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THE RELIGION OF A DEMOCRAT

THE RELIGION OF A
DEMOCRAT

BY

CHARLES ZUEBLIN
Author of "A Decade of Civic Development," "American
Municipal Progress," etc.

1908
B. W. HUEBSCH
NEW YORK

Copyright 1908 by
B. W. HUEBSCH

Printed in U. S. A.

TO MY FRIEND
DR. STANTON COIT
WHO DIVERTED ME FROM DEAD LANGUAGES
TO LIVING ISSUES

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Temperament and Personality . 11
II. The Constraint op Orthodoxy . 41
III. The Decay of Authority . . 67
IV. Religion and the Church . . 101
V. Religion and the State . . . 131
VI. Impersonal Immortality . . ,,159

TEMPERAMENT AND
PERSONALITY

[9]

CHAPTER I
TEMPERAMENT AND PERSONALITY
THE great paradox of modern thought is
its limitless scope and the insignificance
of the thinker. The more the human
mind explores infinity, the firmer becomes the
conviction of the incomprehensibility of its
vastness. The more science reveals of the hu
man personality, the more does even its ex
panding power demonstrate the insight of the
query, "What is man that thou art mindful of
him?" The thoughtful mind inevitably spec
ulates on infinity, but generally in wild
stretches of the imagination, made seemingly
intelligible by some petty human concept.
The logical method of progression through
the universal, which is within human compre
hension, to the infinite, is uncommon.
After all, what do we know of infinity?
[11]

TJie Religion of a ^Democrat
Science has partially revealed the universe, but
what is beyond that? The very thought of
what may be outside of human knowledge is
overwhelming. This little solar system of ours
is but one of a multitude. The almost count
less miles between us and the sun are as noth
ing compared with the distance to the farth
est star we can see, but beyond the uttermost
limits of which we can have any adequate con
ception, there is still space, and beyond space,
perhaps infinity! This infinite space has been
for infinite time and will be. The more we
know, the more unintelligible it seems to be
come. For with our previous anthropomor
phic methods of expressing God and his uni
verse, our little human consciousness accepted
in the naivest possible way things too great
for human reason. So we are thrown back
upon the belief that these subjects are not to
be expressed rationally, but, as objects of
faith, to be taken for granted. We cannot
all do that, and those who cannot have been
placed in the incongruous position of reason
ing more about the infinite and fathoming it
[12]

Temperament and Personality
less. The compensation is found, perhaps, in
the hypothesis that the search for the infinite
is as valuable to man as definite knowledge of
it. Religion is the expression of man's rela
tion to the universal, ultimate, and infinite.
However religions may differ, they are com
prehended in this relation, and whatever seeks
this expression is religion. This conception
may answer at once the demand for the great
est common religious denominator, and the
criticism that religion will perish with theology.
There appears to be no basis for the sanguine
expectation of Voltaire or Ingersoll, or
Guyau * that theology and superstition are to
be blotted out. The assaults of sceptics and
the constructive investigations of scientists
leave most men unmoved. Whether it prove
easier to cling to an old, irrational faith, or
the new faith of science be unsatisfying, or
one possess the contented scientific mind,
a possible reconciliation hes in recognizing the

i " The Non-Religion of the Future."
[13]

The Religion of a Democrat
common aspiration. There is a unity of pur
pose in crass superstition and refined research.
The endeavor to express the relation to the
universal, ultimate, and infinite, is more clearly
seen by the scientific man, more vividly felt
by the superstitious. The common life will
be enriched if we can discover a basis for the
unity of faith.
The religion of an individual, this expres
sion of his relation to the universal, ultimate,
and infinite, is the chief test of personality.
There are many trivial ways in which person
ality reveals itself, and some strong characters
may be indifferent to the deeper things of hfe,
but it is when the personality faces the great
crisis or shares the common life that the stat
ure of humanity is measured. The finer per
sonalities are those which try to attune them
selves to the universal, and these are found
often in humble situations where the nearness
of the common lot precludes the isolation of
the privileged. Where the roots penetrate
deepest there is least likelihood that the tree
will wither at the top. There is no virtue in
[14]

Temperament and Personality
exclusiveness ; the richest of human experiences
come through sharing the common life. Man
ifestly, then, personality grows as it ap
proaches some comprehension of its relation
to the universe.
Universality does not mean uniformity.
Carlyle said that we were once all red, pulpy
infants, which could be kneaded into any shape.
The Declaration of Independence claimed that
all men were created free and equal. We do
not have to believe these doctrines, to demand
that each personality shall enjoy its heritage.
We may not be able to mould every child as
we please, but we cannot therefore excuse our
selves for shaping them all alike. If their po
tentialities do not come to fruition, it is largely
through disregard of that subtle, ineradicable
element which determines personality, the ele
ment of temperament. Each person is a com
bination of quahties and capacities inherited
from immediate or remote ancestors, and his
native inclinations constitute his temperament.
The development of his personality will be
conditioned by the social environment, acting
[15]

The Religion of a Democrat
upon his latent powers, and his choices will be
largely governed by temperament. We have
been misled by musicians and other artists into
speaking of temperament as something pos
sessed only by a few. What is meant appar
ently is that some people have sensitive tem
peraments, which react more speedily and
spontaneously than their intellects.
When one considers that temperament is a
universal possession, so little expressed in in
tellectual terms that it still baffles the psychol
ogists,1 that it varies with each individual, and
in every case meets unusual influences from
without, one understands the claim that each
man must have his own religion. A race will
possess on the whole similar temperamental
qualities, and religions are therefore racial in
outer form ; but in relating itself to the infinite
and ultimate, each independent personality
will have a faith of its own, for which it is not
wholly responsible. This faith, conditioned
by the common life, is expressed through per-

i Ribot, " Psychology of the Emotions."
[16]

Temperament and Personality
sonal temperament, which becomes, therefore,
the first object of inquiry in considering demo
cratic religion.
There are, for example, altruistic and ego
istic temperaments. The egoist may devote
himself to others and serve them better than
the altruist, but it is with an effort to overcome
an obstacle unknown to the latter. A recent
incident which has attracted renewed attention
is his own revelation of his life by Carl Schurz.
This great German- American was a patriot in
the best sense, who gave unusual service to his
native and adopted lands, partly motived by a
supreme confidence in himself which brooked
no discouragements, such as would have under
mined the efforts of a flabby altruist of the
familiar, ecclesiastical type.
There are also those who are temperamental
ly optimistic or pessimistic. The pessimist may
overcome his fears and acquire hope. The
optimist may see more of concrete evil about
him than the pessimist. The latter is not nec
essarily lugubrious, nor the former fatuous,
though a pessimist may be "one who has been
[17]

The Religion of a Democrat
compelled to live with an optimist." The su
perficial estimate of both has necessitated the
invention of the term "meliorist." However,
both optimist and pessimist may be working
for the better, each hampered or aided by his
temperamental pecuharity. It is not possible
to predicate whether the optimist will be al
truistic, or the pessimist egoistic. The pre
sumptive alliance of temperamental differ
ences is not demonstrated by the psychologists.
Our present state of knowledge seems to indi
cate infinite combinations of temperamental
elements. Thus there are emotional and volatile na
tures, rational and phlegmatic ones. Climatic
and racial influences do much to determine
these, but furnish no clue to any given indi
vidual, nor tell us anything of the likelihood of
relationship to altruism, egoism, pessimism, or
optimism. Neither are the distinctions always
clearly defined. An unemotional people like
the Americans will lose their heads, as south
ern Europeans are supposed to do, in the pres
ence of an inexplicable crime, like the Hay-
[18]

Temperament and Personality
market riot in Chicago, or the assassination of
McKinley. Then vengeance is demanded and
scapegoats are sacrificed by a people who usu
ally are phlegmatic. It is the dominance for
the time of the emotional or volatile tempera
ments, which are sure to be found in a mixed
race, even in the North. The undemonstrative
native American cannot understand a group
of Italians or Greeks, not yet Americanized
and devitalized — and washed, — who greet
their newly-arrived, unprepossessing brethren
with effusive kisses.
If the forms which satisfy individuals be
similar, at least the inner experiences will vary
when genuine. The hving environment alone
is enough to make individuality complex. To
this is added the inheritance of the ages, and
one cannot say how remote may be some ata
vistic influence. Who knows but that the
American child of the plain, who is possessed
by an irresistible longing for the sea or the
mountain, may be expressing the elemental
forces of the age when his remote ancestry
lived in Norway or Switzerland? A similar
[19]

The Religion of a Democrat
recrudescence of emotions produces the reh
gious devotee or sceptic, in apparently unpro-
pitious environment. One must expect the
social and religious forms and experiences of
different races and different individuals to be
unlike. It is the acme of human life that
there should be these possibilities of differen
tiation in us, and these variations ought to be
magnified instead of minimized.
Temperamental variation is not necessarily
a question of superiority. In our days of
subjection to nineteenth century thought, with
its wonderful heritage of science, we have ex
aggerated the value of rationalism; we needed
it. There was a time when we ran riot with
our emotions, but we can easily have too much
rationalism and too little sentiment. The rea
son for so much conformity is because tem
peramental differences are suppressed. The
spontaneous expression of personality would
be a gain to society, and would make religion
more real.
Intellectual capacity has no logical relation
to temperament, but is nevertheless condi-
[20]

Temperament and Personality
tioned by it, so much so that the expression
may often seem more temperamental than in
tellectual. There are people of limited and
others of large intellectual capacity. We hear
of savage races, able to count only to five, a
fact as unintelligible to the average man as the
versatility of Goethe or William Morris, or
the precocity of John Stuart Mill. The in
tellectual faculties of men are of numberless
gradations. We have no standard by which
we can absolutely determine the relative in
tellectual importance of any one. In our
schools we have boys and girls whom their
teachers call stupid, who, put into another
school with different methods, — perhaps man
ual training substituted for mathematics or
languages, — become exceedingly apt. These
countless gradations we do not discover by our
ordinary regimentation of men.
When we say of people that they are limited
or large in their capacities, we have not said
much. Large capacity is not merely quanti
tative; it is represented in originality and ver
satility, yet one can by drudgery accomplish
[21]

The Religion of a Democrat
what the talented has not done. The quick
witted will not spend so much time over the
lesson, yet the slow-witted can pass examina
tions by persistence and perseverance. Those
of us who teach see it done, and perhaps re
member when we did it. In my own profes
sional course at Yale the best linguist in the
class, the man who wrote the most nearly per
fect English, was an Armenian, who had been
in this country for ten years. He had worked
at our vernacular and accomplished more by
diligence than we by all our natural advan
tages. Of course all these shades of intellect
ual differences are somehow or other coupled
with multifarious shades of temperament, but
we go on treating them all alike from the
standpoint of religion.
Then there are people who are particularly
apt in the grasp of detail, and others who eas
ily generalize. The inherited influence of the
wider industrial experience of men and the re
striction of the domestic activities of women
lead us frequently to speak of these types of
mind as masculine and feminine, The best
[22]

Temperament and Personality
example in refutation of such a restriction is
Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb,1 since Mrs. Webb
generalizes and Mr. Webb attends to details.
One might say by conventional logic that she
is masculine and he feminine; but this is a
poor characterization because it does not take
the individual into account. The distinction
is not one of sex but of intellectual types.
There are also — which is perhaps most im
portant of all — dependent and independent
minds. We do not begin to see how large a
part this distinction plays in the world of
thought and activity. The dependent are
naturally orthodox, and the independent nat
urally heterodox. The independent will not
conform. If he cannot read into the creed his
faith, he ceases to repeat the creed and fre
quently leaves the church. But there is a de
pendent type who in absolute conscientiousness
reads his faith into the creeds. Such conform
ity appears in politics, in society, everywhere.
There are those who think themselves eman-

l Joint authors of "Industrial Democracy," etc.
[23]

The Religion of a Democrat
cipated, and still subscribe to political plat
forms as barren and meaningless as any creed
ever written. The difference between the two
is not that the dependent mind is not emanci
pated, but that when it moves it is only to
become again a fixture. It must have a creed.
It must be orthodox in something, if only in
its scepticism. The scepticism of the depend
ent mind may be as orthodox as the faith of
the unsophisticated child. The scepticism of
every age is eventually determined by its or
thodoxy. On the other hand, independent
minds may hold fast to many traditions, but
the traditions belong to a faith which they have
mastered for themselves.
AE these varied personalities, formed by the
multitudinous and inextricable combinations
of temperament and intellectual capacity, go
the way of the world. It is the same way for
all, but it looks different, so that the environ
ment is never quite the same. It is as though
the opportunity for the development of per
sonality were the road to be traveled, and the
incidents in the development the transporta-
[24]

Temperament and Personality
tion facilities. The road may be wide or nar
row, rough or smooth, up or down; the inci
dents may be bridges over streams, short cuts
through the woods, or a lift now and then in
a variety of vehicles. We do not travel the
same stretches simultaneously ; we do not meet
the same aids or difficulties under the same cir
cumstances, or with the same companions; we
do not have the same experiences when we re
trace our steps, for we have grown, or others
have altered the roadway, or the landmarks
have disappeared. We go sometimes with the
crowd and sometimes against it, but we never
get our bearings until we have gone at times
alone, and blazed our own path. In the re
ligious or moral life, unbounded reliance on
parents, or friends, or guides, prevents orien
tation, and one should learn to travel by the
heavenly bodies.
Opportunity for the development of per
sonality is found in antecedents, age, lan
guage, family, race, church, occupation, soci
ety. The fundamental opportunity for every
one is found in antecedents, Jt is the pre-
[25]

The Religion of a Democrat
rogative of every child to be well-born, but
every child is not. Rich and poor alike, they
may carry to their graves the marks of a bad
beginning. It is not impossible to overcome
the handicap, but those who do may develop
backbone at the expense of a weak heart, they
may hold their heads high, but still limp.
Perhaps I can best represent how opportu
nity affects temperament and general intel
lectual capacity if I describe briefly the career
of a well-known man. He was bound over to
a farmer at the age of eight, and stayed with
him eight years. Therefore, at the age of
sixteen he had spent half of his hfe as a farm
laborer, and he had no knowledge of letters, —
nothing, in fact, of what we call education.
But he had a mature mind, for one cannot be
out in the fields all day without thinking; un
less, like the Maine farmer who, describing the
occupations of the long winter evenings, said,
"We just set, and think, and some of us just
set!" When he was released from his inden
ture, he went to school and to college. He
flew through the grades, and completed a col'
[26]

Temperament and Personality
lege course in two years. He got enough
money by teaching to keep him in the univer
sity until he had been granted his doctor's de
gree, became a professor, and was accounted
an educated and cultivated man. Then he
spent five years in Europe and returned a free
lance. When I first saw him I heard him speak
from the platform. He gave one of the most
interesting lectures I have ever heard, but
there was something queer about it. It was
progressive and showed wide research, but
there was something odd about it. Why did
a man who knew his craft, and thought so in
dependently express himself in just that way?
There was something about him. not to be
found in the typical cultured man lecturing.
It was the result of the long years when he
did not have opportunity. Such lack of op
portunity would have embittered many men,
for although he had made for himself happy
fortunes, he could never reclaim the losses of
sixteen neglected years. Like every man his
opportunities were limited by his antecedents.
[27]

The Religion of a Democrat
The age at which opportunity comes has
much to do with its value. In contrast with
the instance just cited, one is reminded of the
unnatural experience of John Stuart Mill.
He was a child of exceptional precocity, per
sonally trained by a pedantic, but learned
father, who taught him prematurely all things
except religion, which was totally omitted.
Nothing but John Stuart Mill's religious tem
perament prevented his being a prig. Al
though he remained rationalistic to the end,
his life was distinctly a religious one, but the
half -suppressed wails of that hungry soul show
the necessity of permitting children to be chil
dren, even to the point of letting them embrace
superstitions. A child is a product, not only of parents,
but of the race, and in accordance with its in
heritance of racial instincts, it almost invari
ably passes through a theological period, and
should have the chance to get orthodox experi
ence. The spirit of the age was in the boy,
reproached by his mother for not saying his
prayers, who replied, "No, I didn't pray to-
[28]

Temperament and Personality
night, and I didn't pray last night, and I ain't
goin' to pray tomorrow night. Then if noth-
in' happens, I ain't never goin' to pray again!"
If the child is not forced into dogmatic knowl
edge beyond his immaturity, his companions
or his observation will supply the needed ra
tionalism in a normal home.
Language exercises a subtle influence over
the spiritual life. In the language of the
house and of the street it is wonderful how
many theological terms are used, and although
the use is predominantly irreligious, the vocab
ulary points to rehgious environment. The
majority of those who use profanity are
doubtless orthodox. A convinced, conscien
tious agnostic or atheist would hardly habit
ually take the name of God in vain, but it is
done quite casually by the conventional believ
er. Any rehgion which we possess, or profess,
came to us after we got our language, and the
substance of it often is linguistic, rather than
the product of experience. The influence of
language is akin to that of family. It is early
and immediate. We cannot always predicate
[29]

The Religion of a Democrat
that the influence of a religious household will
be religious, because temperament again must
be considered ; but where the spirit is religious,
rather than merely pious or theological, the
rarified atmosphere is likely to keep the spir
itual lungs sound.
It is not possible or desirable to eliminate
racial characteristics. They may be combined
in the same family, in the production of con
trasting personalities, but they are predomi
nantly similar. Religion, culture, politics, —
all are circumscribed by race. To the common
life, however, there comes most encouragement
in the experience of little Switzerland. Its
twenty-six federated cantons include not only
mountain and valley, pastoral, agricultural,
and industrial influences; but three nationali
ties, Italian, French and German; three races,
Romantic, Teutonic, Hebraic; three rehgions,
Protestant, Catholic, Jewish; and five lan
guages, Italian, French, German, Romansch,
and Yiddish, inextricably interwoven in the
finest example of solidarity recorded in his-
[30]

 Temperament and Personality
tory. Democracy rises to heights as yet un-
attained by race or religion.
This is not without moment when we turn
to society as affording or restricting opportu
nity for the development of personality. We
must not underestimate its significance. There
are standards of ethics and manners and human
relations that fluctuate with every community,
race and nation. They vary in different parts
of one country, even our own country. There
is more courtesy in some parts than in others,
more adherence to clan, more regard for so-
called inferior races. But you can never pre
dict from what you chance to see in any place
what is its highest standard of morals or con
ception of rehgion. The courtly gentleman
may be a brute, more of a brute than the vul
gar or unconventional rustic.
All sorts of elements go to make up each
one of us, and even the people who are most
emancipated intellectually recognize that it is
not only practical, wise and courteous, but just,
that we should avoid offending too much the
[31]

The Religion of a Democrat
social sensibilities of our neighbors. There is
no reason why we should flaunt our views in
the faces of people to whom they are unpleas
ant. Yet, on the whole, we conform to the
rules of society, not from any scrupulous de
sire to do honor and justice to our neighbor,
but for the sake of convenience. It therefore
leads to hypocrisy and affectation. Whether
a man is orthodox or unorthodox, it is often
social cowardice that prevents free expression,
and this cowardice affects the rationalist as
well as others. The other extreme is that of
importunate manifestation on the part of the
individual who thinks that thereby he demon
strates his puny grasp of truth. The people
who get up in prayer meetings and shout
"Amen" and "Glory to God" are of this type,
and also those who think that the world can
only be saved by voting the party ticket. One
cannot judge from the expression of it how
radical a faith it is — it is the type of mind that
is shown.
The institutions and customs of society af
fect different personalities differently at dif-
[32]

Temperament and Personality
f erent times, but the normal development fol
lows a chronological progression which is sim
ilar for all temperaments, securing differen
tiation through the temperamental variation.
Incidents in this chronology may be the cru
cial physical experiences of puberty and ado
lescence, the susceptibility of school days, love
and self -surrender and the maturing influences
of books, travel, friends.
In the periods of puberty and adolescence
the mind begins to question the meaning of
hfe, and to find the individual's place in the
world, and that is the time when we are most
likely to affect the character of the individual.
If we do not have a proper respect for our
children, in the period when their minds are
impressionable, they will secure their training
elsewhere, for it takes place at this time willy-
nilly. It is important that this influence
should be exercised in full cognizance of the
problems of the coming century, and with due
reference to the personal equation.
If we are to preach a rational religion, it
must be to people who are matured, but that
[33]

The Religion of a Democrat
may be done better if the foundations have
been laid during this impressionable period.
It does not appear that these foundations
ought necessarily to be the same as the super
structure. It is not a good thing to lay foun
dations of brick ; even when the edifice is to be
of brick, the foundation should be of stone.
Children are normally inclined to be orthodox.
Their theology is necessarily crude, and we
should tolerate the primitive in them. The
revelations of a new world in puberty, and the
dreamy contemplative period of adolescence,
are times to allow liberty to the individual soul,
not to demand conformity to either orthodox
or liberal religious institutions and dogmas.
In the school, children are helpful to each
other; the companionship, the friction of mind
on mind, the contact of soul with soul, may
be of greater value in forming character than
the definite instructions of the class-room, or
even the influence of the teacher's personality.
Morris was right when he said that fellowship
is life and the lack of it death.
Later, there is the great critical period that
[34]

Temperament and Personality
almost inevitably comes, when one is in love.
The softening of rugged natures or the
strengthening of timid ones, the awakening of
the sluggish or the subjection of the aggres
sive attends the dawn of the light of love, as
warmth and growth follow the rising sun.
The import for the religious life can be seen
when one's emotions surge up, and his egoism
is overwhelmed, because there is something on
the horizon more important than himself.
There must also come a time when the mind
opens to the standards of the higher hfe
through reading books. Perhaps it may be
that the majority are not much influenced by
books. Yet if the right book comes at the
right moment, it is convincing and imperative
in its directing power. There is an independ
ence in its acceptance that makes increasingly
significant the democratic influence of the pub-
he library, which is reaching the American
youth numerically, far beyond the old private
hbrary or individual teacher. If we facihtate
these opportunities, if we really guide the
helm of such education, we shall accomplish
[35]

The Religion of a Democrat
as much as if we gave direct ethical instruc
tion. The advantages of travel and its minor dis
advantages are not without moment. When
a young man goes as a student to Germany,
and begins to see the larger world, it changes
the bent of his mind. His ideas of people and
institutions — of hfe itself — all shift, and he
not infrequently throws away his juvenile be
liefs. He does not, therefore, throw away his
religion. Yet sometimes the suddenness of the
reaction, when his education has been narrow,
will lead to unwholesome rebellion. But we
are not going, in consequence, to limit travel,
because it broadens the mind, nor are we going
to encourage indiscriminate travel in order to
open the mind. With the growth of the hori
zon of his world, he gains, as far as human
faculties are able, relationship with the uni
verse. If he cannot know absolutely the uni
verse, he can still get his best possible con
ception of infinity.
For the adult, as for the child, there is need
of friends and fellowship. Professor John
[36]

Temperament and Personality
Dewey has said that definite ethical instruc
tion is quite unimportant as compared with
the subtle influence of another personality at
the critical moment. It is to be hoped that
the members of ethical organizations and the
communicants of the churches do not feel that
the spoken word from the platform or pulpit
is all the significance in a meeting of people.
Men and women do not always express their
opinions, but they create an atmosphere in the
community and in society, as in the fellowship
of rehgion. To have religion cordial, less
trivial, with more vitality in it, increases the
vividness of faith. With the revolutions and
changes that have followed the contributions
of science, with the enlarged critical attitude,
and the possibility of fusing various tempera
ments, more people should have genuine,
strong personalities than ever before in the
world. This ought not to mean the denial of
religion; but that religion is to be less dog
matic, more spontaneous, more genuine, more
personal, and at the same time more social.
It is good to live for others ; it is better to live
[37]

The Religion of a Democrat
for all the others. That is the rehgion of a
democrat — the dynamic to secure the realiza
tion of the fulness of life for all people.

[38]

THE CONSTRAINT OF
ORTHODOXY

[39]

CHAPTER II
THE CONSTRAINT OF ORTHODOXY
IF each personality is to have a religion of
his own stamped with the hall-mark of his
individual temperament, will the necessity
of drawing upon the vitality of the common
contemporary hfe still condone orthodoxy?
Orthodoxy is the consensus of opinion of a
certain period; it may be of the immediate,
but is usually of the remoter past. Ortho
doxy is not necessarily the most conservative
thought. Progressive ideas may be incorpo
rated into the accepted faith, as well as conserv
ative conceptions. When the Roman Catholic
church declared the dogma of the infallibility
of the Pope, there was added conservatism to
faith; yet in the same generation, there were
modifications in favor of liberalism. Ortho
doxy is a less intense temperamental expression
[41]

The Religion of a Democrat
than conformity. A man who has been con
victed of heresy is a man who doubts, but who
wants to conform, and believes that he ought
to conform and remain in the church. Con
formity recognizes the esprit de corps of an
ancient organization without1 bowing to the
yoke of antiquity. Bishop Potter was asked
by a young clergyman if he, the Bishop, were
a high churchman. "When I came to New
York," the young man said, "I was under that
impression, but now my conclusion is differ
ent." Bishop Potter said: "When I came
to New York, this house in which I live was
'way up town ; now it's 'way down town." So
it is quite conceivable that the church, thought,
and society may move while we stand still,
and it is not always possible to remain ortho
dox by standing still.
The constraint of orthodoxy may be seen
as a handicap on thought, as cowardice in mor
als, as destroying spontaneity, and in the em
phasis of non-essentials. This constraint is
particularly that of making people cowardly
in thought and morals. There is a certain aq-
[42]

The Constraint of Orthodoxy
cepted faith in which we have grown up, or
we may have adopted it from choice. It is
only with an act of courage and vigor that we
come forth and announce a new conviction.
We do not all enjoy great individuality, but
there should be opportunity for expressing
what we have. Orthodoxy tends, also, to em
phasize non-essentials. Look to the history of
any great faith, and you will find that the
conventional expression of it was marked by
the exaltation of non-essentials. When we
try to express our conception of democratic
rehgion, to discover a basis for human broth
erhood, we learn that we must unite upon some
simple declaration of faith — find some great
common denominator by which we may in
tegrate life ; but when we rigidly cling to some
orthodox faith we are laying the emphasis on
non-essentials. Orthodoxy being correct ideas sanctioned by
some accepted authority, it naturally governs
not only rehgious faith, but social, political,
and economic behefs. The similarity of the
influence of the various orthodoxies may be
[43]

The Religion of a Democrat
appreciated if we speak of religious orthodoxy
as devotion; of social orthodoxy, as conven
tionality; of political orthodoxy as loyalty;
and of economic orthodoxy as class-conscious
ness. In religious orthodoxy we find on the one
hand devotion to dogma, and on the other
devotion to sect. It is just as well that stu
dents of ethics should see that it is commonly
action that determines thought, conduct which
determines faith. It is no doubt true that
some people's profession is better than their
hves; but, taking society as a whole, its con
duct is often better than its faith — it is fre
quently more humane. For example, in
Great Britain, at the beginning of the nine
teenth century, the law imposed the death pen
alty for the stealing of a sheep or of five shil
lings. But the judges were more humane
than the law, and gradually the law had to be
modified. The conventional, the orthodox ex
pression in legislation, had to accommodate it
self to human conduct, which was better than
the legal dogma. [44]

The Constraint of Orthodoxy
So in the religious life, it is the slow im
provement of conduct, the gradually develop
ing code of morality of the period which de
termines the orthodox faith. We may retain
the old words, and still read new conceptions
into them, as we do with both creeds and con
stitutions. Therefore the tenacity with which
we chng to a sect will be greater than the te
nacity with which we cling to dogma. Many
people conform, and remain devoted to the
church, because they think they can modify
its dogma and confession of faith more read
ily than by going outside. There are those
who scrupulously do what others cannot do,
stay within a church which does not represent
their personal conviction, because they feel
that the faith wiU triumph.
It may be argued that contemporary or
thodoxy will ultimately be found incorrect be
cause past orthodoxy has always proved false.
It is easier to reason from analogy that the
current orthodoxy we retain, — rehgious, politi
cal, social, economic, — has no more foundation
than the orthodoxy we have rejected. The
[45]

The Religion of a Democrat
impropriety of claiming any faith as authorita
tively orthodox is manifest if we observe the
conflict of the orthodoxies. From the most
contrasted to the nearest of kin, the one re
gards the other with pity or contempt. The
obsession with one's own orthodoxy may not
only constrain the intellectual vision but pro
duce moral obhquity.
There were people who read and accepted
the teachings of the late Colonel Ingersoll and
were aided by them. But those who were con
sumed in their zeal for righteousness rather
than rationalism were not helped at all, they
were not led into any higher hfe or thought.
He repelled them, and this repulsion was prob
ably legitimate. It was dangerous to make
so much of "the mistakes of Moses." They
were not the mistakes of Moses, and many,
even of the orthodox, have been moved by the
results of modern criticism to see that there
are two decalogues and two series of laws in
the Pentateuch, and that these early books are
imperfect in many ways. But the fact that
there were early writers who endeavored to
[46]

The Constraint of Orthodoxy
bring together these histories and sayings, and
attempted to reconcile them, is a greater tribute
to their intrinsic merit than the idea that they
were written by Moses. Colonel Ingersoll
would have been just as much offended as the
Christians were with his books, if some one
else had written on the mistakes of McKinley,
for Ingersoll was one of the most orthodox of
pohtical adherents. It was the blunder of one
orthodox man having no respect for the be
liefs of men with another brand of orthodoxy.
Crossing in a steamer once, from Philadel
phia to a European port, were a number of
Mormons going over to proselyte in Europe.
They were given a chance to talk one Sunday
evening. It was unexpectedly impressive ; the
man who gave the address was an honest man;
he was a devout believer and spoke intelli
gently. He told of the Mormon revelation —
how the leaves of gold were handed down to
the first prophet, how he had them transliter
ated and translated, how, unfortunately, the
leaves of gold were lost, and how the transla
tion also was lost. All the evidences were
[47]

The Religion of a Democrat
gone, but they still believed in that revelation.
It was a remarkable spectacle, but what was
most impressive was the contempt of the or
thodox people present for this Mormon faith,
founded on lost records. They were entirely
forgetful of the fact that as regards the ten
commandments there is no more secure foun
dation for the Jewish or Christian faith. They
could not see that the virtue in their code is in
its ethical quality. One orthodox group could
not understand another orthodox group in
points where the basis of orthodoxy was iden
tical. A church federation in New York caused a
good deal of discussion and even animosity in
the country because they left out the Unita
rians and certain other religious faiths. It
was an evangelical organization, which unites
in a conformity which they can comprehend.
It is not necessary to discuss whether they are
right or wrong. It is conceivable that if they
had included the Unitarians, they would have
left out some other faith, whose members were
equally desirous of serving the world. It is
[48]

The Constraint of Orthodoxy
not less than the brand of Cain that one type
of religion puts upon another.
During the Russo-Japanese war most of our
sympathies were with Japan; and the people
who sympathized with Russia did so, generally,
not from a consideration of the merits of the
controversy, but because the Greek church
(which is custodian of the faith in Russia)
is more nearly akin to the Roman Catholic
church and the Church of England, than is
the paganism of the Japanese. Consequently,
their sympathies went out to the Russians,
simply because of an alleged religious fellow
ship. But surely there should be a deeper re
lation between a good Japanese and a good
Christian than between two churchmen who
use the same words periodically in religious
worship. The communion of responsive
hearts needs not the sanction of the laying on
of hands.
Whatever we may feel about religious or
thodoxy, we shall sympathize more with what
is to us heterodox if we see how far orthodoxy
expresses itself in other phases of our life.
[49]

The Religion of a Democrat
Orthodoxy is most conspicuous in social life.
It is not so thoroughly organized ; its tradition
is not so long; but it is just as imperious in
social life as in religion. It is determined
largely by the upper classes, as they are called
in Europe; and here by the incipient leisure
class, even though it consist largely of noviti
ates. What is the foundation of the faith of
social orthodoxy? Let us do justice to it. It
has a long pedigree of merit, and most social
usages originate in actual service and real
courtesy. But how often it holds up artificial
standards and yields uncompromising recog
nition to worn out customs ! To these is given
worshipful allegiance by weak and irrational
conventions. In one of Howells' farces, the
crisis is reached in the hero's dilemma of being
without his dress coat for the immediate occa
sion. The play was once the unfortunate
choice of the Hull House Dramatic Club.
The audience remained stolid and apathetic,
with no wonted exuberance of enjoyment and
applause, since they were mystified and non-
[50]

The Constraint of Orthodoxy
plussed by the agitation over an inconsequen
tial misfortune.
Social orthodoxy is easily seen in the attitude
of well-to-do people towards domestic serv
ants. One hears constantly of the insoluble
problem of domestic service; we have to put
up with incompetency and indifference at ex
orbitant wages. But we must have them — it
is said. It is not merely a question of trouble.
It is often more trouble to keep servants than
to do without. But to part with them would
be a menace to social position ; it is orthodox to
keep them. It is our accustomed faith, and
we do not know any other. We have tried to
solve the problem by seventeenth century per
sonal methods, and we are failing, not assur
edly because of the application of reason or
rationalism, but because we are clinging to an
outworn custom.
It may be remembered that Eugene Richter,
in his criticism of Social Democracy, said that
the reason why the Germans and other people
could not enter upon such a democratic regime
[51]

The Religion of a Democrat
was because it involved the universal necessity
of polishing one's own shoes — das Allge-
meinestiefelputzenmussen. The heterdoxy of
President Lincoln is conspicuous by contrast
in the familiar story of the Ambassador who,
finding the President engaged in this humble
occupation, exclaimed, "Why, do you polish
your own shoes?" "Yes," said Lincoln, "whose
shoes do you polish?" In America, where
quite a few of the socially orthodox have pol
ished their own shoes, this special obstacle to
democracy is not so formidable — yet it is akin
to many other conventions. Could anything
be more puerile than to let one's conception of
society hinge on anything so trivial? Still al
most every one, in even the humblest society,
is similarly susceptible.
A frequent attitude toward the Japanese
and Chinese is most unreasonable and may
involve us in serious difficulties. We have
had the question before our courts, pushed
with all the energy of the Pacific coast, as to
whether the Japanese shall not be excluded
from the same schools from which we exclude
[52]

The Constraint of Orthodoxy
the Chinese. Quite aside from the question
of oriental competition, surely in our commer
cial and economic relations, there is only one
way to view a man, and that is as a man. Many
Occidentals are not prepared to view as men
either the Japanese or the Chinese, which ob
viously reflects upon themselves more than
upon other men. It is safe to venture the
statement that Americans and Europeans gen
erally have a higher opinion of the Japanese
than of the Chinese. But this opinion may not
be founded upon any special experience, or at
best upon a very limited experience. At the
Saint Louis exposition, I had the opportunity
of hearing a Chinese woman address several
thousand members of the Federation of Wom
en's Clubs* and of dining and spending the
evening with a Chinaman. The woman was
a doctor of philosophy from Bryn Mawr, a
talented woman who, not only had the edu
cation of American women, but in addition,
oriental culture. They knew the English lan
guage as we could never hope to know the
Chinese, yet they were still Chinese, with thou-
[53]

The Religion of a Democrat
sands of years of venerable tradition bound up
in them. If we have no veneration for the
ancient why should we at the same time de
spise the immature? If the negro race can
produce a Booker Washington, surely it is
time to abandon our social orthodoxy, and
agree that "a man's a man for a' that." Until
we do, we have no right to raise our voices
against religious orthodoxy.
If we speak of religious orthodoxy as devo
tion, political orthodoxy is loyalty. What
will not a man do for that? Is it loyalty to
his country? Not at all. Is it loyalty to his
fellowmen? No. It is loyalty to party. Is
there any more hopeless orthodoxy than that
of the man who always votes his party-ticket
— and he is numbered by the million! It is
more hurtful to us than is wrong political
theory. Mr. Wells, in "The Future in Amer
ica" has shown us what a remarkable people
we are to cling to tradition. Our political
thought is still largely in the eighteenth cen
tury; it has not reached the nineteenth, not to
say the twentieth. Yet all that devotion to
[54]

The Constraint of Orthodoxy
tradition does not compare with a man's fealty
to his party.
When the Democratic party begins to advo
cate municipal ownership, and government
regulation of private ownership, it is illogical.
The Republican party is the party of paternal
ism, although it has represented the govern
ment of the strong against the weak. But
this does not worry us at all. When Demo
cratic editors, who have always beheved in lib
erty and individualism, advocate public own
ership is it because they believe in it, or be
cause they are "democratic"? No, but because
they have a great political organization to up
hold. One of our most ancient and pernicious
legacies is the orthodox system of checks in
our nation. We have the Senate checking the
House, the President checking both, and the
Supreme Court checking all three. We have
all kinds of checks, by which we hope to get
an automatic, political system. We have even
introduced this limit of political imbecility
into our city governments. We have in some
of our cities two councilmanic bodies, one to
[55]

The Religion of a Democrat
check the other, and the result is to checkmate
the people. We also still cling to the idea
that the best government is that which gov
erns least. It is an unqualified contradiction,
because the best governed places are those gov
erned most — that is, where the government is
most efficient, and least corrupt. When every
thing is entrusted to private enterprise it
means that government is doing things cir-
cuitously, clumsily, corruptly.
We have gradually grown to the belief that
one man power will secure results for us. The
one man power is an easy method of carrying
out that system of checks. It is the device of
lazy citizens, who do not want to do anything
for themselves. That is a legitimate concep
tion if you believe in autocracy. Because
when you choose your representative, you are
confusing the idea of democracy with the idea
that one man is by some miracle going to do
everything for the public good, without the
people taking any initiative. We can see how
we came by this way of thinking. Consider
our big corporations, which are so splendidly
[56]

The Constraint of Orthodoxy
organized; think of a great railroad system
with a genius at the head, a wonderful admin
istration — wonderful facihty with which one
man is allowed to represent the stockholders.
The great object is that the corporation shall
be profitable, which does not mean serviceable.
If it is serviceable, it is that it may be more
profitable. It is one of those illusory forms
of orthodoxy which make us supine. We see
a well-managed organization, and we do not
ask the question whether it might not be bet
ter to do things ourselves — morally, and spirit
ually, as well as economically better — to par
ticipate in the management of our lives. In
American parlance, "We are after results!"
the method by which Esau attained distinc
tion in history!
If political orthodoxy is loyalty, and reli
gious orthodoxy devotion, economic orthodoxy
is represented by the familiar term "class-con
sciousness." Whether it be the class-con
sciousness of the capitalist, or that of the
working man, it represents orthodoxy. We
have been brought up to bow before the fetich
[57]

The Religion of a Democrat
of competition. In our economic ritual we
are accustomed to such antiphonal responses
as "competition is the hfe of trade," "business
is business," "every man for himself and the
devil take the hindmost ;" "let him get who can,
and keep who is able;" or, as it has been re
cently revised, "I want what I want when I
want it." That expresses the economic faith
of most of us, or the "service" we render in
lieu of faith. It is peculiarly difficult for us
to turn to any other belief. The person who
disbelieves in competition must follow his in
dustrial leaders, he cannot altogether abandon
in practice, his orthodox, economic faith, which
seems to be completely supported by the trend
of events, by his own success or failure.
Through the last century, or more, of great
industrial development there have come into
play certain forces so convincing in their re
sults that they condition our economic faith.
Science and industry, practical science and the
great doctrine of evolution, all seem to con
firm our faith in the survival of the fittest.
There is nothing more logical than going back
[58]

The Constraint of Orthodoxy
to nature. There are still multitudes of peo
ple who do not follow Darwin in his "Origin
of Species," but, on the whole, the idea of
evolution has percolated and permeated all
through human consciousness, until we accept
so much as seems to conform to our methods
of industry.
"Hustle" is our god, and Mr. Kidd and Mr.
Mallock are his prophets. In the utterances
of Mr. Mallock and of Professor Barrett
Wendell we have the apotheosis of genius.
They say that the great man produces by his
genius what the multitude cannot produce, and
the power of the social genius raises the multi
tude to the maximum of liberty. But they
overlook the fact that the evolution of the mul
titude makes the genius possible. Man makes
a railroad, and more people can travel. The
standard of living is raised, and all want to be
able to come up to that standard. The big
man is enriched because he does these things,
but he lives because we live ; we do not live be
cause he lives.
Then again there is another economic shib-
[59]

The Religion of a Democrat
boleth, the Anglo-Saxon idea of liberty. It
has run riot with us. It means the right,
seemingly, to do as one pleases, and most of us
live by this faith. In all candor, — do we not?
Do we not, whatever our social or political af
filiation, obey that facile law when the crucial
moment comes? Do we not take the law into
our own hands? Our ethical standards are
such that we are tempted to do it in many cases.
We do not perhaps rob great corporations, or
break into banks, or steal from our neighbor — ¦
but we fail to pay our taxes, or we beat the
railway companies or the custom house. There
are various methods by which we can condone
our offenses. What is the use of paying the
full rate when other people are paying one-
half or one-fifth. There is no justice in a man's
laying on himself these unnecessary burdens!
But if the law is unjust, it should be modified.
To disobey the law is to demand personal lib
erty against social welfare. Until we can get
our practical ethics attuned to fine, moral dis
criminations we are still orthodox economists.
Perhaps the most significant example of this
[60]

The Constraint of Orthodoxy
tendency to adhere to orthodox economic faith
is represented in the revolt against it. Many
are coming to see that organized society is su
perior to the individual, that the welfare of
the mass is better than the welfare of the unit.
In the extension of social functions lies the
hope of laying the foundations for a sound
pohtical structure. But the people who most
clearly enunciate this doctrine, who see the
tendency of the great corporations to central
ize power and wealth, — the sociahsts, — have
their faith built upon orthodox foundations.
It is curious that socialist economics are traced
back to orthodox economics in England and
Germany. The premises upon which Marx
builds are found in the classical political econ
omy. The devotion to Karl Marx is a devotion
similar to that which other people pay to
Moses, or Paul, Hamilton, or Jefferson. On
the part of many it is thought out clearly, and
one is inclined to join in what Mr. J. G.
Brooks has said, that no group of people are
thinking so hard as the socialists; but their
thought is limited by the fact that they started
[61]

The Religion of a Democrat
from orthodox dogmas, and it is hard for them
to become heterodox or progressive.
Orthodoxy, as has been said, is not merely
religious. It is likely to affect people through
the whole range of their thought. As there
are people who are temperamentally orthodox,
so there are people who are temperamentally
heterodox. We, and they, have a perfect right
to say that our orthodoxy cannot be wholly
wrong, since it is the result of the great tradi
tions of the human race. There must be
sound, valuable, ethical content in a religious,
social, political or economic belief, to make it
prevail. It is orthodoxy's privilege, "to keep
the faith." But faith is a dynamic itself, and
many orthodox people, though hampered in
their thinking and living by their orthodoxy,
are nevertheless more sympathetic with the
progress of the day, and are contributing more
to it, than many other people who have no eco
nomic, political, or religious faith at all.
Still orthodoxy obscures the infinite and uni
versal. The use of the word is nearly always
arrogant, as though the appropriation of a
[62]

The Constraint of Orthodoxy
Greek designation for right thinking in itself
guarantees the thought. No body of doctrine
can secure the consent of the ages unless it
include vital truth ; but the stamp of orthodoxy
is put upon the ephemeral and personal vani
ties* as freely as it is upon the eternal verities.
Some religions provide food for the dead, an
obviously mundane observance, which seems
absurd to those people who are looking for a
promised land in some definite portion of the
earth's surface, an equally finite faith. The
unconcern for the infinities is also illustrated
in prayer for physical needs. There is a
pretty naivete in the child's supplication for
all sorts of impossible benefactions; but there
is an egotistical contempt for the laws of the
universe, and, "the ways which are past finding
out" of the infinite Power, in the bland request
of the adult, that these laws be suspended for
his personal convenience.
The conflict of orthodoxy and heterodoxy
may be never-ending; but a democratic re
ligion, while leaving the individual free in non
essentials, will seek to relate man to the realm
[63]

The Religion of a Democrat
of infinite and universal Truth, where there is
no speech or language, where its voice is not
heard. Shall we recognize the voice of Truth
because it speaks the patois of orthodoxy or
commands with stentorian tones of authority?
When we pass from the constraint of ortho
doxy to the decay of authority we may find that
adventitious or external aid is unnecessary be
cause the faith of the common hfe is made
intelligible to the democratic believer by a still,
small voice.

[64]

THE DECAY OF AUTHORITY

[65]

CHAPTER III
THE DECAY OF AUTHORITY
THE decay of authority is not complete.
Authority is still tenacious of its power,
and it is not desirable that it should ut
terly decay. As Emerson said, "The creeds
into which we were initiated in childhood and
youth no longer hold their place in the minds
of thoughtful men, but they are not nothing
to us, and we hate to have them treated with
contempt." We are only passing from he
reditary, traditional authority to spontaneous,
individual and social authority; the decay is
the decay of irresponsible, injudicious and ir
rational authority.
John Ruskin has a memorable passage in
which he observes the difference between a
faithful dog and a house-fly. He is writing
and his dog is impatient to take a walk, but
[67]

The Religion of a Democrat'
is compelled to tarry until his master has fin
ished. The dog is told to wait and he waits
obediently. Meanwhile, a common house-fly
buzzes with impunity about the poet's head
and lights impudently upon the nose of the
dog, lawless, unrestrained. Ruskin says that
this is the idea of liberty which some people
hold before themselves; to do just what they
please. Surely the house dog, subject to obe
dience, is superior to the house-fly, which
knows no law.
Obedience to a chosen and worthy authority
is not the same, however, as blind obedience,
devoid of reason. Kate Douglas Wiggin has
characterized the boy who stood upon the burn
ing deck as an "inspired idiot," human author
ity triumphing over natural law. He had
learned self-sacrifice, but not self -direction. It
has been one of the contradictory faults of
our growing democracy that we have been slow
to recognize that, while bhnd obedience is de
structive of character, intelligent obedience
may be up-building and helpful. The en
deavor to break ancient bonds and establish
[68]

The Decay of 'Authority

new laws involves danger. In discussing the
decay of authority it is necessary to recognize
that, rid of old fetters, we must still respect
new bonds ; if the old testament is broken, we
are under the spell of new gospels.
It is logical to note first the decay of per
sonal authority, which is manifest in the case
of the decline of parental control, especially
that of the father. It has progressed so far
in America that we may be inclined to give a
new interpretation to the saying "The child
is father of the man," since there is open re
bellion against the impertinence of the Amer
ican child. This assists us in understanding
the decline of parental authority. There can
be no reverence unless there are objects worthy
to be revered. The flippancy of the Amer
ican adult would naturally rob him of the re
spect once enforced by a conventional dig
nity. There has also been, throughout the last cen
tury, frequent interference by the state with
the power of the parent. With the develop
ment of the English factory system, the abso-
[69]

The Religion of a Democrat
lute control of the child's hfe began to reveal
itself as inhuman and undesirable. In spite
of the exploitation of children by their par
ents, it took many years to bring about even
temperate legislation, because of the dread
that in interfering with old standards, they
would "flee to ills they knew not of." So
noble a humanitarian as John Bright objected
to the passage of the factory laws, hmiting the
age of children and the hours of child labor in
the factories, because this would interfere with
the moral responsibility of the fathers, and the
paternalism of the state might thereby sup
plant parental affection. But in the course of
the century, we have been compelled to hedge
about that father, to impress upon him his du
ties, to command and compel him to care for
the child for whose protection his love has
proved insufficient.
A noticeable decline is also witnessed in the
authority of the husband over the wife. Most
people are still married by the old formula in
which the wife promises to love, honor and
obey; but an increasing number use the words
[70]

The Decay of Authority

as they do those of their creeds, with a reser
vation; while those are multiplying who are
willing to place the sexes on a basis of equal
authority. If there must be authority in the
house, it is said, let it be a matter of function,
not to be determined by sex alone, but with
reference to all the interests of the home. It
is only necessary to look about, however, to
find that this loss of authority by the husband
has plunged us into a maelstrom of moral and
social problems, not because we ought to go
back to recognizing the old authority of the
"head of the house," but because the newer
democratic system is still undeveloped.
A similar decline is to be observed in the
authority of the employer, not merely in the
older patriarchal sense, but in the larger con
ception of the representative of society. In
the old industrial relations, the employer had
absolute responsibility for the life of his em
ployee, and with that went a corresponding
authority. The evolution of industry has
given the employer a new supremacy, but it
is not personal, as it was in the older systems,
[71]

The Religion of a Democrat
In all of these cases, of father, husband, or
employer, the decline of personal authority
has exhibited a tendency from the spiritual
to the pecuniary relationship. At first thought
this is discouraging to all who are trying to
enlarge the spiritual bounds of society; but it
must be conceded that the drift is, for the most
part, wholesome. The pecuniary control of
the master of the purse over children and wife,
or the cash relation between employer and em
ployed, gives a freedom to the individuahty
of the dependent which is not possible when
one personality is authoritatively imposed up
on another. It is only through the prelim
inary substitution of the pecuniary for the
personal dominance that we can hope to reach
eventual emancipation.
The weakening of economic authority has
passed through certain conspicuous historic
stages. In the old feudal relationship there
was a condition or status, in many ways satis
factory to the people who, accustomed to its
restraint, lived under it with little friction. To
large communities for centuries it seemed de-
[72]

The Decay of Authority

sirable, and the breaking with it brought dis
aster. The lords under the feudal system felt
responsibility and exercised it in a way the
employer of labor to-day does not and cannot
think of doing. Loyalty and chivalry in in
dustry have passed; but they are regretted only
by those who rejoice in the power of domina
tion. As this authority was broken, a transi
tional domestic system simply intensified the
personal relation. The employer and the em
ployee worked side by side, frequently lived
under the same roof, and the workman often
married into the employer's family. From the
standpoint of productivity, it was an idyllic
relationship; but there was not the power of
social, intellectual, and moral growth which is
in the system which succeeded it.
At first glance it seems like a distinct retro
gression to pass on to the capitalistic organiza
tion of society, where men are dealt with by
the mass, in contrast with the old, simple, in
dividual relationship. However, it is coming
to be seen, that, in spite of the evils of the
capitalistic system, with its loss of personality
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The Religion of a Democrat
and individual productivity, society secures a
greater freedom and the foundation of a
larger life than could have been known under
the domestic or any other personal regime.
This is observed most conspicuously if one
contrast the new industries with the survivals
of the old, domestic service or the sweating
system. Who would prefer the existence of
the sweat-shop slave, or domestic servant, to
that of the independent worker in the factory,
[under the supervision of the state? Incom
plete as is factory organization, its competi
tion threatens the extinction of those belated
industries. One must not mourn over the death of the
old system, yet in the new industrial order, it
is perfectly appalling to face the power which
resides in the hands of a few. The report of
the explosion in an Alabama mine, in which
sixty men were killed, naively stated that the
employers had done everything they could to
make the working men contented, and that the
latter were all non-union men. In a state
where legislation is difficult because of the
[74]

The Decay of Authority

recent rise from the status of primitive in
dustry, and where the employers are organ
ized, but the working men are not, explosions,
physical and otherwise, are inevitable. Yet
with the fearful multiplication of such in
stances we are undaunted, for we see that in
the present system there are possibilities not
inherent in the earlier forms of industry. We
have passed from status to contract; we shall
move on to cooperation; at first, collective
bargaining, and then collectivism. The transi
tion has been made from personal to pecuni
ary authority; it will go on to authority gained
by service, in fulfilment of the great moral
truth "he who would be chief among you, let
him be the servant of all."
All this is seen more clearly if we turn from
the decay of economic to the decline of po
litical authority. Under the feudal system
the great mass of people were deprived of
their personal liberty. They lived and died in
one place, in the service of the feudal lord.
With the first breaking away from this tyr
anny, the men who went to the towns risked
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The Religion of a Democrat
their lives, because they lost all claim on the
baron by disregarding the only responsible
authority. Nevertheless, they went to the
city, taking their lives in their hands, and there
they organized guilds for their common pro
tection. It is not necessary to elaborate the story of
the downfall of feudalism. The king saw the
possibility of building up in the cities a power
that would make him independent of the feu
dal lords. He could never have developed the
power of the crown against the lords without
the support of the cities. It was the alle
giance of the city masses which strengthened
royalty and annihilated the power of the bar
ons ; more than that, it was the inevitable prec
edent of the coming events. There could have
been no democracy without this interregnum
of the king. The divided people were incapa
ble of resisting the power of the barons; the
united people developed nationalism, and the
king was compelled to concede to them the
rudiments of representative government.
Representative government, as thus far de-
[76]

The Decay of Authority

veloped, is as unsatisfactory as many people
think the evolution of organized industry will
be. "The never-ending audacity of elected
persons" is the inevitable result of unrestrained
representation in industry or politics. One
impression we are receiving in this slow proc
ess of pohtical evolution, is that divided au
thority does not mean independence. The
possession of the suffrage for the choice of so-
called representatives does not guarantee de
mocracy. The authority is, as yet, neither with
the people, nor with the representatives. The
hereditary power of the latter is gone ; but the
voice of the former is stiU uncertain. Tradi
tional authority has been supplanted by a par
tisan, irregular, indirect authority, which
makes us almost incapable of self-government.
One of the problems of democracy is to get
the things which require attention directly and
simply before the people's minds, so that they
will exercise the authority belonging to them.
There is little choice between a hereditary ruler
and a pohtical boss; government ex cathedra
must not be mistaken for vox populi.
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The Religion of a Democrat
Perhaps better service may be secured
through good citizenship out of a double coun
cil, commissions, vetoes and all our illusory
system of checks, than bad citizens could get
out of simple, direct democracy; but it is al
together improbable in these great cities which
have suffered so long from divided authority
that they will ever get good administration un
til their attention is fixed on the single coun
cil, elected at large by direct nomination, made
fully responsible, and controlled by the refer
endum and initiative. What is true of local
government is equally true of state and federal
administration. Representative government is
a transitory, divided authority between the un
questioned hereditary power of feudalism and
the independent intelligence of democracy!
Personal, economic, political authority, —
each is being shorn of its traditional power;
and social authority must go the same way.
None of these protests inspires more regret
than the decline of the prestige of the family.
There is a great charm about the security of
position of the good old families in the more
[78]

The Decay of Authority

ancient towns. There is a fine, romantic sen^
timent about noblesse oblige. There is a loss
of delicacy and refinement with the encroach
ments of commerciahsm, but like other ancient
institutions of society, the old family can only
be said to average up well. It produces its
share, and more, of black sheep; it inspires
motives as unworthy as the most sordid pur
suit of position through pelf. The genealog
ical fakers fatten on family ambitions, and
"Revolutionary" sons and daughters attempt
to conceal their ancestral egotism under a
veneer of patriotism. A chorus of myths,
ghosts and skeletons attends the pagans which
are chanted south of Market street in Philadel
phia and in the Back Bay of Boston.
The claim that family connection can re
store the lost prestige of the vicious is a se
rious indictment. The finished product of a
good family needs no certificated tree; his
measure is merit, not pedigree. In the face
of physiological decay and degeneration, it
seems absurd that the dominance of family
should persist. Without question it gives the
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The Religion of a Democrat
opportunity for the culture and refinement of
children, yet barrenness is the fate of its ex-
clusiveness. It is perfectly true that the individual of
wealth cannot break at once into the best so
ciety; but he has only to be patient. He or
his children will enter and his progeny will be
accredited with the tradition of family. In
evitably family must buy its title to continue
its sway. The rule of wealth is repugnant to
the well-born and the cultured; but it is log
ical. Its aristocracy is no more spurious than
that of birth, and, increasingly, it will be
based on merit. The great economic interests
will not down; the control of the future be
longs to them; but it is possible that, instead
of allowing them to materiahze society, so
ciety may spiritualize them.
The one persistent influence which refuses
to yield to economic dominance is that of race ;
the decay of its authority is less apparent.
It is true that the commerce between nations
indicates the breaking down of race distinc
tions. People of a different tongue are not
[80]

The Decay of Authority

so despised by the English speaking world
as they were; but the recrudescence of race
antipathy, as manifested between the so-
called superior and inferior races, is one of
the most discouraging contradictions of our
vaunted democracy. The European white
man — and especially the English speaking
white man — is dominant not only in the Oc
cident, but in much of the Orient. We are
told that the white man must rule, whether he
rules according to the modern ideal, or ac
cording to ancient or mediaeval principles.
It is even claimed in Great Britain that a re
turn to savage methods of warfare, is essen
tial in dealing with the primitive people of
Africa. It is time to remember that the conquest of
the Anglo-Saxon (whatever that is) in Great
Britain, the United States, and Australasia,
where his triumph has been most spectacular,
is not by authority, but by assimilation. The
English race is a peculiarly mixed race, to say
nothing of the constant infusion from its still
independent allies, the Scottish, the Welsh, and
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The Religion of a Democrat
the Irish. The American is a more recent
conglomerate of various elements, but in no
conceivable sense Anglo-Saxon. Yet the so-
called Anglo-Saxon institutions, which con
trol the most important part of the world,
owe their strength to the race which adminis
ters them. The assimilation of kindred races
has been so successful, and amalgamation of
widely diverse races, either by blood or suf
frage, is so promising in Hawaii and New
Zealand, that the dispassionate observer must
cease to be dogmatic as to the racial rule of
the future. The one assured conclusion seems
to be that race dominion whether by control
or assimilation, will not soon succumb to pe
cuniary authority. Yet even here, economic
opportunity is the safest corrective of racial
antagonism, and the decline of race exploita
tion will accompany scientific, economic ad
ministration. The decay of the authority of intellect one
is still more reluctant to admit; indeed, it is
claimed that all other forms of authority
should bow before intelligence. Learning is
[82]

The Decay of Authority

worthy of all respect; the rule of the philos
ophers is to be desired; but there are just the
same fictitious claims made in its behalf as
are found in the economic and pohtical world.
The merited advantage, due to the ability to
read and write, we have largely eliminated by
popular education, but the discrepancy be
tween the most and the least learned is so con
spicuous as to constitute a form of privilege
akin to that of wealth or race. The moment
privilege loosens its grip on one thing, it takes
hold of another. To him that hath shall be
given, is a law of nature as well as of scrip
ture. It is as easy to accumulate advantage
on the basis of a liberal education as it is to
multiply riches when one has a start over one's
competitors. It is an intellectual ingrate who, having se
cured some accidental advantage over his fel
lows by superior culture, attempts to brow
beat them into permanent subjection on the
ground that they are incapable of his attain
ments. One of the ablest captains of indus
try, and contemporary lawyers (who has re-
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The Religion of a Democrat
habilitated a discredited corporation), at the
opening of a public high school delivered an
address, founded exclusively on eighteenth
century thought, the atmosphere in which the
cultured like to keep the uncultured. His
chief authority was Adam Smith whose
"Wealth of Nations," written in 1776, was
not only an epoch-making work, but bears a
peculiar aroma of sanctity by association with
the historic year in which it appeared. There
was held up to the youth of this people's col
lege, and the inhabitants of the country in
general (for the papers have given publicity
to the address) the philosophy, pohtics, and
educational ideals of the eighteenth century.
This man, whose industrial activities have
abundantly qualified him for a twentieth cen
tury position, because of the constant use of
twentieth century processes and twentieth cen
tury science, is nevertheless content with and
offers deliberately, or guilelessly, to the youth
of to-day a philosophy more than a hundred
years out of date. The address concluded
with the platitude "A little knowledge is a
[84]

The Decay of Authority

dangerous thing." Innocent of the emphasis
which his own words gave to this doctrine, the
speaker blandly warned the patrons of this
great public school that they must be content
with their humble positions and not aspire to
heights of culture. Such is the arrogance of
the intellectually privileged. The intellect
will increasingly exercise authority, but with
the growth of democratic culture, the author
ity of the intellectuals will decay.
The decay of authority is nowhere so man
ifest as in the religious world. Are people
becoming less religious, or may we hope to be
passing, as Sabatier says, from the religions
of authority to the religion of the spirit; cer
tainly authority is decadent. It is possible to
illustrate this in the history of religion, from
the most primitive superstitions to the refine
ments of the great monotheistic faiths. It
will serve our purpose, however, to draw our
illustrations from Christianity alone. Theol
ogy is always interpreted by the times. The
personal Christianity of Palestine, expressed
in the lives of those faithful followers of
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The Religion of a Democrat
Jesus, who taking him literally, both in his
economic and spiritual teachings, founded a
communistic colony, succumbed to the insti
tutional Christianity of Rome. Whatever
may have been lost in intensity by the surren
der of an ardent, personal faith, guiding
every phase of conduct, Christianity doubtless
spread through the world by capturing the
imperial influence of Rome.
The church of the middle ages felt the in
fluence of the great sense of social responsibil
ity in feudalism, then of the growing spirit
of democracy, which was incorporated in
guilds and towns, and yielded finally to the
commercialism which followed the discovery
of America. Theology and the church have
been the creatures of the time, not the creators.
Authority has been maintained by conformity
to the ruling institutions, whether in politics
or industry.
The authority of theology received a new
accession of power with the decline of eccle-
siasticism at the time of the Protestant Refor
mation. The present reaction against the
[86]

The Decay of Authority

Reformation enables us to see it in a little
clearer perspective. The right of private
judgment and liberty to read the Bible are in
estimable gains, but we are beginning to see
the price at which they were bought. Coin
cident with the Reformation was the circula
tion of books printed with movable types, and
the popular ability to read. In consequence,
not only was "the Book" substituted for the
church as the foundation for authority, but
authority in general began to be drawn from
books. The effect of the clear, black print
on the white page is so much simpler and more
vivid than other impressions for most people,
that whether they derive their opinion from
the sacred scriptures, secular books, or the
newspaper, the authority of the printed page
transcends, for those who read, all other au
thority. Even people who pride themselves
on their independent judgment will call up
from the recesses of their minds some impres
sion which, however unauthoritative, remains
indelible because of having been seen in print.
When to this authority of the book is added
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TJie Religion of a Democrat
the dogma, which naturally grew in the ill-
tutored minds of the post-Reformation popu
lation, of the infallibility of the sacred writ
ings (even when translated into the vernacu
lar), there developed an authority as com
manding as that of the church, but less
successful because of the diversity of inter
pretation, due to the right of private judg
ment. It was inevitable that the zeal of those,
who found divine sanction for their personal
opinions, should burn heretics. It is equally
inevitable that this privilege of private inves
tigation should lead ultimately to the destruc
tion of the authority of both Church and
Book. With the progress of thought and morality,
it came to pass that some of the inhuman doc
trines of the scripture and the theologians con
flicted with the humaner sentiments of the
great ethical teachers and the people. The
humanistic movements which prompted men
to more just living were seldom sanctioned by
the church, yet exercised a profound influence
on theology. The popular effect of these
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The Decay of Authority

was palpable in the growing disbelief in hell
during the nineteenth century. The scriptural
doctrine of hell is incompatible with human-
itarianism. The idea that one could commit
any offense in the brief span of human hfe
which would warrant eternal torment, was too
immoral for the enhghtenment of the nine
teenth century. The church was not only un
able to stem the tide of disbelief in hell, but
seemed to acquiesce in the idea which Carlyle
castigated, that not content to be without a hell,
the English people had devised "the heU of
not making money." The social doctrine of
the twentieth century promises to force upon
the church an even superior hell, which Charles
Ferguson calls "the hell of not making good."
The destructive attacks of the unsympa
thetic have been reenforced by the reverent
investigations of theologians. The higher
criticism of the bible which was used so ef
fectively by Spinoza and other early writers,
became both more scientific and more popular
in the nineteenth century. Higher criticism
is nothing more than reading between the lines,
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The Religion of a Democrat 
It has received most valuable contributions
from profound students of Semitic and clas
sical languages, who have investigated the
sources of the scriptural canon, but it can be
used as effectively by the reader of the trans
lated bible, who employs the common sense
method of Tolstoy. To the believer in the in
spiration of the scriptures it may be a matter
of great moment whether Moses wrote the
Pentateuch, or David wrote the Psalms, or
John the gospel, which bears his name; to the
one who knows that truth is truth, and only
truth because it is truth, it is a matter of no
moment who wrote any scriptural document.
This is increasingly the behef of the en
lightened, developing the most valuable force
witnessed in Christendom, — the measure of
the sacred by its moral value.
Modern investigations furnish three evi
dences which are profoundly influential: com
parative religion, evolution, and the changed
attitude regarding the personality and cosmic
service of Jesus. The study of comparative
religion reveals the fact that the great religions
[90]

The Decay of Authority

of the world are very similar in their origin,
their fundamental teaching, and their influ
ence. Accompanied by an appreciation of the
teachings of evolution, it is seen that these
are all growths from similar or common inspi
rations ; that if the religion of the future is to
be Christianity, it will have to be a modified
Christianity; that the evolution, for example,
of Judaism and Christianity are so similar as
to be nearly identical; and that the whole his
tory of the world allots such a small fragment
of time to Christian dogma and its institutions
that our sublime theological egotism must be
supplanted by a profounder and more in
spired faith in humanity and the power which
makes for righteousness.
We can illustrate the significance of the
decay of authority by a very brief considera
tion of the personality of Jesus, on whom are
focussed the most important of the theological
controversies. Many orthodox people accept
the results of criticism with regard to the Old
Testament, but are not yet ready to apply the
same standards to the New Testament. Yet
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The Religion of a Democrat
people of all degrees of theological conserva
tism and liberalism have had their views modi
fied regarding Jesus, and, consequently, about
the church and religion. An examination of
the historic competition between the authority
of Jesus and that of other characters will help
us most briefly to comprehend this changed
attitude. There was a conflict in Palestine between
the various schools of rabbis, and in the times
of Jesus the most spiritual leader was Hillel.
The great rabbi had his deserved following as
did the humble carpenter. Hillel's teachings
and those of Jesus were very similar; but the
simplicity and democracy of Jesus, and his
wondrous personality and martyrdom, enabled
his influence to dominate, and led to the es
tablishment of the Christian church. Then
followed the development of the Roman Cath
olic church, with its militant power, and in the
course of time the church evolved the dogma
of the divinity of Jesus.
When Jesus became God, there arose the
difficulty which has always been felt by the
[92]

The Decay of Authority

multitude, to whom the mystical doctrine of
the Trinity is inevitably a form of polytheism.
This appealing human character was removed
by the theologians so far from humanity as
to cease to be an adequate medium of ap
proach to the Father, and there was naturally
developed the intermediatory function of
Mary, who, although "Mother of God," was
human and approachable. Mary not only
proved to be a satisfactory mediator, but the
regard for her undoubtedly had a wholesome
effect in raising the estimate of womanhood
and motherhood. Yet it became repugnant
to the sterner and more precise theologians of
the Reformation, and in the reaction which
followed we find stress laid upon the theology
of Paul, which restored Jesus to his mediatory
position and made him seem less remote by
emphasizing the beliefs through which he could
be approached.
The growth of free, scientific investigation
in the nineteenth century led to the untram-
meled and revolutionary investigations of
Strauss and Baur, who found no sanction for
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The Religion of a Democrat
the inspiration of the scriptures, and so lit
tle confirmation in secular history of the events
recorded in the scriptures that they were com
pelled to believe that the whole story of Jesus
was a myth. It lost for them none of its
ethical significance; it was a beautiful picture
of the ideal life; but it had no historical com
plement. The benefit of these destructive
teachings was soon felt in the renewed investi
gations into the sources of the hfe of Jesus,
involving the application of the ripest scholar
ship of men of all views, and the restoration
of Jesus to his place in history.
Meanwhile, especially in America, there was
a wholesome influence being exercised by the
division between the Unitarian and Trinitarian
Congregationalists. The historic Jesus was
opposed to the prophetic Messiah. From the
historic Jesus (the Jesus of the gospels, not
of the theologians), came a vast ethical in
fluence, far more powerful than that of the
Messianic conception of Jesus. The life of
Jesus became more important than his death.
A more popular interpretation of the gos-
[94]

The Decay of Authority

pels, unwilling to surrender the belief in the
divinity of Christ, but examining with a free
hand the authority of scriptures, is known as
liberal orthodoxy. Recognizing that there is
only one authoritative original document back
of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
and finding the gospel of John, while very
beautiful, neither authoritative nor authentic,
they still cling to the Trinitarian conception,
based, however, on careful, scientific investi
gation. The net result of these inquiries and their
spiritual consequence is an emphasis on the
character of Jesus and his ethical teachings,
unknown to the complacent theologians and
their blind followers, who accept unquestion-
ingly the old theology, without demanding its
reflection in life. We cannot afford to lose
the vividness and the uplift of the wonderful
character of Jesus, and, happily, he is brought
nearer to the multitude by the reverent but
scientific investigations and teachings of to
day than by the authoritative dictum of earlier,
unlettered theologians, whose concern was for
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The Religion of a Democrat
church and dogma more than for the permea
tion of society with Christian ethics.1 The
authority of the old theology, of the church,
of the Christ cult (derived by Luther and
Calvin from Paul), has waned; but the moral
power of the unsullied hfe of Jesus is an in
creasing vital force.
The decay of personal, economic, political,
social, intellectual, and religious authority
is ominous. There is the inevitable danger of
apathy, rash scepticism, or cynicism. The
struggle of the privileged to maintain their
prerogatives on tottering foundations leads
the superficial thinker to attack men of straw.
When authority is identified with injustice,
tyranny, hypocrisy and superstition, the logical
protest is anarchy. The new authority must
be that of the spirit, — the spirituality of com
radeship, of cooperation, of universal suffrage
and direct legislation, of democratic culture

i Such a book as Professor Nathaniel Schmidt's " The
Prophet of Nazareth " is typical of the way in which the
most critical modern research may be combined with a rarely
beautiful and inspiring spiritual picture.
[96]

The Decay of Authority

and democratic religion. "We are delivered
from the law, that being dead wherein we
were held; that we should serve in newness
of spirit, not in the oldness of the letter."
"The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth hfe."
Upon this living law will be built the church
of democracy.

[97]

RELIGION AND THE CHURCH

[99]

CHAPTER IV
RELIGION AND THE CHURCH
THE unconstrained faith which forgets
orthodoxy in its moral enthusiasm, which
finds authority not above and beyond,
but in and about it, will not identify demo
cratic rehgion with the church of yesterday and
to-day. The measure of both religion and mor
ality is social efficiency. A distinguished
clergyman said recently in a sermon that
gained some pubhcity, — "While this is not
the most wicked age, — while, in fact, it is the
most moral age, — it is without doubt the most
godless age." Is not the opposite true, that
this is a godly but immoral age? There is
httle decline in the behef in God, but this be
lief, like many others, has lost its dynamic
power. It is surely a matter of greater con
cern that a behef in God can be associated
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The Religion of a Democrat
with immorality, than that morality is possible
to the godless.
The unhappy reconciliation of theological
belief and immorality is illustrated by the beau
tiful sculptured frieze over the door of the
Royal Exchange in London, bearing this leg
end: "The earth is the Lord's, and the ful
ness thereof." One can understand the sen
sation which we should have at seeing that
declaration above the door of our Stock Ex
change or Board of Trade; but they have be
come so accustomed to it in London that they
are not shocked at the incongruity between
the practice and the faith. Perhaps an even
more flagrant example of this contradiction is
found in the new capitol building at Harris-
burg, where, in the House of Representatives,
as one looks beyond the great candelabra (pur
chased by the pound at extravagant figures)
to the sumptuously embossed gallery (con
tracted for by the yard and equally extrava
gant), one sees in raised letters, — "Ye shall
know the truth, and the truth shall make you
free." A great outcry has been raised against
[102]

Religion and the Church

the removal of the familiar motto "In God
we trust" from some American coins. Clergy
men who have never felt responsibility for un
holy traffic carried on by these tokens, demand
the restoration of the hypocritical legend. Tri
fling with the symbols and words of religion
and toying with sacred things is a sadder com
mentary on our times than any evidence of
godless morahty.
With regard to its being godly or godless,
a moral or an immoral, age, we cannot be
lieve that God is concerned; we cannot speak
of God as vain any longer, nor can we longer
believe, as the Old Testament teaches, that He
is jealous; He is less moral than we try to be
if He can be moved by such impulses. It is
not possible to conceive of a Supreme Being
in terms of twentieth century morality, who
could ask more than that His creatures be
moral. There is both historic and contem
porary evidence that performance without pro
fession is preferable to profession without
performance, as in the case of the son who
said, — "I go not," but went.
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The Religion of a Democrat
Politics is not the only order that "makes
strange bed-fellows." Statistics indicate that
criminals are generally orthodox; this has a
quantitative explanation in the fact that crim
inals naturally belong to the class of men con
stituting the greatest number, the class which
takes its religious creed and its moral code
most easily. It is also involved in the frag
mentary character of our lives. Rehgious
faith is detached from secular life, as is re
ligious organization. In this respect it is no
more peculiar than pohtics or industry ; so that
the lack of harmony need not be laid exclu
sively at the door of either theology or ethics ;
but it is obviously more reprehensible in the
religious world to fail to grasp the fulness of
life. Morality and religion may be harmonized
and, at the same time, reconciled with the
other human wants, only by considering life
as a whole. The social process consists — as
Professor Small has most lucidly expounded x

i Albion W. Small, " General Sociology."
[104]

Religion and the Church

— in the progressive satisfaction of the six
comprehensive wants: Wealth, health, so
ciability, taste, knowledge, righteousness. To
put the satisfaction of these wants within the
reach of all is the goal of society, the function
of the state, and by this standard we must also
measure rehgion. These six wants have been
analyzed: they must also be moralized, syn
thesized and democratized. Desirable as
would be the morahzing of the various wants,
nothing less than synthesis will satisfy, but
the conspicuous tendency of the church to-day
is to fall into the prevalent error of our nine
teenth century heritage, — that of overspecial-
ization. As an illustration of the way in which hu
man interests are speciahzed, consider the em
phasis put on the economic want. Because of
the exaggeration of its purely material as
pects, we cannot speak of wealth in the broad,
human language of John Ruskin or John
Hobson or Simon Patten, which claims "there
is no wealth but hfe." The church has sel
dom interfered with economic processes, but
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The Religion of a Democrat
it preaches the stewardship of wealth and de
mands for itself the administration of a por
tion, on the ground that wealth will be thus
moralized. This is pitifully partial, and indi
cates, as the examination of every other want
would, the superior potentialities of the state.
The higher moral standards of to-day will no
longer tolerate the conception of the classical
economist, that some economic actions are non-
moral. Twentieth century ethics knows no
non-moral act. The popular philosophy of
Mr. Benjamin Kidd, which condoned a cut
throat struggle for existence, on account of
the beneficent influence of a subsequent appli
cation of altruism, yields to the common sense
ethics of a democratic philosophy.
The two opposing philosophies concerned
with the material satisfactions are individual
ism and socialism: one has its resultant reli
gious expression in Protestantism, the other
in materialism. Protestantism came into Eu
rope at the time of the development of the
world-market, and has expanded with the
growth of industry. It has been identified
[106]

Religion and the Church

with the nations of western Europe and Amer
ica which have stood in the front of the move
ments of commerce and which have been
earliest witnesses of the industrial revolution.
Protestantism has been easily reconciled to
the doctrines of the struggle for existence, the
survival of the fittest and competition. It
has been itself an individualizing, disintegrat
ing influence. In the process of disintegra
tion it has done what in Nature is well done.
We do not always want cohesion, we must
occasionally have a disintegrating force, and
in securing the right of private judgment and
protesting against the undue compulsion and
conformity of the church, Protestantism has
performed valuable services. Nevertheless, it
has thereby given sanction to some of the most
destructive forces of industry. So harmon
ious has Protestantism found its beliefs with
those of contemporary industry that it has been
entirely ineffectual in combating industrial
evils. On the contrary, by its dependence on
voluntary financial support, it has come largely
under the control of men who direct the affairs
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The Religion of a Democrat
of business and whose philosophy of hfe is
determined chiefly by pecuniary motives. It
has also undermined the broad, mediaeval cath
olicity of the historic church, the special haven
of the poor and oppressed.
At the other end of the scale, socialism, with
its protest against individuahsm, has found
much of its support in the philosophy of ma
terialism. As a scheme of social reconstruc
tion, primarily designed to secure economic
justice, from which the satisfaction of all
other wants is expected to result, it has nec
essarily concerned itself almost exclusively
with the economic want. The justification
for placing socialism with religious move
ments, is found in the tremendous moral zeal
which accompanies the possession of this faith,
and which opposes the fundamental principles
of protestant individualism. The materialis
tic interpretation of history furnishes a phi
losophy of life, and the socialistic ideal de
duced from it is both a prophetic and an
evangelizing force. Its function is as obvious
as that of the Protestant Reformation, but
[108]

Religion and the Church

its obsession with economic functions is as
great a 'limitation as the dependence of Pro
testantism on industrial competition.
Physiological satisfactions have also found
their expression in religious organizations.
Sensuahsm has characterized not only such a
great religion as Mohammedanism, but such a
Christian off -shoot as Mormonism. Mormons
may be as free from the sensual element of
their religion as many Mohammedans are;
polygamy may be abhorrent to them, but the
original differentiation came from an exag
geration of the sensual. A more refined, but
equally specialized, emphasis of the physiolog
ical is found in that modern form of Epicu
reanism, Christian Science. Christian Scien
tists are normally no more sensual than worthy
Epicureans, of whom it could not have been
said that "their god is their belly"; but the in
evitable result of focussing the attention on
the body, even when it involves the denial of
bodily ailments, is to give to physical welfare
an inordinate amount of attention. There are
broad-minded people in the Christian Science
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The Religion of a Democrat
churches; there are very kindly people, and
socially disposed people; their positive con
tribution is found in the denial of the time-
honored conception that virtue is inevitably as
sociated with pain; but their complacent, per
sonal satisfaction with health, physical or
spiritual, interferes with social service and so
cial organizaton. Christian Science opposes
by its cheerful inertia the aggressive move
ments toward the unity of society.
The satisfaction of the social want has its
most important exposition in the state, but
Second only to this are the social emphasis and
(exaggeration which come from the great Cath
olic churches, — Roman, English, and Greek.
The danger of making the form of organiza
tion more important than the content is fa
miliar to Americans in the obstructive force
of their written constitutions and charters.
It is a common American fallacy to expect
automatic government through the perfection
of political mechanism, until the citizen exists
for government, and not government for the
citizen. The same exaggeration of social or-
[110]

Religion and the Church

ganization, in this case, the hierarchy, op
presses the Roman Catholic church. The in
fallibility of the Pope, like the infalhbihty of
the Czar, is an anachronism, in an age of in
creasing democracy; but the parochial organ
ization of Cathohcism is a beneficent result of
the evolutionary process, and testifies to the
value of systematic organization. It is not
impossible to anticipate the reconstruction of
the Cathohc churches on the basis of democ
racy, after the manner of the origin of repre
sentative government on the ruins of the feudal
system. However, two of the obvious flaws of this
over-systematized system are the inevitable
repression of freedom of thought and the un
happy device of celibacy. The limitations put
upon the freedom of thought in any given time
are perpetuated by the prevention of the physi
cal inheritance of much of the best talent of
the Catholic population. The flower of its
manhood has no seed, because it remains celi
bate. In the face of these handicaps, the in
sidious influence of progressive ideas is a most
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The Religion of a Democrat
hopeful sign. When a peasant Pope can con
demn such pregnant truths as fall under the
ban of the Encyclical on Modernism, the
thoughtful onlooker has raised for his con
sideration two queries: if such criticism is at
work within the church, in spite of all the re
pressive influence of its huge organization,
how long can that powerful structure with
stand the assaults on its foundation, and, sec
ondly, if the mandate of a Pope can establish
the authority of current ideas, what may not
a progressive Pope accomphsh by lending the
power of his infallibility to the dissemination
of such doctrines as are contained in the fol
lowing statements of Catholics, condemned by
Pope Pius X: —
Christ had not the intention of constituting the church
as a society to endure on earth through successive cen
turies; on the contrary, He believed that the kingdom
of heaven would come at the end of the world which
was then imminent.
The organic constitution of the church is not immu
table. On the contrary, Christian society, like human
society, is subject to perpetual evolution.
The dogmas, the sacraments, the hierarchy, in their
[112]

Religion and the Church

conception, as well as in their existence, are only the
interpretation of the Christian thought and of the evo
lution which by external additions have developed and
perfected the germ that lay hidden in the gospel.
Simon Peter never suspected that the primacy in
the church had been conferred upon him by Christ.
The Roman Church became the head of all churches,
not by divine ordinance, but by purely political circum
stances. The church has shown herself to be an enemy of
natural and theological sciences.
Truth is no more immutable than man himself, with
whom, and in whom, and through whom, it changes
perpetually. Christ did not teach a fixed determined body of doc
trine, applicable to all times and to all men. But
rather, He started a religious movement, adapted or
capable of being adapted to different times and places.
The church has shown herself incapable of effectively
defending ethical gospel, because she obstinately is at
tached to immutable doctrines which are incompatible
with modern progress.
The specialization of the aesthetic want is
found in such diverse expressions as the Salva
tion Army and the Ritualistic movement.
While there is an appeal to a different qual
ity of taste in these two religious movements,
[1131

The Religion of a Democrat
there is in each case an emphasis of the sen
suous. The jarring note of the tambourine,
like the delicate aroma of incense, makes no de
mand on the intellect, but stirs the senses.
The appeal may be entirely legitimate when
coordinated with the satisfaction of the other
wants, but it is likely to lead to such extremes
as we have seen in the excessive crudities of
the Salvation Army and the ultra refinements
of Ritualism.
The defect of overspecialization character
izes those movements which have exaggerated
the intellectual want. Knowledge is power,
and with the popularization of science in the
nineteenth century people have tried to save
their souls by it, the result being secularism
and rationalism. During the middle decades
of the nineteenth century, and to a less degree
subsequently, especially in England, organ
izations multiplied, based upon the expecta
tion that exact science would afford a sufficient
philosophy of life. There is still a great in
ternational, free thought movement whose de
structive services are invaluable. Its weak-
[114]

Religion and the Church

ness is not the one commonly attributed to it,
of undermining the foundations of faith, but
rather of building upon a new basis of insuffi
cient breadth through the exaggeration of
knowledge. Rationahsm has been a kindred force, not
necessarily denying the divine or supernatural,
but escaping from the authority of revelation
and inspiration. The latest form of this is in
the growing contemporary New Thought
movement, whose adherents believe in the con
quering power of mind. Without any au
thoritative sanction such as the Christian
Scientists find in the miracles of Jesus, the
New Thought advocates nevertheless believe
in what agnostic psychologists would call mi
raculous transformations, to be effected by
the power of the trained mind. It is idle to
deny the abundant evidence of the increasing
value of these principles, but they suffer from
the same flaw, — over-emphasis of a single one
of the essentials of human satisfaction.
It may seem hypercritical to quarrel with
those who make righteousness the end of their
[115]

The Religion of a Democrat 
religious organizations; but, unhappily, we
find that such single-mindedness of purpose,
however lofty, may limit the appreciation of
the wholeness of human life. Among the
most earnest and valued exponents of spon
taneous morality are the Quakers, yet the fine
spiritual quality of their interpretation of re
ligion cannot conceal the fact that it has proved
itself ineffective. The Society of Friends
does not arrive ; it does not affect society as it
should. It has been quite frequently asso
ciated with a devotion to business, inconsistent
with good politics and good society, notably
so in the Quaker City.
The tendency to exaggerate individual
righteousness is found also in that sort of
Christian faith expressed by the word "Tol-
stoyan," — the belief in non-resistance and as
ceticism. It is among the most wholesome of
all the protests against the complexity of mod
ern civilization and the timidity of organized
Christianity, and is ineffective chiefly because
its followers do not comprehend life as a
whole. It is unequal to the expression of a
[116]

Religion and the Church

universal religion. The truly religious must
at least be in the world, if not of it, and while
there is no taint of self -righteousness about
the followers of Tolstoy, such as that asso
ciated with those whom the Scot calls the
"unco' guid," there is an abstraction and an
aloofness, intrinsically admirable but socially
unsatisfying. The church has failed as the organizer and
defender of religion. It is dominated too
often by some single human interest. It is
too worldly to let religion expand, and too
unworldly to give humanity a chance. It is
sensitive to the limitations of every age, while
lacking the freedom to rise to the new pos
sibilities. When it moralizes human wants,
it is with conventional morality; when it
speciahzes them it is to curtail its suspecti-
bility to the universal forces of the time. It
is serviceable in conserving or reviving various
wants while inadequate to their synthesis.
Rehgion must reach into the recesses of the
remotest human interests, but the church has
not been big enough to comprehend them all.
[117]

The Religion of a Democrat
We are confronted by the difficulty of a
national church and the need of a national or
ganization of religion. It is no more incon
gruous to have a national organization of un
iversal religion than to have a national organi
zation of humanitarianism. Patriotism is in
inverse ratio to sect and to party. Patriotism
is the expression of our loyalty to the largest
group of human beings we can comprehend, as
Mazzini has taught us. There can no longer be
a national religion, but there may be a national
faith as a condition of a universal faith, which
shall at least be larger than any of the integral
elements in the country itself; in the church;
in industry; in politics; or any other frag
ment of social life.
There is a common faith of the whole peo
ple; it may not be tangible, it may not have
been capable of expression in creeds, without
producing schism and sect; but it can be con
ceived, and it is in need of organization. The
state must be supreme; the church must be
subordinate; and religion can only be free in
the state. Our minds have been so befogged
[118]

Religion and the Church

by the conflict between church and state that
we have grown unable to see the harmony of
religion and society. When it is recognized
that every individual must have his own re
ligion, regardless of the ecclesiastical author
ity to which he may hold allegiance, then it
will be seen that only the state can facilitate
this. The conflict between state and church in
France seems to throw light upon our problem.
The state is trying to assert its supremacy over
the church; the church, so far as it is conscien
tious in its activities, argues that it is universal
and therefore superior to the state. If it were,
if they had such a national church, if it could
make its claims to universahsm good, would it
not be loyal to the interests of society as a
whole, and how can society as a whole be served
except through the state? The present organ
ization of the state may be as imperfect as
the present organization of the church, but the
state is the only organization which represents
society. The church is the very imperfect,
highly specialized organization of one of so-
[119]

The Religion of a Democrat
ciety's functions, and if it actually moralized
all human wants, it could still serve society
fully only as an instrumentality of the state.
That the church has sometimes seemed su
perior to the state only means that church
men have sometimes been superior to states
men in their capacity for understanding the
interests of society as a whole. The transi
tion through which France is passing gives
promise of a great spirituahzmg force, in
consequence, on the one hand, of the state's
having won its supremacy as the best organi
zation that human beings have as yet been
able to find to protect their common interests,
and, on the other hand, by the endeavor of
the church to prove its worth as the exponent
of the religion of the people, rather than the
pohtics of the ecclesiastics.
We have the same problem here in relation
to church and state. We declare by our Con
stitution that citizens shall be free from any
special religious influence. We began our na
tional hfe when it was more easy to distin
guish, but if rehgion becomes universal, and
[120]

Religion and the Church

the antithesis to the secular disappears, we do
not need to make these limitations. At pres
ent we are in the unhappy state where those
who would like to see a better knowledge of
the Bible by our American citizens generally,
are nevertheless unable to assent to the idea
that it should be taught in the public schools.
Every one must deprecate the lack of interest
in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. It is
a grievous gap in our intellectual and moral
equipment ; but so long as belief in the inspira
tion of the scriptures gives people divine sanc
tion for their differences of interpretation, it
becomes an infringement of democratic liber
ties to give the state's support to the common
study of the Bible.
In spite of this dilemma, which has been so
uncompromisingly met by the Constitution, in
many of the states rehgious exercises are con
ducted ciairy in the schools. A person of re
ligious sensibilities cannot, without being of
fended, attend a school and hear the Bible read
perfunctorily, by the teacher who has this
onerous duty for the day, to an uninterested
[121]

The Religion of a Democrat
and irreverent group of children. When this
is followed by a labored, extempore prayer,
— the least objectionable response to which is
boredom — the offense becomes sacrilege. In
violation of the principle that every one shall
have free expression of his own religious con
victions, we open our legislative assemblies and
political conventions with prayer, — a pecul
iarly disheartening practice, when one appre
ciates that the only persons distressed are prob
ably those with conscientious scruples and
those who are impatient to proceed with their
unrighteous plans which are momentarily de
layed by this hypocritical procedure.
There is no objection to any devout person's
praying for the legislators and administrators
of the state. There is no objection to the use
of the property of the state for such pur
poses, provided it does not infringe upon the
equal rights of other citizens. When, how
ever, a prayer in the Oklahoma legislature
that a certain candidate may be the next Pres
ident of the United States is greeted with ap
plause by the Democratic members, it implies
[122]

Religion and the Church

that those whose sentiments are not expressed
have either their political or their religious
rights violated.
There ought to be no opposition to the use
of the public school for the teaching of the
Bible, provided it is not a part of the school
curriculum and is permitted to every group
of people who wish to give such instruction
outside of school hours. It is deplorable that
the instruction might be given by dogmatists
and sectarians instead of by a trained teacher
in hterature ; but that must be the solution un
til the behef in the inspiration of the scrip
tures shall cease to divide people into sects.
Meanwhile, it would be much better to have
this public form of instruction subject to re
view at the bar of pubhc opinion, than to
leave biblical and other ethical instruction to
the incompetents who are the majority of the
staff of any average Sunday school.
In America, where the state church is
scorned, and religion and politics are supposed
to be divorced, there is, however, the exemp
tion of ecclesiastical property from taxation.
[123]

The Religion of a Democrat
This violates the equal rights of citizens by in
volving the greater taxation of others who
do not believe in the ministrations of these
churches. It is more practicable for the state
to provide edifices for common worship, or for
the consecutive service of different bodies of
religionists, so that all may have use of public
property without discrimination, than to ex
empt sectarian church property. If people
will have private churches, they should be per
mitted to do so and to pay for them; but if
they will worship in common, or in a common
building, as often occurs in Switzerland, it
may promote universal religious fellowship.
The field houses of the Chicago small parks
may be used, so the authorities declare, for all
worthy public purposes which are not political
or religious. A great advance is shown in the
frequent use of the English town halls for all
public purposes without distinction, so long
as there is no discrimination. The promotion
of universal religion by the nation may be fur
thered at least by the public provision of places
of worship and religious instruction for all
[124]

Religion and the Church

who are willing thus to recognize the suprem
acy of the state, without insisting on special
privileges from the state for the private wor
ship of their private God in their private
meeting house.
The inevitable difficulty which will be per
ennially encountered with those who cannot
make a universal interpretation of rehgion may
be illustrated by the protest made in New
York City and elsewhere against the observ
ance of Christmas in the public schools. The
arguments which have been used against the
reading of even selected passages from the
Bible, in the schools attended by Protestants,
Cathohcs, Jews and others, do not seem to
hold with equal force against the observance
of Christmas. If songs expressive of the
miraculous and supernatural are eliminated,
which should of course be done out of defer
ence to the varying faiths, the most orthodox
Jew cannot find fault with the celebration of
the anniversary of the birth of the most im
portant individual in western civilization.
The fact that the festival coincides with a Jew-
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The Religion of a Democrat
ish celebration, and is only the historic suc
cessor of a great pagan institution, need not
detract from its widely accepted significance
as a day of "peace and good will among men."
This protest in New York against Christ
mas exercises in the public schools and the
almost contemporaneous discussion in Chicago
on the literary use of selected passages of
the Bible point to the most significant weak
ness of the church as the custodian of religion.
In the city with the largest Jewish popula
tion in the world, a very imposing protest was
made against the Christmas celebration, only
to be over-ruled by the spontaneous expres
sion from organized Christianity and else
where, and a prompt decision to retain the
Christmas exercises. In Chicago, on the con
trary, where a very sober and harmonious de
mand had come for the use of passages from
the Bible, approved by Catholics, Protestants,
and Jews, public opinion again made the de
cision for the school board, this time adversely.
In each case the extent of popular disapproval
was quite unexpected. Greater reliance can
[126]

Religion and the Church

be placed upon the good common sense of the
people than upon the demands of theologians,
or even the judgment of pedagogues. In
neither case is the decision necessarily final;
but in both, one must see the tremendous sig
nificance of drawing from the great heart and
common sense of the multitude, the dynamic
of faith.
A national organization of religion, like the
national faith, will pass beyond the scope of
the church or churches. The church of the
republic will know neither Jew nor Gentile,
Greek nor Barbarian, bond nor free, because
its raison d'etre will not be that of external
authority, historic orthodoxy, or the aggre
gate of temperamental faiths, but the will
of the people, inspired by the moral impulse
of collective effort in the state.1

1 Coit, " National Idealism and a State Church."

[127]

RELIGION AND THE STATE

[129]

CHAPTER V
RELIGION AND THE STATE
{{fT^HE greatest good of the greatest
j|_ number" satisfied the utilitarian dem
ocrats of the nineteenth century, but
the twentieth century conception of democracy
demands the greatest good of all, which can
be attained only through the state. The
tragedy of civilization is the fragmentary char
acter of contemporary life. Unity is sel
dom visualized, never realized. The exag
geration and overspecialization of human
wants cause the inadequacy of state churches
and sectarian rehgion. This overspecializa
tion, which is being steadily intensified by
modern industry, cuts even deeper. The in
terests of life are considered exclusively in
isolated departments. The state is divorced
from industry, the state is divorced from re-
[131]

The Religion of a Democrat
ligion, and religion is divorced from industry.
The philosophy of industrialism regards the
state as superfluous, or a nuisance, except
when it furtively seeks its assistance. Its
shibboleth is "The best government is that
which governs least." The triumph of eco
nomic efficiency in the capitalistic system
over hereditary authority (formerly identified
with the state), delays the recognition of so
cial authority founded on social utility. Sim
ilarly, religion has regarded the state as
wicked, the representative of the secular and
the carnal. The antagonism of both religion
and industry to the state may have proceeded
originally from the desire for freedom; but
having been emancipated, the feeling is nur
tured by the benefits enjoyed through special
privileges. There is a hke antithesis between
religion and industry. Religion is kept in its
restricted sphere for use when needed, the in
terference with industrial methods being re
duced to a minimum. It is true that industry
is generally progressive, and the institutions
of religion are conservative or reactionary;
[132]

Religion and the State

but that is because industry is subject to the
pressure of the forces of nature, the growth
of population and the discovery of new re
sources, while organized religion is re
strained by its pecuniary needs from inter
fering too seriously with the methods of the
economic world.
The unity of life is not only unappreciated,
it is denied by the segregation of these es
sential elements. If there is lack of harmony
between the state and industry, or if there is
opposition between the state and religion, or
if the doctrines of religion are not reconciled
with the methods of industry, there must be
waste, — economic, social, moral. The larger
hfe of the whole people suffers through each
one of these great human interests' being
weakened by having attention focussed too
largely on its peculiar specialism. As Cole
ridge says, "he who begins by loving Chris
tianity more than truth, will continue by lov
ing the church more than Christianity, and
end by loving himself more than all."
Every one of these forces grows wan and
[133]

The Religion of a Democrat
anaemic because it tries to sustain life on an
upper exclusive level, withdrawn from the
source of social life, the great common heart
of the people. The state does not spring from
the life of the politician; the church does not
spring from the life of the clergy; the moral
force of statesmen and ecclesiastics withers
when they become unrepresentative. The
politician, the priest, the industrialist is needed
only to voice the common thought, as the lex
icographer records the common tongue.
Speech may be modified, refined and author
ized by the cultivated, but it originates with
the masses.
Applying these principles to the problem of
religion and the state, we observe that the
church is concerned for the soul, but the state
is concerned for the whole human being.
This distinction is not always obvious, be
cause the state, kept by the restraint of the
economic system from expressing its func
tions, has been at times overshadowed by
churchmen who expanded the boundaries of
the church. The state has been caught be-
[134]

Religion and the State

tween the upper and the nether millstone of
the politician and the industrialist, and has
been exploited by both. It has too often been
limited practically to the care of the abnormal,
on the supposition that free industry permits
the normal man, woman or child to care for
himself. The care of the abnormal has fur
nished the politician with patronage; the neg
lect of the nearly normal has provided the
industriahst with surplus labor; while the
church leaves the system unchanged to pursue
its speciahzed function of the care of souls.
The church cries out against intemperance
and sexual immorality, the clergy lead revivals
and make raids against saloons, brothels and
gambling houses, the pulpit preaches a sys
tem of eternal rewards and punishments for
the obvious personal sins ; but the complicated
system of modern society, the elaborate organ
ization of the state, and the richness of human
life remain misunderstood. Even if the church
moralize all these human wants, as it has hither
to failed to do, their synthesis and democratiza
tion can be accomplished only by the state.
[135]

The Religion of a Democrat
It is not surprising that the vision of the
possibilities of the state is imperfect when one
sees the jealousy of the church and of indus
try. Each uses the state for its own con
venience, but tries to keep the state's functions
negative. The big business man shamelessly
asks for tariff protection, subsidies, or rebates ;
the churchman, for the exemption of eccles
iastical property from taxation and the endow
ment of his schools.
Whatever the imperfections of contempor
ary life, it must not be forgotten that the
state is organized society, and that its weak
nesses are due to the delegation of some of its
functions to uncoordinated institutions. There
can be no moral stability until it is recognized
that the individual is sovereign, not subject.
Industry lacks efficiency, the church lacks
spirituality, and the state lacks solidarity, when
the individual is not sovereign. He must be
master of his occupation, of his faith, and of
his citizenship, or these are empty names. In
a deep and real sense, democracy is the onlv
[136]

Religion and the State

morality, but democracy must mean the sov
ereignty of the people in all human relation
ships. The state must synthesize and democratize
all human wants. Lincoln's popular phrase
"government of the people, by the people, for
the people" describes only political democ
racy, which cannot stand alone. Carlyle was
right in saying, "with the fullest winning of
[pohtical] democracy, there is nothing won but
the free chance to win." Another great frag
ment of democracy was described by William
Morris as an art "made by the people and for
the people, a joy to the maker and the user."
With the social and artistic interests included
in the conception of democracy, there is still
needed a democratic statement of the eco
nomic, physical, intellectual and moral wants
of man. Democracy means nothing less than
the life of all, by the cooperation of all, for
the welfare of all. Carlyle said, "That any
man with the capacity for knowledge should
die ignorant is a tragedy." Is it not then a
[137]

The Religion of a Democrat
crime that any man with the capacity for
taste, righteousness, sociability, wealth and
health, should die with these unattained?
The fulness of life can only be secured
through the state. Imperfect as the state now
is, it is no further from the goal than the prev
alent conception of life. The fulness of hfe,
involving the satisfaction of all kinds of wants
for all human beings, will make possible the
social state. Expressed conversely, — which
the critical attitude of to-day compels, — the
state is responsible for poverty, disease, dis
franchisement, ugliness, ignorance, and im
morality. These are all social evils, and can
only be cured by social remedies. There can
be no genuine religion which does not take
cognizance of these, no state worthy of the
name which endures these, but the church is
helpless to combat them, and the religion
which comprehends the fulness of life must
work through the state.
The demand that the state must synthesize
and democratize all human wants will follow
from the justification of the indictment. The
[138]

Religion and the State

state is responsible for poverty. Without at
tempting to minimize individual responsibility,
society must be charged with waste of mate
rial resources, human talent and life. It has
permitted the destruction of its forests, the
waste and pollution of its waters, with the con
sequent decrease in the productivity of the
soil, and the devastating floods over the land
and in the cities. Society has neglected to
conserve the richness of the soil, or to deter
mine the ownership of it with a view to its
best cultivation. Society permits landlordism
to enervate the farmer in the rural districts
and to destroy the initiative of the dweller in
the city. Society permits surplus labor to re
main unemployed, and then sustains by its
charities the parasitic industries which thrive
by beating down the standard of living. None
of these evils is within the control of the in
dividual; the state alone can regulate the just
distribution of wealth and the preservation of
the standard of hving.
The state is also responsible for disease.
It has recognized this in legislation requiring
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The Religion of a Democrat
vaccination, in sporadic efforts to prevent the
pollution of water and the infection of milk,
in food and health laws, and in the provision
of hospitals and other curative agencies. It
is also responsible for the menace to life which
lurks in tenements, the fate which overtakes
the new-born and the unborn, the awful an
nual toll of deaths by violence and accident,
— in the mines, on the railways, by the car
rying or possession of weapons, by the insuffi
cient protection of public places, and even by
the celebration of the independence of the na
tion on the Fourth of July. The individual
is again helpless, and only organized society
can protect him.
The state must be held responsible for the
political and social disabilities of the citizen. If
he is ignorant, the state should educate him ; if
he is corrupt, the state should discipline him;
if color or sex is a handicap, the state should
prevent discrimination. Instead of allowing
its citizens to be disfranchised by political or
economic masters, by sexual, racial, or intel
lectual superiors, it should permit the widest
[140]

Religion and the State

suffrage, and allow the citizen to disfranchise
himself, if he will, by the inefficient use of a
voting machine. No man can be trusted to
dispense the suffrage to others. The state
must be impersonal in the treatment of its
citizens and thus assail the strongholds of priv
ilege in the name of a genuine democracy.
The state is responsible also for ughness.
The destruction of the beauties of nature, the
disfigurement of the natural features of the
cities, the bad planning, the deficient open
spaces, the smoke and dirt, the unscientific
building hnes and inartistic sky lines, the in
accessibility of art, often the uncomeliness of
the individual's face and figure, — marred by
preventible prenatal or postnatal neglect — are
within the power of correction by public reg
ulation. Similarly, the state can be held accountable
for ignorance. When a legalized system of
popular education tolerates six millions of
illiterates (of whom two millions are native
white people) as is the case in this country;
when the statistical school age is from six to
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The Religion of a Democrat
twenty, and most children leave school at
twelve or thirteen; when the admirably
equipped high schools and universities are at
tended by a small fraction of the population,
while the majority are too early condemned
to the stunting effects of exhausting or mo
notonous labor, the state cannot shift the re-
sponsibilty to the individual.
It must also bear the burdens of immorality.
In the cities, institutions of vice are winked
at; in the country the population is allowed
to take the law into its own hands; both city
and country are bewildered by a multitude of
unenforced, useless laws. The vast majority
of murderers escape discipline altogether.
Crimes against property usually receive pun
ishment proportioned to the weakness of the
offender. The newspapers and the stage
flaunt immorality, while government impo-
tently falls back upon unrepresented and un
expressed public opinion.
The struggle for the synthesis of human
wants, in the name of the people, will at first
take the form of rescuing from the economic
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Religion and the State

institutions the control of wealth, health and
sociability; from the ecclesiastical institutions,
the control of taste, knowledge and righteous
ness. As we noticed in the discussion of the
church and religion, the former group of hu
man wants is not without expression through
the church, and the latter group is not with
out regulation by industry. The beginning
of the realization of the fulness of hfe through
the new social state will consist in the strug
gle to give the state larger authority over all
these wants, relieving business of its growing
dominion over wealth, health and sociability,
and the church of its potent influence in taste,
knowledge and righteousness.
We can merely mention the inevitable strug
gle of the state and industry, confining our
discussion to the relation of the state and re
ligion, which may be sufficiently expressed by
considering the three so-called higher wants.
The bad art of to-day is largely commercial,
but it is made possible by the acquiescence of
the church in a degradation of the standards
which were universally upheld in the Middle
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The Religion of a Democrat
Ages. The church has also contributed by its
prudery and puritanism to the discourage
ment of the nude in sculpture and painting,
to the boycott of the theatre, and to the en
deavor to make art inaccessible to the people
on the one day when they might enjoy it.
The function of the state in restoring art to
the people will appear with the universal open
ing of hbraries, museums, art galleries and mu
sic halls on Sunday, and the provision of a
municipal theatre, with special consideration
given to the presentation of superior dramas
and operas on Sunday. The dominance of an
cient, ecclesiastical ideas, instead of modern
social ones (as witnessed in New York in the
reaction against the enforcement of the Blue
Laws), leads only to the most unsatisfactory
and compromising modification of the char
acter of Sunday performances. A logical,
moral and progressive regulation would be
to limit all theatrical managers to a six days'
week. Economic pressure would then close
the theatre on Monday as is commonly done in
Europe, and give the people their Sunday
[144]

Religion and the State

amusement without interfering with a day of
rest for the actors and employes. The state
alone can enforce one rest day in seven; and
while it is desirable that so far as possible
people generally observe the same day of rest,
for purposes of either recreation or worship,
it is only possible to make the law all-inclusive
by letting it be elastic.
In the same way, the state must officially
enlarge the scope of the public school, without
regard to the jealousy of private institutions,
educational or ecclesiastical. The public
school house must be used, not only in the
evening, but on Sunday. As Dr. Stanton
Coit points out,1 the hours when the masses
of the people, because of rest and leisure, are
most susceptible to higher influences are Sun
day morning and afternoon. The church
does not reach most of them on Sunday morn
ing, except at hours which would not inter
fere with the further use of the school-house.
The spiritualizing impulse which would come

i " Ethical Democracy." [145]

The Religion of a Democrat
from the opening of the school buildings for
all worthy pubhc purposes is entirely com
parable to the combined moral influence ex
ercised to-day by all churches.
This movement would carry us into the sat
isfaction of the moral want as well. The mass
of people are suffering to-day from spiritual
pauperism, because they are unable to support
the churches which provide their religious min
istrations. If they could have moral instruc
tion in the schools on Sunday, and other days
at the expense of the state, it would in no way
interfere with the privilege of some people to
worship privately and independently; but it
would insure moral guidance for all. Democ
ratize morality; democratize knowledge; de
mocratize taste, — and secure the synthesis of
these, reconcihng the sacred and the secular, by
democratizing Sunday! "The sabbath was
made for man, and not man for the sabbath."
There is no tyranny and no monoply in this;
there wiU be no churches closed, except for lack
of patronage; but they will not be supported
(through exemption from taxation) by their
[146]

Religion and the State

non-attendants. All doctrines may be
preached in the church, or on the street, but
none can lack a spiritual home where beauty,
culture and morality may be united.
Is the synthesis of human wants an academic
hypothesis, is the larger democracy Utopian,
must the state remain political and inconse
quential? The nineteenth century answers by
both philosophy and movements of great sig
nificance in the furthering of the higher life
of organized society. A study of their ten
dencies points unmistakably to the social state
as distinguished from the pohce state. The
revolt against eighteenth century formalism
and conventionality was expressed in the rami
fications of the romantic movement. The ro
mantic movement included the reaction against
pietism in the Methodist revival of the eight
eenth century, and the ritualistic movement of
the nineteenth; it included also the Gothic re-
rival, with its protest against the formal, un-
enthusiastic, pseudo-classic art, and with its
constructive social philosophies of Walter
Scott, Pugin and Ruskin ; it included the "re-
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The Religion of a Democrat
turn to nature" of Rousseau, the destructive
criticisms of Voltaire; the "illumination" in
Germany, and the f ertilizing forces of Goethe,
Kant and Hegel; and, not least, included the
pohtical revolutions in America and France
and the industrial revolution in Great Britain.
After this creative ferment, it was logical
that the nineteenth century should witness con
structive agencies laying new foundations on
the ground cleared of ancient formulas, dog
mas, and shibboleths. Among these agencies,
perhaps the most significant are non-theolog
ical ethics, evolution and sociology.
Theology dies hard, but periodically robbed
of some of its authority, it then readjusts it
self to the changed limitations with renewed
vitality. The greatest advances in modern
times in theological speculation and biblical
criticism are due to theology's being shorn
of its assumed dominion over morality. A
greater social gain, however, is the emancipa
tion of ethics. The harmony of ethical sys
tems is incomplete, but the service of ethics is
vastly enriched by the substitution of social
[148]

Religion and the State

utility for theological sanction. A new social
dynamic is found in the conception that man's
chief activities are to be devoted to the im
provement of this world rather than the pre
paration for another. A corollary, satisfac
tory even to the theologian, is that life in any
world is determined only by service in this.
Thus far is non-theological ethics triumphant
over historic theologies.
The interpretative value of the doctrine of
organic evolution is equally important to the
furtherance of the interests of the higher life.
The modern point of view, illuminated by the
study of human origins and processes, furn
ishes the key to social responsibility by the ap
plication of the laws of development. As
Drummond says, "Man must now take charge
of evolution, even as hitherto he has been the
one charge of it." Thrown by non-theological
ethics upon his own resources, he finds in the
teachings of evolution a safer guide than in
the spasmodic creations and inspirations of the
old cosmogony. He finds in natural, sexual,
and artificial selection the means of not only
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The Religion of a Democrat
transforming social institutions, but human
nature itself, in defiance of the ancient, ener
vating doctrine that the frailty of human na
ture and original sin are immutable. The in
evitable consequence of the revelations of or
ganic evolution was the birth of sociology.
Sociology suffers not only from the spon
taneous protest of those to whom doctrines of
social transformation are repugnant, because
inconvenient, but also from the deliberate op
position of the pseudo-scientist, trained in the
intellectual atmosphere of theological and pre-
evolutionary philosophies. To these must be
added the handicap of its exponents, who
often utilize it for half-baked projects of so
cial reform, dictated by enthusiastic but un
trained minds, or who obscure the social value
by a labored scrupulousness to be more exact
than a science of human wants and motives
ever can be. There is too frequent justifica
tion for the definition paraphrased from a fa
mous description of metaphysics, which de
clares sociology to be "the science of telling
people the things they already know in ways
[150]

Religion and the State

which they cannot understand." Neverthe
less, non-theological ethics and evolution make
the science of the satisfaction of human wants
inevitable. As its conclusions become founded
in wide research, it will cease to be speculative
or controversial and become constructive and
dynamic. These products of nineteenth cen
tury thought incorporated the moral ideal in
sundry ethical movements, of which the most
representative are positivism, ethical culture,
and sociahsm.
Every extension of the intellectual horizon
is fertile in new religious movements. The
emotional temperaments are caught by soul-
satisfying sects, like Methodism, Swedenborg-
ianism, the Salvation Army, or Christian Sci
ence; while the exaggeration of rationalism
produces secularism and new thought, of mys
ticism, theosophy and oriental cults. The
sounder basis furnished by a knowledge of hu
man needs, has produced positivism, — the wor
ship of humanity; ethical culture,- — the fellow
ship of humanity; and sociahsm, — the organi
zation of humanity. [151]

The Religion of a Democrat
August Comte's religion of humanity has
not been a success, but his followers have been
a noble band of humanitarians, enriching so
ciology and social reform. The worship of
humanity has satisfied neither theist nor athe
ist, but it is a lofty conception, not without
value to the race. More impersonal than an
cestor worship, more unselfish than the reli
gions of reincarnation, it has served to empha
size the worth and immortality of humanity.
A religion founded on science, emphasizing
the process of development, from the theolog
ical through the metaphysical to the positive,
and devoted to the service of humanity, it is the
very embodiment of non-theological ethics,
evolution, and sociology.
The founder of ethical culture would prob
ably not admit that fellowship is its goal, but
he was the first to demand union for moral
action, regardless of profession of faith. It
is not expected that societies for ethical culture
should undertake the organization of hu
manity, but they provide a meeting place for
the lovers of their kind, whose actions and as-
[152]

Religion and the State

pirations are guided by the moral ideal. The
movement is numerically insignificant, but as
a type of an indispensable fellowship of the
democratic future, it is prophetic. If men
and women of various traditions, differing
gladly and profitably in their intellectual con
ceptions, but united by a moral purpose, can
organize disinterestedly in the service of hu
manity, it can only strengthen fellowship as a
basis of the common life.
The organization of humanity can be ef
fected only by the state, which alone represents
all human interests in any area. Every hu
man being, with his activities and hopes, is the
concern of the state. No human being has a
hfe which he can call his own, apart from the
state. Hence the force which undertakes the
organization of humanity must utilize the
state. Socialism proposes to extend indefi
nitely the bounds of the democratic state. It
is easy to think of state socialism as a merely
political movement. As such it is unsatisfac
tory to orthodox socialists who find in collec
tivism an economic system and a materialistic
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The Religion of a Democrat
philosophy. Whether viewed pohtically or
economically, it must not be overlooked that a
fervor of moral idealism pervades the move
ment; that however vain its dreams, it is the
only contemporary organized effort to secure
absolute justice for all; that its parish being
the world, the state is simply the unit ; and that
the international organization of the workers
of the world, if it could be accomplished,
would become shortly the organization of hu
manity. These three movements, so widely differ
ent, are among the joint products of non-the
ological ethics, evolution and sociology. They
are all extra-ecclesiastical, if not anti-theolog
ical. Their source is the imperfect organiza
tion of society, their motive power the service
of humanity. Positivism has had its day;
ethical culture still illumines the way, but the
future seems to belong to some form of social
ism. If the democratic state is at all to real
ize the dreams of sober collectivists, and to
avoid the dangers pointed out by the honest
critics of socialism, it will be by the organiza-
[154]

Religion and the State

tion of its ethical forces, in harmony with its
other elements.
The service of democratic religion will be
not merely to the individual, in allowing free
expression to his growing demand for the ful
ness of hfe, but in permeating society with
a loftier, yet more practicable, conception
of the state and its elements. The idea will
win its way that "the city is the hope of democ
racy." * Municipal co-operation and social
solidarity are more promising than church fed
eration. National rehgion needs the self-gov
erning parish and the municipality, but not the
denomination and the hierarchy. The social
units, not too big to be comprehended by the
people, will be organized for the progressive
satisfaction of the wants of all in the spirit of
democratic religion, until the common life of
the coming century is a synthesis of human in
terests, and all good human work is aspiration.
Laborare est orare.

i Howe, " The City, the Hope of Democracy." Ferguson,
"The News-Book" (Kansas City, July, 1907).
[155]

IMPERSONAL IMMORTALITY

[157]

CHAPTER VI
IMPERSONAL IMMORTALITY
AFTER leading from temperament and
personahty to the relation of rehgion
to church and state, it may seem an
anti-climax to revert to individual responsi
bility. However, the discussion of a greater
social utility, to be achieved through the state,
represents only the objective purpose of our
inquiry. We shall not have completed our
survey until we have deduced the subjective
obligations of democratic religion, which may
be considered under the term "impersonal im
mortality." Out of the greater possibilities
of a more highly organized society, making
available the fulness of life for its members,
there comes naturally the obligation and in
spiration to the individual to lead for himself
[159]

The Religion of a Democrat
this fuller life. Only the social state can
make possible this complete life; thereby the
individual learns the superiority of the com
mon life to any form of exclusiveness — both
in actual living and as an inspirational force.
The human mind demands an incarnation;
it is the basic fact of most religions. Its most
familiar expression to the Occidental is in the
Christian religion. The average mind re
quires its conception of the infinite or of in
finity to the incarnated in a human personahty,
which it can understand ; this is the strength of
the religions which represent incarnation. It
is not possible or necessary to get average peo
ple to perceive the niceties of theological and
philosophical interpretation. Just because
our minds work in diverse ways, the deeper
thoughts must be stated in common, human
terms. In trying to compass some of the
depths and heights of democratic religion, it is
idle to ignore this human need. It is logical
that a personal religion should be expressed
not only in personal experience, but through
a personal conception. Much of the oriental-
[160]

Impersonal Immortality

ism which is being exploited by the dissatis
fied philosophical minds of to-day is only a
groping after something akin to Christian
doctrine. The demand for an incarnation is found not
only in our personal religious life, but in the
time-honored attitude toward those who repre
sent some higher authority, expressed most fa
miliarly in the sentence, "The king can do no
wrong." The king is the divine representa
tive, and those who can find httle of divinity
in the personality admit it in the person.
Those of us who do not beheve in the divine
right of kings, or in divine authority at all,
often render hero-worship to some great
leader, which implies that he is virtually im
peccable. The multitude who accept unques-
tioningly the divine authority of the Pope, or
the German or Russian Emperor, are not more
superstitious than those — and their name is
legion — who have believed that Grover Cleve
land and William McKinley could do no
wrong. These were certainly very imperfect
representatives of the incarnation of divinity;
[161]

The Religion of a Democrat
but many of their followers have justified
their every act.
In a truer and more personal sense, we find
in the "loved one" an incarnation of all the
virtues and graces. It is not necessary that
he or she should really possess this character.
There is an accumulation of virtue and grace
which is quite comparable to the accumulation
of myth about the ancient prophet or king.
If one will make a personal examination for
himself of his attitude toward the "dearest
person in the world," he will see that enough
of the superstitions of the Hebrew, Christian
and other religions which he may have re
jected, are re-expressed and incorporated in
his own devotion, to satisfy him that incarna
tion is the expression of the average man's in
terpretation of perfection.
The more human an incarnation is, the closer
it comes to us; Jesus, the man, sometimes cre
ates an effect in the world beyond that made
by Jesus, the God. While not underestimat
ing the latter influence, which has been power
ful, it must be recognized that some of the
[162]

Impersonal Immortality

simpler and more vigorous forms of the
Christian religion have laid great stress on the
humanity of Jesus, while trying to retain the
belief in his divinity. There are certainly few
people who have any competent conception of
that mysterious theological dogma of the third
century, known as the Trinity. The average
Trinitarian is a naive polytheist; the child,
taught to beheve in Father, Son and Holy
Ghost, is a frank polytheist. He cannot com
prehend that unity which is the professed doc
trine of the Trinitarian theology. In the
process of eliminating those doctrines, which
do not bear the examination of twentieth cen
tury thought, we find a growing disbehef in
Jesus the God, but we do not find any decline
of reverence for Jesus the man. Most of us
are not capable of abstract thought, and we
may expect with certainty that the invariable
culmination of the finest thought of this or any
subsequent time will centre in the personality
of some individual life. This is the expres
sion of Buddhism, the religion most similar to
Christianity, and promises also to be the focus
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The Religion of a Democrat
of the humanitarian rehgion of many un
churched, who would otherwise have a religion
too diffuse for actual use in daily life.
This incorporation of the ideal in a person
ality accounts for the power of the belief in
personal immortality. There is no need of
saying anything critical about personal immor
tality. Those who do not find sufficient evi
dence for faith, cannot claim to know enough
to disbelieve in it. An interpretation of im
personal immortality need not interfere with
any individual's conception of personal im
mortality. There are some views, however,
as we have found historically and still find,
even among people who are theologically
emancipated, which claim attention. One
must have observed in his own faith or expe
rience that it is not uncommon to reject all
the foundations of the historic religions, to
lose behef in inspiration and revelation, and
still grasp at a faith in personal immortality.
It is natural to cling to a belief in a future
world, peopled by personahties such as we
[164]

Impersonal Immortality

know. The belief that goodness and spirit
uality cannot die logically incorporates itself
in the idea of the continuance of personality
as we have seen it.
It is a contradiction, that belief in personal
immortality does not always enable one to face
death. One might suppose that genuine be
lief in a future life, which is to be better than
this, would reconcile people to death. Yet
the devoutest believers in immortality, whose
lives in this world are the best guarantee of
happiness in the next, who believe that in any
future hfe they would at least be better off than
they are here, and who lustily sing, "Filled
with delight, my raptured soul would here
no longer stay," and other hymns expressive
of their desire at once to leave this carnal
world, still cling with a marvelous tenacity to
this life. It might be supposed that if the
earthly life is a test for the future, if we are
on probation here, that this thought would be
a determinant of our conduct. An unwaver
ing faith in a future life may still be held by
[165]

The Religion of a Democrat
people whose conduct would indicate that they
have no regard for what is going to happen
to them hereafter.
Our whole conception of the induction from
this life to another is practically shaped for us
by the dualism which has so long been part of
the belief of humankind. When we think of
the separation of the body and the soul, we are
impressed with the infinite superiority of the
soul, and we come to despise the body. This
results in the paradox that, death being repug
nant, we dread especially the loss of the body
of the one we have loved, — a loss which in the
minds of many seems to be paramount to the
loss of the spirit which inhabited the body.
This is so human, so instinctive, so nearly in
evitable, as to be almost above criticism. A
future age, which has a tradition of centuries
of emancipation from the personal limitations
of to-day, may perhaps free itself from this
fear of death: but for us, death will continue
to have its horrors, because the transition to
anything different from this life seems so dif
ficult. Any future life of disembodied spirits
[166]

Impersonal Immortality

seems irreconcilable to anything that we know.
Although the rebelhon of strong youth and
middle age gives way to that reconciliation to
translation which frequently comes with old
age, it is hard to believe that death is life, that
we can placidly go to sleep.
This intense love of the body is doubtless
due to the absorbing significance of personal
contact. There is nothing for the lover, in the
heavens above nor in the waters beneath the
earth, like the touch of the beloved; there is
nowhere else to be found such a thrill. It is
not strange that we cannot face the loss of it,
or that we cannot steel ourselves to that loss
even when it has come. Personal contact, the
spiritually minded must admit, produces at
least one of the happiest sensations; yet it is
physical. It may be founded on the most
beautiful spiritual relationship; the touch of
the hand of the loved one may express simply
the culmination of the holiest of human satis
factions ; yet it is physical. It is the elevation
of the physical, the justification of the phys
ical; it proves that the physical is not neces-
[167] "

The Religion of a Democrat
sarily harmful, the fallacy of asceticism.
That longing for the touch of a vanished hand
is inevitable to a normal human being.
There are two very significant observations
to be made here: one is, that having lost that
vanished person, or rather body, Ave cannot
look forward with any assured knowledge to a
reunion. In the religious teachings that have
meant most to our time and people, those of
the Christian scriptures, we find that in heaven
"there is neither marriage nor giving in mar
riage." It is perfectly human to anticipate
the resumption of the relations we have had
here, although a moment's thought of the com
plications which would sometimes ensue com
pels the recognition of its impossibility. If
there be such a future life as is portrayed, for
example, in the New Testament, it must be in
finitely finer than the one we have known; if
there are to be such relationships as we have
enjoyed, they must be spiritually far beyond
anything we can comprehend.
In the second place, while we must not deal
roughly with tender sentiments, it is not fair,
[168]

Impersonal Immortality

still less religious, that the loss of a vanished
hand should deprive the world of our services,
affection and interest. It is not right that
while we are still numbered among the living,
we should spend most of our existence think
ing of the other world. There are not a few
people who are simply waiting for the end;
and if the end were oblivion, it were welcome
as contrasted with staying here without the
loved one or loved ones. Grief should culti
vate, not demand, sympathy. Not only those
persons who have no satisfactory faith in per
sonal immortality, but also those who cling
to the old ideas, have the obligation of striv
ing to make their own lives serviceable to hu
manity, which has use for all the affection
squandered on the unseen world.
There are happily other forms of physical
exaltation in addition to the touch of the loved
one. There is the entrancing exhilaration of
nature, induced by sunrise on the mountain
top, or the nearness of the stars on a clear
night, or the expanse of the panorama on a
clear day. Even on the street of the city,
[169]

The Religion of a Democrat
when the breath of spring is felt for the first
time and every sense tingles with delicious im
pressions, there is a tangible quality in the
feeling, not unlike human touch. One's soul
expands, he is intoxicated by his own heart
beats, and feels himself strong to run any race
life may set for him.
Akin to this is the thrill of the crowd. It
seems a far cry from the voice or the caress of
the beloved to the impersonal roar or pressure
of the crowd, but even so, our feelings may be
swayed by the common impulse. It may be
the exciting conclusion of a political campaign,
or the frenzy of a critical moment at a foot
ball game, or a mass meeting in the interest of
some great human problem, which gives one a
thrill that for the time being makes one forget
all personal or clannish relationships. Indi
vidual experience is momentarily submerged
in the great unison of human hearts. Here is
an intensity of human feeling, whether stirred
by serious or trivial cause, which, though
rarely experienced, does indicate the conse
quence of contact with humanity.
[170]

Impersonal Immortality

For those persons who worship devoutly in
unsullied faith, there are times of uplift which
transcend ordinary human satisfaction. Such
exhilaration is experienced equally in the sub
tle appeals to the emotions by Ritualism, or the
fanatical demonstrations of an evangelical re
vival, or the spontaneous soaring of the soul in
a Quaker meeting. It is the weakness of ra
tionalistic and humanitarian religion that there
is a dearth of such appeals to the senses.
There are also occasions of peculiar ecstacy,
due to the stimulation of the aesthetic sense.
Standing before a great picture, a curtain may
seem to lift, and the world is revealed as better
and more beautiful than it appears to the
mind's eye. Some fine, human story, or the
artist's interpretation of one of nature's won
ders, may make us utterly forget ourselves.
We are possessed by the experience for the
time, as when one stands and looks over the
edge of the Grand Canon. Since one may
have these periods of exhilaration, which are
more or less comparable to the human touch
(the loss of which makes us feel that life is
[171]

The Religion of a Democrat
not worth while) , surely not in another world,
but in this one, is scope for personal satisfac
tion. Far more, there is the privilege of per
petuating the benediction of the former fel
lowship by allowing it to radiate through our
other relationships here.
As our horizon widens, we seem to become
more and more insignificant. Yet when we
understand the potentialities of human life
and see how ramifying are the influences of a
single individual, as well as the import of his
constant contribution to racial experience, the
individual act resumes its importance. The
law of the conservation of energy rules the
spiritual as well as the physical world. The
physicist tells us that if one but touch a chair,
he exercises a physical force that is felt
through the whole world. Nothing is too in
significant for consideration in the physical
laboratory. Measurements are made of the
millionth part of an inch, and, by the use of
rays of light, infinitesimal influences are re
corded. The supposed myth of our childhood,
that a pebble thrown into the sea sends waves
[17.2]

Impersonal Immortality

to the opposite shore, is verified. Such is the
influence of the individual act in the spiritual
world, which gives the meaning to impersonal
immortality. In a perfectly real and intellig
ible sense the most trivial act is of infinite im
portance. One Saturday night I was sitting in one of
the big clubs of Philadelphia, at an hour when
the important men of the city are accustomed
to gather there. They were strong men, with
strong faces, but, to be frank, there were not
many fine faces, not many handsome faces;
neither were there, apparently, many happy
faces. Even when they smiled they did not
always seem happy. The character written in
their faces was rather that of the lines of
strenuous accomplishment than beautiful aspi
ration. But they were big men, who were do
ing big things, in one of the world's great
centres of industry. Yet, looking at some of
those grizzled beards and hoary heads, there
came the thought of a white-headed patriarch,
who might not have been a welcome guest in
that club, — who was not known widely while
[173]

The Religion of a Democrat
he lived, — and whose home was in Philadel
phia's despised suburb, Camden. Will the
collective influence of all these men a hundred
years hence be comparable to the pervasive
force of that good, old, gray poet of Camden?
When we come to understand religion and de
mocracy and life, may we not discover that
Walt Whitman means more for humanity than
many captains of industry? Insignificant as
may seem the individual, he may have an in
fluence which will work itself out in the ages
which follow. There is a wonderful inspira
tion in the simphcity of the agencies which
have produced great consequences in a com
plex world.
Impersonal immortality is the perpetuation
of oneself through the individuals, the insti
tutions, and the ideals of the years to come.
To ask why one obscure person should be con
cerned about the remote possibility that his in
fluence will be momentous, is to ask why one
should work, or be virtuous, or neighborly, or
plan for the future of one's family, or concern
oneself about any of those obhgations which
[174]

Impersonal Immortality

the highest morality teaches us are more im
portant than one's convenience, or, at times,
one's life. Impersonal immortality furnishes
a motive power more unselfish and more in
spiring than any system of eternal rewards and
punishments. It provides for no death-bed
repentance, but it makes the conception pos
sible that one may overcome evil with good.
It enlarges the boundaries of the spiritual life,
until the personal satisfaction of all human
wants becomes both legitimate and insistent.
The attainment of the fulness of life by the
individual here and now is the best promise of
its wider enjoyment by a coming generation.
The service of the common life, here and
hereafter, is measured in terms of the human
wants, — wealth, health, sociability, taste,
knowledge, righteousness, — by which the value
of church and state has been tested. The first
obligation of the individual which has not only
imperative and immediate, but eternal conse
quences, is to do his work well wherever he finds
himself. It is not to be implied that he is to
remain where he cannot do his work well, in
[175]

The Religion of a Democrat
obedience to the ancient sentiment that he is to
be content where God has put him. If, after
earnest consideration, the work proves to be
uncongenial, it is blind fate not divinity, which
is shaping his destiny. The obhgation to find
the work which one can do best is as great as
that of doing one's work worthily when one
has found it. The personal enjoyment is re
munerative, but the greater motive is the jus
tification of his place in the world.
When the significance of work is appreci
ated, it will throw light on the importance of
the satisfaction of the other wants. Doing
work well will not merely set a good example
to one's coworkers, or one's servants, or one's
employers, or guarantee the maximum joy to
be got out of life, but establish a precedent.
The accumulated precedents of average peo
ple make a well nigh irresistible tradition.
Each piece of bad work encourages another,
as bad or worse; each piece of good work is
promise of continuance or improvement. We
are known as individuals to be creatures of
habit, but collective habits are just as imperi-
[176]

Impersonal Immortality

ous, and in the shaping of these, the influence
of no individual is negligible.
Any one who does a portion of the world's
work properly, in the service of his patrons, is
contributing an influence of value, even if his
own motive is no better than profit-making;
but the added significance of the feehng of re
sponsibility is illustrated by a contrast which
will interpret the meaning of all democratic
religion. One of the great department stores
of Boston has a peculiarly democratic organi
zation; the relations between employers, — as
they are conventionally called, — and em
ployes, — who are in this case exceptionally in
dependent, — being those of intimacy and mu
tual understanding. At one of the monthly
dinners of the Employes' Association, the
president of the corporation made an address
which might not be generally understood by
employers and employes of these days. The
meaning of his evidently sincere words was
that he felt that his hfe and his business should
be so directed that everybody connected with
that establishment should share in it. He
[177]

The Religion of a Democrat
felt called upon to organize that business on
the basis of democracy, and he said that the
heads of this great department store had
planned that day for the future of the busi
ness, after their personalities had been elim
inated. AU knew his feeling, that the func
tion of employers and employed was co-oper
ative; but his desire was not merely to
develop a co-operative institution, but that this
establishment might become an example for
all other industries to reorganize on the basis
of democracy. He may not be able to in
spire his employes with his faith in democracy;
his organization may not be the final type of
a democracy; but there is a vision of the dem
ocratic future, which cannot be without per
manent enlightenment, in this gift of a man's
talent and dreams to the impersonal industry
of the future.
This episode, coming immediately after
publicity had been given the will of the prince
of department store builders, the contrast is
marked. The greatest department store in
the world, in size and service, was organized in
[178]

Impersonal Immortality

Chicago by a mercantile genius. He did his
work well; he made his store beautiful and
serviceable to the customer, and so attractive
to the employes that they are reported to have
taken part of their remuneration in the satis
faction of working there. By his extraordi
nary ability, this captain of industry amassed
a fortune of over a hundred millions of dol
lars, a sum so vast that, in terms of life, it was
meaningless even to its possessor. When he
died, he left that fortune entailed, so that his
will continues to control it for at least fifty
years, determining the lives of his employes
and his family arbitrarily, under conditions
which he had no power to anticipate. That
great, autocratic, industrial genius is going to
remain in personal control of the lives of thou
sands of people for at least fifty years after
death. Can one avoid contrasting the mission and
ambition of these two men? One of them felt
— though not necessarily in the old, theological
sense, — that he had an immortal soul, and that
he was going to save it by letting it live on in
[179]

The Religion of a Democrat
a great multitude of people for years to come :
the other felt that he must continue to hold
tight his own influence, without regard to the
personalities this might dominate. The idea
of personal immortality of the latter was lim
ited by material and perishable things ; the con
ception of impersonal immortality of the for
mer has infinite spiritual possibilities.
Similar potentiahties he before us in the
satisfaction of the physical wants. Some
where between sensualism and asceticism may
be found a norm of physical satisfaction,
which has both individual and social value.
As Paul says, "Whether, therefore, ye eat or
drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory
of God." Physical satisfactions are impera
tive; but they range from the reproduction of
the species to bestial intemperance. The body
is sacred, worthy of admiration and enjoy
ment, but it is subject to abuse; instead of be
ing ignored by the spiritually aspiring, it must
be accorded the finest valuation.
For the purpose of immortality, the most
immediate function of the body is reproduc-
[180]

Impersonal Immortality

tion, which will furnish the surest way of per
petuating ourselves; but we cannot all have
children, and this is not the only avenue to
physical immortahty. We have not yet done
justice to the meaning of physical heredity;
but a still more unexplored field is spirit
ual heredity. We are the products of envir
onment, while we make environment. Every
physical act has its consequence, as has every
economic or social act, in determining collec
tive habits. If we are intemperate, and our
sensuahsm takes the form of drunkeness or
gluttony, it allies our acts with the influence
of all other sensualists, and coupled with the
frequent reaction from asceticism, will tend
to undermine all standards of temperance.
In the physical world, as in the artistic, the
rational division is that made by John Ruskin :
into purists, who select only the good; sen
sualists, who select only the evil; and natural
ists, who see life as it is.
The satisfaction of the social want brings
us more immediately to our obligations to our
fellow men. This, at least, receives strong
[181]

The Religion of a Democrat
consideration from all orthodox religious
teachers. The vast amount of attention given
to petty, human responsibilities would not
seem extravagant, if only equal zeal were ex
hibited in the removal of those fundamental
causes of conflict among men, which make the
social relations difficult. It is true that con
sideration for others frequently negatives it
self into conventionality that is hypocritical
and distasteful ; but there is virtue in the most
assiduous cultivation of the lubricant of cour
tesy, which enables the great social wheels to
revolve without friction. Sympathy and re
spect are needed in the household, in society,
on the street-car, in pubhc places, and the ex
pression of them will be multiplied as the ap
preciation of the common life grows. What
a commentary on our contemporary civiliza
tion is the daily chapter of little discourtesies,
largely due to the close focus which obscures
the infinite consequences of trivial acts!
While some people have difficulty in the
kindly treatment of those they love most, there
are others whose temperaments and philosophy
[182]

Impersonal Immortality

of hfe, facilitate a spontaneous hobnobbing
with humanity. One of the most lovable per
sonalities developed in American life was
Mayor Samuel M. Jones of Toledo, beloved
by nearly everybody in that city, and by all
who really knew him. A casual remark once
brought from a young man in a remote city
the narrative of a simple incident in which
Mayor Jones was the unconscious hero. A
group of college students were returning home
on the train for their vacation, and were hav
ing the hilarious time that sudden relaxation
provokes. Mayor Jones, in passing through
the car, was attracted by their youthful en
thusiasm and spent several hours visiting with
them and giving the benediction of his
sprightly and sunny conversation. Only by
chance at leaving did they discover his identity,
but they learned that he never lost an oppor
tunity to commune with people who were
thoroughly alive, regardless of locality. More
important, he left on them an impress that
will never be forgotten. He had radiated the
influence of his benignant humanity, which the
[183]

The Religion of a Democrat
great souls of the world may communicate to
the crowd, as to those in intimate fellowship.
Such characters are found not only among
men in public life, but in women of domestic
inclinations. Such a one was Mrs. Henry D.
Lloyd, of whom a friend said, in seeing her
go down the street; — "There goes Jessie
Bross Lloyd, — trailing the beatitudes!" It
may be said that such a character is born, not
made, but one cannot tell in what environment
it may thrive, nor how far it may be cultivated.
When in search of an example of how an
unknown person can leave his mark upon the
world, one should read the life of Francis
Place, by Graham Wallas of London. Fran
cis Place was a tailor who lived in the first half
of the last century. He was reared in a sweat
shop, and for years endured degrading pov
erty; but he had a dissatisfied mind which, re
belling against the lot of the working man, led
him to resolve to make money as the first con
dition of a larger life. He succeeded beyond
any reasonable expectations, and having ac
quired a comfortable fortune, deliberately re-
[184]

Impersonal Immortality

tired from business, to devote himself to pub
lic life. As a political radical, trained in the
atmosphere of the '20s, and incited by his rap
idly acquired competence, he threw himself
into the agitation for the extension of the
suffrage. With the Reform Bill of 1832 there are as
sociated many distinguished names; but these
are the figure-heads of a political revolution
directed from, the humble home of the retired
tailor. If the franchise has been twice ex
tended since then, until, with the demand for
woman's suffrage, it promises to become uni
versal; if the British city is more democratic
than the American, and does its work better
in spite of the aristocratic crust at the top ; if
there is a better labor representation in Parlia
ment than in the American Congress, it is dif
ficult to overestimate the credit which is due
to this almost unknown tailor. Nine out of
ten of the readers of these hnes may never
have heard of Francis Place, yet he was not
only one of the prophets, but one of the great
statesmen of modern democracy. The believ-
[185]

The Religion of a Democrat
ers in democratic religion owe a debt of grati
tude to Graham Wallas for having unearthed
his manuscript memoirs in the British Mu
seum. One must not overlook the cosmic instinct
of this simple tailor. He saw that the great
est need of his time was the perfection of the
organization of the state. The highest con
ception which can be a practical guide to the
individual who would be of service to human
kind, is that which sees the intrinsic value in
united effort. The co-working of citizens is
humanity's triumph over the anarchy of the
jungle. Loyal citizenship is the truest serv
ice, for society is vested with an immortality
which cannot be ascribed to the individual.
A commercial and scientific age is naturally
unfriendly to art. Taste is a quahty we are
inclined to attribute to the people who are for
tunate enough to be insensible to the material
izing and vulgarizing incubus of modern in
dustrialism. The profitableness of the ugly
has not only resulted in the defacement of the
world, but has produced a philosophy in which
[186]

Impersonal Immortality

beauty is regarded as a luxury. The demand
for the enjoyment of the fulness of life will
involve the revolt against these conditions.
The hard, insensitive, industrial mind will have
to yield to the surviving, emotional sensitive
temperaments, until the latter can voice the
cramped desires of the multitude, who yield
to-day to what they regard as an inexorable
materialism. One may have a large intellec
tual conception of life, and still be less alert
than a savage to beautiful things. One may
hve in a slum under grinding poverty, and still
have longings for the beautiful. It is foolish
to ask people who live in squalor to rejoice in
the songs of the birds which make the air of
the country resonant, or to long for the moun
tainside which suggests to them only loneli
ness. Yet this is a sphere instinct with the
sensuous, and progress toward the good and
true will be impeded until our senses are at
tuned to hear and see the beautiful. For
harmony in the industrial world, there can be
no better aid than the cultivation of taste,
which will make the consumer responsive to the
[187]

The Religion of a Democrat
more beautiful and better things, insisting at
the same time on a superior environment for
the worker.
The satisfaction of the intellectual want
may be illusory, because it is often regarded
as the one sure expression of impersonal im
mortality. The great primitive hteratures
were preserved without Avriting; thought is
transmitted through the generations. For the
individual, there is the same insidious tempta
tion to over-indulgence in this as in any of the
other wants. There is the possibility that he
will become so satisfied with self -culture that
he will not appreciate his own need of other
things, or others' mind-hunger. Not all in
tellectual ambitions are guided by Matthew
Arnold's conception of culture: "The great
men of culture are those who have had a pas
sion for diffusing, for making prevail, for
carrying from one end of society to the other,
the best knowledge, the best ideas of their
time; who have labored to divest knowledge
of all that was harsh, uncouth, difficult, ab
stract, professional, exclusive; to humanize it,
[188]

Impersonal Immortality

to make it efficient outside the clique of the
cultivated and learned, yet remaining the best
knowledge and thought of the time, and a
true source, therefore, of sweetness and light."
The satisfaction of the moral, like the intel
lectual want, is in danger of being taken for
granted. This calamity is minimized by a
proper recognition of the moral quality of the
fulness of hfe involved in the satisfaction of
the other human wants. One may need to be
reminded, however, that in additon to the
wider expression of sympathy and love, there is
indispensable a conception of justice. As Mr.
R. T. Crane, the great manufacturer, said in
an address in Chicago, "It is desirable even for
pohcy's sake to be honest ; but even when hon
esty is a disinterested motive, it is still better
to be fair." Sympathy and love are misdi
rected unless guided by justice.
The enlargement of the horizon by the at
tempt to attain the fulness of life gives one a
vision of the universal which, in the best sense,
is religious. It will, it is true, also raise the
moral standard, but that will better enable one
[189]

The Religion of a Democrat
—
to see how many big souls there are in humble
places. Accessions of knowledge, or even of
virtue, may produce a kind of vanity? but en
tering into the fulness of life will bring mod
esty, tolerance and respect. Barrett Wendell
says that the doctrine of election is democratic
because one never knows who may be among
the elect. This may not be good theology, but
it is good sociology. One cannot afford to be
intolerant or disrespectful, for the possessor
of some exceptionally objectionable character
istic may have some other quahties which com
mand our profoundest respect.
Democratic religion will eliminate prejudice.
The prejudice of class-consciousness cannot
bear to have the light of investigation thrown
on the basis of social justice. Sex prejudice
cannot survive the revelations which come from
the experience of the richer life, founded on
the complementary relationship of the sexes.
Race prejudice weakens with the discovery of
the peculiar but misunderstood excellences of
other races. The wonted boastfulness of the
white man, born of his new and vigorous west-
[190]

Impersonal Immortality

ern civilization, may be subdued as he comes to
appreciate the enduring civilization of the yel
low man ; or he may grow indulgent toward the
immaturity of the negro, in contrast with the
premature degeneracy of some members of his
own race. Theological prejudices must van
ish if religion is measured in terms of life, and
the life eternal is seen to be determined by
deeds, rather than words.
There is a wonderful statement in the book
of Job which has been much abused by the
theologians : — "I know that my Redeemer liv-
eth." Christian theology perpetuated the
statement and made it prophetic; but the He
brews themselves had an interpretation more
probable and equally profound, which is found
in the Second Isaiah, the central theme of
which is, "My Redeemer is the people." The
people are to redeem themselves. Our ashes
f ertihze the soil from which life springs, but
souls also kindle souls. I do not know when
my Redeemer will hve, or whose Redeemer I
may be, except in the sense in which every man
is our Redeemer and we are his Redeemer.
[191]

The Religion of a Democrat
Some there are who are redeemed by touching
the life of an individual; some there are who
are redeemed by entering into the life of hu
manity. The redemption of the people will
be by means of impersonal immortality, — the
crux of democratic religion.

[192]

THE ART OF LIFE SERIES
EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS, Editor
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and ought to say to your best friend, and what your best friend
would like to say and ought to say to you.
Dr. G. Stanley Hall says : " I read it through with interest and
great pleasure. It is timely and practical."
Senator LaFollette says: "It is a book of direct personal help
fulness and has a stimulating message for the young and the mature."
"A very suggestive, thought-provoking volume, written especially
for those who are settling down in life and who are infected with the
personal-history disease, also for those who are supersensitive and
always being misunderstood." — Review of Reviews.
To he had at all Bookstores, or of
B. W. HUEBSCH .. Publisher .. NEW YORK

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 08867 6706