,the ,cole ,lectures for #aibb delivered before ,vanderbilt ,university ,christianity and ,progress ,by ,,harry ,,emerson ,,fosdick ,professor of ,practical ,theology in the ,union ,theological ,seminary2 ,preacher at the ,first ,presbyterian ,church1 ,new ,york ,,new ,,york ------ ,,chicago ,fleming ,h4 ,revell ,company ,,london ,,and ,,edinburgh ,copyright1 #aibb1 by ,,fleming ,h4 ,,revell ,,company ,new ,york3 #aeh ,fifth ,avenue ,chicago3 #ag ,north ,wabash ,ave4 ,london3 #ba ,paternoster ,square ,edinburgh3 #ge ,princes ,street ,,the ,,cole ,,lectures ,the late ,colonel ,e4 ,w4 ,cole of ,nashville1 ,tennessee1 donated to ,vanderbilt ,university the sum of five thousand dollars1 afterwards increased by ,mrs4 ,e4 ,w4 ,cole to ten thousand1 the design and conditions of which gift are stated as follows3 ,the ,object of this fund is to establish a foundation for a perpetual ,lectureship in connection with the ,school of ,religion of the ,university1 to be restricted in its scope to a defense and advocacy of the ,christian religion4 ,the lectures shall be delivered at such intervals1 from time to time1 as shall be deemed best by the ,board of ,trust2 and the particular theme and lecturer will be determined by the ,theological ,faculty4 ,said lecture shall always be reduced to writing in full1 and the manuscript of the same shall be the property of the ,university1 to be published or disposed of by the ,board of ,trust at its discretion1 the net proceeds arising therefrom to be added to the foundation fund1 or otherwise used for the benefit of the ,school of ,religion4 ,preface ,no one who ever has delivered the ,cole ,lectures will fail to associate them1 in his grateful memory1 with the hospitable fellowship of the elect at ,vanderbilt ,university4 ,my first expression of thanks is due to the many professors and students there1 lately strangers and now friends1 who1 after the burdensome preparation of these lectures1 made their delivery a happy and rewarding experience for the lecturer4 ,i am hoping now that even though prepared for spoken address the lectures may be serviceable to others who will read instead of hear them4 ,at any rate1 it seemed best to publish them without change in form--addresses intended for public delivery and bearing1 ,i doubt not1 many marks of the spoken style4 ,i have tried to make a sally into a field of inquiry where1 within the next few years1 an increasing company of investigators is sure to go4 ,the idea of progress was abroad in the world long before men became conscious of it2 and men became conscious of it in its practical effects long before they stopped to study its transforming consequences in their philosophy and their religion4 ,no longer1 however1 can we avoid the intellectual issue which is involved in our new outlook upon a dynamic1 mobile1 progressive world4 ,hardly a better description could be given of the intellectual advance which has marked the last century than that which ,renan wrote years ago3 the substitution of the category of becoming for being1 of the conception of relativity for that of the absolute1 of movement for immobility4 #a ,underneath all other problems which the ,christian ,gospel faces is the task of choosing what her attitude shall be toward this new and powerful force1 the idea of progress1 which in every realm is remaking man's thinking4 ,i have endeavoured in detail to indicate my indebtedness to the many books by whose light ,i have been helped to see my way4 ,in addition ,i wish to express especial thanks to my friend and colleague1 ,professor ,eugene ,w4 ,lyman1 who read the entire manuscript to my great profit2 and1 as well1 to my secretary1 ,miss ,margaret ,renton1 whose efficient service has been an invaluable help4 ,h4 ,e4 ,f4 ,new ,york #a ,renan3 ,averros et ,l',averroisme1 p4 vii4 ,contents ,,lecture ,i ,,the ,,idea ,,of ,,progress ,,lecture ,,ii ,,the ,,need ,,for ,,religion ,,lecture ,,iii ,,the ,,gospel ,,and ,,social ,,progress ,,lecture ,,iv ,,progressive ,,christianity ,,lecture ,v ,,the ,,perils of ,,progress ,,lecture ,,vi ,,progress ,,and ,,god ,,lecture ,i ,,the ,,idea ,,of ,,progress ,i ,the supposition that fish do not recognize the existence of water nor birds the existence of air often has been used to illustrate the insensitive unawareness of which we all are capable in the presence of some encompassing medium of our lives4 ,the illustration aptly fits the minds of multitudes in this generation1 who live1 as we all do1 in the atmosphere of progressive hopes and yet are not intelligently aware of it nor conscious of its newness1 its strangeness and its penetrating influence4 ,we read as a matter of course such characteristic lines as these from ,tennyson3 ,yet ,i doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs1 ,and the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns4 ,such lines1 however1 are not to be taken as a matter of course2 until comparatively recent generations such an idea as that never had dawned on anybody's mind1 and the story of the achievement of that progressive interpretation of history is one of the most fascinating narratives in the long record of man's mental ,odyssey4 ,in particular1 the ,christian who desires to understand the influences1 both intellectual and practical1 which are playing with transforming power upon ,christianity today1 upon its doctrines1 its purposes1 its institutions1 and its social applications1 must first of all understand the idea of progress4 ,for like a changed climate1 which in time alters the fauna and flora of a continent beyond the power of human conservatism to resist1 this progressive conception of life is affecting every thought and purpose of man1 and no attempted segregation of religion from its influence is likely to succeed4 ,the significance of this judgment becomes the more clear when we note the fact that the idea of progress in our modern sense is not to be found before the sixteenth century4 ,men before that time had lived without progressive hopes just as before ,copernicus they had lived upon a stationary earth4 ,man's life was not thought of as a growth2 gradual change for the better was not supposed to be ,god's method with mankind2 the future was not conceived in terms of possible progress2 and man's estate on earth was not looked upon as capable of indefinite perfectibility4 ,all these ideas1 so familiar to us1 were undreamed of in the ancient and medieval world4 ,the new astronomy is not a more complete break from the old geocentric system with its stationary earth than is our modern progressive way of thinking from our fathers' static conception of human life and history4 ,,ii ,it will be worth our while at the beginning of our study to review in outline this development of the idea of progress1 that we may better understand the reasons for its emergence and may more truly estimate its revolutionary effects4 ,in the ancient world the ,greeks1 with all their far-flung speculations1 never hit upon the idea of progress4 ,to be sure1 clear intimations1 scattered here and there in ,greek literature1 indicate faith that man in the past had improved his lot4 ,aeschylus saw men lifted from their hazardous lives in sunless caves by the intervention of ,prometheus and his sacrificial teaching of the arts of peace2 ,euripides contrasted the primitive barbarism in which man began with the civilized estate which in ,greece he had achieved--but this perceived advance never was erected into a progressive idea of human life as a whole4 ,rather1 the original barbarism1 from which the arts of civilization had for a little lifted men1 was itself a degeneration from a previous ideal estate1 and human history as a whole was a cyclic and repetitious story of never-ending rise and fall4 ,plato's philosophy of history was typical3 the course of cosmic life is divided into cycles1 each seventy-two thousand solar years in length2 during the first half of each cycle1 when creation newly comes from the hands of ,deity1 mankind's estate is happily ideal1 but then decay begins and each cycle's latter half sinks from bad to worse until ,deity once more must take a hand and make all things new again4 ,indeed1 so far from reaching the idea of progress1 the ancient ,greeks at the very center of their thinking were incapacitated for such an achievement by their suspiciousness of change4 ,they were artists and to them the perfect was finished1 like the ,parthenon1 and therefore was incapable of being improved by change4 ,change1 so far from meaning1 as it does with us1 the possibility of betterment1 meant with them the certainty of decay2 no changes upon earth in the long run were good2 all change was the sure sign that the period of degeneration had set in from which only divine intervention could redeem mankind4 ,paul on ,mars ,hill quoted the ,greek poet ,aratus concerning the sonship of all mankind to ,god1 but ,aratus's philosophy of history is not so pleasantly quotable3 ,how base a progeny sprang from golden sires6 ,and viler shall they be whom ye beget4 #a ,such1 in general1 was the non-progressive outlook of the ancient ,greeks4 ,nor did the ,romans hit upon the idea of progress in any form remotely approaching our modern meaning4 ,the casual reader1 to be sure1 will find occasional flares of expectancy about the future or of pride in the advance of the past which at first suggest progressive interpretations of history4 ,so ,seneca1 rejoicing because he thought he knew the explanation of the moon's eclipses1 wrote3 ,the days will come when those things which now lie hidden time and human diligence will bring to light4 4 4 4 ,the days will come when our posterity will marvel that we were ignorant of truths so obvious4 #b ,so1 too1 the ,epicureans1 like the ,greek tragedians before them1 believed that human knowledge and effort had lifted mankind out of primitive barbarism and ,lucretius described how man by the development of agriculture and navigation1 the building of cities and the establishment of laws1 the manufacture of physical conveniences and the creation of artistic beauty1 had risen1 gradually progressing1 to his present height4#c ,such hopeful changes in the past1 however1 were not the prophecies of continuous advance2 they were but incidental fluctuations in a historic process which knew no progress as a whole4 ,even the ,stoics saw in history only a recurrent rise and fall in endless repetition so that all apparent change for good or evil was but the influx or the ebbing of the tide in an essentially unchanging sea4 ,the words of ,marcus ,aurelius are typical3 ,the periodic movements of the universe are the same1 up and down from age to age2 ,he who has seen present things has seen all1 both everything which has taken place from all eternity and everything which will be for time without end2 for all are of one kin and of one form2 ,he who is forty years old1 if he has any understanding at all1 has1 by virtue of the uniformity that prevails1 seen all things which have been and all that will be4 #d ,when with these ,greek and ,roman ideas the ,hebrew-,christian influences blended1 no conception of progress in the modern sense was added by the ,church's contribution4 ,to be sure1 the ,christians' uncompromising faith in personality as the object of divine redemption and their vigorous hope about the future of ,god's people in the next world1 if not in this1 calcined some elements in the classical tradition4 ,belief in cycles1 endlessly repeating themselves through cosmic ages1 went by the board4 ,this earth became the theatre of a unique experiment made once for all2 in place of the ebb and flow of tides in a changeless sea1 mankind's story became a drama moving toward a climactic denouement that would shake heaven and earth together in a divine cataclysm4 ,but this consummation of all history was not a goal progressively to be achieved2 it was a divine invasion of the world expectantly to be awaited1 when the victorious ,christ would return and the ,day of ,judgment dawn4 ,the development of this apocalyptic phrasing of hope has been traced too often to require long rehearsal here4 ,if the ,greeks were essentially philosophers and welcomed congenially ideas like endless cosmic cycles1 the ,hebrews were essentially practical and dramatic in their thinking and they welcomed a picture of ,god's victory capable of being visualized by the imagination4 ,at first their national hopes had been set on the restoration of the ,davidic kingdom2 then the ,davidic king himself had grown in their imagination until1 as ,messiah in a proper sense1 he gathered to himself supernal attributes2 then1 as a child of their desperate national circumstances1 the hope was born of their ,messiah's sudden coming on the clouds of heaven for their help4 ,between the ,testaments this expectation expanded and robed itself with pomp and glory1 so that when the ,christians came they found awaiting them a phrasing of hope which they accepted to body forth their certainty of ,god's coming sovereignty over all the earth4 ,this expectation of coming triumph was not progressive2 it was cataclysmic4 ,it did not offer the prospect of great gains to be worked for over long periods of time2 it offered a divine invasion of history immediately at hand4 ,it was pictured1 not in terms of human betterment to be achieved1 but of divine action to be awaited4 ,the victory would suddenly come like the flood in ,noah's day1 like the lightning flashing from one end of the heaven to the other1 like a thief in the night4 ,to be sure1 this eager expectation of a heavenly kingdom immediately to arrive on earth soon grew dim among the ,christians1 and the reasons are obvious4 ,for one thing1 the ,church herself1 moving out from days of hardship to days of preferment and prosperity1 began to allure with her inviting prospects of growing power the enthusiasms and hopes of the people1 until not the suddenly appearing kingdom from the heavens1 but the expanding ,church on earth became the center of ,christian interest4 ,for another thing1 ,christ meant more to ,christians than the inaugurator of a postponed kingdom which1 long awaited with ardent expectation1 still did not arrive2 ,christ was the giver of eternal life now4 ,more and more the emphasis shifted from what ,christ would do for his people when he came upon the clouds of heaven to what he was doing for them through his spiritual presence with them4 ,even in the ,fourth ,gospel one finds this good news that ,christ had already come again in the hearts of his people insisted on in evident contrast with the apocalyptic hope literally conceived4 ,for another thing1 dramatic hopes of a sudden invasion of the world are always the offspring of desperate conditions4 ,only when people are hard put to it do they want history catastrophically stopped in the midst of its course4 ,the ,book of ,daniel must be explained by the tyrannies of ,antiochus ,epiphanes1 the ,book of ,revelation by the persecutions of ,domitian1 the present recrudescence of pre-millennialism by the tragedy of the ,great ,war4 ,but when the persecution of the ,church by the ,state gave way to the running of the ,state by the ,church2 when to be a ,christian was no longer a road to the lions but the sine qua non of preferment and power2 when the souls under the altar ceased crying1 ,how long1 ,o ,master1 the holy and true1 dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth8 then the apocalyptic hopes grew dim and the old desire for a kingdom immediately to come was subdued to an expectation1 no longer imperative and urgent1 that sometime the course of history would stop on ,judgment ,day4 ,in all these ,greek and ,roman1 ,hebrew and ,christian contributions1 which flowed together and then flowed out into the medieval age1 there was no suggestion of a modern idea of progress1 and in the medieval age itself there was nothing to create a fresh phrasing of expectancy4 ,men were aware of the darkness of the days that had fallen on the earth2 even when they began to rouse themselves from their lethargy1 their thoughts of greatness did not reach forward toward a golden age ahead but harked back ,to the glory that was ,greece ,and the grandeur that was ,rome1 and their intellectual life1 instead of being an adventurous search for new truth1 was a laborious endeavour to stabilize the truth already formulated in the great days of the early ,church4 ,indeed1 the ,church's specific contribution of a vividly imagined faith in a future world1 as the goal of the most absorbing hopes and fears of men1 tended rather to confirm than to dissipate the static conception of earthly life and history4 ,with an urgency that the ancient world had never known the ,christian world believed in immortality and visualized the circumstances of the life to come so concretely that in a medieval catechism the lurid colour of the setting sun was ascribed to the supposition that he looketh down upon hell4 #e ,nothing in this life had any importance save as it prepared the souls of men for life to come4 ,even ,roger ,bacon1 his mind flashing like a beacon from below the sky-line of the modern world1 was sure that all man's knowledge of nature was useful only in preparing his soul to await the coming of ,antichrist and the ,day of ,judgment4 ,there was no idea of progress1 then1 in the medieval age4 ,human life and history were static and the only change to be anticipated was the climactic event ,when earth breaks up and heaven expands4 ,,iii ,the emergence of modern progressive hopes out of this static medievalism is one of the epic occurrences of history4 ,the causes which furthered the movement seem now in retrospect to be woven into a fabric so tightly meshed as to resist unraveling4 ,nevertheless1 it is not difficult to see at least some of the major factors which furthered this revolutionary change from a static to a progressive world4 ,among the first1 scientific invention is surely to be noted4 ,even ,roger ,bacon1 prophecying with clairvoyant insight far in advance of the event1 foresaw one of the determining factors of the modern age3 ,machines for navigating can be made so that without rowers great ships can be guided by one pilot on river or sea more swiftly than if they were full of oarsmen4 ,likewise vehicles are possible which without draught-animals can be propelled with incredible speed1 like the scythed chariots1 as we picture them1 in which antiquity fought4 ,likewise a flying machine is possible in the middle of which a man may sit1 using some ingenious device by which artificial wings will beat the air like those of a flying bird4 ,also machines1 small in size1 can be constructed to lift and move unlimited weights1 than which in an emergency nothing is more useful4 #f ,so dreamed the great friar in the thirteenth century4 ,when1 then1 we find the minds of men first throwing off their intellectual vassalage to antiquity and beginning to believe in themselves1 their present powers and their future prospects1 it is this new-found mastery over nature's latent resources which is the spring and fountain of their confidence4 ,cardan1 in the sixteenth century1 marveling at the then modern inventions of the compass1 the printing press1 and gunpowder1 cried1 ,all antiquity has nothing comparable to these three things4 #g ,every year from that day to this has deepened the impression made upon the minds of men by the marvelous prospect of harnessing the resources of the universe4 ,the last one hundred and twenty-five years have seen the invention of the locomotive1 the steamship1 the telegraph1 the sewing machine1 the camera1 the telephone1 the gasoline engine1 wireless telegraphy and telephony1 and the many other applications of electricity4 ,as one by one new areas of power have thus come under the control of man1 with every conquest suggesting many more not yet achieved but brought within range of possibility1 old theories of cosmic degeneration and circular futility have gone to pieces1 the glamour of antiquity has lost its allurement1 the great days of humanity upon the earth have been projected into the future1 and the gradual achievement of human progress has become the hope of man4 ,another element in the emergence of the modern progressive outlook upon life is immediately consequent upon the first3 world-wide discovery1 exploration and intercommunication4 ,great as the practical results have been which trace their source to the adventurers who1 from ,columbus down1 pioneered unknown seas to unknown lands1 the psychological effects have been greater still4 ,who could longer live cooped up in a static world1 when the old barriers were so being overpassed and new continents were inviting adventure1 settlement1 and social experiment hitherto untried8 ,the theological progressiveness of the ,pilgrim ,fathers1 starting out from ,leyden for a new world1 was not primarily a matter of speculation2 it was even more a matter of an adventurous spirit1 which1 once admitted into life1 could not be kept out of religious thought as well4 ,in ,edward ,winslow's account of ,pastor ,robinson's last sermon before the little company of pioneers left ,leyden1 we read that ,robinson took occasion also miserably to bewaile the state and condition of the ,reformed ,churches1 who were come to a period in ,religion1 and would goe no further than the instruments of their ,reformation3 ,as for example1 the ,lutherans they could not be drawne to goe beyond what ,luther saw1 for whatever part of ,god's will he had further imparted and revealed to ,calvin1 they will die rather than embrace it4 ,and so also1 saith he1 you see the ,calvinists1 they stick where he left them3 a misery much to bee lamented2 ,for though they were precious shining lights in their times1 yet ,god hath not revealed his whole will to them3 ,and were they now living1 saith hee1 they would bee as ready and willing to embrace further light1 as that they had received4 #h ,static methods of thinking are here evidently going to pieces before the impact of a distinctly unstatic world4 ,they were looking for more truth and light yet to breake forth out of his holy ,word #i because they lived in a time when new things had been happening at an exhilarating rate and when pioneering adventure and general travel in a world of open avenues were already beginning to have that liberating effect which has increased with every passing century4 ,closely allied with the two elements already noted is a third3 the increase of knowledge1 which1 as in the case of astronomy1 threw discredit upon the superior claims of antiquity and made modern men seem wiser than their sires4 ,for ages the conviction had held the ground that the ancients were the wisest men who ever lived and that we1 their children1 were but infants in comparison4 ,when1 therefore1 the ,copernican astronomy proved true1 when the first terrific shock of it had passed through resultant anger into wonder and from wonder into stupefied acceptance1 and from that at last into amazed exultation at the vast1 new universe unveiled1 the credit of antiquity received a stunning blow4 ,so far was ,aristotle from being the master of those who know whom the medievalists had revered1 that he had not even known the shape and motion of the earth or its relation with the sun4 ,for the first time in history the idea emerged that humanity accumulates knowledge1 that the ancients were the infants1 that the moderns represent the age and wisdom of the race4 ,consider the significance of those words of ,pascal in the seventeenth century3 ,those whom we call ancient were really new in all things1 and properly constituted the infancy of mankind2 and as we have joined to their knowledge the experience of the centuries which have followed them1 it is in ourselves that we should find this antiquity that we revere in others4 #aj ,for the first time in history men turned their faces1 in their search for knowledge1 not backward but forward1 and began to experience that attitude which with us is habitual--standing on tip-toe in eager expectancy1 sure that tomorrow some new and unheard of truth will be revealed4 ,new inventions1 new discoveries1 new knowledge--even before the eighteenth century all these factors were under way4 ,then a new factor entered which has played a powerful part in substituting a progressive for a static world3 new social hopes4 ,the medieval age had no expectation of a better social life on earth4 ,charity was common but it was purely individual and remedial2 it did not seek to understand or to cure the causes of social maladjustment2 it was sustained by no expectation of better conditions among men2 it was valued because of the giver's unselfishness rather than because of the recipient's gain1 and in consequence it was for the most part unregulated alms-giving1 piously motived but inefficiently managed4 ,in the eighteenth century a new outlook and hope emerged4 ,if man could pioneer new lands1 learn new truth and make new inventions1 why could he not devise new social systems where human life would be freed from the miseries of misgovernment and oppression8 ,with that question at last definitely rising1 the long line of social reformers began which stretched from ,abb de ,saint-,pierre to the latest believer in the possibility of a more decent and salutary social life for human-kind4 ,the coming of democracy in government incalculably stimulated the influence of this social hope1 for with the old static forms of absolute autocracy now broken up1 with power in the hands of the people to seek as they would life1 liberty and the pursuit of happiness1 who could put limits to the possibilities8 ,the medieval age was gone2 the modern age had come1 and its distinctive note was progress1 with new inventions1 new discoveries1 new knowledge and new social hope4 ,it would be a fascinating task to watch these interweaving factors at their work and to trace their commingled influence as slowly their involved significance became clear1 now to this man and now to that4 ,the best narrative that has been written yet of this epochal movement is contained in ,professor ,bury's volume on ,the ,idea of ,progress4 ,there one sees the stream of this progressive conception of life pushing its way out as through a delta by way of many minds1 often far separated yet flowing with the same water4 ,some men attacked the ancients and by comparison praised the modern time as ,perrault did with ,the ,age of ,louis the ,great2 some men foresaw so clearly the possibility of man's control over nature that they dreamed of terrestrial ,utopias as ,francis ,bacon did in ,new ,atlantis2 some men1 like ,descartes1 sought to grasp the intellectual conditions of human improvement2 and others1 like ,condorcet1 became the fervid prophets of human perfectibility2 some1 like ,turgot1 re-examined history in terms of the new ideas2 and some1 like ,saint ,simon and ,comte1 sought to discover the law by which all progress moves4 ,this new idea of life and history came by divers portions and in divers manners1 but no one can doubt its arrival4 ,the life of man upon this earth was no longer conceived as static2 it was progressive and the possibilities that lay ahead made all the achievements of the past seem like the play of childhood4 ,at last1 in the nineteenth century1 the climactic factor was added which gathered up all the rest and embraced them in a comprehensive philosophy of life4 ,evolution became a credible truth4 ,no longer a dim conjecture1 it was established in biology1 and then it spread its influence out into every area of human thought until all history was conceived in genetic terms and all the sciences were founded upon the evolutionary idea4 ,growth became recognized as the fundamental law of life4 ,nothing in the universe without1 or in man's life within1 could longer be conceived as having sprung full-statured1 like ,minerva from the head of ,jove4 ,all things achieved maturity by gradual processes4 ,the world itself had thus come into being1 not artificially nailed together like a box1 but growing like a tree1 putting forth ever new branches and new leaves4 ,when this idea had firmly grasped the human mind1 the modern age had come indeed1 and progress was its distinctive category of understanding and its exhilarating phrasing of human hope4 ,then came the days of mid-,victorian optimism with songs like this upon men's lips3 ,every tiger madness muzzled1 every serpent passion kill'd1 ,every grim ravine a garden1 every blazing desert till'd1 ,robed in universal harvest up to either pole she smiles1 ,universal ocean softly washing all her warless isles4 #aa ,,iv ,any one1 however1 who has lived with discerning thought through the opening years of the twentieth century1 must be aware that something has happened to chasten and subdue these wildly enthusiastic hopes of the mid-,victorian age4 ,others beside the gloomy dean of ,st4 ,paul's1 whether through well-considered thought or through the psychological shock of the ,great ,war1 have come to look upon this rash1 unmitigated enthusiasm about the earth's future as a fool's paradise4 ,at any rate1 no treatment of the idea of progress would be complete which did not dwell upon the limitations to that idea1 now definitely obvious to thoughtful men4 ,as early as #ahgi1 in ,saporta's ,le ,monde des ,plantes1 we run upon one serious setback to unqualified expectations of progress4 ,men began to take into account the fact that this earth is not a permanent affair4 ,we recognize from this point of view as from others1 wrote ,saporta1 that the world was once young2 then adolescent2 that it has even passed the age of maturity2 man has come late1 when a beginning of physical decadence had struck the globe1 his domain4 #ab ,here is a fact to give enthusiasm over earthly progress serious pause4 ,this earth1 once uninhabitable1 will be uninhabitable again4 ,if not by wholesale catastrophe1 then by the slow wearing down of the sun's heat1 already passed its climacteric1 this planet1 the transient theatre of the human drama1 will be no longer the scene of man's activity1 but as cold as the moon1 or as hot as colliding stars in heaven1 will be able to sustain human life no more4 ,the grandest material works of the human race1 wrote ,faye in #ahhd1 will have to be effaced by degrees under the action of a few physical forces which will survive man for a time4 ,nothing will remain1 not even the ruins4 #ac ,every suggested clew to a possible escape from the grimness of the planet's dissolution has been followed up with careful search4 ,the discovery of radioactivity seemed to promise endlessly extended life to our sun1 but ,sir ,e4 ,rutherford1 before the ,royal ,astronomical ,society1 has roundly denied that the discovery materially lengthens our estimate of the sun's tenure of life and has said that if the sun were made of uranium it would not because of that last five years the longer as a giver of heat4#ad ,whether we will or not1 we have no choice except to face the tremendous fact1 calmly set down by von ,hartmann in #aijd3 ,the only question is whether 4 4 4 the world-process will work itself out slowly in prodigious lapse of time1 according to purely physical laws2 or whether it will find its end by means of some metaphysical resource when it has reached its culminating point4 ,only in the last case would its end coincide with the fulfilment of a purpose or object2 in the first case1 a long period of purposeless existence would follow after the culmination of life4 #ae ,in a word1 men delighted at the prospect of human progress on this planet have made an idol of it1 only to discover that on a transient earth it leads nowhere without ,god and immortality4 ,one disciple of naturalism recently denied his desire to believe in ,god because he wanted a risky universe4 ,but the universe without ,god is not risky2 it is a foregone conclusion2 the dice are all loaded4 ,after the lapse of millions of years which1 however long they be stretched out1 will ultimately end1 our solar system will be gone1 without even a memory left of anything that ever was dreamed or done within it4 ,that is the inevitable issue of such a risky universe4 ,when scientifically-minded men1 therefore1 now take a long look ahead1 the ,utopian visions of the mid-,victorian age are not foremost in their thought4 ,rather1 as one of them recently wrote3 ,one is tempted to imagine this race of supermen1 of some millions of years hence1 grimly confronting the issue of extinction4 ,probably long before that time science will have perfectly mastered the problem of the sun's heat1 and will be able to state precisely at what period the radiation will sink to a level which would normally be fatal to the living inhabitants of the planets4 ,then will begin the greatest of cosmic events3 a drama that has doubtless been played numbers of times already on the stage of the universe3 the last stand of the wonderful microcosm against the brute force of the macrocosm4 4 4 4 4 ,one conceives that our supermen will face the end philosophically4 ,death is losing its terrors4 ,the race will genially say1 as we individuals do to-day1 that it has had a long run4 ,but it will none-the-less make a grim fight4 ,life will be worth living1 for everybody1 long before that consummation is in sight4 ,the hovering demon of cold and darkness will be combatted by scientific means of which we have not the germ of a conception4 #af ,if ever a river ran out into a desert1 the river of progressive hopes1 fed only from springs of materialistic philosophy1 has done so here4 ,at least the ,greeks had their immortality and the ,hebrews their coming ,kingdom of ,god1 but a modern materialist1 with all his talk of progress1 has neither the one nor the other1 nor anything to take their place as an ultimate for hope4 ,whatever else may be true1 progress on a transient planet has not done away with the need of ,god and life eternal4 ,moreover1 not only have our twentieth century thought and experience seriously qualified the meaning of progress on this earth by the limiting of the earth's duration2 men have come also to distrust1 as a quite unjustified flourish of sentimentality1 the mid-,victorian confidence in an automatic evolution which willy-nilly lifts humanity to higher levels4 ,said ,herbert ,spencer1 ,progress is not an accident1 not a thing within human control1 but a beneficent necessity4 ,this advancement is due to the working of a universal law2 4 4 4 in virtue of that law it must continue until the state we call perfection is reached4 4 4 4 ,thus the ultimate development of the ideal man is logically certain--as certain as any conclusion in which we place the most implicit faith2 4 4 4 so surely must the things we call evil and immorality disappear2 so surely must man become perfect4 #ag ,there is no scientific basis whatever for such a judgment4 ,evolution is not an escalator which1 whether or not man run in addition to its lift1 will inevitably raise humanity to a heaven on earth4 ,potatoes in the cellar shooting out long white eyes in search of light are evolving1 but they are evolving worse4 ,upon the basis of a scientific doctrine of evolution1 no idolatrous superstition could be much more lacking in intellectual support than ,spencer's confidence in a universal1 mechanical1 irresistible movement toward perfection4 ,the plain fact is that human history is a strange blend of progress and regress2 it is the story of the rhythmic rise and fall of civilizations and empires1 of gains made only to be lost and lost only to be fought for once again4 ,even when advance has come1 it has come by mingled progress and cataclysm as water passes1 through gradual increase of warmth1 from ice suddenly to liquid and from liquid suddenly to vapour4 ,our nineteenth century ideas of evolution tended to create in us the impression that humanity had made a smooth and even ascent4 ,we artificially graded the ascending track of human history1 leveled and macadamized it1 and talked of inevitable progress4 ,such sentimental optimism has ceased even to be comforting1 so utterly untenable has it become to every well-instructed mind4 ,to such unfounded faith in automatic progress a valuable counterweight is acquaintance with the life of a man like ,st4 ,augustine4 ,as one reads ,augustine's sermons one can hear in the background the collapse of a great civilization4 ,one can tell from his discourses when the barbarians began to move on ,rome4 ,one can hear the crash when ,alaric and his hordes sacked the ,eternal ,city4 ,one can catch the accent of horror at the tidal waves of anarchy that everywhere swept in to engulf the falling empire4 ,horrible things1 said ,augustine1 have been told us4 ,there have been ruins1 and fires1 and rapine1 and murder1 and torture4 ,that is true2 we have heard it many times2 we have shuddered at all this disaster2 we have often wept1 and we have hardly been able to console ourselves4 #ah ,at last1 the empire in ruins1 the old civilization tottering to its collapse1 ,augustine died in his episcopal city of ,hippo1 while the barbarians were hammering at the city gates4 ,through such scenes this generation too has lived and has had to learn again1 what we never should have forgotten1 that human history is not a smooth and well-rolled lawn of soft ascents2 that it is mountainous1 precipitous1 terrific--a country where all progress must be won by dint of intelligence and toil1 and where it is as easy to lose the gains of civilization as it is to fall over a cliff or to surrender a wheat field to the weeds4 ,an archeologist in ,mesopotamia talked with an ,arab lad who neither read1 himself1 nor knew any one who did2 yet the lad1 when he acknowledged this1 stood within a stone's throw of the site where milleniums ago was one of the greatest universities of the ancient world and where still1 amid the desolation1 one could dig and find the old clay tablets on which the children of that ancient time had learned to write4 ,progress8 ,regress6 ,while history as a whole1 from the ,cro-,magnon man to the twentieth century1 does certainly suggest a great ascent1 it has not been an automatic levitation4 ,it has been a fight1 tragic and ceaseless1 against destructive forces4 ,this world needs something more than a soft gospel of inevitable progress4 ,it needs salvation from its ignorance1 its sin1 its inefficiency1 its apathy1 its silly optimisms and its appalling carelessness4 ,v ,nevertheless1 though it is true that our modern ideas of progress on this earth never in themselves can supply an adequate philosophy of life1 and though it is true that they do not dispense with1 but rather emphasize1 our need of ,god and immortality and the saving powers which ,christians find in ,christ1 yet those ideas have in them a permanent contribution to the life of man from whose influence the race cannot escape4 ,when we have granted the limitations which disillusioned thoughtfulness suggests concerning progress upon this earth1 it still remains true that1 in our new scientific control over the latent resources of the earth without and over our own mental and moral processes within1 we have a machinery for producing change that opens up exciting prospects before humanity4 ,never in our outlook upon man's earthly future can we go back to the endless cosmic cycles of the ,greeks or the apocalyptic expectations of the ,hebrews4 ,we are committed to the hope of making progress1 and the central problem which ,christianity faces in adjusting her thought and practice to the modern age is the problem of coming to intelligent terms with this dominant idea4 ,these lectures are an excursion to spy out this land and to see1 if we may1 what the idea of progress through the scientific control of life is likely to mean and ought to mean to ,christianity4 ,if this modern idea is not intelligently guided in its effect upon our faith and practice1 it will none the less have its effect in haphazard1 accidental1 unguided1 and probably ruinous ways4 ,if one listens1 for example1 to the preaching of liberal ministers1 one sees that every accent of their teaching has been affected by this prevalent and permeating thought4 ,the ,god they preach no longer sits afar like ,dante's deity in the stationary empyrean beyond all reach of change2 their ,god is here in the midst of the human struggle1 their ,captain in the well-fought fight4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells may be a poor theologian but he is one of our best interpreters of popular thought and his idea of ,god1 marching through the world like fifes and drums1 calling the people to a progressive crusade for righteousness1 is one which modern folk find it most easy to accept4 ,he is a ,god of progress who undergirds our endeavours for justice in the earth with his power2 who fights in and for and with us against the hosts of evil2 whose presence is a guarantee of ultimate victory2 and whose effect upon us is to send us out to war against ancient human curses1 assured that what ought to be done can be done4 ,as men's thought of ,god has thus been molded by the idea of progress on the earth1 so1 too1 the ,christ they preach is not primarily1 as of old1 the victim by whose substitutionary sacrifice the race of men has found an open door from the bottomless pit of endless woe to a blessed immortality in ,paradise4 ,the modern emphasis is all another way4 ,christ is the divine revealer whose spirit alone can transform individuals and save society4 ,the sort of character he was1 the life he lived1 the ideas he promulgated1 are the salt that can preserve human life1 the light that can illumine the way to a kingdom of righteousness on earth4 ,he himself is the leader in the fight for that kingdom1 his sacrifice part of the price it costs1 his spirit the quality of life that is indispensable to its coming1 and when we think of him we sing1 ,the ,son of ,god goes forth to war4 4 4 4 ,who follows in his train8 ,so1 too1 the ,church1 as presented by typical modern preachers1 is no longer an ark to which1 from the flood of wrath divine1 the few may flee for safety4 ,if men tried to preach in that way1 the message would stick in their throats4 ,the ,church is primarily an instrument in ,god's hands to bring personal and social righteousness upon the earth4 ,when her massed influence overcomes a public evil or establishes a public good1 men find the justification of her existence and a first-rate weapon of apologetic argument in her behalf4 ,when wars come1 the ,church is blamed because she did not prevent them2 when wars are over1 she takes counsel how she may prove the validity of her message by making their recurrence impossible2 and the pitiful dismemberment of the ,church by sects and schisms is hated and deplored1 not so much because of economic waste or theological folly1 as because these insane divisions prevent social effectiveness in bringing the message of ,christ to bear influentially on modern life4 ,likewise1 hope1 deeply affected by modern ideas of earthly progress1 is not primarily post-mortem1 as it used to be4 ,men believe in immortality1 but it seems so naturally the continuance of this present life that their responsible concern is chiefly centered here4 ,the hopes which waken immediate enthusiasm and stir spontaneous response are hopes of righteousness victorious upon the earth4 ,because men believe in ,god1 they believe that he has great purposes for humankind4 ,the course of human history is like a river3 sometimes it flows so slowly that one would hardly know it moved at all2 sometimes bends come in its channel so that one can hardly see in what direction it intends to go2 sometimes there are back-eddies so that it seems to be retreating on itself4 ,if a man has no spiritual interpretation of life1 if he does not believe in ,god1 he may well give up hope and conclude that the human river is flowing all awry or has altogether ceased to move4 ,a ,christian1 however1 has a spiritual interpretation of life4 ,he knows that human history is a river--not a whirlpool1 nor a pond1 but a river flowing to its end4 ,just as1 far inland1 we can tell that the ,hudson is flowing to the sea1 because the waters1 when the tide comes in1 are tinctured with the ocean's quality1 so now1 we believe that we can tell that the river of human history is flowing out toward the kingdom of our ,god4 ,already the setback of the divine ocean is felt among us in ideals of better life1 personal1 social1 economic1 national4 ,that it is ,christianity's function to believe in these ideals1 to have faith in the possibility of their realization1 to supply motives for their achievement1 and to work for them with courage and sacrifice1 is the familiar note of modern ,christian hope4 ,the modern apologetic also is tinctured with this same quality4 ,not as of old is it a laboured working out of metaphysical propositions4 ,rather1 a modern ,christian preacher's defense of the ,gospel may be paraphrased in some such strain as this3 ,you never can achieve a decent human life upon this planet apart from the ,christian ,gospel4 ,neither outward economic comfort nor international treaties of peace can save the day for humanity4 ,not even when our present situation is described as a race between education and catastrophe has the case been adequately stated4 ,what kind of education is meant8 ,if every man and woman on earth were a ,ph4 ,d41 would that solve the human problem8 ,aaron ,burr had a far keener intellect than ,george ,washington4 ,so far as swiftness and agility of intelligence were concerned1 ,burr far out-distanced the slow-pacing mind of ,washington4 ,but1 for all that1 as you watch ,burr's life1 and many another's like him1 you understand what ,macaulay meant when he exclaimed3 as if history were not made up of the bad actions of extraordinary men1 as if all the most noted destroyers and deceivers of our species1 all the founders of arbitrary governments and false religions1 had not been extraordinary men1 as if nine tenths of the calamities which have befallen the human race had any other origin than the union of high intelligence with low desires4 ,was ,nebuchadnezzar of ,babylon unintelligent8 ,caesar and ,napoleon--were they unintelligent8 ,has the most monumental and destructive selfishness in human history been associated with poor minds8 ,no1 with great minds1 which1 if the world was to be saved their devastation1 needed to be reborn into a new spirit4 ,the transforming gospel which religion brings is indispensable to a building of the kingdom of righteousness upon the earth4 ,wherever one listens1 then1 to the typical teaching of modern ,christians1 he finds himself in the atmosphere of the idea of progress4 ,men's thoughts of ,god1 of ,christ1 of the ,church1 of hope1 their methods of apologetic1 are shaped to that mold--are often thinned out and flattened down and made cheap and unconvincing by being shaped to that mold--so that an endeavour to achieve an intelligent understanding of ,christianity's relationship with the idea of progress is in part a defensive measure to save the ,gospel from being unintelligently mauled and mishandled by it4 ,marcus ,dods1 when he was an old man1 said3 ,i do not envy those who have to fight the battle of ,christianity in the twentieth century4 ,then1 after a moment1 he added1 ,yes1 perhaps ,i do1 but it will be a stiff fight4 ,it is a stiff fight1 and for this reason if for no other1 that before we can get on much further in a progressive world we must achieve with wisdom and courage some fundamental reconstructions in our ,christian thinking4 #a ,aratus of ,soli3 ,phaenomena1 lines #abb-c4 #b ,lucius ,annaeus ,seneca3 ,naturalium ,quaestionum1 ,liber ,,vii1 #be4 #c ,t4 ,lucretius ,carus3 ,de ,rerum ,natura1 ,lib4 ,v1 #adee--,paullatim docuit pedetentim progredienteis4 #d ,marcus ,aurelius ,antoninus3 ,meditations1 ,,ix1 #bh2 ,,vi1 #cg2 ,,xi1 #a4 #e ,andrew ,d4 ,white3 ,a ,history of the ,warfare of ,science with ,theology in ,christendom1 ,vol4 ,i1 p4 #ig4 #f ,roger ,bacon3 ,epistola de ,secretis ,operibus ,artis et ,naturae1 et de ,nullitate ,magiae1 ,caput ,,iv1 in ,opera ,quaedam ,hactenus ,inedita1 edited by ,j4 ,s4 ,brewer1 p4 #ecc4 #g ,jerome ,cardan3 ,de ,subtilitate1 ,liber ,decimusseptimus3 ,de artibus1 artificiosisque rebus4 #h ,edward ,winslow3 ,hypocrisie ,unmasked1 p4 #ig4 #i ,ibid4 #aj ,blaise ,pascal3 ,opuscules1 ,preface to the ,treatise on ,vacuum1 in ,the ,thoughts1 ,letters and ,opuscules of ,blaise ,pascal1 ,translated by ,o4 ,w4 ,wight1 p4 #eej4 #aa ,alfred ,tennyson3 ,locksley ,hall ,sixty ,years ,after4 #ab ,comte de ,saporta3 ,le ,monde des ,plantes avant ,l',apparition de ,l',homme1 p4 #aji4 #ac ,h4 ,faye3 ,sur ,l',origine du ,monde1 ,chapitre ,,xi1 p4 #bef-g4 #ad ,joseph ,mc,cabe3 ,the ,end of the ,world1 p4 #aab4 #ae ,eduard von ,hartmann3 ,ausgewhlte ,werke1 viii1 pp4 #egb-c 7,leipzig1 #aijd74 #af ,joseph ,mc,cabe3 ,the ,end of the ,world1 pp4 #aaf-aag4 #ag ,herbert ,spencer3 ,illustrations of ,universal ,progress1 ,chapter ,i1 ,progress3 ,its ,law and ,cause1 p4 #eh2 ,social ,statics1 ,part ,i1 ,chapter ,,ii1 ,the ,evanescence of ,evil1 ,sec4 #d1 p4 #gh ff4 #ah ,louis ,bertrand3 ,saint ,augustin1 p4 #cdb4 ,,lecture ,,ii ,,the ,,need ,,for ,,religion ,i ,one of the first effects of the idea of progress1 whose development our last lecture traced1 has been to increase immeasurably man's self reliance and to make him confident of humanity's power to take care of itself4 ,at the heart of the idea of progress is man's new scientific control over life1 and this new mastery1 whereby the world seems ready to serve the purposes of those who will learn the laws1 is the dominant influence in both the intellectual and practical activities of our age4 ,that religion1 in consequence1 should seem to many of minor import1 if not quite negligible1 and that men1 trusting themselves1 their knowledge of law1 their use of law-abiding forces1 their power to produce change and to improve conditions1 should find less need of trusting any one except themselves1 was inevitable1 but for all that it is fallacious4 ,already we have seen that a stumbling and uneven progress1 precarious and easily frustrated1 taking place upon a transient planet1 goes but a little way to meet those elemental human needs with which religious faith has dealt4 ,in our present lecture we propose a more specific consideration of this abiding necessity of religion in a progressive world4 ,how difficult it is to go back in imagination to the days before men grasped the meaning of natural law6 ,we take gravitation for granted but1 when ,newton first proclaimed its law1 the artillery of orthodox pulpits was leveled against him in angry consternation4 ,said one preacher1 ,newton took from ,god that direct action on his works so constantly ascribed to him in ,scripture and transferred it to material mechanism and he substituted gravitation for ,providence4 #a ,that preacher saw truly that the discovery of natural law was going to make a profound difference to religion4 ,for ages men had been accustomed to look for the revelation of supernatural power in realms where they did not know the laws4 ,and as men were tempted to look for the presence of ,god in realms where they did not know the laws1 so in those realms they trusted ,god to do for them what they did not know how to do for themselves4 ,then men began discovering natural laws1 and every time they laid their hands on a new natural law they laid their hands on a new law-abiding force and began doing for themselves things of which their fathers had never dreamed4 ,stories of old-time miracles are overpassed in our modern days4 ,did ,aladdin once rub a magic lamp and build a palace8 ,to-day1 knowledge of engineering laws enables us to achieve results that would put ,aladdin quite to shame4 ,he never dreamed a ,woolworth ,tower4 ,did the ,israelites once cross the ,red ,sea dry-shod8 ,one thing1 however1 they never would have hoped to do3 to cross under and over the ,hudson ,river day after day in multitudes1 dry-shod4 ,did an axe-head float once when ,elisha threw a stick into the water8 ,but something no ,elisha ever dreamed of seeing we see continually3 iron ships navigating the ocean as though it were their natural element4 ,did ,joshua once prolong the day for battle by the staying of the sun8 ,yet ,joshua could never have conceived an habitual lighting of the city's homes and streets until by night they are more brilliant than by day4 ,did ,jericho's walls once fall at the united shout of a besieging people8 ,those childlike besiegers1 however1 never dreamed of guns that could blast ,jerichos to pieces from seventy miles away4 ,huxley was right when he said that our highly developed sciences have given us a command over the course of non-human nature greater than that once attributed to the magicians4 ,the consequence has been revolutionary4 ,old cries of dependence upon ,god grow unreal upon the lips of multitudes4 ,sometimes without knowing it1 often without wanting it1 men are drawn by the drift of modern thought away from all confidence in ,god and all consciousness of religious need4 ,consider two pictures4 ,the first is an epidemic in ,new ,england in the seventeenth century4 ,everybody is thinking about ,god2 the churches are full and days are passed in fasting and agonizing prayer4 ,only one way of getting rid of such an epidemic is known3 men must gain new favour in the sight of ,god4 ,the second picture is an epidemic in ,new ,england in the twentieth century4 ,the churches are not full--they are closed by official order and popular consent to prevent the spread of germs4 ,comparatively few people are appealing to ,god2 almost everybody is appealing to the health commissioner4 ,not many people are relying upon religion2 everybody is relying upon science4 ,as one faces the pregnant significance of that contrast1 one sees that in important sections of our modern life science has come to occupy the place that ,god used to have in the reliance of our forefathers4 ,for the dominant fact of our generation is power over the world which has been put into our hands through the knowledge of laws1 and the consequence is that the scientific mastery of life seems man's indispensable and sufficient resource4 ,the issue is not far to seek4 ,such has been public confidence in the efficacy and adequacy of this scientific control of life to meet all human needs1 that in multitudes of minds religion has been crowded to the wall4 ,why should we trust ,god or concern ourselves with the deep secrets of religious faith1 if all our need is met by learning laws1 blowing upon our hands1 and going to work8 ,so even ,christians come secretly to look upon their ,christianity as a frill1 something gracious but not indispensable1 pleasant to live with but not impossible to live without4 ,christian preachers lose their ability1 looking first upon their spiritual message and then upon their fellow men1 to feel how desperately the two need each other4 ,religion has become an elective in the university of life4 ,but religion cannot persist as a frill2 it either is central in its importance or else it is not true at all4 ,its great days come only when it is seen to be indispensable4 ,we may use what artificial respiration we will upon the ,church1 the days of the ,church's full power will not come until the conviction lays hold upon her that the endeavour to found civilization upon a materialistic science is leading us to perdition2 that man needs desperately the ministry of religion1 its insight into life's meanings1 its control over life's use1 its inward power for life's moral purposes2 that man never needed this more than now1 when the scientific control of life is arming him with so great ability to achieve his aims4 ,,ii ,as we try to discern wherein man's need of religion lies with reference to the scientific control of life1 let us start with the proposition that1 when we have all the facts which science can discover1 we still need a spiritual interpretation of the facts4 ,all our experiences are made up of two elements3 first1 the outward circumstance1 and second1 the inward interpretation4 ,on the one side is our environment1 the world we live in1 the things that befall us1 the kaleidoscopic changes of fortune in the scenery of which our lives are set4 ,on the other side are the inward interpretations that we give to this outward circumstance4 ,experience is compounded of these two elements4 ,this clearly is true in ordinary living4 ,two men1 let us say1 go to their physicians and are told that they have only a few months to live4 ,this is the fact which faces both of them4 ,as we watch them1 however1 we are at once aware that this fact is not the whole of their experience4 ,one of the men crumples up2 he collapses into a yielding mass of plaintiveness and fear4 ,thinking of the event which he is facing1 he sees nothing there but horror4 ,that is his interpretation of it4 ,the other man so looks upon the event which is coming that his family1 far from having to support his spirit1 are supported by him4 ,he buoys them up2 he carries them along2 his faith and courage are contagious2 and when he thinks of his death it appears in his eyes a great adventure concerning which the old hymn told the truth3 ,it were a well-spent journey ,though seven deaths lay between4 ,that is his interpretation4 ,as we regard the finished experiences of these two men1 we see clearly that1 while the same fact lay at the basis of both1 it was the inward interpretation that determined the quality of the experience4 ,this power to transform facts so that they will be no longer merely facts1 but facts plus an interpretation1 is one of the most distinctive and significant elements in human life4 ,the animals do not possess it4 ,an event befalls a dog and1 when the dog is through with it1 the event is what it was before4 ,the dog has done nothing to it4 ,but the same event befalls a man and at once something begins to happen to it4 ,it is clothed in the man's thought about it2 it is dressed in his appreciation and understanding2 it is transformed by his interpretations4 ,the event comes out of that man's life something altogether different from what it was when it went in4 ,the man can do almost anything with that event4 ,for our experiences do not fall into our lives in single lumps1 like meteors from a distant sky of fate2 our experiences always are made up of the fortunes that befall us and the interpretations that we give to them4 ,so far as the relative importance of these two factors is concerned1 we may see the truth in the application of our thought to happiness4 ,if there is any area in human experience where the outward circumstance might be supposed to control the results1 it is the realm of happiness2 yet probably nine-tenths of the problem of happiness lies1 not in the outward event1 but in the inward interpretation4 ,if we could describe those conditions in which the happiest people whom we have known have lived1 can any one imagine the diversity of environment that would be represented in our accounts8 ,let them move in procession before the eyes of our imagination1 those happy folk whose friendship has been the benediction of our lives6 ,what a motley company they are6 ,for some are blind1 and some are crippled1 and some are invalid2 not many are rich and fortunate2 many are poor--a company of handicapped but radiant spirits whose victorious lives1 like the burning bush which ,moses saw1 have made in a desert a spot of holy ground4 ,if1 now1 we ask why it is that happiness can be so amazingly independent of outward circumstance1 this is the answer3 every experience has two factors1 the fortune that befalls and the inward interpretation of it2 and1 while we often cannot control the fortune1 we always can help with the interpretation4 ,that is in our power4 ,that is the throne of our sovereignty over our lives4 ,,iii ,the deep need of a worthy interpretation of life is just as urgent in a world where the idea of progress reigns as in any other1 and to supply that need is one of the major functions of religion4 ,for religion is something more than all the creeds that have endeavoured to express its thought4 ,religion is something more than all the organizations that have tried to incarnate its purposes4 ,religion is the human spirit1 by the grace of ,god1 seeking and finding an interpretation of experience that puts sense and worth1 dignity1 elevation1 joy1 and hope into life4 ,a body of students recently requested an address upon the subject3 ,what is the use of religion anyway8 ,the group of ideas behind the question is not hard to guess3 that science gives us all the facts1 that facts and their laws are all we need1 that the scientific control of life guarantees progress1 and that religion therefore is superfluous4 ,but in such a statement one towering interrogation has been neglected3 what about the interpretation of the very facts which science does present8 ,could not one address himself to the question of those students in some such way as this8 ,you say that science has disclosed to us the leisureliness of the evolving universe4 ,come back1 then1 on the long road to the rear on which ,bishop ,usher's old date of creation is a way station an infinitesimal distance behind us2 come back until together we stand at the universe's postern gate and look out into the mystery whence all things came1 where no scientific investigation can ever go1 where no one knows the facts4 ,what do you make of it8 ,two voices rise in answer4 ,one calls the world a mechanical process1 in which we may discover no aim or purpose whatever4 #b ,and another voice says3 ,the heavens declare the glory of ,god2 ,and the firmament showeth his handiwork4 #c ,that is not a difference in facts1 upon which we can get our hands4 ,that is a difference in the interpretation of the facts4 ,or come forward together to look into that mystery ahead1 toward which this universe and we within it are so prodigiously plunging on4 ,do we not often feel1 upon this earth whirling through space1 like men and women who by some weird chance have found themselves upon a ship1 ignorant of their point of departure and of their destination8 ,for all the busyness with which we engage in many tasks1 we cannot keep ourselves from slipping back at times to the ship's stern to look out along its wake and wonder whence we came1 or from going at times also to its prow to wonder whither we are headed4 ,what do you make of it8 ,toward what sort of haven is this good ship earth sailing--a port fortunate or ill8 ,or may it be there is no haven1 only endless sailing on an endless sea by a ship that never will arrive8 ,so questioning1 we listen to conflicting voices4 ,one says there is no future except ultimate annihilation1 and another voice sings3 ,all we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good1 shall exist4 ,that is not a difference in the facts1 that eyes can see and hands handle2 that is a difference in the interpretation of the facts4 ,or from such large considerations come down into some familiar experience of daily life4 ,here is a man having a hard battle between right and wrong4 ,there is no more impressive sight on earth to one who looks at it with understanding eyes4 ,what do you make of this mysterious sense of duty which lays its magisterial hand upon us and will not be denied8 ,at once various voices rise4 ,haeckel says the sense of duty is a long series of phyletic modifications of the phronema of the cortex4 #d ,that is his interpretation4 ,and ,wordsworth3 ,stern ,daughter of the ,voice of ,god6 ,o ,duty6 ,this sharp contrast is not a difference between facts1 which can be pinned down as the ,lilliputians pinned down ,gulliver2 it is a difference in the interpretation of the facts4 ,or let us go together up some high hill from which we can look out upon the strange history of humankind4 ,we see its agonies and wars1 its rising empires followed by their ruinous collapse1 and yet a mysterious advance1 too1 as though mankind1 swinging up a spiral1 met old questions upon a higher level1 so that looking back to the ,stone ,age1 for all the misery of this present time1 we would be rather here than there4 ,what can we make of it8 ,hauptmann's ,michael ,kramer says ,all this life is the shuddering of a fever4 ,and ,paul says1 the eternal purpose which he purposed in ,christ4 ,that is not a difference in the facts4 ,it is a difference in the interpretation of the facts4 ,yet once more1 come into the presence of death4 ,the facts that human eyes can see are plain enough1 but what can we make of it--this standing on the shore1 waving farewell to a friendly ship that loses itself over the rim of the world8 ,says ,thomson of the world's treatment of man1 ,it grinds him some slow years of bitter breath1 ,then grinds him back into eternal death4 ,and ,paul says3 ,this corruptible must put on incorruption1 and this mortal must put on immortality4 ,but when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption1 and this mortal shall have put on immortality1 then shall come to pass the saying that is written1 ,death is swallowed up in victory4 ,that is not a contrast between facts2 that is a contrast between interpretations of facts4 ,is it not plain why religion has such an unbreakable hold upon the human mind8 ,the funeral of ,christianity has been predicted many times but each time the deceased has proved too lively for the obsequies4 ,in the middle of the eighteenth century they said that ,christianity had one foot in the grave1 but then came the amazing revival of religious life under the ,wesleys4 ,in the middle of the last century one wiseacre said1 ,in fifty years your ,christianity will have died out2 yet1 for all our failures1 probably ,christianity in all its history has never made more progress than in the last half century4 ,if you ask why1 one reason is clear3 man cannot live in a universe of uninterpreted facts4 ,the scientific approach to life is not enough4 ,it does not cover all the ground4 ,men want to know what life spiritually means and they want to know that it means intensely1 and means good4 ,facts alone are like pieces of irritating grit that get into the oyster shell2 the pearl of life is created by the interpretations which the facts educe4 ,in this difference between the facts of experience and their interpretations lies the secret of the contrast between our two words existence and life4 ,even before we define the difference1 we feel it4 ,to exist is one thing2 to live is another4 ,existence is comprised of the bare facts of life alone--the universe in which we live1 our heritage and birth1 our desires and their satisfactions1 growth1 age and death4 ,all the facts that science can display before us comprise existence4 ,but life is something more4 ,life is existence clothed in spiritual meanings2 existence seen with a worthy purpose at the heart of it and hope ahead1 existence informed by the spirit's insights and understandings1 transfigured and glorified by the spirit's faiths and hopes4 ,it follows1 therefore1 that while existence is given us to start with1 life is a spiritual achievement4 ,a man must take the facts of his existence whether he wants to or not1 but he makes his life by the activity of his soul4 ,the facts of existence are like so much loose type1 which can be set up to many meanings4 ,one man leaves those facts in chaotic disarrangement or sets them up into cynical affirmations1 and he exists4 ,but another man takes the same facts and by spiritual insight makes them mean gloriously1 and he lives indeed4 ,to suppose that mankind ever can be satisfied with existence only and can be called off from the endeavour to achieve this more abundant life1 is utterly to misconceive the basic facts of human nature4 ,and this profound need for a spiritual interpretation of life is not satisfied by an idea of temporal progress1 stimulated by a few circumstances which predispose our minds to immediate expectancy4 ,,iv ,when1 therefore1 any one asserts the adequacy of the scientific approach to life1 one answer stands ready to our hand3 science deals primarily with facts and their laws1 not with their spiritual interpretations4 ,to put the same truth in another way1 science deals with one specially abstracted aspect of the facts2 it drains them of their qualitative elements and1 reducing them to their quantitative elements1 it proceeds to weigh and measure them and state their laws4 ,it moves in the realm of actualities and not in the realm of values4 ,one science1 for example1 takes a gorgeous sunset and reduces it to the constituent ether waves that cause the colour4 ,what it says about the sunset is true1 but it is not the whole truth4 ,ask anybody who has ever seen the sun riding like a golden galleon down the western sea6 ,another science takes a boy and reduces him to his ,bertillon measurements and at the top of the statistics writes his name1 ,john ,smith4 ,that is the truth about ,john ,smith1 but it is not the whole truth4 ,ask his mother and see6 ,another science takes our varied and vibrant mental life and reduces it to its physical basis and states its laws4 ,that is the truth about our mental life1 but it is not the whole truth4 ,what is more1 it is not that part of the truth by which men really live4 ,for men live by love and joy and hope and faith and spiritual insight4 ,when these things vanish life is a tale ,told by an idiot1 full of sound and fury1 ,signifying nothing4 ,when a man takes that quantitative aspect of reality1 which is the special province of natural science1 as though it were the whole of reality1 he finds himself in a world where the physical forces are in control4 ,we1 ourselves1 according to this aspect of life1 are the product of physical forces--marionettes1 dancing awhile because physical forces are pulling on the strings4 ,in a word1 when a man takes that quantitative aspect of reality1 which natural science presents1 as though it were the whole of reality1 he becomes a materialistic fatalist1 and on that basis we cannot permanently build either personal character or a stable civilization4 ,it is not difficult1 then1 to see one vital significance of ,jesus ,christ3 he has given us the most glorious interpretation of life's meaning that the sons of men have ever had4 ,the fatherhood of ,god1 the friendship of the ,spirit1 the sovereignty of righteousness1 the law of love1 the glory of service1 the coming of the ,kingdom1 the eternal hope--there never was an interpretation of life to compare with that4 ,if life often looks as though his interpretation were too good to be true1 we need not be surprised4 ,few things in the universe are as superficially they look4 ,the earth looks flat and1 as long as we gaze on it1 it never will look any other way1 but it is spherical for all that4 ,the earth looks stationary and if we live to be as old as ,methuselah we never will see it move1 but it is moving--seventy-five times faster than a cannon ball6 ,the sun looks as though it rose in the east and set in the west1 and we never can make it look any other way1 but it does not rise nor set at all4 ,so far as this earth is concerned1 the sun is standing still enough4 ,we look as though we walked with our heads up and our feet down1 and we never can make ourselves look otherwise1 but someone finding a safe stance outside this whirling sphere would see us half the time walking with our heads down and our feet up4 ,few things are ever the way they look1 and the end of all scientific research1 as of all spiritual insight1 is to get behind the way things look to the way things are4 ,walter ,pater has a rememberable phrase1 the hiddenness of perfect things4 ,one meaning1 therefore1 which ,christ has for ,christians lies in the realm of spiritual interpretation4 ,he has done for us there what ,copernicus and ,galileo did in astronomy3 he has moved us out from our flat earth into his meaningful universe1 full of moral worth and hope4 ,he has become to us in this1 our inner need1 what the luminous phrase of the ,book of ,job describes1 ,an interpreter1 one among a thousand4 ,and in spite of all our immediate expectancy1 born out of our scientific control of life1 mankind never needed that service more than now4 ,v ,there is a second proposition to which we should attend as we endeavour to define the need for religion with reference to the scientific mastery of life4 ,consider why so often men are tempted to suppose that science is adequate for human purposes4 ,is it not because science supplies men with power8 ,steam1 electricity1 petroleum1 radium--with what progressive mastery over the latent resources of the universe does science move from one area of energy to another1 until in the imagination of recent generations she has seemed to stand saying3 all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth4 ,with such power to bestow1 is she not our rightful mistress8 ,but who that has walked with discerning eyes through these last few years can any longer be beguiled by that fallacious vision8 ,look at what we are doing with this new power that science has given us6 ,the business to which steel and steam and electricity1 explosives and poisons have recently been put does not indicate that humanity's problem is solved when new power is put into our hands4 ,even the power of wide-spread communication can so be used that a war which began in ,serajevo will end with lads from ,kamchatka and ,bombay blasted to pieces by the same shell on a ,french battlefield4 ,even the power of modern finance can be so used that nations will exhaust the credit of generations yet unborn in waging war4 ,how some folk keep their cheap and easy optimism about humanity's use of its new energies is a mystery4 ,we have come pretty near to ruining ourselves with them already4 ,if we do not achieve more spiritual control over them than we have yet exhibited we will ruin ourselves with them altogether4 ,once more in history a whole civilization will commit suicide like ,saul falling on his own sword4 ,the scientific control of life1 by itself1 creates more problems than it solves4 ,the problem of international disarmament1 for example1 has been forced on us by the fear of that perdition to the suburbs of which our race has manifestly come through the misuse of scientific knowledge4 ,humanity is disturbed about itself because it has discovered that it is in possession of power enough to wreck the world4 ,never before did mankind have so much energy to handle4 ,multitudes of people1 dubious as to whether disarmament is practical1 are driven like shuttles back and forth between that doubt1 upon the one side1 and the certainty1 upon the other1 that armament is even less practical4 ,the statisticians have been at work upon this last war and their figures1 like the measurements of the astronomers1 grow to a size so colossal that the tentacles of our imaginations slip off them when we try to grasp their size4 ,the direct costs of this last war1 which left us with more and harder difficulties than we had at the beginning1 were about #ahf1jjj1jjj1jjj4 ,is that practical8 ,at the beginning of #aibb almost all the nations in ,europe1 although by taxation they were breaking their people's financial backs1 were spending far more than their income1 and in the ,united ,states1 far and away the richest nation on the planet1 we faced an enormous deficit4 ,is that practical8 ,in this situation1 with millions of people unemployed1 with starvation rampant1 with social revolution stirring in every country--not because people are bad1 not because they impatiently love violence1 but because they cannot stand forever the social strain and economic consequence of war--what were we doing8 ,we were launching battleships which cost #db1jjj1jjj to build1 which cost #b1jjj1jjj a year to maintain and which1 in a few years1 would be towed out to sea to be used as an experimental target to try out some new armour-piercing shell4 ,i wonder if our children's children will look back on that spectacle and call it practical4 ,in #aiab the naval expenses of this country were about #acf1jjj1jjj4 ,in #aiba our naval expenses were about #fda1jjj1jjj--;approximately five times greater in nine years4 ,so over all the earth war preparations were pyramiding with an ever accelerating momentum4 ,and because any man can see that we must stop sometime1 we have been trying desperately to stop now2 to turn our backs upon this mad endeavour to build civilization upon a materialistic basis1 bulwarked by physical force2 to turn our faces toward spiritual forces1 fair play1 reasonable conference1 good-will1 service and co-operation4 ,yet how hard it is to make the change effective6 ,long ages ago in the primeval jungle1 the dogs' ancestors used to turn around three times in the thicket before they lay down1 that they might make a comfortable spot to nestle in1 and now your highbred ,pekingese will turn around three times upon his silken cushion although there is no earthly reason why he should4 ,so difficult is it to breed beasts and men out of their inveterate habits4 ,so hard is it going to be to make men give up the idea that force is a secure foundation for international relationships4 ,yet somehow that change must be made4 ,they are having trouble with the housing problem in ,tokyo and the reason is simple4 ,tokyo is built on earthquake ground and it is insecure4 ,you cannot put great houses on unstable foundations4 ,one story1 two stories1 three stories--that is about as high as they dare go4 ,but in ,new ,york ,city one sees the skyscrapers reaching up their sixty stories into the air4 ,the explanation is not difficult3 ,manhattan ,island is solid rock4 ,if you are going to build great structures you must have great foundations4 ,and civilization is a vast and complicated structure4 ,we cannot build it on physical force4 ,that is too shaky4 ,we must build it upon spiritual foundations4 ,there are those who suppose that this can be done by progress through the scientific control of life1 and who treat religion as a negligible element4 ,such folk forget that while a cat will lap her milk contentedly from a saucer made of ,wedgwood or china1 porcelain or earthenware1 and will feel no curiosity about the nature of the receptacle from which she drinks1 human beings are not animals who thus can take their food and ask no questions about the universe in which it is served to them4 ,we want to know about life's origin and meaning and destiny4 ,we cannot keep our questions at home4 ,we cannot stop thinking4 ,if this universe is fundamentally physical1 if the only spark of spiritual life which it ever knew is the fitful flame of our own unsteady souls1 if it came from dust and to dust will return1 leaving behind no recollection of the human labour1 sacrifice and aspiration which for a little time it unconsciously enshrined1 that outlook makes an incalculable difference to our present lives4 ,for then our very minds themselves1 which have developed here by accident upon this wandering island in the skies1 represent the only kind of mind there is1 and what we do not know never was thought about or cared for or purposed by anyone1 and we1 alone in knowing1 are ourselves unknown4 ,the consequence of this sort of thinking1 which is the essence of irreligion1 is to be seen on every side of us in folk who1 having thus lost all confidence in ,god and the reality of the spiritual world1 still try to labour for the good of men4 ,they have kept one part of ,christianity1 its ideals of character and service2 they have lost the other part1 which assures them about ,god4 ,in a word1 they are trying to build an idealistic and serviceable life upon a godless basis4 ,now1 the difficulty with this attitude toward life lies here3 it demands a quality of spirit for which it cannot supply the motive4 ,it demands social hope1 confidence1 enthusiasm and sacrifice1 and all the while it cuts their nerves4 ,it tells men that the universe is fundamentally a moral desert1 that it never was intended even to have an oasis of civilization in it1 that if we make one grow it will be by dint of our own effort against the deadset of the universe's apathy1 that if1 by our toil1 an oasis is achieved1 it will have precarious tenure in such alien and inhospitable soil1 and that in the end it will disappear before the onslaught of the cosmic forces2 yet in the same breath it tells men to work for that oasis with hope1 confidence1 joy and enthusiastic sacrifice4 ,this is a world view which asks of men a valorous and expensive service for which it cannot supply the driving power4 ,yet many of our universities are presenting just that outlook upon life to our young men and women4 ,the youth are being urged to fight courageously and sacrificially for righteousness upon the earth1 and at the same time they are presented with a view of the background and destiny of human life similar to that which ,schopenhauer expressed3 ,truly optimism cuts so sorry a figure in this theatre of sin1 suffering1 and death that we should have to regard it as a piece of sarcasm1 if ,hume had not explained its origin--insincere flattery of ,god in the arrogant expectation of gain4 #e ,what this generation1 which so disparages religion and like the ancient ,sadducee calls its good right arm its god1 will ultimately discover is that the fight for righteousness in character and in society is a long and arduous campaign4 ,the ,bible says that a thousand years in ,god's sight are but as yesterday when it is past1 and as a watch in the night4 ,it certainly seems that way4 ,it is a long and roundabout journey to the ,promised ,land4 ,generations die and fall by the way4 ,the road is white with the bones of pilgrims who attained not the promises but saw them and greeted them from afar4 ,some ,giordano ,bruno1 who gives himself to the achievement of mankind's high aims1 is burned at the stake2 centuries pass and on the very spot where he was martyred a monument is built with this inscription on it3 ,raised to ,giordano ,bruno by the generation which he foresaw4 ,this is exhilarating when the story is finished1 but in the meantime it is hard work being ,giordano ,bruno and sacrificially labouring for a cause which you care enough for and believe enough in and are sure enough about so that you will die for it4 ,when such faith and hope and sacrifice are demanded one cannot get them by exhortation1 by waving a wand of words to conjure his enthusiasm up4 ,nothing will do but a world-view adequate to supply motives for the service it demands4 ,nothing will do but religion4 ,one wonders why the preachers do not feel this more and so recover their consciousness of an indispensable mission4 ,one wonders that the churches can be so timid and dull and negative1 that our sermons can be so pallid and inconsequential4 ,one wonders why in the pulpit we have so many flutes and so few trumpets4 ,for here is a world with the accumulating energies of the new science in its hands1 living in the purlieus of hell because it cannot gain spiritual mastery over the very power in which it glories4 ,here is a world which must build its civilization on spiritual bases or else collapse into abysmal ruin and which cannot achieve the task though all the motives of self-preservation cry out to have it done1 because men lack the very elements of faith and character which it is the business of religion to supply4 ,,vi ,we have said that when science has given us all its facts we still need a spiritual interpretation of the facts2 that when science has put all its energies into our hands we still need spiritual mastery over their use4 ,let us say in conclusion that1 when science has given us all its power1 we still need another kind of power which it is not the business of science to supply4 ,long ago somebody who knew the inner meaning of religion wrote3 ,the ,lord is my shepherd2 ,i shall not want4 ,he maketh me to lie down in green pastures2 ,he leadeth me beside still waters4 ,he restoreth my soul4 ,that last phrase sums up one of the deepest needs of human life4 ,we are in constant want of spiritual repair2 we are lost without a fresh influx of inward power2 we desperately need to have our souls restored4 ,a young ,british soldier once came in from the trenches where his aggressive powers had been in full employ and1 having heard one of the finest concert companies that ,london could send out1 he wrote in a letter to his family3 ,i have just come down from the trenches1 and have been listening to one of the best concerts ,i ever attended4 ,it makes one feel that perhaps there is a good ,god after all4 ,the two aspects of life which that soldier discovered in himself all men possess4 ,one takes us to life's trenches2 the other throws us back on some revelation of grace and beauty that we may be sure of ,god4 ,with one we seek aggressively to master life2 with the other we seek receptively to be inspired4 ,every normal man needs these two kinds of influence3 one to send him informed and alert to his tasks1 the other to float his soul off its sandbars on the rising tide of spiritual reassurance and power4 ,every normal man needs two attitudes3 one when he goes into action determined to do his work and to do it well1 and the other when he subdues his spirit to receptivity and with the ,psalmist cries1 ,my soul1 wait thou in silence for ,god only2 ,for my expectation is from him4 ,when science has given us all the power it can1 we still need another kind of power which science cannot give4 ,whatever else the scientific control of life may have accomplished1 it has not saved mankind from the old and devastating problems of trouble and sin4 ,so far as individual experience of these is concerned1 there is little discernable difference between two thousand years before ,christ and two thousand years afterward4 ,still disasters fall upon our lives1 sometimes as swift in their assault as wild beasts leaping from an unsuspected ambush4 ,still troubles come1 long drawn out and wearying1 like the monotonous dripping of water with which old torturers used to drive their victims mad4 ,still sins bring shame to the conscience and tragic consequence to the life1 and tiresome work1 losing the buoyancy of its first inspiration1 drags itself out into purposeless effort and bores us with its futility4 ,folk now1 as much as ever in all history1 need to have their souls restored4 ,the scientific control of life1 however1 is not adequate for that4 ,electricity and subways and motor cars do not restore the soul2 and to know that there are millions upon millions of solar systems1 like our own1 scattered through space does not restore the soul2 and to delve in the sea or to fly in the air or to fling our words through the ether does not restore the soul4 ,the need of religion is perennial and would be though our scientific control over life were extended infinitely beyond our present hope1 for the innermost ministry of religion to human life is the restoration of the soul4 ,in this fact lies the failure of that type of naturalism which endeavours to keep religion as a subjective experience and denies the reality of an objective ,god4 ,if we are not already familiar with this attempted substitution we soon shall be1 for our young people are being taught it in many a classroom now4 ,one of the basic principles of this new teaching is belief in the spiritual life but1 when one inquires where the spiritual life is1 he discovers that it is altogether within ourselves--there is no original1 creative and abiding ,spiritual ,life from whom we come1 by whom we are sustained1 in whom we live4 ,rather1 as flowers reveal in their fragrance a beauty which is not in the earth where they grow nor in the roots on which they depend1 so our spiritual life is the mysterious refinement of the material out of which we are constructed1 and it has nothing to correspond with it in the source from which we sprang4 ,nevertheless1 the new naturalism exalts this spiritual life within us1 calls it our crown and glory1 bids us cultivate and diffuse it1 says about it nearly everything a ,christian says except that it is a revelation of eternal reality4 ,moreover1 it is difficult to differentiate from this outspoken group of professed naturalists another group of humanists who do retain the idea of ,god1 but merely as the sum total of man's idealistic life4 ,god1 says one exponent1 is the farthest outreach of our human ideals4 ,that is to say1 our spiritual lives created ,god1 not ,god our spiritual lives4 ,god1 as one enthusiastic devotee of this new cult has put it1 is a sort of ,uncle ,sam1 the pooling of the idealistic imaginations of multitudes4 ,of course he does not exist1 yet in a sense he is real2 he is the projection of our loyalties1 affections1 hopes4 ,it should go without saying that this idea of ,god has about as much intellectual validity as belief in ,santa ,claus and is even more sentimental1 in that it is a deliberate attempt to disguise in pleasant and familiar terms a fundamentally materialistic interpretation of reality4 ,the vital failure of this spiritualized naturalism1 however1 lies in the inability of its ,uncle ,sam to meet the deepest needs on account of which men at their best have been religious4 ,this deified projection of our ideals we made up ourselves and so we cannot really pray to him2 he does not objectively exist and so has no unifying meaning which puts purposefulness into creation and hope ahead of it2 he does not care for any one or anything and so we may not trust him2 and neither in sin can he forgive1 cleanse1 restore1 empower1 nor in sorrow comfort and sustain4 ,a god who functions so poorly is not much of a god4 ,once more1 therefore1 one wonders why in a generation when1 not less1 but more1 because of all our scientific mastery the souls of men are starved and tired1 the ,church is not captured by a new sense of mission4 ,it is precisely in a day when the active and pugnacious energies of men are most involved in the conquest of the world that the spirit becomes most worn for lack of sustenance4 ,to be assured of the nearness and reality and availability of the spiritual world is a matter of life and death to multitudes of folk to-day4 ,there could hardly be a more alluring time in which to make the ,holy ,spirit real to the world4 ,for the supreme moral asset in any man's life is not his aggressiveness nor his pugnacity1 but his capacity to be inspired--to be inspired by great books1 great music1 by love and friendship2 to be inspired by great faiths1 great hopes1 great ideals2 to be inspired supremely by the ,spirit of ,god4 ,for so we are lifted until the things we tried to see and could not we now can see because of the altitude at which we stand1 and the things we tried to do and could not we now can do because of the fellowship in which we live4 ,to one asserting the adequacy of the scientific control of life1 therefore1 the ,christian's third answer is clear3 man's deepest need is spiritual power1 and spiritual power comes out of the soul's deep fellowships with the living ,god4 ,such1 then1 is the abiding need of religion in a scientific age4 ,to be scientifically minded is one of the supreme achievements of mankind4 ,to love truth1 as science loves it1 to seek truth tirelessly1 as science seeks it1 to reveal the latent resources of the universe in hope that men will use them for good and not for evil1 as science does1 is one of the chief glories of our race4 ,when1 however1 we have taken everything that science gives1 it is not enough for life4 ,when we have facts1 we still need a spiritual interpretation of facts2 when we have all the scientific forces that we can get our hands upon1 we still need spiritual mastery over their use2 and1 beyond all the power that science gives1 we need that inward power which comes from spiritual fellowships alone4 ,religion is indispensable4 ,to build human life upon another basis is to erect civilization upon sand1 where the rain descends and the floods come and the winds blow and beat upon the house and it falls and great is the fall thereof4 #a ,andrew ,d4 ,white3 ,a ,history of the ,warfare of ,science with ,theology in ,christendom1 ,vol4 ,,ii1 p4 #af4 #b ,quoted in the ,hibbert ,journal1 ,vol4 ,,iii1 ,january #aije1 p4 #bif4 #c ,psalm #ai3a4 #d ,ernst ,haeckel3 ,the ,wonders of ,life1 p4 #dac4 #e ,arthur ,schopenhauer3 ,die ,welt als ,wille und ,vorstellung1 ,zweiter ,band1 ,kapital #df1 ,von der ,nichtigkeit und dem ,leiden des ,lebens1 p4 #ffi4 ,,lecture ,,iii ,,the ,,gospel ,,and ,,social ,,progress ,i ,our last lecture started with the proposition that the dominant influence in the intellectual and practical activity of the modern age is man's scientific mastery over life4 ,this present lecture considers one of the consequences of this primary fact3 namely1 the humanitarian desire to take advantage of this scientific control of life so to change social conditions that mankind may be relieved from crushing handicaps which now oppress it4 ,for the growth of scientific knowledge and control has been coincident with a growth of humanitarian sentiment4 ,this movement for human relief and social reform1 in the midst of which we live1 is one of the chief influences of our time4 ,it has claimed the allegiance of many of the noblest folk among us4 ,its idealism1 its call to sacrifice1 the concreteness of the tasks which it undertakes and of the gains which it achieves1 have attracted alike the fine spirits and the practical abilities of our generation4 ,what attitude shall the ,christian ,church take toward this challenging endeavour to save society8 ,how shall she regard this passionate belief in the possibility of social betterment and this enthusiastic determination to achieve it8 ,the question is one of crucial importance and the ,church is far from united on its answer4 ,some ,christians claim the whole movement as the child of the ,church1 born of her spirit and expressing her central purpose2 others disclaim the whole movement as evil and teach that the world must grow increasingly worse until some divine cataclysm shall bring its hopeless corruption to an end2 others treat the movement as useful but of minor import1 while they try to save men by belief in dogmatic creeds or by carefully engineered emotional experiences4 ,meanwhile1 no words can exaggerate the fidelity1 the vigour1 the hopefulness1 and the elevated spirit with which many of our best young men and women throw themselves into this campaign for better conditions of living4 ,surely1 the intelligent portion of the ,church would better think as clearly as possible about a matter of such crucial import4 ,at first sight1 the devotee of social ,christianity is inclined impatiently to brush aside as mere ignorant bigotry on the ,church's part all cautious suspicion of the social movement4 ,but there is one real difficulty which the thoughtful ,christian must perceive when he compares the characteristic approach to the human problem made by the social campaign1 on the one side1 and by religion1 on the other4 ,much of the modern social movement seems to proceed upon the supposition that we can save mankind by the manipulation of outward circumstance4 ,there are societies to change everything that can be changed and1 because the most obvious and easy subjects of transformation are the external arrangements of human life1 men set themselves first and chiefly to change those4 ,we are always trying to improve the play by shifting the scenery4 ,but no person of insight ever believed that the manipulation of circumstance alone can solve man's problems4 ,said ,emerson1 ,no change of circumstances can repair a defect of character4 ,said ,herbert ,spencer1 ,no philosopher's stone of a constitution can produce golden conduct from leaden instincts4 ,said ,james ,anthony ,froude1 ,human improvement is from within outwards4 ,said ,carlyle1 ,fool6 the ,ideal is in thyself1 the impediment too is in thyself3 thy ,condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same ,ideal out of4 ,said ,mrs4 ,browning3 ,it takes a soul1 ,to move a body3 it takes a high-souled man ,to move the masses even to a cleaner stye3 44444 ,ah1 your ,fouriers failed1 ,because not poets enough to understand ,that life develops from within4 ,now1 religion's characteristic approach to the human problem is represented by this conviction that life develops from within4 ,so far from expecting to save mankind by the manipulation of outward circumstance1 it habitually has treated outward circumstance as of inferior moment in comparison with the inner attitudes and resources of the spirit4 ,economic affluence1 for example1 has not seemed to ,christianity in any of its historic forms indispensable to man's well-being2 rather1 economic affluence has been regarded as a danger to be escaped or else to be resolutely handled as one would handle fire--useful if well managed but desperately perilous if uncontrolled4 ,nor can it be said that ,christianity has consistently maintained this attitude without having in actual experience much ground for holding it4 ,the possession of economic comfort has never yet guaranteed a decent life1 much less a spiritually satisfactory one4 ,the morals of ,fifth ,avenue are not such that it can look down on ,third ,avenue1 nor is it possible anywhere to discern gradation of character on the basis of relative economic standing4 ,it is undoubtedly true that folks and families often have their moral stamina weakened and their personalities debauched by sinking into discouraging poverty1 but it is an open question whether more folks and families have not lost their souls by rising into wealth4 ,still1 after all these centuries1 the rich fool1 with his overflowing barns and his soul that sought to feed itself on corn1 is a familiar figure2 still it is as easy for a camel to go through a needle's eye as for a rich man to enter the ,kingdom of ,heaven4 ,when1 therefore1 the ,christian1 approaching the human problem1 not from without in1 but from within out1 runs upon this modern social movement endeavouring to save mankind by the manipulation of outward circumstance1 his cautious and qualified consent may be neither so ignorant nor so unreasonable as it at first appears4 ,as an example of manipulated circumstance in which we are asked to trust1 consider the new international arrangements upon which the world leans so heavily for its hopes of peace4 ,surely1 he would be a poor ,christian who did not rejoice in every reasonable expectation which new forms of co-operative organization can fulfil4 ,but he would be a thoughtless ,christian1 too1 if he did not see that all good forms of international organization are trellises to give the vines of human relationship a fairer chance to grow2 but if the vines themselves maintain their old acid quality1 bringing out of their own inward nature from roots of bitterness grapes that set the people's teeth on edge1 then no external trellises will solve the problem4 ,it is this ,christian approach to life1 from within out1 which causes the common misunderstanding between the social movement and the ,church4 ,the first thinks mainly of the importance of the trellis2 the second thinks chiefly about the quality of the vine4 ,the more deep and transforming a man's own religious experience has been1 the more he will insist upon the importance of this inward approach4 ,here is a man who has had a profound evangelical experience4 ,he has gone down into the valley of the shadow with a deep sense of spiritual need2 he has found in ,christ a ,saviour who has lifted him up into spiritual freedom and victory2 he has gone out to live with a sense of unpayable indebtedness to him4 ,he has had1 in a word1 a typical religious experience at its best with three elements at the heart of it3 a great need1 a great salvation1 a great gratitude4 ,when such a man considers the modern social movement1 however beautiful its spirit or admirable its concrete gains1 it seems to him superficial if it presents itself as a panacea4 ,it does not go deep enough to reach the soul's real problems4 ,the continual misunderstanding between the ,church and the social movement has1 then1 this explanation3 the characteristic approach of the ,christian ,gospel to the human problem is from within out2 the characteristic approach of much of the modern social movement is from without in4 ,,ii ,if1 therefore1 the ,christian ,gospel is going to be true to itself1 it must carefully preserve amid the pressure of our modern social enthusiasms certain fundamental emphases which are characteristic of its genius4 ,it must stress the possibility and the necessity of the inward transformation of the lives of men4 ,we know now that a thorny cactus does not have to stay a thorny cactus2 ,burbank can change it4 ,we know that a crab-apple tree does not have to stay a crab-apple tree2 it can be grafted and become an astrakhan4 ,we know that a malarial swamp does not have to stay a malarial swamp2 it can be drained and become a health resort4 ,we know that a desert does not have to stay a desert2 it can be irrigated and become a garden4 ,but while all these possibilities of transformation are opening up in the world outside of us1 the most important in the series concerns the world within us4 ,the primary question is whether human nature is thus transformable1 so that men can be turned about1 hating what formerly they loved and loving what once they hated4 ,said ,tolstoy1 whose early life had been confessedly vile3 ,five years ago faith came to me2 ,i believed in the doctrine of ,jesus1 and my whole life underwent a sudden transformation4 ,what ,i had once wished for ,i wished for no longer1 and ,i began to desire what ,i had never desired before4 ,what had once appeared to me right now became wrong1 and the wrong of the past ,i beheld as right4 #a ,so indispensable to the welfare of the world is this experience1 that we ,christians need to break loose from our too narrow conceptions of it and to set it in a large horizon4 ,we have been too often tempted to make of conversion a routine emotional experience4 ,even ,jonathan ,edwards was worried about himself in this regard4 ,he wrote once in his diary3 ,the chief thing that now makes me in any measure question my good estate is my not having experienced conversion in those particular steps wherein the people of ,new ,england1 and anciently the dissenters of old ,england1 used to experience it4 ,poor ,jonathan6 ,how many have been so distraught6 ,but the supreme folly of any man's spiritual life is to try thus to run himself into the mold of any other man's experience4 ,there is no regular routine in spiritual transformation4 ,some men come in on a high tide of feeling1 like ,billy ,bray1 the drunken miner1 who1 released from his debasing slavery and reborn into a vigorous life1 cried1 ,if they were to put me into a barrel ,i would shout glory out through the bunghole6 ,praise the ,lord6 ,some men come in like ,bushnell1 the ,new ,england scholar and preacher1 who1 when he was an unbelieving tutor at ,yale1 fell on his knees in the quiet of his study and said1 ,o ,god1 ,i believe there is an eternal difference between right and wrong and ,i hereby give myself up to do the right and to refrain from the wrong4 ,some men break up into the new life suddenly like the ,oxford graduate who1 having lived a dissolute life until six years after his graduation from the university in #ahhj1 picked up in his room one day ,drummond's ,natural ,law in the ,spiritual ,world1 and1 lo6 the light broke suddenly--,i rejoiced there and then in a conversion so astounding that the whole village heard of it in less than twenty-four hours4 ,some come slowly1 like old ,john ,livingstone1 who said1 ,i do not remember any particular time of conversion1 or that ,i was much cast down or lift up4 ,spiritual transformation is infinitely various because it is so infinitely vital2 but behind all the special forms of experience stands the colossal fact that men can be transformed by the ,spirit of ,god4 ,that this experience of inward enlightenment and transformation should ever be neglected or minimized or forgotten or crowded out is the more strange because one keeps running on it outside religion as well as within4 ,john ,keats1 when eighteen years old1 was handed one day a copy of ,spenser's poems4 ,he never had known before what his life was meant to be4 ,he found out that day4 ,like a voice from heaven his call came in the stately measures of ,spenser's glorious verse4 ,he knew that he was meant to be a poet4 ,upon this master fact that men can be inwardly transformed ,christ laid his hand and put it at the very center of his gospel4 ,all through the ,new ,testament there is a throb of joy which1 traced back1 brings one to the assurance that no man need stay the way he is4 ,among the gladdest1 solemnest words in the records of our race are such passages in the ,new ,testament as this3 ,fornicators1 adulterers1 thieves1 covetous1 drunkards1 revelers1 extortioners1 such were some of you2 but ye were washed1 but ye were sanctified1 but ye were justified in the name of the ,lord ,jesus ,christ and in the ,spirit of our ,god4 ,one cannot find in the ,new ,testament anything stiff and stilted about this experience4 ,paul's change came suddenly2 ,peter's came slowly4 ,they did not even have1 as we have come to have1 a settled word to describe the experience4 ,ask ,james what it is and1 practical-minded man that he is1 he calls it conversion--being turned around4 ,ask ,peter what it is and1 as he looks back upon his old benighted condition1 he cries that it is like coming out of the darkness into a marvelous light4 ,ask ,paul what it is and1 with his love of superlative figures1 he cries that it is like being dead and being raised again with a great resurrection4 ,ask ,john what it is and1 with his mystical spirit1 he says that it is being born again4 ,see the variety that comes from vitality--no stiff methods1 no stiff routine of experience1 but throbbing through the whole book the good news of an illuminating1 liberating1 transforming experience that can make men new6 ,it is the more strange that this central element in the ,christian ,gospel should be neglected in the interests of social reformation because it is so indispensable to social reformation4 ,wherever a new social hope allures the efforts of forward-looking men1 there is one argument against the hope which always rises4 ,you cannot do that--men say--human nature is against it2 human nature has always acted another way2 you cannot change human nature2 your hope is folly4 ,as one listens to such skepticism he sees that men mean by human nature a static1 unalterable thing1 huge1 inert1 changeless1 a dull mass that resists all transformation4 ,the very man who says that may be an engineer4 ,he may be speaking in the next breath with high enthusiasm about a desert in ,arizona where they are bringing down the water from the hills and where in a few years there will be no desert1 but orange groves stretching as far as the eye can reach1 and eucalyptus trees making long avenues of shade1 and roses running wild1 as plenteous as goldenrod in a ,new ,england field4 ,but while about physical nature he is as hopeful of possible change as a prophet1 for human nature he thinks nothing can be done4 ,from the ,christian point of view this idea of human nature is utterly false4 ,so far from being stiff and set1 human nature is the most plastic1 the most changeable thing with which we deal4 ,it can be brutalized beneath the brutes2 it can rise into companionship with angels4 ,our primitive forefathers1 as our fairy tales still reveal1 believed that men and women could be changed into anything--into trees1 rocks1 wolves1 bears1 kings and fairy sprites4 ,one of the most prominent professors of sociology in ,america recently said that these stories are a poetic portraiture of something which eternally is true4 ,men can be transformed4 ,that is a basic fact1 and it is one of the central emphases of the ,christian ,gospel4 ,of all days in which that emphasis should be remembered1 the chiefest is the day when men are thinking about social reformation4 ,,iii ,it is only a clear recognition of the crucial importance of man's inward transformation which can prepare us for a proper appreciation of the social movement's meaning4 ,for one point of contact between religion's approach to the human problem from within out and reformation's approach from without in lies here3 to change social environments which oppress and dwarf and defile the lives of men is one way of giving the transforming ,spirit a fair chance to reach and redeem them4 ,all too slowly does the truth lay hold upon the ,church that our very personalities themselves are social products1 that we are born out of society and live in it and are molded by it1 that without society we should not be human at all1 and that the influences which play upon our lives1 whether redeeming or degrading1 are socially mediated4 ,a man who says that he believes in the ineffable value of human personalities and who professes to desire their transformation and yet who has no desire to give them better homes1 better cities1 better family relationships1 better health1 better economic resources1 better recreations1 better books and better schools1 is either an ignoramus who does not see what these things mean in the growth of souls1 or else an unconscious hypocrite who does not really care so much about the souls of men as he says he does4 ,an illuminating illustration of this fact is to be seen in the expanding ideals of missionary work4 ,when the missionaries first went to the ends of the earth they went to save souls one by one4 ,they went out generally with a distinctly1 often narrowly1 individualistic motive4 ,they were trying to gather into the ark a few redeemed spirits out of the wreck of a perishing world2 they were not thinking primarily of building a kingdom of social righteousness in the earth4 ,consider1 then1 the fascinating story of the way the missionaries1 whatever may have been the motives with which they started1 have become social reformers4 ,if the missionaries were to take the ,gospel to the people1 they had to get to the people4 ,so they became the explorers of the world4 ,it was the missionaries who opened up ,asia and ,africa4 ,was there ever a more stirring story of adventure than is given us in the life of ,david ,livingstone8 ,then when the missionaries had reached the people to give them the ,gospel1 they had to give them the ,bible4 ,so they became the philologists and translators of the world4 ,they built the lexicons and grammars4 ,they translated the ,bible into more than a hundred languages on the continent of ,africa alone4 ,carey and his followers did the same for over a score of languages in ,india4 ,the ,bible to-day is available in over six hundred living languages4 ,everywhere this prodigious literary labour has been breaking down the barriers of speech and thought between the peoples4 ,if ever we do get a decent internationalism1 how much of it will rest back upon this pioneer spade work of the missionaries1 digging through the barricades of language that separate the minds of men6 ,when1 then1 the missionaries had books to give the people1 the people had to learn to read4 ,so the missionaries became educators1 and wherever you find the church you find the school4 ,but what is the use of educating people who do not understand how to be sanitary1 who live in filth and disease and die needlessly1 and how can you take away old superstitions and not put new science in their places1 or deprive the people of witch doctors without offering them substitutes8 ,so the missionaries became physicians1 and one of the most beneficent enterprises that history records is medical missions4 ,what is the use1 however1 of helping people to get well when their economic condition is such1 their standards of life so low1 that they continue to fall sick again in spite of you8 ,so the missionaries are becoming industrial reformers1 agriculturalists1 chemists1 physicists1 engineers1 rebuilding wherever they can the economic life and comfort of their people4 ,the missionary cause itself has been compelled1 whether it would or not1 to grow socially-minded4 ,as ,dan ,crawford says about the work in ,africa3 ,here1 then1 is ,africa's challenge to its ,missionaries4 ,will they allow a whole continent to live like beasts in such hovels1 millions of negroes cribbed1 cabined1 and confined in dens of disease8 ,no doubt it is our diurnal duty to preach that the soul of all improvement is the improvement of the soul4 ,but ,god's equilateral triangle of body1 soul1 and spirit must never be ignored4 ,is not the body wholly ensouled1 and is not the soul wholly embodied8 4 4 4 ,in other words1 in ,africa the only true fulfilling of your heavenly calling is the doing of earthly things in a heavenly manner4 #b ,indeed1 if any one is tempted to espouse a narrowly individualistic gospel of regeneration1 let him go to the ,far ,east and take note of ,buddhism4 ,buddhism in wide areas of its life is doing precisely what the individualists recommend4 ,it is a religion of personal comfort and redemption4 ,it is not mastered by a vigorous hope of social reformation4 ,in many ways it is extraordinarily like medieval ,christianity4 ,consider this definition of his religion that was given by one ,buddhist teacher3 ,religion1 he said1 is a device to bring peace of mind in the midst of conditions as they are4 ,conditions as they are--settle down in them2 be comfortable about them2 do not try to change them2 let no prayer for the ,kingdom of ,god on earth disturb them2 and there seek for yourselves peace of mind in the midst of conditions as they are4 ,and the ,buddhist teacher added1 ,my religion is pure religion4 ,but is there any such thing as really caring about the souls of men and not caring about social habits1 moral conditions1 popular recreations1 economic handicaps that in every way affect them8 ,of all deplorable and degenerate conceptions of religion can anything be worse than to think of it as a device to bring peace of mind in the midst of conditions as they are8 ,yet one finds plenty of ,church members in ,america whose idea of the simple ,gospel comes perilously near that ,buddhist's idea of pure religion4 ,the utter futility of endeavouring to care about the inward transformation of men's lives while not caring about their social environment is evident when one thinks of our international relationships and their recurrent issue in war4 ,war surely cannot be thought of any longer as a school for virtue4 ,we used to think it was4 ,we half believed the ,german war party when they told us about the disciplinary value of their gigantic establishment1 and when ,lord ,roberts assured us that war was tonic for the souls of peoples we were inclined to think that he was right4 ,when1 in answer to our nation's call1 our men went out to fight and all our people were bound up in a fellowship of devotion to a common cause1 so stimulated were we that we almost were convinced that out of such an experience there might come a renaissance of spiritual quality and life4 ,is there anybody who can blind his eyes to the facts now8 ,every competent witness in ,europe and ,america has had to say that we are on a far lower moral level than we were before the war4 ,crimes of sex1 crimes of violence1 have been unprecedented4 ,large areas of ,europe are to-day in a chaos so complete that not one man in a thousand in ,america even dimly imagines it1 with a break-down of all the normal1 sustaining relationships and privileges of civilized life1 and with an accompanying collapse of character unprecedented in ,christendom since the days of the ,black ,plague4 ,if we are wise we will never again go down into hell expecting to come up with spirits redeemed4 ,to be sure1 there are many individuals of such moral stamina that they have come out of this experience personally the better1 not the worse4 ,there are people who would build into the fiber of their character any experience that earth could offer them4 ,but if we are thinking of the moral stability and progress of mankind1 surely there is nothing in the processes of war1 as we have seen them1 or the results of war1 as they now lie about us1 that would lead us to trust to them for help4 ,war takes a splendid youth willing to serve the will of ,god in his generation before he falls on sleep and teaches him the skilful trick of twisting a bayonet into the abdomen of an enemy4 ,war takes a loyal-spirited man who is not afraid of anything under heaven and teaches him to drop bombs on undefended towns1 to kill perchance the baby suckled at her mother's breast4 ,the father of one of our young men1 back from ,france1 finding that his son1 like many others1 would not talk1 rebuked him for his silence4 ,just one thing ,i will tell you1 the son answered4 ,one night ,i was on patrol in ,no ,man's ,land1 and suddenly ,i came face to face with a ,german about my own age4 ,it was a question of his life or mine4 ,we fought like wild beasts4 ,when ,i came back that night ,i was covered from head to foot with the blood and brains of that ,german4 ,we had nothing personally against each other4 ,he did not want to kill me any more than ,i wanted to kill him4 ,that is war4 ,i did my duty in it1 but for ,god's sake do not ask me to talk about it6 ,i want to forget it4 ,that is war1 and no more damning influence can be thrown around the characters of people in general or around the victims of military discipline and experience in particular than that supplied by war4 ,how then could inconsistency be made more extreme than by saying that ,christianity is concerned about the souls of men but is not concerned about international good-will and co-operation8 ,after all1 the approaches to the human problem from without in and from within out are not antithetical1 but supplementary4 ,this tunnel must be dug from both ends and until the ,church thoroughly grasps that fact she will lead an incomplete and ineffectual life4 ,,iv ,the purposes of ,christianity involve social reform1 not only1 as we have said1 because we must accomplish environmental change if we are to achieve widespread individual transformation1 but also because we must reorganize social life and the ideas that underlie it if we are to maintain and get adequately expressed the individual's ,christian spirit when once he has been transformed4 ,granted a man with an inwardly remotived life1 sincerely desirous of living ,christianly1 see what a situation faces him in the present organization of our economic world6 ,selfishness consists in facing any human relationship with the main intent of getting from it for oneself all the pleasure and profit that one can4 ,there are folk who use their families so4 ,they live like parasites on the beautiful institution of family life1 getting as much as possible for as little as possible4 ,there are folk who use the nation so4 ,to them their country is a gigantic grab-bag from which their greedy hands may snatch civic security and commercial gain4 ,for such we have hard and bitter names4 ,there is1 however1 one relationship--business--where we take for granted this very attitude which everywhere else we heartily condemn4 ,multitudes of folk go up to that central human relationship with the frank and unabashed confession that their primary motive is to make out of it all that they can for themselves4 ,they never have organized their motives around the idea that the major meaning of business is public service4 ,the fact is1 however1 that all around us forms of business already have developed where we count it shame for a man to be chiefly motived by a desire for private gain4 ,if you thought that the preacher were in love with his purse more than with his ,gospel1 you would not come again to hear him1 and you would be right2 if you thought that the teacher of your children cared for payday first and for teaching second1 you would find another teacher for them tomorrow1 and you ought to2 if you thought that your physician cared more for his fees than he did for his patients1 you would discharge him to-night and seek for a man more worthy of his high profession2 if you had reason to suppose that the judges of the ,supreme ,court in ,washington cared more for their salary than they did for justice1 you could not easily measure your indignation and your shame4 ,in the development of human life few things are nobler than the growth of the professional spirit1 where in wide areas of enterprise1 not private gain1 but fine workmanship and public service have become the major motives4 ,if one says that a sharp line of distinction is to be drawn between what we call professions and what we call business1 he does not know history4 ,nursing1 as a gainful calling1 a hundred years ago was a mercenary affair into which undesirable people went for what they could get out of it4 ,if nursing to-day is a great profession1 where pride of workmanship and love of service increasingly are in control1 it is because ,florence ,nightingale1 and a noble company after her1 have insisted that nursing essentially is service and that all nurses ought to organize their motives around that idea4 ,what is the essential difference between professions and business8 ,why should the building of a schoolhouse be a carnival of private profit for labourers and contractors alike1 when the teaching in it is expected to be full of the love of fine workmanship and the joy of usefulness8 ,why1 when a war is on1 must the making of munitions here be a wild debauch of private profits1 but the firing of them over there be a matter of self-forgetful sacrifice8 ,why1 in selling a food which is essential to health1 should the head of a sugar corporation say with impunity1 ,i think it is fair to get out of the consumers all you can1 consistent with the business proposition1 when the physician is expected to care for the undernourished with a devoted professional spirit utterly different from the sugar magnate's words8 ,there is no real answer to that why4 ,the fact is that for multitudes of people business is still in the unredeemed state in which nursing and teaching and doctoring were at the beginning1 and nothing can save us from the personal and social consequence of this unhappy situation except the clear vision of the basic meaning of business in terms of service1 and the courageous reorganization of personal motive and economic institutions around that idea4 ,if1 then1 ,christianity is sincerely interested in the quality of human spirits1 in the motives and ideals which dominate personality1 she must be interested in the economic and industrial problems of our day4 ,to be sure1 many ministers make fools of themselves when they pass judgment on questions which they do not understand4 ,it is true that a church is much more peaceable and undisturbing when it tries experiments upon religious emotions with colored lights than when it makes reports upon the steel trust4 ,many are tempted1 therefore1 to give in to irritation over misdirected ministerial energy or to a desire for emotional comfort rather than an aroused conscience4 ,one has only to listen where respectable folk most congregate to hear the cry3 let the ,church keep her hands off6 ,let me talk for a moment directly to that group4 ,if you mean1 by your distaste for the ,church's interest in a fairer economic life1 that most ministers are unfitted by temperament and training to talk wisely on economic policies and programs1 you are right4 ,do you suppose that we ministers do not know how we must appear to you when we try to discuss the details of business8 ,while1 however1 you are free to say anything you wish about the ineptitude of ministers in economic affairs 7and we1 from our inside information1 will probably agree with you71 yet as we thus put ourselves in your places and try to see the situation through your eyes1 do you also put yourselves in our places and try to see it through our eyes6 ,i speak1 ,i am sure1 in the name of thousands of ,christian ministers in this country endeavouring to do their duty in this trying time4 ,we did not go into the ministry of ,jesus ,christ either for money or for fun4 ,if we had wanted either one primarily1 we would have done something else than preach4 ,we went in because we believed in ,jesus ,christ and were assured that only he and his truth could medicine the sorry ills of this sick world4 ,and now1 ministers of ,christ1 with such a motive1 we see continually some of the dearest things we work for1 some of the fairest results that we achieve1 going to pieces on the rocks of the business world4 ,you wish us to preach against sin1 but you forget that1 as one of our leading sociologists has said1 the master iniquities of our time are connected with money-making4 ,you wish us to imbue your boys and girls with ideal standards of life1 but all too often we see them1 having left our schools and colleges1 full of the knightly chivalry of youth1 torn in the world of business between the ideal of ,christlikeness and the selfish rivalry of commercial conflict4 ,we watch them growing sordid1 disillusioned1 mercenary1 spoiled at last and bereft of their youth's fine promise4 ,you wish us to preach human brotherhood in ,christ1 and then we see that the one chief enemy of brotherhood between men and nations is economic strife1 the root of class consciousness and war4 ,you send some of us as your representatives to the ends of the earth to proclaim the ,saviour1 and then these missionaries send back word that the non-,christian world knows all too well how far from dominant in our business life our ,christian ideals are and that the non-,christian world delays accepting our ,christ until we have better proved that his principles will work4 ,everywhere that the ,christian minister turns1 he finds his dearest ideals and hopes entangled in the economic life4 ,do you ask us then under these conditions to keep our hands off8 ,in ,god's name1 you ask too much6 ,in the sixteenth century the great conflict in the world's life centered in the ,church4 ,the ,reformation was on4 ,all the vital questions of the day had there their spring4 ,in the eighteenth century the great conflict of the world's life lay in politics4 ,the ,american and ,french revolutions were afoot4 ,democracy had struck its tents and was on the march4 ,all the vital questions of that day had their origin there4 ,in the twentieth century the great conflict in the world's life is centered in economics4 ,the most vital questions with which we deal are entangled with economic motives and institutions4 ,as in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries great changes were inevitable1 so now the economic world cannot possibly remain static4 ,the question is not whether changes will occur1 but how they will occur1 under whose aegis and superintendence1 by whose guidance and direction1 and how much better the world will be when they are here4 ,among all the interests that are vitally concerned with the nature of these changes none has more at stake than the ,christian ,church with her responsibility for the cure of souls4 ,v ,still another point of contact exists between the ,christian purpose and social reform3 the inevitable demand of religious ideals for social application4 ,the ideal of human equality1 for example1 came into our civilization from two main sources--the ,stoic philosophy and the ,christian religion--and in both cases it was first of all a spiritual insight1 not a social program4 ,the ,stoics and the early ,christians both believed it as a sentiment1 but they had no idea of changing the world to conform with it4 ,paul repeatedly insisted upon the equality of all men before ,god4 ,in his early ministry he wrote it to the ,galatians3 ,there can be neither ,jew nor ,greek1 there can be neither bond nor free1 there can be no male and female2 for ye all are one man in ,christ ,jesus4 ,later he wrote it to the ,corinthians3 ,for in one ,spirit were we all baptized into one body1 whether ,jews or ,greeks1 whether bond or free2 and were all made to drink of one ,spirit4 ,in his last imprisonment he wrote it to the ,colossians3 ,there cannot be ,greek and ,jew1 circumcision and uncircumcision1 barbarian1 ,scythian1 bondman1 freeman2 but ,christ is all1 and in all4 ,yet it never would have occurred to ,paul to disturb the social custom of slavery or to question the divine institution of imperial government4 ,nevertheless1 while this idea of human equality did not at first involve a social program1 it meant something real4 ,if we are to understand what the ,new ,testament means by the equality of men before ,god1 we must look at men from the ,new ,testament point of view4 ,those of us who have been up in an aeroplane know that the higher we fly the less difference we see in the elevation of things upon the earth4 ,this man's house is plainly higher than that man's when we are on the ground but1 two thousand feet up1 small difference can we observe4 ,now1 the ,new ,testament flies high4 ,it frankly looks from a great altitude at the distinctions that seem so important on the earth4 ,we say that racial differences are very important--a great gulf between ,jew and ,gentile4 ,we insist that cultural traditions make an immense distinction--that to be a ,scythian or to be barbarian is widely separated from being ,greek4 ,we are sure that the economic distinction between bondman and freeman is enormous4 ,but all the while these superiorities and inferiorities1 which we magnify1 seem from ,paul's vantage point not nearly so important or so real as we think they are4 ,he is sure about this central truth1 that ,god asks no questions about caste or colour or race or wealth or social station4 ,all men stand alike in his presence and in the ,christian fellowship must be regarded from his point of view4 ,it was utterly impossible1 however1 to keep this spiritual insight from getting ultimately into a social program4 ,it appealed to motives too deep and powerful to make possible its segregation as a religious sentiment4 ,for however impractical an ideal this thought of human equality may seem in general1 and however hard it may be to grant to others in particular1 it is never hard for us to claim for ourselves4 ,if ever we are condescended to1 does any assertion rise more quickly in our thought than the old cry of our boyhood1 ,i am as good as you are8 ,the lad in school in ragged clothes1 who sees himself outclassed by richer boys1 feels it hotly rising in his boyish heart3 ,i am as good as you are4 ,the poor man who1 with an anxiety he cannot subdue and yet dares not disclose1 is desperately trying to make both ends meet1 feels it as he sees more fortunate men in luxury3 ,i am as good as you are4 ,the negro who has tried himself out with his white brethren1 who wears1 it may be1 an honour key from a great university1 who is a scholar and a gentleman1 and yet who is continually denied the most common courtesies of human intercourse--he says in his heart1 although the words may not pass his lips1 ,i am as good as you are4 ,now1 the ,new ,testament took that old cry of the human heart for equality and turned it upside down4 ,it became no longer for the ,christian a bitter demand for one's rights1 but a glad acknowledgment of one's duty4 ,it did not clamour1 ,i am as good as you are2 it said1 ,you are as good as ,i am4 ,the early ,christians at their best went out into the world with that cry upon their lips4 ,the ,jewish ,christians said it to the ,gentiles and the ,gentiles to the ,jews2 the ,scythians and barbarians said it to the ,greeks and the ,greeks said it in return2 the bond said it to the free and the free said it to the bond4 ,the ,new ,testament ,church in this regard was one of the most extraordinary upheavals in history1 and to-day the best hopes of the world depend upon that spirit which still says to all men over all the differences of race and colour and station1 ,you are as good as ,i am4 ,to be sure1 before this equalitarian ideal could be embodied in a social program it had to await the coming of the modern age with its open doors1 its freer movements of thought and life1 its belief in progress1 its machinery of change4 ,but even in the stagnation of the intervening centuries the old ,stoic-,christian ideal never was utterly forgotten4 ,lactantius1 a ,christian writer of the fourth century1 said that ,god1 who creates and inspires men1 willed that all should be equal4 #c ,gregory the ,great1 at the end of the sixth century1 said that ,by nature we are all equal4 #d ,for ages this spiritual insight remained dissociated from any social program1 but now the inevitable connection has been made4 ,old caste systems and chattel slavery have gone down before this ideal4 ,aristotle argued that slavery ethically was right because men were essentially and unchangeably masters or slaves by nature4 ,somehow that would not sound plausible to us1 even though the greatest mind of all antiquity did say it4 ,whatever may be the differences between men and races1 they are not sufficient to justify the ownership of one man by another4 ,the ideal of equality has wrecked old aristocracies that seemed to have firm hold on permanence4 ,if one would feel again the thrill which men felt when first the old distinctions lost their power1 one should read once more the songs of ,robert ,burns4 ,they often seem commonplaces to us now1 but they were not commonplaces then3 ,for a' that and a' that1 ,their dignities1 and a' that2 ,the pith o' sense and pride o' worth ,are higher rank than a' that6 ,this ideal has made equality before the law one of the maxims of our civilized governments1 failure in which wakens our apprehension and our fear2 it has made equal suffrage a fact1 although practical people only yesterday laughed at it as a dream2 it has made equality in opportunity for an education the underlying postulate of our public school systems1 although in ,new ,york ,state seventy-five years ago the debate was still acute as to whether such a dream ever could come true2 it is to-day lifting races1 long accounted inferior1 to an eminence where increasingly their equality is acknowledged4 ,one with difficulty restrains his scorn for the intellectual impotence of so-called wise men who think all idealists mere dreamers4 ,who is the dreamer--the despiser or the upholder of an ideal whose upheavals already have burst through old caste systems1 upset old slave systems1 wrecked old aristocracies1 pushed obscure and forgotten masses of mankind up to rough equality in court and election booth and school1 and now are rocking the foundations of old racial and international and economic ideas8 ,the practical applications of this ideal1 as1 for example1 to the coloured problem in ,america1 are so full of difficulty that no one need be ashamed to confess that he does not see in detail how the principle can be made to work4 ,nevertheless1 so deep in the essential nature of things is the fact of mankind's fundamental unity1 that only ,god can foresee to what end the application of it yet may come4 ,at any rate1 it is clear that the ,christian ideal of human equality before ,god can no longer be kept out of a social program4 ,,vi ,there is1 then1 no standing-ground left for a narrowly individualistic ,christianity4 ,to talk of redeeming personality while one is careless of the social environments which ruin personality2 to talk of building ,christlike character while one is complacent about an economic system that is definitely organized about the idea of selfish profit2 to praise ,christian ideals while one is blind to the inevitable urgency with which they insist on getting themselves expressed in social programs--all this is vanity4 ,it is deplorable1 therefore1 that the ,christian forces are tempted to draw apart1 some running up the banner of personal regeneration and some rallying around the flag of social reformation4 ,the division is utterly needless4 ,doubtless our own individual ways of coming into the ,christian life influence us deeply here4 ,some of us came into the ,christian experience from a sense of individual need alone4 ,we needed for ourselves sins forgiven1 peace restored1 hope bestowed4 ,god meant to us first of all satisfaction for our deepest personal wants4 ,rock of ,ages1 cleft for me1 ,let me hide myself in ,thee-- such was our cry and such was our salvation4 ,if now we are socially minded1 if we are concerned for economic and international righteousness1 that is an enlargement of our ,christian outlook which has grown out of and still is rooted back in our individual need and experience of ,god4 ,some of us1 however1 did not come into fellowship with ,god by that route at all4 ,we came in from the opposite direction4 ,the character in the ,old ,testament who seems to me the worthiest exhibition of personal religion before ,jesus is the prophet ,jeremiah1 but ,jeremiah started his religious experience1 not with a sense of individual need1 but with a burning1 patriotic1 social passion4 ,he was concerned for ,judah4 ,her iniquities1 long accumulating1 were bringing upon her an irretrievable disaster4 ,he laid his soul upon her soul and sought to breathe into her the breath of life4 ,then1 when he saw the country he adored1 the civilization he cherished1 crashing into ruin1 he was thrown back personally on ,god4 ,he started with social passion2 he ended with social passion plus personal religion4 ,some of ,god's greatest servants have come to know him so4 ,henry ,ward ,beecher once said that a text is a small gate into a large field where one can wander about as he pleases1 and that the trouble with most ministers is that they spend all their time swinging on the gate4 ,that same figure applies to the entrance which many of us made into the ,christian experience4 ,some of us came in by the gate of personal religion1 and we have been swinging on it ever since2 and some of us came in by the gate of social passion for the regeneration of the world1 and we have been swinging on that gate ever since4 ,we both are wrong4 ,these are two gates into the same city1 and it is the city of our ,god4 ,it would be one of the greatest blessings to the ,christian church both at home and on the foreign field if we could come together on this question where separation is so needless and so foolish4 ,if some of us started with emphasis upon personal religion1 we have no business to stop until we understand the meaning of social ,christianity4 ,if some of us started with emphasis upon the social campaign1 we have no business to rest until we learn the deep secrets of personal religion4 ,the redemption of personality is the great aim of the ,christian ,gospel1 and1 therefore1 to inspire the inner lives of men and to lift outward burdens which impede their spiritual growth are both alike ,christian service to bring in the ,kingdom4 #a ,leo ,m4 ,tolstoi3 ,my ,religion1 ,introduction1 p4 ix4 #b ,d4 ,crawford3 ,thinking ,black1 pp4 #ddd-dde4 #c ,l4 ,c4 ,f4 ,lactantius3 ,the ,divine ,institutes1 ,book ,v1 ,chap4 xv1 xvi4 #d ,gregory the ,great3 ,moralium ,libri1 ,pars quarta1 ,lib4 ,,xxi1 ,caput ,,xv--,omnes namque homines natura aequales sumus4 ,,lecture ,,iv ,,progressive ,,christianity ,i ,hitherto in the development of our thought1 we have been considering the ,christian ,gospel as an entity set in the midst of a progressive world1 and we have been studying the new ,christian attitudes which this influential environment has been eliciting4 ,the ,gospel has been in our thought like an individual who1 finding himself in novel circumstances1 reacts toward them in ways appropriate alike to them and to his own character4 ,the influence of the idea of progress upon ,christianity1 however1 is more penetrating than such a figure can adequately portray4 ,for no one can long ponder the significance of our generation's progressive ways of thinking without running straight upon this question3 is not ,christianity itself progressive8 ,in the midst of a changing world does not it also change1 so that1 reacting upon the new ideas of progress1 it not only assimilates and uses them1 but is itself an illustration of them8 ,where everything else in man's life in its origin and growth is conceived1 not in terms of static and final creation or revelation1 but in terms of development1 can religion be left out8 ,instead of being a pond around which once for all a man can walk and take its measure1 a final and completed whole1 is not ,christianity a river which1 maintaining still reliance upon the historic springs from which it flows1 gathers in new tributaries on its course and is itself a changing1 growing and progressive movement8 ,the question is inevitable in any study of the relationship between the ,gospel and progress1 and its implications are so far-reaching that it deserves our careful thought4 ,certainly it is clear that already modern ideas of progress have had so penetrating an influence upon ,christianity as to affect1 not its external reactions and methods only1 nor yet its intellectual formulations alone1 but deeper still its very mood and inward temper4 ,whether or not ,christianity ought to be a changing movement in a changing world1 it certainly has been that and is so still1 and the change can be seen going on now in the very atmosphere in which it lives and moves and has its being4 ,for example1 consider the attitude of resignation to the will of ,god1 which was characteristic of medieval ,christianity4 ,as we saw in our first lecture1 the medieval age did not think of human life upon this earth in terms of progress4 ,the hopes of men did not revolve about any ,utopia to be expected here4 ,history was not even a glacier1 moving slowly toward the sunny meadows4 ,it did not move at all2 it was not intended to move2 it was standing still4 ,to be sure1 the thirteenth century was one of the greatest in the annals of the race4 ,in it the foremost ,european universities were founded1 the sublimest ,gothic cathedrals were built1 some of the world's finest works of handicraft were made2 in it ,cimabue and ,giotto painted1 ,dante wrote1 ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas philosophized1 and ,st4 ,francis of ,assisi lived4 ,the motives1 however1 which originated and sustained this magnificent outburst of creative energy were otherworldly--they were not concerned with anticipations of a happier lot for humankind upon this earth4 ,the medieval age did not believe that man's estate upon the earth ever would be fundamentally improved1 and in consequence took the only reasonable attitude1 resignation4 ,when famines came1 ,god sent them2 they were punishment for sin2 his will be done6 ,when wars came1 they were the flails of ,god to thresh his people2 his will be done6 ,men were resigned to slavery on the ground that ,god had made men to be masters and slaves4 ,they were resigned to feudalism and absolute monarchy on the ground that ,god had made men to be rulers and ruled4 ,whatever was had been ordained by the ,divine or had been allowed by him in punishment for man's iniquity4 ,to rebel was sin2 to doubt was heresy2 to submit was piety4 ,the ,hebrew prophets had not been resigned1 nor ,jesus ,christ1 nor ,paul4 ,the whole ,new ,testament blazes with the hope of the kingdom of righteousness coming upon earth4 ,but the medieval age was resigned4 ,its real expectations were post-mortem hopes4 ,so far as this earth was concerned1 men must submit4 ,to be sure1 in those inner experiences where we must endure what we cannot help1 resignation will always characterize a deeply religious life4 ,all life is not under our control1 to be freely mastered by our thought and toil4 ,there are areas where scientific knowledge gives us power to do amazing things1 but all around them are other areas which our hands cannot regulate4 ,orion and the ,pleiades were not made for our fingers to swing1 and our engineering does not change sunrise or sunset nor make the planets one whit less or more4 ,so1 in the experiences of our inward life1 around the realm which we can control is that other realm where move the mysterious providences of ,god1 beyond our power to understand and as uncontrollable by us as the tides are by the fish that live in them4 ,captain ,scott found the ,south ,pole1 only to discover that another man had been there first4 ,when1 on his return from the disappointing quest1 the pitiless cold1 the endless blizzards1 the failing food1 had worn down the strength of the little company and in their tent amid the boundless desolation they waited for the end while the life flames burned low1 ,captain ,scott wrote3 ,i do not regret this journey4 4 4 4 ,we took risks1 we knew we took them2 things have come out against us1 and therefore we have no cause for complaint1 but bow to the will of ,providence1 determined still to do our best to the last4 #a ,that is resignation at its noblest4 ,when1 however1 a modern ,christian tries to do what the medieval ,christians did--make this attitude of resignation cover the whole field of life1 make it the dominant element in their religion1 the proof of their trust and the test of their piety--he finds himself separated from the most characteristic and stirring elements in his generation4 ,we are not resigned anywhere else4 ,everywhere else we count it our pride and glory to be unresigned4 ,we are not resigned even to a thorny cactus1 whose spiky exterior seems a convincing argument against its use for food4 ,when we see a barren plain we do not say as our fathers did3 ,god made plains so in his inscrutable wisdom2 his will be done6 ,we call for irrigation and1 when the fructifying waters flow1 we say1 ,thy will be done6 in the way we think ,god wishes to have it said4 ,we do not passively submit to ,god's will2 we actively assert it4 ,the scientific control of life at this point has deeply changed our religious mood4 ,we are not resigned to pestilences and already have plans drawn up to make the yellow fever germ as extinct as the woolly rhinoceros4 ,we are not even resigned to the absence of wireless telephony when once we have imagined its presence1 or to the inconvenience of slow methods of travel when once we have invented swift ones4 ,not to illiteracy nor to child labour nor to the white plague nor to commercialized vice nor to recurrent unemployment are we1 at our best1 resigned4 ,this change of mood did not come easily4 ,so strongly did the medieval spirit of resignation1 submissive in a static world1 keep its grip upon the ,church that the ,church often defiantly withstood the growth of this unresigned attitude of which we have been speaking and in which we glory4 ,lightning rods were vehemently denounced by many ministers as an unwarranted interference with ,god's use of lightning4 ,when ,god hit a house he meant to hit it2 his will be done6 ,this attitude1 thus absurdly applied1 had in more important realms a lamentable consequence4 ,the campaign of ,christian missions to foreign lands was bitterly fought in wide areas of the ,christian ,church because if ,god intended to damn the heathen he should be allowed to do so without interference from us2 his will be done6 ,as for slavery1 the last defense which it had in this country was on religious grounds3 that ,god had ordained it and that it was blasphemous to oppose his ordination4 ,in a word1 this spirit of passive resignation has been so deeply ingrained in religious thinking that it has become oftentimes a serious reproach to ,christian people4 ,now1 however1 the mood of modern ,christianity is decisively in contrast with that medieval spirit4 ,moreover1 we think that we are close to the ,master in this attitude1 for whatever difference in outward form of expectation there may be between his day and ours1 when he said3 ,thy kingdom come4 ,thy will be done1 as in heaven1 so on earth1 that was not passive submission to ,god's will but an aggressive prayer for the victory of ,god and righteousness2 it was not lying down under the will of ,god as something to be endured1 but active loyalty to the will of ,god as something to be achieved4 ,to be resigned to evil conditions on this earth is in our eyes close to essential sin4 ,if any one who calls himself a conservative ,christian doubts his share in this anti-medieval spirit1 let him test himself and see4 ,in #ahcf the ,rev4 ,leonard ,wood1 ,d4 ,d41 wrote down this interesting statement3 ,i remember when ,i could reckon up among my acquaintances forty ministers1 and none of them at a great distance1 who were either drunkards or far addicted to drinking4 ,i could mention an ordination which took place about twenty years ago at which ,i myself was ashamed and grieved to see two aged ministers literally drunk1 and a third indecently excited4 #b ,our forefathers were resigned to that1 but we are not4 ,the most conservative of us so hates the colossal abomination of the liquor traffic1 that we do not propose to cease our fight until victory has been won4 ,we are belligerently unresigned4 ,or when militarism proves itself an intolerable curse1 we do not count it a divine punishment and prepare ourselves to make the best of its continuance4 ,we propose to end it4 ,militarism1 which in days of peace cries1 ,build me vast armaments1 spend enough upon a single dreadnaught to remake the educational system of a whole state2 militarism1 which in the days of war cries1 ,give me your best youth to slay1 leave the crippled and defective to propagate the race1 give me your best to slay2 militarism1 which lays its avaricious hand on every new invention to make gregarious death more swift and terrible1 and when war is over makes the starved bodies of innumerable children walk in its train for pageantry1--we are not resigned to that4 ,we count it our ,christian duty to be tirelessly unresigned4 ,here is a new mood in ,christianity1 born out of the scientific control of life and the modern ideas of progress1 and1 however consonant it may be with the spirit of the ,new ,testament1 it exhibits in the nature of its regulative conceptions and in its earthly hopes a transformation within ,christianity which penetrates deep4 ,progressive change is not simply an environment to which ,christianity conforms2 it is a fact which ,christianity exhibits4 ,,ii ,this idea that ,christianity is itself a progressive movement instead of a static finality involves some serious alterations in the historic conceptions of the faith1 as soon as it is applied to theology4 ,very early in ,christian history the presence of conflicting heresies led the church to define its faith in creeds and then to regard these as final formulations of ,christian doctrine1 incapable of amendment or addition4 ,tertullian1 about #bjd ,a4 ,d41 spoke of the creedal standard of his day as a rule of faith changeless and incapable of reformation4 #c ,from that day until our own1 when a ,roman ,catholic ,council has decreed that the definitions of the ,roman ,pontiff are unchangeable1 #d an unalterable character has been ascribed to the dogmas of the ,church of ,rome4 ,indeed1 ,pius ,,ix1 in his ,syllabus of ,errors1 specifically condemned the modern idea that ,divine revelation is imperfect1 and1 therefore1 subject to continual and indefinite progress1 which corresponds with the progress of human reason4 #e ,nor did ,protestantism1 with all the reformation which it wrought1 attack this central ,catholic conception of a changeless content and formulation of faith4 ,not what the ,pope said1 but what the ,bible said1 was by ,protestants unalterably to be received4 ,change there might be in the sense that unrealized potentialities involved in the original deposit might be brought to light--a kind of development which not only ,protestants but ,catholics like ,cardinal ,newman have willingly allowed--but whatever had once been stated as the content of faith by the received authorities was by both ,catholics and ,protestants regarded as unalterably so4 ,in the one case1 if the ,pope had once defined a dogma1 it was changeless2 in the other1 if the ,bible had once formulated a pre-scientific cosmology1 or used demoniacal possession as an explanation of disease1 or personified evil in a devil1 all such mental categories were changelessly to be received4 ,in its popular forms this conception of ,christianity assumes extreme rigidity--,christianity is a static system finally formulated1 a deposit to be accepted in toto if at all1 not to be added to1 not to be subtracted from1 not to be changed1 its i's all dotted and its t's all crossed4 ,the most crucial problem which we face in our religious thinking is created by the fact that ,christianity thus statically conceived now goes out into a generation where no other aspect of life is conceived in static terms at all4 ,the earth itself on which we live1 not by fiat suddenly enacted1 but by long and gradual processes1 became habitable1 and man upon it through uncounted ages grew out of an unknown past into his present estate4 ,everything within man's life has grown1 is growing1 and apparently will grow4 ,music developed from crude forms of rhythmic noise until now1 by way of ,bach1 ,beethoven and ,wagner1 our modern music1 still developing1 has grown to forms of harmony at first undreamed4 ,painting developed from the rough outlines of the cavemen until now possibilities of expression in line and colour have been achieved whose full expansion we cannot guess4 ,architecture evolved from the crude huts of primitive man until now our cathedrals and our new business buildings alike mark an incalculable advance and prophesy an unimaginable future4 ,one may refuse to call all development real progress1 may insist upon degeneration as well as betterment through change1 but1 even so1 the basic fact remains that all the elements which go to make man's life come into being1 are what they are1 and pass out of what they are into something different1 through processes of continual growth4 ,our business methods change until the commercial wisdom of a few years ago may be the folly of to-day2 our moral ideals change until actions once respectable become reprobate1 and the heroes of one generation would be the convicts of another2 our science changes until ideas that men once were burned at the stake for entertaining are now the commonplace axioms of every school boy's thought2 our economics change until schools of thought shaped to old industrial conditions are as outmoded as a one-horse shay beside an automobile2 our philosophy changes like our science when ,kant1 for example1 starts a revolution in man's thinking1 worthy1 as he claimed1 to be called ,copernican2 our cultural habits change until marooned communities in the ,kentucky mountains1 our contemporary ancestors1 having let the stream of human life flow around and past them1 seem as strange to us as a belated what-not in a modern parlour4 ,the perception of this fact of progressive change is one of the regnant influences in our modern life and1 strangely enough1 so far from disliking it1 we glory in it2 in our expectancy we count on change2 with our control of life we seek to direct it4 ,indeed no more remarkable difference distinguishes the modern world from all that went before than its attitude toward change itself4 ,the medieval world idealized changelessness4 ,its very astronomy was the apotheosis of the unalterable4 ,the earth1 a globe full of mutation and decay2 around it eight transparent spheres carrying the heavenly bodies1 each outer sphere moving more slowly than its inner neighbour1 while the ninth1 moving most slowly of all1 moved all the rest2 last of all1 the empyrean1 blessed with changeless1 motionless perfection1 the abode of ,god--such was the ,ptolemaic astronomy as ,dante knew it4 ,this idealization of changelessness was the common property of all that by gone world4 ,the ,holy ,roman ,empire was the endeavour to perpetuate a changeless idea of political theory and organization2 the ,holy ,catholic ,church was the endeavour to perpetuate a changeless formulation of religious dogma and hierarchy2 the ,summa of ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas was the endeavour to settle forever changeless paths for the human mind to walk in4 ,to that ancient world as a whole the perfect was the finished1 and therefore it was immutable4 ,how different our modern attitude toward change has come to be6 ,we believe in change1 rely on it1 hope for it1 rejoice in it1 are determined to achieve it and control it4 ,nowhere is this more evident than in our thought of the meaning of knowledge4 ,in the medieval age knowledge was spun as a spider spins his web4 ,thinking simply made evident what already was involved in an accepted proposition4 ,a premise was drawn out into its filaments and then woven into a fabric of new form but of the same old material4 ,knowledge did not start from actual things2 it did not intend to change actual things2 and the shelves of the libraries groan with the burden of that endless and largely futile cogitation4 ,then the new knowledge began from the observation of things as they really are and from the use of that observation for the purposes of human life4 ,once a lad1 seventeen years old1 went into the cathedral at ,pisa to worship4 ,soon he forgot the service and watched a chandelier1 swinging from the lofty roof4 ,he wondered whether1 no matter how changeable the length of its arc1 its oscillations always consumed the same time and1 because he had no other means1 he timed its motion by the beating of his pulse4 ,that was one time when a boy went to church and did well to forget the service4 ,he soon began to wonder whether he could not make a pendulum which1 swinging like the chandeliers1 would do useful business for men4 ,he soon began to discover1 in what he had seen that day1 new light on the laws of planetary motion4 ,that was one of the turning points in human history--the boy was ,galileo4 ,the consequences of this new method are all around us now4 ,the test of knowledge in modern life is capacity to cause change4 ,if a man really knows electricity he can cause change2 he can illumine cities and drive cars4 ,if a man really knows engineering1 he can cause change2 he can tunnel rivers and bridge gulfs4 ,it is for that purpose we wish knowledge4 ,instead of being dreaded1 controlled change has become the chief desire of modern life4 ,when1 therefore1 in this generation with its perception of growth as the universal law and with its dependence upon controlled change as the hope of man1 ,christianity endeavours to glorify changelessness and to maintain itself in unalterable formulations1 it has outlawed itself from its own age4 ,an ,indian punkah-puller1 urged by his mistress to better his condition1 replied3 ,mem ,sahib1 my father pulled a punkah1 my grandfather pulled a punkah1 all my ancestors for four million ages pulled punkahs1 and1 before that1 the god who founded our caste pulled a punkah over ,vishnu4 ,how utterly lost such a man would be in the dynamic movements of our modern ,western life6--yet not more lost than is a ,christianity which tries to remain static in a progressive world4 ,,iii ,among the influences which have forced well-instructed minds first to accept and then to glory in the progressive nature of ,christianity1 the first place must be given to the history of religion itself4 ,the study of religion's ancient records in ritual1 monument and book1 and of primitive faiths still existing among us in all stages of development1 has made clear the general course which man's religious life has traveled from very childish beginnings until now4 ,from early animism in its manifold expressions1 through polytheism1 kathenotheism1 henotheism1 to monotheism1 and so out into loftier possibilities of conceiving the divine nature and purpose--the main road which man has traveled in his religious development now is traceable4 ,nor is there any place where it is more easily traceable than in our own ,hebrew-,christian tradition4 ,one of the fine results of the historical study of the ,scriptures is the possibility which now exists of arranging the manuscripts of the ,bible in approximately chronological order and then tracing through them the unfolding growth of the faiths and hopes which come to their flower in the ,gospel of ,christ4 ,consider1 for example1 the exhilarating story of the developing conception of ,jehovah's character from the time he was worshiped as a mountain-god in the desert until he became known as the ,god and ,father of our ,lord ,jesus ,christ4 ,we are explicitly told that the history of ,jehovah's relationship with ,israel began at ,sinai and that before that time the ,hebrew fathers had never even heard his name4#f ,there on a mountain-top in the ,sinaitic wilderness dwelt this new-found god1 so anthropomorphically conceived that he could hide ,moses in a rock's cleft from which the prophet could not see ,jehovah's face but could see his back4#g ,he was a god of battle and the name of an old book about him still remains to us1 ,the book of the ,wars of ,jehovah4 #h ,jehovah is a man of war3 ,jehovah is his name--#i so his people at first rejoiced in him and gloried in his power when he thundered and lightened on ,sinai4 ,few stories in man's spiritual history are so interesting as the record of the way in which this mountain-god1 for the first time1 so far as we know1 in ,semitic history1 left his settled shrine1 traveled with his people in the holy ,ark1 became acclimated in ,canaan1 and1 gradually absorbing the functions of the old baals of the land1 extended his sovereignty over the whole of ,palestine4 ,to be sure1 even then he still was thought of1 as all ancient gods were thought of1 as geographically limited to the country whose god he was4 ,milcolm and ,chemosh were real gods too1 ruling in ,philistia and ,moab as ,jehovah did in ,canaan4 ,this is the meaning of ,jephthah's protest to a hostile chieftain3 ,wilt not thou possess that which ,chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess8 #aj ,this is the meaning of ,david's protest when he is driven out to the ,philistine cities3 ,they have driven me out this day that ,i should not cleave unto the inheritance of ,jehovah1 saying1 ,go1 serve other gods4 #aa ,this is the meaning of ,naaman's desire to have two mules' burden of ,jehovah's land on which to worship ,jehovah in ,damascus4#ab ,jehovah could be worshiped only on ,jehovah's land4 ,but ever as the day of fuller understanding dawned1 the sovereignty of ,jehovah widened and his power usurped the place and function of all other gods4 ,amos saw him using the nations as his pawns2 ,isaiah heard him whistling to the nations as a shepherd to his dogs2 ,jeremiah heard him cry1 ,can any hide himself in secret places so that ,i shall not see him8 4 4 4 ,do not ,i fill heaven and earth8 #ac2 until at last we sweep out1 through the exile and all the heightening of faith and clarifying of thought that came with it1 into the ,great ,isaiah's #djth chapter on the universal and absolute sovereignty of ,god1 into the ,priestly narrative of creation1 where ,god makes all things with a word1 into psalms which cry1 ,for all the gods of the people are idols2 ,but ,jehovah made the heavens4 #ad ,moreover1 as ,jehovah's sovereignty thus is enlarged until he is the ,god of all creation1 his character too is deepened and exalted in the understanding of his people4 ,that noblest succession of moral teachers in ancient history1 the ,hebrew prophets1 developed a conception of the nature of ,god in terms of righteousness1 so broad in its outreach1 so high in its quality1 that as one mounts through ,amos' fifth chapter and ,isaiah's first chapter and ,jeremiah's seventh chapter1 he finds himself1 like ,moses on ,nebo's top1 looking over into the ,promised ,land of the ,new ,testament4 ,there this development flowers out under the influence of ,jesus4 ,god's righteousness is interpreted1 not in terms of justice only1 but of compassionate1 sacrificial love2 his ,fatherhood embraces not only all mankind but each individual1 lifting him out of obscurity in the mass into infinite worthfulness and hope4 ,and more than this development of idea1 the ,new ,testament gives us a new picture of ,god in the personality of ,jesus1 and we see the light of the knowledge of ,god's glory in his face4 ,moreover1 this development1 so plainly recorded in ,scripture1 was not unconsciously achieved by the drift of circumstance2 it represents the ardent desire of forward-looking men1 inspired by the ,spirit4 ,the ,master1 himself1 was consciously pleading for a progressive movement in the religious life and thinking of his day4 ,a static religion was the last thing he ever dreamed of or wanted4 ,no one was more reverent than he toward his people's past2 his thought and his speech were saturated with the beauty of his race's heritage2 yet consider his words as again and again they fell from his lips3 ,it was said to them of old time 4 4 4 but ,i say unto you4 ,his life was rooted in the past but it was not imprisoned there2 it grew up out of the past1 not destroying but fulfilling it4 ,he had in him the spirit of the prophets1 who once had spoken to his people in words of fire2 but old forms that he thought had been outgrown he brushed aside4 ,he would not have his ,gospel a patch on an old garment1 he said1 nor would he put it like new wine into old wineskins4 ,he appealed from the oral traditions of the elders to the written law2 within the written law he distinguished between ceremonial and ethical elements1 making the former of small or no account1 the latter all-important2 and then within the written ethical law he waived provisions that seemed to him outmoded by time4 ,even when he bade farewell to his disciples1 he did not talk to them as if what he himself had said were a finished system3 ,i have yet many things to say unto you1 but ye cannot bear them now4 ,howbeit when he1 the ,spirit of truth1 is come1 he shall guide you into all the truth4 ,in ,paul's hands the work which ,jesus began went on4 ,he dared an adventurous move that makes much of our modern progressiveness look like child's play3 he lifted the ,christian churches out of the narrow1 religious exclusiveness of the ,hebrew synagogue4 ,he dared to wage battle for the new idea that ,christianity was not a ,jewish sect but a universal religion4 ,he withstood to his face ,peter1 still trammeled in the narrowness of his ,jewish thinking1 and he founded churches across the ,roman ,empire where was neither ,jew nor ,greek1 barbarian1 ,scythian1 male nor female1 bond nor free1 but all were one man in ,christ ,jesus4 ,even more thrilling were those later days when in ,ephesus the writer of the ,fourth ,gospel faced a ,hellenistic audience1 to whom the forms of thought in which ,jesus hitherto had been interpreted were utterly unreal4 ,the first creed about ,jesus proclaimed that he was the ,messiah1 but ,messiah was a ,jewish term and to the folk of ,ephesus it had no vital meaning4 ,john could not go on calling the ,master that and that alone1 when he had hungry souls before him who needed the ,master but to whom ,jewish terms had no significance4 ,one thing those folk of ,ephesus did understand1 the idea of the ,logos4 ,they had heard of that from the many faiths whose pure or syncretized forms made the religious background of their time4 ,they knew about the ,logos from ,zoroastrianism1 where beside ,ahura ,mazdah stood ,vohu ,manah1 the ,mind of ,god2 from ,stoicism1 at the basis of whose philosophy lay the idea of the ,logos2 from ,alexandrian ,hellenism1 by means of which a ,jew like ,philo had endeavoured to marry ,greek philosophy and ,hebrew orthodoxy4 ,and the writer of the ,fourth ,gospel used that new form of thought in which to present to his people the personality of our ,lord4 ,in the beginning was the ,logos1 and the ,logos was with ,god1 and the ,logos was ,god--so begins the ,fourth ,gospel's prologue1 in words that every intelligent person in ,ephesus could understand and was familiar with1 and that initial sermon in the book1 for it is a sermon1 not philosophy1 moves on in forms of thought which the people knew about and habitually used1 until the hidden purpose comes to light3 ,the ,logos became flesh and dwelt among us 7and we beheld his glory1 glory as of the only begotten from the ,father71 full of grace and truth4 ,john was presenting his ,lord to the people of his time in terms that the people could understand4 ,even within the ,new ,testament1 therefore1 there is no static creed4 ,for1 like a flowing river1 the ,church's thought of her ,lord shaped itself to the intellectual banks of the generation through which it moved1 even while1 by its construction and erosion1 it transfigured them4 ,nor did this movement cease with ,new ,testament days4 ,from the ,johannine idea of the ,logos to the ,nicene ,creed1 where our ,lord is set in the framework of ,greek metaphysics1 the development is just as clear as from the category of ,jewish ,messiah to the categories of the ,fourth ,gospel4 ,and if1 in our generation1 a conservative scholar like the late ,dr4 ,sanday pleaded for the necessity of a new ,christology1 it was not because he was primarily zealous for a novel philosophy1 but because like ,john of old in ,ephesus he was zealous to present ,christ to his own generation in terms that his own generation could comprehend4#ae ,,iv ,undoubtedly such an outlook upon the fluid nature of the ,christian movement will demand readjustment in the religious thinking of many people4 ,they miss the old ideas about revelation4 ,this new progressiveness seems to them to be merely the story of man's discovery1 finding ,god1 here a little and there a little1 as he has found the truths of astronomy4 ,but ,god's revelation of himself is just as real when it is conceived in progressive as when it is conceived in static terms4 ,men once thought of ,god's creation of the world in terms of fiat--it was done on the instant2 and when evolution was propounded men cried that the progressive method shut ,god out4 ,we see now how false that fear was4 ,the creative activity of ,god never was so nobly conceived as it has been since we have known the story of his slow unfolding of the universe4 ,we have a grander picture in our minds than even the psalmist had1 when we say after him1 ,the heavens declare the glory of ,god4 ,so men who have been accustomed to think of revelation in static terms1 now that the long leisureliness of man's developing spiritual insight is apparent1 fear that this does away with revelation4 ,but in ,god's unfolding education of his people recorded in the ,scriptures revelation is at its noblest4 ,no man ever found ,god except when ,god was seeking to be found4 ,discovery is the under side of the process2 the upper side is revelation4 ,indeed1 this conception of progressive revelation does not shut out finality4 ,in scientific thought1 which continually moves and grows1 expands and changes1 truths are discovered once for all4 ,the work of ,copernicus is in a real sense final4 ,this earth does move2 it is not stationary2 and the universe is not geocentric4 ,that discovery is final4 ,many developments start from that1 but the truth itself is settled once for all4 ,so1 in the spiritual history of man1 final revelations come4 ,they will not have to be made over again and they will not have to be given up4 ,progress does not shut out finality2 it only makes each new finality a point of departure for a new adventure1 not a terminus ad quem for a conclusive stop4 ,that ,god was in ,christ reconciling the world unto himself is for the ,christian a finality1 but1 from the day the first disciples saw its truth until now1 the intellectual formulations in which it has been set and the mental categories by which it has been interpreted have changed with the changes of each age's thought4 ,while at first1 then1 a progressive ,christianity may seem to plunge us into unsettlement1 the more one studies it the less he would wish it otherwise4 ,who would accept a snapshot taken at any point on the road of ,christian development as the final and perfect form of ,christianity8 ,robert ,louis ,stevenson has drawn for us a picture of a man trying with cords and pegs to stake out the shadow of an oak tree1 expecting that when he had marked its boundaries the shadow would stay within the limits of the pegs4 ,yet all the while the mighty globe was turning around in space4 ,he could not keep a tree's shadow static on a moving earth4 ,nevertheless1 multitudes of people in their endeavour to build up an infallibly settled creed have tried just such a hopeless task4 ,they forget that while a revelation from ,god might conceivably be final and complete1 religion deals with a revelation of ,god4 ,god1 the infinite and eternal1 from everlasting to everlasting1 the source and crown and destiny of all the universe--shall a man whose days are as grass rise up to say that he has made a statement about him which will not need to be revised8 ,rather1 our prayer should be that the thought of ,god1 the meaning of ,god1 the glory of ,god1 the plans and purpose of ,god may expand in our comprehension until we1 who now see in a mirror1 darkly1 may see face to face4 ,le ,dieu dfini est le ,dieu fini4 ,this mistaken endeavour1 in the interest of stability1 to make a vital movement static is not confined to religion4 ,those of us who love ,wagner remember the lesson of ,die ,meistersinger4 ,down in ,nuremberg they had standardized and conventionalized music4 ,they had set it down in rules and men like ,beckmesser could not imagine that there was any music permissible outside the regulations4 ,then came ,walter von ,stolzing4 ,music to him was not a conventionality but a passion--not a rule1 but a life--and1 when he sang1 his melodies reached heights of beauty that ,beckmesser's rules did not provide for4 ,it was ,walter von ,stolzing who sang the ,prize ,song1 and as the hearts of the people were stirred in answer to its spontaneous melody1 until all the population of ,nuremberg were singing its accumulating harmonies1 poor ,beckmesser on his blackboard jotted down the rules which were being broken4 ,beckmesser represents a static conception of life which endeavours to freeze progress at a given point and call it infallible4 ,but ,beckmesser is wrong4 ,you cannot take things like music and religion and set them down in final rules and regulations4 ,they are life1 and you have to let them grow and flower and expand and reveal evermore the latent splendour at their heart4 ,v ,obviously1 the point where this progressive conception of ,christianity comes into conflict with many widely accepted ideas is the abandonment which it involves of an external and inerrant authority in matters of religion4 ,the marvel is that that idea of authority1 which is one of the historic curses of religion1 should be regarded by so many as one of the vital necessities of the faith4 ,the fact is that religion by its very nature is one of the realms to which external authority is least applicable4 ,in science people commonly suppose that they do not take truth on any one's authority2 they prove it4 ,in business they do not accept methods on authority2 they work them out4 ,in statesmanship they no longer believe in the divine right of kings nor do they accept infallible dicta handed down from above4 ,but they think that religion is delivered to them by authority and that they believe what they do believe because a divine ,church or a divine ,book or a divine ,man told them4 ,in this common mode of thinking1 popular ideas have the truth turned upside down4 ,the fact is that science1 not religion1 is the realm where most of all we use external authority4 ,they tell us that there are millions of solar systems scattered through the fields of space4 ,is that true8 ,how do we know8 ,we never counted them4 ,we know only what the authorities say4 ,they tell us that the next great problem in science is breaking up the atom to discover the incalculable resources of power there waiting to be harnessed by our skill4 ,is that true8 ,most of us do not understand what an atom is1 and what it means to break one up passes the farthest reach of our imaginations2 all we know is what the authorities say4 ,they tell us that electricity is a mode of motion in ether4 ,is that true8 ,most of us have no first hand knowledge about electricity4 ,the motorman calls it juice and that means as much to us as to call it a mode of motion in ether2 we must rely on the authorities4 ,they tell us that sometime we are going to talk through wireless telephones across thousands of miles1 so that no man need ever be out of vocal communication with his family and friends4 ,is that true8 ,it seems to us an incredible miracle1 but we suppose that it is so1 as the authorities say4 ,in a word1 the idea that we do not use authority in science is absurd4 ,science is precisely the place where nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand use authority the most4 ,the chemistry1 biology1 geology1 astronomy which the authorities teach is the only science which most of us possess4 ,there is another realm1 however1 where we never think of taking such an attitude4 ,they tell us that friendship is beautiful4 ,is that true8 ,would we ever think of saying that we do not know1 ourselves1 but that we rely on the authorities8 ,far better to say that our experience with friendship has been unhappy and that we personally question its utility6 ,that1 at least1 would have an accent of personal1 original experience in it4 ,for here we are facing a realm where we never can enter at all until we enter1 each man for himself4 ,two realms exist1 therefore1 in each of which first-hand experience is desirable1 but in only one of which it is absolutely indispensable4 ,we can live on what the authorities in physics say1 but there are no proxies for the soul4 ,love1 friendship1 delight in music and in nature1 parental affection--these things are like eating and breathing2 no one can do them for us2 we must enter the experience for ourselves4 ,religion1 too1 belongs in this last realm4 ,the one vital thing in religion is first-hand1 personal experience4 ,religion is the most intimate1 inward1 incommunicable fellowship of the human soul4 ,in the words of ,plotinus1 religion is the flight of the alone to the ,alone4 ,you never know ,god at all until you know him for yourself4 ,the only ,god you ever will know is the ,god you do know for yourself4 ,this does not mean1 of course1 that there are no authorities in religion4 ,there are authorities in everything1 but the function of an authority in religion1 as in every other vital realm1 is not to take the place of our eyes1 seeing in our stead and inerrantly declaring to us what it sees2 the function of an authority is to bring to us the insight of the world's accumulated wisdom and the revelations of ,god's seers1 and so to open our eyes that we may see1 each man for himself4 ,so an authority in literature does not say to his students3 ,the ,merchant of ,venice is a great drama2 you may accept my judgment on that--,i know4 ,upon the contrary1 he opens their eyes2 he makes them see2 he makes their hearts sensitive so that the genius which made ,shylock and ,portia live captivates and subdues them1 until like the ,samaritans they say1 ,now we believe1 not because of thy speaking3 for we have heard for ourselves1 and know4 ,that is the only use of authority in a vital1 realm4 ,it can lead us up to the threshold of a great experience where we must enter1 each man for himself1 and that service to the spiritual life is the ,bible's inestimable gift4 ,at the beginning1 ,christianity was just such a first-hand experience as we have described4 ,the ,christian fellowship consisted of a group of men keeping company with ,jesus and learning how to live4 ,they had no creeds to recite when they met together2 what they believed was still an unstereotyped passion in their hearts4 ,they had no sacraments to distinguish their faith--baptism had been a ,jewish rite and even the ,lord's ,supper was an informal use of bread and wine1 the common elements of their daily meal4 ,they had no organizations to join2 they never dreamed that the ,christian ,gospel would build a church outside the synagogue4 ,christianity in the beginning was an intensely personal experience4 ,then the ,master went away and the tremendous forces of human life and history laid hold on the movement which so vitally he had begun4 ,his followers began building churches4 ,just as the ,wesleyans had to leave the ,church of ,england1 not because they wanted to1 but because the ,anglicans would not keep them1 so the ,christians1 not because they planned to1 but because the synagogue was not large enough to hold them1 had to leave the synagogue4 ,they began building creeds2 they had to4 ,every one of the first ,christian creeds was written in sheer self-defense4 ,if we had been ,christians in those first centuries1 when a powerful movement was under way called ,gnosticism1 which denied that ,god1 the ,father ,almighty1 had made both the heaven and the earth1 which said that ,god had made heaven indeed but that a demigod had made the world1 and which denied that ,jesus had been born in the flesh and in the flesh had died1 we would have done what the first ,christians did3 we would have defined in a creed what it was the ,christians did believe as against that wild conglomeration of ,oriental mythology that ,gnosticism was1 and we would have shouted the creed as a war cry against the ,gnostics4 ,that is what the so-called ,apostles' ,creed was--the first ,christian battle chant1 a militant proclamation of the historic faith against the heretics2 and every one of its declarations met with a head-on collision some claim of ,gnosticism4 ,then1 too1 the early ,christians drew up rituals2 they had to4 ,we cannot keep any spiritual thing in human life1 even the spirit of courtesy1 as a disembodied wraith4 ,we ritualize it--we bow1 we take off our hats1 we shake hands1 we rise when a lady enters4 ,we have innumerable ways of expressing politeness in a ritual4 ,neither could they have kept so deep and beautiful a thing as the ,christian life without such expression4 ,so historic ,christianity grew1 organized1 creedalized1 ritualized4 ,and ever as it grew1 a peril grew with it1 for there were multitudes of people who joined these organizations1 recited these creeds1 observed these rituals1 took all the secondary and derived elements of ,christianity1 but often forgot that vital thing which all this was meant in the first place to express3 a first-hand1 personal experience of ,god in ,christ4 ,that alone is vital in ,christianity2 all the rest is once or twice or thrice removed from life4 ,for ,christianity is not a creed1 nor an organization1 nor a ritual4 ,these are important but they are secondary4 ,they are the leaves1 not the roots2 they are the wires1 not the message4 ,christianity itself is a life4 ,if1 however1 ,christianity is thus a life1 we cannot stereotype its expressions in set and final forms4 ,if it is a life in fellowship with the living ,god1 it will think new thoughts1 build new organizations1 expand into new symbolic expressions4 ,we cannot at any given time write finis after its development4 ,we can no more keep the faith by stopping its growth than we can keep a son by insisting on his being forever a child4 ,the progressiveness of ,christianity is not simply its response to a progressive age2 the progressiveness of ,christianity springs from its own inherent vitality4 ,so far is this from being regrettable1 that a modern ,christian rejoices in it and gladly recognizes not only that he is thinking thoughts and undertaking enterprises which his fathers would not have understood1 but also that his children after him will differ quite as much in teaching and practice from the modernity of to-day4 ,it has been the fashion to regard this changeableness with wistful regret4 ,so ,wordsworth sings in his sonnet on ,mutability3 ,truth fails not2 but her outward forms that bear ,the longest date do melt like frosty rime1 ,that in the morning whitened hill and plain ,and is no more2 drop like the tower sublime ,of yesterday1 which royally did wear ,its crown of weeds1 but could not even sustain ,some casual shout that broke the silent air1 ,or the unimaginable touch of ,time4 ,such wistfulness1 however1 while a natural sentiment1 is not true to the best ,christian thought of our day4 ,he who believes in the living ,god1 while he will be far from calling all change progress1 and while he will1 according to his judgment1 withstand perverse changes with all his might1 will also regard the cessation of change as the greatest calamity that could befall religion4 ,stagnation in thought or enterprise means death for ,christianity as certainly as it does for any other vital movement4 ,stagnation1 not change1 is ,christianity's most deadly enemy1 for this is a progressive world1 and in a progressive world no doom is more certain than that which awaits whatever is belated1 obscurantist and reactionary4 #a ,leonard ,huxley3 ,scott's ,last ,expedition1 ,vol4 ,i1 ,the ,journals of ,captain ,r4 ,f4 ,scott1 ,rn41 ,c4 ,v4 ,o41 p4 #dag4 #b ,kirby ,page2 ,the ,sword or the ,cross1 p4 #da4 #c ,tertullian3 ,de ,virginibus ,velandis1 ,cap4 ,i--,regula quidem fidei una omnino est1 sola immobilis et irreformabilis4 #d ,vatican ,council1 ,july #ah1 #ahgj1 ,first ,dogmatic ,constitution on the ,church of ,christ1 ,chapter ,,iv1 ,concerning the ,infallible ,teaching of the ,roman ,pontiff4 #e ,the ,papal ,syllabus of ,errors1 ,a4 ,d4 #ahfd1 ,sec4 #a1 #e4 #f ,exodus #f3c2 ,chap4 #ai4 #g ,exodus #cc3bb-bc4 #h ,numbers #ba3ad4 #i ,exodus #ae3c4 #aj ,judges #aa3bd4 #aa ,i ,samuel #bf3ai4 #ab ,,ii ,kings #e3ag4 #ac ,jeremiah #bc3bd4 #ad ,psalm #if3e4 #ae ,william ,sanday3 ,christologies ,ancient and ,modern4 ,,lecture ,v ,,the ,,perils ,,of ,,progress ,i ,in the history of human thought and social organization there is an interesting pendular swing between conflicting ideas so that1 about the time we wake up to recognize that thought is swinging one way1 we may be fairly sure that soon it will be swinging the other4 ,man's social organization1 for example1 has moved back and forth between the two poles of individual liberty and social solidarity4 ,to pick up the swing of that pendulum only in recent times1 we note that out of the social solidarity of the feudal system man swung over to the individual liberty of the free cities2 then from the individual liberty of the free cities to the social solidarity of the absolute monarchies2 then back again into the individual liberty of the democratic states4 ,we see that now we are clearly swinging over to some new form of social solidarity1 of which tendency federalism and socialism are expressions1 and doubtless from that we shall recoil toward individual liberty once more4 ,it is a safe generalization that whenever human thought shows some decided trend1 a corrective movement is not far away4 ,however enthusiastic we may be1 therefore1 about the idea of progress and the positive contributions which it can make to our understanding and mastery of life1 we may be certain that there are in it the faults of its qualities4 ,if we take it without salt1 our children will rise up1 not to applaud our far-seeing wisdom1 but to blame our easy-going credulity4 ,we have already seen that the very idea of progress sprang up in recent times in consequence of a few factors which predisposed men's minds to social hopefulness4 ,fortunately1 some of these factors1 such as the scientific control of life through the knowledge of law1 seem permanent1 and we are confident that the idea of progress will have abiding meaning for human thought and life4 ,but no study of the matter could be complete without an endeavour to discern the perils in this modern mode of thought and to guard ourselves against accepting as an unmixed blessing what is certainly1 like all things human1 a blend of good and evil4 ,one peril involved in the popular acceptance of the idea of progress has been the creation of a superficial1 ill-considered optimism which has largely lost sight of the terrific obstacles in human nature against which any real moral advance on earth must win its way4 ,too often we have taken for granted what a recent book calls a goal of racial perfection and nobility the splendour of which it is beyond our powers to conceive1 and we have dreamed about this earthly paradise like a saint having visions of heaven and counting it as won already because he is predestined to obtain it4 ,belief in inevitable progress has thus acted as an opiate on many minds1 lulling them into an elysium where all things come by wishing and where human ignorance and folly1 cruelty and selfishness do not impede the peaceful flowing of their dreams4 ,in a word1 the idea of progress has blanketed the sense of sin4 ,lord ,morley spoke once of that horrid burden and impediment upon the soul which the ,churches call ,sin1 and which1 by whatever name you call it1 is a real catastrophe in the moral nature of man4 ,the modern age1 busy with slick1 swift schemes for progress1 has too largely lost sight of that4 ,indeed1 at no point do modern ,christians differ more sharply from their predecessors than in the serious facing of the problem of sin4 ,christians of former times were burdened with a heavy sense of their transgressions1 and their primary interest in the ,gospel was its promised reestablishment of their guilty souls in the fellowship of a holy ,god4 ,modern ,christianity1 however1 is distinguished from all that by a jaunty sense of moral well-being2 when we admit our sins we do it with complacency and cheerfulness2 our religion is generally characterized by an easy-going self-righteousness4 ,bunyan's ,pilgrim with his lamentable load upon his back1 crying1 ,what shall ,i do6 4 4 4 ,i am 4 4 4 undone by reason of a burden that lieth hard upon me1 is no fit symbol of a typically modern ,christian4 ,doubtless we have cause to be thankful for this swing away from the morbid extremes to which our fathers often went in their sense of sin4 ,it is hard to forgive ,jonathan ,edwards when one reads in his famous ,enfield sermon3 ,the ,god that holds you over the pit of hell1 much as one holds a spider1 or some loathsome insect1 over the fire1 abhors you1 and is dreadfully provoked2 4 4 4 you are ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes1 as the most hateful and venomous serpent is in ours4 ,any one who understands human nature could have told him that1 after such a black exaggeration of human depravity as he and his generation were guilty of1 the ,christian movement was foredoomed to swing away over to the opposite extreme of complacent self-righteousness4 ,unquestionably we have made the swing4 ,in spite of the debacle of the ,great ,war1 this is one of the most unrepentant generations that ever walked the earth1 dreaming still of automatic progress toward an earthly paradise4 ,many factors have gone into the making of this modern mood of self-complacency4 ,new knowledge has helped1 by which disasters1 such as once awakened our fathers' poignant sense of sin1 are now attributed to scientific causes rather than to human guilt4 ,when famines or pestilences came1 our fathers thought them ,god's punishment for sin4 ,when earthquakes shook the earth or comets hung threateningly in the sky1 our fathers saw in them a divine demand for human penitence4 ,such events1 referred now to their scientific causes1 do not quicken in us a sense of sin4 ,new democracy also has helped in this development of self-complacency4 ,under autocratic kings the common people were common people and they knew it well4 ,their dependent commonality was enforced on them by the constant pressure of their social life4 ,accustomed to call themselves miserable worms before an earthly king1 they had no qualms about so estimating themselves before the ,king of ,heaven4 ,democracy1 however1 elevates us into self-esteem4 ,the genius of democracy is to believe in men1 their worth1 their possibilities1 their capacities for self-direction4 ,once the dominant political ideas depressed men into self-contempt2 now they lift men into self-exaltation4 ,new excuses for sin have aided in creating our mood of self-content4 ,we know more than our fathers did about the effect of heredity and environment on character1 and we see more clearly that some souls are not born but damned into the world4 ,criminals1 in consequence1 have come not to be so much condemned as pitied1 their perversion of character is regarded not so much in terms of iniquity as of disease1 and as we thus condone transgression in others1 so in ourselves we palliate our wrong4 ,we regard it as the unfortunate but hardly blamable consequence of temperament or training4 ,our fathers1 who thought that the trouble was the devil in them1 used to deal sternly with themselves4 ,like ,chinese ,gordon1 fighting a besetting sin in private prayer1 they used to come out from their inward struggles saying1 ,i hewed ,agag in pieces before the ,lord4 ,but we are softer with ourselves2 we find in lack of eugenics or in cruel circumstance a good excuse4 ,undoubtedly1 the new theology has helped to encourage this modern mood of self-complacency4 ,jonathan ,edwards' ,enfield sermon pictured sinners held over the blazing abyss of hell in the hands of a wrathful deity who at any moment was likely to let go1 and so terrific was that discourse in its delivery that women fainted and strong men clung in agony to the pillars of the church4 ,obviously1 we do not believe in that kind of ,god any more1 and as always in reaction we swing to the opposite extreme1 so in the theology of these recent years we have taught a very mild1 benignant sort of deity4 ,one of our popular drinking songs sums up this aspect of our new theology3 ,god is not censorious ,when ,his children have their fling4 ,indeed1 the god of the new theology has not seemed to care acutely about sin2 certainly he has not been warranted to punish heavily2 he has been an indulgent parent and when we have sinned1 a polite ,excuse me has seemed more than adequate to make amends4 ,john ,muir1 the naturalist1 was accustomed during earthquake shocks in ,california to assuage the anxieties of perturbed ,eastern visitors by saying that it was only ,mother ,earth trotting her children on her knee4 ,such poetizing is quite in the style of the new theology4 ,nevertheless1 the description1 however pretty1 is not an adequate account of a real earthquake1 and in this moral universe there are real earthquakes1 as this generation above all others ought to know1 when man's sin1 his greed1 his selfishness1 his rapacity roll up across the years an accumulating mass of consequence until at last in a mad collapse the whole earth crashes into ruin4 ,the moral order of the world has not been trotting us on her knees these recent years2 the moral order of the world has been dipping us in hell2 and because the new theology had not been taking account of such possibilities1 had never learned to preach on that text in the ,new ,testament1 ,it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living ,god1 we were ill prepared for the experience4 ,many factors like those which we have named have contributed to create our modern negligence of the problem of sin1 but under all of them and permeating them has been the idea that automatic progress is inherent in the universe4 ,this evolving cosmos has been pictured as a fool-proof world where men could make and love their lies1 with their souls dead and their stomachs well alive1 with selfish profit the motive of their economic order and narrow nationalism the slogan of their patriotism1 and where still1 escaping the consequences1 they could live in a progressive society4 ,a recent writer considers it possible that over the crest of the hill the ,promised ,land stretches away to the far horizons smiling in eternal sunshine4 ,the picture is nonsense4 ,all the progress this world ever will know waits upon the conquest of sin4 ,strange as it may sound to the ears of this modern age1 long tickled by the amiable idiocies of evolution popularly misinterpreted1 this generation's deepest need is not these dithyrambic songs about inevitable progress1 but a fresh sense of personal and social sin4 ,what the scientific doctrine of evolution really implies is something much more weighty and sinister than frothy optimism4 ,when a preacher now quotes ,paul1 as in ,adam all die1 not many of the younger generation understand him1 but when we are told that we came out of low1 sub-human beginnings1 that we carry with us yet the bestial leftovers of an animal heritage to be fought against and overcome and left behind1 well-instructed members of this generation ought to comprehend4 ,yet in saying that1 we are dealing with the same fundamental fact which ,paul was facing when he said1 as in ,adam all die2 we are handling the same unescapable experience out of which the old doctrine of original sin first came2 we are facing a truth which it will not pay us to forget3 that humanity's sinful nature is not something which you and ,i alone make up by individual deeds of wrong1 but that it is an inherited mortgage and handicap on the whole human family4 ,why is it that if we let a field run wild it goes to weeds1 while if we wish wheat we must fight for every grain of it8 ,why is it that if we let human nature run loose it goes to evil1 while he who would be virtuous must struggle to achieve character8 ,it is because1 in spite of our optimisms and evasions1 that fact still is here1 which our fathers often appraised more truly than we1 that human nature1 with all its magnificent possibilities1 is like the earth's soil filled with age-long seeds and roots of evil growth1 and that progress in goodness1 whether personal or social1 must be achieved by grace of some power which can give us the victory over our evil nature4 ,in past generations it was the preachers who talked most about sin and thundered against it from their pulpits1 but now for years they have been very reticent about it4 ,others1 however1 have not been still4 ,scientists have made us feel the ancient heritage that must be fought against2 novelists have written no great novel that does not swirl around some central sin2 the work of the dramatists from ,shakespeare until ,ibsen is centrally concerned with the problem of human evil2 and now the psycho-analysts are digging down into the unremembered thoughts of men to bring up into the light of day the origins of our spiritual miseries in frustrated and suppressed desire4 ,we do not need artificially to conjure up a sense of sin4 ,all we need to do is to open our eyes to facts4 ,take one swift glance at the social state of the world to-day4 ,consider our desperate endeavours to save this rocking civilization from the consequences of the blow just delivered it by men's iniquities4 ,that should be sufficient to indicate that this is no fool-proof universe automatically progressive1 but that moral evil is still the central problem of mankind4 ,one would almost say that the first rule for all who believe in a progressive world is not to believe in it too much4 ,long ago ,plato said that he drove two horses1 one white and tractable1 the other black and fractious2 ,jesus said that two masters sought man's allegiance1 one ,god1 the other mammon2 ,paul said that his soul was the battle-ground of two forces1 one of which he called spirit and the other flesh2 and only the other day one of our own number told of the same struggle between two men in each of us1 one ,dr4 ,jekyll1 the other ,mr4 ,hyde4 ,that conflict still is pivotal in human history4 ,the idea of progress can defeat itself no more surely than by getting itself so believed that men expect automatic social advance apart from the conquest of personal and social sin4 ,,ii ,another result of our superficial confidence in the idea of progress is reliance upon social palliatives instead of radical cures for our public maladies4 ,we are so predisposed to think that the world inherently wants to be better1 is inwardly straining to be better1 that we are easily fooled into supposing that some slight easement of external circumstance will at once release the progressive forces of mankind and save the race4 ,when1 for example1 one compares the immense amount of optimistic expectancy about a warless world with the small amount of radical thinking as to what really is the matter with us1 he may well be amazed at the unfounded regnancy of the idea of progress4 ,we rejoice over some slight disarmament as though that were the cure of our international shame1 whereas always one can better trust a real ,quaker with a gun than a thug without one4 ,so the needs of our international situation1 involving external disarmament1 to be sure1 involve also regenerations of thought and spirit much more radical than any rearrangement of outward circumstance4 ,to forget that is to lose the possibility of real progress2 and insight into these deep-seated needs is often dimmed by our too amiable and innocent belief in automatic social advance waiting to take place on the slightest excuse4 ,to take but a single illustration of a radical change in men's thinking1 difficult to achieve and yet indispensable to a decent world1 consider the group of prejudices and passions which center about nationalism and which impede the real progress of international fraternity4 ,what if all ,christians took ,jesus in earnest in his attitude that only one object on earth is worthy of the absolute devotion of a man--the will of ,god for all mankind--and that therefore no nationality nor patriotism whatsoever should be the highest object of man's loyalty8 ,that ought to be an axiom to us1 who stood with the ,allies against ,germany4 ,certainly1 we condemned ,germany roundly enough because so many of her teachers exalted the state as an object of absolute loyalty4 ,when in ,japan one sees certain classes of people regarding the ,mikado as divine and rating loyalty to him as their highest duty1 it is easy to condemn that4 ,when1 however1 a man says in plain ,english3 ,i am an ,american but ,i am a ,christian first and ,i am an ,american only in the sense in which ,i can be an ,american1 being first of all a ,christian1 and my loyalty to ,america does not begin to compare with my superior loyalty to ,god's will for all mankind and1 if ever national action makes these two things conflict1 ,i must choose ,god and not ,america--to the ears of many that plain statement has a tang of newness and danger4 ,in the background of even ,christian minds1 ,jesus to the contrary notwithstanding1 one finds the tacit assumption1 counted almost too sacred to be examined1 that of course a man's first loyalty is to his nation4 ,indeed1 we ,protestants ought to feel a special responsibility for this nationalism that so takes the place of ,god4 ,in medieval and ,catholic ,europe folk did not so think of nationalism4 ,folk in medieval ,europe were taught that their highest obligation was to ,god or1 as they would have phrased it1 to the ,church2 that the ,church could at any time dispense them from any obligation to king or nation2 that the ,church could even make the king1 the symbol of the nation1 stand three days in the snow outside the ,pope's door at ,canossa4 ,every boy and girl in medieval ,europe was taught that his first duty was spiritual and that no nationality nor patriotism could compare with that4 ,then we ,protestants began our battle for spiritual liberty against the tyranny of ,rome1 and as one of the most potent agencies in the winning of our battle we helped to develop the spirit of nationality4 ,in place of the ,holy ,roman ,church we put state churches4 ,in place of devotion to the ,vatican we were tempted to put devotion to the nation4 ,luther did more than write spiritual treatises2 he sent out ringing1 patriotic appeals to the ,german nobility against ,rome4 ,it is not an accident that absolute nationalism came to its climacteric in ,germany where ,protestantism began4 ,for ,protestantism1 without ever intending it1 as an unexpected by-product of its fight for spiritual liberty1 helped to break up western ,europe into nations1 where nationalism absorbed the loyalty of the people4 ,and now that little tiger cub we helped to rear has become a great beast and its roaring shakes the earth4 ,a superficial confidence in automatic progress1 therefore1 which neglects an elemental fact like this at the root of our whole international problem is futile2 it leads nowhere2 it is rose water prescribed for leprosy4 ,the trouble with nationalism is profound and this is the gist of it3 we may be unselfish personally1 but we group ourselves into social units called nations1 where we1 being individually unselfish with reference to the group1 are satisfied with ourselves1 but where all the time the group itself is not unselfish1 but1 it may be1 is aggressively and violently avaricious4 ,yet to most people our sacrificial loyalty to the nation would pass for virtue1 even though the nation as a whole were exploiting its neighbours or waging a useless1 unjust war4 ,the loyalty of ,germans to ,germany may be rated as the loftiest goodness no matter what ,germany as a whole is doing1 and the loyalty of ,americans to ,america may be praised as the very passport to heaven while ,america as a whole may be engaged in a nationally unworthy enterprise4 ,the fine spirit of men's devotion within the limits of the group disguises the ultimate selfishness of the whole procedure and cloaks a huge sin under a comparatively small unselfishness4 ,we can see that same principle at work in our industrial situation4 ,we break up into two groups2 we are trades unionists or associated employers4 ,we are unselfish so far as our group is concerned2 we make it a point of honour to support our economic class2 it is part of our code of duty to be loyal there4 ,but while we are thus unselfish with reference to the group1 the group itself is not unselfish2 the group itself is fighting a bitter and selfish conflict1 avaricious and often cruel4 ,there is no ultimate way out of this situation which does not include the activity of people who have a loyalty that is greater than their groups4 ,henry ,george was once introduced at ,cooper ,institute1 ,new ,york ,city1 by a chairman who1 wishing to curry favour with the crowd1 called out with a loud voice1 ,henry ,george1 the friend of the workingman4 ,george stood up and sternly began1 ,i am not the friend of the workingman2 then after a strained silence1 and ,i am not the friend of the capitalist2 then after another silence1 ,i am for men2 men simply as men1 regardless of any accidental or superficial distinctions of race1 creed1 colour1 class1 or yet function or employment4 ,until we can get that larger loyalty into the hearts of men1 all the committees on earth cannot solve our industrial problems4 ,nor can anything else make it possible to solve our international problem4 ,the curse of nationalism is that1 having pooled the unselfishness of persons in one group under one national name and of persons in another group under another national name1 it uses this beautiful unselfishness of patriotism to carry out national enterprises that are fundamentally selfish4 ,one element1 therefore1 is indispensable in any solution3 enough ,christians1 whether they call themselves by that name or not1 who have caught ,jesus' point of view that only one loyalty on earth is absolute--the will of ,god for all mankind4 ,this last summer ,i spent one ,sunday night in the home of ,mr4 ,ozaki1 perhaps the leading liberal of ,japan1 a man who stands in danger of assassination any day for his international attitude4 ,suddenly he turned on me and said1 ,if the ,united ,states should go into a war which you regarded as unjust and wrong1 what would you do8 ,i had to answer him swiftly and ,i had to give him the only answer that a ,christian minister could give and keep his self-respect4 ,i said1 ,if the ,united ,states goes into a war which ,i think is unjust and wrong1 ,i will go into my pulpit the next ,sunday morning and in the name of ,god denounce that war and take the consequence4 ,surely1 a man does not have to be a theoretical pacifist1 which ,i am not1 to see how indispensable that attitude is to a ,christian4 ,there is hardly anything more needed now in the international situation than a multitude of people who will sit in radical judgment on the actions of their governments1 so that when the governments of the world begin to talk war they will know that surely they must face a mass of people rising up to say3 ,war8 ,why war8 ,we are no longer dumb beasts to be led to the slaughter2 we no longer think that any state on earth is ,god ,almighty4 ,if1 however1 we are to have that attitude strong enough so that it will stand the strain of mob psychology and the fear of consequences1 it must be founded deep1 as was ,jesus' attitude3 one absolute loyalty to the will of ,god for all mankind4 ,so far from hurting true patriotism1 this attitude would be the making of patriotism4 ,it would purge patriotism from all its peril1 would exalt it1 purify it1 make of it a blessing1 not a curse4 ,but whatever be the effect upon patriotism1 the ,christian is committed by the ,master to a prior loyalty2 he is a citizen of the ,kingdom of ,god in all the earth4 ,an easy-going belief in inherent and inevitable progress1 therefore1 is positively perilous in the manifoldly complex social situation1 from which only the most careful thinking and the most courageous living will ever rescue us4 ,the ,christian ,church is indeed entrusted1 in the message of ,jesus1 with the basic principles of life which the world needs1 but the clarity of vision which sees their meaning and the courage of heart which will apply them are not easy to achieve4 ,some of us have felt that acutely these last few years2 all of us should have learned that whatever progress is wrought out upon this planet will be sternly fought for and hardly won4 ,belief in the idea of progress does not mean that this earth is predestined to drift into ,paradise like thistledown before an inevitable wind4 ,,iii ,a third peril associated with the idea of progress is quite as widespread as the other two and in some ways more insidious4 ,the idea is prevalent that progress involves the constant supersession of the old by the new so that we1 who have appeared thus late in human history and are therefore the heirs of all the ages1 in the foremost files of time1 may at once assume our superiority to the ancients4 ,the modern man1 living in a world supposedly progressing from early crude conditions toward perfection1 has shifted the golden age from the past to the future1 and in so doing has placed himself in much closer proximity to it than his ancestors were4 ,the world is getting better--such is the common assumption which is naturally associated with the idea of progress4 ,as one enthusiastic sponsor of this proposition puts it3 ,go back ten years1 and there was no airship2 fifteen years1 and there was no wireless telegraphy2 twenty-five years1 and there was no automobile2 forty years1 and there was no telephone1 and no electric light2 sixty years1 and there was no photograph1 and no sewing machine2 seventy-five years1 no telegraph2 one hundred years1 no railway and no steamship2 one hundred and twenty-five years1 no steam engine2 two hundred years1 no post-office2 three hundred years1 no newspaper2 five hundred years1 no printing press2 one thousand years1 no compass1 and ships could not go out of sight of land2 two thousand years1 no writing paper1 but parchments of skin and tablets of wax and clay4 ,go back far enough and there were no plows1 no tools1 no iron1 no cloth2 people ate acorns and roots and lived in caves and went naked or clothed themselves in the skins of wild beasts4 #a ,such is the picture of human history upon this planet which occupies the modern mind1 and one implication often drawn is that we have outgrown the ancients and that they might well learn from us and not we from them4 ,christians1 however1 center their allegiance around ideas and personalities which are1 from the modern standpoint1 very old indeed4 ,the truths that were wrought out in the developing life and faith of the ,hebrew-,christian people are still the regulative ,christian truths1 and the personality who crowned the whole development is still the ,christians' ,lord4 ,they are challenged1 however1 to maintain this in a progressive world4 ,men do not think of harking back to ancient ,palestine nineteen centuries ago for their business methods1 their educational systems1 their scientific opinions1 or anything else in ordinary life whatever4 ,then why go back to ancient ,palestine for the chief exemplar of the spiritual life8 ,this is a familiar modern question which springs directly from popular interpretations of progress4 ,dim tracts of time divide ,those golden days from me2 ,thy voice comes strange o'er years of change2 ,how can ,i follow ,thee8 ,comes faint and far ,thy voice ,from vales of ,galilee2 ,thy vision fades in ancient shades2 ,how should we follow ,thee8 #b ,behind this familiar mood lies one of the most significant changes that has ever passed over the human mind4 ,the medieval age was tempted to look backward for its knowledge of everything4 ,philosophy was to be found in ,aristotle1 science in ,pliny and his like4 ,it was the ancients who were wise2 it was the ancients who had understood nature and had known ,god4 ,the farther back you went the nearer you came to the venerable and the authoritative4 ,as1 therefore1 in every other realm folk looked back for knowledge1 so it was most natural that they should look back for their religion1 too4 ,to find philosophy in ,aristotle and to find spiritual life in ,christ required not even the turning of the head4 ,in all realms the age in its search for knowledge was facing backwards4 ,it was a significant hour in the history of human thought when that attitude began to give way4 ,the scandal caused by ,alessandro ,tassoni's attacks on ,homer and ,aristotle in the early seventeenth century resounded through ,europe4 ,he advanced the new and astonishing idea that1 so far from having degenerated since ancient times1 the race had advanced and that the moderns were better than their sires4 ,this new idea prevailed as belief in progress grew4 ,it met1 however1 with violent opposition1 and the remnants of that old controversy are still to be found in volumes like ,george ,hakewill's five hundred page folio published in #afbg on the common errour touching ,nature's perpetuall and universall decay4 #c ,but from the seventeenth century on the idea gained swift ascendency that the human race1 like an individual1 is growing up1 that humanity is becoming wiser with the years1 that we can know more than ,aristotle and ,pliny1 that we should look1 not back to the ancients1 but rather to ourselves and to our offspring1 for the real wisdom which maturity achieves4 ,once what was old seemed wise and established2 what was new seemed extempore and insecure3 now what is old seems outgrown2 what is new seems probable and convincing4 ,such is the natural and prevalent attitude in a world where the idea of progress is in control4 ,nor can the applications of this idea to the realm of religion be evaded4 ,if we would not turn back to ,palestine nineteen centuries ago for anything else1 why should we turn back to find there the ,master of our spiritual life8 ,in a word1 our modern belief in progress1 popularly interpreted1 leads multitudes of people to listen with itching ears for every new thing1 while they condescend to all that is old in religion1 and in particular conclude that1 while ,jesus lived a wonderful life for his own day1 that was a long time ago and surely we must be outgrowing him4 ,that this attitude is critically perilous to the integrity of the ,christian movement will at once be obvious to any one whose own spiritual experience is centered in ,christ4 ,from the beginning until now the faith of ,christian people has been primarily directed1 not to a set of abstract principles1 nor to a set of creedal definitions1 but to a ,person4 ,christians have been people believing in ,jesus ,christ4 ,this abiding element has put unity into ,christian history4 ,the stream of ,christian thought and progress has never been twice the same1 yet for all that it has been a continuous stream and not an aimless1 sprawling flood1 and this unity and consistency have existed for one reason chiefly3 the influence of the personality of ,jesus4 ,folk may have been ,romanists or ,protestants1 ritualists or ,quakers1 reactionaries or progressives1 but still they have believed in ,jesus4 ,his personality has been the sun around which even in their differences they have swung like planets in varying orbits4 ,take the personality of ,jesus out of ,christian history and what you have left is chaos4 ,moreover1 it is the personality of ,jesus that has been the source of ,christianity's transforming influence on character4 ,ask whence has come that power over the spirits of men which we recognize as ,christianity at its mightiest and best1 and the origin must be sought1 not primarily in our theologies or rubrics or churches1 but in the character and spirit of ,jesus4 ,he himself is the central productive source of power in ,christianity4 ,we have come so to take this for granted that we do not half appreciate the wonder of it4 ,this personality1 who so has mastered men1 was born sixty generations ago in a small village in an outlying ,roman province1 and until he was thirty years of age he lived and worked as a carpenter among his fellow townsfolk1 attracting no wide consideration4 ,then for three years or less he poured out his life in courageous teaching and sacrificial service1 amid the growing hatred and hostility of his countrymen1 until he was put to death by crucifixion because he stirred up the people4 ,anatole ,france1 in one of his stories1 represents ,pilate in his later years as trying to remember the trial and death of ,jesus and being barely able to recall it4 ,that incident had been so much a part of the day's work in governing a province like ,judea that it had all but escaped his recollection4 ,such a representation of the case is not improbable4 ,it is easy so to tell the story of ,jesus' life as to make his continued influence seem incredible4 ,none would have supposed that nineteen centuries after his death1 ,lecky1 the historian of ,european morals1 would say1 ,the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers1 and all the exhortations of moralists4 #d ,none would have thought that sixty generations after he was gone1 ,montefiori1 a ,jew1 putting his finger on the source of ,christianity's power1 would light upon the phrase ,for the sake of ,jesus1 and would cry3 ,of what fine lives and deaths has not this motive been the spring and the sustainment6 #e ,none would have thought that so long after ,calvary seemed to end forever the power of ,jesus1 one of the race's greatest men1 ,david ,livingstone1 engaged in one of the race's most courageous enterprises1 breaking his way into the untraveled jungles of ,africa1 would sing as he went1 for so his journal says he did1 ,jesus1 the very thought of ,thee ,with sweetness fills my breast8 ,take the personality of the ,master out of ,christian history and we have robbed it of its central moral power4 ,moreover1 the personality of ,jesus has always been the standard of reformation when ,christianity has become recreant or laggard or corrupt4 ,a man named ,john ,wilkes started a political movement in ,england in the eighteenth century1 and around him sprang up a party who called themselves ,wilkites4 ,these followers of ,wilkes1 however1 went to extremes so wild and perilous that poor ,john ,wilkes himself had to explain to everybody that1 as for him1 he was not a ,wilkite4 ,this lapse of a movement from the original intention of its founder is familiar in history and nowhere is it more clearly illustrated than in ,christianity4 ,the ,master1 watching ,western ,christendom today1 with all our hatred1 bitterness1 war1 would have to say1 ,if this is ,christianity1 then ,i am not a ,christian4 ,the ,master1 wandering through our cathedrals with their masses1 waxen images and votive gifts1 or through our ,protestant churches with their fine-spun speculations insisted on as necessary to belief if one is to be a child of grace1 would have to say1 ,if this is ,christianity1 then ,i am not a ,christian4 ,indeed1 just this sort of service the ,master always has been rendering his movement2 he is the perennial rebuke of all that is degenerate and false in ,christianity4 ,whenever reform has come1 whenever real ,christianity has sprung up again through the false and superficial1 the movement has been associated with somebody's rediscovery of ,jesus ,christ4 ,saint ,francis of ,assisi rediscovered him1 and made a spot of spiritual beauty at the heart of the medieval age4 ,john ,wesley rediscovered him and his compassion for the outcast1 and led the ,church into a new day of evangelism and philanthropy4 ,william ,carey rediscovered him and his unbounded care for men1 and blazed the trail for a new era of expansive ,christianity4 ,and if today many of us are deeply in earnest about the application of ,christian principles to the social life of men1 it is because we have rediscovered him and the spirit of his ,good ,samaritan4 ,in an old myth1 ,antaeus1 the child of ,earth1 could be overcome when he was lifted from contact with the ground but1 whenever he touched again the earth from which he sprang1 his old power came back once more4 ,such is ,christianity's relation with ,jesus ,christ4 ,if1 therefore1 the idea of progress involves the modern man's condescension to the ,master as the outgrown seer of an ancient day1 the idea of progress has given ,christianity an incurable wound4 ,before we surrender to such a popular interpretation of the meaning of progress1 we may well discriminate between two aspects of human life in one of which we plainly have progressed1 but in the other of which progress is not so evident4 ,in the ,coliseum in ancient ,rome centuries ago1 a group of ,christians waited in the arena to be devoured by the lions1 and eighty thousand spectators watched their vigil4 ,those ,christians were plain folk--not many mighty1 not many noble--and every one of them could have escaped that brutal fate if he had been willing to burn a little incense to the ,emperor4 ,turn now to ourselves1 eighteen hundred years afterwards4 ,we have had a long time to outgrow the character and fidelity of those first ,christians2 do we think that we have done so8 ,as we imagine ourselves in their places1 are we ready with any glibness to talk about progress in character8 ,those first ,christians never had ridden in a trolley car2 they never had seen a subway2 they never had been to a moving picture show2 they never had talked over a telephone4 ,there are innumerable ways in which we have progressed far beyond them4 ,but character1 fidelity1 loyalty to conscience and to ,god--are we sure of progress there8 ,to hear some people talk1 one would suppose that progress is simply a matter of chronology4 ,that one man or generation comes in time after another is taken as sufficient evidence that the latter has of course superseded the earlier4 ,do we mean that because ,tennyson came after ,shelly he is therefore the greater poet8 ,what has chronology to do with spiritual quality and creativeness1 which always must rise from within1 out of the abysmal depths of personality8 ,professor ,gilbert ,murray1 thinking primarily in a realm outside religion altogether1 chastises this cheap and superficial claim of advance in spiritual life3 ,as to ,progress1 it is no doubt a real fact4 ,to many of us it is a truth that lies somewhere near the roots of our religion4 ,but it is never a straight march forward2 it is never a result that happens of its own accord4 ,it is only a name for the mass of accumulated human effort1 successful here1 baffled there1 misdirected and driven astray in a third region1 but on the whole and in the main producing some cumulative result4 ,i believe this difficulty about ,progress1 this fear that in studying the great teachers of the past we are in some sense wantonly sitting at the feet of savages1 causes real trouble of mind to many keen students4 ,the full answer to it would take us beyond the limits of this paper and beyond my own range of knowledge4 ,but the main lines of the answer seem to me clear4 ,there are in life two elements1 one transitory and progressive1 the other comparatively if not absolutely non-progressive and eternal1 and the soul of man is chiefly concerned with the second4 ,try to compare our inventions1 our material civilization1 our stores of accumulated knowledge1 with those of the age of ,aeschylus or ,aristotle or ,st4 ,francis1 and the comparison is absurd4 ,our superiority is beyond question and beyond measure4 ,but compare any chosen poet of our age with ,aeschylus1 any philosopher with ,aristotle1 any saintly preacher with ,st4 ,francis1 and the result is totally different4 ,i do not wish to argue that we have fallen below the standard of those past ages2 but it is clear that we are not definitely above them4 ,the things of the spirit depend on will1 on effort1 on aspiration1 on the quality of the individual soul1 and not on discoveries and material advances which can be accumulated and added up4 #f ,let any ,christian preacher test out this matter and discover for himself its truth4 ,we are preachers of the ,gospel in the twentieth century4 ,st4 ,francis of ,assisi was a preacher of the ,gospel in the thirteenth century4 ,we know many things which ,st4 ,francis and his generation never could have known but1 when we step back through that outward change into the spirit of ,st4 ,francis himself1 we must take the shoes from off our feet1 for the place whereon we stand is holy ground4 ,we may not talk in such an hour about progress in ,christian character in terms of chronology1 for a modern minister might well pray to touch the garment's hem of such a spirit as ,st4 ,francis had6 ,when1 then1 one speaks of outgrowing ,jesus1 one would do well to get a better reason than simply the fact that he was born nineteen centuries ago4 ,the truth is that humanity has been upon this planet hundreds of thousands of years1 while our known history reaches back1 and that very dimly1 through only some four or five thousand4 ,in that known time there has certainly been no biological development in man that any scientist has yet discerned4 ,even the brain of man in the ice age was apparently as large as ours4 ,moreover1 within that period of history well known to us1 we can see many ups and downs of spiritual life1 mountain peaks of achievement in literature and art and religion1 with deep valleys intervening1 but we cannot be sure that the mountain peaks now are higher than they used to be4 ,the art of the two centuries culminating about #aecj represents a glorious flowering of creative genius1 but it was succeeded by over three centuries of descent to the abominations of ugliness which the late eighteenth century produced4 ,we have climbed up a little since then1 but not within distant reach of those lovers and makers of beauty from whose hearts and hands the ,gothic cathedrals came4 ,progress in history has lain in the power of man to remember and so to accumulate for general use the discoveries1 both material and ethical1 of many individuals2 it has lain in man's increasing information about the universe1 in his increasing mastery over external nature1 and in the growing integration of his social life2 it has not lain in the production of creative personalities appearing in the course of history with ever greater sublimity of spirit and grasp of intellect4 ,where is there a mind on earth today like ,plato's8 ,where is there a spirit today like ,paul's8 ,the past invites us still to look back for revelations in the realm of creative personality4 ,some things have been done in history1 like the sculptures of ,phidias1 that never have been done so well since and that perhaps never will be done so well again4 ,as for the ,bible1 we may well look back to that4 ,there is no book to compare with it in the realm of religion4 ,most of the books we read are like the rainwater that fell last night1 a superficial matter1 soon running off4 ,but the ,bible is a whole sea--the accumulated spiritual gains of ages--and to know it and to love it1 to go down beside it and dip into it1 to feel its vast expanse1 the currents that run through it1 and the tides that lift it1 is one of the choicest and most rewarding spiritual privileges that we enjoy4 ,as for ,jesus1 it is difficult to see what this twentieth century can mean by supposing that it has outgrown him4 ,it has outgrown countless elements in his generation and many forms of thought which he shared with his generation1 but it never will outgrow his spirit1 his faith in ,god1 his principles of life3 ,our ,father who art in heaven1 ,hallowed by thy name2 ,thou shalt love the ,lord thy ,god with all thy heart1 and with all thy soul1 and with all thy strength1 and with all thy mind2 and thy neighbor as thyself2 ,it is not the will of your ,father who is in heaven1 that one of these little ones should perish2 ,by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples1 if ye have love one to another2 ,if any man would be first1 he shall be last of all1 and servant of all2 ,all things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you1 even so do ye also unto them2 ,love your enemies1 and pray for them that persecute you2 ,thy will be done1 as in heaven1 so on earth4 ,take principles like these1 set them afire in a flaming life the like of which has never come to earth1 and we have in ,jesus a revelation of the spiritual world which is not going to be outgrown4 ,still for the ,christian he is ,saviour and ,lord1 and across the centuries in his face shines the light of the knowledge of the glory of ,god4 ,,iv ,progress1 therefore1 intelligently apprehended1 does not involve that flippant irreverence for the past that so often is associated with it4 ,it offers no encouragement to the chase after vagaries in which so many moderns indulge1 as though all that is old were belated and all that is novel were true4 ,the idea of progress has led more than one eager mind to think that the old religions were outgrown2 that they were the belated leftovers of a bygone age and were not for modern minds2 that a new religion fitted to our new needs alone would do4 ,suppose1 however1 that one should say3 ,the ,english language is an archaic affair2 it has grown like ,topsy1 by chance2 it has carried along with it the forms of thinking of outgrown generations2 it is not scientific2 what we need is a new language built to order to meet our wants4 ,in answer one must acknowledge that the ,english language is open to very serious criticism1 that one can never tell from the way a word is spelled how it is going to be pronounced1 nor from the way it is pronounced how it is going to be spelled4 ,one must agree that the ,english language makes one phrase do duty for many different meanings4 ,when two people quarrel1 they make up2 before the actor goes upon the stage1 he makes up2 the preacher goes into his study to make up his sermon2 when we do wrong we try to make up for it2 and the saucy lad in school behind his teacher's back makes up a face4 ,the ,english language is fearfully and wonderfully made4 ,but merely because the ,english language has such ungainly developments1 we are not likely to surrender it and adopt instead a modern language made to order1 like ,esperanto4 ,say what one will about ,english1 it is the speech in which our poets have sung and our prophets have prophesied and our seers have dreamed dreams4 ,if any do not like it they may get a new one1 but most of us will stay where we still can catch the accents of the master spirits who have spoken in our tongue4 ,there are words in the ,english language that no ,esperanto words ever can take the place of3 home and honour and love and ,god1 words that have been sung about and prayed over and fought for by our sires for centuries1 and that come to us across the ages with accumulated meanings1 like caskets full of jewels4 ,surely we are not going to give up the ,english language4 ,progress does not mean surrendering it1 but developing it4 ,we shall not give up ,christianity4 ,it has had ungainly developments2 it does need reformation2 many elements in it are pitiably belated2 but1 for all that1 the profoundest need of the world is real ,christianity1 the kind of life the ,master came to put into the hearts of men4 ,progress does not mean breaking away from it1 but going deeper into it4 ,here1 then1 are the three perils which tempt the believer in progress3 a silly underestimate of the tremendous force of human sin1 which withstands all real advance2 superficial reliance upon social palliatives to speed the convalescence of the world1 when only radical cures will do2 flippant irreverence toward the past1 when1 as a matter of fact1 the light we have for the future shines upon us from behind4 ,he who most believes in progress needs most to resist its temptations4 #a ,james ,h4 ,snowden3 ,is the ,world ,growing ,better8 pp4 #da-db4 #b ,francis ,turner ,palgrave3 ,faith and ,light in the ,latter ,days4 #c ,george ,hakewill3 ,an ,apologie of the ,power and ,providence of ,god in the ,government of the ,world1 or ,an ,examination and ,censure of the ,common ,errour ,touching ,natures ,perpetuall and ,universall ,decay4 #d ,w4 ,e4 ,h4 ,lecky3 ,history of ,european ,morals from ,augustus to ,charlemagne1 ,vol4 ,,ii1 p4 #i4 #e ,c4 ,g4 ,montefiore3 ,some ,elements of the ,religious ,teaching of ,jesus ,according to the ,synoptic ,gospels1 p4 #acc4 #f ,gilbert ,murray3 ,tradition and ,progress1 ,chapter ,i1 ,religio ,grammatici1 ,,iv1 pp4 #ai-bj4 ,,lecture ,,vi ,,progress ,,and ,,god ,i ,we may well begin our final lecture1 on the interplay between the idea of progress and the idea of ,god1 by noting that only faith in ,god can satisfy man's craving for spiritual stability amid change4 ,the central element in the conception of a progressive world is that men's thoughts and lives have changed1 are changing and will change1 that nothing therefore is settled in the sense of being finally formulated1 that creation has never said its last word on any subject or landed its last hammer blow on any task4 ,such an outlook on life1 instead of being exhilarating1 is to many disquieting in the extreme4 ,in particular it is disquieting in religion1 one of whose functions has always been to provide stability1 to teach men amid the transient to see the eternal4 ,if in a changing world religious thought changes too1 if in that realm also new answers are given to old questions and new questions rise that never have been answered before1 if forms of faith in which men once trusted are outgrown1 man's unsettlement seems to be complete4 ,the whole world then is like a huge kaleidoscope turning round and round and1 as it turns1 the manifold elements in human experience1 even its religious doctrines and practices1 arrange and rearrange themselves in endless permutations4 ,how then in such a world can religion mean to us what it has meant to the saints who of old1 amid a shaken world1 have sung3 ,change and decay in all around ,i see2 ,o ,thou1 ,who changest not1 abide with me6 ,this fear of the unsettling effects of the idea of progress accounts for most of the resentment against it in the realm of theology1 and for the desperate endeavours which perennially are made to congeal the ,christian movement at some one stage and to call that stage final4 ,stability1 however1 can never be achieved by resort to such reactionary dogmatism4 ,what one obtains by that method is not stability but stagnation1 and the two1 though often confused1 are utterly different4 ,stagnation is like a pool1 stationary1 finished1 and without progressive prospects4 ,a river1 however1 has another kind of steadfastness altogether4 ,it is not stationary2 it flows2 it is never twice the same and its enlarging prospects as it widens and deepens in its course are its glory4 ,nevertheless1 the ,hudson and the ,mississippi and the ,amazon are among the most stable and abiding features which nature knows4 ,they will probably outlast many mountains4 ,they will certainly outlast any pool4 ,the spiritual stability which we may have in a progressive world is of this latter sort1 if we believe in the living ,god4 ,it is so much more inspiring than the stagnation of the dogmatist that one wonders how any one1 seeing both1 could choose the inferior article in which to repose his trust4 ,consider1 for example1 the development of the idea of ,god himself1 the course of which through the ,bible we briefly traced in a previous lecture4 ,from ,sinai to ,calvary--was ever a record of progressive revelation more plain or more convincing8 ,the development begins with ,jehovah disclosed in a thunder-storm on a desert mountain1 and it ends with ,christ saying3 ,god is a ,spirit3 and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth2 it begins with a war-god leading his partisans to victory and it ends with men saying1 ,god is love2 and he that abideth in love abideth in ,god1 and ,god abideth in him2 it begins with a provincial deity loving his tribe and hating its enemies and it ends with the ,god of the whole earth worshiped by a great multitude1 which no man could number1 out of every nation and of all tribes and peoples and tongues2 it begins with a ,god who commands the slaying of the ,amalekites1 both man and woman1 infant and suckling1 and it ends with a ,father whose will it is that not one of these little ones should perish2 it begins with ,god's people standing afar off from his lightnings and praying that he might not speak to them lest they die and it ends with men going into their inner chambers and1 having shut the door1 praying to their ,father who is in secret4 ,here is no pool2 here is a river1 the streams whereof make glad the city of ,god4 ,consider as well the course of the idea of ,god after the close of the ,new ,testament canon4 ,the ,biblical conception of ,god in terms of righteous and compassionate personal will went out into a world of thought where ,greek metaphysics was largely in control4 ,there ,god was conceived in terms of substance1 as the ontological basis and ground of all existence--immutable1 inscrutable1 unqualified pure being4 ,these two ideas1 ,god as personal will1 and ,god as metaphysical substance1 never perfectly coalescing1 flowed together4 ,in minds like ,st4 ,augustine's one finds them both4 ,god as pure being and ,god as gracious and righteous personal will--,st4 ,augustine accepted both ideas but never harmonized them4 ,down through ,christian history one can see these two conceptions complementing each other1 each balancing the other's eccentricities4 ,the ,greek idea runs out toward pantheism in ,spinoza and ,hegel4 ,the ,biblical idea runs out toward deism in ,duns ,scotus and ,calvin4 ,in the eighteenth century an extreme form of deism held the field and ,god1 as personal will1 was conceived as the ,creator1 who in a dim and distant past had made all things4 ,in the nineteenth century the thought of ,god swung back to terms of immanence1 and ,god1 who had been crowded out of his world1 came flooding in as the abiding life of all of it4 ,as one contemplates a line of development like this1 he must be aware that1 while change is there1 it is not aimless1 discontinuous1 chaotic change4 ,the riverbed in which this stream of thought flows is stable and secure2 the whole development is controlled by man's abiding spiritual need of ,god and ,god's unceasing search for man4 ,one feels about it as he might about man's varying1 developing methods of telling the time of day4 ,men began by noting roughly the position of the sun or the length of shadows2 they went on to make sun-dials1 then water-clocks1 then sand-glasses2 then weight-driven clocks were blunderingly tried and1 later1 watches1 used first as toys1 so little were they to be relied upon4 ,the story of man's telling of the time of day is a story of progressive change1 but it does not lack stability4 ,the sun and stars and the revolution of the earth abide4 ,the changes in man's telling of the time have been simply the unfolding of an abiding relationship between man and his world4 ,so the development of man's religious ideas from early1 crude beginnings until now is not a process which one would wish to stop at any point in order to achieve infallible security4 ,the movement is not haphazard and discontinuous change1 like disparate particles in a kaleidoscope falling together in new but vitally unrelated ways4 ,upon the contrary1 its course is a continuous path which can be traced1 recovered in thought1 conceived as a whole4 ,we can see where our ideas came from1 what now they are1 and in what direction they probably will move4 ,the stability is in the process itself1 arising out of the abiding relationships of man with the eternal4 ,indeed1 the endeavour to achieve stability by methods which alone can bring stagnation1 the endeavor1 that is1 to hit upon dogmatic finality in opinion1 is of all things in religion probably the most disastrous in its consequence4 ,until recent times when reform movements invaded ,mohammedanism and higher criticism tackled the problem of the ,koran1 one could see this achievement of stagnation in ,islam in all its inglorious success4 ,the ,koran was regarded as having been infallibly written1 word for word1 in heaven before ever it came to earth4 ,the ,koran therefore was a book of inerrant and changeless opinion4 ,but the ,koran enshrines the best theological and ethical ideas of ,arabia at the time when it was written3 ,god was an oriental monarch1 ruling in heaven2 utter submission to the fate which he decreed was the one law of human relationship with him2 and on earth slavery and polygamy and conversion of unbelievers by force were recognized as right4 ,the ,koran was ahead of its day1 but having been by a theory of inspiration petrified into artificial finality it became the enemy of all opinions which would pass beyond its own4 ,when1 now1 one contrasts ,mohammedanism with ,christianity1 one finds an important difference4 ,for all our temptation1 succumbed to by multitudes1 to make the ,bible a ,koran1 ,christianity has had a progressive revelation4 ,in the ,bible one can find all the ideas and customs which ,mohammedanism has approved and for which it now is hated3 its oriental deity decreeing fates1 its use of force to destroy unbelievers1 its patriarchal polygamy1 and its slave systems4 ,all these things1 from which we now send missionaries to convert ,mohammedans1 are in our ,bible1 but in the ,bible they are not final4 ,they are ever being superseded4 ,the revelation is progressive4 ,the idea of ,god grows from oriental kingship to compassionate fatherhood2 the use of force gives way to the appeals of love2 polygamy is displaced by monogamy2 slavery never openly condemned1 even when the ,new ,testament closes1 is being underminded ,transcriber's note3 undermined8 by ideas which1 like dynamite1 in the end will blast to pieces its foundations4 ,we are continually running upon passages like this3 ,it was said to them of old time1 4 4 4 but ,i say unto you2 ,god1 having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners1 hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his ,son2 ,the times of ignorance therefore ,god overlooked2 but now he commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent2 and over the doorway out of the ,new ,testament into the ,christian centuries that followed is written this inscription3 ,the spirit of truth 4 4 4 shall guide you into all the truth4 ,in a word1 finality in the ,koran is behind--it lies in the treasured concepts of #fjj ,a4 ,d4--but finality in the ,bible is ahead4 ,we are moving toward it4 ,it is too great for us yet to apprehend4 ,our best thoughts are thrown out in its direction but they do not exhaust its meaning4 ,our little systems have their day2 ,they have their day and cease to be2 ,they are but broken lights of thee1 ,and thou1 ,o ,lord1 art more than they4 ,such is the exultant outlook of a ,christian believer on a progressive world4 ,if1 however1 one is to have this exultant outlook1 he must deeply believe in the living ,god and in the guidance of his ,spirit4 ,what irreligion means at this point is not fully understood by most unbelieving folk because most unbelievers do not think through to a conclusion the implications of their own skepticism4 ,we may well be thankful even in the name of religion for a few people like ,bertrand ,russell4 ,he is not only irreligious but he is intelligently irreligious1 and1 what is more1 he possesses the courage to say frankly and fully what irreligion really means3 ,that ,man is the product of causes which have no prevision of the end they were achieving2 that his origin1 his growth1 his hopes and fears1 his loves and his beliefs1 are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms2 that no fire1 no heroism1 no intensity of thought and feeling1 can preserve an individual life beyond the grave2 that all the labours of the ages1 all the devotion1 all the inspiration1 all the noonday brightness of human genius1 are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system1 and that the whole temple of ,man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins--all these things1 if not quite beyond dispute1 are yet so nearly certain1 that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand4 ,only within the scaffolding of these truths1 only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair1 can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built4 #a ,such is the outlook on human life of a frank and thoroughgoing irreligion1 and there is nothing exhilarating about it4 ,all progress possible in such a setting is a good deal like a horse-race staged in a theatre1 where the horses do indeed run furiously1 but where we all know well that they are not getting anywhere4 ,there is a moving floor beneath them1 and it is only the shifting of the scenery that makes them seem to go4 ,is human history like that8 ,is progress an illusion8 ,is it all going to end as ,bertrand ,russell says8 ,those who believe in the living ,god are certain of the contrary1 for stability amid change is the gift of a progressive1 religious faith4 ,,ii ,it must be evident1 however1 to any one acquainted with popular ideas of ,god that if in a progressive world we thus are to maintain a vital confidence in the spiritual nature of creative reality and so rejoice in the guidance of the ,spirit amid change1 we must win through in our thinking to a very much greater conception of ,god than that to which popular ,christianity has been accustomed4 ,few passages in ,scripture better deserve a preacher's attention than ,god's accusation against his people in the #ejth ,psalm3 ,thou thoughtest that ,i was altogether such a one as thyself4 ,the universal applicability of this charge is evident to any one who knows the history of man's religious thought4 ,if in the beginning ,god did make man in his own image1 man has been busy ever since making ,god in his image1 and the deplorable consequences are everywhere to be seen4 ,from idolaters1 who bow down before wooden images of the divine in human form1 to ourselves1 praying to a magnified man throned somewhere in the skies1 man has persistently run ,god into his own mold4 ,to be sure1 this tendency of man to think of ,god as altogether such a one as ourselves is nothing to be surprised at4 ,even when we deal with our human fellows1 we read ourselves into our understandings of them4 ,a contemporary observer tells us that whenever a portrait of ,gladstone appeared in ,french papers he was made to look like a ,frenchman1 and that when he was represented in ,japanese papers his countenance had an unmistakably ,japanese cast4 ,if this habitual tendency to read ourselves into other people is evident even when we deal with human personalities1 whom we can know well1 how can it be absent from man's thought of the eternal8 ,a man needs only to go out on a starry night with the revelations of modern astronomy in his mind and to consider the one who made all this and whose power sustains it1 to see how utterly beyond our adequate comprehension he must be4 ,as men in old tales used to take diffused superhumans1 the genii1 and by magic word bring them down into a stoppered bottle where they could be held in manageable form1 so man has taken the vastness of ,god and run it into a human symbol4 ,this persistent anthropomorphism is revealed in our religious ceremonies4 ,within ,christianity itself are systems of priestcraft where the individual believer has no glad1 free access to his ,father's presence1 but where his approach must be mediated by a priestly ritual1 his forgiveness assured by a priestly declaration1 his salvation sealed by a priestly sacrament4 ,this idea that ,god must be approached by stated ceremonies came directly from thinking of ,god in terms of a human monarch4 ,no common man could walk carelessly into the presence of an old-time king4 ,there were proprieties to be observed4 ,there were courtiers who knew the proper approach to royalty1 through whom the common folk would better send petitions up and from whom they would better look for favour4 ,so ,god was pictured as a human monarch with his throne1 his scepter1 his ministering attendants4 ,here on earth the priests were those courtiers who knew the effectual way of reaching him1 by whom we would best send up our prayers1 through whom we would best look for our salvation4 ,nordau is not exaggerating when he says3 ,when we have studied the sacrificial rites1 the incantations1 prayers1 hymns1 and ceremonies of religion1 we have as complete a picture of the relations between our ancestors and their chiefs as if we had seen them with our own eyes4 #b ,our anthropomorphism1 however1 reaches its most dangerous form in our inward imaginations of ,god's character4 ,how the pot has called the kettle black6 ,man has read his vanities into ,god1 until he has supposed that singing anthems to ,god's praise might flatter him as it would flatter us4 ,man has read his cruelties into ,god1 and what in moments of vindictiveness and wrath we would like to do our enemies we have supposed ,eternal ,god would do to his4 ,man has read his religious partisanship into ,god2 he who holds ,orion and the ,pleiades in his leash1 the ,almighty and ,everlasting ,god1 before whom in the beginning the morning stars sang together1 has been conceived as though he were a ,baptist or a ,methodist1 a ,presbyterian or an ,anglican4 ,man has read his racial pride into ,god2 nations have thought themselves his chosen people above all his other children because they seemed so to themselves4 ,the centuries are sick with a god made in man's image1 and all the time the real ,god has been saying1 ,thou thoughtest that ,i was altogether such a one as thyself4 ,the unhappy prevalence of this mental idolatry is one of the chief causes for the loss of religious faith among the younger generation4 ,they have grown up in our homes and churches with their imaginations dwelling on a ,god made in man's image1 and now through education they have moved out into a universe so much too big for that little god of theirs either to have made in the first place or to handle now that they find it hard to believe in him4 ,astronomers tell us that there are a hundred million luminous stars in our sky1 and dark stars in unknown multitudes2 that these stars range from a million to ten million miles in diameter2 that some of them are so vast that were they brought as close to us as our sun is they would fill the entire horizon2 and that these systems are scattered through the stellar spaces at distances so incredible that1 were some hardy discoverer to seek our planet in the midst of them1 it would be like looking for a needle lost somewhere on the western prairies4 ,the consequence is inevitable3 a vast progressive universe plus an inadequate ,god means that in many minds faith in ,god goes to pieces4 ,,iii ,one of the profoundest needs of the ,church1 therefore1 in this new and growing world1 is the achievement of such worthy ways of thinking about ,god and presenting him as will make the very idea of him a help to faith and not a stumbling-block to the faithful4 ,in the attainment of that purpose we need for one thing to approach the thought of ,god from an angle which to popular ,christianity is largely unfamiliar1 although it is not unfamiliar in the historic tradition of the ,church4 ,too exclusively have we clung to the mental categories and the resultant phraseology which have grown up around the idea of ,god as an individual like ourselves4 ,the reasons for the prevalence of this individualized conception of deity are obvious4 ,first1 as we have seen1 the growth of the idea of ,god in ,hebrew-,christian thought moved out from a very clearly visualized figure on a mountain-top to those expanded and spiritualized forms which glorified the later stages of the ,biblical development2 and1 second1 every one of us in his personal religious experience and thought recapitulates the same process1 starting as a child with ,god conceived in very human terms and moving out to expanded and sublimated forms of that childish conception4 ,whether1 then1 we consider the source of our idea of ,god in the ,biblical tradition or in our own private experience1 we see that it is rooted in and springs up out of a very human conception of him1 and that our characteristic words about him1 attitudes toward him1 and imaginations of him1 are associated with these childlike origins4 ,popular ,christianity1 therefore1 approaches ,god with the regulative idea of a human individual in its mind1 and1 while popular ,christianity would insist that ,god is much more than that1 it still starts with that1 and the enterprise of stretching the conception is only relatively successful4 ,even when it is successful the result must be a ,god who is achieved by stretching out a man4 ,in this situation the only help for many is1 for the time being1 to leave this endeavour to approach ,god by way of an expanded and sublimated human individual and to approach ,god1 instead1 by way of the ,creative ,power from which this amazing universe and all that is within it have arisen4 ,man's deepest question concerns the nature of the ,creative ,power from which all things and persons have come4 ,in creation are we dealing with the kind of power which in ordinary life we recognize as physical1 or with the kind which we recognize as spiritual8 ,with these two sorts of power we actually deal and1 so far as we can see1 the ultimate reality which has expressed itself in them must be akin to the one or to the other or to both4 ,he who is convinced that the ,creative ,power from which all things have come is spiritual believes in ,god4 ,i have seen that simple statement lift the burden of doubt from minds utterly perplexed and usher befogged spirits out into the liberty of the glory of the children of ,god4 ,for they did not believe that the ,creative ,power was dynamic dirt1 going it blind2 they did believe that the ,creative ,power was akin to what we know as spirit1 but so accustomed were they to the ,church's narrower anthropomorphism that they did not suppose that this approach was a legitimate avenue for the soul's faith in ,god4 ,nevertheless1 it is a legitimate avenue and in the history of the ,church many are the souls that have traveled it4 ,the basis for all mature conceptions of ,god lies here3 that the ,power from whom all life proceeds wells up in two forms4 ,one is physical2 we can see it1 touch it1 weigh it1 analyze and measure it4 ,the other is spiritual2 it is character1 conscience1 intelligence1 purpose1 love2 we cannot see it1 nor touch it1 nor weigh it1 nor analyze it4 ,we ourselves did not make either of these two expressions of life4 ,they came up together out of the ,creative ,reality from which we came4 ,when a man thinks of the ,power from which all life proceeds1 he must say at least this3 that when it wells up in us it wells up in two forms and one of them is spirit4 ,how1 then1 when we think of that ,power1 can we leave spirit out8 ,at the heart of the eternal is the fountain of that spiritual life which in myself ,i know4 ,this thought of ,god does not start1 then1 with a magnified man in the heavens2 this thought of ,god starts with the universe itself vibrant with life1 tingling with energy1 where1 when scientists try to analyze matter1 they have to trace it back from molecules to atoms1 from atoms to electrons1 and from electrons to that vague spirituelle thing which they call a strain in the ether1 a universe where there is manifestly no such thing as dead matter1 but where everything is alive4 ,when one thinks of the ,power that made this1 that sustains this1 that flows like blood through the veins of this1 one cannot easily think that physicalness is enough to predicate concerning him4 ,if the physical adequately could have revealed that ,power1 there never would have been anything but the physical to reveal him4 ,the fact that spiritual life is here is evidence that it takes spiritual life fully to display the truth about creation's reality4 ,as an old mystic put it3 ,god sleeps in the stone1 he dreams in the animal1 he wakes in man6 ,it was this approach to ,god which saved the best spiritual life of the nineteenth century4 ,for in the eighteenth century ,christianity came nearer to being driven out of business than ever in her history before4 ,she had believed in a carpenter god who had made the world and occasionally tinkered with it in events which men called miracles4 ,but new knowledge made that carpenter god impossible4 ,area after area where he had been supposed to operate was closed to him by the discovery of natural law until at last even comets were seen to be law-abiding and he was escorted clean to the edge of the universe and bowed out altogether4 ,nobody who has not read the contemporary literature of the eighteenth century can know what dryness of soul resulted4 ,man1 however1 cannot live without ,god4 ,our fathers had to have ,god back again4 ,but if ,god were to come back again he could not return as an occasional tinkerer2 he had to come as the life in all that lives1 the indwelling presence throughout his creation1 whose ways of working are the laws1 so that he penetrates and informs them all4 ,no absentee landlord could be welcomed back1 but if ,god came as the resident soul of all creation1 men could comprehend that4 ,and he did come back that way4 ,his return is the glory of the nineteenth century4 ,in the best visions of the century's prophets that glory shines4 ,,mrs4 ,,browning3 ,earth's crammed with heaven1 ,and every common bush afire with ,god3 ,but only he who sees1 takes off his shoes4 ,,tennyson3 ,speak to ,him1 thou1 for ,he hears1 and ,spirit with ,spirit can meet-- ,closer is ,he than breathing1 and nearer than hands and feet4 ,,coleridge3 ,glory to ,thee1 ,father of ,earth and ,heaven6 ,all conscious presence of the ,universe6 ,nature's vast ever-acting ,energy6 ,,wordsworth3 a sense sublime ,of something far more deeply interfused1 ,whose dwelling is the light of setting suns1 ,and the round ocean and the living air ,and the blue sky1 and in the mind of man2 ,a motion and a spirit1 that impels ,all thinking things1 all objects of all thoughts1 ,and rolls through all things4 ,,carlyle3 ,then sawest thou that this fair ,universe1 were it in the meanest province thereof1 is in very deed the star-domed ,city of ,god2 that through every star1 through every grass-blade1 and most through every ,living ,soul1 the glory of a present ,god still beams4 ,but ,nature1 which is the ,time-vesture of ,god1 and reveals ,him to the wise1 hides ,him from the foolish4 ,moreover1 this idea of ,god as the ,creative ,power conceived in spiritual terms need not lose any of the intimate meanings which have inhered in more personal thoughts of him and which are expressed in the ,bible's names for him3 ,father1 ,mother1 ,bridegroom1 ,husband1 ,friend4 ,there is indeed this danger in the approach which we have been describing1 that we may conceive ,god as so dispersed everywhere that we cannot find him anywhere and that at last1 so diffused1 he will lose the practical value on account of which we want him4 ,for we do desire a ,god who is like ourselves--enough like ourselves so that he can understand us and care for us and enter into our human problems4 ,we do want a human side to ,god4 ,a man who had seen in ,henry ,drummond the most beautiful exhibition of ,god's ,spirit that he had ever experienced said that after ,henry ,drummond died he always prayed up to ,god by way of ,drummond4 ,we make our most vital approaches to ,god in that way and we always have1 from the time we prayed to ,god through our fathers and mothers until now1 when we find ,god in ,christ4 ,we want in ,god a personality that can answer ours1 and we can have it without belittling in the least his greatness4 ,i know a man who says that one of the turning points of his spiritual experience came on a day when for the first time it dawned on him that he never had seen his mother4 ,now1 his mother was the major molding influence in his life4 ,he could have said about her what ,longfellow said in a letter to his mother1 written when he was twenty-one4 ,for me1 wrote ,longfellow1 a line from my mother is more efficacious than all the homilies preached in ,lent2 and ,i find more incitement to virtue in merely looking at your handwriting than in a whole volume of ethics and moral discourses4 ,so this man would have felt about the pervasive influence of his mother4 ,then it dawned on him one day that he never had seen her4 ,to be sure1 he had seen the bodily instrument by which she had been able somehow to express herself through look and word and gesture1 but his mother herself1 her thoughts1 her consciousness1 her love1 her spirit1 he never had seen and he never would see4 ,she was the realest force in his life1 but she was invisible4 ,when they talked together they signalled to each other out of the unseen where they dwelt4 ,they both were as invisible as ,god4 ,moreover1 while his mother was only a human1 personal spirit1 there was a kind of omnipresence in her so far as he was concerned1 and he loved her and she loved him everywhere1 though he never had seen her and never could4 ,if spiritual life even in its human form can take on such meanings1 we need not think of ,god as an expanded individual in order to love him1 be loved by him1 and company with him as an unseen friend4 ,let a man once begin with ,god as the universal spiritual ,presence and then go on to see the divine quality of that ,presence revealed in ,christ1 and there is no limit to the deepening and heightening of his estimation of ,god's character1 except the limits of his own moral imagination4 ,,iv ,with many minds the difficulty of achieving an idea of ,god adequate for our new universe will not be met by any such intellectual shift of emphasis as we have suggested4 ,not anthropomorphic theology so much as ecclesiasticism is the major burden on their thinking about deity4 ,two conceptions of the ,church are in conflict to-day in modern ,protestantism1 and one of the most crucial problems of ,america's religious life in this next generation is the decision as to which of these two ideas of the ,church shall triumph4 ,we may call one the exclusive and the other the inclusive conception of the ,church4 ,the exclusive conception of the ,church lies along lines like these3 that we are the true ,church2 that we have the true doctrines and the true practices as no other ,church possesses them2 that we are constituted as a ,church just because we have these uniquely true opinions and practices2 that all we in the ,church agree about these opinions and that when we joined the ,church we gave allegiance to them2 that nobody has any business to belong to our ,church unless he agrees with us2 that if there are people outside the ,church who disagree1 they ought to be kept outside and if there are people in the ,church who come to disagree1 they ought to be put outside4 ,that is the exclusive idea of the ,church1 and there are many who need no further description of it for they were brought up in it and all their youthful religious life was surrounded by its rigid sectarianism4 ,over against this conception is the inclusive idea of the ,church1 which runs along lines like these3 that the ,christian ,church ought to be the organizing center for all the ,christian life of a community2 that a ,church is not based upon theological uniformity but upon devotion to the ,lord ,jesus1 to the life with ,god and man for which he stood1 and to the work which he gave us to do2 that wherever there are people who have that spiritual devotion1 who possess that love1 who want more of it1 who desire to work and worship with those of kindred ,christian aspirations1 they belong inside the family of the ,christian ,church4 ,the inclusive idea of the ,church looks out upon our ,american communities and sees there1 with all their sin1 spiritual life unexpressed and unorganized1 good-will and aspiration and moral power unharnessed and going to waste1 and it longs to cry so that the whole community can hear it4 ,come1 all men of ,christian good-will1 let us work together for the ,lord of all good life6 ,that is the inclusive idea of the ,church4 ,it desires to be the point of incandescence where1 regardless of denominationalism or theology1 the ,christian life of the community bursts into flame4 ,as between these two conceptions there hardly can be any question that the first idea so far has prevailed4 ,our endlessly split and shivered ,protestantism bears sufficient witness to the influence of the exclusive idea of the ,church4 ,the disastrous consequences of this in many realms are evident1 and one result lies directly in our argument's path4 ,an exclusive ,church narrows the idea of ,god4 ,almost inevitably ,god comes to be conceived as the head of the exclusive ,church1 the origin of its uniquely true doctrine1 the director of its uniquely correct practices1 so that the activities of ,god outside the ,church grow dim1 and more and more he is conceived as operating through his favourite organization as nowhere else in all the universe4 ,in particular the idea grows easily in the soil of an exclusive ,church that ,god is not operative except in people who recognize him and that the world outside such conscious recognition is largely empty of his activity and barren of his grace4 ,god tends1 in such thinking1 to become cooped up in the ,church1 among the people who consciously have acknowledged him4 ,what wonder that multitudes of our youth1 waking up to the facts about our vast and growing universe1 conclude that it is too big to be managed by the tribal god of a ,protestant sect6 ,the achievement of a worthy idea of ,god involves1 therefore1 the ability to discover ,god in all life1 outside the ,church as well as within1 and in people who do not believe in him nor recognize him as well as in those who do4 ,let us consider for a moment the principle which is here involved4 ,many forces and persons serve us when we do not recognize them and do not know the truth about them4 ,this experience of being ministered to by persons whom we do not know goes back even to the maternal care that nourished us before we were born4 ,no mother waits to be recognized before she serves her child4 ,we are tempted to think of persons as ministering to us only when the service is consciously received and acknowledged but1 as a matter of fact1 service continually comes to us from sources we are unaware of and do not think about4 ,unnumbered comforts to my soul ,thy tender care bestowed1 ,before my infant heart conceived ,from whom those comforts flowed4 ,this principle applies to mankind's relationship with the physical universe4 ,through many generations mankind utterly misconceived it4 ,they thought the earth was flat1 the heavens a little way above2 yet1 for all that1 the sun warmed them and the rain refreshed them and the stars guided their wandering boats4 ,the physical universe did not wait until men knew all the truth about it before being useful to men and at last1 when the truth came and the glory of this vast and mobile cosmos dawned on mankind1 men discovered the facts about forces which1 though unknown and unacknowledged1 long had served them4 ,this same principle applies also to man's relationship with social institutions and social securities that have sustained us from our infancy4 ,if a boy knows that there is a ,constitution of the ,united ,states1 he does not think about it4 ,then maturity comes and he begins vividly to understand the sacrifices which our forefathers underwent in building up the institutions that have nourished us4 ,he recognizes forces and factors of which he had been unconscious but whose value1 long unacknowledged1 he now gratefully can estimate4 ,this same principle also applies to our unconscious indebtedness to people who have helped us but whom we have not known4 ,this is a far finer world because of souls who have been here through whom ,god has shined like the sun through eastern windows1 but we can go on year after year absorbing unconsciously the influence of these spirits without ever knowing them4 ,i lived for twelve years in a community to which in its early days a young minister had come1 and where for forty years he stood as the central influence in the town's life4 ,he brought it up in the nurture and admonition of the ,lord4 ,as was said of ,joseph in ,potiphar's prison1 ,whatsoever they did there1 he was the doer of it4 ,the height of his mind1 the unselfishness of his spirit1 the liberality of his thought1 made all the people gladly acclaim him as the foremost citizen of the town4 ,there is a quality in the town's life yet which never would have been there had it not been for him4 ,sometimes yet his spirit must brood above that community which for forty years he cherished and must say to people whom he never knew1 but who are being blessed by the benedictory influence of his life1 what ,jehovah said to ,cyrus the ,persian1 ,i girded thee1 though thou hast not known me4 ,so1 from multitudinous sources services flow in upon us that we do not recognize4 ,it should be impossible then to think that ,god never touches men until men welcome him4 ,some people seem to suppose that ,god ministers to men1 saves them1 transforms them1 raises them up and liberates them only when they confessedly receive him4 ,that cannot be true of the ,god of the ,new ,testament4 ,he is too magnanimous for that4 ,jesus says a man is unworthy of his discipleship when he serves only the friends who are responsive1 that we must serve the hostile and ungrateful1 too4 ,can it be that ,god is less good than ,jesus said we ought to be8 ,we in the churches have drawn our little lines too tight4 ,we have been tempted to divide mankind into two classes1 the white and the black3 in the ,church the white1 the saved1 who recognize ,god2 outside1 the black1 the unsaved1 the ungodly who do not recognize him4 ,by that division we sometimes seem to imply that those outside the ,church are outside the reach of ,god's transforming grace and power4 ,we are tempted to look for ,god's activity chiefly1 if not altogether1 inside the organization that avows him4 ,but that cannot be true4 ,he comes in like the sun through every chink and crevice where he can find a way of entrance4 ,he does not wait to be welcomed4 ,he does not insist on being consciously recognized before he enters a man's life4 ,rather1 through any door or window left unwittingly ajar where he may steal in1 even though unobserved1 to lift and liberate a life1 there the ,god of the ,new ,testament will come--the light which lighteth every man coming into the world4 ,consider1 for illustration1 the many people in this generation who have given up active relationship with the ,church and assured faith in ,god4 ,they may even call themselves agnostics4 ,would it not be true to speak to them like this3 ,you have not succeeded in getting rid of ,god4 ,there is a flame in your heart that will not go out4 ,you try to say there is no ,god and then you go out under the stars at night and you begin to wonder how such a vast1 law-abiding universe could come by accident1 as if a man were to throw a font of type on the floor and by chance it should arrange itself into a play of ,shakespeare4 ,strange universe1 without ,god6 ,you try to say there is no ,god and you pick up a book3 a life of ,phillips ,brooks or ,david ,livingstone or ,francis ,xavier1 and you begin to wonder that1 amid these whirling stars and solar systems1 a race of men should have emerged with spiritual life like that which we possess1 with ideals that beckon us1 conscience that warns us and remorse that punishes us6 ,you cannot easily think that this long spiritual struggle and achievement of the race is an accident struck off unwittingly like sparks from falling stones in a material world without abiding meaning4 ,or you try to say there is no ,god1 and then you are married and your first baby is born and there wells up in your heart that purest love that man can know1 the feeling of a parent for a little child4 ,and you cannot help wondering how a man can walk about the world with love like that in the center of his life1 thinking that there is nothing to correspond with it in the reality from which his heart and his baby came4 ,you try to say there is no ,god1 and then you begin to grow old and the friends you love best on earth pass away1 as ,carlyle said his mother did1 like the last pale rim or sickle of the moon which had once been full1 sinking in the dark seas4 ,you cannot help wondering whether great souls can be so at the mercy of a few particles of matter that when these are disturbed the spirit is plunged into oblivion6 ,you never really have gotten rid of ,god4 ,there is a flame in the center of your heart which you cannot put out4 ,if there were no ,god it would be easier to disbelieve in him than it is4 ,you cannot get rid of him because the best in you is ,god in you4 ,the flame is he and there in the center of your life1 recognized or unrecognized1 he is burning up as best he can4 ,this principle of ,god's unrecognized presence applies to a special group of people that has been growing rapidly in the last few years3 the men and women who give themselves with high spirit to human service in science or philanthropy but who never think of attributing their service or love of truth to religious motives4 ,to this group belong many of our scientists4 ,they give themselves no rest1 seeking for truth which will help human need4 ,in obscure and forgotten laboratories to-day they search for remedies for ancient1 lamentable ills4 ,they make it a point of professional honour not to take profit for themselves when they have succeeded1 but to give freely to the world the knowledge they have achieved4 ,the pulpit has often quarreled with the scientists4 ,let the pulpit honour them for their amazing outpouring of service to the world4 ,to this group also belong many of our philanthropists1 to whom sacrifice for the common weal has become the moral equivalent of war4 ,yet often these men and women1 useful public servants of the generation as they are1 do not know ,god4 ,they are great spirits4 ,let us not pretend that they are not4 ,they are making a deep and beneficent impress upon their own times1 and our sons and our sons' sons will rise up to call them blessed2 yet they do not know ,god4 ,what are we to say of such men and women8 ,you know what some people do say about them4 ,they use them as arguments against religion4 ,they say1 ,see these fine men living without ,god4 ,that is an utter fallacy4 ,they are not living without ,god4 ,they only think they are4 ,they are the supreme examples of the work of the unrecognized ,god4 ,one wishes that those men and women would recognize ,god4 ,god can do much more through responsive than through unresponsive lives4 ,but we may not say that they are living without ,god4 ,there1 in the center of their life1 in the ideals they work for1 in the service they render1 in the love they lavish1 in the mission that has mastered them1 there is ,god4 ,some time ago ,i wandered down ,broadway1 in the small hours of the morning1 with one of the prominent citizens of the community4 ,at the heart of his life is the passion to be of use4 ,because his character is stalwart and his ability great1 the scope of his service is far wider than the capacity of most of us4 ,amid the hurrying crowds and the flashing lights of ,broadway we talked together hour after hour about ,god and immortality4 ,he said that he could not believe in ,god4 ,he wistfully wished that he could4 ,he was sure that it must add something beautiful to human life1 but for himself he thought that there was no possibility except to live a high1 clean1 serviceable life until he should fall on sleep4 ,all the way home that night ,i thought of other people whom ,i know4 ,here is a man who believes in ,god4 ,he always has believed in ,god4 ,he was brought up to believe in ,god and he has never felt with poignant sympathy enough the abysmal1 immedicable woes of human-kind to have his faith disturbed4 ,he never has had any doubts4 ,the war passed over him and left him as it found him4 ,the fiercest storm that ever raged over mankind did not touch the surface of his pool of sheltered faith4 ,how could one help comparing him with my friend who could not believe8 ,for he1 in high emotion1 had spoken of the miseries of men1 of multitudes starving1 of the horrors of war1 of the poor whose lives are a long animal struggle to keep the body alive1 of the woes that fall with such terrific incidence upon the vast1 obscure1 forgotten masses of our human-kind1 and out of the very ardour of his sympathy had cried3 ,how can you believe that a good ,father made a world like this8 ,now1 ,i believe in ,god with all my heart4 ,but the ,god whom ,i believe in likes that man4 ,jesus1 were he here on earth as once he was1 would love him4 ,i think ,jesus would love him more than the other man who never had faced human misery with sympathy enough to feel his faith disturbed4 ,this does not mean that we ought contentedly to see men ministered to by a ,god whom they do not recognize4 ,it is a pity to be served by the ,eternal ,spirit of all grace and yet not know him4 ,in ,jean ,webster's ,daddy ,long ,legs1 ,jerusha ,abbott in the orphanage is helped by an unknown friend4 ,year after year the favours flow in from this friend whom she does not know4 ,she blossoms out into girlhood and young womanhood and still she does not know him4 ,one day she sees him and she does not recognize him4 ,she has always thought of him as looking other than he does1 and so even when she sees him she does not know him4 ,suppose that the story stopped there6 ,it would be intolerable to have a story end so4 ,to be served all one's life by a friend and then not to know him when he seeks recognition is tragedy4 ,so it is tragedy when ,god is unrecognized1 but behind that is a deeper tragedy still--people who believe in ,god but who have thoughts of him so narrowly ecclesiastical that they themselves do not perceive his presence1 acknowledged or unacknowledged1 in all the goodness and truth and beauty of the universe4 ,such an enlargement of the idea of ,god to meet the needs of this new world is one of the innermost demands of religion to-day4 ,when a man believes in the living ,god as the ,creative ,power in this universe1 whose character was revealed in ,christ and who1 recognized or unrecognized1 reveals himself in every form of goodness1 truth and beauty which life anywhere contains1 he has achieved a ,god adequate for life4 ,to such a man the modern progressive outlook upon the world becomes exhilarating2 all real advance is a revelation of the purpose of this living ,god2 and1 far from being hostile to religion1 our modern categories furnish the noblest mental formulae in which the religious spirit ever had opportunity to find expression4 ,we who believe this have no business to be modest and apologetic about it1 as though upon the defensive we shyly presented it to the suffrages of men4 ,it is a gospel to proclaim4 ,it does involve a new theology but1 with multitudes of eager minds in our generation1 the decision no longer lies between an old and a new theology1 but between new theology and no theology4 ,no longer can they phrase the deepest experiences of their souls with ,god in the outgrown categories of a static world4 ,in all their other thinking they live in a world deeply permeated by ideas of progress1 and to keep their religion in a separate compartment1 uninfluenced by the best knowledge and hope of their day1 is an enterprise which1 whether it succeed or fail1 means the death of vital faith4 ,to take this modern1 progressive world into one's mind and then to achieve an idea of ,god great enough to encompass it1 until with the little gods gone and the great ,god come1 life is full of the knowledge of him1 as the waters cover the sea1 that is alike the duty and the privilege of ,christian leadership to-day4 ,in a world which out of lowly beginnings has climbed so far and seems intended to go on to heights unimagined1 ,god is our hope and in his name we will set up our banners4 #a ,bertrand ,russell3 ,philosophical ,essays1 ,,ii1 ,the ,free ,man's ,worship1 pp4 #fj-fa4 #b ,max ,nordau3 ,the ,interpretation of ,history1 p4 #bag4