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^OLIVER -LODGE

HP HE author (perhaps the first scientist man alive)
is the leader of the movement, at present attract
ing such wide attention, to show complete harmony
between science and religion. It is commonly referred
to as the "new thought." His. philosophy js not
destructive, but the reverse. The volume is addressed
especially to those who have found difficulty in holding
to ancient landmarks in the rising flood of modern
criticism. PUBLISHERS' TNl?m

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Date of Issue
MAY 4 - 190T
\/!AY 2 3 1907
MAY 2 7 1907
JAN 13 1908
MAR 30 1908
MAY 4 - 1308
MAR 3 0 1909
**Y 16 1909
DEC 15 1909
FEB 2 8 1910
JUL 13 1910
MAR 13 191
??C 18 1912

\

Date of Issue-
JAN 29 1013
FEB 10 1919
JUL 26 1919
OCT 19 1921
MAR 3 1 192b
JAN 28 1927

Date of Issue

THE
SUBSTANCE OF FAITH
ALLIED WITH SCIENCE
A CATECHISM FOR
PARENTS AND TEACHERS
BY
Sir Oliver Lodge
Principal of the University oiBirmingham
AUTHOR OF
" MODERN VIEWS ON MATTER "
"SOME SOCIAL REFORMS"
" LIFE AND MATTER "
ETC., ETC.
"Gloriam quaesivit scientiarum,
invenit Dei." ' 1
\
¦
HARPER &• BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
MCMVII
Copyright, 1907, by Harper & Brothers.
All rights reserved.
Published March, 1907.

PREFACE
Every one who has to do with children at the
present day, directly or indirectly, must in some
form or another have felt the difficulty of instruct
ing them in the details of religious faith, without
leaving them open to the assaults of doubt here
after, when they encounter the results of scientific
inquiry. Sometimes the old truths and the new truths
seem to conflict; and though every one must be
aware that such internecine warfare between
truths can be an appearance only, the reconcilia
tion is not easily perceived : nor is the task simpli
fied by the hostile attitude adopted towards each
other by some of the upholders of orthodox Chris
tianity. It is sometimes said to be impossible for a
teacher to educate a class subject to compulsory
attendance, in a spirit of wealth, peace, and Godli
ness, without infringing the legitimate demands of
somebody; but the difficulty is caused chiefly by
sectarian animosity, which may take a variety of
forms. These religious and educational disputes would

iv THE SUBSTANCE OF FAITH
be of small consequence, and might even be stim
ulating to thought and fervor, were it not that one
danger is imminent: — a danger lest the nation, in
despair of a happier settlement, should consent to
a system of compulsory secularism; and forbid, in
the public part of the curriculum of elementary
schools, not only any form of worship, but any
mention of a Supreme Being, and any quotation
from the literature left us by the Saints, Apostles,
Prophets, of all ages.
If so ghastly a negation is brought about by the
warfare of Denominations it will be a most lam
entable result.
Meanwhile, in the hope and belief that the great
bulk of the teachers of this country are eager and
anxious to do their duty, and lead the children
committed to their care along the ways of right
eousness, — being deterred therefrom in some cases
only by the difficulty of following out their ideals
amid the turmoil of voices, and in other cases by
their uncertainty of how far the "old paths" can
still be pursued in the light of modern knowledge,
— I have attempted the task of formulating the
fundamentals, or substance,1 of religious faith in
terms of Divine Immanence,2 in such a way as to

1 " By Substance I understand that which exists in and by
itself" (Spinoza).
2 We may say much, yet not attain; and the sum of our
words is, He is all (Ecclesiasticus xliii. 27).

PREFACE v
assimilate sufficiently all the results of existing
knowledge, and still to be in harmony with the
teachings of the poets and inspired writers of all
ages. The statement is intended to deny nothing
which can reasonably be held by any specific De
nomination, and it seeks to affirm nothing but what
is consistent with universal Christian experience.
Our knowledge of the Christian religion is ad
mittedly derived from information verbally com
municated, and from documents; and, in the
interpretation of these sources, mistakes have been
made. At one time, not long ago, it was the duty
of serious students of all kinds to point out some
of these mistakes, wherever they ran counter to
sense and knowledge. That cleaning and sweet
ening work has been done vigorously, and done
well: at the present time comparatively little
sweeping remains to be done, save in holes and
corners : most of the lost simplicity has now been
found. A positive or constructive statement of
religious doctrine, not indeed deduced from pres
ent knowledge, but in harmony with all that bears
upon the subject, is now more useful. Such a
statement might be called "New Light on Old
Paths"; for the "old paths" remain, and are more
brightly illuminated than ever: even the old Gen
esis story of man's early experience shines out as
a brilliant inspiration. Truth always grows in
light and beauty the more it is uncovered.

vi THE SUBSTANCE OF FAITH
There are still people who endeavor to deny
or disbelieve the discoveries of science. They are
setting themselves athwart the stream, and trying
to stop its advance; — they only succeed in stopping
their own. They are good people, but unwise, and,
moreover, untrustful. If they will let go their
anchorage, and sail on in a spirit of fearless faith,
they will find an abundant reward, by attaining a
deeper insight into the Divine Nature, and a wider
and brighter outlook over the destiny of man.

Introduction — A Plea for Sympathy and
Breadth
I. The Ascent of Man .
II. The Development of Conscience .
III. Character and Will
IV. Duty and Service
V. Goodness and Beauty and God
VI. Man a Part of the Universe
VII. The Nature of Evil
VIII. The Meaning of Sin
IX. The Development of Life
X. Cosmic Intelligence
XI. Immanence
XII. Higher Faculties, or Soul and Spirit
XIII. The Reality of Grace and of Incarnation
XIV. The Truth of Inspiration
XV. A Creed
XVI. The Life Eternal
XVII. The Communion of Saints
XVIII. Prayer
XIX. The Lord's Prayer
XX. The Kingdom of Heaven
Appendix. The Clauses Repeated

2226
343844
48 54
606670
82
9098
102112120
12412813°
136

viii THE SUBSTANCE OF FAITH

REFERENCES TO QUOTATIONS

Old paths"
Hear no yelp''
Then welcome"
We fall to rise"
Nor shall I deem"
If my body"
Our wills"
The old order" .
Lilies that fester"
All tended"
He hath shewed thee"
The best is yet to be"
My son, the world"
There shall never be"
No ill no good"
All we have willed"
Where dwells enjoyment"
God tastes an infinite"
iruvra pet Kal ov&tv fiivzt,
(Everything flows and nothing
The hills are shadows" *
irdvra w\r\pri $ewv"
(All things are full of gods.)
Earth's crammed"
Our birth"
We are such stuff"
Climb the mount"
That none but Gods"
Flash of the will"
All through my keys"
*Tis the sublime"
Enough that he heard it"
A sun but dimly seen ' '
But that one ripple"
Signs of his coming"
Then stirs the feeling"
h ^vxh t<5 o\y fj.4fj.iKTat "
(Spirit permeates the whole.)
Whose dwelling"
Their prejudice"
And we the poor earth's" .

Jer. vi. 1 6.
Tennyson, "By an Evolutionist.'
Browning, "Rabbi Ben Ezra."
Browning, "Asolando."
Browning, "Paracelsus."
Tennyson, "By an Evolutionist
Tennyson, "In Memoriam."
Tennyson, "Idylls."
Shakespeare, Sonnet 94.
Browning, " Paracelsus."
Micah vi. 8.
Browning, "Rabbi Ben Ezra."
"Ancient Sage."
"Abt Vogler."
"Ancient Sage."
"Abt Vogler."
"Paracelsus." "Paracelsus."

Tennyson, Browning,
Tennyson, Browning,
Browning, Browning,
Heraclitus.
abides.) Tennyson,

'In Memoriam.'

Thales, quoted by Aristotle.
Mrs. Browning, "Aurora Leigh."
Wordsworth, "Immortality."
Shakespeare, "Tempest."
Tennyson, "Ancient Sage."
"By an Evolutionist."
"Abt Vogler."
'Abt Vogler."
'Religious Musings,,"
"Abt Vogler."
'Akbar's Dream."
'Ancient Sage."
"Love is enough."

Tennyson, Browning,
Browning,Coleridge, '
Browning,
Tennyson, Tennyson, W. Morris,
Byron, "Childe Harold."
Aristotle, "De Anima."
Wordsworth, "Tintem Abbey.'
Browning, " Paracelsus."
Tennyson, "Ancient Sage."

THE SUBSTANCE OF FAITH

INTRODUCTION
There is a growing conception of religion which
regards it not as a thing for special hours or special
days, but as a reality permeating the whole of life.
The old attempt to partition off a region where
Divine action is appropriate, from another region
in which such action would be out of place — the
old superstition that God does one thing and not
another, that He speaks more directly through the
thunder of catastrophe or the mystery of miracle
than through the quiet voice of ordinary existence
— -all this is beginning to show signs of expiring in
the light of a coming day.
Those to whom such a change is welcome regard
it as of the utmost importance that this incipient
recognition of a Deity immanent in History and in
all the processes of Nature shall be guided and
elevated and made secure. Ancient formularies
must be reconsidered and remodelled if they are
to continue to express eternal verities in language
corresponding to the enlarged acquaintance with
natural knowledge now possessed by humanity.
Nevertheless the attempt to draw up anything of

4 THE SUBSTANCE OF FAITH
the nature of a creed or catechism, unhallowed by
centuries of emotion and aspiration, is singularly
difficult; and to obtain general acceptance for such
a production may be impossible.
Every Denomination is likely to prefer its own
creed or formula, especially if it has the aroma of
antiquity upon it — an aroma of high value for
religious purposes and more easily destroyed than
replaced. No carefully drawn statement can be
expected to go far enough to satisfy religious en
thusiasts: it is not possible to satisfy both scien
tific and distinctively denominational requirements.
All this might be admitted, and yet it may be pos
sible to lay a sound foundation such as can stand
scientific scrutiny and reasonable rationalistic at
tack — a foundation which may serve as a basis for
more specific edification among those who are
capable of sustaining a loftier structure.
Even though not yet fully attainable, it is per
missible to hope for more union than exists at
present among professing Christians, and among
the branches of the Christian Church. With some
excellent people the differences and distinguishing
marks loom out as of special importance; but from
these I can hardly claim attention. I must speak
to those who try to seize points of agreement, and
who long for the time when all Christian workers
may be united in effort and friendliness and co
operation, though not in all details of doctrine.

INTRODUCTION 5
On the practical side, a concurrence of effort for
the amelioration and spiritualization of human life,
in the light of a common gospel and a common
hope, is not impossible; and on the theoretical
side, in spite of legitimate difference of belief on
difficult and infinite problems, there must be a
mass of fundamental material on which a great
majority are really agreed.
But a foundation is not to be mistaken for
superstructure: a full-fledged and developed re
ligion needs a great deal more than foundation —
there must be a building too. The warmth and
vitality imparted by strong religious conviction is
a matter of common observation, and is a force
of great magnitude; but it is a personal and living
thing, it cannot be embodied in a formula or taught
in a class. Here lies the proper field of work of
the Churches. What can be taught in a school is
the fundamental substratum underlying all such
developments and personal aspirations; and it can
be dealt with on a basis of historical and scientific
fact, interpreted and enlarged by the perceptions
and experiences of mankind.
A creed or catechism should not be regarded as
something superhuman, infallible, and immutable;
it should be considered to be what it really is — a
careful statement of what, in the best light of the
time, can be regarded as true and important about
matters partially beyond the range of scientific

6 THE SUBSTANCE OF FAITH
knowledge: it must always reach farther into the
unknown than science has yet explored.
An element of mystery and difficulty is not in
appropriate in a creed, although it may be primarily
intended for comprehension by children. Bare
bald simplicity of statement, concerning things
keenly felt but imperfectly known, cannot be per
fectly accurate; and yet every effort should be
made to combine accuracy and simplicity to the
utmost. Every word should be carefully weighed
and accurately used: mere conventional terminol
ogy should be eschewed. A sentence stored in the
memory may evolve different significations at dif
ferent periods of life, and at no one period need it
be completely intelligible or commonplace. The
ideal creed should be profound rather than ex
plicit, and yet should convey some sort of meaning
even to the simplest and most ignorant. Its terms,
, therefore, should not be technical, though for full
comprehension they would have to be understood
in a technical or even a recondite sense.
To make a statement of this kind useful, it is
necessary to accompany each clause with some
indication of the supplementary teaching neces
sary to make it assimilable: and such hints should
be adapted not only to professed teachers, but to
parents and all who have to do directly or indi
rectly with the education of children. It is my
hope that the following clauses and explanations

INTRODUCTION 7
may be of some use also to the many who expe
rience some difficulty in recognizing the old land
marks amid the rising flood of criticism, and who
at one time or another have felt shaken in their
religious faith. Some of them are sure to have
attained emancipation and conviction for them
selves, but in so far as their own insight has led
them in the general direction indicated by what
follows, these will not be the last to welcome an
explicit statement, even though in several places
they may wish to modify and amend it. They
will recognize that there is an advantage, for some
purposes, in throwing old and over-familiar for
mulae into new modes of expression; and that a
variety in mode of formulation does not necessarily
indicate a lack of appreciation of the loftiest truths
yet vouchsafed to humanity.
With these preliminary remarks I now submit a
catechism, whereof the clauses are intended to be
consistent with the teachings of Science in its
widest sense, as well as with those of Literature
and Philosophy, and to lead up to the substance
or substratum of a religious creed.

I
THE ASCENT OF MAN
Q. What are you ?
A. I am a being alive and conscious upon this
earth; a descendant of ancestors who rose by
gradual processes from lower forms of animal life,
and with struggle and suffering became man.

ANCESTRY 9
CLAUSE I
This answer does not pretend to exhaust the
nature of man; another aspect is dealt with in
Clause XII. It is usual to impart the latter mode
of statement first; but premature dwelling on the
more mystical aspect of human nature, with igno
rance or neglect of the biological facts actually
ascertained concerning it, only gives rise to troubled
thought in the future when the material facts be
come known — often in crude or garbled form — and
leads to scepticism.
The clause as it stands is a large and compre
hensive statement, that will need much time for
its elucidation and adequate comprehension. Its
separate terms may be considered thus: —
Earth. — Children can gradually be assisted to
realize the earth as an enormous globe of matter,
with vast continents and oceans on its surface and
with a clinging atmosphere, the whole moving very
rapidly (nineteen miles each second) through space,
and constituting one of a number of other planets
all circulating round the sun. They may also be
led to realize that from the distance of a million
miles it would appear as an object in the sky rather
like the moon; that from a greater distance it
would look like any of the other planets; while
from a vastly greater distance neither it nor any
other planet is large or luminous enough to be

io ASCENT OF MAN
visible— nothing but the sun would then be seen,
looking like a star. It is occasionally helpful to
realize that the earth, with all its imperfections,
is one of the heavenly bodies.
Being. — The mystery of existence may be lightly
touched upon. The fact that anything whatever —
even a stone — exists, raises unanswerable questions
of whence and why. It is instructive to think of
some rocks as agglomerations of sand, and of sand
as water-worn fragments of previous rock; be
cause, even here, there arises a sense of infinitude.
Alive. — The nature of life and, consequently,
of death is unknown, but life is associated with
rapid chemical changes in complex molecules, and
is characterized by the powers or faculties of as
similation, growth, and reproduction. It is a prop
erty we share with all animals and also with plants.
Children should not be told this in bald fashion,
but by judicious questioning should be led to per
ceive the essence of it for themselves. Soon after
they realize what is meant by life, some of them
will perceive that it has an enormous range of
application, and will think of flowers as possessing
it also: being subject like all living things to
disease and death.
What plants do not possess is the specifically
animal power of purposed locomotion, of hunting
for food and comfort, with its associated protective
penalty of pain.

ANCESTRY n
Conscious. — Here we come to something spe
cially distinctive of higher animal life. Probably
it makes its incipient appearance low down in the
scale, in vague feelings of pain or discomfort, and
of pleasure; though it is not likely that worms are
as conscious as they appear to us to be. In its
higher grades consciousness means awareness of
the world and of ourselves, a discrimination be
tween the self and the external world — "self-con
sciousness" in its proper signification: an immense
subject that can only be hinted at to children.
They can, however, be taught to have some appre
ciation of the senses, or channels, whereby our
experience of external nature is gained; and to
perceive that the way in which we apprehend the
universe is closely conditioned by the particular
sense-organs which in the struggle for existence
have been evolved by all the higher kinds of animal
life, — organs which we men are now beginning to
put to the unfamiliar and novel use of scientific
investigation and cosmic interpretation. What
wonder if we make mistakes, and are narrow and
limited in our outlook!
Digression on the Senses
Our fundamental interpretative sense is that of
touch — the muscular sense generally. Through it
we become aware of space, of time, and of matter.

12 ASCENT OF MAN
The experience of space arises from free motion,
especially locomotion; speed is a direct sensation;
and time is the other factor of speed. Time is
measured by any uniformly moving body — that is,
by space and speed together. Muscular action im
peded, the sense of force or resistance, is another
primary sensation; and by inference from this
arises our notion of "matter," which is sometimes
spoken of as a permanent possibility of sensation.
Hardness and softness, roughness and smoothness,
are all inferences from varieties of touch. Another
sense allied to touch is that oi temperature, whereby
we obtain primitive ideas concerning heat. Then
there are the chemical senses of taste and smell;
and lastly, the two senses which enable us to draw
inferences respecting things at a distance. These
two attract special attention; for the information
which they convey, though less fundamental than
that given by the muscular sense, is of the highest
interest and enjoyment.
The ear is an instrument for the appreciation
of aerial vibrations, or ripples in the air. They
may give us a sense of harmony; and in any case
they enable us to infer something concerning the vi
brating source which generated them, so that we can
utilize them, by a prearranged code, for purposes
of intelligent communication with each other — a
process of the utmost importance, to which we have
grown so accustomed that its wonder is masked.

ANCESTRY 13
The eye is an instrument for appreciating ripples
in the ether. These are generated by violently
revolving electric charges associated with each atom
of matter, and are delayed, stopped, and reflected
in various ways, by other matter which they en
counter in their swift passage through the ethereal
medium. From long practice and inherited instinct we are
able, from the small fraction of these ripples which
enter our eyes, to make inferences regarding the
obstructive objects from which they have been
shimmered and scattered. It is like inferring the
ships and boats and obstacles in a harbor from the
pattern of the reflected ripples which cross each
other on the surface of the water.
The precision and clearness with which we can
thus gain knowledge concerning things beyond our
reach, and the extraordinary amount of informa
tion that can be thus conveyed, are nothing short
of miraculous: though, again, we are liable to
treat sight as an every-day and commonplace fac
ulty. We are not, however, directly conscious of
the ripples, though they are the whole exciting
cause of the sensation; our real consciousness and
perception are of the objects which have invested
the ripples with their peculiarities, have imprinted
upon them certain characteristics, and made them
what they are. The eye is able to analyze all this,
as the ear analyzes the tones of an orchestra.

14 ASCENT OF MAN
Ancestors. — In the first instance human ances
tors may be considered, and a family tree drawn
for any one child; from which he will learn how
large a number of persons combine to form his
ancestry. The tree can also represent the converg
ing effect of inter-marriages, so that ultimate de
scent from a common ancestor is not an impossi
bility, if the facts of biology and ethnology point in
that direction — as it appears they do. The proba
ble though remote relationship existing between all
the branches of the human family may be suggested
by an inverted tree descending from some remotest
ancestor: for whom Noah is as good a name as any
other. Rose. — The doctrine of the ascent of man may
be found in some cases to conflict with early re
ligious teaching. If so, offence and iconoclasm
should be carefully avoided; and if the teacher
feels that he can conscientiously draw a distinction,
between the persistent vital or spiritual essence of
man, and the temporary material vehicle which dis
plays his individual existence amid terrestrial sur
roundings, he may with advantage do so. The
second or higher aspect of the origin of man is dealt
with in Clause XII. The history and origin of the
spiritual part of man is unknown, and can only be
rightly spoken of in terms of mysticism and poetry:
the history of the bodily and much of the mental
part is studied in the biological facts of evolution.

ANCESTRY 15
The doctrine of the ascent of man, properly
regarded, is a doctrine of much hope and comfort.
Truly it is an unusual item in a child's creed; but
it is, I think, a helpful item: it explains much that
would otherwise be dark, and it instils hope for the
future. For in the light of an evolution doctrine
we can readily admit — (1) that low and savage
tendencies are naturally to be expected at certain
stages, for an evanescent moment; and (2) that
having progressed thus far, we may anticipate fur
ther — perhaps unlimited — advance for mankind.
The fact that each individual organism hastily
runs through, or reduplicates, a main part of the
series of stages in the life-history of its race, is a
fact of special interest and significance; notably in
connection with the trials and temptations of hu
man beings during their effort to cleanse away the
traces of animal nature. The severity of the con
test is already lessening, and both the individual
and the race may look forward to a time when the
struggles and failures are nearly over, when the
unruliness of passion is curbed, when at length we
". . . hear no yelp of the beast, and the man is quiet at
last
As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse
of a height that is higher."
Gradual Processes. — The slowness and pre-
cariousness of evolution may be indicated; and the

16 ASCENT OF MAN
possibility of descent or degeneration, as well as of
ascent and development, must be insisted on. A
genealogical tree can be drawn laterally, to illus
trate the origin of any set of animals — both those
risen and those fallen in the scale — from some pos
sibly hypothetical common ancestor. The dog on
the one hand, and the wolf or jackal on the other,
may serve as easy examples of ascent and descent
respectively, and of relationship between higher and
lower species, or even genera, without direct or obvi
ous connection. The horse and the bear may serve
as examples of distant relationship; birds and rep
tiles as another; and we may point out that at each
stage of inheritance some of the progeny may ascend
a little in the scale, and some descend a little.
Presently the sponge of time may wipe out the
common ancestry at the root of the lateral tree, and
nothing be left but some of its ascending and some
of its descending branches, — all suited to their en
vironment and so continuing to live and flourish,
each in its own way; but so apparently different,
that relationship between them is a matter of infer
ence, and is sometimes difficult to believe in. The
example of the caterpillar and butterfly, however,
of the tadpole and the frog, etc., can be used to
remove incredulity at extraordinary and instructive
transmutations — transmutations which in the indi
vidual represent rapidly some analogous move
ments of racial development in the history of the

ANCESTRY 17
distant past. The degradation of certain free-
swimming animals, such as ascidians, which in
old age become rooted or sessile like plants, can
be pointed to as typical, and, indeed, a true rep
resentation of what has gone on in a race also,
during long periods of time. The rapid pas
sage of the embryo through its ancestral chain
of development should be known, at any rate
to the teacher; and in general the greater the
teacher's acquaintance with natural history, the
more living and interesting will be the series of
lessons that can occasionally be given on this part
of the clause.
The popular misconception concerning the bio
logical origin of man, that he is descended from
monkeys like those of the present day, is a trivial
garbling of the truth. The elevated and the de
graded branches of a family can both trace their
descent from a parent stock; and though the dis
tant common ancestor may now be lost in obscu
rity, there is certainly in this sense a blood relation
ship between the quadrumana and the bimana: a
relationship which is recognized and is practically
useful in the investigations of experimental pa
thology. Lower Forms of Animal Life. — The existence
of single cells and other low microscopic forms (like
amcebae), and the analysis or dissection of a more
complex structure (say rhubarb) into the cells of

18 ASCENT OF MAN
which it is in a sense composed, together with
some indication of the vital processes occurring in
similar but isolated cells (such as yeast or proto-
coccus) which lead us to consider them as possess
ing life — of a form so fundamental that there is in
some cases no clear discrimination between animal
and vegetable — may be spoken of and exhibited in
the microscope.
From a not very different-looking minute ger
minal vesicle, or nucleus of a cell, the chick is
developed. The lower forms of animal life, spoken of in the
clause as ancestral, may be understood to go back
to forms even as low as these, — indeed, to the low
est and minutest forms which in dim and distant
ages can have possessed any of the incipient char
acteristics of life a tall: down, perhaps, to some un
known process whereby the earthy particles began
to coalesce under a vivifying influence. And as
the race springs from lowly forms of cell life, so
does the individual, — the body of each individual
was once no more than a microscopic cell-nucleus
or germinal vesicle. Therein was the germ of
life: and the complex aggregate of cells we now
possess has all been put together by the directive
power latent in, or initially manifested by, that
germ. So it is also with a seed — an apple pip, an
acorn, or a grain of mustard seed.
But there are many forms of animal life not in

ANCESTRY 19
the direct line of our ancestry — side branches, as it
were, of the great terrestrial family. At present
the earth is dominated by man, but at one time it
was mastered by gigantic reptiles, larger than any
land creature of to-day, the remains of which are
occasionally found fossilized into stone and em
bedded in the rocks; fit to be collected and pre
served in museums.
For millions of years the earth was inhabited by
creatures no higher than these; the progress up
ward has been slow and patient: time is infinitely
long, and the great history of the world is still
working itself out.
Still do lower forms exist side by side with
higher; and many of them are suited to their sur
roundings, and in their place are beautiful and sane
and perfect of their kind. But a few of the lower
forms are lower because they have failed to reach
the standard of their race, they are very far from
any kind of perfection, they are at war with their
environment; and for these, the only alternatives
are extinction or improvement. In such a spe
cies as man the variety or range of achievement
and of elevation is enormous. Among men and
their works we find, on the one hand, cathedrals
and oratorios and poems, and faith and charity
and hope; on the other hand, we find slums and
ugliness and prisons, and spite and cruelty and
greed.

20 ASCENTOFMAN
The problem, the main human problem, is how
to deal with the earth now — now that we have at
length attained to conscious control — so as to cease
perpetuating these lower forms, and to encourage
the production of the higher; by giving to all chil
dren born on the planet a fair chance of becoming,
each in its own way, a noble specimen of developed
humanity. Struggle and Suffering. — Children should
realize the bleak and unprotected state through
which their remote ancestors must have begun a
human existence, the great dangers which they had
to overcome, the contests with beasts and with the
severities of climate, the hardships and perils and
straits through which they passed; and should be
grateful to these unknown pioneers of the human
race, to whose struggles and suffering and discov
eries and energies our present favored mode of
existence on the planet is due.
The more people realize the effort that has pre
ceded them and made them possible, the more are
they likely to endeavor to be worthy of it : the more
pitiful also will they feel when they see individuals
failing in the struggle upward and falling back
towards a brute condition; and the more hopeful
they will ultimately become for the brilliant future
of a race which from such lowly and unpromising
beginnings has produced the material vehicle neces*
sary for those great men who flourished in the re-

ANCESTRY 21
cent epoch which we speak of as antiquity; and has
been so guided, since then, as to develop the mag
nificence of a Newton and a Shakespeare even on
this island in the northern seas.

II
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONSCIENCE
Q. 2. What, then, may be meant by the Fall of
man? A. At a certain stage of development man be
came conscious of a difference between right and
wrong, so that thereafter, when his actions fell
below a normal standard of conduct, he felt
ashamed and sinful. He thus lost his animal
innocency, and entered on a long period of human
effort and failure; nevertheless, the consciousness
of degradation marked a rise in the scale of exist
ence.

FALL OF MAN 25
CLAUSE II
This clause has been inserted because of the his
toric, though often mistaken, notions accreted
round a legend of Fall and of a Paradise lost; and
it is of interest to detect the germ of truth which
these ancient ideas contain. It may be regarded
as really an appendage of, or introductory to, the
next clause.
The sense of guilt and shame is to some extent
displayed by a dog; but it appears to be due to
domestication, and to be a secondary result of
human influence. In any case, it is certainly only
the higher animals that thus exhibit the germ of
conscience, and the sense of shame and remorse : a
sense which is most real and genuine when it is
independent of externally inflicted and of expected
punishment. Wild animals appear to have no such
feeling, they glory in what we may picturesquely
speak of as their "misdeeds," and in running the
gauntlet of danger to achieve them; and though
often cruel, they are free from sin. Some savages
— our own Norse forefathers among others — must
on their freebooting expeditions have been in sim
ilar case. So were some of the Homeric heroes.
It would be only the highest and most thoughtful
among them that could rise to the sense of guilt and
degradation. Only those who have risen are liable
%o fall. The summit of manhood is attained when

24 FALL OF MAN
evil is consciously overcome. The period before it
was recognized as such has been called the golden
age; but the condition of unconsciousness of evil,
though joyous, is manifestly inferior to the state
ultimately attainable, when paradise is regained
through struggle and victory.
Mere innocency, the freedom from sin by reason
only of lack of perception, is not the highest state;
it has been thought ideal from the point of view of
inspiration and poetry, but it is a condition in
which advance is necessarily limited. Sooner or
later fuller knowledge and consciousness must ar
rive; and then ensues a long period of discipline
and distress, until first a Leader and ulti
mately the race find their way out, through
temptation and difficulty, once more to freedom
and joy.
A perception that the possibility of backsliding
is a necessary ingredient in the making of man,
and the consequent discernment of a soul of good
ness in things evil, constitute a large part of the
teaching of Browning :
"Then welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go!
Be our joys three parts pain!
Strive to hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang: dare, never grudge the
throe."

DEVELOPMENT 25
And again —
"We fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake — "
The intervening period between fall and victory,
between loss of innocency and gain of righteous
ness, is the period with which all human history is
concerned: and there is often a corresponding
period in the life-history of every fully developed
individual, during which he gropes his way through
the darkness and longs for light.
Immense is the area still to be traversed and
illumined: only faint gleams penetrate the dusk.
A Light has indeed shone through the darkness,
but the darkness comprehended it not. The race
itself is still enveloped in mist, and only here and
there a glint of reflection heralds the brightness of
a coming dawn. Yet a time will come when we
shall cast away the works of darkness and put upon
us the armor of light, and stand forth in the glory
of completed manhood:
"Nor shall I deem his object served, his end
Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth,
While only here and there a star dispels
The darkness, here and there a towering mind
O'erlooks its prostrate fellows. When the host
Is out at once, to the despair of night,
When all mankind alike is perfected,
Equal in full-bloom powers — then, not till then,
I say, begins man's general infancy."

Ill
CHARACTER AND WILL
Q. 3. What is the distinctive characteristic of
manhood? A. The distinctive character of man is that he
has a sense of responsibility for his acts, having
acquired the power of choosing between good and
evil, with freedom to obey one motive rather than
another. Creatures far below the human level are
irresponsible; they feel no shame and suffer no
remorse; they are said to have no conscience.

CHARACTER OF MANHOOD 27
CLAUSE III
In putting this question, children may be
asked to suggest characteristics which distin
guish man from animals. If gradually they hit
upon clothes and fire and speech they will do
well. Clothes may be defined as artificial covering
removable at will; "artificial" meaning made by
an artificer, or manufactured, as opposed to natu
ral growth, like fur. But the changes of covering
among animals should not be overlooked: moult
ing for instance, renewal of skin necessitated by
growth, protective change of color at summer and
winter, and so on.
The discovery of Fire is a thing to be empha
sized, because familiarity with lucifer matches is
liable to engender contempt for this great pre
historic discovery. PeopJe should realize that at
one time the production of flame de novo was ex
tremely difficult: the ordinary method of lighting
fires being to keep some one fire always alight, so
that brands could be ignited at it and thus it be
spread. The fact that lighting other fires does not
diminish or weaken the original stock, is a striking
fact, and is an analogy with life which may be
typified by oaks and acorns— any number of trees
arising from a parent stock, and spreading for
innumerable generations. The ancient ceremony

28 CHARACTER AND WILL
of keeping flames alight on sacred altars was
doubtless due to the difficulty of re-ignition when
every fire in a village had accidentally become ex
tinguished. That the ancients valued fire highly,
and felt strongly the difficulty of generating it, is
shown by the legend that the first fire must have
been stolen from heaven; and the priests taught,
as usual in barbarous times, that the gods were
jealous and angry at man's discoveries and the
progress of science.
Speech and language is a most vital characteristic
of manhood, and is largely responsible for the
chasm between him and other animals. The gest
ures and noises of animals must not be overlooked,
however, and they often seem to have mysterious
modes of communication of some kind. But they
have nothing akin to writing; and this portentous
discovery enables not merely communication be
tween contemporary living men, but an accumula
tion of information and experience throughout the
centuries; so that a man is no longer dependent
solely on his own individual experience, but is
able to draw upon the records and wisdom
of the past. Owing to this power of recording
and handing on information, a discovery once
made becomes the possession of the human race
henceforth forever -r- unless it relapses into bar
barism.

WILL 29
Will
None of these characteristics, however, is empha
sized in the clause, because they lead too far afield
if pursued. For our present purpose we regard the
sense of "conscience," spoken of in the previous
answer, as the most important and highest char
acteristic of all, — the sense of responsibiiity, the
power of self-determination, the building up of
character, so that ultimately it becomes impossible
to be actuated by unworthy motives; our actions
are now controlled not by external impulses only,
but largely by our own characters and wills. The
man who is the creature of impulse, or the slave of
his passions, cannot be said to be his own master,
or to be really free; he drifts hither and thither ac
cording to the caprice or the temptation of the
moment, he is untrustworthy and without solidity
or dignity of character. The free man is he who
can control himself, does not obey every idea as it
occurs to him, but weighs and determines for him
self, and is not at the mercv of external influences.
This is the real meaning of choice and free will.
It does not mean that actions are capricious and
undetermined; but that they are determined by
nothing less than the totality of things. They are
not determined by the external world alone, so that
they can be calculated and predicted from outside :
they are determined by self and external world to-

?o RESPONSIBILITY
gether. A free man is the master of his mo
tives, and selects that motive which he wills to
obey. If he chooses wrongly, he suffers; he is liable also
to make others suffer, and he feels remorse. In a
high grade of existence no other punishment is
necessary. Artificial punishment has for its object
the production of artificial remorse, in creatures too
low as yet for the genuine feeling. Artificial pun
ishment can be easily exaggerated and misapplied,
and should be employed with extreme caution. It
is always ambitious and often dangerous, though
sometimes justifiable and necessary, to attempt to
take the place of Providence. Even between par
ents and children, enforcement of another's will
may be overdone, till the power of self-control and
the instinct of duty are impaired.
The sense of responsibility inevitably grows with
power and knowledge, and is proportional thereto.
By means of drugs a grown man may enfeeble his
will till he becomes in some sense irresponsible for
his actions; but he is not irresponsible for his wil
ful destruction of a human faculty; and in so far
as he is dangerous to others he must be treated
accordingly. The struggle in man's nature between the better
and the worse elements, — sometimes spoken of as
a struggle between dual personalities, and other
wise depicted as a conflict between the flesh and

CHARACTER 31
the spirit, — is a natural consequence of our double
ancestry (spoken of in Clause XII.) our ascent from
animal fellow-creatures, and our relationship with a
higher order of being. No man in his sober senses
really wills to do evil : he does it with some motive
which he tries to think justifies it; or else he does
it against his real will because mastered by some
thing lower. So Plato teaches in the Gorgias; and
St. Paul says the same thing:
"The good which I would I do not; but the evil
which I would not, that I do."
The conflict is often a period of torment and
misery. "O, wretched man that I am! who shall
deliver me from the body of this death ?"
Whenever the better nature prevails in the strug
gle there is a mystic sense of strength and comfort,
universally testified to by humanity, even though
the victory results in temporal loss or persecution;
"in all these things we are more than conquerors."
And this fact corresponds with part of the answer
to Question 6 below.
We can recognize that our evil impulses are the
natural remnant of bestial ancestry, and need not
be due to diabolical promptings. An animal,
though perhaps innocent from lack of knowledge,
is bound and enslaved by its instincts; for instance,
the apparently intelligent and social bee is driven
by racial instincts into a prescribed course of action;
a cat can no more refrain from trying to catch a

32 CHARACTER AND WILL
bird than a man of high nature can allow himself to
commit a crime.
The weak man often allows his brute nature to
get the upper hand and enslave his higher self, and
he hates himself afterwards for the degradation so
caused; but the strong and free man takes control
and dominates his animal nature.
"If my body come from brutes, tho' somewhat finer than
their own,
I am heir, and this my kingdom. Shall the royal voice
be mute ?
No, but if the rebel subject seek to drag me from the
throne,
Hold the Sceptre, Human Soul, and rule thy Province
of the brute."

IV
DUTY AND SERVICE
Q. 4. What is the duty of man?
A. To assist his fellows, to develop his own
higher self, to strive towards good in every way
open to his powers, and generally to seek to know
the laws of Nature and to obey the will of God,
in whose service alone can be found that harmo
nious exercise of the faculties which is synonymous
with perfect freedom.

DUTY 35
CLAUSE IV
The laws of nature signify the ascertained proc
esses and consistencies observable in all surround
ing things; they are a special and partial, but
accurately ascertainable, aspect of what is called
the will of God. They cannot be broken or really
disobeyed; but we may set ourselves in fruitless
antagonism to them, — as by building a bridge too
weak to stand, by various kinds of wrong conduct,
eating unduly or wrong kind of food, by careless
sanitation and neglect of health. But all such
ignorance or neglect of the laws of nature involves
disaster. By knowing them, and acting with them,
we show wisdom; and by steady persistence in
right action we attain the highest development
possible to us at present; we also escape that
dreary sense of disloyal hopeless struggle against
circumstances which is inconsistent with harmony
or freedom. So long as the will of any creature is
antagonistic to the rest of the universe, it is not
fully developed. There must be a harmony among
all the parts of a whole; but in the case of free
beings it is not a forced but a willing harmony that
is aimed at; and all experience takes time.
"Our wills are ours, we know not how,
Our wills are ours to make them Thine."
The higher a man can raise himself in the scale

j6 SERVICE
of existence — by education, right conduct, and per
sistent effort — the more he may be able to help his
fellows. To some are given ten talents, to some
five, and to another one; but it is the duty of all to
use their talents to the uttermost, so that they may
fulfil the intention of the higher Power which
brought us into existence and intrusted us with
responsible control. Events do not happen with
out adequate cause, and in so far as agents, stew
ards, or trustees rest on their oars or misuse their
opportunities, improvements now possible will not
be accomplished. We must regard ourselves as
instruments and channels of the Divine action,'
even in a few things we must be good and faithful
servants, and it is our privilege to help now in the
conscious evolution and development of a higher
life on this planet.
The race of man has far to travel before it can
be regarded as an efficient organ of the Divine
Purpose. The extremes of ability and character
and virtue are widely separated; and the occa
sional elevation of a leader, here and there, serves
but to display the darkness in which the majority
of a race so newly evolved are still imprisoned;
crawling feebly towards the light, in a state of only
rudimentary consciousness; anxious about trivi
alities, opposing and hindering instead of helping
one another, competing rather than co-operating,
fighting and struggling and killing, in the throes of

DUTY 37
racial birth. It is often difficult to realize the pos
sible perfectness of human life, in the midst of so
much difficulty and discouragement.
And much of the difficulty is unnecessary and
artificial. Deficiency in the means of subsistence,
or in modest comfort, is not a reasonable condition
of human life. The earth is ready to yield plenty
for all, and will when properly treated and under
stood; but never will it spoil its children with
bounties from a neglected breast. It must be
coaxed and coerced, and then it will respond lavish
ly. We expend plenty of energy already, only we
misapply it. If only our aim could be changed and
our energy be concentrated on clear and conscious
pressing forward, with a definite mark in view —
towards which all could work together and all to
gether could attain, instead of one at the expense of
others — "then would the earth put forth her in
crease, and God, even our own God, would give us
His blessing."
(The " duty " clauses in the Church Catechism are
well worth learning.)

V
GOODNESS AND BEAUTY AND GOD
Q. 5. What is meant by good and evil?
A. Good is that which promotes development,
and is in harmony with the will of God. It is akin
to health and beauty and happiness.
Evil is that which retards or frustrates develop
ment, and injures some part of the universe. It is
akin to disease and ugliness and misery.

GOODNESS 39
CLAUSE V
"Development" means unfolding of latent pos
sibilities; as a bud unfolds into a flower, or as a
chicken emerges from an egg.
The idea controlling this answer is that growth
and development are in accordance with the law
of the universe, and that destruction and decay are
features which are only good in so far as they may
be on the way to something better; as leaf-mould
assists the growth of flowers, or as discords in their
proper place conduce to, or prepare for, harmony.
In the same way conditions and practices which
once were good become in process of time corrupt;
yet out of them must grow the better future.
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."
The law of the Universe, and the will of God, are
here regarded as in some sort synonymous terms.
It is impossible properly to define such a term as
"God," but it is permissible reverently to use the
term for a mode of regarding the Universe as in
vested with what in human beings we call person
ality, consciousness, and other forms of intelligence,
emotion, and will. These attributes, undoubtedly
possessed by a part, are not to be denied to the

40 GOD
whole; however little we may be able as yet to form
a clear conception of their larger meaning.
It is quite clear that the Universe was not made
by man; it must owe its existence to some higher
Power of which man has but an infinitesimal knowl
edge. Some primary conception of such a Power
has been independently formed by every fraction of
the human race, and is what under various symbols
has been called God.
It is sometimes asserted that God does not pos
sess powers and faculties and attributes which we
ourselves possess. But that is preposterous: for
though we may be able to form no conception as to
the particular form our powers would take, when
possessed by a being even moderately higher in the
scale of existence than ourselves; and although
vastly more must be attributed to the Reality de
noted by the term "God" than we can even begin
to conceive of; yet such a term, if it is to have any
meaning at all, must at least include everything we
have so far been able to discover as existent in the
Universe. It must, in fact, be the most compre
hensive term that can be employed; though for
practical purposes it may be permissible to discrim
inate, and exclude from its connotation, portions
such as "self," and "the world," and sometimes,
though with less excuse, even an abstraction like
"nature"; considering these separately from the
more purely personal aspect to which attention is

BEAUTY 41
directed by our ordinary use of the term God. It
is convenient to differentiate the principle of evil
also, and to reserve it for separate -study.
Sometimes the totality of existence is spoken of
as the "Absolute," and the term God is limited to
the conception of a Being of infinite Goodness and
Mercy, the ultimate Impersonation of Truth and
Love and Beauty; a Being of whose attributes the
highest faculties and perceptions of man are but a
dim shadow or reflection.
In man, goodness is the path towards higher de
velopment, and a radiant beauty is the crown and
perfection of life; so the trinity of Truth, Good
ness, and Beauty, often referred to in literature,
may, without undue stretching, be considered as
also equivalent to what is represented by the words,
the Way, the Truth, and the Life; they are three
aspects of what after all is one essential unity. That
which is good, in the highest sense, cannot help
being both true and beautiful. Nevertheless, for
many practical purposes, these ideas must be dis
criminated; and the question is occasionally forced
upon our attention whether vitality or beauty can
possibly be enlisted in the service of evil; and if so,
whether it is still in itself good.
We have to learn that most good things can be
misapplied, and that though they do not in them
selves cease to be good, their desecration is espe
cially deadly. That the corruption of the best

42 GOODNESS
abets the cause of the worst, is proverbial; the
prostitution of high gifts to base ends is the saddest
of spectacles.
" Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds."
Oratory, the power of persuasion, can thus be de
based, and the passions of the multitude may be
incited by the Divine fire of eloquence. Rhetoric
and sophistry have been on this ground condemned
when they were misused for the cultivation of the
art of persuasion apart from knowledge and virtue;
but almost every good gift — personal affection,
medical science, artistic genius — has every now and
then been abused; and the higher and nobler the
faculty, the more sorrowful and diabolical must be
its prostitution.
It has been an ancient puzzle to consider whether
the principle of goodness is the supreme entity in
the universe — a principle to which God as well as
man is subject — or whether it represents only the
arbitrary will of the Creator. Many answers have
been given, but the answer from the side of science
is clear: —
No existing universe can tend on the whole tow
ards contraction and decay; because that would
foster annihilation, and so any incipient attempt
would not have survived; consequently an actually
existing and flowing universe must on the whole

GOODNESS 43
cherish development, expansion, growth: and so
tend towards infinity rather than towards zero.
The problem is therefore only a variant of the gen
eral problem of existence. Given existence, of a
non-stagnant kind, and ultimate development must
be its law. Good and evil can be defined in terms
of development and decay respectively. This may
be regarded as part of a revelation of the nature of
God.

VI
MAN PART OF THE UNIVERSE
Q. 6. How does man know good from evil ?
A. His own nature, when uncorrupted by greed,
is sufficiently in tune with the universe to enable
him to be well aware in general of what is a help
or hindrance to the guiding Spirit, of which he
himself is a real and effective portion.

DIVINE AGENCY OF MAN 45
CLAUSE VI
We are not something separate from the Uni
verse, but a part of it: a part of it endowed with
some power of control — power to guide ourselves
and others and assist in the scheme of development
— power also to go wrong, to set ourselves contrary
to the tendency of things, to delay progress, and
break ourselves in conflict with overpowering
forces. When not thus warped or misled, we fit into the
general scheme, and, like all other portions of exis
tence, can fulfil our function and take our due share
in the general progress. We are a part of the
Universe, and the Universe is a part of God. Even
we also, therefore, have a Divine Nature and may
truly be called sons and co-workers with God. The
consciousness of this constitutes our highest privi
lege, and likewise our gravest responsibility. Per
ception of this is dawning with increasing bright
ness on the human race in the light of the doctrine
of evolution. The process of evolution has no end :
progress is towards an advancing goal. At one
time "... all tended to mankind,
And, man produced, all has its end thus far:
But in completed man begins anew
A tendency to God."
We are essential and active agents in the terres-

46 MAN AND THE UNIVERSE
trial order of things, analogous to the white cor
puscles in the human body. The body may be
regarded as a colony of cells, some of which are
living and moving on their own account; in com
plete ignorance of the feelings and perceptions of
the larger whole of which they are microscopic
units, towards whose health and comfort neverthe
less they unconsciously but very really contribute;
it is in fact by their activity that the health of the
body is maintained against adverse influences. So
it is with the health of the body politic, to which our
wise activity is necessary and essential; we are to
be a corporate portion of the whole, effective ser
vants of the guiding and controlling Spirit. But
in our case it is not merely unconscious service that
is called for: we are privileged not only to be ser
vants, but friends; not only to work, but to sympa
thize; to give not only dutiful but affectionate
service. This is required of the humblest, and no
more is required of the noblest:
"He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good;
and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do
justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
thy God ?"

VII
THE NATURE OF EVIL
Q. 7. How comes it that evil exists ?
A. Evil is not an absolute thing, but has refer
ence to a standard of attainment. The possibility
of evil is the necessary consequence of a rise in the
scale of moral existence; just as an organism whose
normal temperature is far above "absolute zero"
is necessarily liable to damaging and deadly cold.
But cold is not in itself a positive or created thing.

EVIL 49
CLAUSE VII
The term "evil " is relative: dirt, for instance, is
well known to be only matter out of place; weeds
are plants flourishing where they are not wanted;
there are no weeds in botany, there are weeds in
gardening; even disease is only one organism grow
ing at the expense of another; ugliness is non-ex
istent save to creatures with a sense of beauty, and
is due to unsuitable grouping. Analyzed into its
elements, every particle of matter must be a miracle
of law and order, and, in that sense, of beauty.
Recent discoveries in connection with the in
ternal structure of an atom, whereby the constitu
ent particles are found to move in intricate and
ascertainable orbits — leading to a new science of
atomic astronomy — emphasize this assertion to an
extent barely credible ten years ago.
Even what can be called filth, that is to say
material which to the casual observer, or when
encountered at unsuitable times, is disgusting, may
to an investigator or under other circumstances
be of the highest interest; and may even arouse
a sense of admiration, by reason of manifest sub
servience to function.
Many social evils are due to human folly and
stupidity, and will cease when the race has risen
to a standard already attained by individuals.
Excessive hunger and starvation are manifestly

50 NATUREOFEVIL
evils of a negative character: they are merely a
deficiency of supply: they have no business to
exist in a civilized and organized community,
Famine and pestilence can be checked by applica
tions of science.
Pain is an awful reality, when highly developed
organisms are subjected to wounds and poison and
disease. Some kinds of pain have been wickedly in
flicted by human beings on one another in the past,
and other kinds may be removed or mitigated by
the progress of discovery in the future. Physio
logically the nerve processes involved are well
worthy of study and control. Premature avoid
ance of pain would have been dangerous to the
race, and not really helpful to the individual: but
great advances in this direction are now foreshad
owed. Already surgical operations can be con
ducted painlessly, and a time is foreshadowed when
by hypnosis excessive and useless torture can be
shut off from consciousness, by intelligence and
will; somewhat as the random leakage of an
electric supply can be checked. All this will come
in due time:
"The best is yet to be,
The last of life for which the first was made :
Our times are in His hand
Who saith a whole I planned,
Youth shows but half: trust God, see all, nor be afraid."
The contrast between good and evil can be well

EVIL 51
illustrated by the contrast between heat and cold.
Cold is only the absence of heat, and is made at
once possible and necessary by the existence of
degrees of heat. The fact that we regard excessive
cold as an evil is only because our organization
demands a certain temperature for life; there is
nothing evil about cold in itself: it is only evil in
its relation to organisms sufficiently high to be
damaged by it. The real fact is their normally
high temperature, and their delicacy of response
to stimuli. These things are good; and the only
evil is a defect or deficiency of these good things.
The power of assimilating food leaves the organ
ism open to the pangs of hunger, that is, of insuffi
cient nutriment, — manifestly only the absence of a
good. Every rise involves the possibility of fall. Every
advance seems to entail a corresponding penalty.
In a world devoid of life there is no death; in a
world without conscious beings there is no sin.
In a world without affection there would be no
grief; and to a larger vision much of our grief may
be needless: —
"My son, the world is dark with griefs and graves,
So dark that men cry out against the Heavens.
Who knows but that the darkness is in man ?"
A mechanical universe might be perfectly good.
Every atom of matter perfectly obeys the forces

52 NATUREOFEVIL
acting upon it, and there is no error or wickedness
or fault or rebellion in lifeless nature. Evil only
begins when existence takes a higher turn. There
is not even destruction or death in the inorganic
world — only transformation. The higher possi
bility called life entails the correlative evils called
death and disease. The possibility of keen sensa
tion, which permits pleasure, also involves capacity
for the corresponding penalty called pain: but the
pain is in ourselyes, and is the result of our sensi
tiveness combined with imperfection.
The still higher attribute of conscious striving
after holiness, which must be the prerogative of
free agents capable of virtue or purposed good, and
marks so enormous a rise in the scale of creation, —
involves the possibility that beings so endowed may
fall from their high level, and, by definitely apply
ing themselves to harm instead of good, may abuse
their high power and suffer the penalty called sin;
but the evil in all cases is a warped or distorted
good, and has reference to the higher beings which
are now in existence.

'There shall never be one lost good! what was shall live
as before;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much
good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect
round."

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 53
Some further idea of the necessity for evil can be
conveyed as follows: —
Contrast is an inevitable attribute of reality.
Sickness is the negative and opposite of health:
without sickness we should not be aware what
health was. There is no sickness in inorganic
nature; yet, even there, contrast is the essence of
existence. Everything that is must be surrounded
by regions where it is not. There is no stupid
infinity, or absence of boundaries, about existing
things, — however infinite their totality may be, —
no absence of limitation, either of perfection or of
anything else. Existence involves limitation. A
tree that is here is excluded from being everywhere
else. Goodness would have no meaning if bad
ness were impossible or non-existent.
"No ill no good! such counter-terms, my son,
Are border-races, holding, each its own
By endless war."
We are not machines or automata, but free and
conscious and active agents, and so must contend
with evil as well as rejoice in good. Conflict and
difficulty are essential for our training and develop
ment: even for our existence at this grade. With
their aid we have become what we are; without
them we should vegetate and degenerate; whereas
the will of the Universe is that we arise and walk.

VIII
THE MEANING OF SIN
Q. 8. What is sin?
A. Sin is the deliberate and wilful act of a free
agent who sees the better and chooses the worse,
and thereby acts injuriously to himself and others.
The root sin is selfishness, whereby needless trouble
and pain are inflicted on others; when fully de
veloped it involves moral suicide.

SIN 55
CLAUSE VIII
The essence of sin is error against light and
knowledge, and against our own higher nature.
Vice is error against natural law. Crime is error
against society. Sin against our own higher nature
may be truly said to be against God, because it is
against that purpose or destiny which by Divine
arrangement is open to us, if only we will pursue
and realize it.
Sin is a disease: the whole of existence is so
bound together that disease in one part means pain
throughout; the innocent may suffer with the
guilty, and suffering may extend to the Highest.
The healing influences of forgiveness, felt by the
broken and the contrite heart, achieve spiritual
reform though they remove no penalty. Every
eddy of conduct, for good or ill, must have its
definite consequence.
We have high authority for the statement that
hard circumstances and disabilities, not of our own
making, are mercifully taken into account; while
privileges and advantages weigh heavily in the
scale against us, if we prove unworthy:
"If ye were blind ye would have no sin ;
but now ye say We see, therefore your sin remaineth."
A man or woman's nature may be so weakened
and warped by miserable surroundings, that its

56 SELFISHNESS
strength is insufficient to cope with its environment.
Pity, and a wish to help, are the feelings which such
a state of things should arouse, together with an
active determination to improve or remove the con
ditions which lead to such an untoward result.
Most human failures are the result of bad social
arrangements, and they constitute an indictment
against human inertness and selfishness. It is a
terrible responsibility to turn a human soul out of
terrestrial life worse than when it entered that
phase of existence. In so far as it accomplishes
that, humanity is performing the function of a
devil. Deterioration of others is usually achieved
under the influence of some of the protean forms
of social greed and selfishness.
Another reason why selfishness is spoken of as
specially deadly, and even suicidal, depends upon
certain regions of scientific inquiry not yet in
corporated into orthodox science and therefore
still to be regarded as speculative; it may be out
lined as follows: —
Our present familiar methods of communicating
with one another are such as speech, writing, and
other conventional codes of signs more or less
developed. It appears possible that a germ or
nucleus of another, apparently immediate or di
rectly psychical, method of communication may
also exist; which has nothing to do with our known
bodily organs, although its impressions are appre-

SIN 57
hended or interpreted by the receiver as if they
were due to customary modes or forms of sensa
tion. Whether that be so or not, it is certain that
bodily neighborhood and blood-relationship con
fer opportunities for making friends which should
be utilized to the utmost, and that friendship and
affection are the most important things in life.
The intercourse with, and active assistance of,
others enlarges our own nature; and hereafter,
when we have lost our bodily organs, it is probable
that we shall be able to communicate only with
those with whom we are connected by links of
sympathy and affection.
A person who cuts himself off from all human
intercourse and lives a miserly self-centred life, will
ultimately, therefore, find himself alone in the uni
verse; and, unless taken pity on and helped in a
spirit of self-sacrifice, may as well be out of exist
ence altogether. (A book called Cecilia de Noel
emphasizes this truth under the guise of a story.)
That is why developed selfishness is spoken of
as moral suicide: it is one of those evil things
which truly assault and hurt the soul. It is a dis
integrating and repelling agencyo Love is the link
ing and uniting force in the spiritual universe, en
abling it to cohere into a unity, in analogy with
attractive forces in the material cosmos.
It has been necessary to dwell on the sin
and pain and sorrow in the world, but the

58 SIN
amount of good must be emphatically recognized
too. Our highest aspirations, and longings for some
thing better, are a sign that better things exist. It
is not given to the creature to exceed the Creator
in imagination or in goodness; and the best and
highest we can imagine shall be more than fulfilled
by reality — in due time: —
"All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall
exist :
Not its semblance, but itself; . . .
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour."

IX
DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE
Q. g. Are there beings lower m the scale of exist
ence than man ?
A. Yes, multitudes. In every part of the earth
where life is possible, there we find it developed.
Life exists in every variety of animal, in earth and
air and sea, and in every species of plant.

STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 61
CLAUSE IX
One of the facts of nature, which we must weld
into our conception of the scheme of the universe,
is the strenuous effort made by all live things to
persist in multifarious ways, — spreading out into
quite unlikely regions, in the struggle for existence,
and establishing themselves wherever life is possi
ble. The fish slowly developing into a land animal,
the reptile beginning to raise itself in the air and
ultimately becoming a bird, the mammal return
ing under stress of circumstances to the water, as a
seal or whale, or betaking itself to the air in search
of food, in the form of a bat,— all these are in
stances of a universal tendency throughout animate
nature. Sometimes this determined effort at persistence
breeds forms that appear to us ugly and deleterious.
For the struggle results not only in beneficent
organisms, but also in parasites and pests and
blights, and may be held to account for the numer
ous cases of the interference of one form of life with
another: one form utilizing another for its own
growth, and sometimes destroying that other in the
process. It accounts also for the ravages of dis
ease, which for the most part is an outcome of the
establishment of a foreign and alien growth in a
living body of higher grade, — a growth whose vital
secretions are poisonous to its temporary host. On

62 LIFE
the other hand the theory of manuring, the purifi
cation of rivers, the treatment of sewage, the use of
opsonins and of serum-injections, — all illustrate the
ministration of one form of life to another; they
exhibit the contribution of beneficent organisms,
— that is, of forms of life which promote higher
development and conduce to well-being.
Many of the microbes and bacteria and low
forms of cell life are beneficent in this way; and it
is our function, — as ourselves one of the forms of
life, — now consciously to intervene and take con
trol of these vital processes. By investigation and
study we can gradually understand the condition
and life history of each organism, and then can
take such measures as will encourage the beneficent
forms, whether plant or animal, and destroy or
eliminate those which from the human point of
view are deadly and destructive, — attacking them
at their weakest and most vulnerable stage. Wide
ly regarded or interpreted, this function covers an
immense range of possible activity — from every
kind of scientific agriculture and the extirpating of
tropical diseases, to the reformation of slum dwell
ings and the encouragement of physical training
and school hygiene. As part of our work in regu
lating this planet and utilizing its possibilities to
the utmost for higher purposes, the regulation of
vital conditions is probably our most pressing, and
also at present our most neglected, corporate duty.

LIFE AND JOY 6j
Stupidity and a mistaken parsimony are among
the serious obstacles with which the progressive
portions of humanity have to contend.
Another aspect of the universal struggle for self-
manifestation and corporeal realization, which
plays so large a part in all activity and is especial
ly marked in the domain of life, is illustrated on
a higher level by that overpowering instinct or
impulse towards production and self-realization,
which is characteristic of genius. It may be said
that throughout nature, from the lowest to the
highest, a tendency to self-realization, and a mani
festation of joy in existence, are conspicuous.
It is thought that something akin to this tendency
is exhibited in a region beyond and above what is
ordinarily conceived of as "Nature." The process
of evolution can be regarded as the gradual unfold
ing of the Divine Thought, or Logos, throughout
the universe, by the action of Spirit upon matter.
Achievement seems as if irradiated by a certain
Happiness: and thus a poet like Browning is led
to speak of the Divine Being as renewing his ancient
creative rapture in the processes of nature : — joying
in the sunbeams basking upon sand, sharing the
pleasures of the wild life in the creatures of the
woods, "Where dwells enjoyment there is He;"
and so to conjecture that

64 LIFEANDJOY
"God tastes an infinite joy
In infinite ways — one everlasting bliss
From whom all being emanates, all power
Proceeds; in whom is life for evermore."

X
COSMIC INTELLIGENCE
Q. io. Are there any beings higher in the scale
of existence than man?
A. Man is the highest of the dwellers on the
planet earth, but the earth is only one of many
planets warmed by the sun, and the sun is only
one of a myriad of similar suns, which are so far
off that we barely see them, and group them in
discriminately as "stars." We may reasonably
conjecture that in some of the innumerable worlds
circling round those distant suns there must be
beings far higher in the scale of existence than
ourselves; indeed, we have no knowledge which
enables us to assert the absence of intelligence
anywhere.

COSMIC LIFE 67
CLAUSE X
The existence of higher beings and of a Highest
Being is a fundamental element in every religious
creed. There is no scientific reason for imagining
it possible that man is the highest intelligent exist
ence — there is no reason to suppose that we dwellers
on this planet know more about the universe than
any other existing creature. Such an idea, strictly
speaking, is absurd. Science has investigated our
ancestry and shown that we are the product of
planetary processes. We may be, and surely must
be, something more, but this we clearly are — a
development of life on this planet earth. Science
has also revealed to us an innumerable host of
other worlds, and has relegated the earth to its now
recognized subordinate place as one of a countless
multitude of worlds.
Consider a spherical region bounded by the
distance of the farthermost stars visible in the
strongest telescope, or say with a radius corre
sponding to a parallax of one-thousandth of a
second of arc; so that the time taken by light to
travel right across it is six thousand years: — Lord
Kelvin, treating of such a portion of Universe,
says: "There may also be a large amount of matter in
many stars outside the sphere of 3.1b16 kilometres
radius, but however much matter there may be

68 INTELLIGENCE
outside it, it seems to be made highly probable, by
§§ 11-21, that the total quantity of matter within
it is greater than one hundred million times, and
less than two thousand million times, the sun's
mass." {Philosophical Magazine, August, 1901.)
It does not follow that all this matter is dis
tributed in masses like our sun with its attendant
planets; but, on the average, that is as likely an
arrangement as another, and it corresponds with
what we know.
So, given, on this hypothesis, the existence of
some thousand million solar systems or families of
worlds, within our ken, and knowing what we do
about the exuberant impulse towards vital develop
ment wherever it is possible, we must conclude that
those worlds contain life; and if so, it is against all
reasonable probability that the only world of which
we happen to know the details contains the creature
highest in the entire scale. It would be just as
reasonable to imagine, what we happen to know is
false, that our particular sun is the largest, and our
particular planet the brightest of all, as it is to con
jecture that this world is the highest and best, or
the only one in existence.
The self-glorifying instinct of the human mind
has resented this negative conclusion, and for long
clung to the Ptolemaic idea that the earth was no
mere planet among a crowd of others, but was the
centre of the universe; and that the sun and all

COSMIC LIFE 69
the stars were subsidiary to it. A Ptolemaic idea
clings to some of us still — not now as regards the
planet, but as regards man; and we, insignificant
creatures, with senses only just open to the porten
tous meaning of the starry sky, presume — some of
us — to deny the existence of higher powers and
higher knowledge than our own. We are accus
tomed to be careful as to what we assert; we are
liable to be unscrupulous as to what we deny. It
is possible to find people who, knowing nothing or
next to nothing of the Universe, are prepared to
limit existence to that of which they have had
experience, and to measure the cosmos in terms
of their own understanding. Their confidence
in themselves, their shut minds and self-satisfied
hearts, are things to marvel at. The fact is that
no glimmer of a conception of the real magnitude
and complexity of existence can ever have illu
minated their cosmic view.

XI
IMMANENCE
Q. II. What caused and what maintains exist
ence ?
A. Of our own knowledge we are unable to
realize the meaning of origination or of main
tenance; all that we ourselves can accomplish in
the physical world is to move things into desired
positions, and leave them to act on one another.
Nevertheless our effective movements are all in
spired by thought, and so we conceive that there
must be some Intelligence immanent in all the
processes of nature, for they are not random or
purposeless, but organized and beautiful.

IMMANENCE 71
CLAUSE XI
Origin
We cannot conceive the origin of any funda
mental existence. We can describe the beginning
of any particular object in its present shape, but
its substance always existed in some other shape
previously; and nothing really either springs into
being or ceases to exist. A cloud or dew becomes
visible, and then evaporates, seeming to spring into
being and then vanish away; but as water vapor
it had a past history and will have a future, both
apparently without limit. In our own case, and
in the case of any live thing, the history is unknown
to us; but ultimate origin or absolute beginning,
save of individual collocations, is unthinkable.
The truth that science teaches, on the one
hand, is that everything is a perpetual flux,
wavTa pel Kai. ovSep fiivti,
that nothing is permanent and fixed and unchange
able: "The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands;
They melt like mists, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves and go."
On the other hand we learn that, in its ultimate
essence and reality, everything is persistent and

72 IMMANENCE
eternal; that it is the form alone that changes,
while the substance endures. No end and no be
ginning — a continual Eternal Now — this is the
scientific interpretation of I AM.
There are those who think that in the last resort
the ultimate reality will be found to be of the nature
of Spirit, Consciousness, and Mind. It may be so
— it probably is so — but that is a teaching of Phi
losophy, not at present of Science.
The teaching of religion may be summarized thus :
"All that exists, exists only by the communica
tion of God's infinite being. All that has intelli
gence, has it only by derivation from His sovereign
reason; and all that acts, acts only from the im
pulse of His supreme activity. It is He who does
all in all; it is He who, at each instant of our life,
is the beating of our heart, the movement of our
limbs, the light of our eyes, the intelligence of our
spirit, the soul of our soul." — Fenelon.
Maintenance
So also with regard to maintenance.
The multifarious processes around us — the suc
cession of the seasons, the flow of sap in trees, the
circulation of our own blood, the digestion of our
food — all these things are beyond our power, and
are not contrived or managed by our conscious
agency — not even the occurrences in our own

IMMANENCE 73
bodies. But by means of such unconscious proc
esses our muscular and nervous systems are sup
plied with nutriment, and we thus become master
of a certain amount of energy.
The energy of our muscles, or of some of them,
is within our control, and we can thereby direct
other physical energies into desired channels; but
we cannot in the slightest degree alter the amount
of that energy. We utilize terrestrial energy, by
directing and controlling its transformations and
transferences, within the limits of our knowledge;
but we do it always by moving material objects,
and in no other way. For instance, we cannot
directly or consciously generate an electric current,
or magnetism, or light, or life; for all these things
we depend upon partially explored properties of
matter, which we can arrange in a certain way so
as to achieve a desired end.
A multitude of complex processes are constantly
occurring in our bodies without any intervention of
consciousness; and though we may make a study
of the functions of the several organs, and gradually
learn something about them, it is a study as of some
thing outside ourselves; the due performance of
bodily function is independent of our volition. We
can interfere with and damage our organs, and with
skill we can so arrange damaged parts that the self-
healing process shall have time and opportunity to
act; we can also introduce beneficent agencies and

74 IMMANENCE
stimulating drugs; but our power of direct action is
practically limited to muscular and mental activity.
Digression on Rudimentary Physiology
It is well for children to have some conception
of the complex processes constantly occurring in
their own organisms.
The fact that the heart is a continuously acting
pump, urging the blood along arteries to the tissues,
— to places where it picks up nutriment, to places
where the crudely enriched blood is oxidized, to
places where the elaborated material is deposited
so as to replenish waste and effect growth — all this
should be known; and the partial analogy with the
sap of trees, rising in the trunk to be elaborated in
the leaves by means of sunshine and air, and then
descending ready to be deposited as liquid wood,
can be pointed out.
The function of the lungs, wherein the blood dis
persed throughout a spongey texture is exposed in
immense surface to the air, without loss or leakage
other than what properly transpires through the
membranes, and the consequent advantage of deep
breathing and of fresh clean air, — all this has a
practical as well as a theoretical interest.
The lungs are more under voluntary control than
the heart, but the way exercise increases the circula
tion, and generally blows the fires of the body, is
also of practical interest.

IMMANENCE 75
Some idea of the processes of digestion can be
given, especially the function of the stomach and
the intestines; the liver may be too difficult, but the
salivary glands are fairly simple, and so are the
kidneys and the skin. The way the muscles act as
an efficient mechanical engine, depending on the
consumption of fuel and the conservation of energy,
can be superficially explained, with some idea of
the stimulating nervous system and controlling
brain cells. The sensory nerves and specialized
nerve-endings demand specific treatment.
These and other physiological details may seem
out of place, but they are strictly appropriate; for
the essence of Immanence is that nothing is com
mon or unclean, until abused: and the nobler the
faculty, the fouler is the degradation caused by its
abuse. A sense of the responsibility involved in the
possession or lease of all this intricate mass of
mechanism, intrusted to our care, and the wish to
keep it in good order — without giving unnecessary
trouble to others to set it right, and without blas
pheming the Maker by applying it to bad and ig
noble ends — will arise almost imperceptibly, when
the body is even begun to be understood. Many
faults originate in ignorance and want of thought.
Mind and Matter
Among the material objects we move are the
parts of our own bodies; indeed, it is through

76 IMMANENCE
muscular intervention or agency that we act on
bodies is general. We know of no other method.
Even when we speak we are only moving certain
face and throat and chest muscles, so as to gen
erate condensations and rarefactions in the air;
which, travelling by dynamical properties, excite
corresponding vibrations or movements in the ear
drum of our auditor; — vibrations not in themselves
intelligible, but demanding interpretation from the
recipient. So also it is with the traces of ink left
on paper by our muscular action when we write.
Only to a perceptive eye, and informed and kin
dred mind, have they any meaning.
It is probable that even when we think, some
special atomic motion goes on in the brain cells,
though this is an example of unconscious move
ment, of which there are many examples in bodily
function; but directh/ we begin to attend to mental
processes we leave the physical region as under
stood by us, and enter a more deeply mysterious
psychical region. Unknown as this is for purposes
of analysis, from the point of view of experience it
is more immediately familiar than any other; since
it is through the activity of mind that every other
kind of existence is necessarily inferred. Thought
is our mechanism or instrument of knowledge —
through it we know everything — but thought is not
what we directly know. Primarily we think of
things, not of thought itself. So also sight is our

IMMANENCE 77
instrument of seeing — ¦ through light we see — but it
is not light that we perceive, rather it is the objects
which send it in certain patterns to our eyes.
Whereas we can act on the external world only
through our muscles; in ourselves we are aware of
things belonging to a totally different category, with
which muscle and movement and energy appear to
have nothing to do, — such things as thought, pur
pose, desire, humor, affection, consciousness, will.
These mental faculties seem intimately associated
with, and are displayed by, our bodily mechanism;
but in themselves they belong to a different order of
being,— an order which employs and dominates the
material, while immersed or immanent in it. Every
purposed movement is preceded and inspired by
thought. Such reasoned control, by indwelling mind, may
be undetectable and inconceivable to a low order of
intelligence, being totally masked by the material
garment; and the purpose underlying our activity
may only be inferred, by such intelligence, with
as great difficulty as we feel in detecting indwell
ing Purpose amid the spontaneous operations of
Nature. Nevertheless, whenever our movements are not
controlled by thought and intelligent purpose, but
are left to chance and random impulses, like the
actions of a man whose reason has been unseated,
nothing but error and confusion result; — quite a

78 IMMANENCE
different state of things from anything we observe
in the orderly and beautiful procedure of nature.
It is sometimes said that the operations of nature
are spontaneous; and that is exactly what they are.
That is the meaning of immanence. "Spontane
ous," used in this sense, does not mean random and
purposeless and undetermined: it means actuated
and controlled from within, by something indwell
ing and all pervading and not absent anywhere.
The intelligence which guides things is not some
thing external to the scheme, clumsily interfering
with it by muscular action, as we are constrained to
do when we interfere at all; but is something within
and inseparable from it, as human thought is within
and inseparable from the action of our brains.
In some partially similar way we conceive that
the multifarious processes in nature, with neither
the origin or maintenance of which have we had
anything to do, must be guided and controlled by
some Thought and Purpose, immanent in every
thing, but revealed only to those with sufficiently
awakened perceptions. Many are blind to the
meaning — to the fact even that there Is a meaning
— in nature, just as an animal is usually blind to a
picture, and always to a poem; but to the higher
members of our race the Intelligence and Purpose,
underlying the whole mystery of existence, elabo
rating the details of evolution — and ultimately
tending to elucidate the frequent discords, the

IMMANENCE

79

strange humors, and puzzling contradictions of
life — are keenly felt. To them the lavish beauty
of wild Nature — of landscape, of sunset, of moun
tain, and of sea — are revelations of an indwelling
Presence, rejoicing in its majestic order —
iravra ir\i)pT} Beuiv.
"Earth's crammed with Heaven
And every common bush afire with God."
The idea that the world as we know it arose by
chance and fortuitous concourse of atoms is one
that no science really sustains, though such an idea
is the superficial outcome of an incipient recogni
tion of the uniformity of nature — a sequel to the
perception that there is no capricious or spasmod
ic interference with the course of events and no
changes of purpose observable therein — such as we
are accustomed to in works of human ingenuity and
skill. We are accustomed to associate will with
the degenerate form of it called caprice, and to con
sider that purpose must be accompanied by changes
of purpose; so that a steady, uniform, persistent
course of action is puzzling to us, and wears the
superficial aspect of mechanism. An omnipresent,
uniform, immanent Purpose, running through the
whole of existence without break of continuity or
change of aim, is beyond our experience; and, like
every other uniformity, is difficult to detect or re-

80 IMMANENCE
alize. As an instance of this difficulty, I need only
cite the long-delayed discovery of an all-embracing
medium like the terrestrial atmosphere. An intelli
gent deep-sea creature would find it most difficult
to become aware of the existence of water. Simi
larly humanity has existed all along in a pervading
and interpenetrating ether, of which to this day
men have for the most part no cognizance; although
it is probably the fundamental substratum of the
whole material world, underlying every kind of
activity, and constituting the very atoms of which
their own bodies are composed.
Looking at the truths of geometry, the laws of
nature, and the beauty and organization of the
visible world, it is as impossible rationally to sup
pose that they arose by chance, or by mere conten
tious jostling, as it is to suppose that a work of lit
erature or a piece of music was composed in that
way. The process of evolution appears to us self-
sustained and self-guided, because the guidance is
uniform and constant.
In nature heredity and survival will explain the
persistence of a fovorable variation when once
originated, but the origin or variations is still
mysterious, and the full meaning of heredity is
not yet unravelled.
The struggle for existence has been one of the
means whereby animal life has been developed and

IMMANENCE 81
perfected; but now that it has become conscious
and purposeful, in humanity, the apparently blind
struggle is suspended at the higher level, and the
weak and suffering are attended to and helped —
not exterminated. Mere struggle and survival is
an inferior instrument of progress, and it can be
superseded wherever it has done its necessary pre
liminary work. The Divine purpose is fulfilled in
many ways; and far more can be expected of self-
conscious evolution than of the long slow process
which has rendered it possible.
The kind of selection actually or best known to
us is that which has been directed by human be
ings; and inasmuch as the highest human beings
are themselves conscious of help and guidance, it
is to be assumed that such help and guidance has
been in constant activity all along, operating on,
or rather in, the refractory materials, so as slowly
to develop in them the power of manifesting not
only life and beauty, but also consciousness, spir
itual perception, and free will.
6

XII
SOUL AND SPIRIT
Q. 12. What is to be said of mans higher fac
ulties? A. The faculties and achievements of the high
est among mankind — in Art, in Science, in Philos
ophy, and in Religion — are not explicable as an
outcome of a struggle for existence. Something
more than mere life is possessed by us — something
represented by the words "mind" and "soul" and
"spirit." On one side we are members of the
animal kingdom; on another we are associates in
a loftier type of existence, and are linked with the
Divine.

MAN'S HIGHER FACULTIES 83
CLAUSE XII
The highest of those who have walked the earth
reveal to us what we, too, may some day be: they
link us with the Divine, and teach us that, however
pathetically defaced by our infirmities and distorted
by our imperfections, we may yet reflect the image
of God.
[Part of the following explanation is based upon
a study of certain facts not yet fully incorporated
into orthodox science, nor fully recognized by phi
losophy: it must therefore be regarded as specu
lation.] This idea, which permeates literature — that man
has a spiritual as well as a material origin — empha
sizes from another point of view the doctrine of the
Fall; inasmuch as the utilization of a material
body, of animal ancestry, exposes the individual to
much trial and temptation, and makes him aware
of a contest between the flesh and the spirit, or be
tween a lower and a higher self, which constitutes
the element of truth in the otherwise mistaken
doctrine of "original," or inherited, or imputed sin.
Vicarious sin is a legal fiction : so is vicarious pun
ishment; vicarious suffering is a reality. The
mother of a ne'er-do-well knows it : it is undergone
by the children of vicious parents; the highest souls
have felt it on behalf of the race of man; but it is
not artificial or imputed suffering, it is genuine and

84 SOUL
real; and experience shows that it can have a re
deeming virtue.
The double nature of man, — the inherited animal
tendencies, and the inspired spiritual aspirations, —
if they can both be fully admitted, reconcile many
difficulties. Our body is an individual collocation
of cells, which began to form and grow together at
a certain date, and will presently be dispersed; but
the constructing and dominating reality, called our
" soul," did not then begin to exist; nor will it cease
with bodily decay. Interaction with the material
world then began, and will then cease, but we
ourselves in essence are persistent and immortal.
Even our personality and individuality may be
persistent, if our character be sufficiently devel
oped to possess a reality of its own. In our present
state, truly, the memory of our past is imperfect
or non-existent; but when we waken and shake
off the tenement of matter, our memory and con
sciousness may enlarge too, as we rejoin the larger
self of which only a part is now manifested in
mortal flesh.
The ancient doctrine of a previous state of ex
istence, of which we are now entranced into forget
fulness, is inculcated in the familiar lines —
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our lire's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:

MAN'S HIGHER FACULTIES 85
Not in entire forgetfulnesss
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home."
the idea being that the forgetfulness is not complete,
especially during infancy; nor need it be complete
in moments of inspiration. Myers' doctrine of the
subliminal self is an expanded and modified form
of this idea, and is to a large extent apparently
justified by a certain range of psychological inquiry:
though Myers lays stress, not on memory of a past,
but on a present occasional intercommunication
between the part and the whole.
The Platonic doctrine of reminiscence exhibits
one aspect of the idea of pre-existence, though in a
necessarily inaccurate and somewhat fanciful form
— as if infants were a stage higher in the scale than
grown men; such an idea would involve the old
mistaken postulate of initial perfection, which was
made long ago concerning the race: whereas the
truth was innocency, not perfection. But the idea
that nothing less than the whole of a personality
must be incarnated — even in the body of an infant
— leads to innumerable difficulties; — it does not
even escape unanswerable questions about trivi
alities such as the moment of arrival; and it is
responsible for much biological scepticism concern
ing the existence of any soul at all. Whereas, on
the strength of the experience that all processes in

86 SOUL
nature are really gradual, the idea of gradual incar
nation — growing as the brain and body grow, but
never attaining any approach to completeness even
in the greatest of men — sets one above innumerable
petty difficulties, and to me seems an opening in the
direction of the truth. On this view, the portion of
larger self incarnated in an infant or a feeble-mind
ed person is but small: in normal cases, more ap
pears as the body is fitted to receive it. In some
cases much appears, thus constituting a great man;
while in others, again, a link of occasional com
munication is left open between the part and the
whole — producing what we call "genius." Second
childishness is the gradual abandonment of the
material vehicle, as it gets worn out or damaged.
But, during the episode of this life, man is never a
complete self, his roots are in another order of
being, he is moving about in worlds not realized,
he is as if walking in a vain shadow and disquieting
himself in vain.
It may be objected that our present existence is
very far from being a dream or trancelike condi
tion, that we are very wide awake to the "realities"
of the world, and very keen about "things of im
portance"; that an analogy drawn from the memo
ries of hypnotic patients and multiple personalities,
and other pathological cases, is sure to be mislead
ing. It may be so, the idea is admittedly of the
nature of speculation; but the greatest of poets, in

MAN'S HIGHER FACULTIES 87
a specially inspired passage, lends his countenance
to the notion that phenomena and appearances are
not ultimate realities, — that our present life is not
unlike the state of a sleep-walker — that we slept to
enter it, and that we must sleep again before we
wake — . "We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."
As to the question whether we ever again live on
earth, it appears unlikely on this view that a given
developed individual will appear again in unmodi
fied form. If my present self is a fraction of a
larger self, some other fraction of that larger self
may readily be thought of as arriving, — to gain prac
tical experience in the world of matter, and to return
with developed character to the whole whence it
sprang. And this operation may be repeated fre
quently; but these hypothetical fractional appear
ances can hardly be spoken of as reincarnations.
We must not dogmatize, however, on the subject,
and the case of the multitudes at present thwarted
and returned at infancy may demand separate
treatment. It may be that the abortive attempts
at development on the part of individuals is like
the waves lapping up the sides of a bowlder and
being successively flung back; while the general
advance of the race is typified by the steady up
rising of the tide.

88 SOULANDBODY
Soul and Body
The philosophic doctrine of the "self" on this
view is a difficult one, and involves much study.
As here stated, the form is sure to be crude and
imperfect. Philosophy resents any sharp distinc
tion between soul and body — between indwelling
self and material vehicle, — it prefers to treat the
self as a whole, an individual unit; though it may
admit the actual agglomeration of material par
ticles to be transient and temporary. The word
"self" can be used in a narrower or in a broader
sense : it may signify the actual continuity of per
sonality and memory, whereof we are conscious; or
it may signify a larger and vaguer underlying re
ality, of which the conscious self is but a fraction.
The narrower sense is wide enough, however, to
include the whole man, both soul and body, as we
know him; but the phrase "subliminal self" covers
ideas extending hypothetically beyond that.
The idea of Redemption or Regeneration, in its
highest and most Christian form, is applicable to
both soul and body. The life of Christ shows us
that the whole man can be regenerated as he stands;
that we have not to wait for a future state, that the
Kingdom of Heaven is in our midst and may be
assimilated by us here and now.
The term "salvation" should not be limited to
the soul, but should apply to the whole man. What

SALVATION 89
kind of transfiguration may be possible, or may
have been possible, in the case of a perfectly emanci
pated and glorified body, we do not yet know.
In a still larger sense these terms apply to the
whole race of man; and for the salvation of man
kind individual loss and suffering have been gladly
expended. Not the individual alone, but the race
also, can be adjured to realize some worthy object
for all its striving, to open its eyes to more glorious
possibilities than it has yet perceived, to
"... climb the Mount of Blessing, whence, if thou
Look higher, then — perchance — thou mayest — beyond
A hundred ever-rising mountain lines,
And past the range of Night and Shadow — see
The high-heaven dawn of more than mortal day
Strike on the Mount of Vision!

XIII
GRACE
Q. 13. Is man helped in his struggle upward?
A. There is a Power in the Universe vastly be
yond our comprehension; and we trust and believe
that it is a Good and Loving Power, able and will
ing to help us and all creatures, and to guide us
wisely, without detriment to our incipient freedom.
This Loving-kindness continually surrounds us; in
it we live and have our real being; it is the main
spring of joy and love and beauty, and we call it
the Grace of God. It sustains and enriches all
worlds, and may take a multiplicity of forms; but
it was manifested to dwellers on this planet in the
life of Jesus Christ, through whose spirit and living
influence the race of man may hope to rise to
heights at present inaccessible.

CHRISTIANITY 91
CLAUSE XIII
The guidance exercised by the Divine Spirit, by
which we are completely surrounded, is not of the
nature of compulsion; it is only a leading and
helping influence which we are able to resist if we
choose. The problem of manufacturing free creatures
with a will of their own, to be led, not forced, into
right action, is a problem of a different nature
from any of those that have ever appealed to
human power and knowledge. What we are ac
customed to make is mechanism, of various kinds;
and the essential difficulty of the higher problem
is so obscure to us that some impatient and unim
aginative persons cry out against its slowness, and
wonder that everything is not compulsorily made
perfect at once. . But we can see that the kind of
perfection thus easily attainable would be of an
utterly inferior kind.
It is to be supposed that incarnation, or a con
nection between consciousness and material mech
anism, is auxiliary to the difficult process of
evolution of free beings, thus indicated; and it is
probable that matter is thus an instrument of lofty
spiritual purpose. Some religious systems have
failed to perceive this, and have depreciated matter
and flesh as intrinsically evil.
One important feature of Christianity is that it

92 GRACE
recognizes as good the connection between spirit
and matter, and emphasizes the importance of
both, when properly regarded. It is not mystical
and spiritual alone, nor is it material alone; but it
tends to unify these two extremes and to place in
due position both soul and body: the material be
ing utilized to make manifest the spiritual, and
being dominated by it.
The whole idea of the Incarnation, as well as
some of the miracles and the sacraments, are ex
pressive of this wide and comprehensive character
of the Christian religion.
It recognizes the wonder and beauty of the
animal body, destined to be the scene of extraor
dinary spiritual triumphs in the long course of
time; and it teaches
"That none but Gods could build this house of ours,
So beautiful, vast, various, so beyond
All work of man, yet, like all work of man,
A beauty with defect — till That which knows,
And is not known, but felt thro' what we feel
Within ourselves is highest, shall descend
On this half-deed, and shape it at the last
According to the Highest in the Highest."
Christianity is a planetary and human religion:
being the revelation of those aspects of Godhead
which are most intelligible and helpful to us in
our present stage of development. But it is more
than a revelation, it is a manifestation of some

INCARNATION 93
of the attributes of Godhead in the form of
humanity. The statement that Christ and God are one, is
not really a statement concerning Christ, but a
statement concerning what we understand by God.
It is useless, and in the literal sense preposterous,
to explain the known in terms of the unknown:
the converse is the right method. "He that hath
seen Me hath seen the Father." Every son of man
is potentially also a son of God, but the union was
deepest and completest in the Galilean.
The ideas of incarnation and revelation are not
confined to the domain of religion; they are com
mon to music and letters and science : in all we can
recognize " a flash of the will that can," •
"All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish
of my soul,
All through my soul that praised, as the wish flowed
visibly forth."
The spirit of Beethoven is incarnate in his music;
and he that hath heard the Fifth Symphony hath
heard Beethoven.
The Incarnation of the Divine Spirit in man is
the central feature of Terrestrial History. It is
through man, and the highest man, that the revela
tion of what is meant by Godhead must necessarily
come. The world — even the common every-day
world — has accepted this, and is able to perceive

94 GRACE
its appropriateness and truth; and the traditional
song of the angels, at the epoch of the Birth —
"Glory to God in the highest, and on
Earth peace, good will among men,"
is still heard in the land. Whenever there is war
at Christmas-time it is universally felt to be incon
gruous. Good will among men is conspicuous in
cessation of private feuds, in overladen post-bags,
in family reunions and Christmas hampers and all
manner of homely frivolities.
The Incarnation doctrine is the glorification of
human effort, and the sanctification of childhood
and simplicity of life; but it is a pity to reduce it
to a dogma. It is well to leave something to in
tuitive apprehension, and to let the life and death
of Christ gradually teach their own eloquent lesson
without premature dogmatic assistance.
From that event we date our history, and the
strongest believer in immanent Godhead can admit
that the life of Jesus was an explicit and clear-
voiced message of love to this planet from the
Father of all. Naturally our conception of God
head is still only indistinct and partial, but, so far
as we are as yet able to grasp it, we must reach it
through recognition of the extent and intricacy of
the Cosmos, and more particularly through the
highest type and loftiest spiritual development of
man himself.

CHRISTIANITY 95
The most essential element in Christianity is its
conception of a human God; of a God, in the first
place, not apart from the Universe, not outside it
and distinct from it, but immanent in it; yet not
immanent only, but actually incarnate, incarnate
in it and revealed in the Incarnation. The nature
of God is displayed in part by everything, to those
who have eyes to see, but is displayed most clearly
and fully by the highest type of existence, the high
est experience to which the process of evolution has
so far opened our senses. "'Tis the sublime of man,
Our noontide majesty, to know ourselves
Part and proportion of one wondrous whole."
The Humanity of God, the Divinity of man, is
the essence of the Christian revelation. It was
truly the manifestation of Immanuel.
The Christian idea of God is not that of a being
outside the universe, above its struggles and ad
vances, looking on and taking no part in the proc
ess, solely exalted, beneficent, self-determined, and
complete; no, it is also that of a God who loves,
who yearns, who suffers, who keenly laments the
rebellious and misguided activity of the free agents
brought into being by Himself as part of Himself,
who enters into the storm and conflict, and is sub
ject to conditions as the soul of it all.
This is the truth which has been reverberating

96 GRACE
down the ages ever since; it has been the hidden
inspiration of saint, apostle, prophet, martyr, and,
in however dim and vague a form, has given hope
and consolation to the unlettered and poverty-
stricken millions: — A God that could understand,
that could suffer, that could sympathize, that had
felt the extremity of human anguish, the agony of
bereavement, had submitted even to the brutal
hopeless torture of the innocent, and had become
acquainted with the pangs of death— this has been
the chief consolation of the Christian religion.
This is the extraordinary conception of Godhead
to which we have thus far risen. "This is My
beloved Son."
"Enough that he heard it once; we shall hear it
by-and-by." The Christian God is revealed as the
incarnate Spirit of humanity; or rather the incar
nate spirit of humanity is recognized as a real
intrinsic part of God. "The Kingdom of Heaven
is within you."

XIV
INSPIRATION
Q. 14. How may we become informed concerning
things too high for our own knowledge?
A. We should strive to learn from the great
teachers, the prophets and poets and saints of the
human race, and should seek to know and to
interpret their inspired writings.

THE TRUTH OF INSPIRATION 99
CLAUSE XIV
People at a low stage of development are liable to
think that they can arrive at truth by their unaided
judgment and insight, and that they need not con
cern themselves with the thoughts and experiences
of the past. Unconscious of any inspiration them
selves, they decline to believe in the possibility of
such a thing, and regard it as a fanciful notion of
unpractical and dreamy people.
Great men, on the other hand, are the finger
posts and loadstars of humanity; it is with their
aid that we steer our course, if we are wise, and the
records of their thought and inspiration are of the
utmost value to us.
This is the meaning of literature in general, and
of that mass of ancient religious literature in par
ticular, on which hundreds of scholars have be
stowed their best energies, now translated, bound
together, and handed down to us as the Canon of
Scripture, — of which some portions are the most
inspired writings yet achieved by humanity. It is
impossible for us to ignore the concurrent mass of
human testimony therein recorded, the substantial
and general truth of which has been vouched for
by the prophets and poets and seers of all time;
and accordingly, if we are to form worthy beliefs
regarding the highest conceptions in the Universe,
we must avail ourselves of all this testimony — dis-

ioo INSPIRATION
criminating and estimating its relative value in the
light of our own judgment and experience, study
ing such works and criticism as are accessible to
us, asking for the guidance of the Divine Spirit,
and seeking with modest and careful patience to
apprehend something in the direction of the truth.

XV
A CREED
Q. 15. What, then, do you reverently believe can
be deduced from a study of the records and traditions
of the past in the light of the present?
A. I believe in one Infinite and Eternal Being,
a guiding and loving Father, in whom all things
consist. I believe that the Divine Nature is specially re
vealed to man through Jesus Christ our Lord, who
lived and taught and suffered in Palestine nineteen
hundred years ago, and has since been worshipped
by the Christian Church as the immortal Son of
God, the Saviour of the world.
I believe that the Holy Spirit is ever ready to help
us along the Way towards Goodness and Truth;
that prayer is a means of communion between man
and God; and that it is our privilege through faith
ful service to enter into the Life Eternal, the Com
munion of Saints, and the Peace of God.

BELIEF 103
CLAUSE XV
Notes on the Creed
The three paragraphs correspond to the three
aspects or personifications of Deity which have
most impressed mankind, —
The Creating and Sustaining.
The Sympathizing and Suffering.
The Regenerating and Sanctifying.
The first of the three clauses tries to indicate
briefly the cosmic as well as the more humanly
intelligible attributes of Deity, and to suggest an
idea of creation appropriate to the doctrine of
Divine Immanence, as opposed to the anthropo
morphic notion of manufacture. The idea of
evolution by guiding and controlling Purpose is
suggested, as well as the vital conception of Father
ly Love.
In the second paragraph, Time and Place are
explicitly mentioned in order to emphasize the his
torical and human aspect of the Christian mani
festation of Immanuel. This aspect is essential
and easy to appreciate, though its idealization and
full interpretation are difficult. The step from the
bare historic facts to the idealization of the Fourth
Gospel has been the work of the Church, in the
best sense of that word, aided by the doctrines of

104 BELIEF
the Logos and of Immanence, elaborated by Philos
ophy. It all hangs together when properly grasp
ed, and constitutes a luminous conception; but the
light thus shed upon the nature of Deity must not
blind our eyes to the simple human facts from
which it originally emanated. The clear and un
doubted fact is that the founder of the Christian
religion lived on this earth a blameless life, taught
and helped the poor who heard him gladly, gath
ered to himself a body of disciples with whom he
left a message to mankind, and was tortured to
death as a criminal blasphemer, at the instigation
of mistaken priests in the defence of their own
Order and privileges.
This monstrous wrong is regarded by some as
having unconsciously completed the salvation of
the race; because of the consummation of sacri
fice, and because of the suffering of the innocent,
which it involved. The Jewish sacrificial system,
and the priestly ceremony of the scapegoat, seem
to lead up to that idea, — which was elaborated by
St. Paul with immense genius, and taught by St.
Augustine. Others attach more saving efficacy to the life, the
example, and the teachings, as recorded in the Gos
pels; and all agree that they are important.
But in fact the whole is important: and at the
foot of the Cross there has been a perennial expe
rience of relief and renovation. Sin being the

ATONEMENT 105
sense of imperfection, disunion, lack of harmony,
the struggle among the members that St. Paul for
all time expressed; — there is usually associated
with it a sense of impotence, a recognition of the
impossibility of achieving peace and unity in one's
own person, a feeling that aid must be forthcoming
from a higher source. It is this feeling which
enables the spectacle of any noble self-sacrificing
human action to have an elevating effect, it is this
which gropes after the possibilities of the highest
in human nature, it is a feeling which for large
tracts of this planet has found its highest stimulus
and completest satisfaction in the life and death of
Christ. The willingness of such a Being to share our
nature, to live the life of a peasant, and to face the
horrible certainty of execution by torture, in order
personally to help those whom he was pleased to
call his brethren, is a race-asset which, however
masked and overlaid with foreign growths, yet
gleams through every covering and suffuses the
details of common life with fragrance.
This conspicuously has been a redeeming, or
rather a regenerating, agency; — for by filling the
soul with love and adoration and fellow-feeling for
the Highest, the old cravings have often been al
most hypnotically rendered distasteful and repel
lent, the bondage of sin has been loosened from
many a spirit, the lower entangled self has been

106 BELIEF
helped from the slough of despond, and raised to
the shores of a larger hope, whence it can gradually
attain to harmony and peace.
The invitation to the troubled soul — " Come, and
find rest" — has reference, not to relief from sin
alone, but to all restlessness and lack of trust. The
Atonement removes the feeling of dislocation; it
induces a tranquil sense of security and harmony, —
an assurance of union with the Divine will.
Every form of Christianity aims at salvation for
the race and for each individual, both soul and
body; but different versions differ as to the means
most efficient to this end. Varieties of Christianity
can be grouped under the symbolic names, Paul,
James, Peter, and John; with the dominating ideas
of vicarious sacrifice, human effort, Church ordi
nance, and loving kindness, respectively.
In the coldest system of nomenclature these four
chief varieties may be styled, legal, ethical, ecclesi
astical, and emotional, respectively. More favora
bly regarded, the dominating ideas may be classi
fied thus: —
I. Faith in a divine scheme of redemption.
2. Simple life, social service, honesty, and virtue.
3. Spiritual sustenance by utilization of means
of grace.
4. Obedience, unworldliness, trust, and love.
With the treatment of these great themes, sec
tarian differences begin: differences which seem

BELIEF 107
beyond our power to reconcile. We need not
dwell on the differences, we would rather empha
size the mass of agreement. Probably there is an
element of truth in every view that has long been
held and found helpful by human beings, however
overlaid with superstition it may in some cases have
become; and probably also the truth is far from
exhausted by any one estimate of the essential
feature of a Life which most of us can agree to
recognize as a revelation of the high-water-mark of
manhood, and a manifestation of the human attri
butes of God.
None of the above partially overlapping subdivi
sions of Christianity equal in importance the over
shadowing and dominating theory emphasized in
the above creed: namely, the idea of a veritable
incarnation of Divine Spirit — a visible manifesta
tion of Deity immanent in humanity. The facts
of the life, testified to by witnesses and idealized by
philosophers and saints, have been transmitted
down the centuries by a continuous Church —
though with a mingling of superstition and error.
At present the process of interpretation has been
accompanied by a sad amount of discord and hos
tility, to the scandal of the Church; but the future
of religion shall not always be endangered by suspi
cion and intolerance and. narrowness among pro
fessed disciples of truth. There must come a time
when first a nation, and afterwards the civilized

108 BELIEF
world, shall awake and glory in the light of the
risen sun: — " — A sun but dimly seen
Here, till the mortal morning mists of earth
Fade in the noon of heaven, when creed and race
Shall bear false witness, each of each, no more,
But find their limits by that larger light,
And overstep them, moving easily
Thro' after-ages in the love of Truth,
The truth of Love."
The emphasis herein laid on the conception of
the human nature incorporated into Godhead, is
appropriate to this country and to the Western
World generally; but we thereby imply no abuse of
the religions of the East, in their proper place, any
more than of the religions of other planets. Silence
concerning them is not disrespectful. It is not to
be supposed that any one world has a monopoly of
the Grace of God; nor does it exhaust every plan
of salvation. In estimating the value of another
dispensation, or of any ill-understood religion (and
no one can perfectly understand and appreciate
more than one religion, if that, to the full), the old
test is the only valid one : Do men gather grapes of
thorns or figs of thistles ?
The third paragraph speaks of our progress
along the Way of Truth to goodness and beauty of
Life, and of the assistance constantly vouchsafed to

BELIEF 109
our own efforts in that direction. It is not by our
own efforts alone that we can succeed, for we can
not tell what lies before us, and we lack wisdom to
foresee the consequences of alternative courses of
action, — one of which nevertheless we instinctively
feel to be right. Acts of self-will, and fanatical de
termination, and impatience, may operate in the
wrong direction altogether; and effort so expended
may be worse than wasted : but if we submit our
selves wholly to a beneficent Power, and seek not
our own ends but the ends of the Guiding Spirit of
all things, we shall obtain peace in ourselves, and
may hope to be used for purposes beyond what we
can ask or think. This kind of service is what, in
its several degrees, will be recognized by the Master
as "faithful"; and it is by being faithful in a few
things that hereafter we shall be found worthy of
many things, and shall enter into the joy of our
Lord. By the Holy Spirit is meant the living and imma
nent Deity at work in the consciousness and expe
rience of mankind, — the guider of human history,
the comforter of human sorrow, the revealer of
truth, the inspirer of faith and hope and love, the
producer of life and joy and beauty, the sustainer
and enricher of existence, the Impersonation of the
Grace of God.
This mighty theme has been treated, in an initial
manner, in connection with Clause XIII.

no BELIEF
Supplementary questions will be asked concern
ing other terms in the third paragraph; but as to
the phrase with which the Creed concludes — the
Peace of God — its meaning, we are well assured,
surpasses understanding, and can be felt only by
experience; hence no supplementary question is
asked concerning that phrase.

XVI
THE LIFE ETERNAL
Q. 16. What do you mean by the Life Eternal?
A. I mean that whereas our terrestrial existence
is temporary, our real existence continues without
ceasing, in either a higher or a lower form, accord
ing to our use of opportunities and means of grace;
and that the fulness of Life ultimately attainable
represents a growing perfection at present incon
ceivable by us.

CONTINUITY OF EXISTENCE 113
CLAUSE XVI
Continuity of existence, without break or inter
ruption, is the fundamental idea that needs incul
cation, not only among children but among ig
norant people generally; and the survival, from
savage times, of an inclination to associate a full
measure of departed personality with the discarded
and decomposing bodily remnant, — under the im
pression that it will awake and live again at some
future day, — should be steadily discouraged. The
idea of bodily resurrection, in this physical sense,
is responsible for much superstition and for some
ecclesiastical abuses.
A nearer approach to the truth may be expressed
thus : —
Terrestrial existence is dependent for its con
tinuance on a certain arrangement of material
particles belonging to the earth, which are gradual
ly collected and built up into the complex and
constantly changing structure called a body. The
correspondence or connection between matter and
spirit, as thus exhibited, is common to every form
of life in some degree, and is probably a symbol or
sample of something permanently true; so that a
double aspect of every fundamental existence is like
ly always to continue. But identity of person in no
way depends upon identity of particles : the particles
are frequently changed and the old ones discarded.

H4 IMMORTALITY
The term "body" should be explained and
emphasized* as connoting anything which is able
to manifest feelings, emotions, and thoughts, and
at the same time to operate efficiently on its en
vironment. The temporary character of the pres
ent human body should be admitted for purposes
of religion; it usefully and truthfully displays the
incarnate part of us during the brief episode of
terrestrial life, and when it has served its turn it is
left behind: its particles being discarded and dis
persed. Hereafter — we are taught — an equally
efficient vehicle of manifestation, similarly appro
priate to our new environment, will not be lacking;
this at present unknown and hypothetical entity is
spoken of as "a spiritual body," and represents
the serious idea underlying crude popular notions
about bodily resurrection.
Our bodies have been likened to ripples raised
by wind upon water, displaying in visible form the
motion and influence of the operating breath, with
out being permanently differentiated from the vast
whole, of which the ripple is a temporarily indi
vidualized portion: individualized, yet not isolated
from others, but connected with them by the ocean,
of whose immensity they may be supposed for
poetic purposes gradually to become aware: —
"But that one ripple on the boundless deep
Feels that the deep is boundless, and itself

CONTINUITY OF EXISTENCE 115
Forever changing form, but evermore
One with. the boundless motion of the deep."
There is much to be said for some form of doc
trine of a common psychological basis or union of
minds — some kind of Anima Mundi, some World-
Mind, of which we are all fragments, and to which
all knowledge is in a manner accessible; but the
analogy of ocean ripples or icebergs need not be
pressed to support the idea of a cessation of indi
vidual existence, when a given ripple or a given
iceberg subsides. All analogies fail at some point.
The ocean analogy happens to suggest indistin
guishable absorption or Nirvana, but others do not.
The parts of a jelly are linked together and vibrate
as a whole, but each little sac of fluid is partitioned
off as an individual entity; in touch with all the
rest, but with a texture and a color of its own.
Continued personality, persistent individual ex
istence, cannot be predicated of things which do
not possess personality or individuality or char
acter: but, to things which do possess these attri
butes, continuity and persistence not only may, but
must, apply; unless we are to suppose that actual
existence suddenly ceases. There must be a con
servation of character, notwithstanding the admit
ted return of the individual to a central store or
larger self, — from which a portion was differen
tiated and individualized for the brief period during

116 IMMORTALITY
which the planet performs some seventy of its in
numerable journeys round the sun. Absorption
in original source may mask, but need not destroy,
identity. Even so a villager, picked out as a recruit and
sent to the seat of war, may serve his country, may
gain experience, acquire a soul and a width of
horizon such as he had not dreamt of; and when
he returns, after the war is over, may be merged as
before in his native village. But the village is the
richer for his presence, and his individuality or
personality is not really lost; though to the eye of
the world, which has no further need for it, it has
practically ceased to be.
The character and experience gained by us dur
ing our brief association with the matter of this
planet, become our possession henceforth forever.
We cannot shake ourselves free of them, even if we
would: the enlargement of ideas, the growth in
knowledge, the acquisition of friendships, the skill
and power and serviceableness attained by us
through this strange experience of incarnation, all
persist as part and parcel of our larger self; and so
do the memories of failure, of shame, of cruelty, of
sin, which we have acquired here. To glory in
these last things is damnation: the best that they
can bring to us is pain and undying remorse — their
worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. There
is no way out, save by the way of mercy and grace;

CONTINUITY OF EXISTENCE 117
whereby we are assured that at last, in the long last,
we may ultimately attain to pardon and peace.
The class of things which is certainly not per
sistent, but must indubitably be left behind us for
ever, is the weird collection of treasures for which
most of us work so hard, scorning delights and
living laborious days for their acquisition.
In this blind and mistaken struggle — a struggle
which in the present condition of society seems so
unavoidable, even so meritorious, but which in a
reformed society will be looked back upon as at
something hard to understand — we do not even
make to ourselves friends of the mammon of un
righteousness. Its mottoes are "each for himself"
and "vae victis." Fortunately very few of the hu
man race wholly succumb to this temptation, nearly
all reserve great regions of their lives where kind
ness and friendliness and affection reign, and they
try to check the evil results of their worser or self-
directed efforts by charitable doles.
In a more ideal state of society there would be no
need either of the poison or of its antidote.
To bring about such an ideal state of society is
the end and aim of Politics, and of all movements
for social reform. Efforts in these directions are
the most serious things in life, and may be the
most fruitful in vital results : since few individuals
are strong enough to withstand the pressure and
tendency of their social surroundings; only a few

118 THE LIFE ETERNAL
can rise superior to them, only a few sink far
beneath them; the majority drift with the crowd
and become — too many at present — irretrievably
injured by the base and ugly conditions among
which their lives are cast.
At present, for the majority of Englishmen, life
is liable to be damaging and deleterious: initial
weakness of character, so far from being strength
ened and helped by the combined force of society,
is hindered and enfeebled thereby, — a disastrous
and disquieting condition of things. But when the
efforts of self-sacrificing and laborious statesmen,
Ministers in the highest sense (Mark x. 43), — when
these efforts at cultivation bear fruit, — then, not
withstanding individual lapses here and there, so
ciety at large will be indistinguishable from a hu
man branch of the Communion of Saints. Then
will feeble impulses towards virtue be fostered,
cultivated, and encouraged; the bruised reed will
no longer be broken and trampled in the mire.
The Life Eternal in its fullest sense must be
entered upon here and now. The emphasis is on
the word Life, without reference to time. "I am
come that ye might have Life." Life of a far
higher kind than any yet we know is attainable
by the human race on this planet. It rests largely
with ourselves. The outlook was never brighter
than it is to-day; many workers and thinkers are
making ready the way for a Second Advent, — a

THE LIFE ETERNAL 119
reincarnation of the Logos in the heart of all men;
the heralds are already preparing their songs for a
reign of brotherly love; already there are "signs
of his coming and sounds of his feet"; and upon
our terrestrial activity the date of this Advent
depends.

XVII
THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS
Q. I J. What is the significance of the "Com
munion of Saints"?
A. Higher and holier beings must possess, in
fuller fruition, those privileges of communion which
are already foreshadowed by our own faculties of
language, of sympathy, and of mutual aid; and as
we find that man's power of friendly help is not
confined to his fellows, but extends to other ani
mals, so may we conceive ourselves part of a mighty
Fellowship of love and service.

FELLOWSHIP 121
CLAUSE XVII
Here is opened up a great subject on which much
remains to be discovered. It is probable that the
action of the Deity throughout the Universe is al
ways conducted through intermediaries and agents.
In all cases that we can examine, it is so; and this
is one of the many meanings of "Immanence."
Humanity is the most prominent to us, among
divine agencies, and though it is probably only an
infinitesimal fraction of the whole, yet it can be
studied as a sample. Experience shows us that
human beings have feelings of sympathy, pity, and
love, and can be moved to act in certain ways by
persistent urging and by definite requests. There
is no reason to suppose that this faculty of hearing
and answering is limited to our own comparatively
lowly stage of existence. Man may be regarded as
a germ or indication of far more powerful agencies,
of which at present we know very little.
The faculty of communion familiarly possessed
by man is not likely to be exhaustive of all possible
methods of mental and spiritual intercourse; and
in the undeveloped power of telepathy we have an
indication of a mode apparently not dependent on
the machinery of physical processes, and not neces
sarily limited to intelligencies inhabiting the surface
of a planet. Why associate mind only with the
surface of a mass of matter ? People hope some

122 THE CHURCH INVISIBLE
day to be able to communicate with people on
Mars, but there may be intelligencies far more
accessible to us than those remote and hypothetical
denizens of another world. The immanent Spirit
of nature is likely to individualize and personify it
self in ways mysterious and unknown : all manner
of possibilities lie open to our study and examina
tion; and — until we have scrutinized the evidence,
and thought long and deeply on the subject — our
negative opinion, based upon long habit and tradi
tion, must not be allowed undue weight. It must
be remembered that the above is speculation, not
knowledge; yet something like it has received the
sanction of great philosophers. Here is an ex
clamation of Hegel:—
"We do not mean to be behind; our watchword
shall be Reason and Freedom, and our rallying
ground the Invisible Church."
So far our eyes are open to perceive only the
assiduous operations of man; and any supposed
influence of other agencies we regard with suspi
cion and mistrust. Some are inclined to think that
man is solitary in the universe, the highest of cre
ated things; without equal, without superior, with
out companionship; alone with his indomitable
soul amid scenes of unspeakable grandeur and awe;
alone with his brethren in a universe wherein no
spark of feeling, no gleam of intelligence can
be aroused by his un uttered longings — no echo

COMMUNION OF SAINTS 123
of sympathy can respond to his bewildered
need. Yet that is not the feeling which arises during
spells of lonely communion with nature — on rock
or sea or trackless waste. At these moments comes
a sense of Presence, such as Wordsworth felt at
Tintern, or Byron when he wrote:
"Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude, where we are least alone."
Until our senses are opened more widely, scepti
cism concerning spiritual beings, as intermediate
links with absolute Deity, may be our safest atti
tude, for ignorance is better than superstition; but
the seers of the human race have surmised that as
denizens of a higher universe we are far from
lonely, that it is only our limited perception that is
at fault, and that to clearer eyes the whole of nature
is transfused with spirit: v tyvxv T9* °*-¥ fii/Myrdi,
"Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man."

XVIII
MYSTIC COMMUNION OR PRAYER
Q. 1 8. What do you understand by prayer?
A. I understand that when our spirits are at
tuned to the Spirit of Righteousness, our hopes and
aspirations exert an influence far beyond their con
scious range, and in a true sense bring us into com
munion with our Heavenly Father. This power of
filial communion is called prayer; it is an attitude
of mingled worship and supplication; we offer
petitions in a spirit of trust and submission, and
endeavor to realize the Divine attributes, with the
help and example of Christ.

PRAYER 125
CLAUSE XVIII
In prayer we come into close communion with a
Higher than we know, and seek to contemplate
Divine perfection. Its climax and consummation
is attained when we realize the universal PermeP
ance, the entire Goodness, and the Fatherly Love,
of the Divine Being. Through prayer we admit
our dependence on a higher power, for existence
and health and everything we possess; we are
encouraged to ask for whatever we need, as chil
dren ask parents; and we inevitably cry for mercy
and comfort in times of tribulation and anguish.
The spirit of simple supplication may desire
chiefly — •
1. Insight and receptiveness to truth and knowl
edge. 2. Help and guidance in the practical manage
ment of life.
3. Ability and willingness to follow the light
whithersoever it leads.
But provided we ask in a right spirit, it is not
necessary to be specially careful concerning the
kind of things asked for; nor need we in all cases
attempt to decide how far their attainment is pos
sible or not. In such matters we may admit our
ignorance. What is important is that we should
apply our own efforts towards the fulfilment of our
petition, and not be satisfied with wishes alone.

126 PRAYER
Everything accomplished has to be done by actual
work and activity of some kind, and it is unreason
able to expect the rest of the universe to take
trouble on our behalf while we ourselves are supine.
Certain material means are within our control:
these should be fully employed, in the light of the
best knowledge of the time.
The highest type of prayer has for its object not
any material benefit, beyond those necessary for
our activity and usefulness, but the enlightenment
and amendment of our wills, the elevation of all
humanity, and the coming of the Kingdom.

XIX
THE LORD'S PRAYER
Q. Rehearse the prayer taught us by Jesus.
A. Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in
heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we for
give them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation; but
deliver us from evil:
For Thine is the kingdom,
And the power,
And the glory,
For ever.

THE LORD'S PRAYER 129
CLAUSE XIX
Q. 19. Explain the purport of this prayer.
A. We first attune our spirit to consciousness of
the Divine Fatherhood; trying to realize His in
finite holiness as well as His loving-kindness, desir
ing that everything alien to His will should cease in
our hearts and in the world, and longing for the
establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven. Then
we ask for the supply of the ordinary needs of ex
istence, and for the forgiveness of our sins and
shortcomings just as we pardon those who have
hurt us. We pray to be kept from evil influences,
and to be protected when they attack us. Finally,
we repose in the might, majesty, and dominion of
the Eternal Goodness.

XX
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
Q. 20. What is meant by the Kingdom of
Heaven ?
A. The Kingdom of Heaven is the central feat
ure of practical Christianity. It represents a har
monious condition in which the Divine Will is
perfectly obeyed; it signifies the highest state of
existence, both individual and social, which we can
conceive. Our whole effort should, directly or in
directly, make ready its way, — in our hearts, in our
lives, and in the lives of others. It is the ideal state
of society towards which Reformers are striving;
it is the ideal of conscious existence towards which
Saints aim.

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 131
CLAUSE XX
This mighty ideal has many aspects. It has
been typified as the pearl of great price, for which
all other property may well be sacrificed : in germ
it is as leaven, or as growing seed. It will come
sooner than is expected, — though for a time longer
there must be tares among the wheat: for a time
longer there shall be last and first, and a striving
to be greatest, and a laying up of earthly treasure,
and wars and divisions; but only for a time, — the
spirit of service is growing, and the childlike spirit
will overcome:
"Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's
good pleasure to give you the Kingdom."
When realized it will conduce to universal love
and brotherhood; it is the reign of Christ's spirit
in the hearts of all men; it is accordingly spoken
of as the second Advent, and its herald song is still,
Peace on earth, good-will among men. Wherever
perfect love and willing service exist, there already
is the Kingdom.
We have to realize that the Will of God is to be
done on earth, that the Kingdom of Heaven is to
be a present Kingdom, here and now, not relegated
always to the future. Our life is not in the future,
but in the present, and it will always be in the pres
ent: it is in our life that we have to apply our be
liefs, utilize our talents, and bring forth fruit. The

132 REGENERATION
Kingdom of Heaven is not only at hand, it is
potentially in our midst and may be actually within
us. These are its two chief aspects, the social, and
the individual. The ideal is to be made real, in
each and in all: nothing is too good to be true:
each soul is to attain its highest aim : the world is
to be transfigured and transformed.
The above formula must not be supposed to
exhaust the meaning of the great Phrase, which
many parables have still only partially explained,
but it is a part of its meaning. And the strange
thing is that the world, in spite of its violent unrest,
wrestling and contending amid unheeded calls to
order, is really working towards that goal. No
other ending is possible in the long run, though
it has been long delayed. It is the condition to
which the whole of humanity, each individual man,
as well as the race, is blindly and unconsciously
struggling. "Their prejudice and fears and cares and doubts
All with a touch of nobleness, despite
Their error, upward tending all, though weak,
Like plants in mines which never saw the sun,
But dream of him and guess where he may be.
And do their best to climb and get to him."
The daily toil, in city office, in factory, in ship,
in mine, in home, is really a struggle for Life, for
freedom, for joy, for something wider and better

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 133
than we at present know, for pleasures that satisfy
and do not pall. We needs must love the highest
when we see it; but as yet we do not see it: so we
are working in the dark, and the best of us try hard
to do our duty. The end is unrecognized, the
means may be mistaken, but the energy is there;
and the race as well as the individual is instinctively
working out its destiny; — thwarting itself constant
ly by misdirected endeavor, yet constantly striving
for self-development and enlargement, for progress
and happiness. And this is true even when the
main idea of enlargement is the amassing of money
in unwieldy heaps, when happiness is sought in an
exaltation of imagination by deleterious drugs, or
when progress is thought to consist in the slaughter
and impoverishment of opponents who might be
our auxiliaries and allies.
If our vision should be cleared, and the aim of
human effort could be changed, the earth would
put on a new complexion; we should no longer be
tempted to think of humanity as of an ancient and
effete and played-out product of evolution, — we the
latest-born and most youthful of all the creatures
on the planet, — but should regard everything with
the eye of hope, as of one new-born, with senses
quickened to perceive joys and beauties hitherto
undreamed of.
That is the meaning of Regeneration or new
birth : it must be like an awakening out of trance.

134 REGENERATION
At present we are as if subject to a dream illusion,
in a slumber which we are unable to throw off.
Revelation after revelation has come to us, but our
senses are deadened and we will not hear, our hands
are full of clay, we have no grasp for ideals, we are
mistaking appearance for reality. But the time for
awakening must be drawing nigh — the time when
again it may be said: "The people that walked in
darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in
the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath
the light shined."
Meanwhile our seers depict man's half-hoping
half-despairing attitude, not so much as a striving,
as awaiting: — the striving is obvious, but the un
conscious waiting is what they detect — waiting as it
were for the arrival of a new sense, a new percep
tion of the value of life : —
"And we, the poor earth's dying race, and yet
No phantoms, watching from a phantom shore
Await the last and largest sense to make
The phantom walls of this illusion fade,
And show us that the world is wholly fair."

THE CLAUSES OF THE CATECHISM
REPEATED

THE CATECHISM
Q. I. What are you?
A. I am a being alive and conscious upon this
earth; a descendant of ancestors who rose by
gradual processes from lower forms of animal life,
and with struggle and suffering became man.
Q. 2. What, then, may be meant by the Fall of
man? A. At a certain stage of development man be
came conscious of a difference between right and
wrong, so that thereafter, when his actions fell
below a normal standard of conduct, he felt
ashamed and sinful. He thus lost his animal
innocency, and entered on a long period of human
effort and failure; nevertheless, the consciousness
of degradation marked a rise in the scale of exist
ence. Q. 3. What is the distinctive characteristic of
manhood? A. The distinctive character of man is that he
has a sense of responsibility for his acts, having

138 THE CATECHISM
acquired the power of choosing between good and
evil, with freedom to obey one motive rather than
another. Creatures far below the human level are
irresponsible; they feel no shame and suffer no
remorse; they are said to have no conscience.
Q. 4. What is the duty of man ?
A. To assist his fellows, to develop his own
higher self, to strive towards good in every way
open to his powers, and generally to seek to know
the laws of Nature and to obey the will of God, in
whose service alone can be found that harmonious
exercise of the faculties which is synonymous with
perfect freedom.
Q. 5. What is meant by good and evil?
A. Good is that which promotes development,
and is in harmony with the will of God. It is akin
to health and beauty and happiness.
Evil is that which retards or frustrates develop
ment, and injures some part of the universe. It is
akin to disease and ugliness and misery.
Q. 6. How does man know good from .evil ?
A. His own nature, when uncorrupted by greed,
is sufficiently in tune with the universe to enable
him to be well aware in general of what is a help or
hinderance to the guiding Spirit, of which he him
self is a real and effective portion.

THE CATECHISM 139
Q. 7. How comes it that evil exists ?
A. Evil is not an absolute thing, but has refer
ence to a standard of attainment. The possibility
of evil is the necessary consequence of a rise in the
scale of moral existence; just as an organism whose
normal temperature is far above "absolute zero"
is necessarily liable to damaging and deadly cold.
But cold is not in itself a positive or created thing.
Q. 8. What is sin?
A. Sin is the deliberate and wilful act of a free
agent who sees the better and chooses the worse,
and thereby acts injuriously to himself and others.
The root sin is selfishness, whereby needless trouble
and pain are inflicted on others; when fully de
veloped it involves moral suicide.
Q. 9. Are there beings lower in the scale of exist
ence than man?
A. Yes, multitudes. In every part of the earth
where life is possible, there we find it developed.
Life exists in every variety of animal, in earth and
air and sea, and in every species of plant.
Q. 10. Are there any beings higher in the scale of
existence than man ?
A. Man is the highest of the dwellers on the
planet earth, but the earth is only one of many
planets warmed by the sun, and the sun is only one

140 THE CATECHISM
of a myriad of similar suns, which are so far off
that we barely see them, and group them indis
criminately as "stars." We may reasonably con
jecture that in some of the innumerable worlds
circling round those distant suns there must be
beings far higher in the scale of existence than
ourselves; indeed, we have no knowledge which
enables us to assert the absence of intelligence
anywhere. Q. ii. What caused and what maintains exist
ence? A. Of our own knowledge we are unable to
realize the meaning of origination or of mainte
nance; all that we ourselves can accomplish in the
physical world is to move things into desired posi
tions, and leave them to act on each other. Nev
ertheless our effective movements are all inspired by
thought, and so we conceive that there must be
some Intelligence immanent in all the processes of
nature, for they are not random or purposeless, but
organized and beautiful.

t>

Q. 12. What is to be said of man's higher fac
ulties ?
A. The faculties and achievements of the highest
among mankind — in Art, in Science, in Philosophy,
and in Religion — are not explicable as an outcome
of a struggle for existence. Something more than

THE CATECHISM 141
mere life is possessed by us — something represented
by the words "mind" and "soul" and "spirit."
On one side we are members of the animal king
dom ; on another we are associates in a loftier type
of existence, and are linked with the Divine.
Q. 13. Is man helped in his struggle upward?
A. There is a Power in the Universe vastly be
yond our comprehension; and we trust and believe
that it is a Good and Loving Power, able and will
ing to help us and all creatures, and to guide us
wisely, without detriment to our incipient freedom.
This Loving-kindness continually surrounds us; in
it we live and have our real being; it is the main
spring of joy and love and beauty, and we call it
the Grace of God. It sustains and enriches all
worlds, and may take a multiplicity of forms; but
it was manifested to dwellers on this planet in the
Life of Jesus Christ, through whose spirit and liv
ing influence the race of man may hope to rise to
heights at present inaccessible.
Q. 14. How may we become informed concerning
things too high for our own knowledge ?
A. We should strive to learn from the great
teachers, the prophets and poets and saints of the
human race, and should seek to know and to inter
pret their inspired writings.

142 THE CATECHISM
Q. 15. What, then, do you reverently believe can
be deduced from a study of the records and traditions
of the past in the light of the present?
A. I believe in one Infinite and Eternal Being,
a guiding and loving Father, in whom all things
consist. I believe that the Divine Nature is specially re
vealed to man through Jesus Christ our Lord, who
lived and taught and suffered in Palestine nineteen
hundred years ago, and has since been worshipped
by the Christian Church as the immortal Son of
God, the Saviour of the world.
I believe that the Holy Spirit is ever ready to
help us along the Way towards Goodness and
Truth; that prayer is a means of communion be
tween man and God; and that it is our privilege
through faithful service to enter into the Life
Eternal, the Communion of Saints, and the Peace
of God.
Q. 16. What do you mean by the Life Eternal?
A. I mean that whereas our terrestrial existence
is temporary, our real existence continues without
ceasing, in either a higher or a lower form, accord
ing to our use of opportunities and means of grace;
and that the fulness of Life ultimately attainable
represents a growing perfection at present incon
ceivable by us.

THE CATECHISM 143
Q. 17. What is the significance of the "Com
munion of Saints"?
A. Higher and holier beings must possess, in
fuller fruition, those privileges of communion which
are already foreshadowed by our own faculties of
language, of sympathy, and of mutual aid; and as
we find that man's power of friendly help is not
confined to his fellows, but extends to other ani
mals, so may we conceive ourselves part of a
mighty Fellowship of love and service.
Q. 18. What do you understand by prayer?
A. I understand that when our spirits are at
tuned to the Spirit of Righteousness, our hopes and
aspirations exert an influence far beyond their con
scious range, and in a true sense bring us into com
munion with our Heavenly Father. This power
of filial communion is called prayer; it is an
attitude of mingled worship and supplication; we
offer petitions in a spirit of trust and submission,
and endeavor to realize the Divine attributes, with
the help and example of Christ.
Q. Rehearse the prayer taught us by Jesus.
A. Our Father, etc.
Q. 19. Explain the purport of this prayer.
A. We first attune our spirit to consciousness
of the Divine Fatherhood; trying to realize His

144 THE CATECHISM
infinite holiness as well as His loving-kindness,
desiring that everything alien to His will should
cease in our hearts and in the world, and longing
for the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Then we ask for the supply of the ordinary needs
of existence, and for the forgiveness of our sins
and shortcomings just as we pardon those who
have hurt us. We pray to be kept from evil in
fluences, and to be protected when they attack us.
Finally, we repose in the might, majesty, and
dominion of the Eternal Goodness.
Q. 20. What is meant by the Kingdom of
Heaven ?
A. The Kingdom of Heaven is the central feat
ure of practical Christianity. It represents a har
monious condition in which the Divine Will is
perfectly obeyed; it signifies the highest state of
existence, both individual and social, which we can
conceive. Our whole effort should, directly or in
directly, make ready its way, — in our hearts, in our
lives, and in the lives of others. It is the ideal state
of society towards which Reformers are striving; it
is the ideal of conscious existence towards which
Saints aim. THE END

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