Crown Theo

Libra

for the f oanding if a Collegt, -at this Cefony'

• iLniaiaamr •

Presented by the Author
/9*f

Books by
Rev. John P. Peters, Ph.D.

Early Hebrew Story
Annals of St. Michael's
Nippur; or, Explorations and Adven
tures on the Euphrates
The Scriptures, Hebrew and Cbristian
Arranged and Edited as an Introduction
to the Study of the Bible. Rev. Edward
T. Bartlett, D.D., and Rev. John P.
Peters, Ph.D.

Modern Christianity Or
The Plain Gospel Modemly Expounded

By ¦
John P. Peters, Ph.D., Sc.D., D.D.
Rector of St. Michael's Church, New York
and
Canon Raidentiary of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine

G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
JLbe -fcnicfterbocfcer press
1909

Copyright, 1909
BY
JOHN P. PETERS

Ube Knickerbocker 'Ptcm, flew Bark

2>e&fcate&
To the Memory of my
Revered and Beloved Father in God,
Rt. Rev. Henry Codman Potter, D.D., LL.D.,
Late Bishop of New York

iii

FOREWORD
THIS volume is not published at the request of those
to whom the sermons herein contained were
preached, as, judging from their prefaces, is usually the
case with volumes of printed sermons. It is published
so as to preserve, in a form more permanent than the
spoken word, certain things which I have felt moved to
utter, which do not seem to me to have been altogether
said by others. The sermons here published do not for
mally constitute a body of theology, but they have been
selected and arranged with a view to presenting, in some
sort of sequence, and with some regard to the due pro
portion of emphasis, the essentials of Christianity — ¦
the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and
the re-incarnation, if I may so put it, of the spirit of
Jesus in His followers. I think I may claim that the
doctrine expressed in these sermons is ancient, orthodox,
and Catholic; but the mode of statement is modern,
and the emphasis doubtless different from that to which
some of my hoped for readers are accustomed. Not my
self a good reader of sermons, nor even always a good
listener, I have hesitated long in publishing my mate
rial in sermon form; but after careful consideration I
have concluded that it will be on the whole more intel
ligible to and more readable by my desired public in
this form than if rewritten as a theological or ethical

vi Foreword
treatise, under some such title perhaps as A Modern
Interpretation of Christianity. Accordingly, these ser
mons are presented to the outside world almost in the
form in which they were originally spoken to my own
people in St. Michael's Church or the Cathedral of St.
John the Divine. I have described these sermons as
"orthodox" ; but I apprehend that because of their very
orthodoxy some of them may sound radical, if not rev
olutionary. Especially, I fear, will this be the case with
the series of addresses contained in the second part of
the volume, which are a literal, not a conventional, in
terpretation of our Lord's social teaching by one who is
technically a Bible scholar rather than a theologian.
John P- Peters.
St. Michael's Church, New York.
St. John Baptist's Day, 1909.

CONTENTS

PART 1
DOCTRINES OF THE CHURCH
PAGE
The Birth of God  3
Sons of God ....
12
The Glory of God
18
The Echo of the Cross
• 25
The Empty Tomb
• 39
The Resurrection of God
48
The Mystery of Birth and Death
56
The Real Heaven
68
The Personality of the Spirit
78
The Judgment .
86
Big Thief and Little Thief .
. 95
The Real Hell .
. 101
Forgiveness of Sins .
• "5
Rites and Sacraments .
. 127
Priests and Prophets .
l31
Free Church
• 153
Sabbath-Sunday .
. 162
Wisdom (to young men) .
171
Little Foxes (to young women) .
192
viii Contents

PART II

THE SOCIAL TEACHING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST

A Dinner Party  211

A Good Negro 

. 224

Palaces and Slums ....

. 238

The Servant in the House .

. 252

The Needle's Eye ....

. 264

Tainted Money 

. 276

Respectables and Publicans

. 295

Revolutionary Christianity .

. 312

PART I
DOCTRINES OF THE CHURCH

THE BIRTH OF GOD

St. Luke ii., ia : Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swad
dling clothes, lying in a manger.
THIS was the sign which the angels gave the shep
herds, by which they were to know that "unto
you is bom this day, in the city of David a Saviour,
which is Christ the Lord"; and to you to-day I bring
Christmas greetings, tidings of great joy. For the birth
of Jesus in the manger, the incarnation of God in that
little child, is a declaration of the divinity that is in
man, of the glory of God manifested in each new birth
of a babe on earth. A babe, poor, naked, helpless, that
cannot do a thing for itself, is yet the God and King,
before whom men shall bow down and worship. And
he who does not recognise that kingship, who cannot
bend the knee in reverence there, is unable to know
God. How can that be? How can God be revealed to
us in the pathetic helplessness of a baby?
Let us go back to that first Christmas-day, when that
baby, whom we call Christ, the Lord, was bom in Beth
lehem. How was he bom? I nto the crowded inn came
Joseph and Mary, great with child, seeking a place where
the child might be born. But none knew that it was
God, asking where He might be bom. The rooms of the
3

4 Modern Christianity
inn were full of guests and there was no place vacant.
From room to room went Joseph, seeking a place for
Mary in her need. Here were rooms occupied by mer
chants with their precious goods, bales of silk from
Babylon, spices and perfumes from Arabia and the
East; goods, some of which represented a fortune in a
camel's load. These must be carefully guarded and
protected from the weather. They could not be placed
outside among the cattle. Their owners could not
make place, for it meant too great a risk of loss, even
had they been willing to discommode themselves. To
one after another he went and none would give
room. But they were not all heartless: here was one who
would give the money to pay some one else to leave his
room and give it to the poor woman. For himself, he
could not make place, for his goods were in this room and
he in the next, that he might guard them well. He was
sorry that he could do no more. There were some trav
ellers who had no goods and who were hardened to the
weather. They surely would be glad to take the money
and make room for the woman.
Not they! They had come a long journey and a hard
one. Not a night for weeks had they spent beneath a
roof and for many days they had looked forward to this
night, when at last they were to sleep under cover and
rest in peace and make merry. Let the merchant him
self make way, instead of offering money for others to
do so. They could not. He slept every night beneath
a roof, but they almost never. Their pleasure and com
fort were worth as much to them as his goods to him.
Let him make way. Or look! there was a man yonder

The Birth of God 5
that always lived in ease and comfort. It would do
him good to sleep out for a night. Try him.
And he? No! Expose himself thus ? He dare not!
He had been brought up used to comfort. Why, he
would suffer: no, not he! There were surely others, who
were used to sleeping out of- doors, who could readily do
it, but to him it would be suffering, for he was not used
to it.
And here was a man with his wife and children. He
had worked hard to get there in time and to get rooms
for him and them, that they might have comfort and not
be exposed to hardships. Ask him, after he had taken
all that pains and trouble for them, to turn them out
with no place to go, except the dirty court-yard, full of
beasts and cattle, open to the sky above? No! he was
too good a husband and too good a father to do that,
let me tell you ! He would work himself to the bone
if need be, but he was going to provide the best there
was for his wife and children. If others were careless
and shiftless and did not do their part, it was not fit
that his wife and his children should suffer for it. Let
him go to some one who had no family to take care of.
There, right next, was a single man, by himself.
And he? No, he would not make place. It was his
right to have a room. He had come in time to get it and
no one should take it from him. He was very sorry.
He was ready to do his part with every one else, but it
was not right that he alone should suffer. He stood
on his rights.
Somewhat thus, I imagine, was the story of that
night; for men are much the same all the world over.
And so it was that God, asking to be bom, found no

6 Modern Christianity
man ready to make place, for all the rooms were occu
pied. For their wealth and for their comforts, all stood
on their rights and on their privileges. Each thought
the other should make place. And so God was born
among the beasts of burden in the court-yard, with the
sky for a roof, and cradled in a manger. God so loved
the world that, though none was ready to make place
for Him, yet He would be bom among men and into
man; but man denied Him and the beasts of burden
were His comrades. Born among the beasts, of whom
men made slaves for their comfort and convenience, He
came, the servant of all mankind, He, God incarnate.
And who first found this King? St. Luke tells the
beautiful and mystic tale of the shepherds, who, watch
ing their flocks, saw the vision of the angels, who told
them that the Christ for whom men looked was born
in Bethlehem, David's town, and gave them, as the
only sign, that they should find somewhere there in
Bethlehem a baby in swaddling clothes and lying in a
manger. The poorest, most needy child that they
could find in all that town was the King. That was
the sign.
All Israel was looking for the King. Wise men stud
ied the books which prophesied His coming. Scribes
and Pharisees and priests, each in his own way, searched
for Him. They knew the marks which should distin
guish the Christ, a great King, with wonder-working
power, testified to by signs from God Himself. Who
found Him? In the later story of the Gospels, it was
the poor fishermen about the northern end of the
Sea of Galilee who recognised Jesus as the Christ.
In this mystic story of the birth, it was the shepherds

The Birth of God 7
who knew Him, and they knew Him by this one sign :
that His birth was poorer and more miserable than
that of any child in Bethlehem.
There is another mystic story which St. Matthew
tells of the finding of Christ. It is a parable by which
the writer of the Gospel sets forth that the Kingdom
should pass from Israel to the Gentiles, because they
recognised the Christ, where the Jews failed to
do so. It is the story of the magi, who, studying the
stars, according to their ancient lore, learned that
a great King was bom in the west-land, and so
travelled westward, following by night the star of
the new Prince of Judah which went before them.
And so these magi came to the capital of Judah and to
the palace of the king to seek the prince that should be
King. But the Prince of the kingdom of Heaven was
not found in kings' houses. Then Herod sent for the
scholars and the doctors of the law, to ask them where
the King should be bom, and they told him that the
King of David's kingdom should be bom in David's
city, Bethlehem, but more they knew not. For to
them the real meaning, the real nature of His kingdom,
had not been revealed. Ignorant, simple shepherds
had found the King then, as ignorant, simple Galilean
fishermen were to find Him later, because the very
nature of their life had kept them close to the needs
of man. Their own needs and their own wants kept
them always tender to the needs and wants of others.
They were ready to be brothers in need to one that
was in need; and this call of a common humanity
kept them close to God.
But these others had learned to place wealth, power.

8 Modern Christianity
social distinction, privilege, first, and humanity after
wards. It was not the man, but the wealth, the power,
the social station of the man which determined worth.
Those things were of more value than the humanity
behind. They sought God in those things and not in
man himself.
Then the magi went to search in Bethlehem for the
child: — the nations of the earth seeking their King in
the religion of the Old Testament, finding Him not in
the glory of Judah, in the power of David, or the pomp
and magnificence of Solomon ; finding Him not in the
law of Moses or the poetry of the Psalms or the wisdom
of Job; but finding Him in Israel stripped of power and
prestige, in Israel guileless and helpless among the
nations, without land or power, a servant of servants.
And there is the mystery and wonder of this King
ship, and there the meaning of this story. Man finds
God, his King and his Saviour, not in those that can
give him something, not in rank and power, not in
those who impart wisdom to him and give him encour
agement, not even in those that show him kindness
and love. He finds God, his King and his Saviour,
when he has found the one who, in his helplessness and
want, needs him. When he has found that one and re
sponded to his appeal, he has found God, his Saviour.
Then Jesus, the Christ, is bom for him into the world
and Christmas-day becomes to him an eternal reality.
God is forever asking a place that He may be born
into your life and into mine. Mary, great with child,
seeks a room in your life and in mine, in which Jesus
Christ may have His cradle. And too often we are
blind as the men of that inn were blind. The rooms

The Birth of God 9
of our hearts are filled, as were the rooms of the inn at
Bethlehem that night.
There is no place in our life. We need all we have for
wife and children.
We have our career to make in the world, and our
time and our strength are needed for that. We are go
ing to make the world better some day. We hope, at all
events, that we are going to win our place in that world,
and we cannot step out of our room to let a need come
in which shall drag us down into that court-yard
among the cattle and the beasts of burden.
Our life is full of the stores of goods which we have
collected, out of which we would make fortunes, and
we need all our time and strength to care for them.
The spirit of rivalry is in us, to surpass these others
about us. Money we have, yes, and we will give it, that
you may buy a place in some one's else life for this
need, but for ourselves we cannot risk our precious
bales of goods down there in the muck, among the
camels and the donkeys, nor let some strangers that we
know not take the room next to them, from which they
might rob us.
We, you know, are people of delicate health and deli
cate nurture. We must care for our health. We have
so many ailments, the burden of our flesh is so heavy
for us to carry that we cannot risk exposure there.
Yes, the case is hard, but do you think of us ? Don't
you know what our condition is? Do you talk to me
about caring for others and don't you know what my
health is and how I need to receive all your sympathy
and all the care that I can get, instead of giving to
others ?

io Modern Christianity
Or: Yes, but you know how I was brought up. It is
an easy thing for some of these people to go down into
that muck among those beasts. They were bred differ
ently from me; but you cannot expect me to do it.
Ahf dear hearts, may God grant each of us on this
Christmas-day a little of that magic lotion of selfless
love that, if we know it not already, there may be re
vealed to you and to me the place where Christ, our
King, is to be found. The helpless and the needy one
(in what unexpected guise God comes), he is, for you
and for me, the one through whose agency God would
be born into our lives.
Jesus came to turn the world upside down, and there
is some sense in the mediaeval method of celebrating
Christmas as the feast of misrule, when the child was
made king and the fool was made bishop, and Church
and State were for the nonce ruled by the lowest and
the most foolish of all ; and yet not that the world would
be turned upside down by a true recognition of the
meaning of Christmas, in the sense that lawlessness
and misrule and folly would come in. Nay, it would
be the rule of love, and the most perfect and wisest of
all laws is love, for love is the law of God; and the
fundamental nature of the law of love is that honour
and help be given to those who most need it, because
they are the poorest and the most helpless; that the
strongest and the greatest should bow the knee and
worship at the shrine of the weakest and the poorest,
pouring out there their gifts of gold and frankincense
and myrrh, because it is the poor and the weak and
the foolish that have need of those things.
Wise men, would ye find the great King of the new

The Birth of God 1 1
kingdom of God ? There He lies. You need not go back
two thousand years. He is here now. Bring to Him
your gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. And
this shall be the sign unto you, — a Child, because He
is the weakest and the most foolish; wrapped in swad
dling clothes and lying in a manger, because He is
the poorest and the meanest, without a house to dwell
in, like the beasts of the field. And yet ye shall find
Him to be greater than all the kings of the earth ; for if
ye will acknowledge Him as your King, He shall bring
out in you the best and highest that is in your nature,
and ye shall become sons of God, serving but not
needing to be served. Serve the weakest, and as ye
serve Him ye shall yourselves become like gods, and
this earth shall be changed into the kingdom of heaven ;
for the kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of love,
where he who has gives to him who has not, and the
strong serves the weak, and there is no having and not
having, no strong and no weak, for each in love imparts
what the other lacks.

SONS OF GOD
St. John i., 12: As many as received him to them gave
he power to become the sons of God.
AGAIN we are come to Christmas-day, when all the
world's ideas are turned upside down. To-day we
celebrate the birth of our King : not in a palace, not in
wealth and luxury, not surrounded by pomp and power.
Our King was of very doubtful birth, born of poor par
ents, under conditions so distressful as to be positively
indecent; His palace, the open court-yard, reeking with
the filth of the animals that crowded it ; the body-guard,
that stood about His bed and certified His birth, the
beasts of burden and the cattle, men's household
slaves; the throne from which He ruled His kingdom,
the manger from which those cattle fed. Yes, surely,
Christmas turns the world's ideas upside down.
And the life that began in this wise so continued to
its close, when He, whom we proclaim the Saviour of
the world, died as a criminal on the cross. Bom of
parents so poor, so lacking in thrift or energy or fore
thought, so lacking in repute among their fellow men, so
pressed upon by their environment and so little able to
meet the conditions of that environment, that when the
time of greatest need came the baby was bom in the
filthy court-yard of the inn, among the beasts of burden !
So little successful in His short life in achieving place,
12

Sons of God 13
distinction, repute among those who were considered
the leaders of His people, that He was put to death as a
common criminal between two thieves and murderers
on the cross. A strangely pitiful and unsuccessful
career — and yet we say that this was the Son of God.
There was a great temple in Jerusalem, which was
still in process of reconstruction at the time when Christ
was bom. It was the centre of the Jewish faith and
nation. The traditions of the people looked back to
the first temple erected on that site by Solomon and
dwelt with delight on the details of its glory and its
wealth. Solomon held a high place in their religious
annals, as one who had well pleased God because he
built that temple. As is the way with such things, much
suffering was built into its walls. To complete this
grand work, men were torn from their homes and com
pelled to work in gangs for so many months or so many
years. Their labour was taken from their families, who
were left to shift for themselves in the meantime, and
many of them of course sickened and some died under
the conditions of such forced labour. Solomon won the
glory and renown of the great work. It was his wisdom
that planned it, it was his wealth that provided the ma
terials, it was his power that furnished the workmen.
The oppression and exaction, the cruelty and the tyr
anny connected with this and his other great construc
tions, palaces and the like, disrupted the kingdom.
He left his son an inheritance of discontent and revolt.
All that men forgot in the glory of the structure which
he had erected for the worship of God, and Solomon
was counted a benefactor. The last temple, which
Herod built, was still more beautiful than Solomon's

14 Modern Christianity
stracture. The man who murdered his own beloved
wife, who in jealous rage executed his own children ;
the man who is execrated in Jewish and Christian
story alike for his massacres of men and women and
little children, built, partly for the satisfaction of his own
pride, partly to win the suffrages of the Jews, partly out
of a desire to make his peace with God, a temple which
was one of the wonders of the world, and the pride of
the Jewish race and religion.
These are the things that men count great. The op
pression, the cruelty, the misdeeds, the death of the
innocent and]the suffering of the down-trodden working-
folk are forgotten, in the world's thought, in the benefits
which the world derives from the deeds and the con
structions of such men. Their temples and cathedrals,
their hospitals and asylums, their schools and colleges,
their endowments of research and education, make
them great in men's minds.
According to an old Christian tradition, the veil of
that temple which Herod built was rent in twain when
Christ died on the cross. A new order had come in with
Jesus Christ. The temple for the indwelling of God was
man. Man as man was exalted to a new place. In him
God was revealed. There was no room for the old order.
No buildings, however beautiful, whose foundations
rested on the sorrow and suffering of men, could contain
the majesty of God or show forth God to men.
Christmas, the birth feast of Jesus, is the exaltation
of humanity, quite apart from all accidents of birth or
wealth, quite apart from all acquirements of culture and
learning, quite apart even from all achievements and dis
tinctions, of countries conquered, of kingdoms founded,

Sons of God 15
of laws framed, of the mysteries of nature unfolded
and the forces of nature harnessed and bridled in man's
service. Not that these things have not their place in
the economy of God's plan, but that the final revelation
of God does not consist in these things. Behind them
and beyond them is a something else which constitutes
the essence of divinity, by which power is given to as
many as receive Him to become the sons of God. He
was God's revelation of the power of love, a power
which exceeds all else. By love and by love only the
world can be remade, for by love the world was made,
not, as man fancied, by a commandment of power, but
by a breath of love. In the birth of Jesus was revealed
that which had been from the beginning. He was in
the world and the world was made by Him and the
world knew Him not. Love was the power by which
the world had been made. But men did not under
stand this. They were looking for something else as
the power of God and the manifestation of God, as the
divine essence and the divine being. Only a few here
and there dimly perceived the truth. This light had
been in the world always and it had lighted men from
the beginning; but the great bulk of men seemed to
love darkness rather than light.
The story of the birth of Christ is full of a mystical
significance. God came appealing through the need of
a woman and an unborn child to men and women of the
same blood, bound to them by the ties of a sacred re
ligion, which, while setting them apart from other men,
laid upon them a special obligation to care each for the
other. He came in the appeal of supreme need : a wo
man whose child was to be bom looking for a place to

1 6 Modern Christianity
bring it forth; — and no one would make place. Each
was so wrapped up in his own selfishness and his own
needs, each was so bound to maintain his own rights
and his own privileges, that none would abandon his
room in the inn that God might be bom there. He
came unto His own and His own knew Him not.
The inn is the life of man in which the love of God
must be bom, and that love of God comes to the life of
each man, appealing for room to be born. It asks man
to give up the room which self habits in his life, that
the mother of God may come in; for love can be born
only where self maketh place. But self says: I cannot
make place, for this is my room. I have come first to
the inn. I have here the right. Hath this woman so
great need ? But why hath she been so shiftless and so
thriftless? Why at this time should she be demanding
place? Why was not provision made for her need in
advance ? Surely it would be but to encourage beggary
and thriftlessness, if when one cometh like this and
maketh claim of great need I should give up that which
is mine.for which I have laboured and fought and toiled.
Nay, surely that cannot help but rather hinder. Truly,
she undergoeth hardship, but it is through her own
fault that the hardship is come upon her. Self hath
many things to say, many reasons why it cannot make
place, and he who listeneth to the voice of self can never
know God, because he maketh no room in his life for
the Son of God. But he who thrusteth self out al
together, who counteth nothing in comparison with
the need of another, to him is God revealed and to him
power is given to become a son of God.
Christmas is the exaltation of our humanity in the

Sons of God 17
birth of God in Jesus. That is the eternal lesson of
Christmas-day: the power that is within you and me to
become sons of God through the birth of love divine in
our hearts, and the impossibility of truly knowing God
or serving God by anything except surrender of our
selves. Through love was the creation of the world.
Love is the light that lighteneth men in the darkness of
this world of sin and sorrow. Love incarnate in man is
the highest revelation of God to man, the eternal Son
of God, and that love showing itself in the poorest and
most needy exalts him above kings and priests.
To some small degree Christianity has touched and
changed the world since that first Christmas-day.
Feebly we have begun to apprehend Christ; and on each
Christmas-day there seems to come a new breath of love
from heaven, enlightening us, making us see more as
God sees : that to make others happy, to give, not to re
ceive, is the true joy of life. A little glimpse of heaven
we earthlings catch at the Christmas tide. Ah ! dear
hearts, why can you and I not keep the gate of heaven
open this far at least through all the year? God bless
you to-day with the Christmas love and may the Christ
mas spirit go with you through the year that lies be
yond. And as you seek communion with God through
Christ at yonder altar to-day, may you indeed so know
and receive the true Christ that you may become the
sons of God. May self go out, and God come in.

THE GLORY OF GOD
St. Luke ii., io: Behold, I bring you good tidings of great
joy. THIS season of the year was a time of great merry
making among the Romans, the time of the satur
nalia. 1 1 was also a festival time among the Druids ; and
the religion of not a few northern peoples consecrated
the period of the winter solstice to feasting, and even
to license. For now the days begin to lengthen, the sun
starts on its journey northward again, a promise that
darkness shall soon give way to light, that barrenness
and death shall yield to fertility and life. Have you
ever waited for sunrise,, watched for its coming, when
you were eager for the day, when darkness meant danger
and fear? You and I, who sleep in our well-guarded
houses under the conditions of modem life, largely lose
touch with nature. To many, if not most of us, it is
rather a source of regret that daylight comes. It means
that we must leave our sleep, leave our rest, leave our
peace and quiet and commence the toilsome round of
life once more. We never, or almost never, see the sun
rise. Night has no horror to us personally and individu
ally; it is not a hideous thing. Our streets are lighted;
in fact some of them are more beautiful by night than
by day.
It is a different thing when you live close to nature.
18

The Glory of God 19
To primitive man night is the time of danger and dread.
Then the wild beasts roam; hidden and mysterious dan
gers are all about. He who lives in a land where there
are no streets knows also no lights to lighten the dark
ness of the night and drive away its peril.
I have travelled through the desert at night by the
side of jungles full of wild beasts. All around jackals
cried, hyenas laughed, and the native guides and guards
whispered of danger from the lions. Wolves also and
lynxes and wild boars there were and, more dangerous
than any of these four-footed beasts, an occasional
troop of Arabs on a night foray. Once our guide lost
his way. It was pitch dark; there were no landmarks
to be seen. There was danger that the caravan mi<rht
become scattered in the desert and men, goods, and
beasts be lost, and, to add to the danger and confusion,
the night air was bitterly cold, and mind and body were
half numbed with the chill. Oh ! how welcome was that
faint glow of light in the east, which increased and in
creased until we could see one another and the country
about us. Then the wild beasts began to slink into
their hiding-places, dangers vanished. The faint glow
changed into the blush of dawn ; the pale pink gave way
to a golden glory ; and, as we topped a hill, suddenly the
sun shot up in all its splendour.
He who has lived through such things will have the
deepest sympathy with that worship which men in old
times paid the sun. Is it to be wondered at that the sun
to them was the emblem of God's glory and of God's
power, dispelling darkness, driving away danger, guid
ing men's feet in the way of peace ? And then how men
depended upon the sun ! When it moved southward all

20 Modern Christianity
nature died. The earth grew hard and sterile; there
were no fruits ; it was a time of want and discomfort.
But when the sun came back again, warming with its
rays the surface of the earth, all nature sprang once
more into life. Plants and trees yielded their fruit;
for man and beast there was abundance.
But what has this to do with Christmas-day? Why
this : the early Christian fathers were wisely sympathetic
with the spiritual yearnings and with the religion of
their heathen ancestors. They took the old feast at the
time of the winter solstice, when the days begin to
lengthen and the sun is starting northward, and turned
it into the feast of the birth of Christ. It is as though
they said to those heathen religions : Ye do well to see
the glory of God in that which brings you blessing: ye do
well to see God manifested in His creatures ; and surely
there is nothing in heaven or earth, of the things which
He has made, more wonderful, more glorious, and more
helpful to man than the sun in the heavens ; — and yet
the glory of God as revealed in this, His creature, is not
to be compared with the glory of God which He hath re
vealed in His Son, Jesus Christ. Whom ye ignorantly
worshipped, Him we show unto you. The sun rising in
the heavens dispels darkness and drives away danger,
and the warmth of its rays brings life to the earth; but
Jesus Christ reveals God in the hearts of men, driving
darkness out of their lives, bringing love into the world.
Is it wonderful that Jesus was called the Sun of right
eousness, with healing on His wings ? But more than
this: Christmas-day tells the world that nothing in crea
tion can compare with man himself; he is above and be
yond creation, because he is the son of God. The glory

The Glory of God 21
of God is revealed in man as it is not revealed in any of
the outward creation. When the glory of the Lord shone
round about the shepherds and the angels brought them
good tidings of great joy to all people, those tidings were
that in man God is bom; that man is divine, and that in
him is expressed the glory of God, as it is not expressed
in the created things of God's universe, however
wonderful they may be.
Now how was God shown to man ? Not in a king's
palace, not in some great ruler of the nations, not in
some famous warrior, not in some successful man of
business, not in the form of some wonderful poet or wise
philosopher, but as a helpless baby, a child of poor par
ents, bom under most doubtful conditions in a manger
in the little town of Bethlehem. We can never know
Jesus Christ, the Babe of Bethlehem, we can never com
prehend the real meaning of Christmas until we under
stand the divinity of human life, until we realise the
divinity which is in every baby that is born, in the house
of the rich, or the house of the poor, in the house of the
famous, or the house of the obscure, in the palace, the
almshouse or the prison; until we realise the divinity
that lies in our humanity, that it is not the place or the
name or the race, but the little human baby itself which
is divine. Because it is a child of man, therefore it is a
child of God. We are set apart from all creation, from
the things that have life and the things that have not
life, by the divine that is within us. That is the good
tidings of great joy which the angels brought to all man
kind when Jesus Christ, the child of Mary, was born in
the manger in Bethlehem. Shepherds, peasants from
the field, came and bowed down and worshipped the

22 Modern Christianity
child; wise and rich men, from the distant east, came
and bowed down and worshipped the child. Beautiful
stories these, and full of meaning. Wherever humanity
remains true to the best that is in it, it will love and rev
erence and worship the helpless babe. When the baby
no longer appeals to it, something is wrong with human
ity; something is wrong with the heart of the man or
the woman to whom the helpless child does not appeal.
And here is another side of that divinity which is in hu
manity. The baby appeals to us because it is helpless,
because it can do nothing for itself; it can give nothing
to you, it asks everything from you. It does not know
your position ; it is nothing to it that you are rich or that
you are poor, that you are famous or that you are un
known, that you are beautiful or that you are ugly.
It knows you as one who can serve it and as nothing
else, it appeals to you for your service, and by doing
that it appeals to the best that is in you.
The story of Christ's birth, beautiful in legend and in
art, is in fact a pitiful story, some would say: a child of
parents so shiftless or so poor that when He was born
He had no roof over His head. Of Jewish origin, He was
the victim of foreign rule. It was the behest of the con
queror which compelled His parents to leave their home
at such a time and travel several days' journey to a dis
tant town. By tradition of ancient royal family, that
family had gradually sunk to a very low estate. What
prospect and what outlook in the world for Him ? And
yet He was the very God incarnate? In Him was re
vealed the glory of God and His birth was good tidings
of great joy to all mankind.
God is born into the world out of the need and misery

The Glory of God 23
and want of men. The need of man is the mother, but
God Almighty is the father. We commemorate on
Christmas-day the mystery of the wonderful, infinite
love of God, which makes marriage with the want of
men, so that out of man's direst need, through the love
of God, a divine child is bom, made flesh to be the Sa
viour of man, his Redeemer from want and sin. And
what is true of the world is true of each man in theworld.
The birth of Christ in the heart of man is a birth whose
mother is suffering and misery, often times the suffering
and misery and even the sin of that man himself, but
the Father is God.
Another thought connects itself with the story of that
birth. When to that inn in Bethlehem came Joseph and
Mary ; for the woman in her hour of need no place could
be found. All the rooms were full. None would make
place. Had any known that it was God seeking for a
place, do you not think they would have yielded their
own place to Him? But they could not see God coming
in the need of that poor man, and that poor woman
with her child unborn. And so each of those people in
the inn that night lost the great opportunity. The world
is like that inn, in that God comes to our doors begging
for a place to be born. As He came then to the people
in the inn, so He comes now to us, in the form of human
need. He comes in squalor, asking us to make room,
and we do not see that it is God. The Son of God can
find place for His birth in the heart of any man and
become the Saviour of that man only through incon
venience and loss and sacrifice on the part of that
man: only thus is God revealed to man.
We come, as it were, to the cradle of Jesus to-day, we

24 Modern Christianity
stand in loving reverence and tenderness there and pray
for communion with God through the Baby of Bethle
hem. It is a tale which has touched the hearts of men
the world over, and those who are careless at other times
are standing now about the cradle, reverently, feeling
the presence of divinity. There is something in their
hearts which causes them to be kindly, merciful, loving
forgiving, charitable, as they were not erstwhile,
thoughtful of the joy and comfort of others, ready to
give to make others, and, above all, little children, glad
at this time, as they are not ready to give at other times.
But it is one thing merely to go out of our rooms into
the comfortless court and look at the babe in the manger
and give gifts to shelter and clothe and feed it there.
It is another thing to surrender our room to that babe,
to take it, unborn, as our guest, to make place for the
mother to bear it; to cherish that child in our own
heart and life, to make place for it there, to put self
out that it may come in ; and yet that must be done if
we would enter into the fulness of the great joy the
angels proclaimed.
To each of us comes the mother of God that is to be,
in her need, seeking a place where her child may be bom.
May God open our eyes and our minds and our hearts,
if by chance we have been tempted to refuse her shelter,
failing to see in her the mother of our Lord.

THE ECHO OF THE CROSS
St. Luke ii., 32: A hght to lighten the Gentiles.
IN the Bavarian Tyrol there is a beautiful lake called
Konigssee. The waters are blue like the heavens
of God, while all around rise mighty mountains piled
peak on peak, like towers of Babel climbing into the very
dwelling place of the Almighty. On a perfect summer
day a little party was rowed across that lake, a paradise
of quiet beauty in the midst of a universe of mountain
grandeur. Reaching a certain spot our guide halted the
boat, calling on us to keep still, and fired an ancient
blunderbuss of a weapon in the air. When the noise
of the explosion had died away, for an instant there was
silence. Then from a far-off mountain-side a cannon
boomed forth. This was answered by another and
another and another, always rising higher, until there
seemed to be a battle in the heavens, rolling nearer and
nearer. At last above our heads there burst a deafening
peal of thunder. And all this was only the echo of that
first puny pistol shot.
Like this the birth of Christ has echoed through the
world. A tiny, helpless babe, born under pitiful condi
tions, in a manger at Bethlehem. The little babe grew
through childhood to manhood, and up to his thirtieth
year, as boy and man, he lived the life of an humble ar
tisan in the insignificant town of Nazareth. Then He
25

26 Modern Christianity
gave up His trade and for a couple of brief years
wandered through the countryside doing works of
mercy, speaking words of love and truth. The rulers
of the people seized him and condemned Him to die
the death of a criminal. Three crosses set on Calvary!
Between two thieves upon the middle cross, Jesus
crucified speaks the words: "It is finished."
The pistol shot had been fired in Palestine, and a
little company of men and women had heard its sound.
Then all was silence. But now, hark! The mountains
of the Gentiles echo the sound; louder and louder it re
sounds. Land answers land. The echo swells to a deaf
ening roar, fast filling the world ; from north to south,
from east to west, louder and louder, wider and still
wider, the ever gathering sound echoes and re-echoes.
And the end is not yet, for at the last, from clouds and
great glory shall burst that final thunder peal of His
name, girdling the earth with its sound, swelling wide
from pole to pole.
How sweet is that old story of the angels singing to
shepherds their hymn of " Glory to God in the Highest, "
because peace and good-will had been born among men.
In mystic strain it tells the truth that God is nearest to
those whose lives are unworldly, because of their very
lowliness and humility. That is the Christmas tale.
Then, in similar mystic strain, we are told how He who
was bom was born not for the Jews alone and not only
for the humble and lowly, but that He might be a light
to lighten all the nations of the earth, and that He
might teach men of power and wealth by self-conquest
and abnegation to enter into the kingdom of God. Wise
men came from distant lands to bow before the new-born

The Echo of the Cross 2 7
King and honour Him with gifts and oblations. It is a
beautiful picture of what His life should mean to the
world, all nations hailing Him as King, consecrating
their power and their treasures to His service, to find in
Him their Saviour and Redeemer. The song of the an
gels to the shepherds of Judaea found its chorus when the
gentile world took up the refrain, echoing forth the glad
tidings of peace, good-will to men ; and that choir of the
nations shall grow and grow until all the world shall
have joined its ranks and the song of the angels become
a myriad voice of thunder, pealing through every ear
to the heart and life of each son of man.
But one may well say: the picture which you paint is
an attractive one and we would fain believe it true, but
how can we reconcile its presentation with the actual
facts of our experience? It is true that the religion of
Christ is professed to-day by many millions of men and
that, so far as what is called civilisation and so far as
material strength are concerned, Christianity dominates
the world; but there is very little peace and good-will in
that Christianity. All Europe is professedly Christian,
with the exception of Turkey. Officially every Euro
pean nation recognises Christ and professes allegiance to
His faith and teaching; but how much peace and good
will is there in Europe? Christian governments are
plotting and scheming, each against the other, lying
and cheating, robbing or over-reaching one another. In
Russia, in the name of Christ, guided and directed by
priests and bishops of the Christian Church, Christians
have robbed and murdered and outraged thousands of
poor unoffending fellow men and women, because they
did not profess the name of Christ or because, professing

28 Modern Christianity
it, they did not accept all the doctrines which the ruling
and priestly classes associated with that name. The
Czar of Russia rules in the name of Christ as head both
of Church and State, and this professed head of the
Church of Christ in Russia, or men acting in his name,
so shamelessly robbed and horribly oppressed his fellow
men and women that, in sheer desperation, the poor
victims rose in blind fury to commit against their op
pressors crimes almost as atrocious as those under which
they had so long suffered.
In our own land, which God has so wonderfully blessed,
the land which we proclaim to be the land of freedom,
where there may be no tyranny and oppression of one
by another, where each shall have the right, according
to the convictions of his conscience, to work out his life
for himself, free from the trammels of autocrat or hier-
arch, where the very fact that we have not introduced
religion formally into our Constitution has made us, as
we fondly claim, the most Christian of all nations, how
are peace and good-will manifested in our dealings with
one another ? I s not our life the same old hideous strug
gle, as of so many wild beasts, for wealth and place and
pleasure, each striving to get what he can for himself
or to hold what he has gotten with small regard for the
rights of others, except as he is compelled by superior
force to recognise those rights ?
For evidence of the evil in our political life you have
but to pick up the daily papers to see that in nation,
state, and city corruption and dishonest partisanship
run riot. Places in the Senate, the highest council of
the nation, are bought for money, and senators use their
power shamelessly to promote dishonest and nefarious

The Echo of the Cross 29
schemes for the enrichment of their friends, their parti
sans, and themselves, at the expense of the public. Men
are appointed to office in the State, not to render service
to the people and protect the interests of those who can
not protect themselves, but that they may connive at
or assist corrupt and dishonest men in plundering the
public by means of insurance companies, trust compan
ies, banks, and the like. The leaders of the business
world, the presidents and directors of the great railroads,
and the trusts of various kinds are accused of corrupting
public officials and leaders and of violating the laws
of the land for their own profit or to satisfy the greed of
those whom they represent. Lawyers sell themselves
to the highest bidder, prostituting their high calling
and their talents to the service of the men who seek
means to rob the people and break the law without in
curring its penalties. Society is so corrupt that it con
dones these frauds and honours and bows down to the
men who have made their millions, not only not accord
ing to the laws of Christ's kingdom, by peace and good
will toward men, but even in flagrant violation of those
principles of right and justice which were recognised as
binding even by the old heathen world. And as for our
press, we find hundreds of venal papers which, for con
siderations of money, for advertisements, or for political
reasons, protect and sustain dishonesty, suppressing
facts, publishing false news, gulling and beguiling the
people. Who does not see about him in this Christian
land and Christian community, in his own immediate
circle of Christian friends, the ravages of social and per
sonal vice — drunkenness, immorality, malice, dis
honesty? How few men and women there are in this

30 Modern Christianity
great city of ours, with its numerous Christian churches,
who bear the burden of the work for God and His Christ.
Take the lists of your societies for benevolent, philan
thropic, civic, social work, for betterment of any sort;
read over these lists of officers, directors, and active
members. See how the same names occur again and
again and how ridiculously few, in comparison to the size
of the Christian community, are those who are awake in
these regards to their Christian responsibilities. What
is the relation of employer and employed among us?
Is it love and peace and good-will which cause labour
troubles, strikes, lockouts, which array employers and
employees against one another in a hostility almost
as clearly pronounced as that of the armed nations of
Europe one toward the other ? This is the picture which
is unfolded before the eyes of any thinking man who
reads the literature of to-day — books, magazines, papers
— who moves among men and is forced to confront the
problems of every-day life. It is because of these con
ditions that you will often hear these men saying:
What has your Christianity done, how has it bettered
the conditions of the heathen world ? The life of Christ
was beautiful, but where is the life of Christ lived to-day
among those who profess His name, and what influence
have His life and death produced in reality upon the
world? Look back one moment and consider the conditions
which prevailed before Christ came. I do not ask you
to consider the savage condition of man, living like a
brute; rather examine the condition of man in the most
civilised nations and ages of the old world. Go to Egypt
and Babylonia. Vast and splendid ruins attest the an-

The Echo of the Cross 3 1
cient wealth and luxury of those lands. We enter their
buried palaces and tombs and behold depicted on the
walls scenes from the triumphs of kings, or see portrayed
there the construction of mighty monuments. Hun
dreds of thousands of slaves, captives from other lands,
or levies from the "beasts of the people" toil without
pay and without reward beneath the lash of the task
master. We catch a glimpse of the condition of the great
bulk of mankind in those days, oppressed, trampled un
der foot, their lives lives of cruel toil at the behest and
beneath the rod of the rich and powerful. There was
no care nor respect for the individual man if he were
poor or belonged to a foreign people. The lot of the
great masses of mankind was hopeless, forced labour.
Human beings of the lower ranks of society were placed
in the same category in which we of to-day reckon horses
and oxen. Those splendid palaces, those pyramids and
temples and hanging gardens, were founded on the
corpses of men and women and little children, and the
sorrows of nations cemented their walls. We unearth
the records of the ancient rulers of these lands and read
a story of cruelties which might well make our blood
run cold: men flayed alive, hundreds of human beings
impaled on stakes around a captured city, kings de
lighting to blind, with their own hands, their captured
rivals ; prisoners caged with beasts and hung up at the
city gates; whole cities and regions of country devas
tated by a universal massacre, accompanied with in
describable outrage and torture. This is but a tithe
of the horrors in which the conquerors delighted and
of which they boasted. Justice and mercy seem alike
unknown ; and not only do they seem unknown to men,

32 Modern Christianity
but even the gods whom they worship approve and
sanction such practices, and these same gods require of
their worshippers a service involving immorality and
drunkenness. Cross the Mediterranean to Greece, with its fairy
grace of art and literature, which have never been
surpassed. Out of the gems of poetry preaching the
doctrine of pleasure, sighs forth ever and anon a very
hopelessness of misery. They try to be glad and groan
in despair; and even as you watch you see tyranny,
anarchy, confusion, and strife gain the upper hand;
dishonesty, immorality, love of ease, and sensual in
dulgence bring about the downfall of Greece, and the
religion of Greece perishes.
Rome, with its strength, masters the world. It
drains provinces in legalised robbery to enrich the
Roman citizens. Its highest philosophy teaches sel
fishness. The order of the Roman state is an advance
upon the systems that have gone before, but it has not
brought happiness, nor has it achieved stability. If the
world was better under the Romans than under their
predecessors, at least from our standpoint (in spite of
all the evil about us), its condition was a miserable one.
The weak were crowded to the wall like dogs, and even
the rich and prosperous knew that if misfortune befell
them their fellows would turn against them as wolves
rend a wounded member of their pack. When I read
the records of the ancient world, I wonder to myself at
times how men and, much more, how women could have
borne to live in days such as those.
Our very judgment of life to-day is different from
theirs, and it is largely this difference of standpoint

The Echo of the Cross 33
which makes the conditions of the present time seem
to us so abhorrent. Men in this country and in Europe,
however lax they may be in the practice of their Christ
ianity, are, nevertheless, in their judgment of right and
wrong, in their estimate of the conditions of life, affected,
often unwittingly to themselves, by the standard which
Christ brought into the world. For a new spirit did en
ter into the world with Christ. A light began to lighten
the darkness of the nations. Not for one moment would
I have you understand me to mean that God had left
the early world without light and hope. Moses, Elijah,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and many another prophet of Israel
had seen angel visions and heard the song of glory to
God and peace, good-will among men. Zoroaster and
Gautama, Plato, Lucretius, and many another wise man
of the Gentiles had seen the brightness of a star point
ing toward the manger at Bethlehem and done homage
to the divine incarnate in man. But shepherds of Israel
and wise men of the Gentiles had but seen the day-star
which precedes the rising of the sun. Man, in the early
days of the world's history, you may liken to a new-born
animal, blind-eyed and groping in darkness. Christ
opened men's eyes, and made them see the evil of the
things they were doing. It is the increasing power of
vision in man, as he becomes more and more accustomed
to the light which came by Christ, which makes him re
coil in horror from those things which once gave him no
shock. The coming of Christ has been like the slow
rising of the sun — first a faint light which but makes
the darkness visible; then you begin to see one object
and another looming up, strange and mysterious, out of
the nothingness which was about you before. Then the

34 Modern Christianity
heavens begin to brighten with the glory of the coming
sun. If you read the story of the Christian ages you will
see how slowly and how gradually the light has lightened
that darkness, and how in very fact it is the light of
Christ which has effected these changes. It is the
Christian element which has been the essential feature
in the development of the higher and better part of that
civilisation which makes Europe and America what
they are for good. Christianity is not a scheme of re
ligion, but a principle of life, which, implanted in a man
or in mankind, grows and grows and develops in him.
The progress of the Christian ages has been slow, often
times uncertain, like the growth and development of a
child; and as a child, as it grows, looks back and won
ders at its former ignorance and naughtiness, so the
Christian world has done at each successive age. As you
look back over the history of Christianity, it is like the
history of your own life, full of what seem to you now
absurd mistakes and errors and delusions. So, also, de
lusions and errors and wickednesses have paraded as
Christianity. Much that we of to-day abhor in Russian
conditions was regarded by our own forefathers as not
only consistent with but required by the principles of
Christianity. Often men in advance of their age, men
who perceive more clearly than those about them the
real teaching of Christ, have become utterly disheart
ened by the lack of fulfilment of Christian promise in the
religious practice of Christ's followers, and have con
sequently thought Christianity moribund and Christian
civilisation doomed to follow the systems that have gone
before. But, breaking free from some foreign, un-Christ-

The Echo of the Cross 3 5
ian element, which had dragged it to the ground, Christ
ianity has each time risen again, full of new life, until
at the present day, in spite of all the evil that we see
around us, Christianity is fresher and stronger than ever
before. It has spread, sometimes more slowly, some
times more rapidly, but always gaining ground.
Perhaps you can see best from the comparison of our
own age with those which immediately precede it, both
the vitality of Christianity, as the bettering power in the
world, and also the nature of the betterment it is work
ing; for our age has seen in the whole Christian world,
but particularly in this country and England, a remark
able advance in the comprehension and practice of
Christianity. The time was when men would trifle with
life and murder one another for what they called their
honour, and society commended them. Our age has
branded such acts as murder. Not long since men were
put to death for theft. Our better understanding of the
love of Christ has brought about a far higher valuation
of life. Men formerly set civil or criminal penalties on
religious beliefs which disagreed with their own. Our
age has done very much toward freeing the consciences
and intellects of men, and so promoting the knowledge
and the love of God. In the early years of the last cen
tury lotteries were a recognised agency in raising money
for all public and benevolent objects, and gambling was
thus sanctioned by both State and Church. Gambling
in any form is now absolutely condemned by both State
and Church. Drunkenness and loose living are common
enough to-day, but society has adopted a tone of con
demnation toward them which was unknown at the com
mencement of the last century. A century ago public

36 Modern Christianity
men lived without protest lives which to-day would
render any public or even high business trust impossible.
Above all, we have thrown off the fearful curse of hu
man slavery and in so doing made an enormous stride
toward the recognition of the Christian truth of the lib
erty, equality, and fraternity of man. You and I think
that the present conditions in Russia are a horrible trav
esty on Christianity. I have already pointed out that
they are the conditions which a few generations ago pre
vailed all over Europe. Russia is backward, but even
the Russian autocracy and the Russian Church have
shown a responsiveness to appeals based on grounds of
Christian love which would have been impossible and
unthought of one hundred or even fifty years since.
And if there seems to you to be an appalling
condition of demoralisation and dishonesty in our own
political and social life at the present time, with condi
tions such as I depicted a few moments since, do not
nevertheless be hopeless of reform or think that the
world is going backward. Meet those conditions and
face them honestly. Ask yourself what part and what
responsibility you have in them. Gird yourself at the be
ginning of this new year for a new battle, first for the
conquest of yourself, and secondly for the victory of the
cause of Christ over dishonesty and falsehood and sham.
As the strongest men in life's work are those who have
been forced to battle against the hardest conditions, so
the best and the strongest Christian civilisation is that
which is achieved as the result of a struggle against
what sometimes seem odds. Do you realise the prevail
ing tone of materialism and dishonesty about you?
Have you been discouraged by it? Do not be discour-

The Echo of the Cross 3 7
aged or disheartened. Thank God that He has called
you to a noble work. For, to see the evil, means that
you are one whose eyes God has opened, one whom God
has called to be His comrade in the fight. And therefore,
also, any one who sees evil and does not forthwith gird
himself to the struggle to overcome that evil is a traitor
to the cause of God and Christ. Take that thought with
you as you stand scarce within the threshold of this new
year, and the year will become to you a year of progress
such as you never knew before.
When I was a boy I used to swim in the river yonder.
Generally the current was strong. If I swam hard I
could make headway, albeit slowly; if I relaxed my
efforts for a moment, I lost ground, which took me a
long time to regain. It was easy to go with the tide. I
did not need to swim. I only floated along. There was
no effort and yet I moved more swiftly than when I
swam against it. So there was a constant temptation
to go with the tide, but then, oh ! the exhausting struggle
that must be made to get back to the landing place.
In our life we find ourselves set in a current of materi
alism, selfishness, indifference, supineness, neglect of
responsibilities, unreadiness to accept obligations of ser
vice. It is hard to swim against that tide. And when
you have swam as hard as you can, the gain you make
seems to you scarcely perceptible, or you even seem to
yourself sometimes to be going backwards. Why not
yield, cease struggling and toiling, throw myself on my
back, and go with the tide? Then a man is like the
offal and dead waste that float will-less back and forth
on the surface of the stream, vile and worthless. Be
cause we live and because we would live we must

38 Modern Christianity
struggle and toil, and the swifter the current the
stronger must be our efforts. If you see much evil, do
not for that cause faint. Rather let it be the signal
to you to strive as you never strove before.
And now one last word. Christianity has often
seemed to be so tied up with ceremonies and forms and
doctrines that it is no longer the religion of Jesus Christ.
But there is one central thing in Christianity which,
in spite of all false teachings, of indifferent and deaden
ing ceremonies and doctrines, has remained a testimony
to the life and teaching of Jesus himself, and that is the
Sacrament of which you are to partake this morning.
Whatever the Church has done, it has always kept that
before men, as though by the inner guidance of the Holy
Spirit, holding it out to men as the very central mystery
of the faith. Whatever has been added, whatever has
been taken away, still that Sacrament has held up before
men the conception of service and sacrifice as the eter
nal element in Christianity and as the revelation of God
to men. However you may interpret the words of
Christ, whatever may be your conception of that Sac
rament, transubstantiation, or consubstantiation, or
merely commemoration, so long as men are brought to
this as the final exhibition of that which is divine, so
long as the Church protests by this Sacrament that the
service of others and the sacrifice of self for the sake of
love and truth are better than anything which can befall
a man, are in fact divinity itself, so long the Church has
within it the Spirit of God.

THE EMPTY TOMB
i Corinthians xv., 22: As in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive.
WHEN Jesus was laid in the rock-hewn tomb of
Joseph of Arimathsea on the night of the Cruci
fixion, there was no time to perform the last rites of af
fection for the body of the dead. The following day was
one on which by law and custom one might not visit the
tomb, even to care for one's nearest and dearest. Im
agine the heartaches of the mother of Jesus and the men
and women who so tenderly loved Him at the thought
of the poor body laid in the tomb uncared for, and their
anxiety at least to perform those rites that should tes
tify to their love! Imagine, too, their longing to see and
touch Him once morel
Very early on Easter morning, before it was light, the
women were on their way to the tomb. Then followed a
startling discovery — the stone rolled away, the tomb
emptied ! Had those who so cruelly put Him to death
added this further cruelty, — had they taken away the
body, either to submit it to further indignities, or to pre
vent the affectionate care of those who so dearly loved
Him? Then those women who had come to perform
the tender rites hurried back to tell the men folk, the
disciples, what had happened. And Peter and John
came in all haste, running to see for themselves; but
39

40 Modern Christianity
they also found the tomb empty. The body of their
Lord was no longer there.
We, too, find empty tombs where the bodies of our
dear ones have lain. We, too, long to care for them,
to minister tenderly to their needs, to touch them, to
see them. Our love for them and our thought of them
are wrapt up with their bodily form and appearance.
When that is taken from us, then they seem to have
gone indeed. So long as the body remains, with its
familiar appearance, tangible, although it is cold and
there is no response to our words or our caress, yet
we can imagine our dear one to be present with us; but
when the body is gone, then comes the dismay of loss,
the full sense of our desolation. We all have known
these empty tombs, for the bodies of our dead must
vanish. And therefore the story of Mary and the
women, of Peter and John, startled and dismayed by the
empty tomb, by the disappearance of Him whom they
loved, touches our hearts with some sense of personal
experience and reality.
And what comes out of these tombs of our dead ?
Death is a strange revealer. Here is a man supposed to
be a decent and orderly member of society, respected
by those who knew him and dealt with him, beloved
in his family, stricken down suddenly by the hand of
death ; and death reveals a double life, a wife betrayed, il
licit associations which those who honoured and respect
ed him had not for a moment imagined. Here is another,
the prominence of whose position calls forth obituaries
in the papers, a man who inherited great wealth, to
use it in foolish and sensual extravagance, his one
ambition to shine in a luxurious and smart society,

The Empty Tomb 41
married to a divorcee who spumed the primal laws of
matrimony. From his empty tomb issue but the
ghosts of self-indulgence and luxury. Here is another
with a record in the public life of the community, and
when he has passed away, the best word that honest
men can say of him is that, though he prostituted his
position of trust to enrich himself at the expense of the
community, he was no worse than many others. Out
of his tomb come only vulture and harpy forms, like
those old vampire dreams of the dead which prey in
horrid shapes upon the living. This is all such men
leave behind, horrid shapes to disturb, distress, and
prey upon the vitals of their families and of their
friends. We often liken the grave to a chrysalis in which the
caterpillar is entombed, to come out a beautiful butter
fly. But not every chrysalis produces a butterfly.
Sometimes ichneumon flies have stung them and laid
within them eggs which hatch out worms that devour
the poor caterpillar and then come forth in his stead to
life; and so it may be that the chrysalis which you have
watched and from which you expected a beautiful
moth or butterfly to appear sends forth at last only a
swarm of ichneumon flies. The graves of some men are
like this. The tomb is empty; the body that you knew
is gone, and out of the place where it lay comes a foul
swarm of creatures whose existence you never suspected
and which yet contain all that is left of him whose body
lay there. Pray God our empty tombs be not like that !
But here is something quite different. Here, as we
peer sorrowing into the empty tomb, sitting where once
the body lay we see forms of heavenly grace. Death

42 Modern Christianity
reveals to those who mourn his loss the beauty of the
character and the loveliness of the life of him who has
gone. This one comes, with a tear in his eye, to clasp
your hand in sympathy and say: "I loved hijn too,"
and tells you why — words he spoke, deeds he did of
which you never heard before. Perhaps he was not
famous. No one writes his obituary in the paper, but
the record of his good deeds is written in the" tender
memories of those who knew him, and, though your
tomb is empty, out of it comes a beautiful vision.
The small faults and failings of your dead pass away,
and you see the true beauty of the soul in the heavenly
radiance that fills the place where he had Iain.
But one asks: Is this the only immortality of our
dead ? My loved one that has gone, can I never touch
him? Can I never sit and talk with him again? Does
he exist only in the spirit of his deeds — these beautiful
shades and memories, of which you tell me, that come
out of the empty grave? Read further the story of
Easter-day, how Mary Magdalene yearned to see and
touch the Lord Himself, as we yearn to see and touch
the dear ones that have gone. For her even the words
of the angels had no comfort. It was not enough to see
these messengers from heaven, sitting where He had
lain, offering her their consolation, revealing to her the
glory of the life of Him who had departed and His
nearness to God himself. She wanted Him she had so
dearly loved. Where had they laid Him? You remem
ber how, with eyes blinded with her tears, she sought
Him, and as she sought, there stood beside her one
whom she unseeing imagined to be the gardener. And
when the familiar voice asked the cause of her grief, in

The Empty Tomb 43
the absorption of the one thought, "where have they
laid Him?" deaf to all things else, she did not know
His voice and addressed to Him her dazed and frantic
supplication to tell her where they had laid her Lord.
Then with compelling tenderness He called her name,
"Mary," and she knew Him and would have clasped
His feet to worship Him.
This and all the tales of the appearance of our Lord
contain something mysterious, perplexing to us of to
day as to the men and women of that day. He appeared
to Mary, yet she could not touch Him. He walked with
the disciples that went to Emmaus and talked with
them and they did not know Him until, as they sat at
their evening meal, He blessed the bread. He came
to the Apostles in the upper room. With bated breath
they told how the door was closed and yet He stood
among them; and when their hearers said that it was
but a spirit, a vision, they told how He had eaten with
them, and how Thomas had touched His side and His
hands. There were other strange tales, too; how He
appeared to groups of them in Galilee, on the Mount
of Olives, to above five hundred at one time ; and even
Paul testified that he also had seen Him.
What does it all mean? It means, I think, that we
touch here on that region which is beyond certainly our
present knowledge, probably any knowledge which we
are capable of attaining in our mundane existence.
Our perceptions and our understanding are limited by
our bodies of flesh, by our material surroundings, by
conditions of time and space. We see and we know
only under these material limitations. And even this
matter that limits us is at its extremities beyond our

44 Modern Christianity
ken. We cannot tell how nor whence matter came, nor
when nor how nor into what matter shall pass. We
perceive a something or some things within matter or
affecting matter which yet are not matter, — force, life,
and spirit, or whatever name or names you use; but
we cannot explain their relation to matter, nor separate
them from matter and see them for themselves. We
speculate and imagine, but even our imagination is
blocked by the impossibility of imagining that which
does not have material existence and bodily form. We
do not understand our own experiences, much less can
we communicate them clearly and intelligibly to others.
The story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is
the story of the victory over material death. Some
how, in some way, in some body which you may call
with St. Paul, if you will, a spiritual body, Jesus re-ap
peared to His followers, leaving on their minds an im
pression of strangeness and of glory, of a being beyond
their understanding and their comprehension. And
in this victory over death He prophesied to us our vic
tory over death in and with Him. And as we read how
He communed then with those He loved and realise
the communion which He has had with His followers
in all the ages since, we dimly perceive the possibility
not only of a future life but also of communion and
reunion with those whom we have loved.
So wonderful was this resurrection of Jesus unto life
that to St. Paul it seemed to mean a new life, a new
creation. Turning to his Old Testament he found the
story of man's beginning on earth: Adam, that is, man
kind, placed in God's garden; sinning, falling, struggling
with the nature about him, earning his bread by the

The Empty Tomb 45
sweat of his brow, learning the lesson of life by sad and
hard experience; striving and toiling, sinning and dying,
whole nations, whole civilisations sinning unto death,
passing away and leaving nothing behind. Here was
the new man who had changed all this, bringing peace
and love where there had been war and hatred, life in
place of death, man recreated in the image of God.
There has always been a tendency, when men are
sick of the temptation and the sin that beset them, to
regard the material things of this world, including our
own bodies, as evil. Many men and many sects have
sought salvation in the destruction or negation of the
humanity that is in them. And to not a few professing
Christians, to-day as through all the ages since Christ
came, this flesh, with its passions and its lusts, its appe
tites and its desires, has seemed essentially evil. It is
the old Adam. Life can be found only in complete
separation from these things.
You and I see death all about us in men and women
who live only in the body. We have seen human beings
sodden and degraded, living like the animals. We have
seen men and women toiling in the tread-mill of life,
with no higher thought, apparently, than to do just
what must be done in order to obtain the food to sus
tain life, to satisfy their passions and desires, to care
for their offspring, much as an animal cares for its off
spring. Soulless, we have called such persons, because,
although evidently higher in intellect and capacity
than the beasts, we have yet found no other element
in them than this animal one. Wicked we could not say
they are, but simply they appear soulless. And we
have known others, soulless from another cause, steeped

46 Modern Christianity
in sensuality, living for the satisfaction of their own
greed, heartlessly trampling down those weaker than
themselves, men and women in whom there seems no
response to spiritual appeal. Death, the apostle calls
this. They are dead in Adam.
And we have seen death in another form, sickness
caused or aggravated by pure selfishness and egotism,
men and women whose thoughts are turned in upon
themselves, who brood upon themselves, their needs,
their ailments, their wants, their desires, who see noth
ing and know nothing except themselves. Death all
this is also, death in Adam, as St. Paul calls it.
Life comes with Christ. When man conceives of his
life as the life of God, when he freely and daringly
squanders his life for the world, pouring out the treas
ures of his being, the life-blood of his heart for the world,
then he is made alive through Christ. Sin and sorrow,
sickness and suffering, which are death, give place to
life in a regenerate humanity.
And what has Christ brought out of the grave to you
and to me? I cannot prove, by any test of physical
science, the continuance of life, a future existence.
When I seek to prove it in that way the future seems to
me as blank as it did to those men and women of old,
who were filled with dismay because the body of the
Lord was gone. I cannot tell you how He rose, with
what body, in what form, what became of the body
that had been ; but as I read that story in the Gospels,
and as I read the story of the experience of Christian
believers through the ages that have succeeded, I know
that Christ has risen from the dead, and I believe that
in His victory over death He has revealed to us the

The Empty Tomb 47
reality of life immortal. And so I trust my dear ones to
the grave in confident hope that this is not the end;
and so I expect, when my time comes and my work
here is finished, to pass into a new life in which the old
loves shall not be lost but glorified.

THE RESURRECTION OF GOD
Colossians iii., i : If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those
things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God..
IT has been a long, hard winter and everywhere men
and women are glad to see the signs of spring.
Even in our city life, with its lack of touch with Dame
Nature and Mother Earth, we feel the weariness and
dreariness of dead winter and rejoice in the sunshine
and the warm air that betoken the resurrection of
nature. True, there is but little of nature here, — the
earth concealed by pavements ; our travel done on rails
stretched through or beneath the streets ; the houses
rising like walls of canons on either side, shutting
out the sunshine; the air charged with dust, smoke,
and soot, and converted out of its original element into
a sort of manufactured city product; trees only in the
parks, which we busy folk have scant time to visit,
although we talk with pride of their existence. Yes,
even we exult in the new birth of nature that is just
beginning to take place, and, shut out as we are from
contact with nature, many and many a house makes a
feeble attempt to enjoy the gladness of the coming
year in the budding of spring flowers that are placed
in windows here and there. But if we city-dwellers
are glad that spring has come, much greater is the glad-
48 '

The Resurrection of God 49
ness of those who live in touch with nature, much
deeper the significance of its coming for those who
live close to Mother Earth and realise the depend
ence of man's outward life on the conditions of the
seasons. The bosom of the earth is bare again; the
sap begins to flow, the leaf buds of the trees swell, so
full of meaning to the dwellers in the country, so full
of prophecy of the new life of brightness and verdure
and fertility that shall take the place of the dark and
gloomy death of the long winter.
Do you wonder that this resurrection of nature meant
the coming of God to men of olden time? That they
saw in it a resurrection of divine life? The very name
of our festival, Easter, is itself evidence of the great
and glorious significance to the old heathen Germans
of this birth of nature's life. God, who had forsaken
them, God who seemed dead, had come back, had come
to life, would pour out His loving kindness upon them
once more. It is a heathen name with which we desig
nate our glorious resurrection festival, a name which
connects us with the thoughts and hopes and aspira
tions of our heathen forebears. Would you have it
otherwise? True, you do not worship the goddess
Eastra or Eostra at this festival. Perhaps you even
forget that it is her name that we have given to the
feast day of the risen Lord. 1 1 was a part of the method
of the early Church to connect the events of Christ's
life and the doctrines of His religion with heathen
rites and heathen thought, on that principle which St.
Paul propounded in the famous sermon at Athens,
when he said to the Athenians: "Whom therefore ye
ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you."

50 Modern Christianity
The old world found hope and some promise of resur
rection from the dead for man in the resurrection of
dead nature year by year. In Egypt and Persia, in
Syria, among our Germanic ancestors, there were
varying thoughts of the resurrection, all of them drawn
from the analogy of nature. Men realised that all life
came from God. The remote ancestors of the Jews laid
down a rule that none should consume blood, because
blood was life, and as life was peculiarly sacred to God
from whom it came, to Him it should return. The
same thought in another form shows itself over and
over again, in many places and at many times. Life
came from God; and so the stirring of life in spring,
after the death of winter, was a movement of God Him
self, a return of Him from whom comes all life. The
resurrection of nature was the resurrection of God
from the dead; and further, by analogy, men drew a
deduction of their own resurrection from the resurrec
tion of all nature. To bind, therefore, that old German
feast of Eastra, of the resurrection of nature in spring,
with the resurrection of Christ from the dead, was to
claim that Christianity was the completion and ful
filment of that hope which the heathen ancestors had
drawn from the processes of nature about them. To
you and to me to-day these processes of nature are no
more than beautiful symbols. For us their significance
depends upon our belief in the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead. They are not the means by
which we argue to the resurrection, but, believing that
Christ is risen, we find in the resurrection of the world
of nature about us beautiful symbols to set forth that
divine truth which has changed the life of man in the

The Resurrection of God 51
world. So on Easter-day we decorate our churches
with flowers. Lilies especially are regarded as signifi
cant of the Resurrection, because of the unsightly
tubers from which they spring, which have lain dead,
like the dead bodies of men, put aside in a tomb, as it
were, with no hint in their form and appearance of the
new life and the glorious beauty that shall spring from
them. But these flowers which we use as the symbols of the
resurrection from the dead have another suggestion
for our Easter. Beautiful and pure, their beauty and
their purity come out of unsightliness and uncleanness.
Decay and pollution are the conditions of the new
growth and new life of nature. And so they are to us an
emblem of the glorious life which shall be born out of
the unsightliness, the squalor, the very uncleanness of
our human conditions, an emblem of the need of death
and disease, with all their horrors, as conditions of the
new life that is to be. Yes, out of the very sin of man,
through the grace of God Almighty, is born a newer
and a higher life. Strange paradox of nature that
things so beautiful and pure and white as these lilies
should come out of death and corruption and unclean
ness ! Is it any more strange that in the spiritual world
there should be the same development?
But when we talk of the resurrection of the dead, of
immortality, of the life eternal, we must never forget
that the life eternal is a life which must begin here.
The seed that is planted in the earth must contain a
life germ, otherwise it cannot grow. Every tree that
begins now to prepare to put forth new leaves and rich
fruit must have stored up the germs of leaves and fruit

52 Modern Christianity
before hand. The cocoon out of which comes the beau
tiful butterfly must first have been provided with its
living tenant. Life comes only out of life. There is a
regular process of development and growth in the
physical world, and the laws of the moral universe in
that are the same as the laws of the physical universe.
The resurrection from the dead, to which you and I
look forward as the gateway to the life eternal, is
possible only as a development of conditions, a continu
ance of a life begun, prepared for here and now. True,
in the tiny, unformed, germinal conditions we do not
always recognise the glorious future. True, that life in
the germ often seems to us unsightly, yes, even worth
less, and a failure.
We are conscious of our sins. We have struggled
and struggled against them and we are not their master.
We have dreamt great dreams of the things that we
might do for Christ and for our fellow men, but our
lives have been so empty of results that it all seems a
failure. Ah ! to many such an one there will be a resur
rection into life eternal, full of a glory that tongue of
man cannot depict; and the very sins that seem to beset
us, those conditions within and without against which
we have struggled, as it seemed to us with so little re
sult, will prove to be the source and origin of that life
which shall display itself hereafter.
On Good Friday the followers of Jesus Christ heard,
with a dismay which I fancy we can never fully imagine,
that awful cry from the Cross of the suffering Saviour,
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," — the
agonised cry of humanity, seeking and not finding,
asking the explanation of the struggles and the failures

The Resurrection of God 53
of its life, of the hardships and the agonies which it
endures, the cry of many and many a soul, which in
one form or another has gone up to God and still ascends
when all our ideals vanish, our love is shattered, our
life is ruined, and we can see no sign of the love of God
about us, no explanation of the reason of our conditions
which seems to admit of the controlling presence of a
loving Father. How often it seems that wrong has
won the ascendant, the world seems to be going back
ward, virtue is lost, the cause of right is defeated, lust,
selfishness, greed, dishonesty are rampant and victor
ious, rewards are won by the wicked; for the godless
there is wealth, there is pleasure, there is renown,
there is success; and the successful are held in esteem
among men ! One could well suppose that God Him
self was bestowing upon them the reward of their deeds.
And here are others who have laboured to control
themselves, who have sought to live a life of love,
thoughtful of the needs of others, not seeking their
own, unselfish, pure, diligent to do good — and they
are uncared for. You know doubtless some such who
have been counted failures, who have received not
honour but dishonour, not joy and peace and gladness,
but suffering and sorrow and distress. Do you wonder
that there comes at times to thoughtful men and
women, to men and women whose hearts burn with a
desire to see God's kingdom established on earth, a
sense of desolation, the feeling that He has forsaken
His own, and the question whether in truth there be a
God. On Good Friday a little band of men who had fol
lowed Jesus of Nazareth slunk back from the tragedy

54 Modern Christianity
of the Cross to the poor upper chamber in Jerusalem,
where they dwelt together, broken-hearted, with that
horrible cry of their Master on the Cross ringing in
their ears— "My God, my God, why hast thou for
saken me?" So it was all a failure. They had given up
everything and followed Him. He was gone. Their
hope of the restoration of Israel had vanished. What
was there to which to look forward ? A few days later
you find these men proudly standing before multitudes,
absolutely convinced not only that God had not for
saken them, but that their Lord and Master, Jesus
Christ, had risen from the dead, triumphant over that
which man had always esteemed his greatest enemy —
death; triumphant over sin and Satan. They could
not tell you how He came to them, they could not
explain the philosophy of His resurrection, but the
plain fact they knew, and knew it with such over
whelming conviction that it changed not only their
lives but the life of the world from that time on.
God does not forsake His own. It may look to you
and me as though we were forsaken. It may look to
us who strive and struggle for the coming of the king
dom of God, and pray that God's reign on earth may
begin, as though the world were going backward, as
though sin and greed and lust were rampant and vic
torious; but in the resurrection of Jesus Christ we
have assurance of the victory of life over death, of
light over darkness. That glorious resurrection means
to you and me individual immortality; that the grave
is not the end; that our feeble efforts shall find their
reward and fruition in a life infinitely glorious.
But while Easter, with its tale of the Resurrection,

The Resurrection of God 55
is full for us of the thought of a life after death which
transforms and changes our present life, I would have
you remember, further, the world meaning of this
resurrection — that it is a perpetual prophecy of the vic
tory of God and right, to the end that you and I may
take heart and courage to go on and fight the fight, sure
that though we may not here win that which we call
victory, yet here also victory shall be won and God's
kingdom shall be established upon earth; and all who
have striven for the coming of that kingdom shall be
sharers, if not in the triumph here on earth, yet in a
triumph in heaven in which Christ shall give them the
reward.

THE MYSTERY OF BIRTH AND DEATH
Acts v., 30: The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom
ye slew, hanging him on a tree.
IF you follow religious discussions at all you must
know that men are asking now, as they always have
been asking, how could God become man ? how could
God be incarnate in Jesus Christ? If God is spirit,
how could He become flesh? how could God dwell in a
man's body? how could the infinite become finite?
And if He dwelt in that body, what became of that
body when he died? Could He take that body away
with Him? Could matter turn into spirit? Could the
finite become infinite ?
Any one who thinks much must have asked himself
at some time or other such questions. Many of you
have doubtless asked yourselves these or similar ques
tions, not once or twice but many times. Some of you
have not found answers satisfactory to yourselves.
Some of you are not communicants of the Church be
cause you have not found satisfactory answers. If a
satisfactory answer means one which explains precisely
how this happened or could happen, then no answer
can as yet be given, because we do not yet know enough
about matter and spirit, finite and infinite, to explain
their relations to one another.
This is not, however, an ignorance which affects only
56

The Mystery of Birth and Death 57
the birth and death of Jesus, it affects the whole ques
tion of birth and death. There is a mystery behind the
whole matter which we have not solved. We know the
facts of birth and death, and that is all. If we could
solve the mystery of our own birth and death, then we
should understand, I doubt not, how Jesus could be
bom God, yet man, spirit dwelling in flesh, infinite in
finite; and how that infinite could be again restored to
its infinity, and of what nature was the body of our risen
Lord. For the problems which are involved in the birth
and resurrection of Jesus are in their essence the prob
lems which are involved in the coming into the world
and going out of the world of every child of man and
God. Or, more fundamental still, the problems which
are involved in the birth and resurrection of Jesus are
in their essence the problems of the origin and the
future of this world itself.
We have learned much, very much about this world
and its formation, about the properties and possi
bilities of matter, and somewhat less, but still much,
about life, and the laws of life. And particularly in the
last generation has our advance in the knowledge of the
laws and phenomena of life and force and matter in
creased with the most startling rapidity. And yet our
ignorance is far vaster and more startling than our
knowledge. Those who have advanced the furthest
see most clearly how infinitely greater is the unknown
before us than that which we have even in part
explored. What is life?
What is force?
What is matter?

58 Modern Christianity
Who can create matter? Matter exists, and we have
found no way to destroy it or create it, neither can we
tell out of what it came, nor into what it goes. Even
our own bodies are ours to use only for a time. We can
not take them away. They began in the bodies of our
parents, as parts of those bodies, growing out of them,
feeding on them. Our parents came in the same way
from their parents, and so the chain goes back endlessly,
for all that our philosophy can say, matter out of mat
ter from eternity. We came into the world little frag
ments of matter, flesh and blood and bones, and we took
matter into ourselves and grew to be larger fragments
of matter. From the air and water we drank in certain
ingredients; we consumed the bodies and produce of
other animals, we took into ourselves seeds, and fruit,
and stalks, and roots, and leaves, and barks of various
vegetables and increased the amount of matter in our
bodies. All this matter made matter. By and by we
shall be put in the ground, and this matter will go into
other matter. It will take more or less time to resolve
it into other matter, according to the conditions, but
sooner or later every particle of our present bodies will
enter into other combinations and form part of other
objects animate or inanimate. Not the slightest particle
will vanish nor be lost. That much we know. The law
of the Conservation of Matter is now well established.
There is a certain amount of matter constituting our
universe. There has always been the same amount of
matter. It appears in all sorts of combinations, but
it is always the same matter. Now it is part of a rock,
anon it appears as a piece of an herb, now it is part of
a man, now it is a gas, and now it is rock again. It is

The Mystery of Birth and Death 59
like a kaleidoscope, where a few pieces of glass with a
couple of reflecting surfaces produce countless different
combinations. So far as science can yet see, matter has
always been the same; it was there to begin with; none
of it has ever been lost; no more has ever been created.
That is as far as we can get. A certain amount of matter
in existence, unmakable, indestructible. Did it make
itself? Is it in its essence eternal? I think you will
almost involuntarily say "No." If not, how did it
come to be, and what shall it become? Here is the first
problem of birth and death.
But science has discovered another law, the law of
the Conservation of Force. Out of my window I can see
men and machines drilling holes in the rock for purposes
of blasting. Then, when the holes are prepared, dyna
mite is put in, electricity is applied to the dynamite by
a wire from a portable battery, there is a sudden out
burst of energy, and the rock is broken in pieces. Now
that dynamite does not originate the energy. It is
stored up energy gathered from various sources. It has
been in existence before. The electricity is old force
used over again. It may have been another form of
force before, but it was in existence as force in some
form or another. The same is true of the force applied
to the rock through the steam drills. Not a particle of
this force is new, created for this occasion. It is old
force, used we do not know how many times over, then
stored up and passed on to be used again . And the same
is true of the force applied by men. When one of those
strong men raises his sledge-hammer and strikes the
rock a mighty blow, he applies force, he passes on force
already in existence, he does not create the force any

60 Modern Christianity
more than he creates the sledge-hammer. Nor does the
force which he applies pass out of existence when it has
been applied. It does not even suffer the slightest dimi
nution, but propagates new force, although never more
force. If you lift your finger through the air you have
used force and produced force, and you have produced
just as much as you have used, neither more nor less.
There was the same amount of force in existence a
thousand years ago as to-day. You cannot create it,
you cannot destroy it. For all that natural science can
see, the same amount of force or energy was in the be
ginning, is now, and shall be for all eternity. What is
more, force has always been combined with matter,
and, as far as we can see, always must be, the two being
interdependent in some manner. Now, then, was this
unmakable and indestructible force always there, will it
always continue to be there? Is it uncreated, eternal,
final ? I think again that every one must involuntarily
say "No." But how and whence did it come and into
what shall it resolve itself? Here is the second problem
of birth and death.
But if the problems of the origin and hereafter of force
and matter are so difficult, still far greater are the diffi
culties which science has encountered in the problem
of the origin and the hereafter of life. Matter we can
see, we can handle, we can weigh, although we can
neither create nor destroy it; force is intangible, yet
it is possible to measure and to define it, to see wherein
it consists, to control and bind it; but life we cannot
even define. Not only is it beyond our power to create
it, but we do not know wherein it consists. It is there,
and yet we cannot find it. We cannot place our hand

The Mystery of Birth and Death 61
upon it, nor measure it, nor weigh it, nor even tell what
it is. A few years since the scientific world was agitated
by a discussion of the origin of life. Some French
scientists supposed they had discovered that life was
self-creative, or, under certain conditions, originated
out of dead matter. Milk and other fluids were steril
ised and hermetically sealed in glass jars. After a time
bacteria germs developed out of nothing, as was at first
supposed; but Pasteur soon proved that this develop
ment of bacteria germs was due to carelessness of the
experimenters, by which they had permitted germs
from without to be introduced into the sterilised fluids.
He conducted the same experiments with greater care
and proved to the satisfaction of the world that matter
once devitalised no life can come out of it.
Life comes only out of life, as force comes only out
of force and matter out of matter; and force and
matter cannot produce life. Such is the conclusion
of science. But geology and astronomy have shown
that there was a period in the history of this world
when force and matter existed, but no life. At a
certain stage of the world's history life was intro
duced into it. From where? Was it other life
that produced it, and how did it produce it? You and
I naturally answer, it was produced by God, the
source of life; it came from Him. And when we are
asked, how?— we say it was the Virgin Birth. It was
not life producing life according to the ordinary con
ditions and limitations under which we see life produced
about us, but it had its origin through the impregnation
of the virgin earth from the divine source of life. The

62 Modern Christianity
virgin earth became the mother of that first life, but
God Almighty was the father.
In this life resembles force and matter — that once in
existence it propagates itself, but it differs, so far as
science can perceive, in this important regard — that
whereas force and matter are always the same in amount
and merely continue in existence, life grows and multi
plies, so that one life may be the source of many lives;
and again, while force and matter are indestructible,
so far as science can see, life is destructible.
But what is life? We know it only as an animating
force, appearing in matter; it is intangible, not to be
measured, and known to us only as it manifests itself
in and through matter. Whether it exists or can exist
separate from matter, it is beyond the power of science
to say, because science has found no means of identify
ing it or determining it, but is only aware that there is
a principle, to which it gives the name of life, which
produces certain phenomena in matter. But so much
science does perceive, that there are various kinds of
life, as vegetable life, and animal life, and in these
again many divisions and manifold genera, each par
ticular form of life differing from the other, and each
form capable of propagation only by its own kind, and
capable of propagating only its own kind.
Science has conceived the possibility of reducing all
of these various forms and kinds of life to one great life
principle, and has sought to establish the connection
between them, and to prove how one may pass over
into another. To a certain extent it has succeeded in
establishing the general principle of the connection of
life, although it has not established in detail the pro-

The Mystery of Birth and Death 63
cesses by which higher forms of life are developed
from the lower. But at last life reaches a form different
from all its other forms — where there is an element com
bined with it of self -reflection; a being which reasons
upon its own condition, reasons out the laws of its own
nature and of the nature of the universe in which it ex
ists ; a being which undertakes to work with and through
those laws, to become a partner in the control of the
universe — Man, consciously aspiring upward, aiming
from the outset to be a god, and never halting in his
progress through all the ages in which we know him.
The mere vitality, the mere life that is in him is not so
great as that which appears in certain other animals,
and his power of propagating life is not so great. The
amount of matter vitalised by each human life is less
than the amount of matter vitalised by the life principle
of many other animals, but there is a something con
nected with that life which differentiates it from all
other lives. This is the something which we call in
telligence, or reason, or spirit. To be sure this aspiring,
upward-growing something is combined with another
element, so that we find the individual man falling,
stumbling, making himself like the beasts that are
about him; we find the individual, or even many indi
viduals, going backward — but the race man, mankind
as a whole, is going always upward, impelled by what
appears to us to be an irresistible force, and yet a force
which he is so far able to comprehend that he can work
with it.
You hold in your arms a little human baby, seven,
eight, ten pounds of matter, differentiated from the
matter which is about it by that mysterious something

64 Modern Christianity
which you call life, by means of which it moves, and by
force of which you know that this lump of matter will
develop and become something different from what now
it is; differentiated from the animal life about it—from
the little kittens or puppies— by a still more wonder
ful something which you do not seem to find there at
the beginning, and yet which you know will come.
It is less intelligent at first than a new-born rabbit.
When that something comes into it which makes the
difference, you cannot tell, nor how it comes. Intelli
gence, reason, spirit — you name it by different names,
you define it by different definitions, and no name and
definition is satisfactory, because you know so little
about what it is — only that it is a wonderful something
that has the power of transforming that matter ani
mated with life, of making it different from everything
else that is about it, lifting it above everything else
that is in this world — but neither the life nor the
spirit seem clearly to belong to that little lump of mat
ter; you are only too painfully aware that they are
alien to it, when you watch the struggle to keep life in
that little body, and realise how easily the life which
has come into that matter may depart out of it. How
does life come into that body? How does that higher
something which you call spirit come? Whence does
it come? Have we here again the Virgin Birth? Was
human life, with all that intellectual, spiritual something
which distinguishes it from all other life, born out of
other life, or was there a point where it began to be out
of nothing— where the virgin conceived by the Holy
Ghost, and a new life of spirit began in the world?
And where does life go to ? Can it really be destroyed,

The Mystery of Birth and Death 65
or is it only that we are unable to discern it when freed
from matter? Force and matter are indestructible.
Can we destroy life, or is it like them indestructible ?
Here you have the third problem of birth and death.
With regard to the mystery of the origin and of the
end of human life, the life that is combined with intellect
or spirit, you and I find the answer to the problem — the
answer which God our Father has taught us — in Jesus
Christ. Perhaps it may be that we find the answer,
or a partial answer, to the other problems also in this
same Jesus. From God comes life. To God goes life.
If He created force and matter, then is He the parent
by whom out of force and matter life and spirit were
begotten. And it must be remembered, when we seek
to understand the mysteries of the birth and the resur
rection of Jesus, that He was not alone a man, but that
He was also mankind ; in whom we all of us, with all
our powers and attributes, are summed up. There is
a mystery surrounding His birth; there is a mystery
surrounding His death and resurrection from the
dead; there are difficulties which meet us when we
seek to understand how these things could be ; but they
are not difficulties which belong merely to His story.
They are difficulties which are inherent in the very na
ture of things, because we do not know what matter is ;
what life is; how they are related one to another; what
are the future possibilities of matter.
If you pick up the Gospel narrative and read the story
of the disappearance of the body of Jesus, the empty
tomb in which that body had been laid and in which
none was found, of the body that came through doors,
appeared and disappeared, was matter and yet was not

66 Modern Christianity
matter, could be touched and handled, could eat and
drink, and yet, as far as the apostles could understand,
set at naught some of the fundamental laws of matter—
you will see that they were mystified by the phenomena
as much as you or I . These are naive, simple statements
of men who could not pretend to explain the way in
which these things were done, and the very naivete"
and simplicity with which the difficulties are stated,
without any attempt at explanation, are, as the his
torian perceives, the best evidence of the truthfulness
of the narrative. It is impossible to disbelieve, and
those who have sought to explain away the facts ac
cording to our knowledge of the laws of matter have
only introduced greater difficulties into the narrative,
and involved themselves in hopeless contradiction.
So, in one volume Renan asserts that without doubt
Mary of Magdala, with the help of some of the apostles,
came and stole the body of Jesus away, and in another
he asserts with equal positiveness that the assertion
that Mary Magdalene, or some of the apostles stole
the body away, is absolutely without foundation and
evidently false.
You and I speculate, and must speculate, on such
things. We must use our reason ; but if any one, ultra-
rationalist on the one side or ultra-orthodox on the other
should come to me and say— I can explain in their de
tails these events of the birth and death of Jesus, I will
not believe him until he first show me that he can ex
plain the mystery of the birth and death of matter, and
the birth and the hereafter of life. When our know
ledge has advanced so far that we can create and destroy
matter, and understand the relation to that matter of

The Mystery of Birth and Death 67
life; when we are able to place our finger upon life and
say, It is here, and analyse it and define it — then, and
not till then, shall we be able fully to understand the
mystery of the life and death of Jesus — born of the
Virgin Mary, rose from the dead on the third day, who
carried our humanity back to God our Father in Heaven.
But the strange story which the apostles told of the
body which vanished from the grave, of the man with
whom they walked and whom they knew not until He
was revealed to them in the breaking of bread, of Him
who appeared in bodily form in the closed room where
they were assembled and brake bread and ate it with
them, and bade them touch the holes of the nails in
His hands and the spear in His side — this strange story
sounds to me like a dim prophecy of the hereafter of
matter, when ceasing to be matter it shall return to
Him from whom it came out, to the All Father, God.

THE REAL HEAVEN
Acts i., ii: Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing into
heaven ?
WITH the Birth and Resurrection the Ascension
is counted the third great feast of the Incar
nation. There is no mention of the Ascension in the
Gospels of St. Matthew and St. John. They record the
Resurrection and various appearances of Jesus to and
among His disciples and apostles. It is manifest, how
ever, from their account that after a relatively brief
period during which He thus appeared among them
He departed from them altogether. It is clear, also,
from the accounts in St. Matthew and St. John, that it
was the expectation of those writers that Jesus, hav
ing now departed from them, would shortly come back
again in glory. An addition to the original Gospel of
St. Mark tells us that Jesus was "received up into
heaven and sat on the right hand of God," and there
is no doubt that in that sense all the Gospel writers,
and St. Paul also, believed in the ascension into heaven.
But only St. Luke relates the story of the actual
physical ascension, once at the close of the Gospel which
bears his name, and once at the beginning of the Acts
of the Apostles. It is on those two accounts, or that
one account, that the external expression by the Church
pf its belief in the Ascension may be said to be founded.
68

The Real Heaven 69
Three hundred and fifty years ago, when the English
Prayer-book was coming into existence, men thought
they knew very exactly how the Ascension took place,
and accordingly, in the fourth of those Articles of Re
ligion which have since been relegated to the attic of
our Prayer-book you find this statement: "Christ did
truly rise again from death and took again his body,
with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the
perfection of Man's nature; wherewith he ascended
into Heaven, and there sitteth, until he return to
judge all Men at the last day." When men conceived
of a physical heaven, existing somewhere in the skies
above our heads, this expression of the Ascension
created no difficulties. To-day it contradicts not only
what we know of physical science, but also what we
believe we have learned of the nature and being of our
Lord and of the very nature of divinity.
The beginning of our Lord's life on earth, the way
in which God came into man, His victory over death,
His departure from earth, the way in which humanity
was lifted into divinity, are alike shrouded in mystery.
We note the event, but when we try to explain we can
explain only that part which touches humanity. The
side which touches divinity transcends our compre
hension and our expression. Any language that we
use must be imperfect.
All of you have seen a comet. First you read in the
papers that some astronomer, with his great telescope,
has located a comet in such and such a constellation.
By and bye it becomes visible to the naked eye, very
faint and vague at first, growing larger and more dis
tinct as it draws nearer; and then, after having touched

70 Modern Christianity
our world for a brief space, it begins to vanish, break
ing up and fading away. We know that the comet was
in existence before it appeared to our eyes, or even to
the eyes of the astronomers looking through the strong
est telescopes that have been invented. We know that
it continues to exist after it has passed out of our sight
and ken. Very roughly I may use this figure of the
comet to express the relation of the Incarnation to
our life here, but only very roughly, for the figure is
incomplete and imperfect.
But not only is the Incarnation mysterious, life itself
is a mystery, a mystery in its beginning, a mystery in
its ending. What life is, how it originates, we do not
know. We cannot analyse it; gone, we cannot repro
duce it. We know it only as it expresses itself in mat
ter. Whence comes the life that enters into organic
matter and so strangely transforms it and changes it,
is dependent upon it and yet transcends it? Take the
life out of this organic matter, and what is left ? A form
that in the briefest time decays, corrupts, and is dis
solved again into the elements about it. Where has
the life gone to? The relation of life to matter is mys
terious, and equally mysterious the relation of spirit
to matter. What are you and I? We are not these
bodies in which we live, and yet we are dependent
upon them. We are conditioned by them, and yet we
are not contained in them. Take away an arm or a leg:
have we cut off so much of the spirit or does the spirit
remain unaffected? Where is its abode? We know
the seats of life; where is the seat of spirit?
How do I stand related to this body ? Am I a part
of it ? Is it a part of me, or is it merely the tenement

The Real Heaven 71
which I inhabit for a while; and if the latter, what be
comes of me when I have gone out of this tenement ?
Do I need another body in which to live ? What shall
be the nature of that body?
With our increased knowledge we can no longer give
to these questions those ready answers, or those expla
nations and definitions of those answers which seemed
so plain and simple to our ancestors. The increase of
our knowledge, the opening up to us of vast worlds,
realms of force and life, revealing possibilities which
our ancestors never dreamed of, have given resurrection
and ascension a newer and vastly more glorious mean
ing, but in doing so they have taken away from us that
precision of definition which enabled men to write the
Articles of Religion, from which I quoted a moment
since. Now and then I find men complaining because
of this and saying: our faith is being taken from us;
for the literal facts our fathers believed in these new
teachers are proposing things vague and intangible,
which they tell us are the spiritual verities that con
stitute the real essence of the faith. To us they sound
like meaningless words. [ Without something tangible
how can I believe ?
I scarcely know how to answer those who ask ques
tions such as this. But this I may say: There are cer
tain things, and those among the most real facts of the
universe, facts which underlie the things you see and so
can define, which can be expressed only as it were in the
language of poetry. The highest reaches of philosophy
and the highest reaches of theology, which is the philo
sophy of religion, are in a sense poetic. Indeed I may
say that the highest reaches of mathematics, called

72 Modern Christianity
the most precise of all sciences, are poetic. When the
mathematician reasons of the lines which approach
one another through infinity and yet never meet, when
he tells you of lines diverging to infinity, he is really,
with all the precision of his science, in the same realm
of the inapprehensible, of that which transcends ex
perience and yet which appeals to reason, as the philo
sopher or the theologian. All these are things which
men cannot touch nor handle nor taste, but the more
man advances in knowledge the more of this sort of
truth he leams to know and believe. To the man who
has not studied the higher mathematics are a bewilder
ment. Their fundamental propositions seem to him
unreal and vague, whereas to the man who has studied
them all is precision ; and yet it is impossible for him to
define or explain those propositions to the man whose
reason is not sufficiently developed in that particular
direction to enable him to comprehend the theory.
Now, to turn back to the matter of the Ascension,
think what the old idea of the universe was. You all
have read of the ancient miracle plays, where the stage
was arranged on three levels. The highest story was
heaven, the middle story earth, and the lowest story
hell. This represented the idea which, on into the
Middle Ages, scholar and peasant alike entertained of
the universe. A world round and flat, spanned by the
arch of heaven, with hell beneath,— this was easy to
understand. Such a conception was the very common
place of life. All language was framed on that idea, the
language of natural science as of theology. Even to-day,
in our ordinary forms of speech, we have not divested
ourselves of the old language, albeit the conception of

The Real Heaven Ti
the universe which gave the meaning to that language
has changed. It never occurs to us that there is any
unreality or falsehood in our speaking of the rising of
the sun, although the smallest child in a grammar
school can tell you that the sun does not rise and go
around the earth and descend and set on the other
side again, as is implied in the language which we use,
and which was the belief of the men who first used that
language. How much more men have now learned
about the universe, and what struggles and even perse
cutions preceded the adoption of each new great fact
of knowledge! The Copernican system, evolution — to
mention only two of those things which absolutely
changed the ideas men entertained of the world, and
rendered it necessary to restate everything which men
thought — by what throes and travail they were bom !
And indeed the birth pangs of evolution are not yet
altogether passed.
To-day it sometimes seems as though the advances
in knowledge are so rapid that we scarcely appreciate
what they mean. Take electricity: those of you of my
own age who studied physical science at the same time
that I did would be laughed at if you were to pro
pound to-day as facts the things which we were then
taught and which we believed with regard to the
nature of electricity. Electricity itself is the same.
We know much more about it and we use it much more
effectively to-day. I doubt whether we are as exact
in our definition and explanation of its nature and
its essence now, however, as men were fifty years ago.
The very increase of our knowledge has revealed the
vastness of our ignorance, and forbids those easy defini-

74 Modern Christianity
tions which satisfied us in an earlier stage. This lack
of precision does not mean that our knowledge is less,
but that it is greater. Or take that new metal, radium,
and consider the suggestions with regard to matter
itself which have come from the observation of its
strange properties ! Everything seems to be changing
in the scientific world. Does that mean that we
know less about matter and our universe? It means
that we know so much more that the definitions
which were once given no longer suffice us. So
also the world has learned more of Christ and more
of God, more of the mysteries of the Divine na
ture and more of the mysteries of our own human
nature; and it is because we have learned more of
these things that men are refusing to be content with
the old definitions and the old explanations.
A while ago, almost any evening, less than a quarter
of a mile from this spot you might have seen a crowd
of men, women, and children gathered, waiting for
the appearance of a ghost, which manifested itself in
the air against the wall of a building. The larger part
of the crowd probably consisted of idle curiosity seek
ers, and doubtless many of them knew that such a
ghostly appearance was impossible. But a con
siderable number of those persons were still in that
stage of ignorance with regard to the universe about
them in which it seems possible that spirits should
manifest themselves in that particular manner. There
are yet among us, with all our schools, with all our edu
cation, a great number of very ignorant men and women
among whom survive beliefs which belong historically
to a period centuries ago. In some parts of the world,

The Real Heaven 75
like Palestine, you will find the mass of the people still
in the same condition of ignorance and consequent
superstition in which they were one thousand, two thou
sand, or three thousand years ago. To such people any
thing may happen. What they call miracles may occur
at any moment; but on the other hand they are utterly
incapable of comprehending the greatest and most
really wonderful miracles revealed in God's dealings
in the universe about us and in human history. Such
things transcend their knowledge, or if they see the
fact they fail to grasp its miracle. Their interest and
their comprehension are like those of little children.
To these people it is always apt to seem that the man
who does not believe that a ghost may suddenly show
itself lacks belief in the spirit world, that the man who
does not believe such a thing is possible has no faith in
miracles; and, on the other hand, to the man who knows
more about the laws of the universe, who believes with
all his heart in the almighty power of God, who inspires
and who is that law, to the man who is stirred profound
ly day by day by the miraculous which he sees about
him and within him, who really believes in a spirit
world as a reality more real than this material world,
the belief of those others seems unreal, childish, and
material. But if we do not believe in a heaven that is somewhere
above our heads, located in some -place, on a Mount
Olympus, on the mountain of God, in some star, or be
yond the farthest ether, in some remote and limitless
unknown, what then is heaven? From what we have
learned in later years of the properties of matter, the
way solid substances are permeated with what, for

76 Modern Christianity
lack of better words, we call ether, of the waves or par
ticles of matter which pass through other matter, comes
to us a suggestion of possibilities which our forefathers
never dreamed of: possibilities which we can yet scarce
translate into language, at which we can only hint, but
which are full of hope and joy, giving us a new con
ception of the closeness of God, of the abiding, actual
presence of the Saviour, whom yet we cannot see nor
touch ; possibilities of the presence with and among us
of heaven — a heaven no longer remote in space, but
close at hand, in and through the very place in which
we exist. And this makes of life a new thing; it reads
new meaning into those old words of the writer of
the Hebrews, telling of the great cloud of witnesses
which compass us about. Under the influence of
such thought the Ascension becomes more real, and,
if I may so express myself, more practical, some
thing which touches our present life, which concerns
us every day. As the birth of Christ means that
God, in whom we live and move and have our being,
was verily incarnate, very man, so the Ascension means
that very man is in and with very God, that the hu
manity of Jesus is divine, and that therefore also our
humanity may become divine, being united with God.
It opens to us limitless possibilities, man exalted to the
right hand of God. Oh, the glory that it sheds on our
lives, the inspiration that it offers to the whole human
race! No wonder that angel messengers bade the men
of Galilee cease staring into the skies, forgetful of their
work on earth.
I take it that the whole story of the Incarnation,
from birth to resurrection and ascension, teaches us this

The Real Heaven 77
truth: — that this possibility of divine being in us can
become a reality only as we enter into union with God,
that Jesus lived among us to bring us into such union
with God, and that when we say we accept Him as our
Saviour and cast ourselves upon Him for salvation,
we mean that we surrender ourselves, our will for sel
fish pleasure and self-indulgence, and self-acquisition,
and self-glory to Him, by entering into His life of ser
vice and of sacrifice. That and that only is to believe
on Him, and though we no longer see Him, we need not
stand looking into heaven to find Him. Here on earth,
about us, among us, we must first seek Him; here we
may enter into His life; and thus, made one with Him,
we have already entered into heaven, albeit our eyes
be not yet opened to behold the glory of it.

THE PERSONALITY OF THE SPIRIT
St. John xvi., 7: It is expedient for you that I go away:
for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you ;
but if I go, I will send him unto you.
WE have no one word which exactly translates the
Greek word here rendered Comforter. If we
translate one meaning of the word into English, we leave
the other meanings untranslated. The Greek word
means advocate, or helper, — the counsel who pleads
your cause before the judge. So it is used in the First
Epistle General of St. John, second chapter, first verse:
" If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation
for our sins." The same word is used there which is
used in this passage, but there it is used of Christ, who
in His exaltation is our Advocate before the Father
in heaven, and it is translated Advocate. Here, where
it is rendered Comforter, it is used of the Holy Spirit,
who was to take the place of Christ with the Apostles
after His ascension, to lead them to a deeper knowledge
of the truth by His counsel — the Spirit of Truth, He
is also called in St. John's Gospel, — and to impart to
them the divine help needed to enable them to undergo
trials and persecutions on behalf of Christ. He was
to take the place of Christ, to bring to their knowledge
those things which Christ had spoken to them; to teach
them the meaning of Jesus' life as they had not under-
78

The Personality of the Spirit 79
stood it while He was with them. He was to be a com
forter, giving them divine strength in their hour of
weakness, in their loneliness giving them assurance of
the presence of God.
My dear friends, some of you have taught me in your
lives a great deal about the meaning of this promise.
I have seen some of you bereft of those whom you loved,
and as I have watched you I have seen a new something
come into your lives, which has raised them above the
level of your former lives. I have seen a man, uncouth
and rough, self-assertive and inconsiderate of the more
tender, higher feelings of those about him, — lacking in
delicacy, I suppose we should say, — refined and made
tactful and delicately considerate through bereavement.
I have seen selfish lives made unselfish; and sometimes
even faces have been transfigured so that as I have
looked I have felt that I saw the radiance of heaven,
the beauty of the spirit world.
But how does all this come about? It is not bereave
ment alone that produces it. Some of the most painful
sights that I have ever seen have been connected with
bereavement, — characters hardened and embittered,
lives made morose and sullen. It is not bereave
ment, but spiritual intercourse. It is that in one case a
Comforter has come and in the other case there is none ;
that in the one case a sense of spiritual communion
exists, in the other there is only the sense of loss. How
beautiful it is when the life of the one that is gone on
continues itself spiritually here in the hearts and lives
of its dear ones, — the same life, only purified of its dross,
made more beautiful, the good parts alone surviving.
Have you not known one, dear to you it may be, who

80 Modern Christianity
lived a beautiful life here, a life far from perfect truly,
but still beautiful for some at least of its traits, and then
when that life passed on into the beyond these good
traits and beautiful traits have come home to you, or
to those who were still closer to the one that is gone
than you are; have come home with a force which they
did not possess while that person was here ? They have
been dwelt upon, lived over, they have moulded and af
fected your life, or the lives of those about you, and
then they have gone forth out of your life to help and
bless others, and mould them in their turn into some
thing better and higher. It is in this wise that the dear
ones that have gone live on spiritually here on earth.
It is thus that a Comforter and Helper, an Advocate,
comes to us from them, assuring us of what was good
and beautiful and true in their lives ; holding it up be
fore us as their lesson, their teaching, their will; and
out of the very love which we felt toward them making
an impression on our hearts and lives which they other
wise never could have made. While they lived with us
and we could see them, hear them, speak with them,
touch them, there were other things that we thought of.
Those things which were the divine in them, the very
best and highest, were covered over, obscured in our
apprehension by so much else that their lives seemed
to affect ours comparatively but little. Much as we
loved them, they never, while they were with us, could
mould us for good or evil as now they do when they
have gone on.
Ah, beloved, you have all seen that which I have seen !
You have all known spiritual influences working on the
lives of some who are here among us! It is my part

The Personality of the Spirit 8 1
Sunday after Sunday to preach to you from this pulpit.
It may be that with God's help I bring you sometimes
lessons of wisdom or comfort, but if I do it is largely be
cause I learn them as I go in and out among you and
see God's Spirit working in you; as I come to under
stand from your lives the meaning of the life and teach
ing of Christ Jesus. Out of what I have seen among
you of this spiritual presence, of the greater power that
comes from that than from the actual living presence,
there has come to me a better understanding of the
words of our Lord about the need that He must depart,
about the Comforter that He would send to us all.
I do not wish to press too far this explanation of
Christ's teaching about the Comforter who should come
to take His place, and yet I think that you may, if you
have sometimes been perplexed about that Comforter,
find help in this suggestion. What the spiritual influ
ence of the lives which you and I have known is to us
individually, that the Holy Spirit whom Jesus sends
is to the world in relation to Him. While Jesus was here
with His Apostles, much as they loved Him, they could
not grasp His teaching nor the meaning of His life.
Do you remember how when He and they were on their
way together to Jerusalem, where He was to be crucified,
they were quarrelling with one another as to who should
have the posts of honour in His kingdom? Their hearts
were full of selfish interests. It did not mean that they
did not love Him, but it meant that they did not grasp
the real meaning of His life and teaching, the real nature
of His divinity and of His kingdom. It meant, more
over, that in their personal attachment to Him they
felt a jealousy of one another, each desiring the closest
6

82 Modern Christianity
place and closest contact for themselves, andbegradging
it to one another.
His death did not diminish their affection for Him,
it multiplied it many-fold, and it purified it so that there
was no longer envy or jealousy, or even thought of self
in their love. The divine became clearer to them and
more glorious, and His life assumed a meaning which
without that death and separation it never could
have had. Happier, in one sense, I cannot say that
their lives were, when Jesus was taken from them; no
bler, and greater, and higher they were, however, with
a capacity for happiness which they did not possess be
fore, for a higher happiness, a grander happiness. Jesus
had sent the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter, the Ad
vocate, the Helper, to take His place, and that Spirit
had made clear the truth which was hidden from their
eyes before, and had helped them into a new and higher
life. Now it may seem to you at first thought that that
Spirit is only an influence. I think it is more difficult
for people to understand that the Holy Spirit is a person
than for them to understand that Father and Son are
persons. Perhaps that is the reason why in the actual
practice of religion the Spirit is so apt to be forgotten.
The early liturgies of the Church are full of the thought
of the Holy Spirit. All blessing takes place through the
Holy Spirit, by the presence and indwelling of the
Spirit. The bread and the wine of the Lord's Supper
are sanctified by the Spirit; the water in Baptism is
sanctified by the Spirit to the mystical washing away
of sins. But as you go on in the history of the Church
you find, at least in the West, this doctrine of the Spirit

The Personality of the Spirit 83
disappearing, until at the time of the Reformation you
may say that, so far as the liturgical use of the Roman
Church, and of all its dependent Western Churches, is
concerned, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit had been
abandoned. Men asked for something tangible, even
material. Father, Son, gave them tangible and mate
rial ideas; but even these did not seem to be near enough,
present enough; and so the Virgin and all the saints
came in as the objects of prayer and worship.
We have gone back to the primitive use in the Holy
Communion, in Baptism, in all our services. We pray
for the blessing of the Holy Spirit, recognising that the
Holy Spirit is the present person of the Trinity, the one
with whom we come individually in contact here and
now, and through whom we enter into communion
with Son and Father. But for all that, I think that
many people feel that there is a remoteness and a vague
ness in this doctrine of the Spirit, because our idea of
what is meant by person in the divinity is false. We
are always thinking of the persons in the divinity as
being persons like ourselves, which is entirely incorrect.
It is difficult for us to realise the existence of anything
that is not material. Force, power, influence, seem to
us unreal things, only modes of communication. Mat
ter, which is tangible to our outward senses, seems to
us to be the real thing. But science is teaching us more
and more that matter is the unreal thing, that it is only
a mode of force, a mode of power; that the real thing is
not matter, but the force, the influence, the spirit that
is behind it. Your true person and my true person are
not our outward forms. Let one that does not know us,
that has never seen us before, come and look at us. He

84 Modern Christianity
sees a certain amount of flesh and blood, clothed in cer
tain conventional garments, so that but a small part of
the surface of this flesh and blood is exposed to sight.
He could tell you that we weigh about so much, that we
are about so tall, that we have dark hair or light hair,
blue eyes, or brown or black, a fair skin or a dark skin,
sallow or ruddy, and the like. But does that describe
your person or my person? Is that you or I? We are
what we stand for, what we have done, what clusters
about us. A little of our nature, of ourselves, may look
out through our faces or our eyes; more speaks in our
voices and the thoughts that we express, and still more
tells itselt in our deeds. It is the spiritual existence, the
unseen, the intangible, with all its thoughts, fancyings,
and imaginings, its aspirations and its achievements
clustering about it, that makes the real self, the true
you or I.
So it is with divinity: Fatherhood rather than a fa
ther, Sonship rather than a son, should perhaps be our
method of designating the first and second persons of
the Trinity, so that we may get rid of the false and
material idea of person which we so often have; and
then we should better realise the reality, the person
ality of the Spirit of God, representing Jesus Christ
here on earth, bringing home more and more to the
minds of men the beauty and glory ot that life and char
acter, making the world feel more and more that that
is true divinity, inspiring in your heart and in mine an
ever greater and truer love for Jesus the Christ; a love
which must renovate, change, regenerate our natures.
It is by that love of the true Jesus the Christ, that
spiritual love which shows us not merely a man work-

The Personality of the Spirit 85
ing among His disciples here on earth, but which brings
home to us all He meant, and all He stood for, revealing
Him to us in the good and the divine in all that is about
us; revealing Him to us in everything that is best in
ourselves, by calling out of us love and self-sacrifice
wherever we see any one that has need of us — it is by
that love that we are truly united with Christ and with
the Father.
To-day, Whitsunday, the Church commemorates the
divine gift of the Holy Ghost to the world in a sense in
which the world had not possessed it before, — the Holy
Ghost, not merely as the spirit of good, the divine work
ing in man, as it had always worked ; but the Holy Ghost
the Comforter, the Advocate of Jesus Christ in the world ;
advocating with the world His life as the perfect divine
life, as salvation from sin, comforting the world with the
promise of the fulfilment of that life in all mankind,
comforting the world, in a little comer of which Jesus
the Nazarene had lived, and taught, and worked, and
suffered, by holding up before all the world the glorious
picture of the life that man may live; glorifying human
life by the vision.

THE JUDGMENT
St. John iii., 17-19 : God sent not the Son into the world to
judge the world; but that the world should be saved through
him. He that believeth on him is not judged : he that believ
eth not hath been judged already, because he hath not be
lieved on the name of the only begotten Son of God. And
this is the judgment, that light is come into the world, and
men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works
were evil.
HERE is a statement of God's plan in sending His Son
Jesus the Christ into the world, and how salvation
is to be obtained through Him. A man must believe in
Him; if he do not believe his doom is sealed, he is al
ready judged. And this is his judgment: Christ Jesus
gave him light to see what was good and what was bad
and he did not want the light, he did not want to see,
he preferred the darkness because what he did was evil.
The text teaches salvation by faith, faith in Jesus Christ.
But see what that involves, — love of the light, for
saking of darkness, and consequently good works.
No one can be saved without good works. Faith does
not mean confession of the name of Jesus, in the sense
merely of acknowledging Him to be divine, the only
begotten Son of God who was crucified to save you.
Such an acknowledgment is not even an absolute essen
tial of saving faith, for Jesus Himself has said that a man
might blaspheme Him, deny His name, that is, refuse
86

The Judgment 87
to believe Him to be the Christ, the Messiah, the Son
of God, and yet be saved. Whosoever denies the spirit
of the doctrine of Christ Jesus (that is the sin against
the Spirit), whosoever prefers darkness rather than
light because his works are evil, he it is who "hath not
believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God."
St. Paul condemns the doctrine that a man is saved
by works, and declares that it is by faith that men are
saved ; and St. James condemns the doctrine of salvation
by faith, saying that the devils believe and tremble;
they have faith but where are their works? " Show me
thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my
faith by my works." Both are coming to the same thing
from different sides. St. Paul saw men, both his own
compatriots and Gentiles, setting their hopes on a sort
of thing that they called works, — sacrifices, prayers,
readings, tithings, temple-goings, taking part in the
feasts, washings, fastings, alms-givings. It was this
profane and criminal humbugging of themselves and
others which he denounces under the name of works.
St. James, on the other hand, is speaking to men who
have turned faith into a cant phrase to cover lawless
ness, who would say, I love Jesus, and be immoral, or dis
honest, or unloving to their fellow-men. That sort of
faith, says St. James, belongs also to devils, and the
man who has faith like that will find his place among
the devils. Aye, such a man Christ Jesus cannot save,
for he is judged already, he has chosen darkness, his
works are evil. Show your faith by your works, says
St. James. Yes, not works in the sense in which St.
Paul was speaking of works, not mere forms, but deeds,
works in that sense. Go, do something for others, help

88 Modern Christianity
those that are in need— perform the works of Christ
Jesus himself.
That is the sort of belief which St. John means, and
the faith which St. Paul means,— to so believe in Christ
Jesus that you aim to be like Him. That it is to believe
in Jesus Christ, and the man who does not believe in the
name of the only begotten Son of God in that sense, who
is not appropriating to himself that life, who is not seek
ing to follow in the aims and details of his life the exam
ple of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, does not believe in
Christ one whit more than the devils do; and the sacri
fice of the Son of God upon the cross is of no more benefit
to him than it is to the devils. He " hath been judged
already." Light is come into the world, and he has loved
the darkness rather than the light, for his works are
evil. The faith of which St. Paul speaks, and the belief
of which St. John speaks, are life, character. Those
are the important things, those are the essentials; not
works in the sense of forms, but faith and works in the
sense of a character moulded after the pattern of the
character of God, of a life that manifests in its every
deed the effort to live unto God, to live a life of truth
and love, to forget ourselves as our Lord Christ forgot
himself, living and dying for us.
The faith that is needed for our salvation is not and
cannot be a stumbling block in our way, it is a help.
There is absolutely not one single dogma that is, accord
ing to Christ's teaching, essential to salvation, not even
a belief, in the dogmatic sense, in His own person and
mission. " God sent not his son into the world to judge
the world." He sent Him to help us, to save us. No
dogma can save, no heresy of doctrine in itself con-

The Judgment 89
demns; no forms can save, and even the lack of all
connection with the visible Church, its forms and
sacraments, does not of necessity judge a man. The
Son of God did not come to judge the world. The judg
ment of any man lies in the fact that his works are evil,
that he prefers darkness rather than light.
Do not misunderstand. Doctrines are not useless
things, neither are forms. Right doctrines and right
forms are of inestimable value, and, as our Catechism
has it, speaking of the sacraments of Baptism and the
Supper of the Lord, they are, in the ordinary conditions
of life, "necessary to salvation." But in the ultimate
sense, in considering the fundamental principles of
things, they are not essentials, because they are the
means to an end, and that end is life, character.
Why do we go to church ? Because there is any merit
in it ? As an act of merit there is just as much value in
our going to a heathen temple. We are here not as an
act of merit, but to seek an inward, spiritual communion
with God, to help us to bring our characters into
conformity with His law, that is with Himself, for
His law is the expression of Himself. For this end,
also, Christ Jesus came, the Son of God, made man, to
help us to become one with God. Belief in Him is of no
use if it means only that you hold the correct doctrine
of His Incarnation, the Eucharist, etc. Flatly, if that is
all the belief a man has, if his belief do not involve one
ness with God, in the Spirit of Christ, he might exactly
as well believe in the incarnation of a Buddha; the one
would help him as much or as little as the other. Sav
ing faith is not belief in a fact, not belief in the facts of
the life and death of our Lord, but such a real belief in

90 Modern Christianity
His character that we come into union with His life,
and such union with Christ is union with God the Father
and eternal life.
And now, further, who or what is this God the Father
with whom we must come into communion, into oneness,
if we would live for ever ? He is not something external
to you, a giant of power and wisdom whom you cannot
apprehend, and who cannot comprehend you. You are
divine. God is within you as much as without you. In
Him ye live and move and have your being. It is in that
divinity that the possibility of our eternal life lies; it is
the development of our divine nature, its growth through
the infinite ages, as we develop more and more in the
image of God, as we grow and grow for ever into the
stature of the perfect man, the eternal sons of God.
It is a constant growth of happiness, — a growth of love,
of truth, of all the possibilities of the glorious divine
nature within us, the feeble consciousness of which even
now gives us a sense of power, of grandeur, of happiness,
of satisfaction, which nothing else can give. It is a de
velopment of our true selves, our own unhampered,
undisguised individualities, for the higher a man rises,
the more the noble qualities, that is, the divine existence
within him, are developed, the more marked, the more
emphatic his individuality becomes. And so the higher
we rise toward the great centre of all divinity, the more
closely we approach the perfection of our divine natures,
the eternal sonship of God, the more rounded and com
plete our being, our individuality becomes.
But this salvation, this eternal felicity of divine de
velopment, belongs only to the man who gives play to
his soul, that is, who seeks to develop the divine, the

The Judgment 91
good and the noble that is within him, who believes
with his life on the name of the only begotten Son of
God. The cross of Christ cannot save wolves, nor swine,
nor vultures, nor foxes. The man who makes himself
a beast, who surrenders himself to the beastly nature
that is within him, who chooses the ignoble, the sensual,
the selfish, the dishonourable, instead of the noble, the
spiritual, the unselfish, the honourable, the true,— that
is the man who does not believe on the name of the only
begotten Son of God, however loud his protestations to
the contrary; that is the man who is becoming a beast,
who is forfeiting his divine nature, and with it every pos
sibility of the eternal and glorious development of the
sons of God. What possibilities of heaven could exist
for such men, any more than for a pack of ravening
wolves or a herd of wallowing swine? The possibilities
of heaven lie in the character of a man, and so it is that
God sent His Son not to judge the world, but to save the
world by a life and death, belief in which might help to
mould our characters. If a man make choice of Jesus
Christ as his master and his pattern, believing in Him
as his Saviour from the evil, casting himself upon His
sacrifice, and not upon his own wisdom to save him from
wrong-doing, then he has found a help, a succour, which
priests and prophets longed for and could not find.
All men, whether they will or no, are preparing for
the future life as surely as the boy is preparing to be a
man. Every man, the whole world over, is developing
the worldly, devilish, beastly side of his nature, or the
true, loving, and divine side ot it. Jesus has shown us
what is divine, what we should aim at, what we can be;
and to believe in Him is to accept that object-lesson to

92 Modern Christianity
show us what to do. Belief in Him means the accept
ance of that life as our pattern, so that we judge right
and wrong, good and bad, by no other standard than
the perfect standard of our Lord Jesus Christ. In all
that we say we ask ourselves whether our Lord Jesus
would so have spoken. Would He have uttered a doubt
ful jest, would He have spoken an insinuatingly fault
finding word, or told a disparaging little story about a
friend behind his back, would He have spoken in irrita
tion a word intended to hurt the feelings of another,
or would He have allowed a word of abuse to pass His
lips? In all that we do we ask if our Lord Christ
would so have done. Would He have earned money in
any way which would not bear the most searching light
of publicity, or in any way which, while technically
correct, as the laws of human justice judge correctness,
injures any other, never mind how remote from us;
would He have indulged His senses in any immoderation,
in anything which could injure His body, His character,
His usefulness, or those of another ? To believe on the
name of the Son of God is to seek thus to turn the light on
all the dark places of our nature; to so believe that we
aim to make our lives as good as His ; to do in each cir
cumstance just exactly what we honestly believe that
He would have done; and so to believe means to obtain
an inestimable, incomparable aid in the hard straggle
against the beastly and devilish part of our nature,
which, I take it, every man, at least in the moments
when he stops and thinks of himself, would like to con
quer if he had the strength.
We believe that Jesus was the only begotten Son of
God, because He was a perfect manifestation of the at-

The Judgment 93
tributes of divinity, which are summed up in truth and
love. We know God through the Son, for no man hath
ascended up into heaven save this man, who verily
came down from heaven; if then we know God through
Him, we know God through man, for in the man Jesus
of Nazareth was God revealed. And as we know God
through man, so only through man may we reach God.
In the only begotten Son of God is all mankind united,
summed up, as it were. In Jesus of Nazareth were
summed up in their perfection all those divine elements
which we find scattered through the race of man. In
Him was revealed the perfect Son of God, the only be
gotten Son of God. And if that be so and we believe in
Him, and hence love and seek to imitate the divine per
fections of His nature, then too we must admire and
seek to imitate the divine elements — the good, and the
noble, and the true — which we find in other children of
God. Something is wrong with us, our belief is not full
and true and real, if we find ourselves admiring worldly
people, selfish people, ungodly people, and choosing
them for our associates, instead of unworldly, unselfish,
true, pure people. What do we admire in them ? why
do we choose them ? Because we have an unconfessed
love of the things of the world, the flesh, and the devil,
which we profess to have renounced. If I really believe
in Jesus of Nazareth, knowing Him to be the only be
gotten Son of God, accepting His life for my life, as
such belief involves, then I must know and love the
sons of God in whom God is now manifest among men.
My belief, if it is a true belief, is not a belief merely
in the one perfect manifestation of God in man ; it is a
belief in the divine which He manifested, it is a belief

94 Modern Christianity
in love and truth wherever I find it, a love for, and kin
ship, and communion with all good men, who manifest
in their lives love and truth. The democracy of the
kingdom of heaven, — and remember that the kingdom
of heaven, as Jesus used the expression, meant some
thing in this earth, and not merely something in the
world to come, and that no man enters the kingdom of
heaven in the future life except as he enters it here, —
the democracy of the kingdom of heaven is the most
levelling democracy that men have ever imagined. In
that kingdom there is not a shadow of distinction of rank,
wealth, birth, or race; all these material and worldly
distinctions are cast aside. Full belief in the Son of God
means full brotherhood with all the sons of God. It
means that we love them, — not merely that we profess
love in a general way, and are in a general way inter
ested in their welfare, but that we fulfil toward each in
dividual the royal law, which is the law of the children
of the kingdom — that we do to each person, whatever
his position, his social condition, his country, or his race,
precisely what we would have done to ourselves; that
we think ourselves into each other person's place. We
cannot love God whom we have not seen, except through
our brother men whom we have seen. The only test of
our love of God, and of the only begotten Son of God
who manifested God to man, is our love for our fellow-
men. To study our society, and then to study the so
ciety in which Jesus of Nazareth moved, the tests of
fellowship and social intercourse which He set up, must
serve to show us how very dimly we have yet learned
to apprehend the Christianity of our Master, how un
believing is our professed belief.

BIG THIEF AND LITTLE THIEF
St. Matthew vii., 21: Not every one that saith unto me,
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but he
that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
A MAN cannot live a life which he knows to be wrong,
and make his peace with God by penance, or pray
ers, or gifts. A man cannot make money in ways which
are wrong, dishonest, injurious to others, and then make
his peace with God by giving great gifts to the Church.
He may succeed in making his peace with the authori
ties of the Church, he may be received into honour by
them, and be praised and treated as one of God's saints,
— but he has not made his peace with God. At the last
day, when he shall stand before the Judge and say:
" Lord, Lord, did I not prophesy in Thy name by build
ing churches and seminaries ? Did I not cast out the
devils of vice and misery in Thy name by endowing
asylums, and hospitals, and missions ? In Thy name, O
Lord, I have done great works, erecting universities,
and libraries, and monuments, so that all men have
heard of my goodness for Thy name's sake"; then, we
are told, the Lord will say: "I never knew you: depart
from me ye that work iniquity." That is, He will say
to them: You have not been working for me, you
have been working for the devil.
The man who makes his money in an improper way,
95

96 Modern Christianity
and then seeks to win himself a place in the kingdom
of God by building churches, and endowing universities,
seminaries, missions, and other charities, may succeed
in getting the very best pew in the richest and most
pious church ; he may become the sworn friend of godly
pastors; he may figure as the director of a dozen chari
table institutions; he may sit on many platforms and
very loudly denounce vice at public meetings; but never
in any such way can he enter into the kingdom of God.
God does not condone fraud, and the frauds which the
imperfect laws of man cannot touch are tried in the
court of God Almighty exactly as though they were
midnight burglary or highway robbery. The man
who has amassed his millions by railroad-wrecking and
stock-watering, by controlling councils and legislatures,
by ingenious deals through which the money in equity
belonging to others has, by no process punishable by
human law, passed into his possession, is tried and con
victed in the court of God on the vulgar charge of theft.
There is no use there in giving enormous retainers for
the very best counsel to defend him on his trial. The
most pious priests and eloquent preachers cannot save
him from the clutches of the law of God, nor even win
delay. Neither can he bribe the jurors; and the sheriff
that receives him will not allow him to escape on any
pretext, nor for any sum. He must serve his term
with safe-burglars, pickpockets, footpads, train-rob
bers, sneak-thieves, confidence men, and the like. With
them is his portion in the hereafter. God knows no
difference between them. He classes them all together,
— enemies of society, enemies of the state, enemies of
righteousness, enemies of God. He has the same con-

Big Thief and Little Thief 97
demnation for the man who robs you of your purse
and the man who contrives to relieve the public of
$50,000,000; they are in His sight equally loathsome,
equally vulgar, equally criminal. No character that
priests or pastors can give the big thief is going to make
him any less hideous in God's sight than the common
burglar; no retainer which he may give them to plead
his plea, in the shape of churches and charities, is going
to help him get free from the awful condemnation of
God, his Judge. Every one who reads our Lord's words
must see that He was speaking of just such pious
scamps when He said, "Not every one that saith unto
me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ;
but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in
heaven." Those churches, hospitals, asylums, univer
sities, libraries, missions, and the like, are their cry of
" Lord, Lord " ; and when they utter that cry in that par
ticular manner there are plenty of pious men who will
tumble over one another in the attempt to take them by
the hand, and smile lovingly upon them, and raise their
eyes heavenward, and say: "Oh, my dear sir, you are
doing a noble work for the Lord; the Lord has indeed
blessed the whole community in giving you this blessing
of wealth; you are preaching the Lord's name like a
prophet, you are casting out legions of devils and work
ing very miracles by your benevolence." By-and-bye
this man comes to the gates of heaven ; he is very sure of
admittance; he says: "Here are my testimonials from
the Lord's representatives. They show how I have
prophesied, cast out devils, and worked miracles."
But the Lord says to him, "I never knew you: depart
from me, ye workers of iniquity."

98 Modern Christianity
It is astonishing how men will blind themselves to
the very nature of God, and to the character of His
dealings with men. And it has been the same through
all the ages of the world's history. Here is a poor savage
who is going on a marauding expedition to capture
cattle or slaves ; and he prays first to his god, and offers
sacrifices, and receives the blessing of the priest on his
enterprise. Here is the Mexican border smuggler who
goes and confesses to the priest, gets his absolution on
condition of a penance and a gift to the Church, and
goes out light-hearted to engage in more smuggling,
with the same results. Here is a stock-rigger, a railroad-
wrecker, who founds with a part of the proceeds of his
operations a seminary to teach men how to preach the
Gospel, or builds a church to preach it in, and gains
therefrom new strength and courage to carry on his
nefarious projects. These three men are on a par, so
far as their attempted dealings with God are concerned.
They have not the least idea what God is. They are,
whatever they may call themselves, all alike devil-
worshippers, to whom apply our Lord's awful words of
condemnation: " I never knew you: depart from me, ye
workers of iniquity."
"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, ... but
he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."
People wili keep thinking of God as some being outside
of us who can be propitiated and made to give us a
reward by means of something which we do or say.
That is heathenism, unbelief, devil-worship, whether it
calls itself Buddhism, Mohammedanism, or Christianity,
or whatsoever else. God is love; God is truth; the law
of virtue and integrity and loving-kindness is His will,

Big Thief and Little Thief 99
and unless a man set his heart to do that will he cannot
know God and the eternal life which is in the knowledge
of God. Neither is the law of God in any way an arbi
trary or an accidental thing, so that some other condi
tion of our eternal happiness could or can be given to
man than the acceptance, for the aim and rule of our
lives, of this divine law. It is essential, because it is the
fundamental law of the being of God, and of all that
is divine; and our eternal happiness lies in our becoming
like God, being united with Him, and pervaded by His
Spirit. That, and that only, is heaven and eternal life.
But a man may say: "Is it not a noble and a glori
ous use of wealth to endow missions, build hospitals,
churches, colleges, and asylums ? Supposing a man to
have gotten his wealth in a doubtful or wrong manner,
what better amends can he make than to use it in such
a way ? and can he noteven do more good by this means
than he has done harm in acquiring it? and do you
not believe that a man who does such a good work as
that will be accepted of God and forgiven ?"
Supposing that a man had picked anqther man's
pocket of five dollars. If he came to you arid gave you
five cents of that towards building churches, and ten
cents towards sending out missionaries, and five cents
towards educating men for the ministry, and ten cents
towards erecting a hospital, would you shake him by
the hand and assure him that he was doing more good
than he had ever done harm, and that he was a noble
Christian who would surely be accepted of God ?
You certainly would say that the very first condition
of repentance must be restitution, that he must be
throughly sorry for what he had done, and must turn

100 Modern Christianity
about, lead a new life, and give up that life of robbing
altogether. The conditions are the same, whether a man has
taken much or little, and whether he has taken it in a
way punishable by human law, or in an ungodly man
ner which yet is not punishable by human law. The
first condition of repentance is restitution, and no man
can draw near to God until he repent him of his sin.

THE REAL HELL*
i John iv., 20-2 1 : If a man say, I love God, and hateth his
brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom
he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen ?
And this commandment have we from him, That he who
loveth God love his brother also.
THE foundation principle of Christianity is love.
But this love is a very practical thing. It is by no
means a comfortable sense that all is well, the sense of
satisfaction with oneself because one is well fed and well
clothed and well housed and successful in what one
undertakes, and in pleasant relations with those of one's
household and the immediate friends with whom one
associates. Love is a deeper and much more exacting
1 This sermon was preached on Trinity Sunday, 1906, imme
diately after the publication of the government report on
the packing industry. Hence the illustration is drawn from
the conditions then prevailing in that industry. That in
principle those conditions were not altogether exceptional is
shown by the more recent exposures by trained investigators
of the condition of the labourers in the steel mills in and about
Pittsburg — twelve hours labour, seven days in the week, for an
inadequate living wage — and the outbreak at McKee's Rocks
caused by such conditions; or by the government exposure
of the very contemptible thievery practised by the so-called
Sugar Trust. In another direction conditions in the baking
industry, as shown by investigations made in New York City

102 Modern Christianity
thing than this. Love is something that stirs one's
being, not with contentment and satisfaction, but with
yearning and desire. But love is not merely a yearning
after God, which makes men turn aside from and aban
don the ordinary relations of life, their family, their
friends, their fellow-men, and seek solitary communion
with God, an enrapt contemplation of Him. There is a
very big element of selfishness and self-seeking in such
love as that. Love expresses itself first of all in its rela
tion toward those about us, the members of our family,
the persons whom we employ or who employ us, our
fellow-employees, those of whom we buy or to whom we
sell, the people whom we meet in our ordinary social
intercourse, in whose houses we visit, with whom we
sit down to meals, with whom we make merry and dance
and have a good time. Love shows itself in considera
tion for these people, for their feelings, for their rights;
in treating them as we would be treated by them; it
shows itself when in our dealings with them we seek
not our own, not how we may be profited by them, but
at various times within recent years, occasioned by strikes of
employees, furnish another example of the same general truths
here illustrated by the conditions in the packing industries
in 1906. Many other cases might be cited in other trades and
industries. The packers are merely an instance. While the
investigation of the packing industry and the iniquities there
disclosed are now over three years old, and therefore — so
rapidly do we forget yesterday and pass on to the morrow — a
thing of the past, it has seemed best to retain this sermon in
practically its original form, rather than to seek to substitute
illustrations or applications drawn from more recent expos
ures in other industries, to some of which, however, attention
has been briefly called in foot-notes.

The Real Hell 103
how we may profit them. Is there any other possible
way of loving a person except to regard him in such a
manner and treat him in such a manner ?
Nor is the love spoken of by St. John love toward one
person only, great and valuable as that may be, but lov
ing-kindness, that yearning spirit of love which takes
possession of our nature and compels from us loving
dealing with all with whom we come in contact. To pos
sess that spirit of love is to be united with God, to know
God; and, on the other hand, he who does not have that
spirit of love cannot know God. The test of our know
ledge of God and our love for Him lies in our relations
toward those about us. We use certain expressions of
faith ; we have our creeds and doctrines. To-day we cel
ebrate the doctrine of the Trinity. But true faith does
not consist in the recitation of or belief in the articles
of the Creed; it does not consist in a true understanding
and holding of the doctrine of the Trinity. Those are
the externals. True faith is expressed in the life of love.
Therefore the true test of the Christian Church, as of
the individual Christian, is the expression of love in
our relations to our fellow-men.
You have all been, I doubt not, profoundly startled
within the last few days by the report made by the
government inspectors on the beef-packing industry
in the city of Chicago. Those of you who read the report
in full found it, I doubt not, revolting and offensive to
the last degree. I am not going to dwell on the details
of that report or its revolting aspects; I wish you to
consider certain conditions there revealed from the
stand-point of the Christian religion. The things told in
that report happened and are happening in the country

io4' Modern Christianity
which, I suppose, you and I would claim to be the most
advanced and the most Christian country in the world.
They happened and are happening in one of the largest
cities in that country, singularly progressive in many
particulars, with a great university, a magnificent pub-:
lie school system, great numbers of churches; in a
city which has all the marks of that Christian civilisa
tion of which we boast. The heads of these great pack
ing establishments are, I believe, all of them, at least
nominally Christians, any one of whom would feel ag
grieved if it were said of him, "That man is a disbeliever
in the fundamental ethics of Christianity." These men
have made enormous wealth out of the industry in which
they are concerned. Some of them have given money
for educational, benevolent, and religious purposes.
They are all, I believe, received in the Christian society
of the city to which they belong and in other cities in
which they at times reside. They are not, at all events,
outcasts from society. They are or have been courted
and respected by the Christian men and women of the
land, by ministers of the Gospel, by presidents and di
rectors of benevolent and educational institutions.
Now what are the conditions of the industries which
these men direct and own and of the employees whom
they employ? One condition revealed is this: these
men seem to have regarded their employees as so many
cattle; or perhaps it is safer to say that they did not
even regard them as cattle, but as so many pieces of
machinery, so much wood and stone and metal out of
which they were to derive as much profit as they could.
It is a well-known fact that unhealthy and uncleanly
conditions of places in which men and women work

The Real Hell 105
produce disease, both physical and moral. Lung dis
eases are perhaps the most fatal of all diseases among
adult workers. Consumption and pneumonia are to-day
a veritable scourge to the land. We know that these are
entirely preventable diseases, diseases due to infection,
the result of bad sanitary conditions in the home and
workshop. Any of you who have seen the ravages of
consumption in the families of workers, or perhaps in
your own family, know the horror of it all : the long
battle for life (with the pathetic hopefulness of the man
or woman who is daily and hourly growing weaker) ;
the increasing inability to earn, the increasing expenses
which the decreased earnings cannot meet, the added
burden on the other members of the family; the infec
tion that spreads to another and another; if it be the
wage-earner whose life is ebbing away, the pinch of
need that comes upon the whole house ; then perhaps a
mother with little children left to struggle on unaided;
and those little children growing up with weakened con
stitutions as the result of the diseased condition of the
home in which they were born or of their first few years
of improper nourishment, due to the pinched condition
of the home. Whatever the details, there is always
a long-drawn-out trail of misery spreading in every
direction. Whoever has seen and felt it cannot but
realise the horrible cruelty of men who, for the sake of
getting a larger income out of their business, will com
pel or allow other men and women to work under con
ditions which propagate and foster such disease.
Now it is precisely these conditions which, according
to the testimony of the inspectors, exist in those packing
houses in Chicago. There is no question but that the

106 Modern Christianity
business has been enormously profitable. The owners
have made vast fortunes out of it. It is not, therefore,
lack of means, such^ as you sometimes find in some
skimped and profitless business, which has prevented
these men from giving their employees working condi
tions which would not endanger their physical well-
being. Viewed from this aspect only, the whole thing is an
example of utterly heartless greed. What love of their
brothers who work for them is shown in such dealings ?
And if " a man love not his brother, whom he hath seen,
how can he love God, whom he hath not seen ? ' ' Surely
if such men say " I love God," they have made them
selves liars, for they hate their brothers; or at least
that is the effect of such an attitude toward them.
But not only does the treatment accorded by these
men to their employees endanger their physical health,
it endangers their soul health also. Some of you know
the horror of the curse of drink. Because of the awful
results of drink, Christian men and women in the
churches have above everything else directed their
efforts against this evil. The pulpits of our churches
ring with denunciations of the liquor-dealers. Every
clergyman and the great bulk of the men and women
who occupy the pews are ready to welcome any denun
ciation of saloons and to support any organisation which
attacks the liquor bars. The evil of drink will never be
remedied until the things that lie behind it have been
remedied. If you make men and women work in un
sanitary and beastly conditions, you compel them to
seek a stimulus which will at least seem to neutralise
the effects of that atmosphere and those surroundings

The Real Hell 107
upon them, and the stimulus which they can best and
most cheaply obtain and which works most speedily is
drink. If you make men and women work in such sur
roundings, you so degrade their appetites and desires
as to leave nothing but the lowest physical passions
and appetites still active. You make them beasts and
they will live like beasts. It is precisely this sort of
thing which these men have been doing, according to
the statements of this report, with their employees.1
Again the very centre of home life is the woman. If
you would have a home you must conserve the purity
of the woman, and if you would conserve her purity you
must preserve her modesty. No one who has any es
teem for woman, who loves his mother or his wife or
his daughter or his sister, can read the description con
tained in that report of the conditions under which
the women employed in these works have lived, com
pelled thereto by the necessity of earning their daily
bread, without feeling his blood boil at the revolting
inhumanity, the degrading and cynical immorality of
the men responsible for it, who have made out of the
degradation of the men and women in their employ mil
lions of dollars.
But not only have the packers, according to the report
presented, treated those employed by them in this
heartless and cruel manner: they have sold to the public
products prepared in a revolting manner, and, according
to the best testimony available, in some cases certainly
» Recent investigations in Pittsburg show that the un
natural and brutalising conditions existing in the steel indus
try there have similarly generated and fostered drunkenness
and immorality.

108 Modern Christianity
dangerous to health. There has been on their part the
same utter disregard of any moral element in their rela
tion to the people to whom they sold as there has been
in their relation to the men they employed. Provided
they could obtain a profit, it appears to have been a
matter of indifference to them what befell the people
who purchased of them.1
It is not always easy to trace sickness and disease to
their original source, but the advance of medical science
has convinced us all of this : that uncleanness in the pre
paration of food products is a fruitful source of disease.
The men who utilise diseased animals for food products,
or so prepare those products that filthy and germ-
containing material is mingled with them must inevit
ably breed and increase disease. What the packers have
done is, from the moral stand-point, no worse presum
ably than what a great many other individuals have
done,2 but the colossal proportions which it has assumed
make it a national danger and exalt the men who have
been guilty of greed on a scale so enormous to the pro
portions of colossi of crime.
But, it will be said, these men deny that such condi
tions exist. That is true. Unfortunately, their denial
has little value. In view of the way in which these in
vestigations have been made, the American public ought
to and probably will pay little attention to the pro
tests of the self-interested packers.
« Compare conditions in food products in general, and in
patent medicines and drug preparations, which have led to
our recent pure food legislation.
2 Compare the baking industry in New York City, and pre
sumably in some other cities also.

The Real Hell 109
And here, it may be added, we see an unfortunate re
sult, not only of recent exposures of evil-doing, but also
of the attitude taken both by the men who have been
exposed and also by others associated with them from
whom the public had supposed it could expect some
thing better. When evil-doing was charged in insur
ance companies, in railroads and the like, the presidents
and directors of those corporations, men whose names
up to that time had carried great weight with the public,
declared, first in open letters and statements and then
finally on the stand before investigating committees,
that there was nothing wrong; that these attacks were
gotten up by interested parties; that everything was as
it should be. The results of investigation have shown
that those men were uttering falsehoods and the same
men, when pressed hard on the witness stand, deliber
ately perjured themselves, declaring that they had
forgotten or did not know that which every sane man
knew that they knew. The result has been that the
public at large has lost confidence. It believes, that
such men will lie to protect not only themselves, but
those with whom they have been associated or the
financial interests with which they are connected; and
having this belief it comes to suspect that every large
financial concern is corrupt and engages in dishonourable
methods and that it differs from those which have been
exposed only through the good fortune or good manage
ment which has enabled it up to the present time to
escape detection. I say this is one of the unfortunate
conditions resulting from the dishonesty exhibited by
the men to whom the public had looked for something
better, and which has so shaken public confidence that

no Modern Christianity
all railroad presidents and officials, officers of great
trust companies, indeed financiers in general are popu
larly regarded as criminals who should not be believed
on oath except as their testimony is supported by facts
proven through the evidence of others. It is a horrible
thing to have been thus guilty of destroying faith in the
honesty of one's fellow-men.
But to return to my theme, for I wish to follow this
matter of the moral responsibility of the packers and the
evil done by them. There are not only men, but women
also, who are living in luxury on the proceeds of these
packing industries — women, delicate, refined, and cul
tured, who attend church and are communicants there,
who join organisations for missionary effort and contri
bute to them money which is oftentimes the soul-blood
of other women and of little children. How do these
women reconcile themselves to their part in the matter?
Do they feel no responsibility for the men and women
employed under such conditions, for the filth and the
horrors of these packing houses ? I suppose that, to a
very large extent, they are in ignorance of the whole
matter. They simply do not know — and do not care
what is going on. Well-meaning, kindly towards those
in their own circle, towards the poor and needy with
whom they come immediately in contact, responding
generously to appeals for sympathy and contributions
for missionary and benevolent work, their responsibil
ity for the workers through whom their money is made,
for the customers buying products from which that
money is derived, never enters their head. Provided
the money comes, they are quite content. And this is
not merely a blind trust in their fathers and husbands

The Real Hell m
and brothers, as honest and good. If it were that and
that only there might be much excuse; but it means,
unfortunately, much more. 1 1 means a lack of that ear
nest sense of responsibility for the well-being of one's
fellows, which is an essential part of brotherly love,
and therefore which is an essential part of Christianity.
These women are like the princess of France, who, when
told of the starving multitudes in Paris, at her very
doors, who had no bread, asked, quite innocently, "Then
why don't they eat cake?" The old prophets judged
the women who lived in luxury at the expense of the
suffering of others equally guilty with the men who did
the immediate oppression. The fundamental evil in
both cases is selfishness. They live primarily for them
selves, and if they are well clothed and well fed and
have a pleasant house and pleasant surroundings, then
their responsibility is ended. Here are the words
which the prophet Amos addressed to the rich and
noble women of Samaria — his condemnation of them
for what is in principle the same thing that these
women are doing:
Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan,
Who are in Samaria's mount,
Who oppress the poor,
Who crush the needy,
Who say to their lords,
" Bring that we may drink " :
The Lord hath sworn by His holiness
That, behold, days come upon you,
When they shall lift you with hooks,
The remnant of you with fish-hooks,
And at breaches shall ye go out, each for herself,
And to Armenia shall ye be hurled : saith the Lord.

112 Modern Christianity
And in a similar vein Isaiah denounces the rich women
of Jerusalem, holding them responsible equally with
their husbands for the suffering and misery on which
their luxury was founded.
And now what further? To the men and women who
are responsible for these conditions, who have lived a
life of ease, trampling under foot their employees, de
grading the souls of their brothers, the men and women
who by their actual practice have shown that they
neither know nor love God, there will come a day of
reckoning, and it is the part of the Church to declare
that fact in no uncertain terms. To preach love does
not mean to preach an emasculated amiability which,
serenely overlooking the evil, declares that all is well, all
sin is forgiven, and all men shall be saved. That is
no more Christian love than is the attitude of the
foolish mother who is unwilling to bear the unpleasant
ness and the difficulties of training and correcting
her child, who allows the child to be ruined because
she will not suffer the pain of correcting and re
proving it and training it to do right. True love
is of sterner and harder fibre than this. True love
involves sacrifice and pain and suffering. Love cannot
exist without that, and precisely because the Church
teaches love it must also teach the consequences of
the lack of love. But some one may say: did not Jesus,
when a poor woman, who had been taken in her sin, was
brought before Him, refuse to condemn her, though
the law demanded that she should be stoned, but rather
advise that she should be allowed to go free? Surely
He did so. The woman was a convicted and acknow
ledged sinner. The consequences of her sin had really

The Real Hell n3
been visited upon her already. She had been con
demned. And to any one who confesses his sins, who
divests himself or is divested of the profits and advan
tages derived from that sin, who has been condemned,
who sits in sack-cloth and ashes, the Church and
Christian society may well show mercy and forgiveness ;
but never to him who does not make restitution, who is
not in sack-cloth and ashes, who has not been con
demned, who contrives to avoid condemnation and
seeks to evade all punishment for his evil-doing. It
is against precisely such persons as this that the Church
must thunder out its denunciations as Christ thundered
out His denunciations against the Scribes and Phari
sees, hypocrites.
And what is the punishment that befalls such men?
There used to be stem preaching of a hell that awaited
the sinner. The real hell that awaits the man that sins
is not that physical and material place of torture which
our ancestors painted in such lurid colors. It is far
more terrible, for its punishments and its torments are
of another character.
Have you ever seen a man, honoured and admired by
all about him, attaining high position in society and
state, a courted and eagerly sought for guest at dinner,
one on whose utterances of wit and wisdom thousands
hung, revealed suddenly as a thief, a liar, and a hypocrite,
a mean, contemptible, grovelling soul; and have you
seen all his friends shrink from him and the men who
courted and honoured him laugh or point the finger of
scom at him? Have you seen him afraid to pick up a
newspaper, which used to sing his praises, for fear he
shall see a cartoon holding him up to ridicule, a para-

ii4 Modern Christianity
graph making him an object of scom and contempt;
afraid to go into the clubs which were once his courts,
because of the looks that he will meet, because men there
will shun him? If a man shall have lived seventy years
of prosperity, and then have but two years to live under
such conditions as these, I think that the torture, the
misery he will suffer in those two years will far more
than counterbalance all the joy and pleasure he had in
the seventy years. Do you realise that the after life is
like that ? It is suddenly to see oneself condemned be
fore God, that is, very literally condemned by the uni
verse; for a man to be forced to see himself as all the
universe sees him, a disgusting, loathsome, contemptible
thing; to stand naked and revealed in one's own sight
and the sight of God, all self-respect torn away. To
the man who realises what human nature is, the horrible
character of the punishment which attends such mis
doing is only too evident.
For all the suffering and misery a man brings here he
must on his part suffer. So surely as heaven cannot be
won except as a man seeks to make heaven for others,
so surely as a man saves his life only by losing it, so
surely is the opposite the truth. He who has sought
his own life at the expense of the life of others has de
stroyed his own soul ; and he who has founded his hap
piness on the suffering of others has laid up for himself
a hell hereafter.

FORGIVENESS OF SINS
Ephesians iv., 31-32: Let all bitterness, and wrath, and
anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you,
with all malice : arrd be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted,
forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath for
given you.
ANGER, or resentment, or wrath, is a natural charac
teristic or affection, and, like all natural charac
teristics, is useful and needful in its proper place. It
is given us for a protection against injury, individually
and socially, that is, as parts of a community in which
each part is of necessity connected with and dependent
upon every other part. It may be roughly described
as passionate or brutal, and rational. Pain or injury
awakens in the animal a sensation or sentiment of
anger implanted in its nature for self-preservation.
This anger is unreasoning, and the lower you go in
the brute creation the more unreasoning you find it.
It is directed equally against objects animate and
inanimate and makes no distinction between inten
tional and unintentional injury. To this instinctive
brute anger it is all one whether the pain which excites
it be inflicted with good or evil intent, or utterly
without any intent whatever. The general character
of the sentiment of anger in very young children is
115

116 Modern Christianity
the same, sudden and unreasoning, frequently directed
against inanimate objects, or against those who inflict
pain for some benevolent purpose.
Now this sort of irrational, physical anger in grown
people is wrong and sinful. A person of strong charac
ter who has not mastered his temper is aroused to sud
den bursts of fury ; a person of weak character is more
apt to display his lack of self-control in the form of peev
ishness. But passion and peevishness are frequently
attributable, not to wrong done by others, but to acci
dents, to our mistakes, or even to our moods. Again
there is a meanness of temper often shown by passionate
or peevish persons which leads them to vent that temper
on wholly innocent persons, relatives or dependents, or
those who cannot or will not retaliate.
One who has yielded to passion generally feels that
he has done wrong. Nevertheless such a man will often
excuse himself, even when to impartial spectators his
anger seems wholly inexcusable, and, shifting the blame
from himself, seek to lay it upon others. In the case of
peevishness people are still less apt, than in the case
of passion, to realise the wickedness of their conduct.
While far more common than passion, it belongs rather
to weaker characters, or to those which are temporarily
weakened. It is a frequent concomitant of a feeble
state of health. This leads both the peevish person and
his friends the more readily to devise excuses for the in
dulgence of the vice. Instead of making a strong effort
to overcome it, we encourage it in ourselves by invent
ing plausible excuses,— we are unwell, and it cannot be
expected that we should be good-natured ; or it is too hot
or too cold for comfort, and when we are not comfortable

Forgiveness of Sins n7
how should we be expected to keep a cheerful face and
speak kindly; or the people with whom we live are
thoughtless, or careless, or stupid, or uncongenial, and
do not deserve or appreciate kindness. The danger is
lest we convince ourselves that these excuses are true or
valid, and harden temporary petulance or irritability
into chronic peevishness, — a vice which renders its vic
tims only less unhappy than its possessors.
Under the influence of passion or peevishness people
are wrong-headed: it seems utterly impossible for them
to see clearly where the real blame lies. This is a fact of
which we are all aware; and if we have honestly and
faithfully examined ourselves, our own conduct, our
words and acts, and the state of mind leading to those
words or acts, I think we shall have learned it from that
examination. There are few indeed among us who do
not sometimes yield either to passion or petulance.
Things have gone wrong, we are tired, we feel out of
sorts, we are busy or worried, people are stupid or vex
atious, and we find a thousand and one reasons for
venting our ill-nature. I do not suppose there is a per
son present who does not know from personal experi
ence the state of mind to which I refer. And, looking
back on the last occasion when we so acted, I hope that
we make no attempt to excuse our conduct, but honestly
allow that we were to blame. As soon as we have been
rescued from such a mood, putting in our pockets that
mean and contemptible false pride which is ashamed to
confess itself wrong, we should go and own our wrong
doing to those whom we made to suffer by our passion
or our petulance. To gain the self-control and the self-
judgment to do this is to have made a mighty step

1 1 8 Modern Christianity
towards ridding ourselves of this weakness or vice of
irrational anger.
Now the characteristic of the form of anger which we
have thus far been treating is that it is not controlled by
reason. It is physical, or perhaps rather semi-physical,
and in the case of rational beings it is wrong. The se
cond class of anger, wrath, or resentment is rational or
deliberate anger. Just as irrational or brutal anger has
a physical basis, so has rational anger an intellectual or
moral basis, and is therefore almost peculiar to man,
being shared only in a very inferior degree by some of
the more highly developed animals. Rational or de
liberate anger is intended in the providence of God's
nature to be a protection to us against moral evil, just
as irrational anger is designed to be a preventive against
physical evil. This rational or deliberate anger, wrath,
or resentment, is sometimes right and sometimes wrong.
If you read the account of some villainy you are, or
ought to be, indignant. Certain characters in history
are odious to all right-thinking men on account of their
crimes. Reading a story, we oftentimes work ourselves
into a state of indignation against the villain of the story.
We hear of bribery in our legislatures, or municipal
councils, or in the elections to public office, and every
honest man among us is indignant at the crime com
mitted, and anxious to see both bribed and briber se
verely punished. These are cases where the feeling of
indignation or anger is right and laudable, and these will
illustrate what I mean by the moral basis of deliberate or
rational anger, as also my statement that this anger is
intended by nature as a protection both to the individ
ual and to society against moral evil. It is this which

Forgiveness of Sins 1 19
guides us in forming a dislike to and assuming an atti
tude of opposition toward the wicked.
But, as I have said, rational or deliberate anger is not
necessarily right. If a person has made choice of moral
evil instead of good, then his dislikes, that is, his anger,
may be directed against the good instead of against the
evil. Or a man may have made part choice of evil,
and guided by selfishness in some form he will then, in
certain instances or directions, conceive dislike or anger
toward the good. Furthermore, the boundary between
irrational and rational anger is not always well-defined,
so that a dislike, a deliberate anger toward some class or
individual, may be the ultimate result of what was at
first mere physical passion or peevishness.
In general, we may say, deliberate, rational or moral
anger should be directed against evil rather than against
the evil-doer. Society for its own protection may be
obliged to direct its anger against the evil-doers, to
punish or destroy them, as a means of extirpating the
hated evil. But, as individuals, even our right and
proper anger against the evil never absolves us from our
duty of love and helpfulness towards every individual,
good or bad.
And now let us consider more directly our relations
toward those whom we regard as evil-doers against our
selves. In the nature of the case, in matters which con
cern us or ours, we are not impartial judges, and should
therefore be the more careful how we take offence. It
is manifest, when we consider the case of others, that
misinterpretation lies at the bottom of very many quar
rels. This creates a presumption that in our own case
we also misinterpret the actions of others towards our-

120 Modern Christianity
selves. We do not judge others by the lenient standards
we commonly apply to ourselves. Unwilling ourselves
to assume the blame for our failures or misfortunes, in
hasty anger or deliberate resentment we attribute our
own faults to others and vent on them the indignation
which should of right be directed against ourselves.
Just as when a child, through carelessness, falls and
hurts itself its wrath is directed against the naughty
stick or stone, or whatever else has been the cause of its
pain, or against the innocent boy or girl, or whosoever
placed the unfortunate obstacle in that position ; so we,
when our ignorance or carelessness has brought some
harm upon us, build thereon a quarrel with some inno
cent, or, at the most, heedless person, whom we persist
in regarding as the cause of our injury. Nothing can be
more pernicious to our own character than to turn our
resentment for our failures and shortcomings against
others instead of against ourselves. 1 1 makes us morbid,
dries up every fountain of love in our nature, and para
lyses our whole moral system.
Ill-health, bad weather, fatigue, petty misfortunes
and unpleasantnesses affecting our feelings may deter
mine, as I have already said, our treatment of those
about us, being visited on them as the guilty parties.
This ultimately leads to quarrels in which we regard
ourselves as the aggrieved and innocent party. Again,
envy, commonly not acknowledged, of the position,
friendships, natural endowments, advantages, successes
of others leads us, ourselves not so successful, or so
gifted, or so beautiful, or so popular, to misjudge and
backbite. The result is that we ultimately win the hatred
of those whose only sin against us was the possession of

Forgiveness of Sins 121
that which we desired, and having, by our own conduct,
made them hate us, we accuse them of having picked
the quarrel with us. 1
All this is simple common sense. To assure ourselves
of its truth in our own case, we have merely to apply to
ourselves the same standard which we apply to those
about us. Regard yourself, not as an exception to rule,
but as an average human being, and this must become
manifest to your reason. We say of others that a quar
rel is impossible without two persons, and we recognise
the fact that every story has two sides to it. But what
is true of our neighbours is equally true of you and me:
and, if we are unable to get along peaceably with those
about us, it is almost absolutely certain that part of the
fault lies with ourselves. — perhaps, indeed, we are the
most to blame. At the least, common sense should
show us that we are not impartial judges in the matter,
and that, as we are certainly in some part to blame, we
should make great allowances for the conduct of the
other party; and, if matters have come to an open
breach, will do well to waive what we conceive to be our
rights, and take steps toward a restoration of amicable
relations. But besides all this, there is doubtless evil done to us,
people do sin against us. Now, the philosophy of com
mon sense shows us, or should show us, two things. In
the first place it shows us that their sin against us is less
than we count it to be, and that, perhaps, we are not
ourselves entirely without blame. In the second place,
a study of human nature shows us that this sentiment
of anger or resentment is implanted in us for a defence
against injury, and that indulgence in that sentiment in

122 Modern Christianity
the form of retaliation is not admissible. For, leaving
out of view the partiality with which we necessarily per
ceive those things which concern ourselves, and which
would therefore cause us to retaliate in a manner out of
all proportion to the original injury, the inevitable re
sult of retaliation is to increase injury by awakening
or fostering hatred and ill-will, which will again be
vented in injury.
Hitherto I have treated the subject of anger from the
point of view of an entirely unemotional and finite
rationality. But the highest philosophy of the human
must take into consideration not merely the rational,
but also the sentimental element in man ; and not merely
the relation of man to the finite, but also to the infinite.
The highest and most perfect philosophy of human life
in existence is that which was set forth in the teaching
and in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
We speak of ourselves as having sinned against God
and of God as having forgiven our sins. We speak also
of the wrath of God, and pray Him to avert that wrath
from us. But I am afraid that a false conception of the
nature and occasion of God's wrath is very prevalent,
which regards God as personally angry, if I may so
speak. We pray to God as though He were a human
being vexed by a personal affront, whom we are seek
ing to propitiate. But if we understand aright what
God's wrath really is, our need of redemption from sin
becomes more apparent, and the method of its execution
both more intelligible and more glorious. Sin is a contra
diction of our nature; it prevents the individual from
attaining the full proportion and harmony of his being;
it entails sorrow and suffering upon the race. In our

Forgiveness of Sins 123
poor human language we say that God is angry when we
contradict the law of nature, the nature that is within
us, or the nature that is without us, thus bringing upon
ourselves or others sorrow and suffering. All suffering
is the result of the violation of God's law in the physical
or moral universe; it is the result of ignorance or sin.
Now Jesus of Nazareth was God incarnate in man,
perfect man, without ignorance or sin, and therefore
possessed of a power to overcome in others the results
of sin and ignorance, namely, suffering and death.
Rightly understood, His miracles seem to me to be not
only miracles, but parables also. He revealed the Fa
ther to us, making manifest to man the actions of God
our Father. For God our Father loves His children and
is continually showing them His love and mercy. And
that we might the better understand what we must do.
He sent us His Son, the Christ, incarnate as son of man
in Jesus of Nazareth, and allowed Him to work before
our eyes manifestly the works which He himself doeth.
One of the best explanations of the meaning of Christ's
miracles, and His exposition of the relation of sin and
suffering, is to be found in the story of the palsied man,
who was brought and laid at Jesus' feet. Jesus said to
him: "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee."
The Scribes were of the opinion that He blasphemed in
claiming to forgive sins, which was a divine prerogative.
The palsied man still lay sick on his bed before Him.
Jesus turned to the Pharisees and asked whether it were
easier to say, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," or to say,
"Arise and walk." Then He turned to the palsied man
and said: "Arise, take up thy bed and go unto thine
house." Then the palsied man was healed, and arose

124 Modern Christianity
and departed to his house. This miracle, treating as
it does the healing of physical infirmity as a necessary
result of the forgiveness of sin, so that it is all one
whether the Saviour say, "Thy sins be forgiven thee,"
or "Arise and walk," does then distinctly set before
us the fact that suffering is the result of sin.
We must not, however, leap to the conclusion that it
was the man's own sin, or even the sin of his parents for
which he was suffering, as Jesus taught upon another
occasion. Suffering is the result of sin in the world, but
the sufferings of an individual are not necessarily the
punishment of that individual, or of any individuals
whom we can determine. If we can remove sin from the
world we shall remove suffering. This thought appears
in the visions of the old prophets, when they told of
Messiah's kingdom. In that kingdom all should be love,
the lion and the lamb lying down together, the bear
giving up his violence and eating hay like an ox, the
little child playing unharmed with venomous serpents,
none hurting or destroying in all the holy mount. The
miracles of Jesus are parables of the way mankind shall
reach that paradise, — by putting away sin. It is not
that forgiveness of sins means for us as individuals
that we shall not suffer here on earth physical ills. For
us as individuals the removal of these ills belongs to the
hereafter. But for the race man the removal of igno
rance and sin means the attainment of perfection, the
removal of suffering and sorrow. The miracle of the
healing of the palsied man, whose restoration to physi
cal health followed the removal of his sins, is a parable
of the result to mankind of this removal of sin,
But Jesus distinctly states that He healed the palsied

Forgiveness of Sins 125
man, after removing his sins, as a proof that the Son of
man hath power on earth to forgive sins. He did it,
that is, in His capacity, not of Son of God, but of Son of
man. He did it by virtue of that nature which He
shared with us, and in order to show us what we also
may do.
We have retained an ancient rite in the Church by
which all members are ordained priests of God. The
Bishop, in confirmation, by laying on of hands, ordains
each child of the Church a priest of God, whose duty
and privilege it is to forgive sins, even as Christ, our
great high-priest, forgave sins. Every time you and I
forgive sins we are following the example of our Master
and exemplar, Jesus the Christ; we are removing some
sorrow and suffering from the world. We may not say
to a palsied man " Arise and walk " ; but if we will say in
word and deed to any who have wronged us, "Thy sins
be forgiven thee," we are helping to heal of its sickness
mankind, palsied with sorrow, and toil, and pain. Each
sin against yourself which you forgive is pain and misery
removed from some one that comes after you. Each sin
to which you refuse forgiveness is more misery for those
that follow, if not for ourselves. Jesus the Christ re
vealed to man the deeds of His Father; so, also, we,
when we forgive, reveal to men our Father in heaven,
the God of love and mercy. As Jesus by His miracles of
sin forgiven and sickness healed showed forth God unto
men, so that they knew Him, and came to Him and
were saved; so we, when we forgive sins, show forth
God unto men, and bring them to a knowledge of Him
that they may be saved.
And one word more. We who accuse others of sin

126 Modern Christianity
are ourselves sinful. As we would be forgiven, so must
we forgive. On this condition we have free forgiveness
from Him against whom we have sinned. God sent His
Son, Jesus Christ, to live and die for us, and by this life
and death to breathe into the world the principle of love,
that charity which is better than all gifts, which abideth
still in heaven when all else has passed away. The ex
ample of His great mercy and goodness, of His love and
forgiveness, are meant to win us to the endeavour to live
a life like His, setting love above all things, renouncing
ourselves and our selfishness, forgetting our own rights
and wrongs, and forgiving and forgetting as we hope
that our sins may be forgiven and forgotten. Who
strives to lead this life, he it is whose sins are completely
and for ever washed away in the blood of the Lamb.

RITES AND SACRAMENTS
Acts viii., r 7 : Then laid they their hands on them, and
they received the Holy Ghost.
THE value of right forms and of right doctrines must
not be minimised. They have their place, and
that a place of great value in the Christian life. But it
must always be recognised that forms and doctrines are
the means by which we seek to attain something else, and
that something else is character. When we say that we
preach Christ and Him crucified, we mean that we hold
up the doctrines of Jesus' life to men as the life which
they should live; His sacrifice as the ideal toward which
we strive, the readiness to sacrifice ourselves for the
good of the world, for the uplift of those about us. We
are all agreed that if we were on a sinking ship, our part,
the manly part, the noble part, would be not to seek to
save ourselves, but first of all to endeavour to save the
weakest on that ship, the children and the women, sacri
ficing, if need be, our lives in the effort. Even if we
should not, when tested, live up to that ideal, it is,
nevertheless, our ideal of the life that is worth living.
It were better to give up one's life in such a case, thereby
saving others, or even only trying to save others, than
to save ourselves and let them perish, for the life thus
saved would not be worth having. Precisely that ideal
127

128 Modern Christianity
Christ holds up to us for our daily life. In that
spirit He lived among men and died ; and we say that
that is the noble life, the life worth living, which, in all
its acts, not merely in one great crisis, but day by day, is
lived with that principle, that idea. That happiness is
not worth having which is won for one's self at the ex
pense of the misery and suffering of others; nor the
health, the wealth, the opportunities which are achieved
for one's self, forgetful of the poverty of others, regard
less of the sufferings of others, without an effort to
make our opportunity the opportunity of others.
To the despondent, to the fallen we preach Christ
and Him crucified, as a manifestation of the infinite
love and pity of God ; that God so loved precisely those
who are weak, who cannot stand upright, who mourn
and are distressed, that He gave His Son for them. He
has poured out His own life blood, as it were, in sym
pathy with their sufferings, to save and bring them to
Himself. We preach to them salvation in Christ, be
cause Christ is the exhibition of the infinite love of God,
the outstretching of the arms of a Heavenly Father, the
yearning of a heart more tender even than a mother's
for its offspring.
But while the great effort of Christianity is thus to
form character, to uplift and upbuild the weak and ig
norant, to inspire all alike with the divine spirit of love,
the spirit of service and of sacrifice, it should also be
recognised that for the very purpose of achieving these
results there must be some sort of organisation, some
sort of belief, some sort of forms by which Christian men
are bound together and by which they may express
themselves to themselves and to one another. The form,

Rites and Sacraments 129
then, while not the essential thing, becomes a thing of
great importance; and so it was that from the outset the
Christian Church adopted certain forms which became
both the marks to distinguish and the bonds to unite
Christians. The entrance of the Christian into the
Christian life was effected outwardly through Baptism.
The particular symbol chosen was the symbol of cleans
ing, of refreshment and of new life. As the weary trav
eller on those dusty sun-beaten roads of the East
reaches the rare stream and, plunging beneath its waters,
washes off the stains of travel and finds refreshment
in its cooling flood, emerging new-born, clean, fresh,
with renewed strength and courage; so the Christian was
dipped in the waters of Baptism to symbolise and, in a
manner, to effect the putting off the stains and sins of
the life that had been, dying to which he was to rise
again, fresh and strong, bom into a new life, the life of
Christ. To the early Christian, living in a world corrupt,
bestial, and selfish, Baptism, the sign of the acceptance
of the life of Christ, meant in a very peculiar sense sal
vation. The division between the world and the
Christian was a division in the whole aim and con
ception of life, a division between the life of sense
and the life of spirit; and every one who accepted
the higher spiritual idea of the life to be lived, of
the character to be sought, of necessity entered the
Christian Church and was baptised — baptised at the
risk of death, of social ostracism, of financial rain, of
domestic unhappiness, of continued petty annoyance
and persecution his life through. Baptism meant, in
very truth, to take up the cross of Christ, to live a life

130 Modern Christianity
of sacrifice; and so it was that the Christian Church em
phasised the distinction between the Christian and the
world in that assertion, with which we are all familiar,
of the damnation of him who is not baptised. It is an
expression of the trath that salvation lies only in the
development of a character patterned after the charac
ter of God, in the development of the divine life in the
man, in the aspiration after a divine ideal of love and
sacrifice. The outward and the inward were so con
nected in fact in those early days that that might liter
ally be said which, when said to-day, gives us a shock,
because to-day we find, outside of the pale of the Christ
ian Church, many men living a Christlike life.
Another sacrament there was which, in its outward
form, appealed to and explained itself to every man of the
olden time, Jew and heathen alike — the Sacrament of
the Eucharist, the Holy Communion. While Baptism
was the sacrament of initiation, the birth once for all
into the Church of Christ and the life of Christ, the
Eucharist, the Holy Communion, was a constantly re
curring sacrament; the recognition of the need in spirit
ual life of precisely that which we find necessary in the
bodily life, a continual strengthening and refreshing.
Following the old sacrificial rites and customs in use
among all nations from, one might almost say, the be
ginning of the world, the daily food of man was taken
as the sacrificial element. In and by that which he
used constantly, by a special consecration of it for a
special purpose, he was to receive divine life, to become
a sharer in that life which even the rudest men have
recognised as existing, yes, and existing within them
selves, so that they have counted themselves asjn some

Rites and Sacraments 131
way of kin to God. He was to receive God and feast
with God and in that feast to be united in a special bond
of brotherhood with those who partook of the divine
food with him. First the initiation, then the constantly
recurring brotherhood feast, asserting and effecting a
firm tie of communion of Christians one with another,
and an individual and a common participation in the
divine life, for the continual strengthening and refresh
ing of that divine element which we recognise as at least
latent in ourselves, and by which we are akin to God
our Father.
It is very simple, and the democracy of it is both very
beautiful and very uplifting. A simplicity and democ
racy which choose every-day things, which all may take
and have, and in doing so sanctify the every-day life, the
every-day actions of man, giving to his daily life and
his daily needs a spiritual significance and symbolism.
Connected with that Holy Communion, by its very re
lation to the death of Jesus, was also a further sacrificial
thought, which, as I have said, is fundamental in Chris
tianity — the conception of service and self-sacrifice.
However the outward form of this sacrament has been
changed, whatever alien element may have crept in at
any place or any time among its rites and its doctrines,
the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ does
inevitably hold up to men as the very centre of the
Christian faith and the Christian life the sacrifice of
Christ, and therefore has been a moulding power in the
life and character of Christians through all the ages and
must continue to be so. For the control of our lives, the
formation of our characters, we depend not merely on
pure reason ; we are affected by what we see and feel and

132 Modern Christianity
hear, by our imaginations and our emotions, by our
environment, by our acts and our customs. The sense
life is an essential part of our being and this sacrament
has, I will venture to say, by its constant visible, and,
as it were, tangible testimony to the meaning of Chris
tianity, been vastly more powerful in the formation
of Christian character and the development of Christian
civilisation than all the sermons that the best preachers
have ever preached.
Other rites and ceremonies have been regarded more
or less in the Christian Church as having sacramental
value (Roman Catholics, for example, speak of seven
sacraments) ; but, whatever value these other rites and
ceremonies may have, the Christian Church as a whole
has never placed them on the same footing as these two
sacraments, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, which
were instituted by our Master himself.
From the outset in the Christian Church, as a neces
sary corollary to the belief in the solidarity of parent
and child and the responsibility of parent for child, the
children of believers were baptised. In all common sense
it should be so. The greatest influence on the life of a
child is the life and belief of its parents. Under normal
conditions the child accepts what the parent accepts,
and if the parent's conception of life be the Christian
conception of a life of service and sacrifice, the child is as
likely to inherit that from the parent as it is to inherit
the parent's peculiarities of form and figure, of colouring
and of temperament; and by inheritance I mean here
not only that which comes with parentage proper, but
that which comes with the rearing of the child by the
parents, the association, the environment of the family

Rites and Sacraments 133
and home life. It was, therefore, simply common sense
that the parent who had brought a child into the world
should conceive that it was his duty to bring that child
into the Church and present it for baptism as a Christian,
with no more question as to its religious than he would
have as to its physical parentage. But because children
were thus admitted into the Church, there came also the
necessity of providing some means by which the child,
arrived at years of discretion, should itself make profes
sion of its aim in life, consecrating itself to the Christian
service. I have chosen for my text a passage which may show
you how early in the Christian Church the rite of Con
firmation was practised. Here we are told of the confir
mation by the Apostles of those who had already been
baptised at Samaria by others. Those who had been
baptised and brought, into the Christian Church were
adults. They had been baptised by what you may call
local ministers. The heads of the Church from Jerusa
lem were then sent for, a recognition, you will observe,
of the solidarity of the Church, of a great Christian
organisation. These heads of the Church, the Apostles,
laid their hands upon the heads of these newly baptised
persons and prayed to God that He would give them
His Holy Spirit. They set them apart from the world
as consecrated to the service of Christ, and prayed
that they might be indued with the Spirit of God to
strengthen them in that service. This laying on of
hands was an ancient custom in religious life. It was
the means by which, in Jewish use, persons were set
apart for some special service or ministry. The Christ
ians took over the custom. They laid their hands

134 Modern Christianity
on the head of him who was to be consecrated for
any given work and prayed God that His Holy Spirit
might be given to this, His servant, to enable him to
do that work faithfully and with power. When they
sent out missionaries, as, for example, Paul and
Barnabas, they laid their hands on their heads and
consecrated them for their mission work. When they
introduced in the early Church deacons to minister and
to serve among the needy, they laid their hands on the
heads of those who were thus to serve, and prayed to
God to give them His Holy Spirit to enable them faith
fully and effectively to perform their work.
And the same plan was pursued with the Church at
large. In the conception of the Christian Church every
member is a priest, in the sense in which Jesus Christ
was a priest. It is his part to offer a sacrifice, and that
sacrifice is himself. In our own Church, when we come
to receive the Communion we say: "Here we offer unto
Thee ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable,
holy, and living sacrifice unto Thee." The laying on of
hands meant the consecration of each Christian believer
into that universal priesthood of the Church. He who
was baptised in infancy, bom into, initiated into the
Christian Church, at the age of discretion came and
openly made his confession of his faith, his declaration
of his intention to try to live the life of Christ, and then
the hands of one of the heads of the Church, an apostle
or a bishop, were laid upon his head to consecrate him
to that service.
That is what Confirmation means. In present condi
tions there are numerous Christian bodies — the greater
part of the Protestant churches about us— who have not

Rites and Sacraments 135
retained this ancient rite of Confirmation. A part of it
they have in some cases retained, the individual side,
the declaration of his faith openly before the congre
gation by him who had been baptised as an infant.
They have not retained that part of the ceremony which
indicates the consecration of the individual by the
Church at large, the whole Body of Christ through its
representative or head, the Bishop, thus binding all to
gether in one great organisation. But inasmuch as we
count Baptism and the Supper of the Lord as standing
on a different footing from all other rites and ordinances
in the Christian Church, and inasmuch as these are ac
cepted and used in their entirety by these Protestant
churches, it is not our practice to insist upon the Con
firmation of those who have already by profession be
come communicants in other Christian churches. In
this we are Catholic. We recognise the great communion
of Christian believers in Christ, and however much we
value those ancient rites which have come down to us
from the earliest days of the Church, we will not let
them stand before those things which the Church of
all times has counted the nearest approach to essen
tials that any forms can be — namely, the sacraments
of Baptism and Holy Communion. Hence we receive
gladly as communicants all members of the Church,
all baptised persons who come to us as communicants
from other religious organisations; but to those who
grow up as children in the Church, or who come to
us not having already made profession of their faith
and become communicants elsewhere Confirmation is
the door of entrance to the full privileges and the full
duties of the Christian.

136 Modern Christianity
It is, as I have set forth, an ancient, a very ancient
rite, practised by the Apostles. It is the declaration of
the personal acceptance by the Christian of his obliga
tion as a Christian to try to live the life of Christ, to ac
cept as the ideal of his life the life of service and sacrifice.
It is also a recognition of his own weakness and his need
of divine strength to do this. Confirmation is further
a recognition of the fact that no man may live his life to
himself; that there is a great community of which he
is but a part, of which even the parish in which he makes
his profession of faith is but a part; so that for the pur
pose of Confirmation it is not the priest of the parish
but the Bishop of the Church who is called upon to lay
his hands upon the head of the person to be confirmed.
There is thus a recognition of a work which must be
done by the body of Christians as a whole, in which the
individual must subject his personal ideas and fancies
to the will and wishes and needs of others. He is taught
that his religion is not merely an individual but also a
social obligation.

PRIESTS AND PROPHETS
Isaiah Ixi., i, 2: The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me;
because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings
unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken
hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening
of the prison to them that are bound ; to proclaim the ac
ceptable year of the Lord.
THE second portion of the Book of Isaiah contains
the gospel of life and salvation to a nation sick of
sin, enslaved, heart-broken. The first fifteen chapters
are a carol of glad tidings, a promise of release, a proph
ecy of the joy and gladness which God has prepared for
the people whom He has redeemed. Cyrus had over
thrown the power of Babylon and set its captives
free. But, after all, not many of them went back to Jeru
salem, and those who did found the greater part of the
land which had belonged to their fathers occupied by
the Edomites, the rest largely a wilderness, the ancient
cities rain heaps, Jerusalem a desolation. The prosper
ity which they had expected did not come. There was
no great interference of God, so far as they could see, to
bring back the captives from the ends of the world; and
among the Edomites and Ammonites, the Arabians and
Samaritans they were but a poor and puny folk. To
these men, and from them to Israel everywhere and to
137

138 Modern Christianity
the world at large, were spoken the last eleven chapters
of our book of Isaiah. The writer of the passage which
I have taken as my text speaks these words of hope out
of and for that poor, insignificant folk which had settled
itself in the ruins of ancient Judah after the exile:
"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me"; and this is
the proof that it is the Spirit of the Lord, because my
message is good tidings to the poor, the weak, the miser
able, because I am sent to bind up broken hearts, to
preach liberty to those that are enslaved, the opening
of the prison doors " to them that are bound ; to pro
claim the acceptable year of the Lord."
When Jesus, returning to his home-town, Nazareth,
was called upon by the rulers of the synagogue to con
duct the services, He made these words, a part of the
second lesson for that day, the text of His sermon, say
ing to His hearers and fellow townsmen: "This day is
this scripture fulfilled in your ears." He adopted this
passage as a proclamation of His own mission.
The condition of the Jews in His day was very differ
ent from their condition at the time when the old proph
et wrote this passage. Galilee was rich and densely
settled, as it had never been before nor has been since.
Jerusalem and Judaea flourished, so far as material
wealth was concerned, beyond the fondest dreams of
former generations. The Jews throughout the world
were, on the whole, rich and prosperous. They were the
money power in the Roman Empire and in the Parthian
Empire alike. In general they enjoyed religious freedom,
and in Judasa and Galilee the government, so far as they
themselves were concerned, was practically in their own
hands. Only they did not have political independence

Priests and Prophets 139
to establish a theocratic kingdom, and this they expected
the Messiah to bring.
Jesus, who claimed to be that Messiah, takes as the
expression of His mission these words, preached in and
for this people when it was down-trodden, broken
hearted, enslaved. He makes no apparent effort to
free them from their foreign overlords. He applies these
words no longer to the Jew oppressed and enslaved by
the outside heathen, but to the poor Jew, down-trodden
and practically enslaved by his richer fellow Jews.
Prosperous and well-to-do as the bulk of the nation was,
there were among them only too many poor and needy,
sick in body and sorrowing in soul. The very prosperity
of the prosperous had been the means of practically en
slaving and oppressing a large part of the community
which did not share the opulence and the comfort of the
privileged and dominant classes. Their religion, also,
had become a class religion and a law religion, concern
ing itself primarily not with the weightier matter of love
of their neighbours, but with the fulfilment of minute
details of ritual and the correct expression of doctrine.
Jesus became the friend and Saviour of all who were
poor, down-trodden, or in any need among His people.
His was a mission of love to the captives of society, to
the broken-hearted who had found no joy but only mis
ery in life, to the forgotten wretches who toiled in the
prison houses of their huts and shops for the barest and
most miserable subsistence, without freedom and with
out happiness. He preached good tidings to the unsuc
cessful, the unfortunate, the miserable, good tidings of
hope and salvation, "the acceptable year of the Lord."
He lived in and for these people, giving himself for them,

140 Modern Christianity
suffering with their sufferings, sorrowing with their sor
rows, poor in their poverty, seeking to heal them in soul
and mind and body by the out-pouring of a divine love.
In preaching this gospel and living this life, He came in
to conflict with the orthodoxy of the religion of His day
and the respectability of its society. His church and
His people put Him to death as a revolutionist, as one
who, in their judgment, threatened the very founda
tions of religion and society. To them He seemed to
aim at the destruction of the social order and the per
version of the ancestral faith. In fact He strove to con
struct a society which should realise that idea of the
kingdom of God proclaimed by the prophet of old, where
there should be no broken-hearted, no prisoners, no
slaves, none poor, wretched, and down-trodden. This
was his conception of the acceptable year of the Lord,
which could be realised only as men substituted in their
dealings with one another love for law, service to the
needs of others for exploitation of those needs for their
own profit.
The Christian Church and especially the Christian
ministry must proclaim the same message to the men
of to-day. So surely as there is an anointing of the
Spirit of the Lord God, it is an anointing for this same
purpose: to heal the sick, to free the captives, to loose
them that are bound, — to protest against those condi
tions of life, too often sanctioned by usage or religion,
which produce this enslavement and this misery. The
mission of the Church is not to those who have, who are
prosperous, content, self-satisfied with their faith and
with their works alike, except insofar as it addresses to
them words of warning; as it bids them, in the words

Priests and Prophets 141
of Christ, to sell all they have and give it to the poor.
The mission of the Church and its ministry is a message
of glad tidings to those who have not,— to those who
have failed in the struggle of life, who are unfortunate,
wretched, sinful— to seek to make them sharers in the
joy and the happiness of life.
When the Christian Church started, it was in its gen
eral conditions like the Jewish state to which the old
prophet first addressed the words of my text. There
were in it none but the poor and the broken-hearted and
the captives and the bondmen. In Ephesus, in Corinth,
in Rome it was the religion of the slaves and the freed
men, of the widows and the poor artisans. It was the
religion of the slums and of the work shops. And the
one principle of this religion was love, — love toward God
displayed in loving-kindness toward their fellow-men.
It was the need of each appealing to the other, calling
forth the best and highest in their natures, that en
nobled and lifted up these poor, ignorant men until the
glory of their lives filled the world with wonder. Then
the higher circles of society were touched; and at last
the state itself became Christian, — and then something
happened like that which had happened among the Jews.
Religion began to crystallise into form and dogma.
The religion of a man came to be accounted of, not by
the evidence in his words and acts of the Spirit of God
dwelling in him, and inspiring him to live the life of
Christ, but by his professions of belief and his methods
of worship. The Church built splendid temples and de
veloped a gorgeous ritual, its bishops became princes
and its monks wrote theological treatises on the nature
and attributes of the angels.

142 Modern Christianity
But through all the history of the Church, wherever
men have been touched with the spirit of divine love,
wherever they have sought in literal fact to live the
life of Christ, wherever their hearts have throbbed in
sympathy with the poor and the broken-hearted and
the captive and the bondmen, there you will find a
certain rebellion against these forms and these expres
sions of doctrine.
Mission work is apt to be wonderfully broadening in
its influence upon the man who undertakes it. I have
often told, because it was tome so rich in meaning, my
experience with a certain Roman Catholic missionary
at Madeba beyond Jordan. A man of intense zeal for
the Master, a man of most self-sacrificing devotion to
the Church of Christ; well-to-do in this world's goods
he sold all he had and gave it to the poor. For a time
he conceived that he could best serve God in that most
ascetic of all monastic service in the Roman Church, the
service of the Trappist monks. But this did not satisfy
him. At last he went out as a missionary. When I first
met him he had done great things among the wild Arabs,
with whom he lived entirely alone, only seeing a white face
once or twice in a year, as some curious traveller reached
those outlying regions. That I might not interfere with
his work by exhibiting to the people for whom he la
boured the divisions in Christianity, I asked whether and
how I might be partaker in the Mass. He threw his arms
about my neck and told me that, however differences of
doctrine and practice might separate us at home, there,
in the face of the misery and need, the ignorance and
degradation of that heathenism, he knew no difference
between us who professed the name of Christ and His

Priests and Prophets 143
love. He counted himself and me as true brothers and
fellow-workers in Christ. The man who has entered
into a real communion with Christ in his service to men
must have in him something of that spirit which enabled
Jesus to share with His people in religious ceremonies
and religious expressions which seem to you and me to
day so strangely alien to His own teaching. He was
circumcised, He was obedient to the Law, as the re
ligion of His people, He joined in the bloody sacrifices
of the temple, He used formulas and prayers which seem
to us to-day redolent of strange and foolish supersti
tions, because He entered into the real spirit which lay
behind it all. He was one in spirit with him whosoever
sought to serve God, and He was one in spirit with him
whosoever had need of the love and the help of God.
Doctrines and ceremonies are not to be minimised.
They have their place and their use; but they are value
less and worse than valueless unless the man who uses
them feels through them and behind them the Spirit of
God and His love.
There are three parts in religion. First, there is the part
of authority: you accept practices and professions of
faith because they are taught you by those whom you
respect and reverence, because they are laid down by
the Church; but so long as your religion remains on that
plane and that plane only, its value is not great. Sec
ondly, there is the part of reason: that which has been
accepted on authority is questioned and examined and
the effort is made to apply to it the tests of reason. It
is good for men to do this, even though at times it re
sults in the abandonment of that which has been ac
cepted on authority; but indeed no authority which is

144 Modern Christianity
not in some way in tact with the reason of man can in
the long run sustain its position. This questioning of
authority by reason is, of course, more prevalent among
the educated and the thoughtful. The thinking man,
and especially the man who is thinking of preaching the
Gospel, is apt to come to a stage where his thinking
clashes or seems to clash with the doctrines of the Church,
as they have come to him through authority. It is good
for a man to come to this stage and to have to think the
thing out. It is bad for a man, when he comes to this
stage, if he have not previously acquired some of that
spirit of obedience, that spirit of un-egotism, if I may
so speak, which, with all due confidence in itself, yet
respects and regards the experience and the opinion of
others. But there is also a third part in religion. The mental
processes will never give satisfactory results unless a
man enter also into a spiritual experience, unless he be
anointed with the Spirit of God. There is a soul sense
in us which is not mind. It is that by which I know
you and you know me. No reasoning gives me your
love or gives you my love, no reasoning shows me your
soul or shows you my soul. There is a something else
by which soul speaks to soul, and there is something be
yond reason by which man enters into a genuine relation
with God, feels the presence of God, accepts the law of
love as the law of his life. That spiritual something does
not supplant reason, it does not supplant authority.
Authority has its place, reason has its place. But be
hind and above these is the Spirit, which makes religion
a new and different thing, higher, deeper, broader. No
one can truly preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ until

Priests and Prophets 145
he has entered into that spiritual union with God, and
been anointed with the Spirit of love to preach good
tidings to the poor.
Now there have been ages when the Church as a body
has seemed to be lacking in this anointing of the Spirit,
and, because it was lacking in it, therefore it sought to
hedge around its faith. It was timid and fearful lest
men should not believe. It built up great fences of con
fessions of faith and articles of belief and exacted of men
oaths of allegiance to all the doctrines contained in these
things. And in doing so it got very far away from the
spirit of Jesus Christ and the spirit and the creeds of
the early Church. So, in a somewhat similar manner,
as it lost the personal sense of the divine presence, it
attempted to represent that presence by ever greater
pomp of forms. Forms there must be, creeds there
must be, so long as we are materialised in these outward
bodies; for we must communicate with one another.
We must find some form of words to express our com
mon thought, certain outward acts must symbolise for
all alike the inward and spiritual truth. You will re
member that when, at the very beginning of the Church's
organisation, Philip baptised the eunuch, there was
what you may call a catechism and a creed. Philip was
willing to baptise the eunuch if he believed with all his
heart. This catechism of Philip the eunuch satisfied by
his expression of faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
The real faith of the Christian is, after all, a very simple
one, and it is to be guarded not so much by the develop
ment of complex forms of words as by demanding
an expression of that faith in character and life. The
heresies which the Church has to fear are rather heresies

146 Modern Christianity
of life than heresies of doctrine,— the heresies of selfish
ness, and worldhness, and unspirituality.
When a man feels upon him the anointing of the Spirit
of God, and his heart bums with love for those who
are poor and sick and enslaved, — it is not that he wants
to cast away creeds, but behind them he sees and feels
the greater something which they symbolise. He sees
Jesus Christ, the expression of God in man. The Incar
nation thrills and throbs with a new meaning; he has
found the divine in man, he has found it in these poor,
wretched failures of men, and it has revealed to him
glorious possibilities for them also. He feels the touch
of kinship with them. In proportion as a man says the
Creed with this deeper faith is he apt to be more tolerant
of the difference of views of other men with regard
to the words of that Creed. The thing behind has be
come so great, so wonderful, the spiritual life has be
come so real that the outward and material loses part of
its value. Now this may of course be carried too far.
It may develop into anti-nomianism, but in general the
difficulty of the Church has been not anti-nomianism
but over-strictness of doctrinal interpretation.
Of these things I have spoken because, in the opinion
of some, there is a mental and spiritual crisis in the
Church at the present time. I think they are mistaken.
There is, I believe, a spiritual awakening in the Church,
and every spiritual awakening will show itself in what
seem like revolutionary and even destructive move
ments. Just as Jesus seemed to the Jews of His own
time a menace to Church and State, so any spiritual
movement in its degree is apt to seem to the established
authorities of Church and State revolutionary and de-

Priests and Prophets 147
structive. It is not possible for the ordinary man, in a
period of mental or spiritual movement, to foresee pre
cisely the outcome of that movement. But you and I,
who believe in God, have no right ever to be timid or
fearful about the outcome of any movement. That is
the part of the unbeliever, not of the believer. So far
as the experience of men goes, and so far as the personal
experience which I have made in my own life goes, the
results of all movements which seek to give expression
to reason or the spirit are in the end constructive, how
ever mistaken their formulae and their shibboleths may
be. They do not subvert, but only enlarge and deepen
the faith. Often-times such movements, themselves
heretical doctrinally, bring out the inward truth which
the Church has tended to lose or obscure by devoting
itself too exclusively to the outward expression.
Remember always that the fundamental thing is the
life, the character. The test of the reality of the belief
of the Church, as of the individual, lies in that. The
presence or absence of the Spirit of God in the Church
is indicated by the fulfilment or lack of fulfilment of its
mission — " to preach good tidings unto the poor; * * * to
bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the
captives, and the opening of the prison to them that
are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the
Lord." We have three orders in the ministry of our Church
—Deacons, Priests, and Bishops. If you will stop a
moment to consider the origin and the function of dea
cons and priests you will observe that they are symbolic
of the attitude of the whole Church. The word Deacon
means service. The Church found itself at the very

148 Modern Christianity
outset compelled to serve not alone the souls of men,
but their bodies also, and when murmurings arose
because the Apostles did not perform this function satis
factorily, the Apostles reserved for themselves the dia-
conate or ministry of the word, and assigned to seven
men set apart for that purpose the diaconate or ministry
of alms, the care for the bodily needs. The same word
is used in the Greek for both services, but the name
Deacon was applied only to those who were set apart
to service for the bodily needs. (In point of fact it is
impracticable to keep the bodily and the spiritual needs
so dissociated, and within a very short time you find the
men who were set apart to serve as deacons for the ad
ministration of alms engaged also in that other diaco
nate, the spiritual service or ministry.) Now, in setting
aside those deacons for a diaconate or service, the
Church was merely recognising its own obligation of
service. No Christian man is free from that obligation
of ministry, of diaconate, in his own person to those who
have need ; but for the organised Christian body there
is necessity further of representatives who shall take the
charge of that service in its larger aspects for the com
munity as a whole. The Diaconate, therefore, is sym
bolic of the obligation of the Church to proclaim by
deeds of love and mercy good tidings to the poor and
needy. Similarly, the Priesthood is symbolic. As the Church
is the body of Christ, so it must express Him in the
world. Like Him it must sacrifice, and the sacrifice
which it must make is the sacrifice of itself. And as sac
rifice is the function of the Church, which is the body of
Christ, so it is the function of each individual member

Priests and Prophets 149
of that Church to offer himself, his soul and body as "a
reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice." As the Son of God
came down from heaven and was incarnate in man that
He might save man, so each follower of Christ must
descend, as it were, from the heaven of his own success,
his own prosperity, his own comfort, and enter into the
need and the suffering and the misery of those who have
not, of those who have failed, of those who are discon
tented, of those who are sick in body and in soul, that
he may save them. He who, having talent, having place,
having knowledge, having success, having prosperity,
having comfort, conceives of it as a thing in which he
may rest content, has failed to grasp the foundation prin
ciple of Christianity. He does not know Jesus Christ.
This conception of sacrifice the Church holds continu
ally before its members in that service which you may
call the Mysteries of Christianity, the service of the
Holy Communion. So holy and peculiar does it count
this service that it allows only those especially prepared
and trained, whose characters have undergone the
closest scrutiny, to administer those mysteries. These
men are in a special sense its priests, who represent
in this service the congregation, and whose offering of
the sacrifice of Christ is symbolic of the .offering of
itself in service and sacrifice by the Church. But these
men are priests in the truest sense, not because they ad
minister those outward emblems of infinite love, but
because they enter into such a union with Christ that
they join with Him in His sacrifice; and that also is
symbolic of the Church.
But our priesthood has also another function. The
earliest function of the Jewish priesthood was the

150 Modern Christianity
interpretation of the oracles of God, rather than the
offering of sacrifice. At a later date this function was
left largely to the prophets, and the priests became
almost exclusively sacrifices for the people. Jesus
united the two functions of the ancient priesthood
once more in His own person as priest and prophet,
and His followers in the official ministry of the Church,
the priesthood of the Christian Church, are expected
to do the same. It is their function to interpret the
oracles of God.
There has been too often in the past a so-called con
flict between science and the Church, which, so far as
the Church was concerned, arose from the fact that
some priests were not progressive, open-minded, eager
to learn more about God as He reveals Himself in His
universe. Going back over the ages that are past, one
is reminded of the opposition which Galileo met with,
the treatment of the Copernican theory, and, in more
recent times, the outcry against Darwin and the theory
of evolution.
It is not possible for every priest of the Church to be
familiar with all fields of science, if with any. Some
priests may find time to devote themselves as a mental
recreation to the study of some branch of science, but
whether they do so or not it does lie within the province
of the priesthood to learn from specialists in scientific
study the results of their work, and to breathe into those
results that spiritual something which it is the peculiar
province of the priesthood to give to all knowledge.
Indeed, that is our work in interpreting the oracles of
God, not that in the field of science we should be the
explorers, but that, receiving the approved truths of

Priests and Prophets 151
science, we should invest them with spiritual signifi
cance, making them live in the realm of God.
Now and then you hear it said that science is God
less, that science takes men away from God. In the
long run science brings men to God. The great difficulty
has been that misguided men, speaking with some show
of authority in the name of God, have at various times
opposed the study of science, or condemned the scien
tists for their results, as though they were responsible for
the truths which they discovered. The position which a
priest should take, as interpreter of the oracles of God,
is that truth is divine, unfettered, unhampered. Men
must be urged to search for it. All truth is of God and
all truth is one truth. Whoever seeks and finds truth
has found and revealed to man something more of God.
The scientific discoverer of truth sometimes so pre
sents that trath that it seems to be antagonistic to faith.
It is here that the priest must especially be the inter
preter of the oracles of God; he must take that truth
and put it in its proper place in connection with the faith.
It is his duty to lead his people on, to expound the new
discoveries that are made as new revelations of God ; to
find in them applications of the great principles of God's
love, and mercy, and justice, and truth; and to show
men that these new things are not contrary to God, but
a further revelation of God to man in accordance with
the eternal principles of our faith.
We shall make our faith a false faith if we do not so
believe and practise. Timidity, dread of the discoveries
of science, uneasiness in view of the search after truth,
of God's law in nature, is an evidence of a certain lack of
faith, a certain fear that in some way or another the

1 52 Modern Christianity
things which we hold may not be true. The priest who
has such timidity is hampered in the most dangerous
way in interpreting God to man. He is hampered by
lack of faith, lack of faith in the eternal truth, of faith in
the unchangeable God who cannot contradict Himself,
who cannot reveal one truth at one time and another
at another, of faith in the infinite God, who is all in all.

FREE CHURCH
Deuteronomy xvi., 16, r;: They shall not appear before
the Lord empty; Every man shall give as he is able, according
to the blessing of the Lord thy God which he hath given
thee. THESE words occur in the prescriptions of the
Book of Deuteronomy with reference to the three
great pilgrim feasts of the Jewish year, at which
all Jews were ordered to visit the Temple at Jerusalem.
No one was to appear before the great King of Israel
empty. As it was the custom of men in coming before
earthly*kings to present gifts, so, when they came be
fore the King of kings, they were to present gifts, each
according to his ability, according to the blessing which
God had given him.
Now, our theory of the relation of man to God is that
there is no distinction of persons. God accepts rich and
poor alike. The small gift of the poor man, if only it be
honestly given, according to his ability, is as acceptable
to Him as the manifold greater gift of the rich man.
What God considers is not the gift, but its meaning to
the man who makes it. He to whom belong the cattle
upon a thousand hills needs no offerings of bulls and
goats; what He wishes is the offering of the heart of the
offerer. A true gift of love, which involves sacrifice, al
though utterly insignificant in intrinsic value, is vastly
153

154 Modern Christianity
more precious in the sight of God than the gift of
thousands of dollars which involves no sacrifice, no fore
thought, no care and concern of love. Our Lord empha
sised this most emphatically when His disciples called
His attention to the beauty and magnificence of the
Temple at Jerusalem, as something particularly accept
able to God, because it represented so much money,
by pointing out a poor widow woman who was casting
a couple of farthings into the treasury of the Temple,
and declaring that her gift was more precious in the
sight of God than the millions given by rich men and
women to adorn and beautify the Temple and make
glad its service, because it was her all, theirs but a
small part of their all.
The same theory which we hold in regard to the rela
tion between God and men in the matter of gifts, we
hold also as to the relation of man to man in the King
dom of God and the House of God. We declare that
in the Kingdom of God factitious distinctions of wealth
and rank do not exist, that what God considers is the
man, so that in His Kingdom men hold their rank ac
cording to their spiritual character, the humble and low
ly receiving the places of distinction, and the haughty
and self-consequent the lowly places, if indeed any place
at all be allotted them. The House of God we seek to
make so far like the Kingdom of God, that while we do
not undertake to pass judgment — which belongs only to
God — upon the relative rank and worth of worshippers,
we nevertheless refuse to admit worldly distinctions
there. We claim that worldly position should have no
weight whatsoever in Church arrangements. But from
the earliest time there has been difficulty in carrying

Free Church 1 55
this theory into practice. The writer of the Epistle of
James complains that in his day, at the very beginnings
of the Church, men allowed their spiritual ideas to be
come confused with their material customs, so that even
in the House of God they would lead the man of means,
who wore the handsome robe and the costly ring, and
from whom great contributions might be expected, to
the place of honour, while the man shabbily dressed, and
presumably with empty purse, was placed in an inferior
position, far removed from what we should call the
chancel end of the church. The Christians of those
days were, almost without exception, poor, and it was
difficult for them to avoid being dazzled by wealth and
rank. You will find the same conditions prevailing to-day,
and in the poorest congregations almost more pronounc
edly than in the richest. I remember well a congre
gation of poor negroes in a certain New England city,
where I was a student, whose attitude in this matter
was a subject of constant jest. If a well dressed white
man went to their service, a place of honour was at once
assigned him, and even license and impropriety of con
duct were overlooked, if made good by a contribution
which, to those poor folk, seemed munificent. But
should a poor white man enter, from whom nothing was
to be expected, he was handled with rigour, and if not
positively forbidden admission, yet found difficulty in
obtaining any place, even the lowliest.
Churches, like everything else in this world, require
some sort of material support, and we are in danger of
calculating the prosperity of a church, not by the num
ber of souls that are brought to Christ, but by the

156 Modern Christianity
amount of its contributions, the splendour of its edifice,
the eloquence of its clergy, and the magnificence of its
music and its services. Lowell, in his Vision 0} Sir
Launfal, tells us that everything in this world has its
price, even the graves in which we lie; only the gifts of
God are priceless, His sunshine and His rain descending
on all alike.
"Earth gets its price for what earth gives us;
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,
We bargain for the graves we lie in;
At the devil's booth are all things sold,
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;
For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking;
'T is heaven alone that is given away,
'T is only God may be had for the asking. /
No price is set on the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer."
But in practice it requires money to enjoy even June,
at least for the city resident. And so it comes to pass
that, in spite of all our theory of the free relation of God
and man, of the freedom of the Gospel and the free-will
character of the gifts of man, we make religion also
have its price.
For it is manifest that money must be raised to con
duct religious work as for any other purpose. Our object
should be, however, so to raise that money that it comes
as a free-will gift, the offering of love of believers. Let
those who love the Lord Jesus Christ prove their love to
Him, as they prove their love to their dear ones on this
earth, by their offerings of love. .That is the principle
inculcated by the text which I have taken from the Old

Free Church 157
Testament Book of Deuteronomy. Let every man give
as he is able, but let no one come empty into the pre
sence of the Lord.
When, in course of time, Church and State came to be
united, the Christian Church-state did precisely what
the Jewish Church-state had done before it, at least in
the later period of its existence, namely, it undertook
to levy a tax for the maintenance of religious work.
The Church undertook to support itself through the
State by the same means which were employed for the
maintenance of the civil establishment. The Jews in
the latter period of their history had levied a per capita
tax for the maintenance of the Temple worship; the
Church undertook to levy similar taxes, and all through
the Middle Ages and, in fact, down to the beginning of
the last century, such a relation between Church and
State continued to prevail, and still continues to prevail
in almost every country except our own.
In this country the withdrawal of State aid forced
men to fall back on the system of free-will offerings.
The ideas of individual freedom and local self govern
ment, which were prevalent in State affairs, and which
had been at the bottom of the whole Revolutionary
movement, had already led in Church matters to
a congregational development. Congregations were
looked on as the unit, and it became the duty of each
congregation to organise and support its own form and
place of worship. This had, along with its advantages,
certain disadvantages. There was a tendency toward
a sort of club development. It was thought that if the
matter of support were left entirely to free-will offerings,
each one being told to give as he was able, some men,

158 Modern Christianity
who were perfectly well able to give, would give nothing,
although making use of all the privileges of the Church.
It seemed to people used to the ordinances of civil law
and to the connection between Church and State which
had existed for so long a time, that some sort of means
must be found to coerce people into bearing their share
of the financial burden. It was a matter that could not
be left to them and God. A very simple way of prevent
ing men from shirking seemed to be to say: " You cannot
have a part in the worship and ministry of this church
unless you pay your quota toward its support. There
are such and such a number of us and your quota is so
and so much." Where all men are equal in their
means and opportunities, and all are burdened with the
same obligations, this method of collecting a revenue
for the support of the Church might not be unjust, and
need not, in itself, exclude any from equal privileges.
At the same time, even in that case, its tendency is to do
away with the essential idea of a gift of love and sub
stitute for it, under ecclesiastical law and sanctions, a
tax system, making men feel that they have done their
duty when they have simply paid a certain obligatory
tax into the church treasury. But, in reality, men are
very far from equal in means, opportunities, or obliga
tions resting upon them, and anything like a systematic
enforcement of such a system, especially in our cities,
is bound to result in gross inequalities in the House of
God and in the substitution of a material for a spiritual
standard in the relations of men to the privileges of
worship. The pew system, which was originally introduced, I
believe, with a view to keeping families together, lent

Free Church 159
itself readily to a further development of this idea of a
tax. The church became a sort of club house or a grand
opera house, if I may be permitted without irreverence
to use that term, whose seats or boxes were allotted to
the annual subscribers according to the amount which
each was able to pay. If you will go over the religious
history of this city during the last century, you will find
that in the thirties there were churches only for the well-
to-do. Those churches were of the nature of clubs with
graded sittings. There was no missionary life whatso
ever in the Church. In fact, all spiritual life in our
Church was at that time at a very low ebb. Not only
were there no missions to the heathen, but the poor and
foreign population of this city, which was rapidly in
creasing, was absolutely uncared for.
Some of the spiritual leaders of the day were deeply
moved by these conditions, and an organisation was es
tablished to start free chapels for the poor and neglected
population in this city. The movement quickly took
root and spread, until it came to be looked upon as the
duty of each rich church to provide a chapel with free
sittings for poor people. But it was soon found that
this did not solve the problem. The rich had their sit
tings in handsome churches with eloquent preachers and
fine music. The poor were provided, at the expense of
the rich, with chapels, for the most part plain and simply
severe, not to say ugly, with preachers who were not
considered sufficiently able to be allowed to preach in
the parish church at all, and with music to match, if
any music were provided.
A certain class of dependent poor were reached
through these chapels, but in general, although there

160 Modern Christianity
were brilliant exceptions, this method proved utterly
inadequate. The poor were pauperised. Their religion
was given to them cheap, and they consequently valued
it at naught. They did not themselves contribute to it,
nor had they any voice in the management of their
chapels. The rich, on the other hand, were hardened in
their selfish isolation. They felt that when the chapel
was built and given for services for poor people, they
had done their part and might rest at ease. They re
garded themselves as charitable and liberal and as hav
ing fulfilled almost to excess the law of God in giving a
chapel to the poor; of deeds of personal service, of giving
their hearts to these people, they had no idea. Nor did
they realise the needs or character of the poor to whom
they offered places in these chapels. They regarded
them as ungrateful because they did not go flocking
into the chapels, and as mean and un-Christian because
they did not contribute to their support. There was a
complete lack of sympathy and, consequently, of love
and service, which must always prevail where there is
isolation. We cannot understand the needs of people,
spiritual or otherwise, without coming in contact with
them. Some good and noble men and women went
down to the chapels and laboured there in person, but
in the majority of cases the establishment of the chapels
resulted in a more complete separation, if that were
possible, between rich and poor, since the rich felt that
now there was no excuse whatsoever for the poor to
come into their churches.
Then began the free church movement, started by
those who realised that what was necessary was to
bring rich and poor together, on a basis of equality, in

Free Church 161
the House of God, each being called upon to con
tribute simply what he was able, the action of the
individual being left to himself and God. There are
now a considerable number of independent churches
in New York which have adopted the free church
system, and in the Church at large it has secured a
permanent hold, so that in some dioceses no church
can be consecrated or admitted to Convention unless it
be free. Free churches have also exercised a remark
able influence on the pewed churches. These are no
longer what they once were. There is a missionary
spirit in them, and in most of them there are more or
less free sittings and a readiness to welcome strangers
and outsiders to the services and into the pews without
regard to dress or contributions. At the same time, as
long as the idea of making a charge for a sitting pre
vails, there must, of necessity, be distinctions between
rich and poor in the House of God. The ideal state
has not been reached so long as that condition exists, or
the further arrangement by which the rich church and
its poor chapel are kept distinct one from the other.

SABBATH-SUNDAY
St. Mark ii., 27: The sabbath was made for man, and not
man for the sabbath : so that the Son of man is lord even over
the sabbath.
IN the intense anxiety of the Jewish religious leaders to
maintain and increase the sanctity of the Jewish
people, to separate them clearly and absolutely from the
heathen nations among which they lived, great emphasis
was placed upon the observance of the Sabbath Day.
It was guarded and protected by all sorts of rales and
interpretations of the law to keep it inviolate, until it
came to be felt, by many certainly, that the breach of
Sabbath laws was more serious than the breach of those
laws which are inherently moral laws.
Jesus found Himself continually and sharply in con
flict with the Sabbatarians. On the occasion on which
the words of my text were spoken the conflict was this:
as He and His disciples were going through the corn fields
on the Sabbath Day, they picked the fresh heads of
grain and ate them as they passed along. The Pharisees
declared that this was technically work, the reaping of
the grain, and therefore prohibited on the Sabbath Day.
This was the pretence of the Sabbath, losing sight of its
object and purpose in the consideration of the outward
form, making man the slave of the Sabbath law instead
of realising that the Sabbath law was for the purpose of
162

Sabbath-Sunday 163
making his life happier, brighter, more restful and more
at peace with God. So Jesus uttered this very common-
sense protest against the Sabbatarians: "The sabbath
was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: so that
the Son of man is lord even over the sabbath." Grasping
the principle for which the Sabbath exists, we are to use
ordinary common sense in the application of that prin
ciple. You will remember other cases of conflict. For
instance, once our Lord healed a man with a withered
hand on the Sabbath. Scribes and Pharisees protested
that He broke the Sabbath Day by doing work.
Now primarily the Sabbath was for rest. " Remem
ber that thou keep holy the Sabbath Day," was the old
Mosaic word, the original law of the Hebrews. When
later thinkers and religious leaders tried to explain the
origin of the Sabbath, they explained it either as some
thing which commenced with creation, God Himself
resting on the Sabbath, when through six days He had
toiled in making the universe; or as something connected
with the origin of the Jewish people, that, as they had
been slaves in Egypt and there toiled for others, so they
must realise the need of rest for all, and on one day in
the week give respite from toil to the slaves that toiled
for them and to their very beasts of burden.1 Later Ju
daism connected the worship of God with this day in a
special manner in the synagogue services, because on
this day men were free from toil and therefore it was es
pecially feasible to gather together for the study of the
Law, for prayer and meditation. At the same time
• The one explanation will be found in what we may call
the commentary on the Sabbath Word in Exodus xx., the
other in Deuteronomy v.

1 64 Modern Christianity
they also made this a day of gladness, of pleasant social
intercourse, and of orderly merry-making.
When Christianity became the heir of Judaism, a cer
tain part of the Sabbath idea was transferred to Sunday.
The true Lord's day or Sunday was based primarily not
on the Sabbath law, but on personal devotion to Jesus
Christ. It was a weekly commemoration, on the first
day of each week, of His glorious resurrection, a day on
which Christians gathered together for receiving the
Holy Communion, for telling the tale of Jesus, and mak
ing application of His teaching to the matters of their
daily life. When the state became Christianised, then
this day was made a holiday, and little by little the
Jewish Sabbath of rest was transferred to the Christian
Sunday of worship and the two combined in one. Oddly
enough, at and after the Reformation, among English
sectarians, there developed a novel and hitherto un
heard of conception of the Sabbath, which ultimately
influenced the whole Anglo-Saxon world, the " Puritan
Sabbath," the conception underlying which seemed to
be not primarily the biblical conception of Sabbath rest
and gladness, but an unbiblical and even anti-biblical
conception of quiet and sadness. The emphasis was
put not on abstention from labour, that those who
toil may have their opportunity of rest and refresh
ment and merry-making, but of abstention from and
prohibition of all amusement; the question of ab
stention from labour being really made secondary to
that of abstention from recreation.
It is strange how, in the development of a religion,
people will sometimes reach the opposite pole from that
at which they start, and utilise the name of the founder

Sabbath-Sunday 165
of the religion in support of that which is the direct op
posite of his teaching. Our Lord Himself accepted Sab
bath Day invitations to dinner. He and His disciples
took part in the orderly merry-making of the Jewish
Sabbath, which was an essential feature of the Sabbath
observance in His time; but many of His followers of
to-day would denounce their brethren who should do
the same thing now as un-Christian or anti-Christian in
their conduct. Similarly our Lord and His followers
used wine, and even commended its use; but, in this
country at least, some Christians make abstention from
all liquor an essential of their religion. What in reality
our combined Sunday and Sabbath should be is a day of
rest from toil, a day of worship, and a day of wholesome
recreation and merry-making; but first and foremost
a day of rest from toil. There is the great reality of the
Sabbath, and I am afraid I must say that the churches
and Churchmen, who have often been so insistent in
fighting against what they call the desecration of the
Sabbath Day for purposes of excursions, the opening of
places of amusement and the like, have failed to con
cern themselves with the great reality of securing for all
who labour an opportunity for rest and recreation.
The thoughts of municipal and social students and
reformers have been latterly much concentrated upon
Pittsburgh, and many interesting investigations have
been made into the industrial conditions prevailing in
the great mills of that city, the social life of the mill-
hands and operatives, their housing conditions, their
home life, and the like. From the investigations made
it would seem that in many of the great steel works the
workmen are obliged to work seven days in the week

1 66 Modern Christianity
and in general twelve hours a day, the wages of sixty per
cent, of the workers being not more than sixteen and one
half cents an hour, or two dollars for a twelve-hour day.
These conditions are simply brutalising and degrading.
Co-incidentally another investigation was made, dealing
with the liquor problem, and it appeared that under
these conditions the men spend more upon liquor than
those do who elsewhere have higher wages and better
hours. The brutalising influence of their living condi
tions leads them to seek brutish pleasures.
Now here is the sort of thing that Christian men
should denounce and fight against. Here is the work
for your women's Sabbath Alliances and the like to
take up, — to secure to such men as these reasonable
hours of toil, reasonable remuneration, and a day of rest
in every week.
But Pittsburgh is not the only place where such
conditions prevail. The same or similar conditions pre
vail in other cities also, and the Church has not been a
leader in curing them. It has not taken the part which
it should in uniting with the labouring men, backing
their demands for reasonable hours and for a day of rest.
Reputable and religious men and women are stock
holders in corporations in this city which are violating
the very fundamental principle of the Sabbath law. How
dare they make money out of the oppression of the poor ?
How dare they derive their dividends from a business
which compels men to work like slaves seven days in
every week? Remember that you were slaves in the
land of Egypt and see to it that you make no other peo
ple work as slaves as you worked, but that you grant to
all whom you employ, directly or indirectly, the rest

Sabbath-Sunday 167
which is their due, and which is needed for wholesome
living and the development of mind and soul and body.
That was the law of the Jew as interpreted by the He
brew prophets: and in principle it is the law of the Chris
tian also. But even as you sit here you can hear the
noise of the trolleys running up and down this avenue.
They must ran Sunday as well as week days, you say,
and there are many other sorts of work which must go
on through all the week; but there is no proper reason
why the individual men or women who do the necessary
Sunday work should be compelled to work seven days
through without a rest. And yet those who work on
Sunday are not in fact given a day of rest at some other
time during the week. There are boys and girls and
men and women in this congregation who have no day
of rest whatever. It is with great difficulty, even, and
then only at rare intervals, that they can attend Church
services, because their employers, either for their own
greed, or more often through the fault of the system
under which they live, keep them at work on Sundays
as on week days.
Here is the great reality of the Sabbath: one day's
rest in seven. If you, as Christian men and women, are
concerned for the observance of the Sabbath, that is
what you should demand and what you should insist
upon. You cannot be parties to this breach of divine
law, you cannot profit from it, and you must labour
to change these conditions.
And now, what is the pretence of the Sabbath ? I am
sick and disgusted with the men and women who, with
mawkish sentimentality and often, as it seems to me,
utter hypocrisy, wink at and share in these fundamen-

168 Modern Christianity
tal violations of the Sabbath, but hold up their hands in
holy horror if hard-worked men and women seek recre
ation, merriment, and refreshment on that day. These
are they who make a pretence of the Sabbath, — the
people who. are concerned in blocking amusement and
gladness and social intercourse, and who have nothing
to say against the cruel desecration of the Sabbath by
enforced labour. One day's rest in seven: that is the
great principle. The day itself makes relatively little
difference. To the Jew there seemed to be something
sacrosanct in the seventh day, but we, following the
leadership of Christ, broke from that, for we know no
days which are holy as such. We start upon the princi
ple: a rest from toil for all who labour, one day in seven;
the opportunity to lead a rational life, to have some time
for refreshment and recreation, some time when it is
possible to improve the mind, some time which one can
give to the education and refreshment of the soul.
Our Sunday laws are a perfect chaos. The original
principle on which they were founded seems to have
been rather a supposed religious sanctity attaching to
the first day of the week than the idea of securing for all
an opportunity to rest from toil and labour one day in
seven. Gradually, perhaps, we are moving toward this
latter position, but in doing so many inconsistencies
have been brought about. Some special interest suc
ceeds in getting a measure through the Legislature
which permits a certain class of work on Sunday or the
sale of certain classes of things. One thing may be sold,
another not. It is lawful to open your shop to sell to
bacco on Sunday, or newspapers, or delicatessen, or con
fectionery. It is not lawful to sell magazines or canned

Sabbath-Sunday 169
goods or bottled goods. A delicatessen shop or a drug
store or a tobacconist's may stand open all day long and
sell what it will, but a grocery shop or the book store or
the baker's next door suffers a penalty if it opens and
sells the same things. More confusing than the laws
themselves are the extraordinary and incongruous de
cisions of our courts. I should not wish to be indicted
for contempt of court, but I think I speak within bounds
in saying that the courts of this state certainly, and of
this city especially, have not earned by their actions
and decisions the respect of the intelligent portion of the
community, and that they have helped to increase that
contempt of law, that lawlessness which is character
istic of the great mass of our people.
With regard to amusements and recreations the situ
ation is still worse, and it is extremely difficult to secure
any rational legislation, because of the combination of a
class of sentimentalists who, under the name of religion,
stand for the pretence of the Sabbath, and of shysters,
grafters, and vicious politicians who prefer to have laws
which are inconsistent, unjust, and impossible of en
forcement, so as to give the better opportunity to vio
late all law or profit by its violation. And worst of all,
for these very reasons, is the situation regarding the
liquor traffic. If you keep a hotel or a bawdy house, you
may sell liquor on Sunday, but if you keep a restaurant
or a saloon, the sale of liquor is forbidden, under the
strictest penalties.
"The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
sabbath: so that the Son of man is lord even over the
sabbath." Take home to yourselves the words of our
Lord Christ; seek realities in this Sunday matter, and

170 Modern Christianity
remember that it is not the day itself which is the end,
it is something which lies behind that, — the avoidance
of oppression, an opportunity of rest and recreation for
every man ; that his toil should be limited to reasonable
hours, that he should have opportunities for refresh
ment, enjoyment, merry-making, and that some time
should be given him for this purpose. With our system
of the week of seven days, the natural and logical
method is to give to this one day in seven.
Finally, do not seek to impose your preconceived
ideas upon others in the name of God. Let them have
the freedom of their thoughts and their beliefs and
their practices.

WISDOM
(to young men)
Proverbs iii., 13: Happy is the man that findeth wisdom,
and the man that getteth understanding. -
THE Book of Proverbs belongs to that division of
Hebrew literature called Wisdom. The wisdom
here commended is that sanctified common sense which
is in harmony with the conditions of life and therefore
with God, because those conditions of life come from
God. Adhesion to these principles, the Book of Pro
verbs teaches, will bring prosperity and happiness.
The main part of the Book of Proverbs consists of a
collection of maxims looking to the establishment of a
safe, peaceful, and happy life in the family and the com
munity. We have here neither a code of laws nor a dis
cussion of the great foundation principles which govern
the universe and which should inspire and control the
life of man. Some of the precepts contained in the Book
of Proverbs sound like merely selfish, prudential con
siderations, and indeed all proverbial literature has
something of that Poor Richard quality in it with which
Americans of an earlier generation were so familiar
from the maxims of Franklin. It is worth noting that
in a collection of rehgious literature which we regard as
inspired there should be a book containing maxims of
171

172 Modern Christianity
this character, emphasising the fact that prudence,
thrift, honesty, equity, morality are of great importance
in our daily life, because their observance will bring
comfort and prosperity.
And now for one minute let us consider the book it
self. If you will read the book with any care, you will
see that it is not one collection of proverbs, but several.
Here is a heading, at the beginning of Chapter X., which
tells you that what follows is a collection of maxims
known as the " Proverbs of Solomon." You turn on a
little farther and in the 22d chapter, the 17th verse,
you will find another heading, "The Words of the Wise
Men." In this collection is contained that little poem on
the miseries of drunkenness, commencing: "Who says
alas! who laments, who complains? They that sit over
their wine, they that are always tasting drink." Then
the wine is described as "smooth to go down; afterward
it bites like a snake; your eyes see strange things; your
heart speaks bad things; you are like a man lying down
at sea, like a man asleep at the top of a mast." You turn
on a little farther to the 24th chapter, the 23d verse,
and find another heading: "These also are sayings of
the wise men." It is this collection which contains the
famous description of the sluggard: " I passed the field
of a sluggard, the vineyard of a foolish man, and, see, it
was overgrown with thorns; it was all covered over with
nettles, its stone wall was broken down. I looked and
laid it to heart; I saw and took warning therefrom."
Commencing with the 25th chapter we have another
collection of so-called "Proverbs of Solomon," copied
out, we are told, by the men of Hezekiah, King of Judah.
Go on a little farther, to the 30th chapter, and you find

Wisdom " 173
"The Words of Agur, Son of Yakeh." In the same
chapter is a collection of rid.dles; then follow "The
Words of King Lemuel," and then, at the close of all,
in the latter part of the 31st chapter, an acrostic poem,
a description of the virtuous housewife.
Now, is not this interesting, as showing that we have
collected in this book not the proverbs of one man
only, but the proverbial wisdom of a people? These
collections show a growth of this proverbial wisdom,
covering a considerable period of time, the formation of
collection after collection of proverbs ; and so sometimes
the same proverb is repeated in different collections.
Solomon's name is attached to the book as we have it,
not because he wrote these proverbs and poems, but be
cause his name had come to be the synonym of proverb
ial wisdom, and hence his name was attached by the
Jews to all such literature, whenever it was composed.
Even as late as the time of Herod, that is, roughly, nine
hundred years after Solomon, we find a book, not in
cluded in our Bible, in which reference is made to the
death of Pompey, with the name of Solomon attached
to it. A strange custom, this seems to us, but it was a
custom very prevalent in those old times.
These collections of proverbs represent the accumu
lated experience of the race of God-fearing Jews. Note
the words with which the whole book opens:
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
The foolish despise wisdom and instruction;
Hear, my son, the instruction of thy father,
And forsake not the teachings of thy mother."
It is the experience of the race which has been passed

174 Modern Christianity
down that constitutes this wisdom. This wisdom is
founded on the fear of, that is, the religion of God, and
this wisdom the youth should acquire from father and
mother. Some of the proverbs, as I have said, are strictly pru
dential and in so far selfish in their character as that they
deal with one's duty towards oneself, like this: "He
catches a strange dog by the ears that meddles in other
men's strife." That is: Mind your own business and
do not interfere with the quarrels of other people. Of
a similar character is this admonition to silence with
regard to one's own affairs:
"He that guards his mouth is safe;
He that opes his mouth is lost" ;
or this recommendation not to assert one's own merits:
"Let another praise you and not yourself;
A stranger and not your own lips" ;
which reminds one, in certain ways, of our Lord's ad
vice to those that are bidden to a feast not to take the
chief place, lest another more honourable come and you
be forced to surrender the seat to him. It is better to
take a lowly place, so that when he that bade you come
he may say to you, "Come up higher, and you shall
have honour of them that sit at meat." Some are shrewd
characterisations of types of men whom we all know,
like this: "Clouds and wind without rain; a man that
promises and does not give." Commendations of the
simple life are frequent: "Some are rich and have
nothing ; some are poor with great wealth." Thrift and
the value of hard labour are emphasised: "Too much

Wisdom 1 75
honey is not good; there is honour in hard tasks."
One of the sharpest of all the proverbs condemns the
thoughtless fool — the practical joker, who, seeking his
own fun, produces often most tragical results: "Like a
madman dealing death with firebrands and arrows is he
that deceives his neighbour and says, Am I not in
sport?" Throughout all runs the assertion of the retri
bution that awaits evil-doing: "Who digs a pit shall
fall in it; who rolls a stone, it shall come back to him."
Without a formal statement of the law of love, many
of the proverbs breathe its spirit, setting forth, after
the practical manner of this literature, the fact that
love and kindliness do bring happiness. So we have
this proverb: "The life of the flesh is a sound heart;
but envy is rottenness of the bones." And this: "Who
covers an error seeks love ; who harps on it loses a friend".
The small virtues are exalted in these proverbial
sayings, as, for instance, the great value of the kindly
word: "Pleasant words are a honeycomb; sweet to the
soul and health to the bones." In contrast with this is
a proverb applicable to those whose glad words cause
pain and not pleasure because they result from lack of
sympathy with the condition of another. Hear this :
"Vinegar upon a wound; one that sings songs to a heavy
heart." The great Goethe's favourite proverb was one
of those dealing with the fitting use of words: "Apples
of gold in silver setting ; words smoothly spoken." One
may compare with this proverb, meant to describe the
value of soft speech, another proverb intended to warn
against the danger of smooth words used to cover evil
thoughts: "Silver dross laid on a pot of clay; smooth
lips and a wicked heart."

176 Modern Christianity
My object is not to discuss the Book of Proverbs;
but there is so much that is fascinating in it that when
one begins one is tempted to call attention first to this
and then to that nugget of wit and practical wisdom;
the exhortations to honesty: "Dishonest bread is sweet
to the taste; afterward the mouth is full of gravel"; the
description of the bargainer, who existed then, as he
(or she) does to-day, even among good Christian people,
who boasts of overreaching his neighbour: "Bad, bad,
says the buyer; then he goes out and boasts of it"; the
characterisation of the effects of careless workmanship,
producing consequences as disastrous as if they were
wrought with full intention of evil: "He that is careless
in his work is own brother to the destroyer"; the
quaint bits of wisdom that deal with the perplexities
of marital and domestic life, generally from the point
of view of the man, and yet with a high estimation of
womanly virtue: "House and goods are inherited;
but a wife is a gift from the Lord." But hear this
proverb on the woman whose only merit is her face:
"A gold ring in a pig's snout; a fair woman without
sense." Before leaving the proverbs themselves, I wish to say
that the very highest reach of the practical teaching of
love in the Old Testament is contained in one of the say
ings of this book, which comes very close to the teaching
of our Lord. " If your enemy hunger, feed him, if he
thirst, give him water to drink; so you heap coals of fire
on his head, and the Lord will reward you." But even
this contains the thought, not of the inward spiritual
blessing, but of the external reward which results from
doing good. The position of the book in this regard

Wisdom 177
may be said to be summed up in this proverb: "Who
follows righteousness and love, finds life, success, and
honour." The Book of Proverbs as it exists is what we com
monly call an anthology — collections of sayings, or se
lections from collections of sayings, combined together.
To these collections there has been prefixed an intro
duction. This introduction, which is of a somewhat
composite character, comprises the first nine chapters
of the book. In it the author undertakes to set forth
the characteristics of wisdom. He addresses himself
especially to young men. You will remember how over
and over again occur the words " my son." It is a warn
ing to the young man against the evils and dangers of
life, and an exhortation to him to learn wisdom, be
cause success and happiness in life depend upon the
adhesion to those principles of morality which he desig
nates as wisdom. The experience and practice of man
kind, the wisest and best of them through the ages, have
shown that departure from these principles means dis
aster; and if God be the maker and governor of the uni
verse, which the writer assumes without question to be
the case, then that is proof that these principles are
from God. True wisdom is to understand and follow
these divine principles as expressed in God's universe.
"To find wisdom and get understanding," to know
God's ways, and put that knowledge in practice is to
become master of oneself and of the universe. There
fore, above all things let the young man's effort be to
acquire wisdom. Sometimes the author personifies
wisdom as though it were itself God or the expression
of God to men:

178 Modern Christianity
"Wisdom crieth aloud in the street;
She uttereth her voice in the squares;
At the head of thoroughfares she crieth;
At the gates of the city she speaketh her words;
How long, ye fools, will ye love folly ? "
With all his might he emphasises wisdom as the thing
which, above all, is to be sought. "First wisdom; get
wisdom; with all thou hast, get understanding." That
this wisdom is not, in the conception of the writer,
something separate from religion is made clear by such
passages as this, which occur in this same prologue:
"Trust in the Lord with all thy heart. Lean not upon
thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknow
ledge Him and He shall make plain thy paths."
The verse which I have taken as my text is the be
ginning of a brief passage in this prologue, a poem by
itself, which describes the excellence of wisdom. The
passage reads:
" Happy the man that findeth wisdom,
The mortal that getteth understanding.
For its gain is better than gain of silver,
And the profit thereof than fine gold.
More precious is she than pearls;
And none of thy treasures are equal thereto;
Length of days in her right hand,
In her left hand riches and honour;
Her ways, ways of pleasantness,
And all her paths peace.
She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her;
And happy is he that obtaineth her."

Wisdom 1 79
"Happy the man that findeth wisdom, the mortal
that getteth understanding": the young man who, in
the beginning of his career, puts himself in harmony
with God and the universe, determining his life by the
divine, God-given principles of the universe, and setting
out to work with, not in opposition to, God and the
nature which God has placed in him.
i . What do you purpose to be or to do in life ? There
was a story connected with a room which I occupied
in Yale College, told to me by my predecessor and passed
on by me to those who came after, as follows: James
Kent, the famous Chancellor of New York, 1814 to
1823, occupied that room1 as an undergraduate. After
he had become Chancellor, on the occasion of one of
his class reunions, he sought out and revisited the old
room. In answer to his knock a student's voice bade
him come in. He entered, to see a young man sitting
in a chair, tilted back, with his feet on the window-sill.
"Young gentleman," he said, "one evening at about
this time I was sitting in precisely the attitude which
you now occupy and thinking about my future life.
I then and there resolved to become Chancellor of the
State of New York. My name is James Kent. I am
Chancellor of the State of New York."
It is not often that a man's plan and purpose of life
can be carried out with such literal exactness as in this
case, but in general it may be said that what a man re
solves to do or to be he can achieve or become if he
really makes that the object of his life, concentrat-
1 If the tradition of my time was correct, this room was in
Old South Middle, still standing, north entry, third floor,
front, middle.

180 Modern Christianity
ing all his powers and energies on the pursuit of that
one thing. Success in life depends on self determina
tion, to an extent which I think most people do not
fully apprehend. At the outset of your life set an
aim before you; have a definite purpose. Do not
merely drift, letting your life be determined by chance
or circumstance.
2. For the achievement of the purpose which you
set before you, if that purpose be at all worth achiev
ing, there is need, first and foremost, of absolute mas
tery of yourself, of self-control and self-denial. You
cannot use your strength, your time, your means, if
you have such, for self-indulgence, and pleasure seek
ing, with any hope of making that success in life of
which I am speaking. To quote once more from the
Book of Proverbs: "The man that loves pleasure is poor;
he that loves luxury does not grow rich." A story
which every Jewish boy has had held before him as the
life story of one of his race heroes whom he is to imitate,
a story which has come down to us also as part of our
spiritual heritage from the Jews, so that their race hero
has become for us a spiritual hero, is the story of Ja
cob. I do not mean to say that the character of Jacob
is altogether lovely, or that all that is told of him in that
story is worthy of imitation; but the essential elements
of his character, which are emphasised in the contrast
between him and Esau, are worthy of imitation. The
man who will practise thrift, the man who will deny
himself the immediate gain for the sake of the greater
ultimate good, the man who will wait patiently to
achieve his results,— with that man lies success, and
not with the good-hearted, good-natured, easy-going,

Wisdom 181
improvident fellow. The latter represents not the
genius of civilisation, but the genius of barbarism, in
that he lives merely for the moment. It is Jacob, not
Esau, who is the type of civilisation, and who is bound
to win that success, the achievement of which is a part
of civilisation in the race and in the individual. Be con
tent to begin at the bottom, to go slowly. It is as true
in the struggle of human life as it is in the life history of
the animals, that the higher order reaches its develop
ment the more slowly. The guinea-pig is born practi
cally with all the sense and all the faculties which it is
ever going to have. A rabbit or a squirrel does not
know as much when it is bom and cannot do as much
as a guinea-pig, but when it reaches maturity it is
vastly in advance of the guinea-pig. No animal takes
so long a period for its development as the human ani
mal, and none reaches even approximately the devel
opment of the human. So it is in our life struggle. The
young man who wishes to commence at the top, who
must needs have at once the time and money for amuse
ment, or even the man who would marry as soon as he
starts on his career, cannot expect to reach the same
level of success as the man who is willing to forego the
satisfaction of his desires and even his ambitions for
pleasure and comfort and happiness for the moment,
beginning at the bottom, learning, earning little, but
preparing the way for ultimate greater success, and,
if he live aright, greater happiness also.
3. Diligence and Energy. He who would succeed
must be diligent in whatever labour he undertakes and
he must perform his work with energy and zeal. In
telligence and tact, special adaptability to a work or

1 82 Modern Christianity
peculiar quickness in comprehension seem to be rather
gifts of nature than qualities which we can acquire by
effort. Diligence and energy, on the other hand, are quite
within the control of any man, and in the end it will
be found that diligence and energy are among the most
powerful agencies which a man can employ in the strug
gle for success. To employ all your opportunities, to
utilise your spare minutes, to throw yourself into the
work which you have to do, in your profession or
employment, or in your preparation for that profes
sion or employment, with all the strength of your
being, will inevitably result in a large measure of
success. 4. Now, combine with diligence and energy honesty
and reliability, and any man has an asset which will se
cure him permanent and valuable employment. There
is no individual asset of the average man more valu
able than honesty, and there is none in fact rarer. I
have coupled with honesty reliability, in order to express
a particular application of honesty: that you may be
counted on under all circumstances to be always in
your place, to do your work, whatever the conditions
which confront you, so that your employer may trust
you as fully as he would trust himself; that you do not
count merely what you are compelled to do, saying to
yourself: I am paid for this and this I must do, but
more than that I am not obliged to do. Throw your
self into the position of your employer, and act for
his interests, so that he is able to rely upon you in
any case of emergency or need, so that he may feel that
he has your willing support and co-operation, and not a
mere grudging performance of a task to which you are

, Wisdom 183
enslaved, precisely to the extent of the remuneration
which you receive for the work done.
I have said that honesty is rare. The conditions
which I find among the young people with whom I
have to deal convince me of that, as well as what I learn
with reference to the conduct of business by grown-up
men and women. I find that in our schools it is, as a
rule, unsafe to leave anything lying about; there is dan
ger of loss. Even in Church guilds and organisations
we have constant unfortunate experiences of pilfer
ing. Again, when labourers are working about the
premises, there are apt to be disappearances of easily
portable properties. All business men know how very
difficult it is to find employees who can be trusted im
plicitly. To you young men I would say that the rep
utation for absolute honesty is a possession so precious
from the mere point of view of success in life, that it
may be fairly estimated as the equivalent of a consider
able capital in business. But honesty must be estab
lished on principle. The man who is honest because
honesty is the best policy, a proverb which is pro
foundly true, is not the man who can be thus relied
upon. Looking on honesty only from the point of
view of policy, occasions will arise where it will
seem to a man clear that he can profit best by not
adhering too strictly to the course of honesty. Now
the very fact that a man might do this makes
itself evident in his character and his bearing;
for the principles which we hold are apt to express
themselves in some intangible way in our bearing,
and, far more than we ordinarily think, people
gauge us by the "truth which really lies behind all

184 Modern Christianity
our expressions. They perceive and feel our
characters. One of the commonest of the temptations which lead
our young men away from the path of strict honesty
is the temptation to win money quickly and easily
through speculation or gambling. Now, gambling
or speculation is in itself immoral, in that it is an at
tempt to get something for nothing. But besides being
in this sense immoral, gambling or speculation is also
hopelessly demoralising to character. This man sees
others win money by gambling, by a so-called specula
tion in stocks, that is a deal in margins, which is prac
tically nothing more than betting that stock will rise
or fall, or how high it will rise or how low it will fall, or
by betting on the horse-races; or possibly he sees some
one win ten dollars or more on a five cent bet in policy.
It seems to him a very easy way of turning over money
and he resolves to take his chance. He has a little
money which he has saved from his earnings; it is his
own and he can do with it what he will. The only too
common result which follows from this beginning of
gambling is that before he realises it the young man
has incurred losses which go beyond his means, and to
pay those losses he has used money which was not his,
but which happened to be temporarily in his control
or trust. He must repay this money, and the only way
which he sees open to do so is by a lucky bet or specu
lation. He feels sure that luck must come his way some
time. He speculates or bets again, and before he knows
it he is hopelessly involved. It does not always happen
that events follow just this course, but even where the
gambling does not result in utter ruin, it does waste

Wisdom 185
the money which the young man should have been lay
ing up as a capital for investment. And even if he
should win by his bets or speculations, the result is
unfortunate for him, looked at from the business stand
point, for it teaches him to disregard those legitimate
business methods of thrift and energy which would win
him real success, and devote himself to a course of ac
tion which, though it may yield him a certain degree
of financial gain, will never advance him to the same
high position, much less develop in him the same
character, which honest industry and capacity would
have done.
5. Strenuousness and enjoyment. I have pictured
to you what, in the phraseology of the day, is desig
nated as a "strenuous life" ; but this I wish to point out
— that mere strenuousness may overreach itself. There
is a life lived by successful business men in this city
which is a life to be deplored, not to be envied. These
are the men who rush from engagement to engagement,
from task to task, who live their lives in a whirlwind,
pursuing ever greater gain, who have no time for the
real enjoyment of life or for the development of char
acter. Remember that the greatest success is not mere
achievement, but character. The greatest happiness
is connected not with what a man has done, but with
what a man has become. The Japanese say of us, and
rightly, that we are so concerned with the machinery of
life that we do not know how to live. The means have
taken the place of the end. Your effort and your strug
gle are, from the standpoint of the achievement of sub
stantial happiness, futile if you have lost the power
of enjoyment. The man who, in the hurry and rash of

1 86 Modern Christianity
his life, has lost the power of enjoying the beauties of
nature, of art, of literature, is a man who has lost the
power of the highest happiness. Remember this in
your struggle for place and success.
6. And this brings me to a consideration of the ques
tion of what is the reality? For it is after that which
is real that you must strive. What, then, is the real
thing, the thing which it is desirable to possess ? You
hear much to-day of the simple life. I take it that the
essence of the simple life is reality; but to know and
gain the reality you must be true to yourself, to your
own nature. You must yourself determine what really
is worth having, not simply seek after that which those
about you call real. If your life is to be determined
merely by the opinions of others; if you determine
what you are to be and what you are to do, what you
are to seek after and what you are to gain, only accord
ing to the opinions of those about you, you can never
enter into the full pleasure of life. You have failed to
find the reality. The same is true of your friendships.
If your friendships are formed simply with the idea
that "this person can assist me, help me forward, he is
a good person to have as my friend, this is the correct
person to know and I will make him my friend," you
lose the power of knowing the hearts of men; your
own best nature is chilled and ultimately killed, and
you lose the very most precious thing in life— the
power of real friendship and the knowledge of real love.
7. Right choice. I have spoken of the possibility of
self-determination, of your achieving that at which
you aim, reaching that to which you aspire; but it
goes without saying that in considering the question of

Wisdom 187
real success we must ask, also, How am I to determine
that after which I shall strive? How shall I make the
right choice in life? We are so bound up with one
another that we oftentimes cannot reach that which
we would like to set before ourselves as our goal with
out trampling upon others who are about us, without
disregarding what seem to be our nearest duties. It is
possible to achieve success by trampling on others, by
disregarding these duties; but that success is, in the
end, not worth having. It is a success of achievement,
not a success of character. I told you the story of
Chancellor Kent. Let me tell you another story from
my own experience. When I was a young man but re
cently ordained, there came under my spiritual charge,
in the little chapel in which I was working, a journey
man printer, somewhat older than myself, who wished
to send through me what, in proportion to his means,
seemed an enormous contribution, for the education
of young men for the ministry. Then I learned that he
had, as a lad, desired to study for the ministry. He
was going through school with that end in view. He
would have passed from the grammar school to the
high school, from the high school to college. By his
own efforts and those of his parents it was perfectly
possible for him to do so. Suddenly his father died,
leaving nothing. This boy was the oldest. There was
a mother and there were other children to be taken care
of. By himself he could have accomplished the course
of study and entered the ministry. If he had dis
regarded the obligation to his mother and younger
brothers and sisters he could have struggled through.
Possibly they might have succeeded in taking care of

1 88 Modern Christianity
themselves; but he felt that his first duty lay toward
them, and, abandoning the attempt to complete his
education, temporarily as he hoped, he set himself to
learn a trade by which he could at once commence to
support his family. Circumstances were such that by
the time he was set free from these obligations it seemed
impracticable to attempt to enter the ministry. He was
too old to go back and take up his studies at the point
where he had left them. All his time and all his strength
had been so employed in the intervening period that he
had not been able to continue intellectual pursuits.
What he had' been unable to do for himself, he sought
to make possible for some one else. Now I say that that
man did the thing that was right and that he achieved
a greater success than if he had entered the ministry — a
greater success in the sense that he developed a nobler,
higher nature, which is really the thing after which we
strive and should strive, but which is to be achieved
oftentimes only by precisely such abnegation of self
and self-interest. Your choice of what you will do and
become must be determined in connection with the obli
gations of your life and your surroundings. Failure
to fulfil obligations which are laid upon you by the
conditions of your existence would be to make what
seems success really failure.
8. The ideal and the maintenance of the ideal. And
this further 1 would add with regard to the right choice:
Hold before yourself an ideal. Let that ideal be an ex
alted one. Do not be content with anything mean or
small or common. It sometimes seems to men that
these ideals are a burden and a hindrance in their
struggle in life. They say to themselves : here are men

Wisdom 189
about me who do this or that and make a success, yet
there is something within me that forbids me from do
ing what they do, and, because I cannot do it, therefore
I am a failure. So far from burdening or hindering you
in the struggle for real success in life, the ideal is that
which really renders such success possible. No one
can achieve the best results who does not have ideals
and dreams. They are the things which are meant to
lure a man on to higher things. Be sorry not for your
self because you have them, but be sorry for the man
who does not have them and therefore cannot know
that joy in life which is possible for you if you strive
and struggle for the attainment of your ideal. But
just because the ideal is so high a thing, therefore its
loss means to you who possess it the greatest possible
disaster. A man who has not seen ideals and dreamed
of high things may do something which seems abhor
rent to you and yet be going not backwards but for
wards; but you, with your ideals and dreams, if you do
those things will surely fail. To do them means for
you soul death. Count the ideal or dream that is
within you as a gift and a promise from God, but un
derstand the condition on which it is given you: that if
you, seeing these good and beautiful things, then turn
backward and content yourself with something that is
lower, your life will be made miserable by thegnawings
of conscience, by the constant sense of failure. You
will enter here on earth into the gates of hell. Main
tain your ideals as you value your souls and as you
value happiness. No outward success is worth having
which is purchased with the gnawing misery of the
consciousness that you have failed to do or to be

190 Modern Christianity
what you know and believe you should have done
and become.
9. The value of the personal knowledge of God. I
may not close without adding one word on the value of
the personal knowledge of God; that^ou should be
conscious of the divine nature within you, of the mean
ing of your life and its grandeur; that you are workers
with God Himself for great ends; that your life is an
enduring one, which goes on through the ages that are
to be; and that, long as the years which stretch before
you in this world seem, they are as nothing in compari
son with the ages of possibility which stretch on beyond.
Jesus Christ is the expression to us of God, through
whom we may enter into a personal knowledge of Him;
He is a pattern to show us the meaning and possibilities
of life, the power of self-determination, the possibilities
of achievement in the lowliest conditions, the wonder
ful power which lies in our human nature to overcome
the world, if we are true to that which is essentially
divine in that nature itself; and, more than this, He is
a manifestation to us of the very heart and thought of
God, by which we may know His purpose toward us
individually, and attain such a certainty of His love
for us that we shall not lose heart nor fail, and so
that even out of our faults and our falls we shall reap
strength and courage through the assurance of His
tender personal care for us, His watchful providence
over us. The precepts of a book of wisdom will not of
themselves be sufficient to hold us in the way of truth.
The precepts and teaching which the parent gives the
child win their greatest value, not from the words of
wisdom themselves, but from that something which

Wisdom 191
lies behind those words, the something which makes a
true father or mother. And it is so with the wisdom
which you find recorded in the Book of Proverbs.
Practical and profound as all those sayings may be,
you will not walk in the way of wisdom unless you feel
behind that wisdom something more than the practi
cal experience of the ages, unless you feel behind it the
thought and the love of God your Father. Enter into
that personal relation with God as your Father through
Christ the eternal Son.

LITTLE FOXES
(to young women)
Song op Solomon ii., 15: Take us the foxes, the little
foxes, that spoil the vines : for our vines have tender grapes.
THE Song of Solomon, as it is called in our Bibles,
the Song of Songs, or Canticles, to use its more
correct title, is a collection of love songs, marriage
hymns. One who reads the Bible only casually, and to
whom the headings of the chapters mean more than
their contents, may be somewhat surprised at the state
ment that we have in the Bible a book entirely com
posed of love songs. But these are not the only love
songs in the Old Testament. If you will take up
your Bibles and turn to the 45th Psalm, you will
find it designated in the heading as a Song of Love.
In it the bride is pictured as a queen and the bride
groom as a king. And just so it is in the love
songs contained in our book of the Song of Solo
mon. Throughout it the bride is spoken of as a queen
and the bridegroom as a king: and that is to-day the
oriental custom. Marriage is a thing so beautiful, so
lofty, that the bride and groom, because they are the
principals in the marriage, for the time being become
in fact kings and queens. 192

Little Foxes 193
Now why, you may ask, do we have love songs in the
Bible? I thought the Bible was a book of religion; I
thought the Old Testament told me the story of the
struggles of God's people and how God's spirit was
with them, preparing the way for the coming of the
Christ. Turn to your New Testament. The first miracle,
according to St. John's Gospel, which Jesus performed,
in Cana of Galilee, was at a marriage festival, when He
thought it not unfit to use those same powers which
elsewhere He used for the healing of the sick and the
restoration of the miserable, to turn the water into wine,
that the bridegroom might not be disgraced and that
there might be joy and gladness at the marriage festi
val. God's spirit moves not only in the great affairs of
state; God's spirit moves in the small affairs of every
day life, and Jesus Christ emphasised most strongly
the sanctity of marriage, its sacramental character:
that nothing may part the man and the woman who
are united in the bonds of matrimony. Is it not fitting,
then, that there should be somewhere in the Bible a
book which dwells upon and glorifies the love of man
and woman as a sacred thing? And I think that it is
well for you and me to-day, in this our country, to re
member that there is such a book in the Bible, to
remember that God's holy word sanctifies and adorns
that love and its expression.
I have referred to the headings of the chapters.
They represent a mystical interpretation of the book,
as indicating the love of Christ and His, Church, and
their union ; and it is this same thought that our Church
has introduced into its marriage ceremony. That is the
'3

194 Modern Christianity
mystic significance which sanctifies and uplifts the love
of man and woman.
But it is not my intention to dwell upon the inter
pretation of this book as a whole. I have chosen a text
from it, not because of its original significance, but be
cause of the meaning which it has come to have to me.
Because the Bible is the Book of God, because men and
women have gone to it to find God's word, so, in the
course of the ages, different books and chapters have
come to have new and different meanings, meanings
which have grown out of their use in the Church in
those ages.
Take up the Book of Psalms. Turn to the 68th Psalm,
and you find a magnificent processional, meant to be
used in connection with the temple services, based on
the story of Israel's march from Sinai into Palestine
and its conquest of the Holy Land. But I cannot read
that Psalm without remembering that it was the bat
tle hymn of Henry of Navarre; and there comes before
my mind the struggle for religious freedom in France,
when men were fighting and dying for the right to read
the Bible, for the right to believe and live according to
the dictates of their consciences, guided by God's holy
word. I turn to the 1 1 5th Psalm, and there I read a
splendid outburst of praise to the one God Almighty,
who is not like the idols of wood and stone that cannot
see nor hear, by whose power Israel has been kept and
preserved amid the heathen; and then there comes be
fore my mind the picture of the siege of Vienna, when
the great hosts of the Turks were pressing the Christian
capital hard. I see the tower of St. Stephen's in Vienna
and the anxious lookouts stationed there, looking over

Little Foxes 195
the vast hordes of Turks, straining their eyes to see if
help were coming, while the Christian nations of Europe,
unconscious of their danger, not realising that the fall of
Vienna meant for them too the invasion of the hordes
of Islam, were fighting with one another their unworthy
wars, petty princes struggling each with the other for
the satisfaction of his vain ambition. But help came
from an unexpected quarter. John Sobieski, with his
Poles, appeared upon the Kahlenberg, the hill that
rises near Vienna; and there to-day you can see the
little chapel where he and his officers received the Sac
rament, as they prepared to descend upon the vast
multitudes of the victorious Turks. And then they
lifted up their voices, joining in the 1 15th Psalm, that
hymn of praise to God which Israel had used of old,
glorifying His power and might, who was greater than
the gods of the heathen. That Psalm gave them the
inspiration to win the victory that saved Europe.
The Bible is full of associations like that, which bind
it to the history of the Christian Church throughout
the ages. But not only into the lives of princes, not
only into battles for freedom and against oppression, —
it has gone also into the every-day life of the people.
It has been an inspiration in the homes of the poor
est. It has given men strength to do the daily tasks of
life. Those experiences are mostly unwritten. Some of
you may have some association with one verse or an
other, with one chapter or another, which makes that
verse or chapter mean to you something very personal,
something quite outside of Bible dictionaries or com
mentaries or sermons. When I turn to the 14th chap
ter of St. John's Gospel and read the words, "In my

196 Modern Christianity
Father's house are many mansions," there comes before
me the picture of a midnight scene in the house of a
poor woman, crushed down by bereavement, a widow
whose two children, just on the verge of manhood and
womanhood, had been swept off by disease in a manner
most tragic and awful ; a woman who seemed to have
lost control of herself, to have lost all power of thought,
all hope in this life or the hereafter. I can never forget
how, as those words were read, it seemed as though a
new power came into her life, as though the gates of
heaven were opened, and the woman's life was changed
at once by a vision of the heavenly mansions.
I have chosen my text because of the meaning which
Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe gave it in a little booklet,
whose exact name I have forgotten. "The foxes, the
little foxes that spoil the vines," were the little sins that
destroy life. It is those little foxes about which I wish
to speak to you to-day. The vines are your lives, which
should bear precious fruit.
The work of man and woman in the world is, in the
very nature of it, different in many points. The great
virtues of the man are strength and courage. The man
who has not strength and courage to face the world, to
conquer its obstacles, is of necessity a failure. The
great virtues of the woman are grace and purity. The
woman who does not bring charm into her surroundings,
who does not give to them a gracious touch, a woman
who is not modest and pure in thought and deed, fails
to achieve the work for which she came into the world.
The special work of man and woman in the world I may
perhaps illustrate by the figure of the house and home
building. It is the man's part to build the house. You

Little Foxes 197
do not expect the woman to wield the hammer or the
saw, to quarry and shape the stone, to carry the hod.
These are the works of man. He builds the house. His
is the outward part, which catches your eye as you
move through the street. Of the house the woman
makes a home. She brings into it that grace and charm
which make it habitable. Her work in making the
home is as important as the man's work in building the
house; almost I had said, the work of the woman is
the more important of the two. But while this is so,
it is also true that woman's work is in general the least
seen work; and so there must be a reticence and mod
esty about the woman's life and ways. The things she
does are not exposed to view to every one who passes
through the street. A man's work, rough and strong,
stands without for all to see and touch and handle.
Hers is within, to be seen and enjoyed by intimates
only. The man's work is more tangible, the woman's
more intangible.
What is true of the building of a house and home is
true of the spheres of man and woman throughout.
In the struggle to earn daily bread there are fields, of
course, in which the two come in competition. It is
not always possible to distinguish at every point the
inner from the outer. The general distinction is, how
ever, a plain one.
And now, because man's work and woman's work,
man's nature and woman's nature, man's place in the
world and woman's place in the world differ thus,
therefore also their temptations, to some extent cer
tainly, are different, their religion, to some extent, is
different. It is the part of each to carry Christ into

198 Modern Christianity
every act of life. Each must apply His principles, His
life to his or her life and conduct; but the application
is different. Perhaps, for this reason, the things I am
going to try to say to you would be better said to you
by a woman, as they touch those things which more
particularly concern a woman's life; and yet, sometimes
it is well that a man should bring a message to women,
just as that women should bring their message to man.
The woman's message to man is usually given in the
home training, in the personal intercourse; the man's
in the more open and public method of speaking, not
to the individual but to the mass; and so I must give
my message to you.
Now, I take it that, because of the particular condi
tions of the life of women, the smaller things affect her
more than they do the man. It is possible for him to
get away from the petty annoyances as a woman can
not. His larger outside interests render him less likely
to turn his thoughts in upon himself. The small things,
it is true, affect us all and many a life is made or marred
by the little things, which seem so insignificant that
we are apt to disregard them. It would be well for all
of us if we realised more fully that religion must enter
into these things also; that Jesus Christ cared for the
very small things of life, as well as for the great; that
God Almighty makes and is concerned with the little
thoughts, the little words, the little deeds. "Not a
sparrow falleth to the ground without the will of your
Father in Heaven"; "The hairs of your head are all
numbered"; and when God gave His only begotten
Son to take upon Himself the nature of man, He was
born as a little babe in the house of very poor and lowly

Little Foxes 199
people, whose whole life was made up of the small and
insignificant things. It is the little foxes which are
most apt to destroy the vines of your life and prevent
them from bearing the fruits of joy and holiness and
peace, which God meant them to bear for you and for
the world. The greater things are more easily seen.
People understand their wickedness and wrong. The
little things are overlooked. We say they are nothing.
It seems to us that God cannot come into those things.
Let me name a few of the little foxes.
I think one little fox that I have seen destroy a good
many tender vines is untidiness, lack of*neatness. How
sweet it is to see a girl careful about her person, careful
about her surroundings, pleasant to look at, pleasant
to deal with. It requires exertion, it requires thought,
it requires attention: but it is well worth it all. Go
into a household where the mother or the daughters
or the sisters are neat and tidy, where everything is
clean and sweet. Many a man craves a home like that
and cannot find it. Many a man is driven out of his
home by the lack of tidiness, neatness, there. Go into
a shop and see the girl at the counter who is tidy and
neat in her person and her ways; that is the one with
whom the customer likes to deal. Well, as I have said,
it means effort, it means sometimes a little self-denial
in other things, to achieve just that tidiness and neat
ness. Oh ! how many lives of men and women both have
I seen hampered by just the lack of cultivation of this
one of those little graces which woman was meant to
bring into the world. God meant that she should
fill the world with grace and beauty and charm, and
when she fails, one of God's best gifts is taken away.

200 Modern Christianity
It is a little thing, and yet it means so much. That is
the first of my little foxes.
And there is another little fox that comes, I think,
from the same neighbourhood ; and that is the little
fox called carelessness. How exasperating it is to have
dealings with a person who is careless, drops this here
and loses that there, never knows where anything is.
How much discomfort is brought into the world by it.
Ah ! the careless person rarely realises all the pain and
trouble that she causes. She does not understand why
people do not like to have her touch their things, why
they do not waftt to have her about. That is another
little fox that spoils the vines of our life and prevents
that life from bearing fruits of joy and peace for our
selves and those about us.
There is another little fox of the same brood, which
is called unreliability. "Oh yes, I will do this," and it
is not done; "So and so told me so" ; and what so and
so really told was something quite different. Promises
broken, not because there is intention of falsehood; un
true statements made, not for the direct purpose of
deceit. Oh ! it means so much to be reliable in word or
deed, that one may know that when you say you will
do a thing, it will be done; that when you say a thing is
so, it is just exactly as you tell it. I could tell you of
great injury, great calamities, which have come from
the work of those little foxes of unreliability and care
lessness. Every day of my life I see about me vines
that have been hurt, if not altogether ruined, by the
ravages of those little foxes.
And now let me mention another— tactlessness.
How delightful is a person who has what we call tact.

Little Foxes 201
I do not know how to define tact exactly, but every one
knows what tact is. The person who knows how to
put you at your ease; not to speak about the wrong
thing; to^ speak about the right thing; to see at this
moment and not to see at that moment. It is thought-
fulness put into practice in an almost unconscious way
in the little affairs of life; for a person may mean to be
very thoughtful and yet, lacking tact, do or say just
those things which should not be done or said. Tact
is the power of feeling the persons about you. We all
of us see one another's bodies, we hear one another's
words. It is another thing to come in touch with the
soul behind, to feel that person. That is the gift of
tact. Gift? Yes, to some persons it is a gift; but it is
a gift that may be cultivated, cultivated by the effort
to put ourselves into the place of those about, to think
one's self into their thoughts, into their needs, so that
we do not impose ourselves upon them. There is
nothing more gracious than tact. It is a thing to be
proud of, a thing to be striven for, a thing which, to
some extent, we can all achieve if we only care enough
for those about us to forget ourselves a little and try to
put ourselves in their places.
Now there is another little fox that hunts with tact
lessness, and that fox is egotism. Egotism is different
from mere vanity or pure selfishness. It is natural for
a little child to* babble away about itself. It measures
everything by itself; but what is natural in a little child
becomes extremely unpleasant and offensive in a grown
person. How tired we do become of the person who
can talk about nothing except what she has been doing,
what she has to wear, whom she knows, what she thinks;

202 Modern Christianity
who never is ready to hear what we wear, whom we
know, what we think, what we do. 1 1 is a very annoying
little fox, one that does a great deal of harm among the
tender vines of life. There is nothing more precious in
life than love; that people should trust you; that people
should love you; that people should confide in you.
Egotism destroys just that fruit. They cannot trust,
love, or confide in one whose whole talk and apparently
whole nature is centred in herself. Tactlessness and
egotism — yes, these surely and perhaps all the little
foxes that I have been speaking of are, you may say,
expressions of one great sin, and that is selfishness.
But I am not dealing with the great underlying sins.
I am dealing with the little foxes.
I think the worst den of those little foxes is at the
root of our tongues. There dwells a mother fox, who
has a large brood of little foxes that do incalculable
harm. Do you remember what St. James says about
the tongue? "It is a little matter and boasteth great
things. Behold, how much wood a little fire bums up."
Then, you know, he says that the tongue is the hard
est of all things to be controlled. Oh, how much mis
chief our words do! Things have gone wrong with us,
we are not feeling very well, some annoying customer
has come in and upset us by her thoughtlessness, things
were not right at home, the weather is very trying.
Whatever it is, we are upset ; and what do we do? We
vent our unpleasant feelings in sharp words toward
some one about us and near us, a quite innocent per
son, who is not in the least responsible for our condi
tion. We say some little barbed word of sarcasm. We
sneer at some little fault or failing. We try to hurt the

Little Foxes 203
feelings of some one else. Where we ought to have
brought love and kindness, we bring malice and hate.
Perhaps we make an enemy out of some one who
might have been a friend. We turn away from us, by
the unkind word we speak, some one who perhaps
needed our help and would have given us her con
fidence. We lose the opportunity of helping or even
of saving a soul by our action.
How much injury we do with the little unkind things
we say about one another, some little tittle-tattle
which we pass on! Possibly part of it is true. It
might even be that the whole of it is true, but we told
it not for any purpose of preventing a wrong, of re
forming an evil, but out of pure malice or thought
lessness; malice, merely because we like to do a bit of
mischief, just as a boy likes to break a window or do
some harm for the fun of the thing; or thoughtlessness,
because we do not really realise the injury which our
words might do. It is a bright thing to say, it will
make so and so listen, amuse so and so; and so it is said.
I think it was Harriet Moore, or perhaps it was Mrs.
Hemans — I cannot say which, but a famous English
woman, — who is said to have had this custom: When
any one came to her with an unkind story about some
one else, she would instantly put on her bonnet, and say :
"Come, my dear, we will go at once and see so and so,"
— the person about whom the story was told, — "and
tell her, so as to get this- straight." Few people would
wish to retail gossip or tell malicious little stories to
one who did like that, and how much more kindliness
and love would come into our lives and the lives of
those about us if we were as eager to tell the nice things

204 Modern Christianity
and the kind things as many of us seem to be to tell
the little spiteful or unkindly things.
I might mention many more of these little foxes —
peevishness, irritability, a host more of them, some of
which seem to us often to be closely connected with
our physical infirmities. I think that in most cases,
however, their connection with our physical infirmities
is that we give them a home there and coddle them
up and pet them, and then let them get out to destroy
our tender vines and the tender vines of those about
us. You could, doubtless, name many more of these
little foxes than I have done. Take this verse and
think of it.
But how are we going to get rid of all these little
foxes? We read these words in the lesson this afternoon :
" If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which
are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of
God." Now, that does not refer to a rising after death:
it refers to a rising in this life, to a rising out of malice
and hatred and pettiness and meanness into the glori
ous kingdom of the love of God. Open your hearts
and let the sunshine of God's love stream in. Do you
know how, in modem medical practice, they do just
that thing with our homes and our houses? The dark,
stuffy little rooms into which God's sunshine and the
fresh air cannot come are hot-houses of disease. All
sorts of germs breed in them. The mind and heart
that shuts itself in, closes all its windows, won't let
the sunshine of God's love and the breath of His gra
cious Spirit enter in: that mind and heart are full of all
sorts of germs of disease. That is where the little
foxes grow and thrive. People like that, who shut

Little Foxes 205
themselves up in that way, are full of all sorts of
suspicions: they see all the evil that is about them.
They develop a positive ingenuity for finding evil in the
hearts and lives of those about them. They do not
seem to think that there is any good, and if they see a
good thing they think it must be done for a bad mo
tive. I know there is much evil all about with which
you come in contact in your lives; but there is so much
love, so much goodness, so much kindness in the
world! God is here and very close at hand. The
New Testament, with its wonderful story of God in
carnate in man, Jesus Christ walking about here upon
earth and healing sickness and doing deeds of love,
was meant to make you and me understand that God
is all the time right here about us, walking among
us, waiting to be recognised and known, and that
God is ready to give you and me a great power to
heal sick souls, uplift maimed and broken lives; that
He has given it to us, His children, if we would but
use it.
Lately people have found in Egypt a good many
ancient writings, some of which profess to be the
Sayings of Jesus, which are not in the Bible. Christ
ians in the early days loved to dwell upon the principles
which Jesus taught, and try to find new applications
for them. I remember one of those little sayings, to
the effect that if you only turn up a stone, under
neath it you will find God. "Seek and ye shall find."
There is one story of Jesus which is told in the East
—1 do not suppose it is history, but I like it, because
it expresses just that power which Jesus had and which
every child of God ought also to display, of seeing and

206 Modern Christianity
finding good in all about. Jesus and His disciples
came one evening to a little town. The disciples
dispersed to search for a place to lodge and food to
eat, and Jesus, walking alone, came to a group of the
townsfolk gathered about a dead dog, lying in the
street. Now the dogs there, you know, are the sca
vengers. They belong to no one. They are outcasts
and unclean. And one said: "Aha, the thief is dead."
And another answered: "Yes, the foul brute! How
could God have made such uncleanness!" And an
other said: "Faugh, he stinks. Let 's get away from
here." And another, kicking him with his foot, said:
"Worthless carrion, fit only to die and rot! There
is nothing good about the whole* tribe of you. " Then
they heard the gentle voice of the stranger who had
approached them unawares saying: "And yet his
teeth are whiter than the whitest pearls." So they
turned and looked at Him for a moment, and then
one said: "Surely this must be that Jesus of Naza
reth, of whom we have heard, for none but He could
see good even in a dead dog." There is the Divine
power: to see the good that is about you, to find it,
express it, bring it out. Why, to do that is to create
good. I have spoken to you of these very little things, the
little foxes. Some of you, I doubt not, dream of
the great things of life. You like to read the novels
and stories that tell of some beautiful heroine in high
place, and the things which she said and did. You
fancy that such a life would be a grand one, and per
haps you think you could do much good in such a life
as that. I think God knows best our capacities and

Little Foxes 207
our abilities. Sometimes He puts us in a place to test
us and prepare us for something bigger, and some
times the place which we hold now, all unknown to
ourselves, is the really great and important place.
No one can ever tell how far-reaching his words or
his deeds may be. The private soldier on sentry
duty may, by his carelessness, bring about the destruc
tion of a whole army, or, by his diligence and faithful
ness, secure its safety and its ultimate victory. Of all
the lives which have touched mine for good, few have
done more for me than the life of a very modest and
unknown woman in a town where I once lived. I
knew there many learned people, many who have
won distinction, some who occupy to-day the highest
places in the nation's counsels, but no one in all that
town did for me what that little dressmaker did.

PART II
THE SOCIAL TEACHING OF OUR LORD
JESUS CHRIST

14 209

A DINNER PARTY
St. Luke xiv., 1-23
JESUS was invited by one of the social and reli
gious leaders of Jerusalem to a dinner party,
very much as any religious or social reformer, much
talked of at the moment, might be invited to-day.
The object of such an invitation is mainly one of
curiosity, to observe at close range the man who is
attracting attention, to have an opportunity to see
him, to observe him apart from his own surroundings,
his own chosen environment. There is something
amusing and interesting in this, possibly something
instructive, but the motive of the greater part of the
guests on such an occasion is one merely of curiosity;
their attitude towards the man invited to be looked
at or heard is too often contemptuous and disdainful,
as toward one not in our set, who has no knowledge
of our modes of thought and conditions of life, and
who on that account is an alien and an inferior. We
are familiar with Jesus' miracles of healing among
the sick and suffering; we know Him in His association
with fishermen, with labourers, with publicans and
sinners; we have read His sermons and His parables
to the multitudes, the story of His trial by the high
211

212 Modern Christianity
priest and before Pilate. In all these relations Jesus
is familiar to us. I venture to think that He is quite
unfamiliar to us as a guest in the fashionable social
circles of His day.
We have, in the fourteenth chapter of St. Luke's
Gospel, a most curiously interesting and instructive
account of His attitude and teachings in precisely
such surroundings. We obtain a glimpse of the mo
tives that moved the guests at that dinner. We
hear the conversations that took place, the questions
that were asked Jesus and His answers, and we see
the hypocrisy and sham religion of that society. The
chapter is headed thus: "And it happened when He
went into the house of one of the leaders of the Phari
sees to dine on a Sabbath day, their object being to
observe Him." Then follows a description of what
took place. First of all there appeared before Him
a sick man, sick with dropsy. The Pharisees were
going to have an opportunity of seeing two things:
how He healed sick people and how He kept the law.
But the tables were somewhat turned on them, when
Jesus asked them for their opinion. They were
doctors of the law. What should He do? Was it
lawful for Him to heal on the Sabbath day? Now
their object was not to find the truth, nor to assist
Him in doing what was right, but merely to test
Him. It was a distinctly hostile attitude, not a
friendly but an unfriendly test; they would like to
trip Him up if they could. No one answered. So
He took the man and healed him and let him go, and
then, turning on them, quoted their own Scriptures
and applied to that case the principle contained in

A Dinner Party 213
them. In the Sabbath law in the Pentateuch it was
provided that if a man's cattle were in danger or dis
comfort, as if an ox or an ass had fallen into a pit,
one should relieve him on the Sabbath day. The prin
ciple of the Sabbath was rest from labour for those
who toiled, man or beast alike. It was humanitarian
and its humanitarianism called for relief of pain or
suffering. The application was unanswerable, but
just on that account it did not, presumably, increase
the kindly feeling of the Pharisees toward this man,
not of their own set, who, by His enunciation of that
principle and its application, had practically con
demned them.
Just then dinner was announced and they began
to take their places. The teaching of the Jewish
law, which these men professed to make their standard
of life, was that a man should love his neighbour
as himself. Any such standard of life forbids mere
self-seeking. No man can honestly profess such a stand
ard and then seek to make himself the first in every
thing. He is bound to do for his neighbour just as
much as for himself. Each of these men wanted to
be counted honourable. Each wanted to have posi
tion, to be respected of his fellows. His concern was
not that his fellows should have position, respect, and
honour, but that he should have it. It is the common
struggle for precedence, which, in some form or another,
shows itself in every worldly society. But here was
precisely the point: this society professed not to be
worldly, but to be based on religious principles, to
recognise a higher law than the law of get-what-you-
can-for-yourself. Manifestly the pretence, in their

214 Modern Christianity
social relations at least, was a false one. The bulk
of those present were not concerned with what they
could do to promote the pleasure or the social well-
being of some one else, to give honour to another;
they were eager to promote their own social well-
being, to secure honour for themselves. It was neces
sary to find a place for Jesus, inasmuch as He was the
guest whom they all wished to see and to hear. A
suitable place must be found for Him, and it became
necessary for the host to ask one of his guests to make
place for Him. Then it was necessary to make room
for this guest, by changing the place of some one else,
and so a certain shifting took place, and naturally
the conversation fell upon the matter of precedence.
How should it be determined? Whose right was it
to occupy such a place? Who was the better man?
How are we to count such things? By and bye they
asked the social reformer, their guest, what His idea
was, and He replied, as it were in their own language,
but with a little irony, one cannot but think. Surely
honour does not come from that which a man does for
himself, or seeks for himself, but from the respect which
others show toward him. It is no honour to any
man greedily to seize the best place for himself. It is
an honour to have the best place assigned to him
because of the respect and veneration in which others
hold him. So His answer was, in proverbial or half
proverbial fashion: "When you are invited by any
man to a wedding feast, do not seat yourself in the
chief place, lest some one of higher rank than you be
invited by your host, and he that invited you both come
and say to you: Give place to this man; and then

A Dinner Party 215
you begin with shame to take the lowest place. But
when you are invited go and sit down at the lowest
place, so that when he who invited you comes he
may say to you: My friend, come up higher. Then
you shall have honour in the sight of all that are
dining with you, because every one that exalte th him
self shall be humbled and he that humbleth himself
shall be exalted. "
Next they fell a-talking about the persons to be
invited to their houses. Their religion enjoined hospi
tality. It was a good deed, acceptable to God, when
one entertained a stranger, one who was in need, who
had no home. There is an oriental phrase, which
one hears to-day in the East, "My house is yours";
everything is, as it were, placed at the disposal of
the guest. There is a certain piety, the recognition
of a religious obligation, in this service of another
with one's house and goods. Maintaining the customs
of an earlier and more primitive age, the Jews of our
Lord's time counted hospitality among the sacred
duties of religion. To extend hospitality was pleasing
in God's sight; but the spirit that lay behind the
injunction to hospitality, which made hospitality
a religious act, acceptable in the sight of God, was
perverted in such wealthy society as that of the Phari
sees with whom our Lord was feasting. No real
hospitality was shown in their feasts. They were
merely society functions. When they turned to our
Lord and asked Him, as the result of the conversation
which they had been holding among themselves,
what was the right thing to do about inviting guests,
who were the right people to be asked, our Lord

2i 6 Modern Christianity
recurred to the foundation principles of hospitality,
which they recognised as binding, answering still
with something of the same irony as before. They
thought that every good deed would be rewarded; and
as it is manifest that all good deeds are not rewarded
here on earth, therefore those good deeds which are
not rewarded here shall be rewarded hereafter, in
the kingdom that is to come. Jesus says to them:
"When you give a supper or a dinner, do not invite
your friends, your kinsfolk, or your rich neighbours."
That is not hospitality: it is done for your own pleas
ure or to obtain invitations in return for yourself, to
secure a better social rank for yourself. Such a deed
has its reward in the return invitation. There is
nothing of religion in it, and it receives no reward in
the kingdom of heaven, because those whom you
invite will invite you in return ; and that will be your
reward. "But when you give an entertainment,
invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and
you shall be blessed, because they cannot invite you
in return, for you shall be repaid in the resurrection
ofthe righteous."
One pompous old Pharisee who was present, one
of those self-satisfied, righteous men who are always
quite sure that they and their religion and their doings
are entirely satisfactory, and that they are going to
be social and religious leaders in the kingdom of heaven,
just as they are here, hearing Him speak of the resur
rection of the righteous in connection with a supper
or feast, at once remarked, with all the unction of
self-satisfied godliness: "Blessed is he who shall eat
bread in the kingdom of God." He was sure that

A Dinner Party 217
he and his friends were those for whom the feast of
heaven was spread. Then our Lord told the parable
of the supper.
I have analysed at some length the conversation
and the happenings of this dinner party as related
to Jesus, following St. Luke's narrative. In details
the social relations of that Pharisaic good society of
Jerusalem are different from the social relations of
our good society, but the principle underlying both
is much the same. You and I live in the midst of a
worldly society, which has largely converted the
Church to its own worldhness. We profess certain
fundamental tenets of religion; the great bulk of us
who profess them do not pretend to practise them
when it comes to our social or society relations to our
fellow-men. Religion is not primarily a matter of
doctrine, of ritual, or of sacrament. It is a matter
of life, it is the carrying out in the social, as well as
in every other relation of life, of the fundamental
principles which Jesus Christ came to make vital
among men.
Those of you who receive the Communion make,
in the words of the priest who speaks for you, this
pledge of yourselves to God: "Here we offer and
present unto Thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and
bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice
unto Thee." It is the fundamental Christian con
ception of life that our lives cannot be lived for our
selves, that all we are and all we have are devoted to
God in the service of our fellow-beings. Our social
relations are included in this contract as well as every
thing else. The person who enters into social relations,

218 Modern Christianity
who seeks acquaintance and friendship, who gives
and takes invitations, for no other purpose than
social promotion, is precisely to that extent a hypocrite
and an unbeliever; he makes a profession of one thing
and does another, because there is no real belief in
his heart; and it may be added that such an attitude
deprives the person who assumes it of the very best
that there is in life, of the realities of life, true friend
ship, true love, the beauty and the joy of service with
and for those about us. Ambition is an entirely
legitimate thing, from the Christian standpoint, pro
vided that ambition be transmuted from the purely
selfish desire to achieve power or place for one's own
amusement or glory, into the desire to acquire position
or place or wealth so as to do something, in some
way to better, improve, or help the world, or some
of those who are in it. It is an honourable thing to
desire to be Mayor of this city, or Governor of this
State, or President of the United States, and to strive
with all one's energy to gain those offices, if it be done
because the man believes that he has the capacity
and power thus to serve his fellows and is filled with
the desire to do so. There are legitimate social ambi
tions. Each man and each woman should desire the
best,— the highest culture, the highest refinement;
and each father and each mother should desire for
their children the best environment. But that is a
very different thing from the cold-blooded, hypocritical
calculation of the person who makes or pretends to
make friendships for the sake of social advancement
and social recognition, who for social advancement
condones fraud and is blind to immorality, who is

A Dinner Party 219
proud to associate with rich scoundrels and immoral
divorcees, or to claim acquaintance with them, to
invite and be invited by them for the sake of social
position. Very little in life is more contemptible than
the conduct of men and women trying to rise, as they
conceive it, in the social scale, who cast off old friends,
or deny the ties of relationship, because such friend
ships and relationships would hinder them in their
climbing; but worst and most contemptible of all,
because it is an abuse of religion, a profanation of the
most sacred relations of life, is the conduct of those
who seek membership in churches which they esteem
fashionable and become communicants there because
such membership is the correct thing. Their case
is similar to that of Ananias and Sapphira; their lies
to God kill their souls. With the mere abuses of
society as society, with its selfishness and self-seeking,
with its immorality, I have nothing to do; but only
with the attitude of those who, professing the religion
of Jesus Christ, deny that profession in their social
relations. Our Lord in His talk that afternoon laid down the
fundamental law of Christian society. Seek not merely
nor first your own welfare, your own promotion and
advancement. As you recognise the rights and the
virtues of others, as you give them place, as you help
those who are unsuccessful, unfortunate, unfriended,
you show yourself a follower of Christ. When you
seek for yourself only, you are His enemy and be
trayer. He indicated in His talk that Sunday after
noon, among those worldly and hypocritical men,
the true attitude of the possessor of wealth or oppor-

220 Modern Christianity
tunity. He who, having wealth, a beautiful house,
picture galleries and the like, yachts, carriages, auto
mobiles, regards them as his own, to be used just for
his own pleasure, for the promotion of his social posi
tion, the satisfaction of selfish social ambition, has
failed to recognise the fundamental principle of the
stewardship of wealth.
I heard a short time since the latter story of a
woman I once knew who, after an unfortunate mar
riage, had been left to struggle for herself. She opened
a boarding-house in a college town. It was very suc
cessful. By and bye she inherited a large house in
the country; and to that house go to-day, for nothing
or for a small sum, working girls, tired clerks, and
all sorts of people who need rest and refreshment.
Here is a woman of small means who has entered into
the Saviour's conception of hospitality as religious
service. What would happen if Christian men and
women who possess the means were, in their various
degrees, to regard their houses, their gardens, their
galleries, their yachts, their automobiles and carriages
as a personal trust from God, of which they are the
stewards? But it is not merely the wealthy for whom our
Lord's parables are intended. Their number is very
small. The social teaching of this parable applies
to all of us. It is for the men and the women of small
means as well as for the men and women of large
means. It has to deal with principles which concern
social relations in general ; and there are.unfortunately,
plenty of people of small means who devote their all
to clothing themselves so as to keep up with their

A Dinner Party 221
society or the society which they aspire to, whose invi
tations and acceptances of invitations and whose
entire social relationship is based on that principle
of self-seeking which fell under our Lord's condem
nation. All about us are those less fortunate than
ourselves. To these we owe a social duty, to give to
them what we have that is better than what they
have, if it be but our higher grace and higher culture.
Merely to strive to win for ourselves a place in a social
circle above us, or to maintain our place in the social
circle which we call our own, is to renounce the fun
damental doctrines of Christianity as applied to the
social relations of life.
The attitude of at least a large part of the respectable
men and women who constitute the Church is set
forth in the parable which our Lord told the guests
at that dinner party in answer to the complaisant
utterances of the pompous, contented Pharisee. The
latter made use of the common phraseology of his day,
when he spoke of the kingdom of God as a feasting
in heaven. Our Lord accepted the phraseology and
built His parable upon it. You have accepted the
invitation to the kingdom of heaven. You are among
the invited guests, those who profess the true religion.
You expect a place with God in due time in His king
dom. Then comes the call that the feast is ready,
you are bidden to come; and you all with one accord
begin to make excuse. I have other things that are
more important: I am buying a piece of ground and
I must complete the sale; I am buying a yoke of oxen
and I must go and test them; my domestic relations
require my present attention. All these things are

222 Modern Christianity
important in themselves. The point is the rank
which you assign them. You profess to rate the spirit
ual life first; but in fact your real life is the material
life. You live for yourselves, for your own advantage,
your own comfort, your own pleasure. The spiritual
realities are not real to you ; they are something vague
and remote, belonging merely to your church services
and your professions of faith. This is largely true
to-day in our churches, just as it was true in the
strictest and legally most scrupulous circles of the
Jews in the time of our Lord. " Many are called but
few are chosen" is a literal truth which we are too
apt to interpret away. To be a member of the Church,
to make profession of religion, to conform in certain
regards to the law, that it is with which the bulk of
us are content and which we believe to be Christianity.
But that is not Christianity at all, and it is precisely
to those who stand in this position that this parable
speaks. Jesus appears in society to-day as among
the Pharisees, and society treats Him now much as
it did then.
Carlyle was a rough man and he spoke roughly many
a home truth. They tell of him that on one occasion
a distinguished woman, holding a high position in
the respectable society of the English upper classes,
expressed in his presence her surprise that the Jews
should have renounced and crucified Jesus Christ.
"Madam," he said, "if He were to appear in your
circle to-day, just as He appeared in old Judaea, poor,
unlettered, untutored, without social position and
proper introductions, you would ignore Him. You
would deny Him and very probably you would hound

A Dinner Party 223
Him to death precisely as the Jews did Jesus Christ."
This is largely true. In fact Jesus is here among us,
in the society in which we move, in the men and
women who make appeals for something higher and
nobler, for a friendship and love that are real and not
fictitious, for social relations which make for the
development of the spiritual and the ideal, for the
uplift of the weak and the neglected. Ninety-nine
out of every hundred of us count such persons anar
chists, socialists, dreamers, fools, enemies of society,
precisely as the Pharisees did Jesus and for the same
reason. Jesus is here among us in another form,
as He Himself has taught us, in the poor, the sick,
the unhappy, the unfortunate, the degraded. He is
here in them because whoever really gives to them
of himself, in and through that sacrifice of himself in
love attains to the sight and knowledge of God, present
here among men.
Ah well, much of what I have said will sound to
some of you very revolutionary. Yes, the most revolu
tionary book that was ever written is the life of Jesus
Christ. The most revolutionary teacher that ever lived
was Jesus Christ. The most profound revolution that
can take place in the heart of any man is that which
takes place when he has found Jesus Christ in very
truth and come to own Him really as his Saviour, —
when he has accepted the life of Jesus as his own,
not in outward profession merely, but in the actual
aim and effort of his daily life.

A GOOD NEGRO
St. Luke x., 36 : Which of these three, thinkest
thou, became neighbour to him that fell among the
thieves? A JEWISH theologian demanded from our Lord an
answer to the great school question: "What
shall a man do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus asked
him in turn, as one skilled in theology: "What is
written in the Law?" The theologian answered Him
in that admirable summary of the Law which we
use in our Communion service: "Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy
mind; and thy neighbour as thyself." The first
part of this, you will remember, is taken from the 6th
chapter of Deuteronomy, the 5th verse; the last
part, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,"
occurs in the 18th verse of the 19th chapter of the
Book of Leviticus. Our Lord replied substantially:
"That is sound doctrine: you have answered aright.
Do this and you shall live." So far the theologian
had been put in the wrong, as it were. He could find
no fault with Jesus' answer. In fact, Jesus seemed to
have adopted the theologian's answer as His own.
Anxious to set himself right, the theologian then
224

A Good Negro 225
asked Jesus the test question: "And who is my neigh
bour?" Now you will observe that in the connection
in which the command, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself," is found in Leviticus, it applies properly
only to the people of Israel. It expresses the duty of
Israelite towards Israelite. "Thou shalt not avenge,
nor bear any grudge against the children of thy peo
ple, but thou shalt love thy neighbour," that is,
thy fellow-Israelite, "as thyself." To you and me this
might seem sufficiently narrow, and in point of fact
a fundamental fault of the religion of Israel has been
the narrowness of its point of view. It is, from our
standpoint, patriotism rather than religion, and it is
precisely the adherence to this narrow national and
racial religion, this Chauvinism, which has made the
Jew an alien among the nations, hating and hated
wherever he abides, his hand against all and their
hand against him; because his standpoint is that his
obligation toward his neighbour is confined to his
own people. The standard of his relationship toward
them may be a lofty standard, but he does not recog
nise a similar obligation toward those outside of his
own race.
In our Lord's day the people of Israel were divided
into two parts, the Samaritans and the Jews. The
former had their temple at Gerizzim, by the side of
Shechem, the latter their temple at Jerusalem. Each
of them recognised the same Law, the five books of
Moses, which we have in our Bible to-day, and each
cursed and denounced the other. So far from re
garding his fellow-Israelites and fellow-believers of
Samaria as neighbours, the Jew regarded them as

226 Modern Christianity
heretics and schismatics. His hatred toward them
was more bitter than his hatred toward the outside
heathen, and they entertained the same feeling toward
him. But even within the Jewish church itself the
Pharisees looked with contempt on the unlettered and
ignorant multitude, who did not understand the
niceties of the Law, and who did not observe all the
minutiae which the Pharisees had read into it and
interpreted out of it. These common Jews, the bulk
of the people, the Pharisees regarded as unclean, so
that they could not associate with them, sit down in
their houses, eat meat with them, and the like. Re
ligion had become to the Jewish theologians not a
vitalising, harmonising spirit, but a dry set of rules,
an interpretation of formulas. They had narrowed
down the obligation of neighbourliness. Their em
phasis was not on that which was really essential and
fundamental in the Law, love. Their emphasis lay
on the definition of the man to whom love was to be
shown. The parable with which our Lord answered the
question, Who is my neighbour? turns the emphasis
on that which is essential and fundamental — love.
If there be real love there is no need of defining the
word neighbour. Literally, as I have said, the Samari
tans were Israelites as much as the Jews, but each
called the other heretic and schismatic. Each be
longed to Israel and each acknowledged the authority
of the same sacred Law, but each anathematised and
hated the other. Our Lord makes the hero of His
parable the hated, heretical, and schismatic Samaritan,
whom yet, under the literal terms of the Law, the

A Good Negro 227
Pharisee was bound to love, not hate. I wish I could
reproduce the setting of this parable. There are few
weirder and more desolate spots on the world's surface
than that road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Once over
the Mount of Olives you leave vegetation and life
behind you. The mountains are as barren as the face
of the moon. There is no water, there is not a house
from the time you leave the Apostles' Well, just at
the foot of the Mount of Olives, until you reach Jericho.
You descend almost 4000 feet. Leaving Jerusalem
in mid-winter, with the snow on the ground, when you
reach Jericho you may be in mid-summer, with palms
and oranges growing all about you and the heat
at mid-day almost intolerable. You are 1300 feet
below the level of the sea, and the great weight of
the air rests upon you like a pall; you are suffocated
beneath an unseen blanket. Something of this oppres
sion, this burden of the atmosphere, you begin to
feel as you descend the road, long before you reach
Jericho. This, with the absolute lifelessness of the
wild and barren region through which that road
passes, the glaring whiteness of the chalk rocks, that
almost blinds you, the strange, fantastic, and unworldly
shapes of the desolate mountain ridges and valleys
about you exert a depressing effect upon your mind.
It requires nerve to retain one's courage on that road,
in presence of danger or difficulty. And that wild
mountain region between Jerusalem and Jericho has
always been a favourite resort of robbers. Because
no one lives there, bandits have found it a fit place in
which to ply their trade. At almost any period during
the centuries the story of the poor fellow that fell

228 Modern Christianity
among thieves might well have been enacted there.
It was because of the infamous reputation of this road
for robbery that our Lord selected it as the place of
His tale. The particular incident on which He bases
His story may well have been an actual fact, known
to every citizen of Jerusalem, and as such having a
personal application. A poor fellow was robbed, beat
en, stripped of his clothes, and left half dead on that
inhospitable road, with no house near at hand — sure
death to him unless some kindly traveller would take
him up and carry him to Jerusalem or to Jericho.
By and bye there came along a priest, symbol of the
God-fearing, law-abiding citizen of Jerusalem. The
very profession of his life was religion. He lived
through and for religion. But he simply left the poor
sufferer lying where he found him and hurried on.
The Levite who followed him, and who was almost
equally a type of the respectable, God-fearing, law-
abiding citizen of Jerusalem, who above all men
should know and fulfil the law of loving his neighbour
as himself, did the same.
Now it is very easy to condemn the action or rather
inaction of these two men. I think the ordinary
reader does not understand their temptation, because
he does not appreciate the conditions of that road.
It was a dangerous place to pass through at the very
best. Delay meant a considerable increase of that
danger. The very condition of the man that lay
there on the road was evidence of the presence in
their immediate neighbourhood of a band of robbers,
against whom neither priest nor Levite could defend
himself. To pick up the man and carry him along

A Good Negro 229
meant a retarded journey, with an increased chance
of their own robbery. Each of them presumably had
a donkey, on which he carried his bed, that is, his
blankets, and a few personal effects, together with a
jar of water. This beast he sometimes rode, some
times he walked by his side. With him he could move
rapidly and hence more readily escape the danger.
If he stopped and took up the wounded man, first of
necessity binding up his wounds, he could only go for
ward very slowly. Now why should he expose him
self to such risk? It was almost certain that within a
couple of hours at the very most a caravan would
come along, to which delay would mean no danger,
in which were plenty of beasts who could carry the
man, and plenty of men who could easily lift him up
and who could and would undoubtedly care for him.
As a matter of simple, common sense, why should he
expose his life and his goods for this man, about whom
he knew nothing, when within two or three hours at
the outside others would undoubtedly be passing who
could and would take care of him very much better
than he could? You must not think of the priest and
Levite as wantonly bad men. Put yourself in their
place. What would you do under such circum
stances, and what do you do under circumstances which
are in principle identical? This is precisely what our
Lord meant us to do with the parable, to apply it to
ourselves. Permit me to tell you a story out of my own ex
perience. I was a little boy, in an agony of pain, lying
by the roadside, on the outskirts of the New England
town of Great Barrington. I had been thrown from

230 Modern Christianity
my horse. My ankle had been dislocated. I could
not stand nor walk. My horse had run away and 1
was a mile or so from my home. It was toward the
latter end of the afternoon. By and bye a respectable,
well-to-do farmer, a godly man and one of the pillars
of the church, I make no doubt, came driving by on
his way out of the town back to his home on the Egre-
mont Plains. He stopped and looked at me, but when
asked to turn his waggon around and take me back to
my home in the town, he refused. Somebody would
be coming along from the other direction before long
and would take me in; he could not stop. Two or
three of these good farmers treated me in this way.
I remember especially one of them who was quite
inquisitive. He had never seen a foot twisted around
at right angles to its proper position, as mine was, and
he was interested in examining it; so he handled and
squeezed it, causing me exquisite torture, while I let
him do it, trying my best to bear it without a cry,
in the hope that then he would pick me up and take
me home. But it was the same old story. He had
no time. Some one else would be coming pretty soon.
Some one else did come pretty soon — two poor old
coloured men in a ramshackle, broken-down rig, driv
ing a broken-winded, rickety horse. They had quite
as far to go as those farmers. They were not re
spectable and godly members of society. The Egre-
mont farmers were much more nearly of my own class
and my own religion, my own way of training, my own
way of looking at life than those poor negroes. But I
do not remember that it was necessary even to ask
the latter for help. They seemed to sense my pain

A Good Negro 231
and my need without words. They turned their old
waggon around at once and took me in, and I have
never forgotten, and I hope I never shall forget as
long as I live, the tender sympathy which those poor
old fellows showed: one of them driving his horse
toward the town as fast as he could, so as to save me
every moment of pain he might, and the other holding
me as well as he could to save my foot from jarring,
and trying to comfort me in all sorts of quaint and
queer ways, calling me "honey," "poor little lamb,"
and the like.
Now which of those men do you think was neighbour
to me? The godly and righteous, hard-working, well-
to-do farmers from the Egremont Plain, or those two
poor, miserable, forsaken coloured men for whom none
of us had a good word?
In that story of the good Samaritan our Lord laid
His finger upon the danger of our life. Our religion,
our respectability, are apt to become fundamentally
selfish. It is of ourselves we think. Our righteousness
is for our own well-being. But beyond and above
mere righteousness there is something which is the
very heart of the universe, the very essence of God
Almighty, and that is love. No man whose religion
is centred upon himself, whose life means the pro
motion of his own well-being, has entered into the
kingdom of God, to use Christ's frequent words, for
the very atmosphere of that kingdom is love.
Now the man who, seeing a boy lying by the road
side suffering agonies, can be so wrapped up in himself
and his own affairs and his own duties and respon
sibilities that he does not respond with sympathy to

232 Modern Christianity
his need, that the boy's suffering does not appeal to
him as a thing which must be relieved, which he must
care for at once, without regard to his own incon
venience, is a man who has not entered into the real
spirit of the religion of Christ. So in our Lord's story
the priest and the Levite, whose consideration of
themselves was paramount, who in the presence of
a suffering fellow-being could coldly and selfishly
reason with regard to their own danger, their own
inconvenience, their own rights, and the precise degree
of their obligation, were men who had failed to grasp
the fundamental thought of "loving their neighbour
as themselves."
And now let us apply that for one moment to our
selves. It is precisely the attitude of the priest and
Levite which I think I may safely say the bulk of
professing Christian men and women take. You and
I do not go down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho
and find a man who has literally fallen among thieves.
Our obligations of love present themselves in a different
way, I fancy, but the principle is the same. I but
repeat the experience of every rector of a parish when
I say that the number of people who are actually
ready to do work in a parish is small, out of all pro
portion to the number of professing Christians, or
even to the number of communicants in that parish.
Men and women who seem to the rector's eye to be in
a position to render service in the work of the parish
declare themselves quite unable to undertake such
work. Possibly they recognise the need of the work,
but it seems to them that some one else ought to do it
and not they; and it is often precisely those who seem

A Good Negro 233
best able to undertake the work of God who would
leave it to others.
The same thing is true with regard to those profes
sions which call for sacrifice and service. The ministry
is not, as a rule, well-paid. First there is a long period
of study and training which must be gone through.
That is expensive. Then, after a man enters the minis
try, the opportunities of large remuneration are small.
You would think that, under the circumstances, the
Church might call on those persons to whom a salary
is not an absolute necessity, who have some means of»
their own, to enter the ministry. How large a number
of young men enter the ministry from the ranks of the
wealthy or well-to-do parishioners in any parish ?
And how about the ministry of women? How
many young women from similar families become dea
conesses or nurses, or give themselves to mission work
or whatever else of the same sort? The same thing
which prevents them from answering this call, the in
convenience of it, the danger of it, the burden of it,
affects the same classes when it comes to work of any
sort. It appears to be the men and women who have
to work the hardest for their daily bread who take up
and do the work of the Church.
But the work of Christ is not confined to parish
work, or the ministry, or deaconesses, or nurses, or
missions. There is an immense work for betterment,
for the uplift of our fellow-beings, calling for volun
teers in this city of New York. It cries to us for con
tributions of our money, but above all it cries to us
for our personal service. If you could stir one half
of the Christian men and Christian women of this city

234 Modern Christianity
to actual love of Christ, showing itself in the service
of their fellow-men, the existing conditions of evil
would largely be remedied. Ask any man or any
woman who is straggling to remedy some great wrong,
to help those who are in need, what sort of assistance
he receives from his fellow-Christians, and he will
almost always tell you that it is very difficult to find
workers who will really work, who will really recognise
the obligation themselves to serve; and that of those
who do engage in the work the average man or woman
Ms apt to think that when he attends a committee
meeting once a month he has done all that can be
expected of him. Take the lists of the various benevo
lent societies and organisations in this city and run
over them. You will find the same names appearing
over and over again, for the simple reason that out
of the great mass bf Christian men and women there
is such a very small proportion who are willing to
accept the responsibilities and obligations of service,
such a very small number who in practice show that
love which counts personal pleasure and personal com
fort as a small thing in comparison with the oppor
tunity to serve one's fellows in need or trouble.
Ah well, it may be said, that is not the only way
in which service is rendered. No, it is not. The best
service of all is that which is rendered by one individ
ual to another, quite outside of the lines of organisation
and institution. I have spoken of the other only as
a gauge, a test of conditions. We should not, in fact,
need any such organisations or institutions if even the
majority, perhaps even one third, of the members of
our churches were full of the true spirit of love and

A Good Negro 235
service. If, instead of asking the question: Who is
my neighbour? How little am I compelled to do?
What is my necessary obligation? we Christian men
and women were really to ask: To whom can I show
myself a neighbour? Where is there one whom I
can help? there would be no need of orphan asylums,
societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children,
Child Labour Committees, and much more of the same
sort. The conception of man's relation to life which
Jesus taught was this: I am here to serve. What
can I do? Jesus served His fellow-men with all His
powers because He really loved, because He was the
expression of the love of God; and whoever knows
Jesus becomes on his part, in his degree, an expression
of the love of God. The question to be asked, if you
really wish to get to fundamentals, is not the question
of the lawyer, the theologian of Jerusalem, Who is
my neighbour, to whom do I owe an obligation? but,
as Jesus summed it up in His story, Who is there that
needs me, whom can I help, to whom can I be a neigh
bour? No man, the idea of whose religion is the
saving of his own soul, has begun to grasp the idea of
the religion of Jesus Christ, much less to know his
Saviour. When a man is concerned with saving
some one else, then only has he begun to enter into a
knowledge of the religion of Christ; then only has he
begun to know Jesus as his Saviour.
It is a good thing to be respectable; it is a good
thing to have knowledge; it is a good thing to restrain
and discipline oneself and keep one's passions and
desires under control; it is a good thing to achieve
success, to accomplish results in life; and it is a good

236 Modern Christianity
thing to pray, to go to church, to be a communicant;
but, after all, that is not religion. In the Christian
sense religion is love, the love of God and of our fellow-
men, expressed in the character and the life of the
believer. Most of us are Church members. We are intelligent:
we can read and write. We are refined. We are, if
not rich, certainly not poor in the sense that we do
not know where we are going to get our daily bread.
We may not have all the things that some very rich
people have, but we are prosperous, if not rich, from
the point of view of the great bulk of men and women.
How did we get those things? How did we achieve
our present position? How much of what you are,
of what you have, came from yourself? Why, your
very physical well-being, the attributes of body which
you have, are in almost all cases what you have in
herited from your father and your mother. They are
the result of careful training by others when you were
little. You did not care for yourself when you were
a baby. Your parents cared for you. You did not
teach yourself. You were sent to school. All these
good things were provided for you. You were brought
up in the midst of decency and order and self-respect.
Your prosperity, your well-being, your respectability
are not something which you have achieved. There
is not one out of fifty of us who has won even his re
ligion for himself. What we have and what we are is
largely the result of what others have done for us.
On the foundations which others laid we have built
something; but when we count the proportion of what
we have done to what has been done for us in our

A Good Negro 237
lives, I fancy that we shall find it quite insignificant.
Then, who gave you these things? They are the gifts
of God, and neither you nor I can plead our decency,
our respectability as virtues in the sight of God. At
the last what He will ask us is: What have you done
with these gifts which I gave you? You were my
favoured children to whom I gave these good things,
that you might play the brother to these others who
are lying wounded and suffering by the road on which
you are travelling through life. Have you stopped to
care for them, to share with them the good things
which I gave you to give to them? To whom have you
been a neighbour, loving him as yourself? That, I
take it, is going to be the question asked us at the
great day. There is not one of us to whom there
have not come opportunities precisely such as came
to the priest and Levite. Did you take the obligation ?
Are you full of love, eager to find some one whom you
can help? Or have you been willing to avoid obliga
tion, to say: Someone else is coming who can do it
better than I? I will leave it to him. It is not my
task. It would hinder and hamper me too much.

. PALACES AND SLUMS
St. Luke xvi., 19-26
"/^~\NCE upon a time there was a rich man, and he
V_x was dressed in purple and linen and feasted
sumptuously every day ; and a poor man named Lazarus
used to be laid at his gate, covered with sores and beg
ging to be fed from the crumbs of the rich man's table.
Why, the very dogs used to come and lick his sores.
And by and bye the poor man died and was carried
away by angels up to Abraham's bosom. Then the
rich man also died and was laid in the tomb; and in
hell, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw from
afar Abraham, and Lazarus on his bosom. And he
called aloud and said: 'Father Abraham, take pity
on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of
his finger in water and cool down my tongue, for I
am tortured in this flame.' But Abraham said:
'Child, remember that you received your good things
in your lifetime and Lazarus on his part the evil
things; but now here he is comforted and you are
tortured; and beside all this, between us and you a
great gulf is fixed, that they who would pass over from
here to you may not, neither may they cross over to
us from there.' 'Then I ask you, father,' said he,
'that you would send him to my father's house, for
238

Palaces and Slums 239
I have five brethren, that he may tell them, so that
they too do not come into this place of torment.'
But Abraham said: 'They have Moses and the Proph
ets, let them hear them.' And he replied: 'Nay,
father Abraham; but if one came to them from the
dead they will repent.' Then Abraham said to him:
' If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither
will they be persuaded even though one should rise
from the dead.' "
Just because you are so familiar with this parable
I have read it over to you again in a literal translation,
for the words with which we are too familiar sometimes
fail to convey to us their full meaning. It is a very
simple story wonderfully told. How the brief de
scription of the two men brings out the difference
in their lives ! The one lived a life of luxury and ease,
clothed in the best, his every meal a banquet. The
other lived a life of squalor, loathsome to look at,
covered with sores, his food what the rich man could
not use and did not want, the refuse of his kitchen —
a poor outcast, sunk so low, so vile to see, that his
only real comrades were the dogs of the street. Like
him they lived on the refuse from the rich man's table.
He and they shared together. In the graphic words
of our Lord, they "licked his sores."
And when these men died the rich man was buried
in a costly tomb, but there was no tomb for the poor
outcast. His worthless body was put out of the way
so that it might not defile the town, and that was all,
from man's side. But now begins the other side.
The angels of God carried his soul away from that poor
dishonoured body, up to the bosom of Abraham.

240 Modern Christianity
The rich man's body, well preserved, lay in its costly
tomb, but the rich man's soul was in torment in the
flames of hell. Hell consisted of two parts, separated
by a great gulf. In the one part the souls of the
damned were in torment, bumed by a never-dying
flame. Across the gulf, far away and dimly seen by
them in their agony, was the abode of the blessed,
the bosom of Abraham, where the true Israelites dwelt
in paradise, the garden of joy and feasting, with the
great heroes and patriarchs of their race, Abraham
Isaac, and Jacob. And so this rich man in his torment
beheld far away, in Abraham's bosom, Lazarus, the
beggar that used to lie at his gate. He cannot yet
forget his importance and the importance of his
family. This poor beggar that was seems to him no
better than a slave, who should be sent at his will to
do him service, and so he calls out to Abraham to send
down Lazarus to dip his fingers in the water and bring
him drink, for he was bound among the flames and
could not move. Then when he finds that this is im
possible, he calls on him to send Lazarus to his father's
house to warn his brothers ; for Dives was not without
natural affection. He would not have his brothers
come into this torment. He was a man of a sort not
uncommon, proud of his family, anxious that they
should have the good things, both in this life and in
the hereafter. But his affection was limited to them.
It was that affection, strongly touched with pride
and selfishness, which men and women, hard and
selfish toward the outside world, often bear toward
their family and those who in some way belong to
them.

Palaces and Slums 241
Now this parable is not intended to give us a picture
of the next world. We are not to understand that
there is actually a hell in which the tormented suffer
in fire and brimstone, and that there is a paradise,
separated by a great gulf from this place of torture.
Our Lord is simply speaking to the people in their
own language, so to speak, precisely as, when He speaks
of the rising and setting of the sun, He is committing
Himself to no astronomical theory. For the purposes
of His teaching He takes their own conception of
the next world. His description of that is valuable
merely as showing us what the Jews of His day con
ceived to be the condition of the departed after this
life. Our Lord is not teaching us what heaven and
hell are like. Again, you are not to understand that
this poor man was on earth a saint, a pious, holy man
who bore unmerited misery with patience, whose
soul was so purified by his trials that therefore he was
taken unto Abraham's bosom. Lazarus is repre
sented merely as an utterly miserable beggar, such as
one may see to-day anywhere in the East, and as one
used to see in the streets of our cities when some of
us were young. There is no question of virtue or
vice. It is simply a question of misery. Similarly,
the rich man is not a glutton, as the heading of this
chapter in our King James' Version has it. That is
a misunderstanding of the very idea of the parable.
It is not drunkenness or gluttony that our Lord is
condemning. He shows us a rich man, who, having
of the good things of this world a plenty, conceives
of them as his own, which he may use for his
own pleasure and his own amusement. It is to be
16

242 Modern Christianity
presumed that Dives paid his way in the church; that,
according to the Hebrew law, he gave to the Lord his
tithes, one tenth of his income. Evidently he was
not uncharitable, in the ordinary sense which that
word has unfortunately come to have among us. He
was quite ready to give away what he did not want to
a poor beggar. I suppose that Lazarus may have
been one of many who lay at his door and were fed
from the crumbs that fell from his table; for such men
were rather glad to have a crowd of beggars at their
gate. It enhanced their importance and their splen
dour, and so far from driving them away they really
encouraged them to come and lie at their gates and
eat of their leavings, which were of no use to them.
What, then, does the parable mean? You are all
familiar with Lowell's poem of "Sir Launfal." That
is another form of this same parable of Dives and
Lazarus, only with Dives converted at the last. As,
in his vision, Sir Launfal rides out of his castle to
commence the search for the Holy Grail, he sees a
leprous beggar by the gate, begging an alms for Christ's
sweet sake. He throws him a purse of gold ; but there
is no love in the gift. It is not a gift given to a brother,
but an alms thrown with averted head to a loathsome
outcast, whose touch and whose very presence are an
offence to his soul. Then turn to the last scene in
that vision. Sir Launfal himself is poor. His life
has been a failure. He has not brought back in tri
umph the Holy Grail. He has lost his castle and his
lands, and men spurn him as a fool and a failure.
Then, in his poverty and loneliness, he hears the same
cry of the leper, begging an alms for Christ's sweet

Palaces and Slums 243
sake, and as he shares with that loathsome outcast the
poor crust and the cold water, which are all that he
has, in that deed of true love, as of one brother toward
another, he finds his Saviour. His eyes are opened,
he knows the Christ, and enters into the kingdom of
God. What is condemned in this parable is not gluttony
or drunkenness or sensuality; it is not wealth in itself.
It is the man wrapped in luxury and self-enjoyment,
whose heart is hard and selfish toward the miserable
and needy, who, instead of conceiving of his wealth
as the means of giving to them what they have not,
uses it for his own pleasure and that of his family and
a few chosen friends, content that the miserable
beggar should live on the leavings of his feasts. On
the other side we are shown the infinite pity and love
of God; precisely that which our Lord sets forth in
His stories of the kingdom of heaven in this same
Gospel of St. Luke. The kingdom of heaven is like
a man who had one hundred sheep and lost one. That
one miserable lost sheep counts to him as more than all
the ninety and nine. It is like the woman who had
ten pieces of silver and lost one, and lights the candle
and searches diligently through her house until she
finds it, and then calls all her neighbours and friends
to come and rejoice with her. It is like a father who
had two sons, one of whom became an outcast. He
descended to the lowest depths of degradation and
infamy. He was fain to eat with the swine and fill
his belly with the husks that were fed to them. But
when he came home and his father saw him afar off,
he ran and fell on his neck and kissed him; he ordered

244 Modern Christianity
him clothed in the best; he made a great feast to cele
brate his return. He showed to him, as it would seem,
an honour which he had never shown the son who
had lived with him all those years, dutifully and dili
gently caring for his inheritance. It is a picture of
God as Love, touched by misery and suffering, yearn
ing over the sufferer and gathering Him into His bosom
just because he has need.
Now the conditions of life which are pictured in
this parable of Dives and Lazarus are enacted every
day before our eyes here in this city of New York.
On Fifth Avenue you see the houses of the rich. There
live the men and women who are clothed in purple
and fine linen, whose daily meals would be to the
average working man a banquet, who spend each day
upon their pleasures, their luxuries, more than the
ordinary man can earn in many days. Down on the
lower east side you find men and women crowded
together in filthy and stifling quarters, poor, squalid,
and dirty, some of them not knowing whence the
money is coming to buy their daily bread, dying of
consumption or other similar preventable diseases,
because they have not the means to procure the neces
sary food to nourish their systems properly, or do not
know how to take care of themselves or their little
ones. These people that live on Fifth Avenue have
their houses at Newport, Lenox, Mt. Desert, on Long
Island, or on the Hudson, or at Tuxedo. If they are
overtired with pleasure or business they may run off
to Lakewood. If a cough develops or their nerves are
worn they may take a trip to Asheville or to Florida,
or in their yacht they may travel around the world.

Palaces and Slums 245
These others who live on the lower east side must
stifle and suffer when the hot waves come in summer.
They must work in crowded rooms all day and sleep
on fire-escapes or on the roofs or in the parks at night
to get a breath of fresh air. Their babies die off in such
weather, little children who could be saved if it were
only possible to take them to Newport, to Tuxedo, or
the like, if they could only be carried out to sea on a
yacht, if they could only have the needed care and
diet. The young men and young women who live
in these homes work in crowded workshops; they
develop the germs of tuberculosis, one gives it to
another, and whole families are swept away, who
might have been saved had it only been possible to
take them out of their dark and sunless tenements
and to give them a long period of rest, with nourishing,
plain, country food and bright sunshine and fresh air.
Ah well, you say, these persons who live on Fifth
Avenue, who have money and fine houses and live
in luxury, they have worked for what they have or
their fathers or grandfathers have worked for it.
They have acquired it by self-denial, self-control, self-
restraint, by diligent application, by superior intelli
gence and capacity, or by the same qualities in their
parents who have bequeathed it to them. They are
entitled to enjoy what they have won. The misery
and squalor that you speak about are due to the
shiftlessness and the self-indulgence and stupidity and
the sin of those others who live in the slums, — of them
or of their parents. To be sure there are individual
cases where that is not the case, but in the bulk it is
true. You have on the one side the prosperity, the

246 Modern Christianity
wealth which is the result of the application of certain
social and moral virtues. You have on the other side
the misery and degradation which are the result of
moral and social vices. Moreover, you forget that it
is precisely these rich men who give the money to
support and maintain such hospitals as St. Luke's
or Roosevelt, who furnish free pasteurised milk to
babies, who give the fresh-air outings to such great
numbers of children and poor women and shop girls,
who build and maintain cottages and homes to which
those afflicted with tuberculosis may be sent to secure
precisely that fresh air, nourishing food, sunlight, and
the like of which you speak.
Yes, that is perfectly true; and there are some among
them who not only give the money for these things
but who give themselves. But it is also true, and
that is precisely what our Lord points out, that the
great bulk of the people who have these things of
which I have spoken give their gifts as the crumbs
which fall from their table to the beggars who lie at
their door. What they do not need and what they
do not want, that they give. Like Sir Launfal they
turn their heads aside and toss the leprous beggar a
bag of gold. Those who have this world's goods above
the average have a mighty burden of responsibility.
However they have achieved wealth, whether by their
industry, their ability, their skill, or by inheritance
from those who have gone before them, in God's sight
that wealth is theirs not to enjoy but to share. The
very fact that it is stupidity and sin which have
brought the dwellers of the slums into their present
condition lays the greater burden on those who have

Palaces and Slums 247
achieved success. It is theirs to show these others
how, to take them by the hand, to lead them into
better paths. Even if a man were to sell all his goods,
as St. Paul says, and give them to the poor, and yet
did not have charity, did not give himself, it would be
worth nothing in ,the sight of God.
Now here is the life which many a virtuous family
leads: The man is successful in business. He is en
gaged in a variety of great enterprises, the director
of this railroad and of that bank or of some large
industrial enterprise. Life is strenuous with him.
His hours of business are relatively short, but the
strain is great. He]absoIuteIy requires rest and change.
He finds it in racing out with his automobile to his
country home or to some inn ; he finds it in a week's end
at this place or that. One or two days in the week
he spends the afternoon at golf. He goes to his club
in the evening and plays billiards, or he goes out to
dinner, to the theatre, the opera, or plays whist at
home with a party of friends. All the time he can get
off from business he needs and uses for wholesome
recreation and amusement. His name is down as a
donor to half a dozen charitable institutions. Possibly
the amount which he gives to them and to the church
of which he is a member is one tenth or even more
than one tenth of his total income. If he gives that
much he is likely to be counted an extremely generous
man. He may be a director on the board of one or
two charities and once a month or once a fortnight
he attends their meetings. Once a year or so possibly
he goes to look at the institution of which he is a
trustee. He may be a warden or vestryman of a

248 Modern Christianity
church. He attends the meetings, helps make up the
deficiency in this or that thing; he is generally in his
place at church and helps to take up the alms, and is
regular at communion. The women of the family,
his wife and his daughters, see to it that the social
status of the family is maintained, which is hard work
and takes up much time. They are good and kindly
towards their employees. They are members of some
ladies' organisation in the church which they attend.
Possibly during the time when they are in the city
they take up some further work. They visit in some
hospital, or on Sunday perhaps they go over to the
Island to help sing in a choir and talk to the poor
people there. They are on the ladies' association of
some settlement or home. They attend meetings
once a month, perhaps, when they are in town, and
occasionally they go and visit the home or settlement
in which they are interested.
Now we are inclined to commend such a life, by
comparison, as worthy, virtuous, and religious. But
in reality the life of those people, both men and
women, is lived for themselves. The amount of
money which they give, large as it is in bulk, is small
in comparison with what they are able to give. The
time which they devote to these things is not one
tenth of the time which they devote to themselves.
Do they do for the beggar who lies at their gates, for
the slums which lie at their doors, that which it is
within their power to do? Have they that tender
pity and sympathy and love which makes them so
yearn to relieve suffering and misery that they are not
content to leave one stone unturned until it is removed?

Palaces and Slums 249
In general the attitude of those of us who are pros
perous, as the world counts prosperity, is that we
have won it for ourselves ; it is our money, our success.
We would like to help these others, but after all our
first obligation is toward ourselves and our own. We
look toward those who are still more successful and
better off than ourselves. We wish to keep up with
them, we desire to obtain the same good things which
they have. It is our right to do so and to use all our
abilities to achieve that end ; and these others — well
we would like to do something for them. We will
toss them a bag of gold, with our heads turned to one
side, and hurry on as fast as we can to catch the others.
It is their own fault after all that they are where they
are. We are glad that there are men and women who
are establishing institutions or undertaking work to
make them better, but that is a special vocation. The
bulk of men and women certainly cannot be expected
to give their time to that. We must be kindly and
loving and affectionate to those in our families and
those about us, but outside of that it is better to do
what charity we have to do by proxy, give to missions,
hospitals, and the like ; and because we take that atti
tude, what we give is after all only the crumbs which
fall from our table. What one of us is there whose
giving is a real sacrifice? We have our banquets, we
have our comforts; our giving does not deprive us of
them. It is only what is left over, what we do not
need that we give away.
Now the attitude of God toward man is this: He
does not ask whether it is our own fault that we are
sinful and miserable. If we believe in the teaching of

250 Modern Christianity
Christianity, we believe that God " so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son." His he^rt
yearns over men precisely because they are miserable
and suffering, and it is Himself that He gives, His only
begotten Son ; and so behold Jesus, the only begotten
Son of God, suffering with the suffering, poor with fhe
poor, sharing with His brothers. There is one prayer
which He taught us and which you and I say night
and morning, which begins with the words "Our
Father." It was the Israelites' idea that God was
their Father and they were His children. But to our
Lord all mankind are brothers. Very literally He
means us to carry that out. We talk about believing
in Him and about salvation through Jesus. There is
no belief in Him and no salvation through Jesus until
a man has entered into the spirit of Jesus. As God
came down from heaven to take men into heaven, as
He gave His only begotten Son, His very heart, that
He might bring joy into the lives of the unhappy, virtue
into the lives of the sinful, healing into the lives of the
sick; so He expects us, to whom He has given, as it
were, a heaven, not to stay in that heaven and enjoy
ourselves there, but to open its doors to others, to come
down out of it and gather them into it, to give them
of our joy and virtue, of our health, and of our wealth.
Our parable means this: If there be men living in
comfort, living at ease, living in prosperity, having
good houses, fine things to eat and drink, doctors to
heal their ills, music and art to uplift and elevate their
thoughts, all the things which men count good for
body, mind, and soul; and there be by them other
men and women who have not these things and do

Palaces and Slums 251
not know how to obtain them; and it appear that
those who have these things have given to the others
only their crumbs, that which they did not need nor
miss, that they have not shared with them and been
their brothers, then the former have played the part
of Dives and their lot in the hereafter will be the lot
of Dives, for they had their good things in this life.
The man who has not found the joy of love and sacri
fice is incapable of knowing God; he cannot enter
into the kingdom of God.
The social conditions which exist in this city of
New York — and I do not mean that New York is ex
ceptional in this — are an exact reproduction of those
conditions which our Lord so graphically depicted
in the story of Dives and Lazarus. There are un
doubtedly self-denying men and women among our
prosperous and well-to-do classes who are not merely
giving the beggar at their gate crumbs, but who are
treating him as their brother, whom they must love
as themselves; but taking our social conditions as a
whole, that is not true. The conditions which prevail
among us could not prevail if even the majority of the
well-to-do men and women in our churches realised
their obligation not to throw their crumbs to the
beggar at their gate, but to lift him up, to heal his
sores, to take him into their homes, to make him one
of themselves. And because this is true, therefore the
condemnation which our Lord uttered in this parable
applies to the Christian society of this Christian city.

THE SERVANT IN THE HOUSE
St. Mark x., 44: And whosoever of you would be the
chiefest, shall be servant of all.
THESE words of our Lord were uttered as the
result of a controversy between His immediate
followers with regard to leadership. As they were
all on the way up to Jerusalem on that last journey,
which was to end in Jesus' death, James and John,
sons of Zebedee, or their mother — accounts are di
vergent, — asked Jesus to assign to them the seats of
honour on His right hand and on His left in the king
dom He was about to establish. When the rest
learned of this attempt, they were very angry and a
general wrangle ensued, each one wishing to be the
greatest in the kingdom.
Then Jesus set forth the principles of His kingdom,
the precise opposite of the world conception : " Ye know
that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles
lord it over them; and their great ones exercise author
ity upon them. But so it shall not be among you, but
whosoever would be great among you shall be your
minister, and whosoever of you would be the chiefest
shall be servant of all ; for even the Son of Man came
not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give
His life a ransom for many." 252

The Servant in the House 253
From the beginning of the new kingdom that has
been the law, the rale of the kingdom: He who is the
best servant of all holds the chief place. The Gos
pels are full of this revolutionary teaching. A most
graphic presentation of this idea is found in St. John's
Gospel. When, at the last supper that they ever ate
together, on the very eve of our Lord's death, the
Apostles fell a-wrangling as to precedence, rank, dig
nity, Jesus took off His garments, girded Himself as a
slave, took water, and commenced to perform the
menial office of washing their feet. There can be ab
solutely no doubt as to what the practice of our King
was, and equally no doubt as to the rule of the kingdom
which He laid down to govern you and me.
Is that rale carried out in the society to which you
and I belong? Or do we, while professing to be Christ
ians, take what our Lord described as the method of
the Gentiles, counting the man great who lords it
over others? In practice I think we must agree that
the latter is the case; that, whatever the Church may
have done towards leavening the world, up to the
present moment, in this respect, the leaven has not
worked very far and we are still part of a very un
leavened society; that, so far as those relations are
concerned, society has contaminated the Church, and
not the Church leavened society, so that the great
body of Christians consider it compatible with their
Christianity to call themselves Christians and yet
conform to that anti-Christian rale of counting him
greatest who lords it most; and, inasmuch as the
individual members of the Church stand in this posi
tion, it follows almost as a consequence that the Church

254 Modern Christianity
itself, in its general relation to social conditions, holds
the same attitude.
This attitude of the Church toward society is the
theme of a profoundly significant play which was put
on the boards a year or so ago entitled "The Servant
in the House," which many of you may have seen.
As I want to use the treatment of this theme in that
play to illustrate what I have to say, I shall venture
to give you, not an analysis of the play, but an outline
of what it undertakes to present.
Of three brothers, who came from the plain working
people stock of England, one entered the Church.
He was enabled to do so by the work of his two broth
ers. It was their toil by means of which he secured
an education. They remained illiterate labourers;
he became a scholar and a gentleman. One of the
brothers, the eldest, was lost sight of. His other
brother, a rough, coarse fellow, had a wife who died,
and, partly as a result of this, he fell into thoroughly
bad habits. He was a common labourer, compelled
to do work of a peculiarly offensive nature, cleaning
sewers. His wife left him a daughter, whom the
clergyman brother took and educated. The clergy
man brother had married a wife, Martha. She was
a good Churchwoman and determined to bring her
husband up to her own high social standard. Her
brother was a rich bishop. To this Martha the
low-down brother, who drank and cleaned sewers and
used coarse language and wore dirty clothes and was
a rabid socialist, was a most objectionable attachment.
He was some one to be kept out of sight and helped
at a distance, on condition that he should efface him-

The Servant in the House 255
self, not to be acknowledged as a brother and taken
into her house. His daughter, Mary, was not even
allowed to know who her father was, much less to
know him. She was to be brought up a lady. Martha
separated her husband, the Church, from his brother,
the working man, out of whom he had grown, on
whose toil his education had depended and his church
itself been built. Martha was respectable, godly, de
voted to her husband, eager to raise him in the social
scale, a pious and virtuous materialist. She is the
hundreds of thousands of good women who manage our
churches, who send missionaries to the heathen abroad
and the slums at home, the while they are, by their
materialism, by their being cumbered by the many
things of this world and setting those things first, —
material well-being, decency, and social propriety, —
separating their husband, the Church, from his brother,
the common working man. To Mary, the* daughter
of the working-man brother, whom Martha and her
husband had adopted, these society things did not
have the same importance, and she was continually
making the strange blunder of seeing the souls of
people and seeking friendship with them because of
their souls and not because of their positions and
their relations. She is singularly appealing, just be
cause of what we might, perhaps, call her impracti-
cableness. She is always ready to sit at the Master's
feet wherever she finds Him, and she knows and
recognises the divine voice, even if it speaks out of the
mouth of a dirty labourer or a strangely attired
foreigner. Martha's husband, who is the Church, is uneasy in

256 Modern Christianity
his soul. The church services are beautiful; he goes
faithfully, early in the morning, to administer the
Sacrament; but the church in some way does not meet
what his soul yearns for. The people are not there;
he is not reaching them, and he feels himself, in a way
which he can scarcely explain, tangled up in things
which hamper and prevent alike his work and his own
spiritual development. But Martha sees and feels
none of all this, except only to be indignant that the
people do not appreciate her husband, the refined and
comfortable Church, as they ought.
At this time they are troubled in the rectory with
offensive gases, which seem to be especially trouble
some in the clergyman's study. So a man is sent for to
clean the sewers, and that man is the common working
man, the brother from whom the Church has become
alienated and who is embittered against the Church,
which he feels has grown out of him and now crushes
him down.
At the same time a new butler has been engaged.
Recommended by friends, supposed to be a Hindu
from India, he comes to commence his service in the
house on the same day that the sewer man comes.
Just then, also, is expected the Bishop of Benares, who,
the clergyman has just learned, is his long lost elder
brother, a man who, according to report, has been doing
a wonderful work for Christ in India. Proud of this,
Martha has informed her brother, and so the rich and
worldly Bishop, who has been more or less alienated
from his sister because she married a man from the
people, hastens to visit them, eager to meet the famous
Bishop of Benares and to engage him in his plans for

The Servant in the House 257
church building, for the aggrandisement and enrich
ment of the Church and its hierarchy.
Then commences the entanglement. The semi-
blindness of the groping, worldly Bishop, whose con
ception of his office is to secure money from rich men
and rich women, money from anybody, to build, build,
build, — great buildings, churches, colleges, hospitals,
and the like, to provide rich endowments for the same,
to enrich the Church and make it comfortable — this
man's groping semi-blindness leads him into many
embarrassments. He thinks the butler in his Indian
robes to be the Bishop of Benares, the clergyman's
brother, who he in fact is and yet is not, and confides
to him his plans, and seeks to barn his secret. And
then he hears from him, who is indeed both servant
and master, how the great church that he has built
is not a church built of stone and mortar, but " made
up of the beating of human hearts, of the nameless music
of men's souls," ... "a looming mystery of many
shapes and shadows, leaping sheer from floor to dome.
The work of no ordinary builder!" . . .
"The pillars of it go up like the brawny trunks of
heroes: the sweet human flesh of men and women is
moulded about its bulwarks, strong, impregnable: the
faces of little children laugh out from every comer-
stone: the terrible spans and arches of it are the joined
hands of comrades: and up in the heights and spaces
there are inscribed the numberless musings of all the
dreamers of the world. It is yet building— building
and built upon. Sometimes the work goes forward in
deep darkness: sometimes in blinding light: now be
neath the burden of unutterable anguish: now to the
17

258 Modern Christianity
tune of a great laughter and heroic shouting like the cry
of thunder. Sometimes, in the silence of the night
time, one may hear the tiny hammerings of the com
rades at work up in the dome — the comrades that have
climbed ahead."
This same groping blindness leads the worldly wise
Bishop to mistake the working man in his soiled clothes
for his brother the clergyman, and to sit down and eat
at the table with him and with the Indian butler,
whom he forces to join them, only to be shocked and
outraged on discovering, finally, that he, the great
dignitary of the Church, has been hobnobbing with a
dirty, filthy, labouring man, a sewer cleaner, and with a
barbarously dressed Hindu servant, and actually treat
ing them as brothers!
The sewer-cleaner brother is at first very bitter,
and both repulsive and repellent. He hates the Church
and all for which it stands, the brother that looks down
on him, and the society which controls that brother's
life. But the things which he finds and sees in the
clergyman's house, imperfect as it all is, his own work
ing-man's daughter growing up so sweet and clean, to
be a lady, this strange servant from a foreign land, with
the wonderful words of the true missionary who has
found God among men, make a profound impression
upon him. He had come into the house with bitterness
in his heart against all. Things begin to take on a new
appearance. He finds that the offensive odours come
from an evil condition in the sewers, and that beneath
the Church itself lies the great source of all the diffi
culty, — an ancient cesspool and cemetery combined, in
which the rotting bones of dead men and the refuse of

The Servant in the House 259
the present age have mingled together, finding no
outlet. And now he has found his work: to clean out
the sewers of corruption and discontent. It may mean
disease and death, but that is his job.
On the other side, that touch of the Church with the
brother in India, the race which he had despised, which
he had governed and controlled but shut out from all
social contact — the contact of the Church with that
brother, all unknown yet as his brother, counted only
as a servant, his butler, has taught the clergyman
brother a new lesson of the brotherhood also of
the labouring brother at home whom he had thought
unfit for his society and his table. And so, when
the labouring brother starts in on the dangerous
task of cleaning the sewers of state and society,
the clergyman brother throws off his clerical gar
ments, his garb of caste, and prepares to go down with
his brother, at every risk, to clear out the foulness
beneath his beloved Church. Then brother clasps
hands with brother in very trath. And Martha?
Society wedded to the Church, our godly, pious society?
Ah yes! At first she would have kept him back; but
Martha is not all bad. It is just her lack of under
standing, of perception. She had not seen nor under
stood what she had been doing. She had meant to raise
her husband, and she had pulled him down. When it
comes to the point of her husband's love and it is a
question between surrendering her social concept or
her husband, the Church of Christ, she is willing to
stand by him and to bid him go and work with his
brother. And then all realise the spirit that has come upon

260 Modern Christianity
them and that this servant in the house, this Indian
servant from that ancient nation whom they, the
English, have exploited, whom they count their
inferiors, is the revelation of Christ to them, or that
he is in fact Christ to them, in the sense in which it is
said, in the 25th chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel:
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the
least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto
me." The play is English, in that it represents English
conditions. The inferior race, to use a common but
offensive term, is the people of Hindustan, and it is
through them in the author's conception, through
the service of the Church to them, that the Church is
roused to a perception of true brotherhood and its
obligation to minister. Were that to be translated
literally into the conditions of American life, we should
place the negro for the Indian and the servant in the
house would appear as a coloured man. I am afraid
that our race prejudice is so strong that, had it been so
presented, the play, instead of meeting with a generally
favourable reception, would have been overwhelmed
by an outcry of indignation.
Ah ! that is a great problem that we have to meet,
the negro problem. I think that we often look at it
wrong side foremost. God, we say, has given us this
problem to solve, that we may find a way to make
these people self-respecting, self-supporting. There
is a great work that we have to do for these people.
But has it ever occurred to you to turn it about the
other way? God has given these people to us to teach
y,s service, to teach us humility, to teach us brotherly

The Servant in the House 261
love, to bring us back to the foundation principles
of the Gospel. And the solution of the negro problem
is more important, not for its effect on them, but for
its effect on us. In working out their salvation
we shall work out our own. Through them Jesus, the
meek and humble, Jesus, the Servant of servants, may
come back to His people ; for wherever the Church is
roused to the sense of its obligation to go and serve,
wherever it does not seek to lord it over men, but to
gird itself as a slave and wash their feet, there the
Church will see Christ revealed in the servant in its
midst. Then we shall enter into a new conception of
service and both the priests and the congregations in
our churches, both our Marthas and our Marys,
shall be owning as brothers and as fathers the coarse
and humble toilers, whose bodies and souls alike are
too often stained with muck and filth; and those
brothers will find their place and their work in a Cath
olic Church of God. That is the dream of this little
play, the vision which it presents.
I have heard it described as socialistic and I can
imagine some even among you, my readers, saying in
your hearts: Why, this is socialism. It is very strange
how ignorantly that word is used. I believe the author
of the play is a socialist; but, so far as the play itself is
concerned, it might have been written by the most
extreme individualist. What it represents is that which
Christianity stands for: the recognition of one Father of
all men, and of all men as brothers ; the abolition of class
distinctions, the abolition of race distinctions, so that
there shall be neither " Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor
uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free."

262 Modern Christianity
The Christian Church as such looks to the realisation
in actual practice among men of the idea of the
brotherhood of men, under one Father, God; and he
has not entered into the true teaching of the Church,
he is not made one with Christ, who does not believe
in this and is not striving for it according to his ability.
The conception of the Church is not self-gain, nor self-
power, nor self-ease, but so to serve that we may
give wealth and power to the community, that we may
bring greater ease and comfort into the lives of all our
fellows. Your service may be rendered to a few, to two
or three or only one, or you may be rendering your
service to a great number; but whatever the nature of
your service, and whether it is rendered very humbly to
only one, or manifestly to a great many, serve you must,
if you would be a Christian. You have not entered
into the real relation with Christ unless you have put
service as the purpose of your life, unless you are striv
ing to learn how to serve and to get the spirit and
strength of God to serve. And the Church is not fulfill
ing its purpose in the world, it is not manifesting itself
as the Body of Christ, unless the same spirit be in it.
And the Church is beginning to wake up to the
necessity of bestirring itself, so far as the masses of the
labouring people are concerned, that brother by whose
toil its churches were created, whose discontent now
forms the bad and dangerous gases that are affecting
society and the state. At the last Lambeth Conference
one of the topics of discussion was the present social
unrest, the cause of the alienation of large masses of
working men from the Church and of their search for
the Church in labour unions and socialistic movements.

The Servant in the House 263
In the Lambeth Encyclical, issued in the name of the
243 "Archbishops, Bishops Metropolitan, and other
Bishops of the Holy Catholic Church in full Communion
with the Church of England," this passage occurs:
"By the power of the truth which it carries and de
clares, the Church is constantly serving the cause of
true progress. But it has a further duty — to be watch
fully responsive to the opportunities of service which
the movements of civil society provide. The demo
cratic movement of our century presents one of these
opportunities. Underlying it are ideals of brother
hood, liberty, and mutual justice and help. In those
ideals we recognise the working of our Lord's teaching
as to the inestimable value of every human being in
the sight of God, and His special thought for the weak
and the oppressed. These are practical truths pro
claimed by the ancient prophets and enforced by our
Lord with all the perfectness of His teaching and His
life. We call upon the Church to consider how far and
wherein it has departed from these truths. In so far
as the democratic and industrial movement is animated
by them and strives to procure for all, especially for
the weaker, just treatment, and a real opportunity of
living a true human life, we'appeal to all Christians to
co-operate actively with it. Only so can they hope
to commend to the movement the Spirit of our Lord
Jesus Christ, which is at once its true stimulus and its
true corrective. Only so can they win for Him that
allegiance which is the constant and enduring security
for the hopes and progress of human society."

THE NEEDLE'S EYE
St. Mark x., 25 : It is easier for a camel to go through a
needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom
of God.
CERTAIN literalists have a way of interpreting
the words of the Bible which yet enables them
to explain away the sense. I remember some very
ridiculous explanations which used to be given in all
good faith by just such men of this proverb: that
there was a gate at Damascus, or somewhere, no one
knew precisely where, in some oriental city, which
was known as the eye of a needle and which it was
very hard for a loaded camel, or indeed for any camel
to pass through; but then it was possible for a camel
to go through it, if he were the right sort of a camel,
and so it was possible for a rich man to enter into
the kingdom of God, if he were the right sort of a rich
man. It is strange how men will interpret with intense
literalness some of our Lord's sayings, or certain doc
trines of the Church, on which there seems to be but
little emphasis, and then explain away the very plain
statements on which He laid such emphasis that it
seems clear He meant them to be fundamental. A
man will insist on a literal belief in the Virgin birth as
a condition of membership in the Church of Christ, the
264

, The Needle's Eye 265
kingdom of God, and then make that Church itself
the Church of the rich, of whom our Lord said that
they shall hardly enter into the kingdom. Now in
reality the fundamental conditions of the kingdom
of God, which should be also the fundamental conditions
of membership in the Church of Christ, because the
Church of Christ is meant to be the kingdom of God,
are not doctrinal expressions, but a belief in the person
of Jesus Christ, submission to the will of God as ex
pressed in His life, an acceptance of His teaching as
the rule of life, of His life as the pattern of our lives.
The Jewish Church at the time of our Lord was the
church of the well-to-do, the prosperous, educated
Jews; and the same is true of the Church to-day in
this country, as in England. It is, in fact, the Church
of the prosperous, the educated, the rich. Men who
occupy the position which our Lord occupied are not,
as a rule, in the Church. The great mass of the men
who work with their hands, the artisans, carpenters,
stone-cutters, printers, and the like, seem to find their
church in their labour unions, in their lodges. The
Church of the Carpenter has become the Church to-day
of the upper and upper-middle classes. Our clergy,
whatever their origin, are educated to belong to the
same class, trained in their manners and sympathies,
in their etiquette and conventionalities, to associate
with that class. We commonly put it that the poor
people are alienated from the Church; in reality the
Church is alienated from the poor people.
But this might be true, and yet this condition have
been attained through a normal and proper course
of development. I remember some years ago an

266 Modern Christianity
experiment made on Breton cattle. With sparse feed,
in a rugged country, they were small and hardy. Their
milk product was not as large as that of our better
nourished cattle, but in proportion to the care and
expense bestowed upon them the yield both of milk
and beef was greater. Some of them were imported to
this country, with an idea that if they gave so much
under such poor conditions, with improved conditions
they would give more. There was a natural process
of development. With better food they grew bigger
and required more care, — and gave less milk in propor
tion. If you transplant any animal or any plant from
poorer to richer conditions, it will develop accordingly.
The Church has been transplanted. Have we not a
case of normal evolution? It began by being the
Church of the poor and needy and humble. They
'found strength and hope and salvation in it, and that
message was transplanted into another soil. The
result is the Church which we have, the Church of the
well-to-do and the prosperous. Has the Church drifted
away from that which it was meant to be, or has there
been a logical development from the Church of the
poor to the Church of the rich, and is it any longer true
that it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's
eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of
God? We know how riches have corrupted nations. The
fall of Rome is an old and oft-told story. We pick up
and read again the story of the downfall of the republic,
we read of the conquest of the world and of the enor
mous wealth that poured into Rome, and of the men
that through the spoil of provinces became rich beyond

The Needle's Eye 267
the wildest dreams in which their fathers had indulged.
We read of the gross extravagance that ensued, the
corruption of the simple manners and the simple morals
of an earlier time, and then we come to the struggles
of ambitious young men to attain great power by
means of wealth ; we have the tyranny, the outrages,
and misdeeds of a Sulla, a Clodius, and a Crassus, or
the wild extravagance of a Cassar, who sought to make
himself, as you might say, a labour leader, the leader
of the proletariat of Rome, spending money lavishly
to win the hearts of the people, by making himself
their patron, incurring huge debts, which he expected
to pay off with the spoils of the provinces, which were
the monopolies of those days. And as you read the
tale you are reminded of our own time: the enormous
wealth which individuals have accumulated, beyond
the wildest dreams of possibilities or probabilities which
our grandfathers ever had, their provinces the ex
ploitation of special privileges. Here also, as in Rome,
you behold the corraption of the simple manners
and morals of a former time. The books and plays
which set forth the conditions of life among our multi
millionaires to-day give you a picture of the slums
turned upside down : the gambling-hell and the brothel
gilded with the veneer of wealth; fashionable dames
making their houses resorts of gamblers; a conception
of the family which is fundamentally immoral; mar
riages not contracted for companionship of soul, for
partnership in the straggle of life, for the upbuilding
of a sweet, wholesome home and the rearing and train
ing of children ; and, as a natural consequence of the
fundamentally immoral attitude of the men and women

268 Modern Christianity
thus entering into the marriage relation, the easy
dissolution of that tie. Men make love to their
neighbours' wives as part of the form, one might
say, of society, and married women receive attentions
which a simpler and purer age would have pronounced
in their very nature immoral. Church men and Church
women, where themselves conforming to the outward
rules of Christian morality, condone these things as a
part of the natural condition of life. Moving in that
society, sharing its forms and its associations, they
count protest against its vices, or withdrawal from
association with those who indulge in these evil doings
as an impossible puritanism. Such books and plays
are exaggerated, they show you but one side; but
even so they exhibit a state of things which would
have been absolutely impossible in decent society fifty
years ago. There has been a terrible and dangerous
relaxing of moral tone under the temptation of this
great influx of wealth, of this creation of enormous
fortunes. And our political life has felt the same thing. Pre
cisely as those Romans of the latter days of the republic
went into politics to make vast fortunes, to use their
positions as pro-consuls of this province or that, or
their opportunities in the political struggles of the
day, the proscriptions and confiscations, the sales at
auction and the like, to amass great fortunes, and then
with those fortunes further to corrupt the political life
of the people in order to protect what they had gained,
to enable them to get more wealth or to seize greater
power; so these men, seeing the possibilities of vast
wealth, to be acquired by means of special privileges,

The Needle's Eye 269
have gone into political life to secure those special
privileges. Manufacturers, gas companies, industrial
enterprises, public service corporations, railroads,
insurance companies, banks, have bought legislation,
either to protect what they had or to get more. They
have given, year after year, great sums to business
managers, lobbyists, treasurers and chairmen of
campaign committees, to be spent in corrupting the
political life of the nation. There is much in that life
to-day which is parallel with the political life of the
last days of the Roman republic. We have our
Clodiuses and Crassuses, we have our Caesars, who cor
rupt the body politic with pledges and largess, to make
themselves masters of the nation. When one abuses
the other for his methods it is the pot calling the kettle
black. But it is not only Rome that fell through wealth.
You who are familiar with Bible history know that in
Samaria it was prosperity and wealth which preceded
downfall, and the same was true of Jerusalem. Read
your Prophets, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah, and you
see the same corraption of the social and political life
through wealth which, on a larger scale, produced dis
aster at Rome. They foretold its result. They set
forth certain destruction as the necessary consequence
of the immorality, the sensuality and luxury, the ava
rice and greed of the great landowners and monop
olists, and the follies of their wives and sons and
daughters, who constituted the rich and prosperous
society of that day.
What the Prophets applied to national life our Lord
applies to individual life in His statement about wealth.

270 Modern Christianity
He demands as a condition of entrance into the king
dom a something which is diametrically opposed to
the conception of wealth. You and I to-day are
eagerly looking out to see in what place we can put
our children where they will attain an assured income,
where they can get the luxuries and comforts which
perhaps we never had, or for which we strove with
many hardships in our younger days, to obtain them
at last when we were not able fully to enjoy or ap
preciate them. We do not want our children to
undergo those same struggles; we want them to have
ease and comfort. Our daughters we desire to see
well married, and what we mean by a good marriage
is, in ordinary parlance, not marriage with a man
of high ideals, full of the spirit of service and sacrifice,
who is giving his life to the service of his fellow men—
we do not call it a good marriage that our daughter
should share those hardships and those struggles.
Even where we admire what such a man is doing, we
do not wish our children to share his work. A good
marriage means that our daughter shall marry a man
who has money, that he may give her comforts and
luxuries. We wish him to be respectable and
decent, it is true, but essentially the "good" in our
phrase, "a good marriage," refers to wealth. Men and
women of means do not wish their sons to go into the
hard occupations. Very few fathers and mothers who
are well off encourage their sons to study for the
ministry, for instance, or to take up other similar
professions, which, while they afford a great opportu
nity for service to one's fellow men, involve hardship
and small remuneration and much labor, a struggle

The Needle's Eye 271
to make ends meet, a lack of comfort and of luxury.
The very attitude whjch we take towards the future
of our children shows the estimate which we put upon
wealth. But is it not true that Christianity, by improving the
moral conditions, does of necessity bring an increase
in wealth? Is not the great wealth of this country
due to the liberty, the freedom, the opportunities,
the law-abidingness, the industry, the thrift, the
honesty, the intelligence and education which have
come directly and indirectly through Christianity?
You preachers often tell your congregations what
Christianity has done for the world. You tell us about
the work of missions, how they have lifted people out
of savagery, how they have enabled them to build
better houses, to dress better, how their physical condi
tions have been improved, how their wealth has been
increased. You picture our present civilisation, with
its knowledge and control of the forces of nature, and
the consequent wealth that has accompanied that
civilisation, as primarily due to Christianity. You
tell us that if we will all recognise the principles of
Christianity and live according to the teachings of
Christ, this world shall be a paradise, where all will be
wealthy. Ah! precisely that is what is taught: all
shall be wealthy. The danger lies not in a great in
crease of wealth, provided that wealth can be evenly
distributed, provided we progress steadily, and have an
opportunity to become used to our changed conditions.
The clothes which you and I wear, the houses which
the plainest of us inhabit, the methods of locomotion,
of which the poorest take advantage day by day, are

272 Modern Christianity
luxuries of which our forefathers never dreamed. Man
rises above the beasts and into a higher spiritual life
as he does not have to devote his whole time to the
straggle for the food with which to fill his belly, when
his whole enjoyment does not consist in eating and
drinking and sleeping, in the indulgence of the merely
physical and sensual part of his being, like the animals
about him. If he is physically so worn out, if he is
bodily so poorly fed that he is always weary, it is hard
for him to think high thoughts, it is hard for the soul
to thrive in such a body. There would be no danger,
I take it, in the great increase in wealth which has come
in our country, if that wealth were equally distributed.
The amount which would fall to the lot of any one
individual would not be such as to turn his head, to
tempt him to idleness and luxury and extravagance.
The man or the woman who has great wealth almost
invariably lives a selfish life. What they give is not
themselves. They do not know the joy of service and
sacrifice. Do you remember the incident of the rich
men who threw their gifts into the temple treasury?
To the simple apostles who stood about Jesus, to whom
money meant a great deal, it seemed a noble and a
wonderful thing that these men should come and
cast in gifts in one lump greater than all they could
earn in a year, or two years. And then there came
along a poor widow, who put in the smallest amount
which the law allowed, two mites, and our Lord turned
their attention away from those rich men to this poor
widow, telling them that she had given more than any of
them, because she had given all she had. It is not what
you give, it is what you have left. It is not the amount

The Needle's Eye 273
of the gift, it is the service and sacrifice which are
in the gift. The men or women who are not compelled
to work up to the limit of their strength for their daily
bread, who have perhaps all their time free and yet
give but a paltry hour or two a week to the service
of their fellow men, have given little in proportion to
what they might give. The conception which a rich
man must have of his goods is precisely that which our
1 Lord held up before the rich young man who came
running and knelt at his feet. Sell all you have and
give to the poor. Your money, your time, your
intelligence, your gifts of whatever sort they be, those
you must conceive of as means by which you are to
serve those who have not, who are in need of what
you have. Now there is not one rich man out of a
thousand, perhaps not one out of many thousands,
who adopts that conception of the obligation of his
wealth; and there is the danger of wealth to the
individual. But then wealth itself: is it wrong? Enormous
wealth, what does it mean ? How has a man gotten
it ? Of course if it is gotten through special privileges,
the exploiting of the many for one's own advantage;
if it is gotten by those devices and tricks for which
some one has invented the admirable phrase of
"law honesty," it stands in itself condemned. It is
unrighteous. But suppose it to be free from such
taint, what then ? This you must take into considera
tion: has the man who has acquired it acquired it, as
it were, incidentally, not making wealth his aim?
Has it come to him in living a life of service? He is a
great industrial captain, let us say. Has he regarded
18

274 Modern Christianity
his wonderful ability and the opportunity which God
has given him as something by which to improve the
conditions of those about him ? Has he striven for that
first and foremost, or for that equally with the profit
for himself and his ?
Now here is the point : we are children of one family.
One may not take for himself much and leave little
to the others. If he have the greater ability, it is his
part to use that ability so that the others may share
with him. In general you may say of any great ac
cumulation of wealth in the hands of an individual:
it is wrong ; not necessarily, however, in the sense that
the man has consciously done something which is
wicked. Slave-holding was wrong. The man who
held slaves certainly did not regard them as his bro
thers. He exploited the strength, the powers of his
fellow men for his own comfort and convenience. He
made them Work for him. But in slave-holding coun
tries the slave-holder is not necessarily a worse man
than the others about him. The sense of right and
wrong in this matter has not been developed in him.
In this country we have passed beyond the days of
slave-holding. The time will come when the same
principle which abolished slavery will be applied
still further. It is not right to exploit others for your
own profit. You and they must profit and share
together, otherwise there is no loving your brother as
yourself. But some one will say, That is socialism. It may be.
Insofar as socialism is the effort to give equal oppor
tunity, equal privilege, equal share to all, it is inspired
by the Christian ideal. Christianity does not lay down

The Needle's Eye 275
a programme and say: natural privileges and natural
monopolies must be held by the community at large;
mining rights, franchises, for gas and electricity, rail
roads, etc., must be the property of the state. That
may or may not be the best way to attain the end
desired. Christianity lays down the very simple
principle of brotherhood: we are to love our brother as
ourself. Surely, so long as there are the great differ
ences which now exist between us, that has not
been carried out. So long as men conceive of their
powers and their opportunities as things by which they
are to obtain for themselves more than others, and
so long as they so use them, the Christian principle is
not being applied in society, and those individuals
have failed to enter into the spirit of the kingdom.
The kingdom of God is not being realised among us.
And here the Church is at fault. The Church has
practically allied itself with wealth. The alienation
from the Church of those very classes among whom our
Lord lived, among whom and through whom He
founded the Church, is due to the fact that the Church
has in practice drifted away from the fundamental
principles of our Lord's teaching. The Church itself
does not believe, as it shows by its practice, our Lord's
teaching. Stress needs to be laid to-day not on the
literal meaning of doctrinal formulae, but on the abso
lute Iiteralness of our Lord's demand that men should
live not for themselves alone, that we each of us should
regard our fellows as brothers; which we certainly do
not now do.

TAINTED MONEY
St. Luke xvi., 15: That which is highly esteemed among
men is an abomination in the sight of God.
THE parable of the unjust steward pictures a
wealthy man whose wealth consisted in agri
cultural holdings. He was a great landlord. Such a
landlord was usually regarded, and very naturally, with
dislike by his tenants. They worked hard with their
hands; they lived poorly; it was a struggle to support
their families with the best that they could do. And
here is their landlord who does not, to all appearances,
himself work, but simply profits by their work.
While they toil, he amuses himself. What they gain
from the land by hard labour they must share with him,
and while, as the result of their best efforts, they eke
out a bare existence, he lives in ease or luxury. Their
personal acquaintance with him in many cases consists
of little more than a glimpse once in a year or once in
many years. Their dealings are with his agent; and
it is only too apt to be the case that the agent's value
is reckoned by the landlord according to the amount
of rent which he exacts from the tenants. Anything
that the tenant can do to relieve himself from these
exactions is allowable in his sight. In fact his only
protection, as he sees it, is the concealment, if possible,
276

Tainted Money 277
of the amount of land cultivated by him and of the
size of his crops, so that he may succeed in obtaining a
larger share for himself. Any one who will assist him
in doing this is his friend.
In our story the landlord learns that his agent is
living extravagantly, wasting his goods. He at once
calls upon him for a reckoning, as he cannot retain
in his employment such an agent. Then comes that
picturesque touch of the steward considering with him
self the outlook. Thrown out of his lucrative and
comfortable job, what is it possible for him to do?
There is no chance of getting another similar place.
He has never been trained to work with his hands;
he is not able to dig. There is no way in which he can
earn a living. The only outlook is dependence on the
alms of others ; and yet, holding the position which he
has held, that seems to him a shameful life : " I can
not dig, to beg I am ashamed." Then flashes into
his mind a shrewd device. He will make the tenants
believe that he has been their friend, that his dismissal
is a persecution because he has sought to help them.
He calls them to him and gives the first his account.
It proves that there are due 100 measures of oil. "Ah !
there must be some mistake about that. Sit down at
once and write 50: 100 measures of oil is quite too
much for you to pay on your crop." The next man owes
100 measures of wheat. "That is a great deal, a great
deal for a poor man who has worked hard to raise that
wheat and who has a family to support: it does not
leave you much. We will change it. Sit down at
once and write 80." So it is with all. Every one is laid
under obligation to him. All are led to suppose that

278 Modern Christianity
he is their friend, that he is trying to protect them
from the exactions of an unjust and cruel landlord.
When he is dismissed, as a matter of gratitude they
will take care of him, and receive him into their houses.
Then, with the liberty of a parable, the commendation
of the shrewdness of this man is put into the mouth of
the landlord himself. He commends the unrighteous
steward for his shrewdness and this moral is drawn
from the tale: "The children of this world are for their
own generation wiser than the children of light." Then,
addressing himself to his hearers, Jesus says: " I advise
you to make to yourselves friends of the mammon of
unrighteousness, that when it fail the friends that you
have made by it may receive you into the everlasting
habitations." Does this mean that we are to use tainted money
to do good with? That is practically the interpreta
tion that some men have put upon it. You will find
many who justify and encourage the acquisition of
money by unrighteous means, by soliciting from the
men who have made large fortunes in such ways con
tributions for charitable and benevolent purposes, by
giving them places of honour on the boards which re
present their institutions, and by attaching their names
to the benevolences created or endowed by their large
gifts. In answer to your protests they say: "Well, the
man has not been convicted of crime. 1 1 is the business
of the law, not my business, to determine whether he
has done right or wrong, and as long as he is not
convicted under the law it is not my part to pass
judgment upon him. Moreover, however he has ob
tained this money, the purpose for which he is giving it

Tainted Money 279
is a thoroughly good one. The money is going to be
used in a good cause, and I believe that, even supposing
him to have obtained it by methods which are illegiti
mate in the code of ethics, he is doing more good in this
expenditure of money than he ever did harm in the
acquisition of it."
When big sums are in question men are apt to be
come blind to the real moral principles. The law is at
best a crude instrument. The man who does no more
than live within the law is a pretty poor specimen. In
the code of ethics there are things which cannot be
reached by the law which are just as bad as the things
which it condemns. In the ethical code the man who
succeeds in depriving another of his property without
exceeding the actual limits of legality is just as much a
scoundrel as the man who enters your house and steals
your goods. The man who, in some way or another,
contrives to possess himself of the returns of the labour
bf others, taking advantage of legal provisions to make
them slave and sweat that he may live in luxury,
cannot be punished as a slave-holder under the laws of
the land, but in the sight of God he is as much a slave
holder as the other. The principle is the same. He is
grinding down and oppressing his brother, making him
work not for the equal good of both but for himself
only, leaving his brother just enough to keep body and
soul together, while he himself lives at ease. It is not
the business of the Christian to judge another in the
sense of undertaking to cast him out, to condemn him
as wickeder than himself, but it is his part and pro
vince to refuse to honour and applaud the man who, he
is convinced, is doing evil, who is acquiring or has

280 Modern Christianity
acquired his property by evading the law or by op
pressing or overreaching his fellows.
Take it on a small scale. Suppose a man came to you
with five dollars, which you were convinced he had
purloined from the pockets of other people, or which
he had gained in gambling, by fleecing some poor fool.
Suppose this man were to say to you : " Here is ten cents
towards the college of which you are a trustee, here is
twenty-five cents toward the Mission Board of which
you are a member; here is five cents for the Law and
Order League in which you are interested ; here is ten
cents for the hospital with which you are associated,
and here is ten cents more for you to use at your discre
tion for any good purpose that you see fit." Would you
pat that man on the back and say to him: "My dear
sir, you may have gotten that money in a pretty bad
way; I am not going to inquire about that; I have my
own suspicions; but however you got it I want to say
to you that you have done a noble thing. These gifts
of yours are going to do great good, and your name
shall be published in connection with these gifts, be
cause your generosity ought to be known to the com
munity. Yes, even if you did some harm in getting
that money, you are doing enough good in the expendi
ture of it to more than make amends."
Now no one would say that to the man who only had
five dollars which he had gotten in such a way and who
yet gave more than one tenth of the whole amount for
benevolent purposes; but it is precisely what people
do say and do in the case of men who have amassed
large fortunes in most questionable ways and who
contribute very often not even a tenth of it for such

Tainted Money 281
charitable and benevolent purposes. The sums look
so large that they daze men, and so good men and
Churchmen have helped to promote the unrighteous
acquisition of mammon, have helped to corrupt the
moral sense of the community.
But, it may be asked, are not practically all great
fortunes tainted? Do not our Lord's words "mammon
of unrighteousness" apply in a very literal sense to
practically all wealth ? That is more true, presumably,
than many of us have been ready to recognise. The
course of events about us is bringing it home more and
more every day. Now it is a great telegraph company
or a great telephone company which is in illicit partner
ship with gamblers and making great profits by secretly
furnishing them with the news necessary to conduct
their nefarious business; and the directors of the com
panies engaged in this traffic are the solid and highly
respected business men of the city and the country,
bankers and merchants whose names appear on the
lists of all benevolent enterprises. Now an insurance
investigation reveals to the astonished public whole
sale robbery of widows and orphans by men of wealth,
who use the money for speculation, who corrupt legis
latures, who contribute funds not their own to the
political bosses of either party. Now it is a railroad
company convicted of violation of the law and con
spiracy with some large mercantile trust for the injury
of the public and the benefit of the few, the men who
stand at the head of this railroad and direct and permit
these things being financial, social, and religious leaders.
Here is a railroad, counted the perfection of good
management, whose officials are found to be acquiring

282 Modern Christianity
wealth by illegal trafficking in coal lands, plundering
the public and stock-holders alike, the directors of the
road apparently conniving. Here are enormous land
frauds: railroads, industrial corporations, and private
individuals seizing almost incredibly vast areas of
public lands, hundreds and even thousands of men
enriching themselves by this wholesale robbery, until
in certain sections of the country the possession of any
considerable quantity of land creates a presumption
of fraud. Here are great mill corporations, with respect
able and wealthy men at their heads, whose wealth is
partly based on the death or ruin of little children whom
they have employed to the destruction of body and
soul, because by this cheaper labour they could obtain
a greater profit. Here are patent medicines, bad liquor
and drugs, distributed to sick or ailing people, under
false names and lying pretences, with their results of
death and disease, ruined constitutions, drunkenness
and the drug habit. There are newspapers deriving
profit from the lying advertisements of these things,
or even from obscene and immoral advertisements.
The point of it all is not merely that money has been
made in this way, but that so many men, counted of
the highest respectability, in the best financial, social,
and, for that matter, Church standing, should be en
gaged in these things and should have made their
profit from them. Again these men on their part are
closely associated financially, socially, and, if one may
so speak, spiritually, with a vast number more who have
profited with or from them, or been their partners or
supporters. Wealth is so tangled up with this sort of thing that

Tainted Money 283
the designation "unrighteous mammon" is a fair and
proper title. But one may say, if wealth is so tainted,
what then? Can no church and no college and no
institution for good work accept money from these
sources? And do you mean to include the men who
have acquired wealth in such means altogether in bad
ness, shutting them up from attempting to do any good
at all? Very far from it. The objection is to treating
such men as though they were saints, receiving and
soliciting from them funds in a manner which implies
that you regard them as great benefactors, connecting
their names with those benefactions, and so helping not
only to condone but to blazon abroad their misdeeds,
setting before the rising generation success in the ac
quisition of money as the one thing desirable to achieve
honour and distinction here and in the kingdom of
heaven hereafter.
The burglar who has robbed a house may give some
of the money which he has stolen to benevolent pur
poses; but you do not tell the man who has stolen $5
and gives fifty cents of it to benevolent purposes that
he is a great and noble man, that he is surely going to
the kingdom of heaven; and you do not publish his
gift in such a way as to make people at large believe
that he is righteous. If you believed that a man
who offered you a small sum for charitable purposes
had obtained that money dishonestly, you would
probably refuse to receive it; and if he told you that he
wanted to do good and be righteous you would tell
him the way to do so was first of all to make restitu
tion, to give back the money to the person from whom
he had obtained it by improper means; and if he then

284 Modern Christianity
told you that he did not know who the real owners
were you would tell him that just the same the money
was not his; you might feel at liberty to receive that
money for the charitable or benevolent works in which
you were concerned, but you would not agree to pub
lish his name as a benefactor.
But not everybody who has tainted wealth has him
self put that taint upon his wealth. In point of fact
good and bad are so mixed together in our dealings,
financial as well as social, that it is not always pos
sible to make sharp distinctions. You may know a
person holding stock which is paying a large dividend
because the company is despoiling the public. Per
haps it is a public service corporation, which is failing
to live up to its obligations and which is exploiting
the community by means of its political pull, making
life harder for the poor man and the poor woman by
exacting higher prices for their light, their heat, their
transportation or whatever it may be. That person
may have obtained his stock quite legitimately and
innocently, and may be quite unaware of the evil-doing
of the company in which, through possession of that
stock, he is a member. Further, he may be a generous,
upright, and benevolent individual, who is doing
good with his money. Here you have unrighteous
mammon, but you do not have a consciously unright
eous person.
Similarly people inherit money which is ill-gotten,
often themselves guiltless, and unconscious that it
is ill-gotten. It may come from a father whom
they dearly loved and honoured. You would not
wish to convince them, if you could, that he was a

Tainted Money 285
bad man. Suchpeople may live beautiful lives and
make a use of the money which you feel really atones
for the evil done in getting it. We find ourselves
constantly in contact or association with things on
which there is a taint somewhere, and it is often per
plexing to know what to say or do. The more a man
of a tender conscience sees of the world about him,
the more, I think, our Lord's words "unrighteous mam
mon" justify themselves to him as literally correct.
But if we are so tangled up with evil in our relation
to this world's goods, what are we to do ? How are we
to use this unrighteous mammon ?
Our Lord, in His parable, did not mean to commend
the unrighteousness of the steward as a thing for
our imitation. He set forth the commendableness of
the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the steward, to
say to us: This is the way men deal in trying to
gain advantage for themselves. Why can not men
show an equal ingenuity and resourcefulness in seek
ing to achieve good? And here is the point of our
Lord's sarcasm — for this parable is in a sense sarcastic.
Men strive and plan and use their wits to gain for
themselves these perishable things and yet, although
professing to believe in imperishable things, in a
greater and a larger life, how inert, indifferent, and
unintelligent they are in the matters that deal with
those things and that life which they profess to count
the more important.
You see this illustrated in politics. Here is a man
whose whole life is devoted to the political game, for
the purpose of winning for himself pelf or power. You
call him a corrupt politician. You wonder why he

286 Modern Christianity
is able to exert such an influence as he does exert, and
you are rather inclined to attribute his success and his
power to the innate badness of the human nature to
which he appeals. Very far from it. That man makes
himself the friend and acquaintance of every one in
his district. Go and watch his excursion in the sum
mer and you will see something of this. There he
stands, ready to greet every man, woman or child that
comes on board. He seems to know them all and to be
interested in their affairs: he speaks to the women
about their babies; very likely he sees that sterilised
milk is provided free for the little children. The ex
cursion means, in pleasure and in health, a great
deal both to the children and their mothers. But
that is only one of a great number of things in which
he is concerned. If a man in his district out of work
comes to this district politician, he makes it his business
to secure him a job. If a man gets into trouble, he
appeals to the court for him. If a family is about to be
evicted for non-payment of rent, the woman comes to
him and very likely he will look out for her. If a man
leaves his wife or fails to support her, she applies to the
leader. No one who has not been in touch with it
understands the amount of time, care, and personal
attention which these men give to their constituents,
or the number of kind deeds which they do for them.
It is through the good they do, not the bad, that they
gain their power.
You may say they do all this from a bad motive;
it is done simply fof their own advantage. Largely that
is doubtless true ; and at the same time it is impossible
for men to be friendly and kindly in this way without

Tainted Money 287
having some well-springs of humanity behind their
kindness, or without having some real goodness called
out in them by the effort to do these things. But the
men who denounce these men and who lead efforts at
reform are unfortunately too often, with all their
uprightness, lacking both in human sympathy, and
also in the readiness to sacrifice their other interests to
that work. The ward politician is in his place among
his constituents working with them and living with
them the year through, winter and summer alike. The
man of good character and good position who advocates
reform in the city administration is not as a rule ready
to give himself or his time in any such way. During
a considerable part of the summer he is away altogether,
or at least does not live in town. At other seasons he
has other interests and duties. Conscientiously as he
desires to see better conditions, he does not work for
them with his heart and soul like the unjust politician.
The man who makes any given object the aim of his
whole life, who throws himself into it with all his force
and power, is bound to accomplish something. A man
of lesser capacity, full of enthusiasm for a given object,
ready to live for it and die for it, will accomplish vastly
more than the man of much greater ability to whom the
pursuit of that object is a secondary consideration, who
does not throw himself into it, who is not willing either
to live or to die for it. In the case of politics, of which
I have spoken, the ward politician, whom we so often
condemn, deserves precisely that commendation which
our Lord gave to the unjust steward: "For the child
ren of this world are wiser than the children of light
for their own generation." What is true of political

288 Modern Christianity
life is true of work done for charitable purposes.
There are men and women who throw themselves into
charitable work with all their energy, but they are very
few and far between. Now such a work requires the
greatest skill, love, and devotion. There are those who
give all this; but I do not think it is unfair to say that
the bulk of those who undertake such work do not do
it with the same energy, zeal, and devotion which they
would display if they were doing it for a living, if their
career depended upon it, their success, their honour,
their reputation. They absent themselves from the work
for reasons for which they could not and hence would
not absent themselves were they paid for what they
do. If they had to do it for a livelihood they would do
it very differently. That is what our Lord meant by
His comparison.
But what, then, shall we do with mammon? Does
the Gospel of Jesus Christ mean to take all the joy and
beauty out of life? Is there no good in these worldly
things? Are they all tainted with evil? Is the world
so rotten and corrupt that we must leave it and rush
off into the wilderness to live there as hermits, or,
dwelling here in the midst of men, are we to forego all
their pleasures, to assume an attitude of condemnation,
to put away from us all the joy of life, and devote our
selves to renunciation and denunciation? Very, very
far from it. Beauty and pleasure are good things.
Do you remember how the Gospel tells of the partici
pation of Jesus in the marriage at Cana of Galilee? Do
you remember how he associated with such a man as
Zacchaeus, a rich man and publican, and as such con
demned by his neighbours and his fellow-countrymen

Tainted Money 289
as an evil-doer? Jesus was at various times a guest
at rich men's tables. He did not refuse to go to their
feasts, nor did he tell them that those feasts were
wicked; and equally He associated with the publican
and the sinner. When a woman, taken in adultery,
was brought before Him, how touchingly sympathetic
and merciful the Lord was! There is comparatively
little of denunciation or of renunciation, in the sense of
rejecting these good things of life, in our Lord's words
or acts; but He breathes a new spirit into the treatment
of it all. Do you remember the story told about the
late King Ludwig of Bavaria, the friend of Wagner the
musician: how he caused those wonderful musical
performances to be given for himself alone? A great
theatre, a lavish expenditure of money, and he sitting
all alone to hear it, shutting out every one else. He
was mad : but there was much in his madness which you
see in the attitude of multitudes of men and women
who wish to keep their good things to themselves. It is
the madness of egoism and selfishness, which, shutting
them into themselves, shuts them out from the true
joy of life. Take these things and make them the
means of equal joy to those about you. Not the
renunciation of these things, but such a use of them
as shall put new meaning into the life of the man who
uses them; their use to promote the well-being, the
happiness, the comfort, the joy of those about us.
It would require a new spirit in most men to do this
thing? Precisely, a conversion from selfishness to
true love. There is the lack. Most of us live our
lives for ourselves, and only in a very secondary way
consider others.
19

290 Modern Christianity
But people are apt to think, if they do not say it,
that the man who lives the life of Christ in this way
must become namby-pamby, goody-goody; that he
must lose his nerve and muscle, and that his life must
be small, colourless and uninteresting
Years ago an Eton lad heard a street boy, a little
black-a-boots, ask God to damn him. Shocked, he
caught the little fellow and inquired what he knew
of God. "Oh! God," said the little fellow, "is the
one that sends us to hell." "You are way off the
mark," said the Eton boy; but the more he thought of
it the less good he felt there was in talking. And so
by and bye he had to go and see what these boys were
like, why they said such things and how they could be
helped out of it. He got an old suit of black-a-boots
clothes, so as to be like them, and went down under one
of the bridges in London and started a class among
them, with a couple of barrels and a candle as his school-
house. He was an ordinary sort of a man in most ways,
not a man of genius. If he had continued in the com
mon life of his class, probably he would have been a
very humdrum sort of a person, content with a small
and narrow life and very small and narrow thoughts
and hopes and joys. The work to which he gave him
self put a new spirit into his life, gave him a new out
look. It meant sacrifice, the giving up of the things
which he had been used to, the loss of his social stand
ing, but it meant the finding of something infinitely
better. Life became a joy and a delight to him, and
he himself became a force in the community.
A couple of years ago there died in this city a man
of means, a business man who accomplished certain

Tainted Money 291
reforms and who erected for himself an eternal monu
ment in the changed lives and characters of many young
men and women. That man made his home in a
tenement house. He lived with and among the
people, sharing their life and their pleasures. So he
won their confidence. He learned their methods and
the evils from which they suffered. His consecration
of himself to that work meant, to a very large degree,
his separation from the ordinary social relations and
conditions of his class; and this resulted not in a nar
rowing but an enlarging of his life. Anyone who met
him felt at once that he was a man worth knowing, a
man of force ; and he had become so largely by virtue
of the work which he was doing and the life he was
living among those tenement dwellers. Under other
conditions he would probably have been one of the
ordinary herd of men.
What our Lord proposes to us is the development
of the powers, the possibilities that are in us for great
things. He would not have us be content with some
thing small. He opens out to us greater possibilities
of joy by opening out greater possibilities of living.
I have taken as my text the words which our Lord
added in the conversation that followed the telling
of the parable of the unjust steward. The Pharisees
derided and mocked at Him. Perhaps some of you are
familiar with the little poem by Mrs. Charlotte Per
kins Stetson, entitled " Similar Cases, " in which she
genially caricatures the way in which all reformers and
reforms have been scoffed at from the beginning: a little
five-toed animal no bigger than a fox, that declared
he was going to be a horse, at which the "heavy

292 Modern Christianity
aristocracy" of those "days of long ago" first mocked,
then grew wrathful, and at last sought to kill the bold
reformer, who ran counter to their prejudices and
threatened to overturn the foundations of society
"in the early eocene." Then there was an anthropoid
ape, far smarter than the rest, who was going to be a
man and stand upright and hunt and fight. He was
going to cut down forest trees and going to build a fire;
but his fellow apes pelted him with cocoanuts and
arguments. The thing cannot be done, and, in the
second place, if it could be done, it had better not be
done; and, in the third place, to do it would involve a
complete change of nature. Then there was a neolithic
man, who, not content with the conditions of his times,
looked forward to civilisation, when men should live
in cities and life should be turned upside down, and
all his comrades rose in fury against their boastful
and radical friend; and their final argument was that
it was impossible, for this would mean a change in
human nature. All reform means a change in hu
man nature, and above all reformers Jesus came to
cause and promote a great change in human nature,
namely, that man might be in very truth in the image
of God and that man might live indeed in the kingdom
of heaven.
The writer of St. Luke's Gospel says that the Phari
sees scoffed at Jesus because they were covetous,
lovers of silver. With all their professions of strict
ness, their invention of more difficult and minute
interpretations of the law, it was self and self-service
which lay behind it all; and they were concerned much
more with what men thought of them, with their posi-

Tainted Money 293
tion in the world, than with what God thought of them,
their position in the kingdom of God. " Ye are they
that make yourselves righteous before men, but God
knoweth your hearts; because that which is highly
esteemed among men isan abomination in the sight
of God." The wealth, the fine houses, the beautiful
pictures and sculptures, the collections of books, the
cultured and refined manners which set a man apart
from those about him and lead them to regard him
with envy and admiration, — these things, so highly
esteemed in the sight of men,, are an abomination in
the sight of God if and insofar as the man who has
them has acquired them and administers them for
himself, if and insofar as he is not sharing them,
making their advantages felt among men. Society
tends to form itself on a selfish model. Who does good
for himself him men count great and worthy.
The inclination of worldly society everywhere has
been to give the highest rank and place to the man or
woman who does not need to work and who does not
work, because of what his father, or his grandfather,
or, better still, his remote ancestors have achieved
and acquired. Now it is a fine thing for any man or
woman to be able to look back and say: "My father
and my grandfather and my ancestors for many
generations before me have done noble things. They
have achieved distinction, they have passed down to
me a position of honour and power." But this rank or
position, which men hold high, is an abomination in the
sight of God — if a man or woman rest content with
that. There are few things more contemptible than
the decayed scion of a noble house who can do

294 Modern Christianity
nothing but tell you of the past, because he had him
self achieved nothing. The honour of birth involves
a great responsibility — that to the achievement of the
men of the past the man of the present add his con
tribution of still higher service. The man or the woman
who, having inherited means, is content to do nothing,
may be highly esteemed among men, but such a life
is an abomination in the sight of God. The value of
means thus handed down is that the man or woman
set free from the necessity of toiling for the bread he
eats may enter into the great glory and happiness of
toiling for the uplift of others. This is the use of un
righteous mammon which our Lord means: that men
or women who possess birth, place, means, should
devote the same energy, ingenuity, zeal, and earnest,
hard service to the uplift of those about them which
less fortunate persons are compelled to devote to
earning a living for themselves and their families.
The rule of God's kingdom is effort and work, not
idleness and ease; service and sacrifice, not comfort and
indulgence. Some He has set in a position where they
must toil and strive with all their might to earn their
daily bread. Others He has set in a position where
they do not need to toil and strive for their own sus
tenance. To these latter He has given both a great
privilege and a mighty responsibility. The man or
woman, set in such a place, who feels himself therefore
absolved from the obligation of toil, has mistaken the
very meaning of life from God's point of view. That
ease and comfort of well-being which win distinction
and position in the society of the world are an abomina
tion and an offence in the sight of God.

RESPECTABLES AND PUBLICANS
St. Matthew xxi., 31: The publicans and the harlots go
into the kingdom of God before you.
THE conditions under which our Lord is reported
to have uttered these words are as follows:
When He was teaching in the Temple the chief priests
and elders of the people came and demanded the au
thority by which He spoke. They were the authorised
religious chiefs of the people. He was undertaking
to give instruction in the Temple. It was natural and
proper that they should question into the authority
by which He undertook to teach there. In reply He
asked them which side they took with regard to the
baptism of John. Was it human, or was it God-given?
Was John an inspired leader, a prophet sent from
God, or was he a misleader, a demagogue or a fana
tic? After some questioning among themselves, they
answered that they were not prepared to say. They
were, to use our colloquial expression, "on the fence."
If they were to say that John was not a prophet in
spired by God, they could not carry the people with
them. On the other hand, if they said that John was
an inspired prophet, Jesus could very legitimately ask
them why they had not showed themselves his follow
ers. Between the two homs of the dilemma, they took
the position of declining to commit themselves. Then
295

296 Modern Christianity
Jesus refused to tell them by what authority He did
these things. If they did not "know by what authority
John spoke, they were incompetent to judge His
authority. Then He addresses to them this very pointed para
ble: "Once there was a man that had two sons, and he
came to the first and said, ' Son, go, work to-day in the
vineyard.' He answered and said, 'I will not'; but
afterwards he repented and went. He came to the
second son and said likewise, and he answered and
said, 'I go, sir,' and went not." The publicans and
sinners had not kept the law. They were not re
spectable, but when John came preaching repentance
they had flocked out in great numbers and been bap
tised in the Jordan, confessing and repenting their
sins. John had brought them the message of right
living, the message of the old prophets, that a man
should do justly towards his neighbour and love mercy,
and those men who were not respectable, the publi
cans and sinners, had responded, while the men who
claimed to be the religious leaders of the people had
given him no support whatsoever.
And Jesus, in His turn, found Himself criticised,
opposed, and distrusted by the religious leaders
of the people, the priests and the elders, the scribes
and the Pharisees. The publicans and sinners heard
Him gladly. They became His followers. And so
He addresses this scathing denunciation to these re
ligious leaders of the people: "The publicans and the
harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For
John came unto you in the way of righteousness,
and ye believed him not; but the publicans and

Respectables and Publicans 297
> <
the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen
it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe
him." I need scarcely remind you that this is not an isolated
utterance. We find the same thing over and over again
in our Lord's reported sayings. Now it is the two men
praying in the temple. The one is a Pharisee, a re
spectable, godly Churchman, quite content with the
life that he is living, satisfied that he is a good man.
There is put into his mouth the prayer which was then,
as it is now, the real heart utterance of many such a
man; perhaps not what he says in the ears of those
about him, or what he actually says in the words which
he utters to God, but the thought which lies behind
those words, his real prayer, his real manner of address
to God, what he thinks of himself, and his idea of what
God thinks of him: "Lord, I thank thee that I am not
as other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even
as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes
of all that I possess." And the publican, standing
afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto
heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, "God be
merciful to me a sinner!" The publican, our Lord
tells us, was the man who was justified in the sight of
God, not the Pharisee. The ward politician, the
political grafter, if you were to find the corresponding
terms and ideas for publican in our life of to-day, was
counted righteous rather than the irreproachable
Churchman, who knew his Bible, kept the Ten Com
mandments, went to church and contributed regularly
to its support.
The famous parable of the Prodigal Son introduces

298 Modern Christianity
you to two brothers. One of them staid at home with
his father, and was a decent, respectable member of
society. The other was a rake and a vagabond, who
squandered all he had in dissipation and at last landed
in the gutter. And yet it is for this man that our Lord
seems to claim our regard. As the result of the very
extremity of his misery, he comes fearfully back to his
father's house with the intention of begging to be
allowed to work as a hired man. His father falls on
his neck and embraces him, treats him with the greatest
honour, makes a banquet for him. The decent, re
spectable elder brother objects. Why, this is a good-
for-nothing fellow, who has squandered everything
in a most disgraceful life, and yet, just as soon as he
comes back, you honour him, bestow your good things
on him, treat him in fact as you never treated me. We
all feel that there is somehow more chance for that
good-for-nothing vagabond than for this hard, stony,
self-righteous egoist.
But it is not only in our Lord's parables that we find
such teaching. His acts express the same thing.
The religious leaders complain of Him, over and over
again, as the friend of publicans and sinners. He is
quite willing to keep company with and actually to sit
down at meat with these low-lived grafters, or even
with disreputable women, as though he were their
bosom friend. He makes Himself one of their circle.
Once, you remember, He was dining at the house of a
Pharisee, when a poor, wretched, fallen woman con
trived to get in and embrace His feet. You remember
how shocked the good Pharisees were at the occurrence
and at Jesus' attitude towards her. Either He did not

Respectables and Publicans 299
seem to know what sort of a woman she was, or else
He did not seem to care. Then, you recollect, He ex
plained to Simon the situation from His point of view.
Simon had invited Him to dinner, apparently just to
satisfy his curiosity and that of his friends, and then
grossly insulted Him. The other guests he had
greeted with the ordinary kiss of welcome. He had
given them water to wash their feet. But Jesus was
not of his class, and in the selfishness and egotism of
his social respectability he could not quite bring him
self to treat Him as he treated the guests of his own
sort. He had stabbed Him just where men are most
sensitive, in His feelings, making Him evident as an
inferior. Now that is one of the most cruel things
that a man or a woman can do. It hurts more than if
you had strack a man a blow. Nobody who is full of
real, tender, human sympathy can do such a thing as
that. Any one who has the real spirit of brotherliness
in him must involuntarily put himself in the place of
others and treat them as he would like to be treated
himself. The egoist does not do this because he thinks
only of himself. This man, of the same race and
the same religion as Jesus, His brother, a son of Abra
ham, like Him one of the chosen people of Israel,
invited Him to dinner, and there, in the presence of all
the guests, treated Him in this insulting manner.
Then there comes a poor, sinful creature, who has
gotten in somehow, throws herself at His feet, kisses
them in an agony of devotion, bathes them with her
tears and wipes them with the hair of her head. Which
is the better to Him? To which must His heart go
out; and to which does the heart of God go out?

300 Modern Christianity
"He who does not love his brother whom he has seen,
how shall he love God whom he has not seen ? "
That social question— how it comes in! You have
another story of how Jesus was invited to a Pharisee's
house. Now, Jesus was a plain man of the people.
He did not know the niceties of the social etiquette
of the "four hundred " of His day, and so it came about
that He did not follow their rule of the formal ablution
of the hands before dinner. But that was the all-
important thing in their eyes. The man who did not
know their manners and their customs was not a
gentleman. They had no ears for anything that He
might say, no eyes for anything that He might do
after that: that damned Him in their sight.
I might go on indefinitely multiplying instances.
The Gospel is full of them. Turn to the end. At
last it was the respectable, church-going, God-fearing
leaders of the people, the chief priests and the elders
and the scribes and Pharisees who put Him to death on
the Cross; and the one man that stood by Him there
was an outcast, a criminal, a thief. It is a most pitiful
tale: the multitude mocking and scoffing at Him: " If
thou be the Christ, the King of Israel, come down from
the Cross!" It is easy to follow the crowd. Most of
us do it. Partly our judgment is carried away by the
contagion of their action, partly we are, most of us,
moral cowards; we do not dare to stand up all by
ourselves against the multitude. And so one of the
thieves crucified with Him began to rail at Him and
mock at Him like the rest: "If thou be the Christ,
come down from the Cross; if thou be the Christ, save
thyself and us!" The other thief rebuked him. They

Respectables and Publicans 301
indeed deserved their condemnation, but this man
had done nothing worthy of death. That thief might
have been a bad man, he might have committed many
crimes, but he had not lost the spirit of true manliness.
He dared to stand up against the multitude; and what is
more, he had not lost that which is the most divine
thing in man, the spirit of sympathy and love. I think
that people make a mistake when they suppose this
thief to have been converted on the Cross, in the sense
that he there recognised Jesus as the Christ who was
expected, the King of Israel. He was converted in the
sense that he recognised the needs of the man suffering
there by his side, that he forgot himself and his own
suffering in the needs of some one suffering more than
he was, that he put himself in that man's place with
the truest and deepest sympathy. That man supposed
He was a King? Then he would recognise Him as a
King now, when He so sorely needed that support
for the preservation of some shred of His self-respect.
And so he asks Jesus to remember him when He comes
into His kingdom. That is the truest conversion:
not the conversion to the name but the conversion
to the spirit of Jesus. And so it was that Jesus could
answer that poor criminal, "This day shalt thou be
with me in paradise." It was precisely of such men,
in spite of all their faults and crimes, that His king
dom should be formed.
And there you have the very foundation of the mat
ter, the reason why Jesus shows this apparent sym
pathy with the publican and sinner over against the
respectable man. It is not that respectability is an
objectionable thing. Very much the opposite: it is

302 Modern Christianity
eminently a good thing and a thing to be desired. A
man ought to keep all the Commandments: Thou shalt
not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt
not steal. He ought not to do any of these things, and
he ought not to do many more besides and he is a very
much better man because he does not do them, and the
world is very much better as it learns not to do these
things. But if a man do none of these things and yet
have not love, to use St. Paul's term, "It profiteth
him nothing." He is not in the kingdom of heaven.
He cannot enter into the joy of life eternal. The man
that has broken these Commandments and yet in
whom the spirit of love is not dead is a better man than
he. These other things are only the case, to guard that
treasure of love. The real thing is love, and the
danger of respectability is just this, that it is apt to
concern itself with the case. It builds it up and adorns
it and fastens it up so tight that it never can be opened,
no breath of air can ever get in, and the spirit of love
for which the case was meant is choked to death.
You find something of this exaltation of the case at
the expense of, or even to the destruction of its contents
in every phase of the history of our religion. Jesus
came to reveal God to men as the God of love, to leave
with men that spirit of love which should lead them to
Him and to the Father. You have in the Bible a
record of it all, the story of how, through generation
after generation and century after century, the Spirit
of God was brooding over men and stirring men's
hearts to seek righteousness and mercy. You see a
spiritual life growing from small beginnings, developing,
line upon line, precept upon precept. It is a long and

Respectables and Publicans 303
tedious struggle, a thousand years of it and more,
until a wonderful religion has grown up. And then
the religious leaders want to stop this development and
call a halt. The dead record of what has been be
comes their religion: and when a live prophet, like John
the Baptist or Jesus the Christ, comes preaching the
living word of God, those leaders of the Church cannot
understand it. They are concerned with preserving
the case in which they have shut up and are stifling the
spirit of the prophets of long ago. They have for
gotten that there is anything within that case; it has
become the real thing to them. John opens the lid
and reveals the live spirit within. But they do not see
the spirit, they do not care for that. They are only
distressed that the lid of their precious treasure case
is opened, they want to close it. They do not perceive
the divine in John's message. So, also, when Jesus
comes they cannot hear the word of God in His words,
they cannot feel the breath of the Spirit in His teach
ing. Time passes, and the Christian Church makes a
similar experience. I think that to-day, and among
us, even, there are men and women who let the Bible
stand between them and Jesus Christ. To others, it is
creeds, sacerdotal order, or the sacraments which have
come between them and Christ. The sacraments are
the outward form through which the inner life should
be given. But what a ghastly irony there was in the
profession of true belief in those sacraments by people
who were murdering one another because they did not
agree about the explanation of them! The explana
tion had become more valuable than the sacrament.

3°4 Modern Christianity
So it has been with sacerdotal order, so it has been with
creeds and formularies; and the more beautiful your
creeds and formularies, the greater, I had almost said,
the danger. And just because we have such beautiful
creeds and formularies, such noble forms and cere
monies, we of the Protestant Episcopal Church are
especially in danger of letting our respectability and
decency in these matters become a case to seal up and
suffocate the spiritual life.
But religion does not consist only in those things
which you and I call by the name of religion. Our
real religion is that which we practise in our lives.
Perhaps I might say that the thing which is most real,
most precious to you, is in reality your religion; it
may be social forms, it may be money-getting, but
that is really your religion. We do not always realise
just what our religion is.
One day I was dining with the Turkish governor of
an outlying province on the edge of the desert. In fact
I had just come in from the desert and had as guide and
companion an Arab tribesman. At dinner there was
the usual central dish on the table, from which we
were all to help ourselves. The governor and my
Arab tribesman helped themselves with their hands out
of the dish. There on the border the governor was
in all his habits and uses like the Arab tribesman; only
he knew that his customs in these regards were different
from the customs in the centres of civilisation, and so
he felt it necessary to make some explanation, which
explanation consisted in telling me that he too knew
how to eat with a spoon like a Frank, but that it was
his religion to eat with his fingers. That is, it was his

Respectables and Publicans 305
tradition, the etiquette he was used to, it was bred in
him, so that it would be a shock and an offence to him
to do something different. Now that was a true use of
the word religion, even if an unconscious one. The
clothes we wear, the manners with which we greet one
another, the way in which we eat our food, become
to us tests of our own worth and the worth of those
about us. It is necessary and desirable that we should
have forms, customs, etiquette; but these things are
after all but the case, and the continual danger is lest we
make them the real thing and thus seal up and finally
suffocate the life which is the treasure the case was
meant to protect and preserve. It is precisely this
sort of respectability, both in what we commonly call
our religion, and also in that greater and broader reli
gion of the traditions and customs and habits of our
daily life, the substituting of the dead outward case
for the live thing within, which is the danger we must
avoid. If you stifle that spirit of life and love in the
case of respectability, then you inevitably develop a
cold, hard, selfish, unsympathetic nature, both in the
individual and in the community.
The mere "Do not do this," "Do not do that," of
the commandments of respectability, is eminently
selfish. Do not do it, why? Because the doing of it
will throw you out of society, will bring punishment
upon you, will prevent your development? Those are
entirely selfish motives, and however good the thing
you do or do not do is in itself, the selfish motive of
mere respectability with which you do it will ultimately
harden your heart and prevent the trae development
of the divine nature within you. Do, or abstain from

3°6 Modern Christianity
doing those things, for another motive, because to
murder, to commit adultery, to steal is to bring suffer
ing or harm or loss on some one else or on the commu
nity; do or abstain from doing them for another's sake
and there is developed in you more and more of that
divine spirit of love and compassion which leads to a
higher and greater righteousness, to a living, quicken
ing righteousness. It was against that selfishness and
hollowncss and unreality of the religious forms and
practices of the religious leaders of His day that our
Lord was so constantly protesting. Your respectable
man does the thing just because it is the correct thing.
He rests on the basis of what people say, what people
do, what people think. He tries to conform to the
proper use. He would not like to do anything that
is out of the ordinary form and custom. He never can
let himself go, he never can be really himself. Indeed
it is very doubtful whether he has a self; he is the echo
of what he sees and hears about him.
Among the delights of my childhood was a book
called, I think, Arabian Days, a translation, I judge,
of some German work. Out of that book I remember
one story to this day. I had no idea of its moral at
the time, but it was its moral which really fixed it in
my mind and brings it to my remembrance. It
was evidently written in the days of Anglo-mania in
Germany, after the revolutionary period of 1848.
Everybody sought to do what was English, to wear
English clothes, to have English manners, drink tea
after the English fashion, etc., etc.; and nobody was
esteemed anything in the little town in which the
story was laid unless he imitated the English in some

Respectables and Publicans 307
manner. A certain cynical gentleman, disgusted by
the unreality of all this, introduced to the community,
as his guest, a young Englishman, a somewhat un
couth looking individual, with a hairy face and
strange manners and ungainly gestures, who could not
speak the German language. Nevertheless, every
one was charmed to hear his strange utterances; and,
as for his manners, why, the very roughness of them
proved him to be of the best English type; and forth
with every one hastened to imitate his dress, his tone,
his bearing, his eccentricities. He was guilty of strange
excesses, but these were not only condoned, they were
imitated. At last, one day, his cynical host disap
peared, leaving the young Englishman and a note
behind. The young Englishman proved to be an ape
which he had half-way trained into the semblance of
humanity. It is a cynical story, and yet it is true that
many people would think the manners and even the
religion of an ape quite the right thing to imitate, if
only he were properly introduced.
People are apt to read the Bible without a sufficient
reference of its words and its teachings to their own
time and their own individual case. You and I,
respectable and God-fearing Churchmen of to-day,
are quite confident that we have nothing in common
with the chief priests and the elders, the scribes and
the Pharisees of our Lord's day. Our religion is
different from theirs. We would never put any one
to death who came among us and taught us righteous
ness. No, we would not, because Christianity has so
far softened our civilisation and enlarged our compre
hension that those days of persecution and execution

308 Modern Christianity
are past, at least in this country (although it must be
remembered that on the whole Christianity persecuted
both outsiders and its own heretics more cruelly and
more remorselessly than Judaism persecuted Jesus and
His followers in the early days, and that even to-day
Christianity in many countries has not passed out of
the persecuting stage). We of this country have been
so far softened and so far broadened by the lofty and
lovely teachings of Jesus that we would not persecute
Him if He appeared among us to-day. We know it,
because we would not persecute any one who preached
righteousness, however much we might laugh at him
or mock him. It does not follow, however, that we
would hear Him or become His followers. It does not
follow that we would not mock and deride Him and
persecute Him with our tongues. We would do so
just so surely as we make the outward act, the out
ward form, the outward custom the thing of importance,
that by which we determine our life and our relations to
those about us, whether in the narrower sphere of re
ligion in worship and belief or the broader sphere of
religion in life to which I referred a moment since.
What is it that determines your choices in life, —
your friendships, your admirations? Are you keenly
alive to beauty of character? Does your heart go
out towards the people that are striving for the noble
and the good, who are giving themselves in service and
sacrifice? Are you in the current of that life of love?
How often we meet so-called Christian people, highly
respectable people, who are striving with all their might
to keep up appearances. They must do as their neigh
bours do, that is, those particular neighbours who set the

Respectables and Publicans 309
pace they try to follow. They must try to live like
them, dress like them, entertain, if they can, like them,
or at least make a proper appearance at their entertain
ments. They must live after a certain fashion, in a
certain part of the town. They live up to the edge of
their income and the edge of their strength and time,—
all their money, strength, and time must be devoted to
keeping up appearances. To the others that life may
be no strain. They are more comfortably placed
it may be in worldly goods; but just because they are
better off, therefore, these others are imitating them
and striving to be like them. You meet hundreds of
such people, who are throwing their lives away in the
pursuit of egotism and selfishness, stifling every higher
thing within them that they may be "respectable."
They lose the reality of life in seeking after the sham.
We have hundreds of these people in our churches, who
do nothing, who are nothing. They say the Creed, they
profess their belief, they contribute what they abso
lutely have to contribute as a matter of respectability
toward the expenses of the Church. If it is the correct
thing, they take some part in the activities of the
Church. They do it as a form and think that is all
that is necessary. They are respectable and self-
righteous. It is of just such people as this that our
Lord uttered those scathing, awful words of the text:
"The publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of
God before you."
But that text goes further still. You have often
heard it said, because it has become a sort of fashion
able thing to say, that if you go into a working-men's
meeting you will find that the name of Jesus Christ

310 Modern Christianity
rouses enthusiasm, while the name of the Church calls
forth execrations. That is an exaggeration, a very
great exaggeration; but there is enough truth behind
it to make us who call ourselves Christians stop and
think. We call the Church the body of Christ. Does
it really represent that tender, sympathetic life of Jesus
Christ? The Church consists of its individual members.
Are we, you and I, trying to lead that life? Does our
religion consist in a personal relation to Jesus, or is it
the saying of formularies, the performance of rites,
the maintenance of a respectable relation ? Jesus was,
so far as we can leam, a careful observer of the Church's
laws and forms. He went to the feasts at Jerusalem,
He went regularly to the synagogue on the Sabbath
day. He constantly quoted and referred to the Scrip
tures. They were His text-book which He studied
and held in reverence. But while that is true, He
stood in an attitude of opposition to the leaders of the
Church. He became a leader of the great mass of the
unchurched, of the publicans and the sinners. He
addressed Himself to the leaders of the Church in
language which, if you appreciate its full force, is
startling and revolutionary. If a man were to use it
to-day with regard to the clergy of the Christian
Church, or the wardens and vestrymen in our churches,
we should not put him to death, but we should cry
out in horror and we should probably put him out of
the Church.
Now I have no further lesson to draw for you from
this utterance of our Lord, except simply to set it
before you and say that it behooves you and me to

Respectables and Publicans 311
study just such utterances, to study His words, His
acts, His life, not as something remote and far away,
but as though it were all happening here among us
to-day. We respectable Churchmen are always in
great danger of being choked with egotism and. selfish
ness, of losing that which is real and substituting for
it a mere sham.

REVOLUTIONARY CHRISTIANITY
St. Matthew xx., 16: So the last shall be first, and the
first last : for many be called but few chosen.
YOU cannot define the kingdom of God in terms
of business service. It is not a legal proposition
nor a business proposition. It is a question of the
relation of man to God, a question of a man's entering
into the spirit of God and the love of God. Whoever
does that, however he does it, whensoever he does it,
enters into the kingdom and shares in the glory and
the reward of that kingdom. The kingdom of God is
revolutionary, in that it reverses the common con
ceptions of men, Jews and non-Jews alike, on which they
base the practice of their religion and their life.
The national religious idea was not confined to the
Jews. It merely received a somewhat different de
velopment and interpretation among them. The
fundamental conception of a Greek state limited the
rights and privileges of that state to a certain number
of citizens. This limitation was really part of the re
ligious as well as the national conception of the Greek
state. As over against the outside world the outlook
of the Greeks is well shown in the name which they
applied to all non-Greeks, — barbarians. They had
nothing in common with them. They looked down
upon them and despised them. The Roman took the
312

Revolutionary Christianity 313
same attitude, and though in the latter years of the
republic and in the empire men not Romans might
acquire the citizenship of Rome, yet that very fact
only helps to emphasise the attitude of the Roman
toward the non-Roman world. Dominion belonged to
the Roman. Others were meant to work for him, to
be subject to him. For the Roman there was one law,
for the non-Roman another law. Between the two
there was a barrier. Similarly the Jew regarded him
self as alien from and superior to all other peoples.
This idea of difference and superiority developed with
him- in a way somewhat different from that in which it
developed among Greeks and Romans, but the prin
ciple was the same. The Jews supposed themselves
to be the chosen people of God, different from all the
nations of the earth. Not only through the Jew, but
in the Jew was to be established God's kingdom here
upon earth. With him the idea of difference took on
more distinctly the racial and religious character.
The nation with him meant race and religion to a
degree which was not true in the case of the Greek or
the Roman. The very lack of a real national exist
ence helped to develop this idea. Downtrodden, de
spised by all, the Jew solaced himself by dwelling more
and more upon his peculiar relation to the Divinity
and looking forward to the day when God should re
cognise that relation by placing the other nations
under his feet.
The whole idea is an unlovely one. It is selfish and
egotistic, whether held by Greek, by Roman, or by
Jew, and in whatever variation it may express itself.
The fundamental teaching of our Lord contradicted

314 Modern Christianity
and reversed this doctrine. The first words of the
prayer which He left to all the world as a heritage
give the lie to that conception of particularity. God
is "our Father" and we are all His children, and all,
therefore, brothers one of another. The Messianic
kingdom, for which His apostles were looking, was
not the kingdom into which He would bring the Jews
alone. Any one whom He found ready to answer the
call to come and work with Him should be a partaker
of that kingdom. I have said that our Lord's doc
trine of the kingdom of God was revolutionary. To
some extent the revolution He proclaimed has taken
place; but even yet men are far from regarding one
another as brothers. Christianity, nominally accept
ing the theory of one Father in heaven, soon developed
lines of distinction. The Christian came to anathe
matise and persecute the non-Christian, and then the
orthodox Christian came to persecute and anathe
matise the heterodox Christian. In Russia to-day
there are not the same laws for the orthodox and the
unorthodox, much less for the Christian and the Jew.
Russia only continues the conditions which prevailed
so long over all the earth and indeed, to some extent,
still prevail. As of old Greek law was different for the
Greek and non-Greek, Roman law for the Roman and
non-Roman, and Jewish right for the Jew and Gentile,
so in Christendom the law was different for Christian
and Jew or even for orthodox and unorthodox Christian.
And where this religious difference has been broken
down, still the idea of brotherhood does not prevail.
To take us people of the Anglo-Saxon race, for
instance, the conception which our Lord taught of our

Revolutionary Christianity 315
one Father is still revolutionary. We do not believe
that the Indian is our brother, that the Chinamen and
the Japanese are our brothers, that the negroes are our
brothers, or even that the Jews are our brothers. We
look down upon them as aliens and inferiors. We
make laws which classify them as such or we make
social distinctions which emphasise our opinion of their
inferiority. We of the Anglo-Saxon race, masterful
and conquering, convinced of the superiority of our
type and of our civilisation, have practically made a
religion of that civilisation and that type. We ac
cept the kingdom of God on Anglo-Saxon lines and for
Anglo-Saxon people just as truly as the Jew accepted
it on Jewish lines and for the Jewish people. We
would exclude every one else just as the Jews would
have excluded all but Jews. We expect to have the
dominion over other races. We of this country have
modified our Anglo-Saxon blood by huge infusions of
the blood of other races, but in doing it we have so
assimilated those races to ourselves, to our own civili
sation and our own type, that they have become in real
ity Anglo-Saxon. It is the instinct of a conquering
and dominant race to regard those who cannot keep its
pace, who cannot adopt its ways, its civilisation, its
manners, and its appearance, as its inferiors.
It is strange to think that in the world's history we
who were once the last have become the first. Our
ancestors were backward barbarians, unintelligent,
considered incapable of acquiring culture and civilisa
tion, for centuries and millenniums after other races
and other nations had developed culture and civilisa
tion. Races whose very type has been lost, which

316 Modern Christianity
as races have vanished off the face of the earth, built
cities, organised states, developed agriculture and com
merce, cultivated art and literature, while our ancestors
lived like wild beasts as far below the civilised races
of that day as the negroes of Central Africa are to-day
below the standards of civilisation of our own country.
Even negroid peoples were among the leaders of pro
gress and civilisation when our ancestors had not yet
emerged from the lowest depths of barbarism. And
in the Indo-European stock to which we belong our
own race was one of the last to take on civilisation, to
prove itself capable of advance and progress, of as
suming responsibility. We, the proudest and most
masterful of races, are among the latest comers. It
took thousands of years to develop our backward in
telligence, our lower intellectual and moral sense; and
now we who were last are first. I s it possible that there
is still another last which shall become first in our stead ?
Is there some race which we now regard as incapable
of civilisation, backward beyond hope of progress,
materially and intellectually, which has developed so
slowly because it is finally to achieve still greater
things than those our Anglo-Saxon race has achieved?
There have been strange revolutions in the history of
the world. Many first have become last and last first;
and the end is not yet.
Is there, then, one may ask, no justification for the
conception that Israel was a people chosen of God?
Yes, it was chosen by God in a sense which the second
portion of the book of Isaiah beautifully sets forth.
It was chosen to work with God for the nations, to
give itself and all it had for the good of the world.

Revolutionary Christianity 317
to suffer with God and for God in the cause of humanity.
It was a great and glorious mission, to which Israel
has been unfaithful just in so far as it has conceived of
itself as a separate people and looked down upon or
been hostile to the Gentiles. The same mission, I
take it, has come now, in God's good time, to our race
and our people. Kipling, I think it was, invented the
phrase "the white man's burden." If it be rightly
understood, that conception is a glorious one — our
strength, our intelligence, our thrift, our energy, our
power and masterfulness are ours that we may bless
the world by bearing the burden of our red and black
and brown and yellow brothers. This is not a mis
sion, however, which can be carried out by force, by
going to the black men in South Africa or in the Congo
Free State or in our own country and compelling them
to work, treating them one minute as inferior to us and
the next moment demanding of them a conformity to
our standards of thrift and morality. We have a vast
deal to leam from Christ before we can fulfil that mis
sion, and we can never fulfil it until in reality we
regard them as our brothers.
But it is not only in matters national, religious, and
racial that men make such ungodly distinctions. In
Rome there were patricians and plebeians, parts of
the same people and yet with different laws applying to
each, the one possessing certain privileges and immuni
ties which the other did not have; and that which was
true of Rome was trae of Europe through the whole
Middle Ages and is, to some extent, true of it now.
Men like to claim for themselves privileges and immuni
ties, and it is difficult to make them understand that

318 Modern Christianity
this is wrong and injurious both to themselves and to
those whom they thus rob and oppress. In this
country we have endeavoured to realise more nearly the
Christian standard by legal and constitutional pro
visions that there shall be no privileged class; but
although there is no hereditary privileged class, you
find that what is sometimes called human nature
has proved stronger than grace; that a privileged class
tends to exist here among us, theories and laws to the
contrary notwithstanding. The tendency among us,
outside of that one unchristian race prejudice to which
I have already referred, is to create privilege by means
of wealth and for the purpose of amassing wealth.
How the possession of something which others do not
possess affects our minds! Observe a little child
dressed up in its best clothes. While those best clothes
tend to bring out a certain respectability and decorum
in the child's manner and behaviour, which is part
of the reason why we give it the clothes, they also tend
to develop in it a most unholy priggishness and self-
righteousness. A child who in its ordinary work-a-
day clothes stands in healthy democratic relations
towards its fellows, who is not noticeably conceited,
or self-satisfied that it is better than others, is converted
into a most offensive little aristocrat when you have
dressed it up. It contemplates its own superiority
to those about it and is filled with selfishness and
egotism. Now the same thing which you have ob
served over and over again in a little child is true of
humanity at large. It is extraordinary what a change
takes place in us with the change of our conditions,
even in the matter of clothing.

Revolutionary Christianity 319
The possession of material goods greatly in excess
of his neighbour exerts upon the ordinary man a disas
trous moral effect. Many of you may have had occa
sion to observe this in individuals or communities.
You have seen people in very simple circumstances
ready and able to give personal attention to the need
of their neighbours, to receive into their houses people
who required shelter, nursing, and the like. You may
have seen the same people raised to what they conceived
to be a different condition of life, possessed of much
more abundant means. If so, you will have observed
that as a result of those changed conditions it generally
becomes impossible for them to do the things which
they had done before. A gift of money takes the
place of the service which they formerly rendered.
It is not practicable for them to take those who are
in need or suffering into their houses now, or to adopt
and rear as their own children forsaken or bereft of
parents. You all know or have heard of the various
organisations which undertake to find homes for
deserted and homeless children. A great work of this
sort was done by Bamardo in London. A couple of
years since I was in Cape Breton at the time when a
shipload of Barnardo's waifs was brought into the coun
try. The people who adopted them and took them into
their homes to rear them as their own were poor, plain,
simple people, nor were they always childless people.
The people who, you would have supposed, from their
circumstances in life, were better able to assume such
responsibilities, people with more means and often with
smaller families, were not the ones to whom it seemed
desirable or possible to take these children. It is

320 Modern Christianity
only one example of that which you see all around you
in life — the barrier which the possession of goods builds
up about us, which prevents us from doing those acts of
brotherly love which persons of small means may do,
which makes us a class apart from those with less of
this world's goods than we have, until we have come to
conceive of ourselves and them as different classes.
This has made itself very distinctly felt in the Church
of God, and we find among us to-day class churches,
or rather the inclination of all our churches is to become
class churches. We are a class church in the training
of our clergy, and in the social position to which we
assign them; we are a class church in the organisation
of our vestries, of our conventions, of our governing
bodies in general, and we are a class church in our
arrangements for worship. Some of our most dis
tinctively class churches are, it is trae, distinguished
for their great gifts to missions, by their noble contri
butions for eleemosynary and benevolent institutions.
Some of them spend large sums in building chapels,
settlements, mission houses, and the like in the poorer
quarters of the city, providing creches, kindergartens,
visitors, nurses, and much more to help to lighten the
burden of need; but so long as they contrive to segre
gate themselves from those masses with whom they
deal, they have missed the better part. Their wealth
and their respectability form a barrier about them
which renders it impossible to deal with these others
as with brothers with whom they gather together in one
Father's house. They lack that very association and
sympathy which are worth all gifts of money, and which
constitute the very essence of that relation of brother-

Revolutionary Christianity 321
hood among men which is set forth in the life and
Gospel of Jesus Christ.
"Many first shall be last and last first." It is a
revolutionary utterance and revolutionary to-day
in reference to the attitude of our Christian people
and our Christian churches toward their brothers.
Yes, we tend to develop class here in America, class
founded on success in worldly things, on wealth. In
our governmental, in our social, in our religious rela
tions we recognise practically, if not theoretically,
this class distinction. If you will question the ordinary
men about you or observe their acts you will see that
this conception of class is inbred in the great mass
of our people. The very policeman who arrests an
offender, when he finds that offender to be a man of
means, assumes a different attitude toward him.
Not that he is ordered to do so, not that he expects a
bribe for doing so, but the possession of wealth throws
around that man in his eyes, as in the eyes of the great
mass of the people from whom he comes, an invisible
halo which sets him apart from other men. And the
rich man holds the same opinion about himself as the
inevitable result of the attitude which the community
takes toward success as expressed in terms of wealth.
Towards this prevailing attitude of mind our Lord's
words are as revolutionary to-day as they were 1900
years ago in Palestine with regard to that national
conception of what was pleasing in God's sight, what
constituted God's elect. I suppose that at the last
day, when we stand before the Judge, some of us who
have won success here and have proudly told the tale
of that success or heard it told by others will say:

322 Modern Christianity
" I was a poor boy. I began with nothing. I made my
own way by thrift and honest toil, by doing with all
my might the work I had to do, by using my hours of
leisure for extra work or for study. By my own
intelligence and inventive power, by my own energy
and force of character I made my way and have ac
quired great wealth. I took advantage of every op
portunity that was before me to increase my holdings.
I saw that it was possible to co-ordinate different
interests, to save friction and loss resulting from
unnecessary competition. I outstripped my duller,
less energetic, and more conservative competitors.
They dropped out of the race, they were compelled to
abandon their business because they could not com
pete with the new methods and the new ways. I
brought a new spirit into the trade and created a new
epoch in the organisation of industries. I hold the
first place among the business men of my day."
I take it that this plea for a place in the kingdom of
God will be counted at the last day very partial and
one-sided. What is asked is not merely whether the
man had the ability and power, the energy and self-
control to succeed, but whether he conceived of those
powers as Christ conceived of His divine power, as
something given of God, not that He might turn stones
to bread for the satisfaction of His own needs, not that
He might win for Himself the kingdoms of the earth,
not that He might cause the gaping crowds to look upon
Him with marvel and with wonder as a creature dif
ferent from themselves, but that, as a brother among
brothers, He might serve His fellow men, standing with
them and among them, not apart from them. Many

Revolutionary Christianity 323
whom men count first shall be last and many whom
men count not successful, precisely because they have
not been willing to use their powers for their own ag
grandisement, shall be first in the kingdom of God.

The Crown Theological Library
Faith and Morals

By Wilhelra Herrmann, D.D., Professor of Dogmatic
Theology in the University of Marburg. Translated
from the German by Donald Matheson, M.A., and
Robert W. Stewart, M.A., B.Sc. Cr. 8vo. Net,
$1.50.
" It is seldom a theological work appears, more fitted to clarify thought
and stimulate real rehgious feelings and genuine pity." — Independent.
Early Hebrew Story
A Study of the Origin, the Value, and the Historical
Background of the Legends of Israel. By John P.
Peters, D.D., Rector of St. Michael's Church, New
York. Cr. 8vo. Net, $1.25.
" We believe that the course is adapted to promote biblical scholarship,
and that their expert knowledge and positive constructive tone give them
exceptional value at the present time." — Extract from a minute adopted
by the Faculty of the Bangor Theological Seminary.
Biblical Problems and the New Material for
their Solution
By Rev. Thomas Cheyne, Oriel Professor of the
Interpretation of the Scripture, Oxford, Canon of
Rochester, formerly FeUow of Balliol College. Cr.
8vo. Net, $1.50.
" The author puts a number of disputed questions into a clear and com
prehensible form and indicates what light modern investigation has thrown
upon them." — The Sun.
The Doctrine of the Atonement, and the Religion
of Modern Culture'
Two Essays. By Auguste Sabatier, late Dean of
the Theological Faculty of the University of Paris.
Translated by Victor Leuliette, A.K.C., B.-es-L.
Cr. vo. Net, $1.25.
" A singularly fascinating presentation of the changing forms of religion
and the influence of culture on the transformation. The historic survey
ofthe theories of the death ofjesus is made complete and discriminating.
— The Christian Register.
New York — G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS— London

The Crown Theological Library

The Early Christian Conception of Christ
Its Significance and Value in the History of Re
ligion. By Otto Pfleiderer, Professor of Theology
in the University of Berlin. Cr. 8vo. Net, $1.25.
"It would be difficult to name any recent English work which could
compare with this brilliant essay as a concise but lucid presentation of the
attitude of the more advanced school of German theologians to the Founder

The Child and Religion
A Collection of Essays edited by Rev. T. Stephens,
B.A. Cr. 8vo. Net, $1.50.
"Those who are grappling with practical problems will find in these
essays, written from various points of view, much that is suggestive and
helpful." — The Outlook.
The Evolution of Religion
An Anthropological Study. By L. R. Farnell,
M.A., D.Litt., Fellow and Tutor of Exeter College,
Oxford. Cr. 8vo. Net, $1.50.
A discussion of the ritual of purification and the influence of ideas asso
ciated with it upon law, morality, and religion.
The History of Early Christian Literature
By H. von Soden, D.D., Professor of Theology in
the University of Berlin. Translated by Rev. J. R.
Wilkinson, M.A. Cr. 8vo. Net, $1.50.
" It is the work of a scholar. . . . This literature has an " irreplaceable
value," and its significance 'can scarcely be rated too high. — N.W.
Christian Advocate.
The Religion of Christ in the Twentieth Century
Cr. 8vo. Net, $1.50.
"This brief but weighty utterance. ... A writer cf culture as well as a
thinker of uncommon force. . . . The thoughts and conclusions presented
have been uttered before, but never more clearly or more attractively."
— Outlook.

New York — 6. P. PUTNAM'S SONS — London

Books by Rev. John P. Peters, Ph.D.

Early Hebrew Story
A Study of the Origin, the Value, and the Historical
Background of the Legends of Israel. No. 7, Crown
Theological Library. Cr. 8vo. Net, $1.25.

constructivemanifest, ga 
course is adapted to promote Biblical' scholarship, ana thaVtheir'eipert
luiowledge and positive constructive tone give them exceptional value at
the present Ume. — Extract from a minute adopted by the Faculty of
the Bangor Theological Seminary.
Annals of St. Michael's
Being the History for 100 years (1807-1007) of St.
Michael s Protestant Episcopal Church of New York.
Edited by John P. Peters, D.D., Rector. 8vo. With
about 32 Illustrations. Net, $3.50.
The book is divided into three parts ¦ the first contains the history of
the Church, and of the neighborhood, old Bloomingdale- the second part
sketches of the lives of the six rectors who officiated there, some of whom
were both remarkable and interesting characters ; and the third part an
account of the numerous churches missions, and institutions which have
been founded by, or grown up in connection with, that parish during the
one hundied years of its existence.
Nippur ; or, Explorations and Adventures on
the Euphrates
The Narrative of the University of Pennsylvania
Expedition to Babylonia, in the Years 1888-1890.
Rev John P. Peters, Ph. D., Director of the Expedition.
With about 100 Illustrations and Plans, and with
New Maps of the Euphrates Valley and the Ruin
Sites of Babylonia. 2 Vols., 8vo, gilt top. Net, $5.00.
*' The story is told with simplicity, directness, and precision. The book
has a marked individuality and forms a fit companion for the classic
works of Layard. Loftus, etc." — N. Y. Nation.
The Scriptures, Hebrew and Christian
Arranged and Edited as an Introduction to the Study
of the Bible. Edited by Rev. Edward T. Bartlett,
D.D., Dean of the Divinity School of the P. E. Church
in Philadelphia, and Mary Wolfe Prof, of Ecclesiasti
cal History, and Rev. John P. Peters, Ph.D.
Vol. I. Hebrew Story from Creation to Exile. $1.50.
Vol. II. Hebrew Poetry and Prophecy. $1.50.
Vol. III. New Testament. $2.00.
3 Volumes, each complete in itself and sold separately
"We know of no volume which will better promise an intelligent under
standing of the structure and substance of the Bible than this work,
prepared, as it is. by competent and reverent Christian scholars." —
Sunday-School Times.
New York— <i. P. PUTNAM'S SONS— London

Babel and Bible
By Dr. Friedrich Delitzsch, of the University of
Berlin. Authorized translation. Cr. 8vo. With 77
illustrations. Net, $1.50.
" Every student of the Bible and every clergyman who intends to keep
up with the progress in Bible research should be familiar with the con
tents of this book." — Springfield Republican.
The Virgin Birth of Christ
A Christological Study. By Paul Lobstein, of the
University of Strasburg. Authorized translation.
Cr. 8vo. Net, $1.25.
" Professor Lobstein makes a strong argument for his view, and his
treatment of the whole subject is reverent and suggestive. The book is
small and concise and contains a wealth of materiaL" — The Independent
My Struggle for Light
Confessions of a Preacher. By R. Wimmer. Cr.
8vo. Net, $1.25.
A book which will appeal to ministers who are anxious to preserve in
tellectual sincerity, and to thoughtful laymen who are turning over in their
mind the deepest problems of religion.
Liberal Christianity:
Its Origin, Nature, and Mission
By Jean Reville, Professor in the Protestant Theo
logical Faculty of Paris. Translated and Edited by
Victor Leuliette. Cr. 8vo. Net, $1.25.
" Its orderliness of thought and its lucidity of expression make it a
handbook highly desirable to possess, — a book to read, to lend, to give
away." — Christian Register.
What is Christianity?
By Adolf Harnack, Professor of Church History in
the University of Berlin. Translated by T. Bailey
Saunders. With a Special Preface to the English
Edition by the Author. Octavo. (By mail, $1.90.)
Net, $1.75.
" For its stimulating thought, we commend it heartily to the study and
thought of our readers." — Christian World.
New York — G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS — London

The Crown Theological Library

Jesus
By W. Bousset, Professor of Theology in the Uni
versity of Gottingen. Translated by Janet Penrose
Trevelyan. Cr. 8vo. Net, Si. 25.
" It most invites comparison with Harnack's ' What is Christianity?'
Its standpoint is similar. There is the same wide knowledge of the
sources, the perfect independence of outlook, the same reverence for
Christ's character and ideals."— Christian World.
The Communion of the Christian with God
By Professor W. Herrmann. Translated from New
German Edition by Rev. J. S. Stanyon, M.A., and
Rev. R. W. Stewart, B.D., B.Sc. Cr. 8vo. Net,
$1.50.
" Here is something more reasonable and persuasive than the usual
conservative dogmatics, more truly religious and deeply spiritual than the
ordinary doctrine of liberals. It is assuredly one of the important doc
trinal treatises of a generation." — New York Independent.
Hebrew Religion to the Establishment of Juda
ism under Ezra
By W. E. Addis, M.A. Cr. 8vo. Net, $1.50.
" Professor Addis is a competent scholar in Old Testament matters, and
his sketch of the earlier and more important periods of the development
of Hebrew religion is in fact a careful and thorough study of its subject."
— Eve. Post.
Naturalism and Religion
By Rudolf Otto, Professor of Theology in the Uni
versity of Gottingen. Translated by J. Arthur
Thomson, Professor of Natural History in the Uni
versity of Aberdeen, and Margaret R. Thomson.
Edited, with an Introduction, by Rev. W. D. Morri
son, LL.D. Cr. 8vo. Net, $1.50.
". . . Is a detailed and systematic examination of the ground of Natur
alism and elaboration of the religious standpoint. ... It is well written,
clear, and even eloquent." — Expository Times.

New York — G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS — London

The Crown Theological Library

Essays on the Social Gospel
By Adolf Harnack, Professor of Church History in
the University of Berlin, and Wilhelm Herrmann,
Professor of Theology in the University of Marburg.
Translated by G. M. Craik and Edited by Maurice
A. Canney, M.A. Cr. 8vo. Net, $1.25.
These essays attempt to show that the moral directions of Jesus are not
complex in their demands, but require of us simply that one thing that
alone can bestow upon the will singleness of aim, and produce a stead
fast, independent attitude of mind.
The Religion of the Old Testament
Its Place among the Religions of the Nearer East.
By Karl Marti, of the University of Berlin. Trans
lated by Rev. G. A. Bienemann, M.A. Edited by
Rev. W. D. Morrison, LL.D. Cr. 8vo. Net, $1.25.
"The name of Professor Karl Marti is a sufficient guarantee of the
scholarly merit of any work in the field of Semitic study to which it is
attached. The purpose of this book is chiefly comparative — to assign the
place of the religion of the ancient Hebrews among the religions of the
nearer East." — -London Tribune.
What is Religion?
By Wilhelm Bousset, Professor in the University of
Gottingen. Translated by F. B. Low. Cr. 8vo.
Net, $1.50.
" The work of an expert, a critic free from predilections, yet not an
extremist, and one by no means devoid of the religious sense needful to
the handling of so high a theme." — The N. Y. Eve. Post.
Luke the Physician
The Author ofthe Third Gospel and the Acts of the
Apostles. By Adolf Harnack, Professor of Church
History in the University of Berlin. Translated by
the Rev. J. R. Wilkinson, M.A. Edited by the Rev.
W. D. Morrison, LL.D. Cr. 8vo. Net, $1.50.
An. investigation of the history of the founding of the primitive tradi
tions which will be read with the greatest profit by every student of the
history of Christianity.

New York — G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS— London

The Crown Theological Library
The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of
Jesus Christ ~~
B/.K?*S0PP Lake, M.A., Professor in the University
of Leiden. Cr. 8vo. Net $1.50.
«hJ^i^l!S-^ in««igati.on into history, and is concerned not with
ea?lyPC*nrisatiannUte^,urfereUS,OUS «*«-«• but with *« ««-»T of
The Apologetic of the New Testament
By E. F. Scott, M.A., B.A. Cr. 8vo. Net $1.50.
It has long been recognized that some apologetic motive is at work in
almost every book of the New Testament, and it is this aspect of the
writings which is here separated for special study.
The Programme of Modernism
A Reply to the Encyclical of Pius X., Pascendi
Dominici Gregis. With the Text of the Encyclical
in an English Version. Translated from the Italian,
with an Introduction by A. Leslie Lilley, Vicar of St.
Mary's, Paddington Green. Cr. 8vo. Net $1.50.
This volume is more than a reply to the Papal strictures on the
Modernist " position ; it is the most masterly general presentation that
has yet appeared of the results of scientific Biblical criticism, and of the
present state of orthodoxy after its adventurous journey through the
rough seas of Higher Criticism.
Paul the Mystic
A Study in Apostolic Experience. By James M.
Campbell, D.D., author of *' The Indwelling Christ."
"After Pentecost— What? "etc, Cr. 8vo. Net $1.50.
A revival of interest in mysticism, expressing itself curiously in esoteric
cults here and there, is one of the phenomena of the closing years of the
last and the opening years of the present century. The reawakening
mystical mood has found notable expression in France, in Belgium, in
Germany, in Ireland, and in England. The volume here in question
will perhaps be especially welcome now, in tune as it is with a tendency
of the hour.
The Sayings of Jesus
By Adolf Harnack, Professor of Church History in
the University of Berlin. Translated by Rev. J. R.
Wilkinson, M.A. Cr. 8vo. Net, $1.75.
This work is an attempt to determine the source from which Matthew
and Luke drew their information, and to estimate its value in relation to
the gospel of St. Mark.
New York— G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS— London

3 9002 08867 8066