine, growing into
fulness and vitality through their experi
ence ; and a power, already operative and
of boundless potency. These combined
bequests of his had at first no common
name. At first their unity could not be

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE

clearly discerned. Nevertheless, he had
left a unity in the world, not a mere
sprinkling of detached results, and in due
time the unity asserted itself. After a
little his disciples were named, and proba
bly nicknamed, Christians. The nick
name stayed upon them, and came to be
their chosen name for whatsoever belonged
to them in relation to their Master. In
the name they gloried, for it denoted that
new something, unlike the possessions of
mankind, yet normal and suitable to man,
which Jesus had brought in. Their church
was soon the Christian church, and their
doctrine the Christian doctrine ; and the
unified result of Jesus' presence among
men came by and by to be known as
Christianity. Both the name and the fact
have continued until now. If we seek to
know what Christianity is, and of what
elements it is composed, how can we de
scribe it better than by saying that it is
made up of these three elements, the peo-

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE

pie, the doctrine, and the power that Jesus
left in the world as his abiding gift to
man? If we find more than these, we
shall find it, I judge, mainly by unfolding
what these contain. In every age these
three constitute, or at least efficiently
represent, what we call Christianity. By
means of these the Christian name has
been kept alive among men, and the Chris
tian influence has been exerted.
I wish to inquire how well these gifts
of Christ, these elements of Christianity,
have done their work, and of how much
attention they are really worthy now,
after so long a time. They all stand for
the holy and beneficent name of Jesus,
and are supposed to convey to us, each in
its own manner, the gift and influence that
he brought. All ought to bear a decided
apologetic value. Such a value they are
universally expected to show. It is as
sumed that the Christian people fairly
represent the human fruit that the Saviour

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 5
of men intended to produce, that the
Christian doctrine fairly expresses what
the Master meant to teach, and that the
Christian power is such as the Lord of
men is satisfied to be exerting. These
gifts of Christ are such that in the light of
them Christ himself can scarcely fail to be
judged. Of this we cannot complain, nor
can we imagine that he himself would
make objection. He who said of men,
"By their fruits ye shall know them,"
will not refuse to submit to a fair use of
the test that he has proposed for others.
Christianity may reasonably be estimated
in view of these its constituent elements,
if only we can manage to do the judging
fairly. Yet how various the judgments are!
and we cannot wonder. Some say that
the Christian enterprise is the one success
ful thing in all the world : the people are
the salt of the earth, the doctrine is the
light of the world, and the power is God's

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE

own power for salvation. Others say that
these fruits are no special credit to him
whose name they bear : long time and
little done, poor fruit and little of it, all
sorts of imperfections in the people, incon
sistencies and irrationalities infesting the
doctrine, great unevenness in the operation
of the power. All the way between these
two extremes the judgments range. We
are living now in an atmosphere that is
rife with criticism : for there are many
who sincerely think that Christianity has
been tried in the balances and found want
ing, and is justly condemned by its failure
to produce a people, a doctrine, or a power
proportioned in excellence to its claims.
In what I may have the honor to say in
this presence, I desire to show, if possible,
what is true about these three gifts of
Christ which constitute our Christianity.
I wish to look at them fairly, if I can.
I am not here to defend what bears the
name of Christian merely because it bears

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE

that name, nor am I here to surrender
what is precious because it is not perfect.
I shall inquire what can reasonably be ex
pected of these gifts in the world, and
how well they are fulfilling rational ex
pectations. I shall note some of the con
ditions attendant upon the rise, growth,
and continuance of these three elements
of Christianity, in order that we may
judge, with some fairness, how well they
have done their work and realized the
aims of Christ. Thus I shall try to as
certain what we ought to think of Chris
tianity. And perhaps we may discern
something of the winning and convincing
beauty of the Lord in these his gifts.
In the present hour we consider the
Christian People.
There is no mystery about the beginning
of the Christian people. Jesus left in the
world the little band of believers in him-

8 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
self that had gathered around him in his
ministry. They were disciples learning
of him, and some of them were already
named apostles, messengers, or heralds.
We read of a hundred and twenty in Jeru
salem, and above five hundred, perhaps in
Galilee. Very soon the hundreds became
thousands. , Out from Palestine his name
went to the Roman world, and in Antioch,
Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome itself, mul
titudes were added to the Christian com
pany. By the time that Jesus, if he had
lived, would have attained to the age of
three-score years and ten, the Roman
empire was dotted over with Christian
churches, and a people devoted to his
Name was everywhere.
Who were they, and what ? What prin
ciples were operative in the formation of
the Christian people ? How came it to be
what it was ? I shall be glad if I can set
forth and illustrate the simple and com
monplace fact that the normal and neces-

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 9
sary laws of life had their way here.
Christianity, placed in the world, experi
enced the inevitable, and took the con
sequences of existence. The Christian
people, first and later, was such as it
could be.
The Founder, as we know, drew his first
followers from among the Jews. Not from
the circle of the high religionists did they
come, but from that better circle which
was found among the common people.
Here were the Jewish homes, where relig
ion was pure and sweet, and faith took
hold upon the God of the fathers, — where
response to a new and holy influence,
therefore, was most possible. Out of the
common class, the fishermen and the poor,
came the first to follow Jesus. Legalism
had not blinded the eyes of these to spirit
ual beauty, and the simple saw the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Igno
rant of many things they were, and in
religion itself they needed long and patient

10 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
teaching, yet these were the men and
women to whom the Master could say,
" Blessed are your eyes for they see, and
your ears for they hear."
When the Master had gone, these were
his heralds. Enlightened they were in
heart by the power of love and the insight
that comes from spiritual fellowship, glow
ing and enthusiastic was their faith, and
yet they were themselves, and could pro
claim only what had become real to them.
No one learns great things thoroughly in a
single lesson. It is vain to imagine that
the first disciples could know their Master
perfectly at once, for even the divine
Spirit cannot dispense with the element
of time in guiding human beings into
truth. The fact simply is that a new,
glorious, uplifting, character-making power
was taking hold of men. Forth from
Jesus came a mighty transforming influ
ence. It took men as it found them, for
it could not do otherwise, and it wrought

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 1 1
upon them as they could be wrought upon,
for it could not do more. It was a heav
enly gift amid earthly elements, a divine
power working upon human materials.
The first Christian people were the human
materials upon which this divine power
had done, and was doing, its initial work.
They were this, and nothing more.
We can trace the process. The Chris
tian message met its inevitable fate in the
hearing that it received. The hearers
heard with their own ears, and understood
by means of their own preconceptions.
Every growing thing grows according to
the soil that it falls into, and the seed of
the word was no exception. In Jerusalem,
the message was taken into minds full of
inherited Jewish ideas. The better spirit
of the Jewish religion and the narrow con
straints of Jewish thought conspired to
make a Jewish-Christian people, in whom
the large conceptions and spiritual aspira
tions of Jesus could find but scanty wel-

12 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
come. We know how near the new faith
came to being smothered to death in a
Christian Judaism, and how Paul was the
chosen vessel of Christ to carry his name
out from these limitations to the Gentiles,
the nations of the world. The first group
of the Christian people came near burying
the gospel alive under their old ideas of
narrow religion.
Paul and his companions did carry the
Name abroad, and the Name went abroad
with power. Through the Roman world
it went, everywhere finding its welcome.
Multitudes received it with joy, and found
fresh life in Christ. Who were these?
These too were the poor and untrained.
Many of them were slaves, and many
others were of low station and narrow life.
Christ made life a new and larger thing,
and they felt, as they well might feel, that
the best thing in the world had come to
them. Among the believers were some of
large intelligence and power. Some of

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 13
them could receive the new gift not only
into good and honest hearts, but into lives
somewhat prepared to bring forth the
worthiest fruit. Yet where was the mind
wherein there were no conceptions that
could enter into union with the new faith
only to injure it and diminish its effective
ness? If Jewish legalism, monotheistic
though narrow, required time to be out
grown, how must it be with polytheism,
with the popular superstitions that hung
about immemorial beliefs, and with the
moral corruptions that had sprung from
the coarse worships of an earlier day?
How long would such influences as these
linger when a new moral force, still new
indeed, was entering to transform the life ?
Paul rebukes his converts in Corinth for
low standards of living, and low vices
inherited from a long antiquity, and this
is exactly what we might expect. Nothing
else was possible than that such evils
should abide to trouble the friends of

14 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
Christlike goodness in the church. Errors
in thought also, misconceptions of the
gospel, sprang up from the remains of old
thinking. At what date such evils could
reasonably be expected to disappear, let
him tell who dares to think he knows. A
Christian people could not be made except
from people who were filled with material
of thought and character quite contrary to
the aim of Christianity.
Nevertheless the new faith made its
people. It was not defeated, it was hon
orably successful. It was far from making
a people that fulfilled its ideal, but it made
a people worthy of its endeavor. In the
first age there was a distinctively Christian
life, lived by a distinctively Christian com
pany of men and women. It was a very
simple life, lived by a very simple people,
but it was animated in great measure by
the holy and gracious mind of Christ.
How often have we wished that the
glimpses into it that are possible to us

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 1 5
Were not so very few! Why, we have
asked, has not more been preserved to us
of the plain common life of the Christians
of the first and second centuries ? But it
is not surprising. They were not a- liter
ary folk. Their writers were few, and
that they were making history they had
no idea. Such glimpses as we do obtain
are extremely precious. It was a great
gift when we recovered the long-lost
" Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," with
its simple and unconscious revelation of
the people and their ways. Just when
and where its scenes were enacted we may
not know, but it is certain that here we
have a genuine view of life as it was
among the early Christians. As we read
we see that the life was simple, it was
devout, it was brotherly, it was hopeful,
it was pure in aim and aspiration. It is
easy to paint the Roman life of the first
century in black, ignoring the brighter
and worthier elements in the common

1 6 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
world of that time; and yet, though we
paint ever so fairly, it is plain when we
view this simple picture of Christian living
that a new uplifting force has entered to
the great Roman world, and a little group
of humanity, if no more, has been intro
duced to sweeter, purer, worthier life.
The limitations of the new people are
written into the record as clearly as their
virtues, and the common faults of human
nature crop out in the conditions that
call for counsel and reproof; yet here is
a genuine fruit of the presence of Jesus
in the world for which our human race
may well be thankful.
Still we turn from the picture, and from
all companion-pictures that we possess,
feeling that the Christians of the first and
second centuries, taken as a mass, were
not capable of propagating the Christian
ity that the Founder meant for mankind.
They possessed it only in part, and how
could they pass on the traditions of a

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE \J
better faith than they held ? The inevi
table had happened: the new faith had
taken such people as it found, and they
had received it as they could. But a
second inevitable followed. The people
were changed by the new faith, but the new
faith was changed by the people. Chris
tianity transformed the people toward its
likeness, and was in turn transformed by
them toward their likeness. Shakespeare,
complaining, in one of his Sonnets says,
" My nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand."
In the same strain Christianity might
speak. It made a new people, better than
it found them ; but they in turn inevitably
made a new Christianity, with its strong
points illustrated and confirmed in their
experience, but with weakness brought in
from their defects. The power of the new
faith to produce a people worthy of its
aims was inevitably diminished, less or
2

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE

more, by the faults that it was compelled
to take into itself from the people through
whom it wrought. Intractableness of
material modified the force.
Or, in other words, the Christian people,
with all its good and evil, with all its
strength and weakness, with all its glory
and shame, is the true resultant of the
force that has been working and the ma
terial that it has wrought upon. This is
one, out of many, of the historical illus
trations of the Master's parable of the four
kinds of soil. The good seed of the king
dom was sown in the world, and prospered
in its growth according to the soil into
which it fell. In some places it took no
root at all, and in others it secured only
a temporary life. Where it did grow, it
sometimes had to grow in soil where there
were thorn-roots already in the ground,
and it must needs grow up among them.
If it is asked why an ideal Christian peo
ple did not grow up, sufficient to vanquish

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE ig
all doubts of the transforming power, the
answer is that the good seed did not
always fall into the clear soil, but often,
nay always, into places where there was
something to check and something to mod
ify its growth. The good seed is seed in
a thorn-field. But then, lest we be dis
couraged, we may remember that it was in
order to redeem the field from the thorns
that the seed of Christ was sown, and that
in God's world good seed roots deeper, in
the long season, than the thorns.
This glance into the early period is
enough to illustrate the conditions that
insured to the rising Christian people
both strength and weakness, victory and
disappointment. Similar conditions have
always existed. There is no time for
detailed description of that which the
Christian seed has produced in the thorn-
field, but we will glance down the long
line of results in history, and see, so far as

20 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE

we may, what manner of people it is that
Christ has brought into the world through
the Christian grace working amid obstruct
ing influences.
The Christian people has a certain unity;
but in what does it consist ? There is no
one type of humanity, no one nationality
or race or class or training represented
here. The Christian people is gathered
out of all nations and kindreds and peo
ples and tongues, and yet it is marked
by one type of experience and character.
Only very broadly can this be asserted, I
know, but broadly it can be asserted.
There is a set of conceptions and experi
ences by which the Christian character is
dominated, and where these are not, there
are no Christians. They did not all come
into the world with Christ, but they all
gather themselves about him into a char
acter-giving unity. The seriousness of
life, the holiness and love of the one God,
the reality of sin, free salvation from sin

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 21
by the divine grace in Christ, human duty
learned from God in Christ, an inward
power for goodness, a deathless hope, —
these are the fundamental conceptions of
Christianity, and the Christian people are
those whose experience corresponds to
these conceptions. Or, more truly, Christ
presents these as realities, and the Chris
tian people are those who experience these
realities. Such experiences create a type
of character. No other religion ever had
such experiences to offer, and therefore
none ever made a people like the Christian
people. Knowledge of God is common
enough, but not such knowledge of God :
knowledge of sin is common, but not of
such deliverance from sin : knowledge of
duty, but not such inspiration for duty :
hope, but not such hope. When there
comes to be a people formed, however im-
fectly, upon the experience of these reali
ties, that people is the work of Christ.
Members of such a people, bearing such

22 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
a character, have been known in all the
Christian ages. They have been imper
fect, all, with every style and combination
of imperfections. Every side of the char
acteristic experience has been lacking
somewhere, and somewhere exaggerated
or distorted. They have not understood
one another very well, and have often
failed to recognize one another. Never
theless the common quality has marked
them, less or more, and they have been
brothers whether they knew it or not.
The people who know by experience about
sin and salvation, and learn their duty
from their Saviour God, and lift their
eyes to immortality in him, these do make
one family, a noble family, and God is
not ashamed of them, to be called their
God. A character-making force working upon
various and imperfect men will, of course,
produce some best results. Some men are
best prepared beforehand for Christ's in-

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 23
fluence, and in some the oppositions are
most effectively conquered. These are the
leaders, the best fruits. Every religion
has its saints, and Christianity has its long
calendar and its innumerable saints un
named. The overtowering souls that
stand high above the rest, the ones in
whom Christianity has done most, — a
noble company they form. If we could
clearly behold a group of the great Chris
tians of the world, discerning their real
spiritual beauty, we should reverently bear
witness to the excellence of the heavenly
gift. In the group of greatest Christians
we should find men and women of deep
and serious heart ; persons not light-
minded, but to whom life is full of mean
ing ; who know evil, both in themselves
and in the world, with a dreadful sense of
its reality ; who have discerned the infinite
grace that freely saves, and come to know
the eternal goodness in the God who loves
forever ; who know the gladness of deliv-

24 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
erance from evil, the brightness of hope
and the exhilaration of strong endeavor;
who have loved their fellows with a divine
affection and labored for their good ; who
know the eagerness of high aims, and have
used high powers for highest purposes ;
and from whom there has gone forth a
warm radiance of blessing as they have
walked among men. Children of faith,
they have endured as seeing him who is
invisible. Children of hope, they have
purified themselves, even as he is pure.
Children of love, they have gazed upon
God's glory and been changed into the
same image. Mark all their imperfec
tions, not denying a single genuine one,
and yet we must bear testimony that
these great Christian souls that have been
among us are a worthy product of the
presence and work of Christ in the world.
Without them, how much poorer would
the history of our race have been ! What
would it be to drop from the record the

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 25
names, and from the human stock the
personalities, of Paul and John, of Origen
and Athanasius, of Ambrose and Augustine
and Monica, of Chrysostom and Gregory
the Great and Thomas Aquinas, of Tauler
and Thomas a Kempis, of Savonarola and
Dante and Michelangelo, of Francis of
Assisi and Xavier and Loyola, of Wyclif
and Huss, of Luther and Melanchthon,
of William the Silent and Cromwell and
Gustavus Adolphus, of Baxter and Bun-
yan, of Milton and George Fox, of Calvin
and John Knox, of the Wesleys and White-
field and Edwards, of Shaftesbury and
Gladstone and Leo Thirteenth, of Eliza
beth Fry and Florence Nightingale, of
Livingstone, Channing, Moody, and Phil
lips Brooks ? If besides these there have
stood forth leaders who misrepresented
the Christian quality, — which not one
even of these has perfectly expressed, —
what else can be expected when a holy
power is working through imperfect men,

26 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
whose training has prepared them only in
part for their honorable mission ?
We must not think that the list of the
great adequately represents the Christian
people. We must remember the rank and
file if we wish to think justly of the whole.
Saints are of many kinds, not all equally
eminent in the sight of the world. The
lesser ones are precious, as well as the
greater. Two classes of saints have at
tracted special admiration. The church
has often admired the saints of the cloister,
withdrawn from the world, given to medi
tation and prayer, rebuking the evil of the
common life by retirement and reflection
upon better things. Eyes that have not
been attracted to these have been drawn
to the saints of the open field, strong
workmen or warriors of the Lord, doing
large work and known of all men. But
Christ, who gave some as apostles and
some as prophets, has also raised up saints
of the household, who are mediators of

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 27
grace and strength to those whom they
love; saints of the sick-chamber, who
suffer and are strong through the holy
faith ; saints of the market-place and the
workshop, who do the world's common
work in the spirit of fidelity and power;
citizen-saints, who bless the organized life
of man by wise counsel and unselfish liv
ing; scholar-saints, who minister knowl
edge to mankind ; and saints of the life of
charity, who bear the heart of Christ to
the needy. These all fall short of the
Lord's ideal, but yet we all know that in
them Christ has honorably accomplished
his purpose to make for himself a people
for his own possession, zealous of good
works, powerful for blessing.
Large perversions in the life and prac
tice of the Christian people have of course
appeared : what would you look for ? We
will glance at a classical instance, and see
how naturally they came. For a while
Christianity was the religion of the mar-

28 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
tyrs. Pure, simple, and courageous in its
common life, it condemned the evil world
and insured for itself an honorable hatred.
Unswerving in loyalty to the only God, it
angered the Roman power again and again,
and secured the crown of martyrdom.
Martyrdom does not prove a cause to be
right, and yet it always carries a strong
suggestion to that effect. The church of
the martyrs was kept sweet by its trials
and perils, and the suffering church was a
singing church, joyful in its pains and
influential through its fortitude. There
is a fine charm about the humble and
hopeful church of the catacombs. But
the church came out of the catacombs, and
was soon placed at the head of the world's
affairs. When Constantine professed the
Christian name, the name instantly became
fashionable. Profession of Christianity
was now the way to promotion and advan
tage : therefore the church-doors were
crowded with people rushing in. The

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 29
so-called Christian people of the middle
of the fourth century were most of them
not Christians at all, in any worthy sense :
they were nominal converts, scarcely
changed from the paganism of antiquity.
Yet they were the recognized Christian
people of the time, and it was inevitable
that they should set the key for the Chris
tianity of the time that followed. It is
no wonder that the religious life ran low,
and the virtue of the gospel partly van
ished away from those who bore the holy
name. Here was the inevitable again.
Victory came naturally, and deservedly, to
the fresh and vigorous faith, as against the
decaying paganism, but victory brought
corruption in its train, from the necessities
of the case. The holy power had been
thrown out into the field of the world,
and for the time, in certain respects, its
nature was subdued to what it wrought in,
like the dyer's hand.
Another perversion in the common life

3<D THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
of the Christian people, — at least it seems
a perversion to us of the nineteenth cen
tury, with our irrepressible enterprise and
our readiness for risks and conflicts, —
came as naturally as this. There came a
time when a large part of the best of the
Christian people, the most high-minded
and the best adapted to useful living, were
moved to withdraw from the common life
of man. The monastic impulse came, and
would not be refused. The souls that
were most needed for the universal strife
left the field for the life of quietness, and
the best leaven for improvement of the
evil world was withdrawn into cloisters.
Multitudes of the men who would have
made the best fathers, and of the women
who would have made the best mothers,
declined to make contribution to the stock
of humanity. The quiet, meditative, non
productive life, withdrawn from the re
sponsibilities to which mankind is born,
was held out as holier than the common

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 31
life, and the monastic ideal was set up for
universal admiration. Good results fol
lowed, and also evil : great good and great
evil. The more largely human we grow,
the greater seems the pity that the move
ment went so far. Yet how inevitably it
came about. Face to face stood the good
and the evil, the good of the gospel and
the evil of the world, the good of the
reforming power and the evil, ancient and
strong, that ought to be put away. The
Christian people had no long traditions of
holy warfare to inherit, and had not very
well learned the lesson of confidence in
the good for which they were set to con
tend. To many of them the case seemed
hopeless : so great a world, how could its
evil be conquered ? Would it not corrupt
even those who tried to bless it ? All that
they could do was to flee, and hide them
selves, and seek the safety of their souls,
and pray to God for the victory which
they lacked courage to seek in strife. We

32 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
cannot wonder at the feeling. We can
call the motive inferior to the best, as
surely it was, but we cannot be surprised
at the force of it, or affirm that it was
altogether an unworthy motive. It was ¦
a pure motive, even if it was not the
loftiest. The great secession from the
daily working force of Christianity was
one of the inevitable incidents in the
great warfare.
We cannot now illustrate the process
farther. But thus, through the successive
periods, the Christian people has gone on,
responding to surrounding influences as
well as to inward monitions, changing with
changing conditions, growing with the
common growth of mankind, influenced
by the world which it was influencing, and
yet maintaining a special quality and value
of its own. Very largely it was what it
had to be : it had the virtues of its inner
grace, and the faults of its inheritance and

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 33
its surroundings. It could not have been
otherwise. What is the outcome? This is the
question that concerns us now. What
has the Lord of Christianity to show after
all this time ? How well does the present
Christian people commend the power that
came into the world with Christ? How
are Christians doing their work as a gift
of Christ to humanity ? All sorts of opin
ions are held. Some say that Christian
people are demonstrably the salt of the
earth, without which very little that is
sweet or good would be found among
men: and others are sure that whatever
power they may once have had is now
departed. What shall we say ?
The mixed quality of the present out
come calls for no apology. Absolutely,
there could be nothing else. Those who
discuss the Christian people as if they
could expect to find in them an adequate
illustration of the ideal of Christ, simply
3

34 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
do not know what they are talking about.
In the conditions that have surrounded
Christianity, such a thing is impossible.
So the present Christian people are not to
be defended as satisfactory, or condemned
as worthless. They are not to be counted
upon for perfection, or rejected for imper
fection. A resultant necessarily partakes
in the nature and quality of all the forces
that have produced it. Good and evil,
strength and weakness, are certain to be
present here. Christianity is the life of
God in the soul of man, and its human
outcome must partake in the qualities
both of God and of man.
If we inquire about the Christian people
of the present day, they must be estimated
in view of an element that I have not yet
mentioned. I mean the great transition,
the tremendous revolution, of our time.
It is not as if the Christian people had
attained to a platform where they could be
exhibited. On the contrary, they are

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 35
passing through the severest transition,
perhaps, in all their history.
Into this transition more elements enter
than I can now name. Our part of the
human race is at last beginning to possess
a real self-consciousness. Information, in
inconceivably vast amount, is being thrown
upon the thought of the time, to be handled
and assimilated. Thought is passing over
from the old non-scientific methods to the
more nearly scientific movement that mod
ern study has developed. Facts are scru
tinized with new zeal, and truth is tested
in new ways. Inquiry knows no bounds.
Antiquity and prescription count for noth
ing. We desire to know the very thing
that is, and our certainties are differently
grounded from those that our fathers held.
Vast social problems arise, in which we
are compelled to find out whether we are
living together as we ought, and what we
owe to one another. All fields of thought
are transformed, and all modes and signifi-

36 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
cances of life are altered, in this great
time of change. Every period is a period
of transition, but there has never been one
like this.
Amid these great changes the Christian
people, as I conceive, have three things to
do. Three things are required of them by
the nature of the Christianity which they
represent, and in these they must not be
found wanting. The Christian people are
called to-day to hold their faith, to open
their minds, and to expand their hearts.
First, to hold their faith. They are called
to hold fast their sense of spiritual reality ;
not to be shaken from their confidence in
that living God whom they and their
fathers have known ; to cling to the real
ity of religious life and the presence of
divine help ; to be religious in tenderness
of spirit and heavenliness of mind, when
the age is almost forgetting to be religious.
Next, to open their minds. They are
called to perceive that they are living in a

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 37
new age ; to believe in the validity of all
facts and be willing to go where facts may
lead; to accept reconstructions; to let
knowledge in, well assured that it will not
drive faith out ; to be as free with knowl
edge as they are with faith. And while
these two works go on, the Christian peo
ple are called also to expand their hearts,
so that they shall be loving men with
Christ's own love; to rejoice with them
that rejoice and weep with them that weep
and plan for them that suffer ; to bear the
burdens of humanity with wise and help
ful tenderness ; to forswear aristocratic ex-
clusiveness and minister to men as men, as
Jesus did. This great threefold calling
is the present calling of the Christian
people. How are they fulfilling it? Not alto
gether well, or altogether ill. It is the
inevitable again. We have to confess that
there is much division of labor here : some
hold their faith while others open their

38 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
minds : some open their minds while others
expand their hearts. This is not strange,
for in a great mass of people it is only
natural that one part of the general duty
should be more worthily done by some
than by others. A certain distribution of
parts cannot fail to occur. Yet this is not
the ideal. It is to be desired that every
one of the Christian people should hold
his faith, open his mind, and expand his
heart. And toward the ideal there is
some progress. Far from perfectly, yet
more and more, it is coming to pass. The.
Christian people respond but slowly to
demands upon them, — so slowly that it is
easy to be impatient with them, — and yet
they do respond. The mind does open,
and yet the faith is held, and meanwhile
the heart expands in love and helpfulness.
Imperfectly and slowly, yet really, the
Christian people are at least beginning to
rise to the demands of the present age.
It would be pleasant to praise the Chris-

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 39
tian people here, to point out their better
works and tell how well they are do
ing. But instead of this I shall do what
perhaps my auditors do not expect of me.
I believe that the danger that the Chris
tian people may miss their calling is
greater than the need of praise for their
successes : and a few words in this strain
I must speak. I greatly fear that many
among them may fail to hold their faith.
I fear that many may fail to open their
minds. I fear that many may fail to ex
pand their hearts. And my anxiety gives
me a message.
By failing to hold their faith I do not
mean failing to keep their opinions. By
faith I mean something more precious far :
I mean the living sense of unseen spiritual
realities, and firm trust in the living God.
What I fear is that many Christians may
not "see him who is invisible," and not
live in the presence of the Father who is in
secret. The danger is that they may be

40 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
content with holding opinions and mistak
ing them for faith, and be without that
undying sense of reality in God to which
alone the noble name of faith belongs.
They will then preach unreally, and talk
insincerely, and live feebly. They will be
Christians in name, but the secret of power
will be theirs no longer. And I fear no
less that many Christians may fail to open
their minds. I know the difficulty, only
too well. The very effort to hold their
faith may lead them to keep their minds
closed against knowledge that no honest
mind can permanently refuse. To open
the mind and hold the inner sense of
spiritual reality is not easy for all. There
are men enough who tell us that it cannot
be done, and will not long be attempted.
Unbelievers in Christianity declare the
impossibility from one side, and a large
class of Christians from the other. I am
afraid that too many of the Christian peo
ple, mistaught from both sides, may come

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 41
to be convinced, and hold their minds un
worthily closed. When I reflect upon the
profoundly conservative instincts of reli
gious tradition, and the surprising and
revolutionary quality of much of the truth
that our time brings freshly forth to us, I
fear greatly that the impulse of resistance
may be too strong for hosts of minds that
ought to be opening themselves to present
truth in faith upon the present God, and the
victory may be where it ought not. And
yet again I fear that the Christian people
may fail to expand their hearts in helpful
and sympathetic love to the men around
them. I think I fear this most of all. I
know how strong is the temptation to
make love an abstract virtue, and consider
it sufficient to love God whom we have
not seen, while the brother whom we have
seen makes no appeal to us. I know how
powerful the aristocratic connections of
much of our religious life are becoming,
and how many churches are well content

42 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
to dwell alone and plan for their own
benefit, while the poor are not welcome
among them. I know how easy is the
sway of selfishness, and how seductive.
The problems of society are difficult, and
it is easy for Christians to evade responsi
bility for them by pleading that they are
doing something better than attend to
them, by preaching the gospel of eternal
life. So on many sides I meet the danger
that the Christian people may not act after
the manner of Jesus in dealing with their
fellow-men, in this solemn day when the
problems of the life of man with man are
as urgent as they are obscure. And all
these fears I entertain by the side of my
thankfulness for all the living faith, and
all the frank open-mindedness, and all the
warm and helpful love, that I behold in
the Christian people and joyfully acknowl
edge as the work of God in them.
I am not speaking here to a company of
the Christian people : I am addressing a

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 43
company of sincere and high-minded hu
man beings, devoted to the work of educa
tion. It is a company in which a Christian
man has honorable standing if he deserves
it, and a non-Christian man has the same
on the same terms. Not as Christians or
as non-Christians therefore do I address
my auditors. All the more freely for this
reason can I speak to them all ; and to my
present audience I have a message. The
Christian people are among us, and, with
all their faults, have proved themselves a
good gift of God to mankind. Our world
needs them now, and needs to have them
at their best and strongest. It never
needed them more, for they stand for that
high spiritual life and meaning which the
present world is in great danger of for
getting. Yet here they stand, in this
trying transition-age, surrounded by subtle
dangers. To all who hear me in this hon
orable company I appeal, and I say, Help
us Christian people of your own genera-

44 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
tion to fulfil our calling. Whatever your
own beliefs may be, help us to be what we
ought. Help us to open our minds. Press
on with your work of enlarging the boun
daries of knowledge. Make clear and in
telligible and irresistible whatever you
discover, and urge it upon us with all
persistency. Keep your own tempers
sweet, in order that you may the better
commend to us what we need to receive
from you. Be candid with us, in order that
we may have confidence in you and learn
the better from you. Teach us the truth
of the time, and teach us so wisely and in
so fair a spirit that we cannot but receive
what you have to offer us. Thus help us
to open our minds. Help us also, I beg
not less earnestly, to hold our faith, — for
even this service does not lie beyond your
reach. Do not profess to know that our
faith amounts to nothing. Do not claim
to be sure that there is no place for faith.
Open your minds to that great spiritual

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE 45
secret which philosophy discerns, and upon
the confines of which science itself is
treading, and of which religion is the
revelation. Forbear to scorn our sense of
a great, abiding, eternal, spiritual reality,
but rather encourage and help us to fill
with the thought of God that space which
cannot be left vacant without darkening
the universe. Help us also to limit faith
to the true field of faith. Batter down
things that we may try to set up as objects
of faith that are not properly such. Hold
us to clear speech and honest declaration.
Drive us back to our essentials and our
simplicities. Make us miserable when we
try to defend mere outposts as if they were
the citadel. Compel us to assert the few
eternal verities, and then join us in setting
them by the side of the other certainties
that you proclaim to us. And help us
also, I entreat, to expand our hearts in
sympathetic and helpful love. Reprove
us for our selfishness when you behold it,

46 THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE
dealing with us in the faithfulness of sor
rowful sincerity. Come also and be our
fellow-helpers in the field of love. All
that is human should care for all that is
human, and this field of humanity is as
truly yours as ours. Inspire us to emula
tion of your humanitarian endeavors and
successes. Let us together be planning
for the larger good of our country and
our fellows everywhere. The vast social
problems ought to attract us all, whatever
we are, and to hold our best attention till
we have actually accomplished something
for the betterment of the common lot of
men. Work with us in the spirit of Jesus:
for what better spirit is there for any son
of humanity to make his own than his?
Thus help us to serve our kind. Whoever
is at the front in any good endeavor, let
us all encourage him : and together let us
hope that the Christian people may rise
to their true character, and fulfil the up
ward movement of their history, and be

THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE A.J
worthy of their Lord, and do those greater
works of love and power which their
Master foretold for them in the days
when the world's work should be upon
their shoulders.

n

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
The Christian Doctrine begins, of course,
with the teaching of the Founder.
Not without reason is Jesus known as
the Great Teacher. He was no orator, it
is true, nor was he a formal preacher, but
rather a quiet converser, a talker among
men. Yet he spoke with marvellous
power, and made his mark upon the in
most life of his hearers. Never man spoke
like him, they said. They felt the author
ity that moved in his words. Only frag
ments of his utterance have been preserved
to us, but the brief discourses and conver
sations that we read in the Gospels stand
unique in spiritual power among the ut
terances of the world. They represent a
vast mass of teaching, lost to us in form
but preserved in its fruits : for out of his

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 49
spiritual wealth there poured, throughout
his ministry, an abundance of spoken truth
that remained to perpetuate his influence
and serve as the foundation of the Chris
tian doctrine. The early church started
upon its way with its memory stored with
the rich and fruitful utterances of the
Master. One might think that the Master's utter-
rances would forever stand alone, and
would constitute the entire sum of doc
trine for Christianity. Who would ven
ture to add, when he had spoken ? More
especially when the church had come, as
it soon did come, to adore him as divine,
how could the teaching of any others,
especially of his own disciples, be added
to what he had given ? Yet on the other
hand who could be restrained from add
ing ? Jesus had not merely brought into
the world a quantity of truth to leave it
there : he had opened a perpetual fount of
truth, which could not cease to flow. He
4

50 THE CHRIS7IAN DOCTRINE
had given the Christian people a new light
on all things. He had shown them how to
know the things that are. That process
of thinking, learning, and knowing, which
is endless for man because it is man's
glory, would thenceforth go on, for them,
in the light of the truth that he had taught
them. By an inevitable and most blessed
necessity, his friends would apply what he
had shown them to the interpretation of
all that they thought or knew. Paul did
this, and John. In their teaching they
did not merely repeat what Jesus had
said : they looked for themselves into the
mystery of God and of life, and for them
selves they thought out truth in that sub
lime region. This is what their Master
desired them to do, for he came among
them to make men of the first order, able
to think right and true thoughts about the
living God. He still desires the same.
We too shall please him best if we humbly,
reverently, resolutely, hopefully, think for

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 5 I
ourselves, in that region of truth which
his mission opens before us.
Thus came into being the Christian doc
trine ; and we see at once that it was
formed from two sources. First came the
great contribution of the one Lord himself,
the truth that his people had from him.
Then was added the contribution of Chris
tian men who saw light in his light, and
had visions of the truth of God through
his illumination. Christianity began its
course rich with the treasure of the Mas
ter's utterances, and grew yet richer as it
went on, — strange yet glorious to say, —
through the diligent and inspired thought
of holy men, moved by the Holy Spirit,
devoted to the things of God. Both these
parts of the primeval doctrine were gath
ered into the New Testament, which with
its immeasurable wealth of living truth is
the noble fruit of Christ's presence in the
world. But do not fail to notice how the Chris-

52 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
tian doctrine came into existence. . Do not
imagine that it came by being formulated
some fine day by the decree of some great
council, or by the command or endorsement
of authorized men. The teaching of Jesus
did not grow into doctrine by being writ
ten out and formulated, or by being dis
cussed and officially interpreted. Not all
that his apostles said or wrote entered into
the substance of the Christian doctrine,
nor all that Jesus himself said, either.
Doctrine was no such formal, external
thing as to take up something merely be
cause it had been said, even though it
were by the Lord himself. No, doctrine
grew as a vital thing, and grew in the soil
of life. The Christian doctrine sprang
up in the experience of Christian living.
It was the Christian truth as learned
by the Christian people ; and both ele
ments, the truth and the experience, were
essential to the producing of it. Any
thought that did not take root in this vital

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 53
soil, and take root to stay and live, did not
come to form a part of the Christian doc
trine. The process was simply a vital
process of assimilation. Jesus appeared
among men, and poured out spiritual
truth in great abundance. He poured
it out by what he said, by what he did,
and by what he was. Words, deeds,
and personality all preached : life, death,
and resurrection all uttered living and
powerful truth. This rich and various
utterance that Jesus made fell into the
hearing and the hearts of men and women
who became the Christian people. Into
the very being of these men and women
this truth entered, with transforming
power, and a new life sprang up in them.
By and by it came to pass that this truth
from Jesus had filtered through their
minds and hearts and life, and come forth
to expression on the other side. It is this
second expression, this reproduction, this
lived-over substance, of the truth that

54 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
Jesus brought, that constitutes the Chris
tian doctrine. Nothing properly belongs to
the Christian doctrine that has not passed
through this process. Not until the Chris
tian people have made the Christian truth
their own and given it form from their own
experience, does there come to be a Chris
tian doctrine. The contribution of Jesus to
mankind became doctrine in his church by
passing through the experience to which it
gave rise in men, and coming out in the
form which that experience gave to it.
Have I made plain how the Christian
doctrine came into existence ? Is it clear
that the truth that Jesus gave became
Christian doctrine through the medium of
the Christian people and their life ? Then
it is time to inquire what the contents of
this original Christian doctrine are. What
was the doctrine, or the experienced, real
ized, and re-uttered truth, with which
Christianity began its course?

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 55
Here I know that I touch disputed
ground, possibly dangerous ground. There
are many opinions as to what the doctrinal
stock of the first Christianity was. We
are all tempted to count our own doctrines
in, and assume that our own form of
Christianity is the original. But I think
we can reach some reasonably satisfactory
answer to the question that has just been
asked. If we are careful to keep the ques
tion in the form that has now been given
to it, I think it can be answered. This is
the form : — What truths do we find, that
came forth from Jesus, and filtered through
the life and experience of the early Chris
tian people, into expression in Christian
doctrine ? Certainly there are five great
truths that stand thus related to Christ
and to the experience of his followers.
Perhaps there are more: we will judge
when we have looked at these. All of
these five truths we find uttered by the
Master, and uttered again in later time

56 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
by the disciples as truths now known to
them in actual experience.
1. The relation between man and God
which Jesus presented as the right relation
has come to be experienced, and enters
into the doctrine. Jesus the Master said,
" When ye pray, say, Our Father who art
in heaven." Paul the 'disciple said, out of
the common experience, "We have not
received the spirit of bondage, again unto
fear, but we have received the spirit of
adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."
The truth, proclaimed by Jesus, that man
may enter into filial and family relations
with the good and holy God, has now been
experienced by the Christian people, and
has come forth from their glad filial life at
home with God, into permanent expres
sion. The Christian people have found
the secret of life, in finding themselves
sons to God. This experienced relation is
the fundamental element in the Christian
life, and in the Christian doctrine. No

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 57
one title represents the whole idea, but at
the centre it is a doctrine of the Father
hood of God.
2. The significance of the coming and
work of Jesus himself has been learned by
experience, and enters into the doctrine.
The Master said, " Come unto me, all ye
that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will
give you rest." The disciple, speaking
out of the common experience, said,
"Being justified by faith, we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have had our access by
faith into this grace wherein we stand."
To the early church, Christ is the way,
and the truth, and the life. He has laid
down his life for the sheep as the true and
faithful shepherd : he is the Saviour of
men, able to save them to the uttermost
who come unto God by him. His place is
that of the restorer, the bringer of men
home to God, the one in whom we have
our spiritual life and welfare. This rela-

58 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
tion between Christ and men is not a
theoretical one, but an actual : it is experi
enced, it is known in the life. Through
the Christian experience has come forth
in vital power the doctrine of the Saviour-
hood of Jesus Christ.
3. The Spirit whom Jesus promised has
been experienced as a present reality, and
this reality has entered into doctrine.
Jesus said, " I will send you another
Helper, that he may abide with you for
ever, even the Spirit of truth." Paul
responds, out of the common experience,
" The Spirit himself bears , witness with
our spirit, that we are children of God.
As many as are led by the Spirit of God,
they are God's sons." The gift of the
indwelling divine has become a real gift,
blessedly known in inward experience, and
proved by its fruits. There is an indwel
ling divine which is the inspiration of
faith and hope and love to the Christian
people, and the fruit of the Spirit is found

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 59
in all the holy graces. The Christian
experience has created the doctrine of the
reality and the Friendhood of the Spirit.
4. The relation between man and man
which Jesus presented as the right one is
a relation of love : this relation has begun
to be realized, and enters into doctrine.
Jesus said, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself." Paul answered,
" Now abideth faith, hope, love, these
three ; and the greatest of these is love " :
and John, " Let us love one another, for
God is love." Fellowship is the sweet
bond of a living unity among those who
have learned of Jesus, and helpfulness is
the Christian badge. Experience has made
a doctrine of the Supremacy of Love.
5. The high ethical demand of Jesus is
beginning to be fulfilled in the life of the
Christian people, because here is a power
that can fulfil it ; and the attainableness of
moral victory has entered into doctrine.

60 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
Jesus the Master said, commanding and
promising at once, " Ye shall be perfect,
even as your Father in heaven is perfect."
Paul the disciple replies, " The law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has delivered
me from the law of sin and death." " The
fruit of the light is in all goodness and
righteousness and truth." In Christ good
men are made. He required goodness,
after the pattern and inspiration of the
eternal good, and he brings it to pass,
by the strong holy operation of the in
dwelling Spirit. In the Christian holi
ness, imperfect though it is, that goodness
which Christ required and promised is
actually emerging in the world. Promises
to " him that overcometh " will in due
time be claimed. What should enter into
doctrine if not this? Experience has
taught the church to hold with joy the
doctrine of the Transforming Power.
All this, I am sure, is true. Here are
five great realities that had come from

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 6 1
Christ into experience, and come from
experience to be assured possessions of
the Christian people. Five great realities :
the Fatherhood of God, the Saviourhood
of Jesus Christ, the Friendhood of the
Spirit, the Supremacy of Love, and the
Transforming Power. The assertion of
these realities forms the main stock of
doctrine in the early Christianity. I doubt
whether there were any other truths that
deserve to rank with these, though doubt
less there are other truths implied in these.
If there is any other that ranks with these,
it is the sublime affirmation of immortality.
This was not exactly a truth made known
by Jesus, or a possession peculiar to his
followers. Yet it was one of their posses
sions, gained as their own in fresh fulness
and power in their experience with him.
One element in that inspiring Christian
life which made existence new to so many
of the poor and unfortunate of this world
was the exhilaration that came with the

62 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
sense of deathlessness. Men now expected
to live forever, continuing in Christ him
self, and with him, that life in which they
were now most blessed : and who can
wonder that the world was new ? But I
think the sense of immortality came rather
as a conclusion or corollary from the Chris
tian doctrine than as a primary part of it ;
and I think that the Christian doctrine
itself, defined as that which came from
Christ by way of experience, and was held
and proclaimed as the characteristic truth
of Christianity, consisted chiefly in the
affirmation of these five great realities as
realities, namely, — the Fatherhood of
God and the filial life with him ; the
Saviourhood of Jesus Christ by whom we
have been brought home to God; the
Friendhood of the Spirit who dwells in
us ; the Supremacy of Love as the law
of life and duty; and the Transforming
Power of the divine grace, whereby God
is able to do exceeding abundantly above

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 63
all that we ask or think, in the production
of real goodness, according to the power
that is at work in us already.
Now we turn to another part of our
subject. From this glorious body of doc
trine, or of truth experienced, began the
long history of the Christian doctrine, con
tinuing till now. About this I must say
two or three things, important to the
present purpose.
I need not show that the history of
Christian doctrine will be a history of
divine realities, handled by human thought.
Here again, the divine seed is cast forth
into the field of the world, to be received
as it may by the soil that awaits it and
the influences that are around. Human
thought deals with the divine realities as
it can. God's truth takes its chances of
being fairly or unfairly considered, wisely
or unwisely interpreted, rightly or wrongly
grouped. The result must be a mixed re-

64 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
suit, noble but imperfect. Any one who
expects the Christian doctrine at any given
time to be wholly clear, consistent, and
harmonious with the mind of God, has
not considered the whole case. When
divine realities are handled by human
thought, we can predict a mixed result,
noble but imperfect, and imperfect in a
multitude of ways.
See how variation comes in. There is
an open door for it at once, and in it
comes. The open door for variation is
explanation. The great primary element
in the doctrine is not explanation, or
theory, but assertion, the assertion of the
reality. The church proclaims that God
is our Father, that Christ is our Saviour,
that the Spirit is the indwelling Friend,
that love is the law of life, that victory is
possible. The strength and vigor of the
doctrine lies in the confident holding and
affirmation of these realities. As long as
the Christian people are firmly holding

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 65
these things for true^ so long is the doc
trine a living and glowing thing, compe
tent to win its way by inherent energy.
But it seems inevitable that efforts should
be made to explain these great realities,
to account for them to the judgment of
man, to tell just how and why they are
true. No one can say that this tendency
is wrong. The things of God are infi
nitely worthy of the thought of man, and
it is a high human glory to gaze into them
and seek to understand. But who does
not see that variety of views will come
in, as soon as the effort to explain is
made ? Minds, tempers, training, degrees
of sympathy, opportunities to know, abili
ties for understanding, power of expres
sion, all differ, and variation in doctrine
is inevitable, when once the enterprise
of explanation has been launched.
All the more because of another ten
dency, namely, the tendency to regard the
explanation that is reached as part and
5

66 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
parcel of the doctrine itself, thenceforth
inseparable from it. By virtue of this
tendency, with which we are all familiar,
every inquirer as to the how and the
wherefore of the divine realities becomes
himself a contributor to the substance of
the doctrine. The legislature makes the
law, but the court interprets it ; and the
court's interpretation is accepted as part
and parcel of the law. So, given the di
vine reality, fascinating in its mysterious-
ness, and the explanation or theory of it
that is accepted becomes attached to the
reality as a part of it. The theory may
be good or bad, wise or foolish, it makes
no difference. The holder of the theory
calls it the doctrine, always, and to him
the two are one. But when there are
many inquirers, all fascinated by the glory
of God in his truth, and all sincerely ex
plaining its mysteries as best they may,
variation in doctrine needs not to be an
nounced, for it will come, welcome or un-

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 6f
welcome, and will come to stay. If my
neighbor and I, believing, for example, in
the transforming power and the victorious
holiness, investigate the mode and means
of the victory, and he reaches one concep
tion and I another, then to each of us the
doctrine will consist of the great reality
plus his own explanation of it, and there
will be two doctrines of holiness, one his
and one mine.
I do not think for a moment that this
process can be avoided. This is a part of
that inevitable to which divine realities
submit themselves when they are handled
by human thought. I am simply calling
attention to the inevitableness of variation
in Christian doctrine, and of the entrance
of inferior forms of doctrine by the side of
better forms. Judgments that are partial,
one-sided, temporary, provisional, are cer
tain to be formed, and for the time to be
held tenaciously as the only true : but with
the lapse of time men will be called to

68 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
abandon them, however reluctantly, in
favor of other views that are truer, even
though these in turn are still imperfect.
All this is inevitable, when divine realities
are handled by human thought. There was
no way to keep Christian doctrine from
variation, except to keep thought away
from it ; and that is not God's way with
his creatures. So we must not be scanda
lized if we find the Christian doctrine
changing its forms, and seeming some
times contradictory and inconsistent with
itself ; nor should we be too superior if
we watch this process from the point of
view of science. It is the common lot.
The Christian truth has fared as all other
truth has fared, when human thought dealt
with it.
If we wish to understand the Christian
doctrine, there is another aspect of its
history for us to consider. It is important
that we notice through what influences

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 69
the doctrine of the early past has come
down to the present. I have spoken of
the certainty of variation and conflicting
forms : a few words now about the influ
ences through which the course of the
history of the Christian doctrine has run.
Three great influences have touched the
doctrine, modifying it for good and for
evil. The first was philosophy. It was Greek
philosophy that first laid its hand upon
the Christian doctrine. The philosopher
gained a standing among the exponents of
the faith and the interpreters of the doc
trine, and kept his standing long. It
could not have been otherwise, and it is
vain to wish it might have been otherwise.
The period of philosophy was a normal
and worthy stage in the life of Chris
tianity, and needful help was given by
philosophy at a time when nothing else
would do. But Dr. Edwin Hatch was
right when he called attention to the deep

JO THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
contrast between the Sermon on the Mount
and the Nicene Creed. The Sermon on
the Mount is direct, simple, practical,
religious : the Nicene Creed is metaphys
ical, abstract, inferential, non-ethical,
theological. One sprang from the mind
and heart of Jesus Christ, the other from
theological inquiry and controversy among
his followers. One was intended to set
forth the living truth concerning God and
man : the other, to guard the truth that
had been accepted, and shut out those who
could not join in reciting this statement of
it. The contrast is both sharp and deep,
and there are many other illustrations as
clear and keen as this.
The effect of philosophy upon the Chris
tian doctrine, as this illustration shows,
was to elaborate it. That process of iden
tifying the interpretation with the doc
trine, of which we spoke, had now its
apotheosis. Metaphysical discussion took
hold upon implied points, and brought

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE J I
them to the surface, and set them at the
front. It called attention to implied con
nections of thought, and insisted upon
filling out a consistent statement of the
underlying assumptions. In this way it
added to the points of doctrine. It mul
tiplied largely the matters which it was
held important to believe. We may
almost say that philosophy took a simple
faith, and left an elaborate system of
belief. It added to the bulk of doctrine,
but not to its vitality or working vigor.
Thus the doctrine passed through a period
of large elaboration in the schools of
thought : and the effect still remains upon
it. The simplest Christian of to-day in
herits, in the teaching that he receives,
something from the Greek philosophy.
Next comes organization. After the
Roman empire had fallen, there rose the
new Roman empire, the imperial church.
The church as an institution now obtained
standing, not only as an exponent of the

72 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
faith and an interpreter of the doctrine,
but by and by as the sole exponent and
interpreter. There was now a great gov
ernmental system, in which the sacrament-
working element was the dominant force.
Sacramentalism and governmentalism go
naturally together : and in the middle
ages all influences conspired to hold the
church in the rank and place of authority
in the field of doctrine. There was now
an organization that claimed the right to
guide the doctrine, and finally the right to
determine it, by authority from above.
The effect of organization upon the
Christian doctrine was to formalize it.
Inheriting much from the metaphysical
period that preceded, the church went on
to build the doctrine into a scholastic
system, philosophy and organization now
conspiring to introduce method and com
pleteness as the type-giving idea. Out of
the sacramental system, too, grew a regu
lar system of straightforward doctrine, set-

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE JT,
ting forth the authority of the church and
the way of salvation through the churchly
ministries. The vast weight of organiza
tion was a burden upon the doctrine of
Christianity, as well as upon the Christian
life : flexibility was discouraged, rigidity
was -favored, by the existing conditions.
The system has grown, until the head of
the organization stands as the infallible
teacher, and the doctrine is solely as he
proclaims or sanctions it. Organization
has been the formalizer of doctrine. In
the love for system and the leaning on
authority, all our modern theology inherits
something from the great formalizing
organization of the middle ages.
Last of the three stands individualism.
In the modern age, from the sixteenth
century on, Christianity has had to do
with the intense individualism that has
given character to the west. The Refor
mation of the sixteenth century was the
blossoming-out of individualism, the emerg-

74 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
ing of personal freedom and responsibility
from beneath the churchly sway, the estab
lishing of free and active thought as the
method and activity of the age. In our
part of the world, Christianity has been
under this influence now for four cen
turies. I am at a loss for a single word to de
scribe the effect of the modern individual
ism upon the Christian doctrine, and yet
the effect is plain enough. In the age of
individualism the interest in the bringing-
out of doctrine has certainly increased,
and the doctrine has grown sharp and
intense. The individualizing impulse is
full of life : it imparts freshness, courage,
vigor, hopefulness, to all intellectual en
deavor. The impulse of the Reformation
has stimulated the investigation of Chris
tian truth, and thrown abundant life into
the study of the doctrine. But it has also
led to division and variety, beyond all pre
cedent. It has differentiated and diversi-

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 75
fied doctrine, and scattered it, and broken
it into fragments. Why not? When we
are all free to think, and all do think,
each one just as he is, with his own outfit
of powers and training, how can all think
alike ? If we interpret the Christian real
ities each in his own way, we shall differ
in our results. And if, as the case has
been, our individualism takes form in a
host of organizations, each deeming itself
set for the defence of some view of the
doctrine, then all the more certainly will
the doctrine be diversified and scattered
into portions. Still more will this come
to pass when the age of individualism
inherits from the methods of philosophy
and the habits of a scholastic period. The
church of Rome is right when it tells
us that our Protestantism does not tend
to intellectual agreement. The more seri
ous and interesting the matters that we
inquire about, the less likely are we to
reach identity in the result. The modern

j6 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
individualism has added immensely to the
energy of thought upon the Christian doc
trine, but not as yet has it brought unity
in conclusions : nor will it bring such
unity, except by the aid of more spiritual
influences. It has been a quickener of
doctrine, but a divider also.
I have spoken long enough of the road
over which the Christian doctrine has
come down to us from its far beginnings.
Divine reality, thrown into the living ex
perience of the Christian people, has been
to them the theme of thought. The actual
reality has been largely the same to them
all, but difference and variety in views of
it have followed, by an absolute necessity.
The doctrine has been elaborated by phil
osophy, formalized by organization, and
quickened but diversified by individual
ism, and at last, out of the long process, it
has come down to us, and stands before us
to be estimated as to its value. What is

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE ff
its present worth? How well and justly
does it represent those divine realities
with which it started ? Can we point to it
as helpful to the purpose of our apolo
getics? Is it worthy to stand as a com
mendation of Christianity? Is it a real
help in our presentation of our religion to
the world? Wherein does it need im
provement? and can we do anything to
add to its quality and power? All these
questions we have a right to ask, and to
them we desire a true answer.
That Christian doctrine concerning
which we now make these inquiries is of
course the resultant from all the past.
We inherit from all our predecessors. On
every point of doctrinal belief, the popular
thought of to-day inherits more or less
from all past theories and interpretations.
Our present Christian doctrine contains
the old and ever new divine realities, and
it contains the many and various results
of the handling of them by human thought.

78 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
All together these elements, various and
incongruous, have come down to us. It
could not be otherwise, and it is vain for
us to imagine that it has been otherwise.
We have not merely what our Master
taught, but what the mighty past has
given us.
This statement sounds to some, I doubt
not, as if I felt constrained chiefly to
acknowledge the faults of the process, and
to confess the defilements that have come
from the touch of man upon the divine
realities. But it is not so. I do not feel
constrained to set the faults in any such
rank. I see a wonder on the other side.
The first thing that I have to say about
the present Christian doctrine is that the
divine realities are still here. They have
come down to us. They live, and have
their power. The realities that composed
the Christian doctrine at the beginning
compose it now. All the explaining and
difference and variation, all the elaborating

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE jg
by philosophy and formalizing by churchly
organization and scattering by modern
thought, has not destroyed them as the
treasure of the Christian people. Still do
these same divine realities hold their place
as the centre and substance of the Chris
tian doctrine.
Do you say that I cannot prove it? It is
true that it is not a matter for demonstra
tion, but it is a matter for affirmation that
cannot be successfully challenged. If I
were asked as an observer of my own time
what are the essential elements in the
Christian doctrine as it now exists, what
should I say? What ought I to say?
What would any well-informed man say ?
I should say that first of all it is held by
the Christian people that in Christ the
true and right relation between man and
God, the relation of children with their
father, is realized. I should say that the
Christians still claim to be living in son-
ship to God, according to the teaching of

80 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
Jesus, and that this experience is their
glory. I should even say that the fulness
of the meaning of God's fatherhood is now
dawning with unprecedented power upon
the Christian people. I should say next,
that Christians hold unshakenly to the
Saviourhood of Jesus Christ. He it is
that has brought them home to God and
introduced them to that filial life in which
they rest and are strong. In his wonderful
mission and life, culminating in Ms wonder
ful death so rich in sacrifice, the Cliristian
people find the way of their salvation. I
should say further that the Christian
people experience and acknowledge the
Friendhood of the holy indwelling Spirit.
They still declare their experience and
belief of a present God, a God within
them, renewing, transforming, strengthen
ing, fulfilling in actual life the saving pur
pose of Jesus Christ. I should say that
the Christians hold, though all of them
imperfectly, to the supremacy of love as

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 8 1
the ruling and decisive element in all true
character. The experimental presence and
possession of a noble and self-forgetful
love is nothing unknown, or even rare,
among the Christian people, and the ideal
of excellence among them is the character
that is crowned by love in its purest and
sweetest forms. And I should affirm that
the Christian people hold that in Christ
there is a genuine transforming power, a
power of God unto salvation, able to pro
duce a successful holiness. They believe
that through Christ it is possible for men
to be cleansed of their actual evil, not
merely in some theoretical and suppositi
tious way, but really and forever, and
brought to actual and positive holiness in
the sight of God. And if the affirmation
of immortality be considered an essential
part of the Christian doctrine, then I
should add that the present Christian peo
ple hold to immortality as their human
birthright and their Christian inheritance,
6

82 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
and live in the light of the immortal
hope. Here are all the essential realities of the
primitive Christian doctrine ; and I affirm
that they are held as facts of life and ex
perience now, and proclaimed as present
doctrine. After all the centuries they are
here, in vitality and power, holding the
place in the church that they held at first.
They constitute the doctrine, too, not of
some small part of the Christian people,
but of the mass. I have not recited the
creed of some sect, I have uttered the doc
trine of Christendom. I have spoken the
ecumenical creed.
After what has been said, no one will
suppose that I am claiming for this primi
tive and ecumenical doctrine a perfect, an
ideal, a satisfactory hold upon the Chris
tian people. Most freely do I confess to
serious imperfections in the holding of this
noble sum of Christian doctrine. What
would you expect ? Have not the divine

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 83
realities come down, through ages of
human handling, to the hands of a genera
tion as imperfect as any of its predeces
sors ? Defects ? Certainly, they are here.
The most exacting parts of the doctrine
are held least satisfactorily, as they always
have been. The Cliristian people are still
too unwilling to let their doctrine have its
way with their lives, and exercise upon
them its searching and cleansing power.
They still have much to learn as to the
simplicity, the meaning, and the vitality
of what they believe. Nowhere, either, is
the whole equally well believed and illus
trated ; for one side is seen and received
more clearly in one quarter and another
in another, even as it has always been.
Moreover, in the long course of transmis
sion the doctrine has become far too vari
ous and far too complicated. Around each
one of the great divine realities there has
gathered a mass of differing and conflict
ing interpretations ; and still the practice

84 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
persists of confounding these interpreta
tions with the divine reality itself. Thus
the people's minds are burdened with a
superfluous mass of what they sincerely
believe to be Christian doctrine, but of
what belongs outside the central field and
ought to be separated from the essential
matter. There often appears to be deep
and irreconcilable conflict between those
who hold the reality in common ; yet the
conflict relates to the explanation of the
reality, not to the reality itself. There is
great need of learning to distinguish be
tween the realities that the Christian doc
trine affirms and the explanations of them
in which the history of doctrine abounds.
All these things, and doubtless more, must
be acknowledged by way of defect in the
holding of the Christian doctrine by the
Christian people of to-day. Nevertheless,
when all the defects have been freely ad
mitted, I still affirm that the great divine
realities that made up the Christian doc-

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 85
trine in the beginning make up the Chris
tian doctrine now. I declare that the
Christian people throughout the world are
believing in the Fatherhood of God, the
Saviourhood of Jesus Christ, the Friend
hood of the Spirit, the supremacy of love,
and the reality of the transforming power
of the divine grace. They diverge widely
in their explanation of these facts, and in
the views that they associate with them ;
they differ widely in the forms of expe
rience to which these facts give rise ; but
in the facts themselves they all believe, and
it is this belief that makes them Christians.
And this presence in the world of the
original body of Christian doctrine, exist
ing still not in theory alone but in experi
ence as an inspiring and renewing force,
I hail with joy as a proof of the presence
of God in the history of mankind.
I am well aware that there are many
who make little account of the presence

86 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
of this body of central doctrine. From
two quarters I may be criticised for setting
it forth as so important a thing. An
objector, from without the Christian circle,
may say, " Ah, but this is not Christianity.
Historically, Christianity includes a thou
sand varieties, so many and so mutually
contradictory that one cannot even deter
mine what it claims to be. You may find
a few peculiarities in common, as you are
doing now, but that is of no consequence.
The historical Christian doctrine is a far
more complex and difficult thing than this,
and it is not a fact that the whole can be
gathered up into a few statements." And
some earnest soul within the Christian
circle may perhaps unwittingly join hands
with the objector from without, when he
hears so short a creed pronounced, and one
that does not contain some theories or
explanations that seem to him to be of the
first importance. " Of what avail," he
may say, " is the common acceptance of

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 87
a few mere central facts, when almost all
who are said to accept them are wrong in
their understanding of them ? Agreement
on facts that are variously understood is
only the shadow of agreement. The sub
stance of agreement lies in the understand
ing of the facts, and unity in this is
wanting. So what is the use of proclaim
ing as ecumenical doctrine a body of
realities that all interpret differently, and
the most misinterpret? "
But I think I have been right in my
statement of what the Christian doctrine
really is, namely, that it consists in divine
realities handled by human thought. This
ought to dispose of the first objection. If
this is true, the objector ought not to be
asking that we take all the variations of
doctrine into the common stock and insist
upon holding them all as a part of our
present Christianity. It is somewhat like
asking that the present science of physics
or chemistry should include all the theories

88 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
of past days, or that philosophy herself
should muster her dead along with her
living, and defend the views of her former
magnates as adequate to the present time.
Let us have sense. If we have the origi
nal and abiding realities of the Christian
faith held to-day as Christian doctrine, we
have what all our fathers have had, in
every generation; and if we interpret
them variously among ourselves and differ
in our conception of them, we do what all
our fathers did, and what all our children
must do, as long as it is the nature of man
to know in part. Christianity consisted at
first in certain great abiding facts of
spiritual life and experience. It consists
now in the same. There have been a
thousand thoughts and theories about it,
that enter into the histoiy of it but form
no permanent part of it, and we are by no
means bound to reckon them all in when
we wish to know what the Christian doc
trine really is. And the same answer may

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 89
serve when we meet the objection that
comes from within the Christian circle.
It is not necessary for me to find my
theory of the manner of the Saviourhood
of Christ, for example, accepted in the
universal thought of Christendom, in order
for me to perceive, and to rejoice, that all
Christendom believes in the Saviourhood
of Christ. My theory of that great reality
is the best that I can form at present, but
it certainly is not faultless. If my theory
of the Saviourhood of Christ must be
accepted in order for men to be saved,
most Christians would be lost, for the
most have not accepted it. What is true
of my theory is true of yours, whatever it
may be. There is no one explanation of
that great reality upon which most of those
who have trusted in Christ for salvation
have agreed. So great a fact is sure to
have its many interpretations, differing as
minds differ; and those who find eternal
life in the Saviourhood of Christ may well

90 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
rejoice that those who understand it differ
ently from them find eternal life in it too.
We are all pupils in the school of Christ,
handling divine realities in human thought
that is half-trained and half-sanctified at
the best, and our interpretations are like
those of our fathers, neither full nor final.
And so we are confirmed in thinking that
the great experimental realities of Chris
tianity provide the genuine abiding ele
ments in the Christian doctrine. Through
these comes the life in which Christianity
consisted at first and consists always.
And these, central verities do certainly
form the heart of the universal Christian
doctrine as it is held to-day. They are
now experienced, and now proclaimed as
verities that Christ brought near and
experience has confirmed.
Of the now-existing Christian doctrine,
therefore, I am by no means ashamed. I
am not here to apologize for it. It is the
most precious of the products of the past.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 91
In the mission of Christ, God sent it forth
into the world, and the long movement of
history has borne it on to us. I wish that
it were better understood in its simplicity;
I wish that preachers might learn to dis
tinguish between it and what surrounds
it ; I wish that it were held by the Chris
tian people with better conviction and
more faithful obedience to its supreme
demands. There are conceptions and pre
sentations of it for which I might be con
strained to apologize, if the occasion arose.
But of the Christian doctrine itself I am
not ashamed, and for it I have no apologies
to offer. It was a great gift of God at
first, and it remains a great and worthy
gift of God to-day. If those who hold it
can but walk worthy of it, and commend
it to general confidence by their proclama
tion of its truths, the whole world will
have reason to thank God for it as a pres
ent gift of blessing.

92 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
What can we do for the Christian doc
trine, we may ask, to render it more effec
tive in the present world ? What can be
done for it must be done mainly through
the Christian people ; and the need of the
Christian people with reference to their
doctrine lies just where our present course
of thought is leading us. The exceeding
preciousness and the supreme value of this
central body of experimental truth, — this
is what the Christian people need to learn.
The permanent element in the doctrine
consists in the declaration of the great
experimental truths : the changing and
passing element consists in the various
interpretations of those truths, made from
time to time in human thought. We are
so devoted to the interpretations that we
often lose our sense of the vitality of the
facts. We need to be called back to the
realities, where the power dwells. I well
remember how like a cobweb-brushing
breeze a statement of the late Robert

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 93
William Dale many years ago swept
through my mind. It stood at the front
of a treatise of his upon the Atonement,
which I was beginning to read. " It is not
the doctrine of the death of Christ that
atones for human sin, but the death itself."
That power resides in a reality, and not in
any doctrine of a reality, — this, it would
seem, I might have known before, so sim
ple is it, and so obviously true. We need
to see it concerning the whole body of
Christian doctrine. Theories and explana
tions of the great realities we must form,
and hold, always hoping to correct and
enrich them as we go on. No one is
asking us to lay them down and leave
them, for that to most of us is impossible.
But it is in the good God our Father, not
in any doctrine of his Fatherhood, that we
have our filial life at home with him. It
is by our living Saviour Jesus Christ that
we are brought home to God, not through
some doctrine of him, or some doctrine of

94 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
the manner of his Saviourhood. It is the
indwelling Spirit himself that helps our
weakness, and we are strengthened by his
real touch, not by a doctrine of the Spirit,
or of his personality, or of his relations
in the Godhead. It is by love, and not
by a doctrine of love, that we are to prove
ourselves Christians. The experience of
the transforming power is what we want,
and without this ever so good a theory of
the transforming power is powerless. If
we attain to such a view of the Christian
doctrine as this, we can declare that the
great realities are quick and powerful now,
as confidently and strongly as could the
apostles themselves when the faith was
new. I count upon two helps toward a better
conception of the Christian doctrine. I
expect valuable help from the clear and
straightforward thinking that is character
istic of the best intellectual work of our
time. It is necessary that the Christian

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 95
people learn to distinguish things that
differ, and thus get their doctrine clear of
complication with what does not belong to
it. In this they need to learn from such
intellectual work as is done in this uni
versity, and wherever men set themselves
to the task of clear thinking and discern
ment of things as they are. Help us, I
say to-day as I said yesterday. Go on
with clear thinking. Establish the right
way of mental work as the only way that
shall be welcome anywhere. Illustrate
sound, strong thinking for us, until it shall
be a matter of course that we must make
it our own. Make it impossible for us to
live thinking confusedly and incorrectly.
Every advance in good intellectual practice
helps Christian doctrine toward the day of
disentanglement and independence. It
leads on toward the time when the Chris
tian realities shall be distinguished in all
minds from theories concerning them, and
the power of the divine reality can go forth

96 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
in its simplicity to influence minds pre
pared to receive it.
The other help that I count upon can
come only from within the Christian peo
ple. There is nothing but religious life
that can most powerfully strengthen the
cause of religion in the world. It is life
that begets life. Only the genuine experi
ence of the divine grace and life, — such
experience as the first Christians had, and
all the best of their successors, — only this
can bring the help that is most needful.
But I see it coming. Already, in our own
time, we find a fresh insistence upon gen
uineness and reality in religion. Words
are powerless by themselves, preaching
that rings hollow is unwelcome, phrases
empty of life do not convince, churches
are blamed for professions that do not rule
the life. The demand for genuineness
thus far appears largely in negative form,
clearing away the ungenuine ; and to many
it seems dangerous and destructive. But

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 97
it will not continue to be negative. It is
a hopeful beginning for a deeper experi
ence of the great realities of the Chris
tian faith. A generation that insists upon
tearing down the false will not be content
until the true has been built up in its
place. The experience of God, of Christ,
of the Spirit, of love, and of victory is
coming in. It will take new forms, but it
will be the old reality, and the Christian
doctrine will stand forth strong and clear,
— clear in the light of simplicity, and
strong in the strength of God.

Ill
THE CHRISTIAN POWER
If we have a people and a doctrine, what
more do we want to make up our Chris
tianity? A set of ideas satisfactory and
inspiring, and a multitude of people de
voted to them, — is not this enough ?
Many suppose, or assume, that this will
account for it all. When we have seen
these two elements, and acknowledged
them, have we not seen all that there
is of it? But we have something more.
Our discernment of the real nature of
Christianity is not complete till we have
apprehended and in some degree under
stood the Christian Power.
The Christian power is not a late-coming
element. We see it from the first. We
perceive it at work in the very production
of the Christian people and the Christian

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 99
doctrine. There was an initial power, that
brought forth these two great facts in the
world, and this power we can trace with
out difficulty. It began, as we know, in
the Master, Jesus himself, and the quali
ties by which he made his impression. He
drew to himself the first disciples, by the
joint influence of his marvellous person
ality and the high, helpful, and inspiring
truth that he offered them. Virtue went
forth from him, upon such as could receive
it. His " Follow me " was powerful, and
his instruction was enlightening, uplifting,
transforming. His time for work was
very short, and only beginnings were pos
sible in his brief lifetime, and yet he left
behind him in the world a group of human
beings spiritually changed by the touch of
his personality, and instructed in the first
principles of his truth. Thus Jesus be
came the creator of the Christian people,
by the power that was in him. It was a
personal power, awakening, reproving, con-

IOO THE CHRISTIAN POWER
soling, spiritualizing, opening heaven over
the earth for men.
After his departure, there came upon
his friends a mighty visitation of spiritual
energy. It was not associated merely with
their remembrances of his life and words
among them, but rather with the divine
surprise that his resurrection brought upon
them. Now they looked up to him as
exalted to the right hand of God in
glory ; and along with this thought of the
glory that had been given to him there
came upon them an immense and over
whelming influence, an inspiration of the
divine Spirit, and an energy of faith beyond
all precedent. The evidence of it is not
found alone in the narrative of the occur
rences of the Day of Pentecost, in the
Acts of the Apostles. Some think that
narrative is not historical. But if that
narrative were not there, the story of the
early Christianity as a whole would still
conclusively imply some such experience

THE CHRISTIAN POWER IOI
as is there described, — an enlargement of
spiritual vision, a quickening of confidence,
a visitation of power. The history cannot
be accounted for without the descent of
the Holy Spirit upon the church. Some
how there came in those days an amazing
outburst of enthusiastic certainty, a rush
of vigor, a transforming conviction of the
great realities, by which neophytes became
heralds and expounders of the faith, and
a scattered little flock became a strong
people. Out of this visitation of power
came, in due time, the missionary impulse,
and the new faith went out to the wide
Roman world. Thus it was that the
power made the people.
It was through the same experience of
power that the Christian doctrine was
born. The doctrine, we may remember,
was not merely the truth, but the truth
as the church knew it by experience. It
consisted in the Christian conceptions after
they had passed through the medium of

102 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
the Christian life, and had thus become
vital possessions of the Christian people.
Nothing but the immense vitality of the
experience could have brought the doctrine
forth as a living thing. We greatly mis
judge if we think the adoption of the
Christian doctrine was the cool adoption
of a set of opinions : it was the glowing
realization of a world of spiritual verities.
Herein was manifested a tremendous power,
and Christianity was already signalized in
the world as a living force of great
energy. The power has continued until now,
and we have to note that it has wrought
in the same manner as the other elements
of Christianity that we have considered.
It was cast forth into the human world,
and its operation was affected by its field
and modified by what it had to work upon.
It has wrought steadily on, age after age,
and yet for its results it has been com
pelled to bide its time and gain by gradual

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 103
increments. James Hinton, who had
ideas of his own about Nature as an ex
pression of God, — ideas fine in aesthetic
quality, searching in moral power, and
most valuable, as he conceived, for practi
cal life, and at the same time thoroughly
revolutionary, — once estimated the time
that would have to be allowed for the intro
duction of such ideas to full effective appli
cation. He put the period at two hundred
years, with judgment that it would be
longer rather than shorter. First, the idea
must be seen in enthusiastic vision by
some one, and enunciated for the world
to hear. It must get abroad among men,
and be somewhat widely considered. It
must come to be deemed important. Then
it must be ignored, recognized, restated,
ridiculed, refuted, denied, doubted, ad
mitted, discussed, affirmed, believed, ac
cepted, taught to adults, taught to children,
wrought into literature, put into practice,
taught to another generation of children,

IC-4 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
keep in practice, tested by its fruits, al
lowed to modify other ideas, embodied in
institutions ; and in the course of some
generations it will sink in among the cer
tainties that are assumed and acted upon
without question and without thought.
For this process two hundred years is a
short period. This is a fair illustration
of the kind of world in which Christianity
was cast abroad as seed upon the field.
We are often asked, almost triumphantly,
why Christianity has not accomplished
more in so very long a time. But there is
no such thing as long time or short time,
absolutely. Everything is relative, and
time is long or short according to what has
to be accomplished in it. Time that is long
for one purpose is short for another. Time
that is long for a national career may be
short for the lifetime of an idea. No
deeply significant periods in human his
tory are short: all great movements are
long movements. I have a friend, a geolo-

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 105
gist, who affirms that every minister ought
to take a course in historical geology, in
order to learn something about the length
of processes, and thus at once enlarge and
slow down his expectations of divine oper
ation among men. Certainly a just per
spective in history will tend to cure us of
much of our hurry, and silence many of
our cavils. Christianity undertook a moral
transformation in an evil world. It must
be judged in the light of slow processes
and long periods.
Thinking in this strain, we shall not
wonder or be scandalized at the great
reaction that we are often asked to notice,
at the end of the first age of power, when
the apostles had departed. That such a
reaction and decline of energy occurred is
certain. Yet it was not so much a re
action of Christianity, as it was a reaction
of human nature after its first leap of
new life. Human kind never puts forth
exceptional energy without paying for it

106 THE CHRISTIAN POWER .
in reaction, and the vigor of the first
Christian period was followed by com
parative lifelessness in the second. Nor
can we wonder that when Christianity
grew up in the larger world, after its
transplantation, its power seemed ham
pered and Repressed by its surroundings
and materials. All this was of the inevi
table. Nor, on the other hand, do we
wonder when we see again and again the
breaking-forth of genuine and effective
power^in unexpected quarters. This was
the reassertion of the native quality. The
history of the Christian power is simply the
long illustration of these two opposites.
The history of the Christian power opens
a field too vast to be entered now. I can
not even enumerate at all the works of
usefulness and help in which that power
has been manifested. Only the briefest
statement can now be made, a statement
of the simple fact that through its history

THE CHRISTIAN POWER XOf
Christianity has shown itself possessed of
true vitality and vast energy ; that though
it has been resisted, and its force has been
diminished, so that it had its days of com
parative weakness, it has nevertheless
proved itself to be animated by a genuine
and most vital power. This is a common
place, and as a commonplace I shall let it
stand. It ought to be unquestioned. I
do not believe, let it be said in passing, in
claiming for Christianity all the good that
has been done within its field. Extrava
gant claims defeat themselves. It is not
true that to Christianity alone we should
attribute all the progress of that part of
the world which it has influenced. Let us
be fair to other forces in society, and to
the general movement of God in history.
Yet Christianity has been a potent factor
in the great improvement. To its influ
ence we can fairly and justly trace large
gains in the general good. It has sweet
ened the universal life, in a thousand

108 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
ways. It has been influential in the miti
gating of cruelties, the abolishing of bar
barities, the delivering of the enslaved,
the lifting-up of the downtrodden, and the
long movement toward giving to all their
rights. In spite of its own special entan
glements and embarrassments, and the fre
quent discrediting of its influence and
value through the faults of its friends, it has
done its good work, and abundantly vindi
cated itself as a living and beneficent force.
There are some who are ready to tell us
that the power that we associate with the
name of Christ is mainly in the past.
They admit that he has been great, but
claim that other lords now hold sway, and
he is passing into forgetfulness. There
were different days once, in what we call
the ages of faith, when men were simpler
and more easily satisfied. Then Christ
was influential, and was sufficient to the
world that then was. But now we demand
more evidence for what we are to receive,

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 109
and accept nothing with the ancient readi
ness ; and under the new requirements
Christ fails to be vindicated, and his power
is gone. But these judges of events are
strangely astray in their perceptions. The
truth is that in what we call the ages of
faith the largeness of the power of Christ
was scarcely even suspected, still less put
to the test of life. It is only now that the
searching and glorious meaning of his
spiritual power is beginning to be per
ceived. It is deep injustice to the present
age to declare that it is no longer looking
to Jesus with reverence and sense of de
pendence. Our age is not leaving Christ
out of sight and memory. Its method of
recognizing his power differs from that of
other days, and much that has been asso
ciated with him may now have lost the
reverence that once was given to it. But
if we ask to whom or to what the world
is looking to-day, in its deepest and most
earnest heart, for spiritual light and coun-

IIO THE CHRISTIAN POWER
sel, there is but one answer. It is looking
to Jesus. To the powerful simplicity of
his truth and the efficient strength of his
leadership the world is even now turning
as its best hope. There is weakness and
fault enough in this, I know, and there is
too much forgetfulness of his precepts and
his spirit. The worldly impulse is always
with us, ready to sweep men and nations
off into disloyal selfishness and pride.
Nevertheless it is recognized as it never
was before, that whether we are willing to
act upon it or not, the spirit of Jesus is
the only spirit that can work peace and
righteousness among men and nations, and
that in him, if we would let him have his
way, there is actual power to right our
wrongs and heal our woes. His personal
ity stands out impressive and revered, and
there is to-day a devotion to the real
Christ, in work and service, such as no
other age has known. The power still
lives. Sometimes with an enthusiastic joy,

THE CHRISTIAN POWER in
and sometimes with a pathetic confidence,
our own time turns to him who is the
voice of God among us, uttering with
authority the word of power and hope.
One transparent and triumphant evi
dence of the strength and persistence of
the Christian power is ever before us. It
resides in this, that in all the ages the
Christian people and the Christian doc
trine have been kept in the world, and
kept possessed in good degree of their
characteristic vitality. That the Christian
people are still here, and in spite of all
imperfections are still bearing essentially
the Christian character, we know quite
well. It is equally true that the doctrine
of to-day is essentially the doctrine of the
beginning, and that it still persists in its
original character, as spiritual reality ex
perienced. It has come down to us not
merely as a set of ideas, but as a set of
ideas wrought into life and in life persist
ing ; and the realities experienced and the

112 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
life persisting are the same as at the first.
I said that some power originally produced
the Christian people and the Christian
doctrine, and gave the doctrine to the
people as a factor in their life. Now I
add that some power, in spite of all diffi
culties and failures, has kept them in the
world till now. The good seed was cast
into a thorn-field, and yet there is a har
vest, after many days. In human affairs
there has been much to dissipate the
Christian energy, to depress its operation
and to injure its fruits. It has met indif
ference and opposition without, and mis
conception, unfaithfulness, lukewarmness,
sometimes treachery, within, and yet the
power has kept its product in existence,
and has not lost its hold upon mankind.
Differences in the age and imperfections
in the product often conceal the fact, but
the fact is that we have here and now, and
throughout the Christian world, essentially
the same realities in human experience

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 113
that appeared among the friends of Jesus
immediately after his departure. There
has been a power sufficient to preserve
them until now.
This is all that I must take time to say
upon the history of the Christian power.
Such facts of course bring their question.
What is the most probable source of the
Christian power? Why was it, we are
led to ask, that the Christian people
sprang up, and came out into history with
the Christian truth fused into doctrine
in their experience ? What has caused
the wide usefulness of Christianity in the
world? Why has it so deeply satisfied
the needs of man? Why has it so often
been able to overcome scepticism and
establish faith ? What has kept the peo
ple and the doctrine in the world till now ?
and wherein lies the present strength of
Christianity? Whence, in a word, comes
the Christian power ?

1 14 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
When I answer this question as I think
it should be answered, what will you
accuse me of ? If you accuse me of beg
ging the question, I shall deny the validity
of the charge. If you accuse me of mak
ing it all too simple, at that I shall not be
troubled. I have long since learned that
the true is the simple, and that we human
beings have wasted centuries, all told, in
devising needlessly complicated explana
tions of things. If my explanation is
simple, simple let it be ; and if you intend
to object to it, object on some better
ground than that.
My answer is that the most reasonable
account of the power of Christianity is that
Christianity is true. This is the most natu
ral explanation that can be given of that
strong, effective, victorious power which
certainly appeared in the first days of our
faith, which has been fighting its enemies
ever since, and which still remains upon
the field.

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 1 15
This answer is certainly very short. To
one who does not at once accept it, it
sounds like begging the question. That
is just because it is so short and compact,
and the meaning of it has not been brought
out. I should be most unwilling to leave
it thus curt and unexpanded, for there is
need of unfolding its meaning if it is to
be received as a true answer. We may
not all mean the same thing when we say
that Christianity is true. I presume there
are many who have used the expression,
some accepting it and some rejecting,
who have never distinctly asked them
selves what they meant by it. In many
minds, both of believers and of unbelievers
concerning Christianity, there is no clear
idea of what it is for Christianity to be
true. There are so many definitions of
Christianity implied in the thoughts of
different persons, the central realities
are surrounded by so great a variety of
explanations and additions, and the short

Il6 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
word " true " may mean so many things,
that it is no wonder if ambiguity hangs
over the main idea, and we may differ
widely without knowing it, as to what we
mean by saying that Christianity is true. I
am anxious that the right meaning of this
central assertion may be clearly perceived.
If we understand it, we can judge whether
I am right in assigning the truth of Chris
tianity as the best explanation of its power.
What is it, then, for Christianity to be
true ? When any one affirms that Chris
tianity is true, he means, or ought to
mean, that Christianity is made up of
realities ; that what it represents as real is
real ; that, in the realm of the soul, things
are as it declares that they are ; that its
affirmations accord with fact, and its ex
periences are experiences of reality. It is
meant that Christianity sets forth the
great spiritual realities as they are, and
nothing but the test of genuine experiment
is needed to prove it.

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 117
Notice, I beg, where it is that I thus
place the centre of Christianity, and where
I take my stand for the purpose of defini
tion. I place the centre of Christianity
not in its statements, but in its realities
and experiences. I do not identify the
truth of Christianity with the statements
of its advocates, or any of them, concern
ing it, or with the explanations that they
have offered of its facts, or with the decla
rations of its creeds, whether special or
ecumenical. In all these matters there
may be wide and irreconcilable differences.
I place the centre of Christianity in its
realities and experiences, and there I take
my stand for the purpose of definition.
For Christianity to be true is for its real
ities to be realities, experienceable, and
experienced. If Christianity is true, it
sets forth things that are, in the realm of
the soul. It testifies according to truth,
concerning the eternal realities.
But this statement in turn needs to be

Il8 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
filled out, for only in the filling-out of it
can the proof of it be found. Suppose
that Christianity is true: then what is
true ? What is the truth, or what are the
realities, involved ? This, after all is our
question. We have not told what we
mean by saying that Christianity is true,
until we have unfolded our statement
here, and set before ourselves what it is
that is true, or real, in Christianity.
I shall answer the question by reaffirm
ing the elements that compose the Chris
tian doctrine in the experience of the
Christian people: and the reaffirmation
will not be a waste of words. If Chris
tianity is true, then these great elements
entered into it by right, and belong in all
right experience of men, because they rep
resent the eternal reality. I hold that
Christianity is true : that is, I believe that
the great elements that make up the
Christian doctrine, by means of the Chris
tian experience, accord with the eternal

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 119
reality, and rightly represent it. Listen
now to the statement of what it is for
Christianity to be true.
If Christianity is true, God is the su
premely good Being that Jesus declared
him to be. He really is at heart a Father
to us men, and our right and normal rela
tion to him is that of children living at
home with the eternal goodness. When
we live as we ought, we shall find our
selves living as true sons, in loyal family
fellowship with the best being that the
heart of man can conceive. These are the
facts, if Christianity is true : this is the
kind of God that there is, and there is no
other. This is the true and real meaning
of existence for us men. The world is
the world of such a God, holy and gracious,
sin-hating and fatherly. Into the world
of such a God, and into life with such a
meaning, we are all born, if Christianity is
true. It is the duty and the privilege of
every one of us to be living at home with

120 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
the absolutely good and holy God, in filial
fellowship : and the better we become ac
quainted with our God, if Christianity is
true, the more thoroughly shall we know
him as the perfect and glorious One, in
whom all our being finds full rest and
satisfaction. Again, if Christianity is true, Jesus
Christ is really the gift of God to us men
for our spiritual salvation. He really is
for us the way and the truth and the life.
He finds us astray in moral evil and brings
us home. We were forfeiting in a sinful
life our privilege of filial life with the
eternal goodness. He came to us to save
us out of our sin; and he does bring us
out of our sin, into eternal life with God.
He really does stand to us as Saviour. In
what he has done for us in his life and
death there is a genuine reality, rich in
blessing for us and for all men. If Chris
tianity is true, Jesus Christ is God's way
to us, and our way to God.

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 121
Again, if Christianity is true, God is not
wholly outside of us, addressing us from
beyond ourselves. We have not told the
whole when we have said that in Christ
he comes to us and seeks us for our good.
It is true also that the living God really
dwells in our souls. He is a God within.
He convinces us of evil by actual inward
influence. He really renews our hearts,
working character such as he desires to
see in us. He truly communes with us in
the secret place of the heart. He teaches
truth to the soul of man, by real inward
suggestion. If Christianity is true, God
comes as near to us as we are to ourselves,
and we possess him as an actual indwel
ling companion.
Again, if Christianity is true, the only
right inspiration of life and guide of con
duct- in all relations is what Jesus said it
was, — namely, love. The life of sonship
toward God is thereby a life of brother
hood toward men. When we live accord-

122 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
ing to love toward our fellows, we do the
thing that ought to be, and make of life
what life ought to be. When unselfish
ness and the highest helpful affection form
our law of living, then we have struck a
chord in the eternal harmony, — and all
that is dissonant with love is discord to
the eternal harmony. This is the spiritual
and practical reality, in this world and in
any other world that there may be. This
is the thing that is. Here is the clue to
the significance of our life, here is the key
note of our duty, here is the true method
for all our doings. If Christianity is true,
God is love, and all men ought to be love,
and existence is successful only so far as
existence means love.
And again, if Christianity is true, there
is for all of us, corresponding to these
spiritual realities, a genuine transforming
energy. We are not talking of theories,
or supposing cases : we are not discussing
far off the good that is to be approved

THE CHRISTIAN POWER I23
and desired but cannot be attained. Here
is a genuine might for action. Here dwells
the power of God for salvation. The sav
ing agency of Christ is real, and the in
dwelling Spirit actually does his work.
Transformation is an actual experience, a
result attained. Character does become
changed when these forces have their way.
Sin can be conquered, holiness is possible.
High virtue is within our reach, and effec
tive power to do good in the needy world
can be had. We can be brought to live at
home with God in holy and happy fellow
ship, and to live in helpful love among
men. All this has been done, and can be
done again.
If Christianity is true, I say once more,
these are the facts in our case, and in the
case of all men : this is the thing that is :
this is what existence means : when we put
reality to the test of sincere experiment,
this is what we shall find the genuine and
eternal reality to be. For Christianity to

124 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
be true is for these things to be so, and
to be verifiable, and verified, in experi
ence. Let our individual understanding of
these realities be adequate or inadequate,
that makes no difference with the facts.
Though we had no understanding of them
at all, nay, though we were totally igno
rant of them, these are the facts : this is
the kind of world we have been born
into : this is what our existence signifies.
Though we should disagree widely in our
interpretation of these realities, and should
even grow so blind in heart as to forget
our brotherhood and count one another
aliens because of our disagreement, still
these are the realities, and these are the
realities forever. God is the holy Being
with whom we ought to live as children,
Christ is the Saviour who seeks to bring
us thither, the Holy Spirit is the indwell
ing Friend, love is the law of life, and
the holy victory may be ours.
Now what I am affirming is, that the

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 1 25
best explanation of the power of Chris
tianity among men is that Christianity
is true : that Christianity sets forth the
things of the soul as they are. The power
is best accounted for by supposing that
the true representation of the meaning
of the soul's life is here given, so that
to experience what Christianity proposes
is to experience the thing that is, and thus
to find eternal foundations. If this were
so, then power would follow, even the
power that attends upon reality when it
is put to the test. If this were so, then
the power of the living God himself would
go forth in Christianity, to make it effec
tive. That this is so, I thoroughly believe.
The Christian experience is experience of
the eternal reality. This is why Chris
tianity, presented in its spiritual sim
plicity, has always appealed successfully
to the best that is in man : it is adapted to
man's soul and life, and man to it. Indeed,
all intelligent being is adapted to Chris-

126 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
tianity and Christianity to it, because
Christianity sets forth the realities that
give to all intelligent'being its significance.
Tertullian told in the early centuries of
" the human soul which is naturally Chris
tian ; " by which he meant that between
the constitution and destiny of the human
soul and the religion that we have in
Christ there is a natural affinity and a
mutual adaptation. He was right. In
Christianity the soul breathes the native
air of the world for which it was born, and
meets the announcement and experience of
the truth for which it was made. Conse
quently it is the lower elements in the
soul's life that draw it away from Christ,
while the worthiest elements are respon
sive to his touch. Sound judgment may
often bring strong objection against cer
tain interpretations of the great realities,
which may have been offered as if they
were identical with them, but when we
come to the realities themselves, behold,

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 1 27
they are good, and the noblest in the soul
affirms it. Christ calls for the best and
worthiest that man is capable of, and
every one that is of the truth hears his
voice. This power in Christianity to win
the response of the best in man is good
evidence that the voice is indeed the voice
of truth.
I have claimed that the truth of Chris
tianity is the best explanation of the age
long power of Christianity. Yet in any
adequate account of that power as actually
at work there is one other thing to be
mentioned. I must speak a word about
its manner of laying hold upon men.
Even truth is not always powerful. Even
truth assented to, and truth believed, may
sometimes fail of power. There was an
element abundantly present in the life of
the first Christian days, and present more
or less at every stage of the long Christian
movement, that must be counted in before

128 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
we have placed in sight the entire material
out of which power was made. We must
take account of the mighty element of
feeling. It is when realities are felt to be
realities that they become powerful in the
life of mankind.
Here we have to acknowledge a strange
and almost incurable error. We very well
know that in the moral and religious realm
the impulse of feeling is needed if truth is
to go forth to victory, and yet we are con
stantly overlooking it. We are constantly
assuming that truth is to be influential
upon men chiefly through the intellect.
To the intellect, we think, truth makes its
appeal. Truth can be stated. It belongs
to the mind, it is to be handled in thought,
it is to be estimated by the judgment.
Truth can be accepted as truth, — that is,
as correct, valid, and worthy to be held, —
and what more is there to be done? It
can doubtless be completed or enriched by
further additions or modifications, brought

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 1 29
in by the same process of the intellect
continued : the statement of it can be
made more satisfactory, and the uses of
it more plain, but we do not habitually
look to other processes than these as
equally important. Anything that cannot
be clearly stated, we sometimes allow
ourselves to say, cannot be true, and
certainly cannot be expected to exert
power upon men. With this general idea
about truth we make our statements as
accurate as we can. We draw up our
creeds and confessions, and are satisfied
with our expression of truth, and declare
that this, now clearly stated, is what we
hold ; and then we assume that the truth
in the case has been adequately treated,
and expect it to be powerful. In fact, we
have often made up our creeds somewhat
as a geologist makes up his description of
the geological column, or a chemist his
statement of the result of his analysis.
We set forth the thing that we suppose to
9

I30 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
be correct, and are content, under the
impression that truth is now ready for
the wars.
And then very often we are disappointed.
Truth thus equipped does not seem after
all to be prepared for victorious battle.
Statements do not win the day. The
fact is that in the moral and religious
realm thought, be it ever so clear, is only
the preparation for power, not the very
means of power itself. Power comes with
feeling. Truth becomes effective by being
felt to be truth. Stated in accurate forms
it has a very neat appearance, and is con
venient for reference and consultation,
but there is no inward necessity that we
should do anything about it. Not until
some one feels that something is true does
that something go out with effective
power into the world. Unfelt knowledge
is scarcely more fruitful than ignorance.
Unfelt truth lies unused. In order to be
come effective, truth must be perceived as

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 131
truth in the sensitive part of the interior
life, whence the compelling influence upon
the springs of action proceeds. If the out
come of the life of Jesus had been ever so
clear and true a set of propositions, writ
ten out to be preserved, and there had
been nothing more, we might never have
heard of Christianity. There would have
been no Christianity, but only a teaching.
When the truth that Jesus imparted to
his friends came to be felt as truth, and
influential in the realm of the affections,
then it came to have power, and only
then. But the truth that Jesus had given
them did come to be felt as truth. This
is exactly the thing that did happen. The
reality took possession of the men, the
Spirit showed it to them, and then the
Christian power was born. We have in
the New Testament the vivid portrayal of
this very thing. I wish I might set before
you the New Testament picture of the

132 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
early Christian feeling. If I attempt it,
you will not think that I am claiming
that those first Christians did full justice
to the realities of which I speak. I am
not claiming that, for of course I know
the imperfectness of it all, since it was all
human. Yet I am not drawing a false
picture, for the sense of these realities was
genuine, and to represent it is to show the
very thing that set Christianity in motion
as a living force.
The first Christian reality to enter into
the world of feeling appears to have been
the Saviourhood of Jesus. It now came
to pass that his disciples grasped the mean
ing of what they nad seen and heard, and
it came home to them with moving power.
In the realm of feeling it now was real to
them that for their sake he had lived and
died and risen again, and was now tri
umphant in God's glory. They felt that
they had a Saviour from their sin and loss,
who filled them with new life which was

The christian power 133
life eternal. Christ had brought them
home to God. To God? and what was
God to them now, in this new day of feel
ing? God was not to them an article of
faith in creed, but a reality in their own
life. God was a reality that redeemed
them from sin and fear and low living, and
from mortality itself ; and the power of
this reality was actually upon them, to
make all things new. They felt them
selves at home with God, forgiven, ac
cepted, made his children, domiciled with
him in the home of the spirit. Nay, more
and closer, God was not merely with them,
he was in them. Their belief in the Holy
Spirit was simply their sense of the in
wardness of this divine gift, their feeling
of God within. It was their consciouness
that God had come nearer than to be
among them, but had passed the door of
their being and was inhabiting them as a
temple or a home. And now they felt, yes,
felt, that love was the atmosphere of their

134 ?¦&% christian power
being. The love of God and Christ had
been poured out around them and within,
and love constituted their very life. So
love, in the fine forms of fellowship, kind
ness, mutual helpfulness, and missionary
zeal, became a life and power among the
Christians: they actually loved one an
other, and felt the flame of love within
themselves. And in the same manner the
remaining element, the reality of a success
ful Christian holiness and victory, became
a vital thing. Men now felt that great
things were possible: they not merely
thought it and affirmed it as a matter of
belief, as we are always ready to do, but
felt it, as we sometimes do not. Hence
naturally sprang courage and high en
deavor, and splendid success. Religion
passed into virtue, because the possibility
of high success was felt, and livingly be
lieved in. Reality got possession of feel
ing, and then the day of power had come.

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 135
In form, I have now been speaking of the
first days and the springing-up of power,
but in fact, I have described what has
given power to Christianity in all times.
Where do you find your powerful men,
— your Augustine, Luther, John Wes
ley? Where are your reformers, puritans,
leaders? They are men of feeling, in
whom realities live. They need not be
emotional men, in the popular sense of
that word, but they are men of feeling in
the nobler sense, men to whom the Chris
tian realities are living things, felt in their
greatness and importance. When have
been the ages of power? When, but when
the sense of God and Christ came in, and
thought was warmed to vigor, and faith
became a passion? Who are the weaker
men, and when have come the times of
feebleness ? The weaker men, for the ag
gressive purposes of God, are the men
who, whatever they may think, do not
feel: and the feebler periods are those in

I36 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
which the pulses have run low and the
great realities found but dull response in
the affections and emotions of the Chris
tian people. Power goes with feeling.
All this is just as simple as I said it
was. The power of Christianity resides
in the twofold fact that Christianity is
true, and is felt as true. There is reality,
and there is sense of reality, — and then
there is power. The reality that we have
in Christ is worthy to be profoundly felt,
and the sense of such reality as this ought
to be sufficient to move the world. When
it was anything like adequate, it has moved
the world.
It may seem to some one that I am
building too much on feeling, or the sense
of something being true. Feeling, it may
be objected, is no test of truth. We may
feel, most intensely, something unreal:
wherefore the sense of reality in the Chris
tian testimony must not be taken as valid
proof of that testimony. To this I should

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 137
say that certainly feeling often takes hold
on error, and becomes the stimulant of
folly. Feeling is no proof of truth. But
I would add that neither is feeling any
evidence that truth is absent, and the pres
ence of it does not establish a probability
that truth is not there. Is not feeling the
normal accompaniment of truth ? Reality
and the sense of reality ought to be insep
arable companions. It is the perfection of
relation between man and truth that man
shall feel the thing that is, and be dull to
the thing that is not. If there is reality
present, and reality that concerns the soul,
it is the normal and worthy thing for the
sensitive soul, perceiving its presence, to
feel with the keenest intensity the serious
ness, the preciousness, the glory, of that
which is so real. Certain it is that eternal
and necessary realities, that touch upon
the life and destiny of the soul, are worthy
to stir the deepest feeling, according to
their character. Hence, in spite of all

138 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
objection from the fallibility of feeling, I
look upon the Christian power as a noble
confirmation of the truth of Christianity.
The combination of facts is this. Procla
mation is made of certain alleged realities.
They are realities in the eternal order of
things, pertaining to the character of eter
nal Being and the relation of man to the
eternal love and holiness. The proclama
tion reaches the hearts of certain men, and
in a sincere experience the men are pos
sessed by the warm and living certainty
that the proclamation brings them truth.
They cast themselves upon the alleged
realities, and find them solid, and feel
them true. Now there springs up in them
a life rich and sweet with holy graces.
Their destiny is provided for, their duty
grows real to them, their life at home with
God transforms their character. The foun
dations of being now stand clear and strong
for them. Warm and urgent love springs
up strong in their hearts, and they become

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 1 39
heralds of life and grace to other souls.
The world grows sweeter and purer by
reason of their presence. Hindrances to
their higher life and their holy efficiency
are on every side, and nothing about them
attains to the ideal of perfection, and yet
they continue age after age in the world,
and the realities are proclaimed after two
thousand years essentially as they were at
first, and the same kind of power goes
forth into the world from the people of
the faith. What does all this mean ? It
means that truth is here. Each part of
this great process tends to validate all the
rest. The one great thing that is rendered
daily more certain to us is that the alleged
realities from which the process took its
start are realities indeed. The structure
honors the foundation. The power of
Christianity, related as it is to the high
character of Christianity, to its fitness to
serve as key to the meaning of existence,
and to its ability to bless all whom it

140 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
touches, is a living evidence that the whole
is true, and the foundation of Christianity
is laid in the verities of God.
A word now from the practical side,
about the power of Christianity as some
thing that we all have to do with. Some
of us are preaching Christianity, and glory
in our work. Some, without preaching it,
are trying to live it, and to commend it as
they may. Some of us are listening to it
from the outside, perhaps with conviction
that it is true, perhaps without it. In one
question we are all interested, each in his
own way : I mean the question where the
power of Christianity at present may rea
sonably be expected to reside and be dis
covered. What is a fair statement as to
the seat of power in Christianity to-day?
What shall we who wish to commend
Christianity rely upon ? and what shall we
who listen to Christianity attune our hearts
to respond to ?

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 141
Perhaps for this moment it may help us
to divide power into its two parts, — value
and efficiency. The value of Christianity,
upon which we must rely for power with
men, resides in its truth, in the sense in
which its truth has now been represented.
The fact that in the central affirmations of
Christianity the central realities of exist
ence are affirmed, — this is the value of
Christianity, and this is the seat of power.
If this were not so, Christianity would be
simply one of the vain imaginings of men ;
for it does profess to set forth the eternal
verity. The eternal verity it does set
forth. Christianity describes you as you
are, in view of the true and abiding tests :
it tells you what you need, offers you what
you must have, exhibits life as it is, leads
you to your right and normal place in
God, shows you the right way to live your
daily life, gives you the true conception of
the world you live in, inspires you with
the motive that is right forever, and gives

142 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
you actual possession of the good concern
ing which the nations of mankind have
now theorized and now agonized since
human life began. This is the value of
Christianity, and this is the truth to set
forth, in various parts and forms, for the
convincing and winning of men. The
value of Christianity lies in its bringing
the message of truth, and telling the
things that are, — and, beyond this, in its
having the power to conform us to things
as they are, and bring us to our true home
in God. And when the message has been
uttered, and has sunk down into our hearts
so that we can perceive of what sort it
really is, we find this infinitely great, con
soling and uplifting word at the centre of
it, that the real is the good: the eternally
real is the eternally good : eternal being is
holy and gracious: our best is the finite
counterpart of the infinite goodness: and
hope rather than fear, confidence rather
than doubt, is the keynote of existence.

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 143
This is the appeal to make. It can be
made in a thousand forms, but this is the
tone that should sound through all of
them. This also is the appeal to listen
for, and to listen to. When Christianity
is presented to you in this tone and spirit,
there is something there that no one can
afford to miss. Let other appeals pass by
you if you must, but never fail to have an
ear for this great appeal of value.
If we ask where we are to look for effi
ciency in the present Christianity, — that
is to say, what is to make it now effective
in drawing men to its side and maintaining
its active force, — we must say nothing
that would obscure the efficiency of its
value. Here first we must look for power,
to the clear and enthusiastic presentation
of the glorious view of the value of Chris
tianity at which I have just hinted. It is
by virtue of its truth that Christianity
must win its way, and nothing must be
said that will propose any substitute for

144 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
this, or lead to reliance upon any other
means of power as equal to this. "Yet we
cannot overlook the fact that the efficiency
of truth among men depends in great
measure upon the strength and vividness
of the sense of truth in those who hold it
forth. That the Christian people may
have a rich and constraining sense of the
truth that they are offering to the world,
this is the next thing needful for the effi
ciency of our religion. I have read a
criticism upon the converts that a visitor
found in some of the mission-fields in Asia,
to the effect that although they showed
the signs of sincerity in their new faith,
they did not have the appearance of men
who were enthusiastically full of the feel
ing that they had in their new faith the
best thing in the world and the best thing
that the heart of man could imagine. The
criticism was altogether a friendly one. I
do not know how just it was, but from
what I know of Christians in America I

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 1 45
am prepared to believe that it was not un
fair to new-born Christians in the East.
It is our defect that we lack so much the
sense of having the best thing in the
world, and the best thing in any world, in
our Christian faith. We say that we have
it, and hold it as our theory, but we do
not feel it with a constraining gladness
and an enthusiastic zeal. The coming of
such a sense of our heavenly gift is need
ful if we are to have the power that we
desire. We often say that our time is not favor
able to enthusiasm in spiritual things ; and
it is largely true. We are in a day of
scientific thought, and of critical activity.
It is a great period of transition, in which
all that can be removed is being shaken,
that the things that cannot be shaken may
remain. Amid so many questions as are
abroad in our time, how, it is asked, can
we maintain an enthusiastic confidence?
Who knows what we shall next be invited
10

146 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
to surrender, or at least to modify ? How
shall we keep our sense of the reality of
the things that our religion tells us of?
and how shall we dare invite intelligent
men in such a time to cast in their lot
with our religion? Must we not keep
along as well as we can till a period of
firmer confidence dawns upon us, hoping
by and by to be able to commend our faith
more strongly? And would it not be as
well for our friends who have not received
Christianity to wait until that better day,
before accepting it as true and vital for
themselves ?
To this I answer, that I am profoundly
convinced that our generation needs just
such a conception of Christianity as I have
endeavored to present in these three ad
dresses, and such an experience as I have
declared to be of the substance of our reli
gion. We want to see the simplicity of
our religion, and to hold as essential to it
only what really is essential. We often

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 1 47
overburden ourselves for the Christian
purpose. We undertake to hold too much.
We bind our theories and interpretations
in as a part of the substance of Christian
ity. If a few of us alone could do this,
the way might look easier, at least to us,
but the trouble is that others who dissent
from us do the same, and Christianity be
comes weighted with a variety of con
flicting theories as to the meaning of its
experimental facts. If we go back to the
beginnings, we find a declaration of eternal
realities, such as each soul of man needs
to know, and can rest in, and find eternal
life by knowing. For my own part, I am
content with calling my fellow-men to
accept and live by these realities. This
I can do, and this I do, with the utmost
confidence. I believe that the God and
Father of the Lord Jesus Christ is the liv
ing God, the only God that there is, and
that led by Jesus Christ we may all come
home to him where we belong, and live our

148 THE CHRISTIAN POWER
normal life by being Christians. To the
life of l6ve in God I believe that the Holy
Spirit of power is leading us. This I be
lieve to be the right way for high and low,
for ignorant and learned. This I would
as soon declare in a great university as in
the lowliest country meeting-house. This
message I do not have to defend as I
should be obliged to defend an elaborate
scheme of thought. I will discuss the
scheme of thought that is involved in the
message, when and where it is necessary,
but the Christianity that I preach I preach
because it is true to the eternal realities,
and is fit to be received at once by any
soul that desires to live in accordance with
the things that are. I am not claiming for
myself a power that corresponds to this
secret of power that I believe in. But I
am anxious that the Christian people should
learn that their Christian doctrine consists
in the truth that they possess in the com
mon Christian experience, and know that

THE CHRISTIAN POWER 149
its power dwells in its reality, and in their
sense of its reality. To what should we
look for power if not to this, that the
Christian people know what they possess,
and offer it for what it is, an experimental
possession of the eternal verities? The
way of simplicity and confidence is the
way of power.
I am thankful for the opportunity to
speak these words in this presence. May
the power of the Christian truth rest upon
us all.

AN OUTLINE of

Christian Theology.

WILLIAM NEWTON CLARKE, D.D.
Professor of Theology at Colgate
University, Hamilton, New York.

Crown 8vo . . . $2.50 net.

nr^HIS is the simplest, clearest, most radical, and most
¦*¦ spiritual theological treatise we have ever seen.
It is, indeed, in these four characteristies rather a
treatise on religion than on theology. It is vital, not
scholastic ; a minister to largeness of life, through clear
ness of thought. . . . To ministers holding in whole or
in part the new philosophy, we recommend this vol
ume, as showing them how to use that philosophy to
conserve, nourish, and strengthen the old faith. — The
Outlook.

We have read it with great interest. Its author,
though so modest as not to prefix the word " Professor"
to his name, at once commands our respect. He is a
clear thinker, a fine scholar, a scientific and philosophi
cal theologian. The work is able, it is stimulating, it is

AN OUTLINE OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
fresh, and reveals him in touch with the latest thought
of the day. It is in many respects an epoch-making
book. . . . We commend this book to any who desire
to get the clearest statement of the new theology that
can be found in English. — Presbyterian and Reformed
Review. Professor Marcus Dods writes : —
" Has it ever happened to any of our readers to take
up a work on systematic theology, with the familiar
divisions, ' God,' ' Man,' ' Sin,' Christ,' ' The Holy Spirit,'
' The Church,' ' The Last Things,' and open it with a
sigh of weariness and dread, and find himself fascinated
and enthralled, and compelled to read on to the last
word ? Let any one who craves a new experience of
this kind, procure Dr. Clarke's ' Outline.' We guarantee
that he will learn more, with greater pleasure, than he
is likely to learn in any other systematic theology."

We have received from America many useful con
tributions to theological literature, but few that sur
pass this either as theology or as literature. — British
Weekly. 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,
Publishers,
153-157 Fifth Avenue . . NEW YORK.

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